The Lake Ching Murders - A Mystery of Fire and Ice

by David Rotenberg

  The northerner signalled to the big man. The water buffalo, after a slight hesitation, rushed at Fong and threw him against the wall. Before Fong could get his balance, the thug cuffed his wrists in front of him then shackled his legs. The politico sidled up to Fong and leaned down so that he was no more than an inch from Fong’s face.

  “You’re a prisoner, Zhong Fong. You will always be a prisoner, Zhong Fong. As I said, it is important to remember one’s place in China. And you, Zhong Fong, are not only a traitor, but you are also a homeless vagrant. You stink like a street person. Decent people can smell you coming. They catch the whiff of Shanghanese shit stuck to your ass.”

  “So that was it,” Fong thought. This man hated him because he was from Shanghai. Because he understood the special reality of growing up in the largest city in Asia. A city that knew and was influenced by the best of foreign cultures. A city that never slept. That gloried in being alive. Fong had met bureaucrats like this back in Shanghai. They were often from the north. They never bothered to learn Shanghanese despite the fact they’d lived in the city for twenty years. They were good party stock. That was all. Like this one. This guy was all dressed up but he was nothing more than a hick with power. A hick who hated Fong because he came from a great city. Because Fong understood it. Loved it.

  The leg irons bit into Fong’s ankles. The water buffalo half-carried, half-dragged him out of the hut. The politico ran ahead and climbed into the driver’s seat of the large, black, Russian-built Chaika. He turned on the high beams. They were badly aimed. One lit the roof of a row of huts across the way while the other pooled on the dirt road inches in front of the fender. The northerner pressed hard on the car’s horn. The thing spluttered into sound and soon awoke the villagers. As he intended.

  The politico took a bullhorn and, standing on the Chaika’s fender, shouted, “Come out, honest comrades, and see the traitor, Zhong Fong.” Bleary-eyed peasants emerged from their huts. Mothers clutched children. Old men attempted to stand straight.

  “Now is the time, comrades, to lodge your complaints against the traitor. Your government is here to help you. This man is a disgrace to China. Tell us how he has harmed you and he will be punished accordingly.”

  Something hit Fong in the chest. It was a rotten turnip. Then more things followed. And screams. These people whom he hardly knew seemed to hate him. Then he reminded himself that they were only acting their part in this little morality play.

  The big man stepped in front of Fong, lifted him off his feet and carried him to the back of the Chaika. He unlocked the huge trunk.

  “The traitor will ride in the trunk like common baggage,” the northerner announced.

  The thug threw Fong in.

  Fong twisted his body just in time to avoid the large metal latch on the car’s frame and he landed with a thump on his back. He turned to look out into the night. As he did, the two farmers he’d tried to help both began screaming complaints at the politico. Behind them stood his old assistant, Mr. Fen. He was shrugging his shoulders and looking at Fong. He mouthed the words, “I told you.”

  Then the trunk lid slammed shut, blotting out the stars.

  Fong felt the car’s ignition engage and the wide heavy vehicle, more tank than car, start to move.

  Sound boomed off the surfaces of the confined space as it picked up speed. “Well, I’m finally out of the village. That’s positive,” he thought. But where were they taking him? And what was the shit coming down on him so hard that he needed a hat?

  He consoled himself with one thought: “They wouldn’t have come to get me unless they needed me. They need me for something — to do something for them. And if they need me to do something for them I might be able to broker a trade. My services for a way back to Shanghai — a way home.”

  CHAPTER TWO

  IN THE TRUNK

  The darkness in the trunk of the Chaika was almost complete. It was getting colder. Fong slowed his breathing and ordered himself to think. As the head of Special Investigations, Shanghai Division, he’d come across more than one body that had suffocated in the trunk of a car. His eyes slowly adjusted. Murky shadows took on shapes. He reached upward and felt the rusting inside of the Russian-made car’s trunk lid. He had some room above him. He propped himself up on his elbows and his head touched metal. Flakes of corrosion fell into his hair and down his neck.

