A Loyal Character Dancer - [Chief Inspector Chen Cao 02]

by Qiu Xiaolong

  It was about lunchtime. Zhao did not refer to his reception plan again. They walked over to a noodles booth—a coal stove and several pots in front of a shabby house. While waiting for their fish ball noodles, Yu turned around to look at the rice paddy behind them.

  Most of the farmers in the rice paddy were young or middle-aged women, working with their hair bundled up in white towels and their trouser bottoms rolled up high.

  “This is another sign,” Zhao said, as if reading Yu’s thoughts. “This village is typical of the area. About two-thirds of the families have their men abroad. If not, it is like a stigma for that family. So there are practically no young or middle-aged men, and only their wives are left to work in the fields.”

  “But how long will those wives be left behind?”

  “At least seven or eight years, until their husbands get legal status abroad.”

  After lunch, Zhao suggested a few families to start interviewing. Three hours later, however, Yu realized they would probably not get anything new or useful. Whenever they touched on the topics of human smuggling or gang activities, inevitably their questions were met with silence.

  As for Wen, her neighbors shared an unexplained antipathy. According to them, Wen had kept to herself all those years. They still referred to her as the city woman or the educated youth, though she worked harder than most of the local wives. Normally Wen went to the commune factory in the morning, took care of the family plot in the late afternoon, and then finger-polished those parts she’d brought home at night. Always on the run, her head lowered, Wen had little time or desire to talk to others. As interpreted by Lou, her next-door neighbor, Wen must have been ashamed of Feng, the evil embodiment of the Cultural Revolution. Due to her lack of contacts with others, no one seemed to have noticed anything unusual about her on April fifth.

  “That’s my impression, too,” Zhao said. “She seems to have remained an outsider here all these years.”

  Wen might have shut herself up right after her marriage, Yu thought, but twenty years was a long time. The fourth interviewee on their list was a woman surnamed Dong in the house opposite Wen’s.

  “Her only son left with Feng on the same ship, The Golden Hope, but he has not contacted home since,” Zhao said before knocking at the door.

  The person who opened the door for them was a small, white-haired woman with a weatherbeaten, deeply lined face. She stood in the doorway without inviting them in.

  “Comrade Dong, we are conducting an investigation into Wen’s disappearance,” Yu said. “Do you have any information about her, specifically with respect to the night of April fifth?”

  “Information about that woman? Let me tell you something. He’s a white-eyed wolf, and she’s a jade-faced bitch. Now they’re both in trouble, aren’t they? It serves them right.” Dong drew her lips into a thin, angry line and shut the door in their faces.

  Yu turned to Zhao in puzzlement.

  “Let’s move on,” Zhao said. “Dong believes Feng influenced her son to leave home. He’s only eighteen. That’s why she calls him a white-eyed wolf—the most cruel one.”

  “Why should Dong call Wen a jade-faced bitch?”

  “Feng divorced his first wife to marry Wen. She was a knockout when she first arrived. Locals tell all kinds of stories about the marriage.”

  “Another question. How could Dong have learned that Feng’s in trouble?”

  “I don’t know.” Zhao’s eyes did not meet Yu’s. “People here have relatives or friends in New York. Or they must have heard something after Wen’s disappearance.”

  “I see.” Yu did not really see, but he did not think it appropriate to push the matter further at the moment.

  Yu tried to shake off the feeling that there might be something else behind Sergeant Zhao’s vagueness. Sending a cop from Shanghai could be taken as a rebuke to the police in Fujian. That he found himself working with an unenthusiastic partner and unfriendly people was not much of a surprise to him, though. Most of his assignments with Chief Inspector Chen had been anything but pleasant.

  He doubted whether Chen’s work was going to be easier in Shanghai. It might appear so to others—the Peace Hotel, an unlimited budget, and an attractive American partner, but Yu knew better. Lighting another cigarette, he thought he would have said a definite no to Party Secretary Li. Because this job was not one for a cop. And that, perhaps, was why he would never become a chief inspector.

  When they finished their interviews for the day, the village committee office had closed. There was no public phone service in the village. At Zhao’s suggestion, they were about to set off for the hotel, a twenty-minute walk. As they reached the outskirts of the village, Yu approached an old man repairing a bicycle tire under a weatherbeaten sign. “Do you know anybody with a home phone here?”

  “There’re two phones in the village. One for the village committee, and the other at Mrs. Miao’s. Her husband has been in the United States for five or six years. What a lucky woman— to have a phone at home!”

  “Thanks. We’ll use her phone.”

  “You have to pay for it. Other folks use her phone too. For their people overseas. When people call home from abroad, they speak to Miao first.”

  “Like the public phone service in Shanghai,” Yu said. “Do you think Wen used Miao’s phone too?”

  “Yes, everybody in the village does.”

  Yu turned to Zhao with a question in his eyes.

  “Sorry,” Zhao said in embarrassment. “I did not know anything about it.”

