A Loyal Character Dancer - [Chief Inspector Chen Cao 02] (16 page)

“Would you like a drink first?”
                      

“A glass of white wine would be perfect. What about you?”

“The same.”
                                    

She watched him open the refrigerator, take out a bottle, and come back with the glasses.

“You are making it a special evening.” She raised herself slightly on one elbow, sipping the wine.
                 

“The story goes back to the early sixties,” Chen started, sitting in the chair drawn close to the couch, gazing down at the wine, “when I was still an elementary-school student...”

In the early sixties, the Mas had owned a used-book store, a husband-and-wife business. As a kid, Chen had bought comic books there. Out of the blue, the local government declared the bookstore “a black center of antisocialist activity.” The charge was made on the evidence of an English copy of
Doctor Zhivago
on its shelves. Mr. Ma was put in jail, where he was allowed to take with him, out of all his books, only a medical dictionary. Toward the end of the eighties, he was released and rehabilitated. The old couple did not want to reopen the bookstore. Mr. Ma thought of running a herbal drugstore with the knowledge he had acquired in prison. His business license application traveled from one bureaucratic desk to another, however, without making any progress.

Chen had been an entry level cop then, not the one in charge of “rectification of wrong cases.” When he heard about Mr. Ma’s situation, however, he managed to put in a word through Party Secretary Li and obtained the license for the old man.

Afterwards, Chen happened to talk to a
Wenhui
reporter, dwelling on the irony of Mr. Ma becoming a doctor because of
Dr. Zhivago.
To his surprise, she wrote for the newspaper an essay entitled “Because of
Dr. Zhivago.”
The publication added to the popularity of Mr. Ma’s practice.

“That’s why the old couple are grateful to you,” she said.

“I did little, considering what they went through in those years.”

“Do you feel more responsible now that you are a chief inspector?”

“Well, people complain about the problems with our system, but it is important to do something—for people like the Mas.”

“With your connections—” she paused to take a sip of her wine, “which include a woman reporter writing for the
Wenhui Daily.”

“Included,” he said, draining his glass in one gulp. “She is in Japan now.”

“Oh.”

His cell phone rang.

“Oh, Old Hunter! What’s up?” He listened for several minutes without speaking and then said, “So it must be someone important, I see. I’ll call you later, Uncle Yu.”

Turning off the phone, he said, “It’s Old Hunter, Detective Yu’s father.”

“Does his father work for you too?”

“No, he’s retired. He’s helping me with another case,” he said, standing. “Well, it’s time for me to leave.”

He could not stay longer. She did not know about his other case. And he would not tell her about it. It was not her business.

As she tried to rise, he put a hand lightly on her shoulders. “Relax, Inspector Rohn. We have a lot of work to do tomorrow. Good night.”

He closed the door after him.

The echo of his footsteps faded along the corridor.

There was a sound of the elevator bobbing to a stop and then starting to descend slowly.
                       

Whatever reservations Inspector Rohn might have about her Chinese partner, and his possible involvement in a cover-up, she was grateful for this evening.
                      

* * * *

Chapter 11

hen failed to reach Old Hunter. He had forgotten to ask where the old man had called from. He had been too preoccupied with telling the story of Dr. Zhivago in China to an attentive American audience of one. So he decided to walk home. Perhaps before he got there, his phone would start ringing again.

It rang at the corner of Sichuan Road, but it was Detective Yu.

“We’re in for it, Chief.”

“What?”

Yu told him about the food poisoning incident at the hotel and concluded, “The gang is connected to the Fujian police.”

“You may be right,” Chen said, not adding his own comment:
not only with the Fujian police.
“This investigation is a joint operation, but we don’t have to report to the local cops all the time. Whatever action you’re going to take, go ahead on your own. Don’t worry about their reaction. I will be responsible.”

“I see, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“From now on, call me at my home or on my cell phone. Send faxes to my home. In an emergency, contact Little Zhou. You cannot be too careful.”

“Take care of yourself, too.”

The food poisoning incident made him think of Inspector Rohn. First the motorcycle, and then the accident on the staircase.

They might have been followed. While they were talking with Zhu upstairs, something could have been done to the steps. Under normal circumstances, Chief Inspector Chen would have treated such an idea like a tall tale from
Liaozhai,
but they were dealing with a triad.

Anything was possible.

The triad might be proceeding on two fronts, in Shanghai and in Fujian. They were more resourceful than he had anticipated. And more calculating, too. The attempts, if that is what they were, had been made to seem like accidents, orchestrated so that there was no way to trace them to the perpetrators.

He thought about warning Inspector Rohn, but refrained. What would he tell her? The omnipresence of gangsters would not contribute to a positive image of contemporary China. Whatever the circumstances, he had to keep it in mind that he was working in the national interest. It was not desirable for her to think of the Chinese police or China in a negative way.