  Then the Chaika hit a bump. The rocklike shock absorbers did little to cushion the blow inside the car and nothing for Fong in the trunk. His head smashed against the lid then his elbows slammed to the floor. Blood quickly matted his hair and dribbled down his forehead. One elbow was skinned almost to the bone. He curled into a ball on the floor of the trunk, ignored the bleeding and tried to think.

  Another bump.

  His whole body went straight up, hit the lid and then thumped back down.

  The car accelerated and took a hard right. He shoved his hands straight out over his head as he slid along the floor of the trunk. He hit hard. As he did, his hands scraped across a cavity in the metal sidewall. He reached in and touched rubber. A small spare tire. He yanked it free of its strappings and skittered back to the centre of the trunk. The tire could protect his head like a cushion.

  The air in the confined space was already rank and Fong knew that carbon monoxide was probably coming up from the tailpipe. Chaikas were not famous for their fine workmanship. He turned over and using his fingernails scraped at the edge of the trunk’s shredded carpet. He tore a large patch of skin from the back of his right hand but ignored it as he wedged his hand beneath a corner of the coarse material. Then he leaned back and pulled with all his might. Several square feet of the mouldy stuff came up. He reversed himself so he could work on the section where he’d been lying. It took him time — and two substantial bumps — to make the shift. This side of the carpet came up quickly. Fong gathered it together and pushed it as far forward as he could.

  He was breathing hard and his sweat was already mixing with the blood from his head, elbow and hand. He stank of fear.

  Another bump. Fong’s head snapped back and he took the blow on his forehead. When he landed, his hand caught on the corner of something on the floor. He yanked it open. He reached in and found a partially inflated inner tube.

  He looked into the tire well. The metal was so rusted that it was almost translucent. He searched desperately for something to poke a hole in the metal. Finding nothing, he got himself into a half-sitting position, leaned back on his elbows and stuck his foot into the well. Several kicks later he had a hole — and enough air to stay alive. He repositioned himself beside the air hole and drew his knees up. He put the small tire beneath his head and the inner tube on top of him. Then he covered the mound of himself with the shredded carpet.

  Through the hole he watched the road whiz by — China whiz by. He’d been confined to that village west of the Wall for over two years. Before that he’d been in Ti Lan Chou prison for . . . it felt like a very long time. But now he was travelling. Moving. He watched China through the hole. Pebbles and dirt, then moments of pavement, then pebbles and dirt, slush, pavement, dirt, pavement — and finally sleep.

  And dreams.

  He was on a palette on the ground, his mother standing over him. She was crying. He tried to speak but blood came from his mouth and a deep rattle sounded in his tortured lungs. Fong knew where he was. He was in their home in Shanghai’s Old City. He was a boy. It was before the liberation. He’d gotten typhoid from handling the night soil. He wanted to reach up and tell his mother that it was okay, that she mustn’t cry. But he couldn’t speak.

  His grandmother came in and shrieked at his mother who bowed quickly then put on her “brave face” and hurried back to work in the dark streets. Fong looked at his grandmother’s lined, stern face. It betrayed nothing. She barked out, “You’re not going to die. Night soil has been the business of this family for twelve generations. We’ve all had what you have. Don’t be a coward and it will go away — or it won’
t then it won’t matter if you are a coward or not.”

  He went to call for his beloved father but found himself running.

  Running. Wang Jun, his older friend and colleague at his side. It was fifty-four months ago on Shanghai’s waterfront. No, in the Pudong industrial area. Federal troops firing at them. Ting of bullets off brick. Thunk against a car door. Sliding skip of metal jackets against blacktop. A windshield shattering. Then thud. Wang Jun hit and crashing to the ground. Then thwap, thwap, thwap — Fong’s feet on the pavement. Running. Running. Not looking back. Never seeing Wang Jun’s body. Never looking. Just running.

  Running — into Fu Tsong’s outstretched arms.

  “Be still, Fong, and we’ll get through this.

  “This is a dream,” he said.

  “Hardly. A nightmare more likely.”

  Fong looked up. He was in a theatre, his deceased wife, the famous actress Fu Tsong, at his side.