  * * * *

  Chapter 5

  T

  he gate had finally opened.

  A group of first-class passengers emerged, most of them foreigners. Among them Chief Inspector Chen saw a young woman wearing a cream-colored blazer and matching pants. She was tall, slender, her blond hair fell to her shoulders, and she had blue eyes. He recognized her at once, though she looked slightly different from the image in the photograph, taken perhaps a few years earlier. She carried herself with grace, like a senior executive of a Shanghai joint venture.

  “Inspector Catherine Rohn?”

  “Yes?”

  “I’m Chen Cao, chief inspector of the Shanghai Police Bureau. I’m here to greet you on behalf of your Chinese colleagues. We will be working together.”

  “Chief Inspector Chen?” She added in Chinese, “Chen Tongzhi?”

  “Oh yes, you speak Chinese.”

  “No, not much.” She switched back into English. “I’m glad to have a partner who speaks English.”

  “Welcome to Shanghai.”

  “Thank you, Chief Inspector Chen.”

  “Let’s get your luggage.”

  There was a long line of people queuing up at customs, holding passports, forms, documents, and pens in their hands. The airport suddenly appeared overcrowded.

  “Don’t worry about customs formalities,” he said. “You’re our distinguished American guest.”

  He led her through another passage, nodding at several uniformed officers by a side door. One of them took a quick look at her passport, scribbled a few words on it, and waved her through.

  They walked out with her luggage on a cart and pushed it into the designated taxi area in front of a huge billboard advertising Coca-Cola in Chinese. There were not many people waiting there.

  “Let’s talk at your hotel, the Peace Hotel on the Bund. Sorry, we have to take a taxi instead of our bureau car. I sent it back because of the delay,” he said.

  “Great. Here comes one.”

  A small Xiali pulled up in front of them. He had intended to wait for a Dazhong, made by the joint venture of Shanghai Automobile and Volkswagen, which would be more roomy and comfortable, but she was already giving the hotel name in Chinese to the taxi driver.

  There was practically no trunk space in a Xiali. With her suitcase in the front seat beside the driver, and a bag beside her in the backseat, he felt squeezed. She could hardly stretch her long legs. The air conditioning did not
work. He rolled down the window, but it did not help much. Wiping the sweat from her brow, she slipped her jacket off. She was wearing a tank top. The bumpy ride brought her shoulder into occasional contact with his. Their proximity made him uncomfortable.

  After they passed the Hongqiao area, traffic became congested. The taxi had to make frequent detours due to new construction underway. At the intersection of Yen’an and Jiangning roads, they came to a stop in heavy traffic.

  “How long was your flight?” he asked, out of the need to say something.

  “More than twenty-four hours.”

  “Oh, it’s a long trip.”

  “I had to change planes. From St. Louis to San Francisco, then to Tokyo, and finally to Shanghai.”

  “China’s Oriental Airline flies directly from San Francisco to Shanghai.”

  “Yes, it does, but my mother booked the ticket for me. Nothing but United Airlines for her. She insisted on it, for safety’s sake.”

  “I see. Everything—” he left the sentence unfinished—Everything American is preferable. “Don’t you work in Washington?”

  “Our headquarters is in D.C. but I am stationed in the St. Louis regional office. My parents also live there.”

  “St. Louis—the city where T. S. Eliot was born. And Washington University was founded by his grandfather.”

  “Why, yes. There’s an Eliot Hall at the university, too. You amaze me, Chief Inspector Chen.”

  “Well, I have translated some of Eliot’s poems,’ he said, not too surprised at her surprise. “Not all Chinese cops are like those in American movies, good for nothing but martial arts, broken English, and Gongbao chicken.”

  “Those are just Hollywood stereotypes. I majored in Chinese studies, Chief Inspector Chen.”

  “I was joking.” Why had he become so sensitive about the image of the Chinese police in her eyes, he wondered. Because of Party Secretary Li’s emphasis? He shrugged his shoulders, touching hers again. “Off the record, I’m quite good at cooking Gongbao chicken, too.”

  “I would like to taste that.”

  He changed the topic. “So what do you think of Shanghai? It’s your first time, right?”

  “Yes, I’ve heard so much about this city. It’s like a dream come true. The streets, the buildings, the people, and even the traffic, all seem strangely familiar. Look,” she exclaimed as the car passed Xizhuang Road. “The Big World. I had a postcard of it.”

  “Yes, it’s a well-known entertainment center. You can spend a day there, watching different local operas, not to mention karaoke, dance, acrobatics, and electronic games. And there’s a variety of Chinese food available in Yunnan Gourmet Street beside it. The street is lined with snack bars and restaurants.”

  “Oh, I love Chinese food.”

  The taxi turned into the Bund. In the play of the neon lights, the color of her eyes seemed not to be exactly blue. He saw a greenish tinge. Azure, he thought. It was not just the color. He was reminded of an ancient line: The change from the azure sea into the blue mulberry field, a reference to the vicissitudes of the world, which came to have a melancholy connotation—about the experience of the irrecoverable.