Looking at his watch, he decided to phone Party Secretary Li at home. Li invited him to come over to talk.

Li’s residence was located on Wuxing Road, in a high cadre residential complex behind walls. There was an armed soldier standing at the entrance gate and he made a stiff salute to Chen.

Party Secretary Li waited in the spacious living room of a three-bedroom apartment. The room was modestly furnished, but larger than Lihua’s entire home. Chen seated himself on a chair beside a pot of exquisite orchids swaying lightly in the breeze that came through the window, breathing elegance into the room.

There was a long silk scroll on the wall, bearing two lines in
kai
calligraphy:
An old horse resting in the stable still aspires / to gallop thousands and thousands of miles.
It was a couplet from Chao Cao’s “Looking out to the Sea,” a subtle reference to Li’s own situation. Prior to the mid-eighties, Chinese high-ranking cadres never retired, hanging on to their positions to the end, but with the changes Deng Xiaoping had introduced into the system, they, too, had to step down at retirement age. In a couple of years, Li would have to leave his office. Chen recognized the red seal of a well-known calligraphist imprinted under the lines. A scroll of his was worth a fortune at an international auction.

“Sorry to come to your home so late, Party Secretary Li,” Chen said.

“That’s okay. I’m alone this evening. My wife is at our son’s place.”

“Your son has moved out?”

Li had a daughter and a son, both in their mid-twenties. Early last year, the daughter got an apartment from the bureau by virtue of Li’s cadre rank. A high-ranking cadre was entitled to additional housing because he needed more space in which to work in the interests of the socialist country. People grumbled behind his back, but no one dared to raise it as an issue in the housing committee meeting. It was surprising that Li’s son, a recent college graduate, had also received his own apartment.

“He moved last month. She is with him tonight, decorating his new home.”

“Congratulations, Party Secretary Li! That’s something worth celebrating.”

“Well, his uncle made a down payment on a small apartment and let him move in,” Li said. “Economic reform has brought about a lot of change in our city.”

“I see,” Chen said. So this was the result of housing reform. The government had started to encourage people to buy their own housing to supplement their work units’ assignments, but few could afford the price—except the newly rich. “His uncle must have done well in his business.”

“He has a small bar.”

Chen was reminded of Old Hunter’s story about Li’s untouchable brother-in-law. Those upstarts were successful not because of their business acumen, but because of their
guanxi.

“Tea
or coffee?” Li asked with a smile.

“Coffee.”

“Well, I only have instant.”

Then Chen started by briefing Li about the food poisoning incident in Fujian.

Li responded, “Don’t be too suspicious. Some of our Fujian colleagues may not be too pleased with Detective Yu’s presence. It’s their domain, I can understand that. But it goes way too far to accuse them of being connected with a gang. You don’t have any evidence, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“I’m not saying all of them are tied to the triad, but one insider can do a lot of damage.”

“Take a break, Comrade. Both Yu and you are overwrought. There’s no need to imagine yourself fighting in the Bagong Mountains, with every tree and weed an enemy soldier.”

Li referred to a battle during the Jin dynasty, when a panic-stricken general’s imagination turned everything into the enemy chasing him into the mountains. But Chen suspected that it was Li who had lost sight of the enemy. This was no time to take a break. Perceiving a slight change in Li’s attitude toward the investigation, he wondered whether he had done something more than his Party boss had expected.

He shifted his focus to Inspector Rohn’s cooperation, one of Li’s main concerns.

“The Americans are pursuing the investigation in their interests,” Li commented. “It is a matter of course for her to cooperate. As long as they know we are doing our best, we don’t have to worry. That’s all we need to do.”

“That’s all we need to do,” Chen echoed.

“We’ll try to find Wen, certainly, but it may not be easy to accomplish this within the time frame—their time frame. We don’t have to go out of our way for them.”

“I’ve not worked on such a sensitive international case before. Please give me more of your specific instructions, Party Secretary Li.”

“You’ve been doing a great job. The Americans must see that we are trying our best. That’s very important.”

“Thank you,” Chen said, familiar with Li’s way of saying something positive to soften what would follow.

“As an old-timer, I would just like to make a few suggestions. Your visit to Old Ma, for example, may not have been an excellent choice. Ma is a good doctor. No question about it. I still remember your effort to help him.”

“Why not, Party Secretary Li?”

“The Mas have their reasons to complain about our system,” Li said, frowning. “Have you told Inspector Rohn the story of Dr. Zhivago in China?”

“Yes, she asked me about it.”

“You see, the Cultural Revolution was a national disaster. A lot of people suffered. Such a story is nothing new here, but may be sensational to an American.”