  “But be good Fong and as I’ve said, we’ll get through this.”

  The bounce of the stage lights came out into the house just enough to illuminate her beautiful features. Fong held his breath. He didn’t want the illusion to return to drops of mist. He hadn’t been able to dream her for years.

  Then she laughed.

  Tendrils of joy, the very heart of her life force, spread out through the fetid air of the place. And he gloried in her presence.

  Then she reached over and took his hand. Her elegant tapered fingers interlocked with his calloused ones. He caught a hint of her perfume.

  He coughed.

  For a moment Fong couldn’t figure out what a tire was doing beneath his head.

  Then he remembered.

  Dust was pouring in through the hole in the wheel well. He rolled away and covered his mouth.

  And curled up once more with his memories. A wave of loneliness the likes of which he hadn’t experienced since he entered Ti Lan Chou prison swept over him. For the first time since he had killed the assassin Loa Wei Fen in the construction site in the Pudong, he felt tears coming to his eyes. He blinked them back. He was too old to cry.

  The car bounced. Fong’s body rose; the inner tube protected him from the trunk’s ceiling and when he fell the tire protected him from the floor. He wondered where they were taking him. Then he stopped wondering and accepted. The mongoose stopped its pacing and sat at the base of his spine. Where they were going was out of his control. No point wasting energy on that. They’d no doubt get wherever they were going soon enough.

  CHAPTER THREE

  ANOTHER NIGHT IN JAIL

  A bright light pierced Fong’s sleep. He shook his head, trying to stop the glare inside his skull. Then he realized that the light wasn’t coming from within, that it wasn’t part of a dream, but rather it was the beam of a high-powered flashlight. He shrugged off the inner tube and held up his manacled hands to blinker the glare.

  Through his fingers he saw the silhouettes of the thug and the politico then they bent over the opened trunk. The light bouncing off his hands lit their faces. The thug scowled. That didn’t bother Fong. But the politico’s knowing nod sent a shiver down his spine. That allunderstanding nod, that I-told-you-so smile, let Fong know that the inner tube and the tire had been provided intentionally. That they had been planted. Prepared. That much forethought had been put into this little excursion.

  Fong kicked aside the shredded carpet and struggled to a sitting position. A thought sprouted in his head. This asshole thought putting the tire and inner tube there for him to find proved how powerful he was. Fong knew that it proved the opposite. They put the stuff in the trunk because they didn’t want him too badly hurt. Roughed up, yes — but hurt, no. Because they needed him to do something for them. Lily’s telegram said TONS OVER HEAD GOING DOWN ON YOU SOON. REAL SUCKING TONS, YOU NEED A HAT. Maybe, Lily, maybe. Fong was careful not to smile. But inside he was gleeful. They wanted him scared but basically unharmed. They were concerned that he survive the ride. They must really need him to work on something big.

  It was dark. He could smell the deep intensity of manure in the air. They must be in a small village. No doubt still a commune-dominated place that turned out the street lights, perhaps all electricity in the town, at 9 p.m. There was a time when all power went off in Shanghai at 10 p.m. Big daddy government saying, Enough kids — you’ve got a lot of work to do tomorrow, go to bed. In Shanghai, all that did was spawn a new business in illicit generators. The Shanghanese loved their pleasures and were not about to be denied them by some Beijing government edict!

  The thug lifted Fong from the trunk with shockingly little effort. Fong’s knees gave out when he hit the ground. It was muddy. The politico laughed. “You’ve allowed your physical skills to deteriorate badly, Traitor Zhong. Even a disgusting traitor ought to take care of the vessel of life.”

  Fong struggled to his feet and took a good look at this flower-eater. “Vessel of life?” he thought. Has the world changed that much? Or is this guy just too . . . too . . . Fong couldn’t find the right word.

  The thug grabbed his upper arm and walked him forward. The smell of the politico’s cigarette caught in Fong’s nostrils. The acrid smoke stung his eyes but he longed for a drag. Just one.

  They crossed the deserted street and opened the door of a single-storey concrete-block building. They were met by two young men in federal uniforms. Quickly, papers were signed and Fong was hustled down a corridor of empty cells.