  To their left, concrete, granite, and marble buildings stretched along the Bund. Then the legendary Hong Kong-Shanghai Bank came into view, still guarded by the bronze lions which had witnessed numerous changes in its ownership. Next to it, the big clock on the top of the neoclassical Custom House chimed the hour.

  “The building with the marble facade and pyramid-shaped tower at the corner of Nanjing Road is the Peace Hotel, originally the Cathay Hotel, whose owner made millions from the opium trade. After 1949, the city government changed its name. Despite its age, it maintains its rank as one of the finest hotels in Shanghai...”

  The taxi pulled up in front of the hotel before he finished his speech. That might be as well. He had a feeling that she had been listening to him with tolerant amusement. A uniformed porter strode over, holding the door for the American. The red-capped-and-red-clad employee must have taken Chen for her interpreter and showered all his attention upon her. Chen observed this with wry humor as he helped to put the luggage on a hotel cart.

  In the lobby, he heard fragments of jazz. A band composed of old men was playing in a bar at the end of the hall, pumping out old standards for a nostalgic audience. The band was so popular that it was mentioned in the newspapers as one of the Bund’s attractions.

  She asked about the dining room. The porter pointed to a glass door farther down the corridor, saying the dining room would remain open until three in the morning, and that there were bars nearby that stayed in business even later.

  “We could have a meal now,” he said.

  “No, thanks. I ate on the plane. I’ll probably stay awake until two or three o’clock tonight. Jet lag.”

  They took the elevator to the seventh floor. Her room was 708. As she slid in the plastic card, light flooded over a large room furnished with dark wood furniture inlaid with ivory. The room was decorated in Art Deco style; posters of actors and actresses of the twenties contributed to the period feeling. The only modern items were a color TV, a small refrigerator beside the dresser, and a coffee maker on the corner table.

  “It’s nine o’clock,” Chen said, glancing at his watch. “After the long journey, you must be tired, Inspector Rohn.”

  “No, I’m not, but I would like to wash up a little.”

  “I’ll smoke a cigarette in the lobby and return in twenty minutes.”

  “No, you don’t have to leave. Just sit down for a minute,” she said, gesturing toward the couch. As she headed to the bathroom with a bag, she handed a magazine to him. “I read it on the plane.”

  It was a copy of Entertainment Weekly with several American movie stars on the cover, but he did not open it. First, he checked the room for bugs. Then he moved to the window. Once he had wandered along the Bund with his schoolmates, wondering, looking up at the Peace Hotel. To look down from its windows had been beyond his wildest dreams.

  But the view of Bund Park pulled him back to the present. He had not done anything about the homicide case yet. Farther to the north, buses and trolley buses rumbled across the bridge at frequent intervals. Nearby bars and restaurants displayed neon signs that flashed incessantly. Some stayed open all night. So there would have been hardly any possibility that people could climb into the park without being noticed, just as he had initially surmised.

  He turned to make a pot of coffee. The talk he would have to have soon with this American partner would be difficult. He decided to call the bureau first. Qian was still there, dutifully waiting by the phone. Perhaps he had misjudged Qian.

  “Detective Yu has just phoned in with an important lead.”

  “What is it?”

  “According to one of Wen’s neighbors, Wen received a phone call from her husband shortly before she disappeared on the night of April fifth.”

  “That’s something,” Chen said. “How did her neighbor know?”

  “Wen did not have a phone at home. The conversation took place in her neighbor’s home, but her neighbor knew nothing about the contents of that call.”

  “Anything else?”

  “No. Detective Yu said he would try to call again.”

  “If he phones in soon, tell him to try me at the Peace Hotel. Room 708.”

  Now he had something concrete to discuss with Inspector Rohn, Chen thought with relief, putting down the receiver as she came out of the bathroom, drying her hair with a towel. She was dressed now in blue jeans and a white cotton blouse.

  “Would you like a cup of coffee?”

  “No, thanks. Not tonight,” she said. “Do you know when Wen will be ready to depart for the United States?”

  “Well, I have some news for you, but it’s not good, I’m afraid.”

  “Something wrong?”

  “Wen Liping has disappeared.”

  “Disappeared! How is that possible, Chief Inspector Chen?” She stared at hi
m for a second before she added sharply, “Killed or kidnapped?”

  “I don’t think she has been killed. That would have done nobody any good. We cannot rule out the kidnapping possibility. The local police have started their investigation but so far, there’s no evidence supporting that hypothesis. All we know is that she got a phone call from her husband on the night of April fifth and disappeared shortly afterward. Her disappearance might have been caused by that phone call.”

  “Feng is allowed to call home once a week, but not to say anything that might jeopardize the case. A record is kept of the calls he makes; I hope his conversation was taped, but it may not have been. He’s anxious for his wife to join him. Why would he say anything to cause her disappearance?”