  “This evening’s accommodations,” Fong thought. But he was careful to keep his eyes down. No point fighting now. “Fight when there is the possibility of winning. Attack when they assume you are going to defend. Never show the enemy your formation because the outside betrays the inner self. Attack only when you know the enemy.” That advice from Sun Tzu’s book The Art of War popped into Fong’s head. It was the only thing, besides Mao’s little red book, he’d been allowed to read in Ti Lan Chou prison.

  The jailer pressed the coded cell lock and the door swung open. Fong sensed more than saw the young man huddled in the back reaches of the cell. “We thought you’d enjoy some company after your lonely trip.” Fong hadn’t noticed that the politico had followed them down the corridor. “Prisoner Tao, this is traitor Zhong. Traitor Zhong, this is prisoner Tao.” He allowed a slight pause then hissed, “Tao’s to be executed for crimes against the state — at sunrise.”

  Fong was shoved forward. He tripped as the ankle chain snagged. To his surprise his fall was cushioned by prisoner Tao.

  The laugh from the corridor behind him was totally humourless. The door clanged shut and the electronic locking mechanism slammed the bolts into place. Fong nodded his thanks to Tao as they both listened to the retreating footsteps. The footfalls silenced. Prisoner Tao moved to the far corner of the cell. When he turned back, he held out a bowl of half-eaten rice and a set of chopsticks.

  Fong nodded and took the food. He positioned the bowl between his raised knees. Chinese handcuffs are joined by a longer chain than their sisters in the West to allow for the use of chopsticks. Fong looked at the rice. He wasn’t sure how long it had been since he’d last eaten. It was one of the many things that had changed in his life. Food was just a matter of refuelling now. So unlike his time in Shanghai.

  Fong shook the thought from his head. That was past. Now was right before him. A bowl of rice. A prisoner about to be executed. The need for clarity was obvious.

  He tilted the container and scraped a few grains into his mouth. Although the food in the western village had been simple, it had been pure. Here Fong tasted the edges of saltpeter and dust that were so familiar from Ti Lan Chou prison. His gorge rose, rejecting the food, but he stopped it. Saltpeter and dust or piss or shit — it didn’t matter. He needed the sustenance of the rice to keep up his strength or he’d never make it to the end of this. Whatever this was.

  “You are hungry.” Prisoner Tao’s voice was gentle. His accent was from the south. He spoke the Mandarin words as if they were part of his second langu
age.

  In the dim light Fong looked at the young man’s face. The smooth skin. The clear eyes.

  Fong’s time in prison had taught him to mind his own business, to deal with his own problems — to be alone. That proffered friendship and a warden’s snitch were often one and the same. But something else said talk to this boy. Comfort him. He is important to you.

  “You are not from here.”

  “No, from Sichuan province.”

  Fong had never been to that part of the country. “How did you get here?”

  “They brought me.”

  “Why?”

  The young man looked sharply at Fong. “Have you been sent here to torment me at the end? Is this the final insult?”

  “No.” A long silence ensued.

  At last Fong spoke. “I have no way of proving that to you.” Fong gave him back the remainder of the rice. “Thank you for your food.”

  A silence grew like a dark cloud between them. Finally the young man pointed to Fong’s shackles. “Do they hurt?”

  Fong snapped back. “Yes. Of course they hurt. They were made to hurt. They are intended to hurt. They put them on me to hurt.” Why was he being hard on this boy? He was about to apologize when the young man turned away and, stretching his long arms along the wall, tilted his head so it rested against the cool stone.

  “It’s all intended isn’t it, Traitor Zhong?” He turned to Fong and there were tears in his eyes.

  “Yes, it’s all planned,” Fong answered slowly.

  “So I’m just part of their plan?”

  For the first time it occurred to Fong that this young man’s death may have been specifically designed for him to witness — to learn from. To remind him who was in charge in China. He wanted to get up and yell through the bars that it wasn’t necessary. That he acknowledged that they owned him. That there was no reason for this object lesson. That it was sinful to execute a boy to prove a point to him.