Citizen One (12 page)

Such is the hunger
…

9 a.m. A key in the lock, turning. Instantly awake. An adrenalin rush. The door opening. Her face, its residue still in his eyes.

“You all right, Boss?”

Disappointment, a lead weight to the heart. Wishing, and at the same time not wishing, that it had been her.

Yaobang stooping, picking up mail. Behind him, Rentang, the ex-PSB computer genius whom they had nicknamed ‘The Wizard’. His pale face dominated by the square oversized frames of his spectacles.

“Got your package, Boss,” Yaobang nodding behind him.

“Stupid bastard. He was more nervous coming here than staying on in Virtue Forest. Some people don’t know when their dumplings are stuffed or not.”

Pulling a blanket around himself, the Senior Investigator. Backs of hands to his eyes. Her almond eyes and painted lips rubbed away. But words, yet too hard to find. Too hot for the tongue.

The Big Man pulling Rentang behind him toward the living room. An obstinate child hauled towards his aunt’s pouting-lipped kiss. The Wizard sitting reluctantly on the edge of the worn couch, arms folded across his rough prison shirt.

“Number one, fat Detective, I’m nobody’s package and you and your Senior Investigator boss are not stuffed dumplings. As soon as your back is turned, I’m off and back to Gongdelin.”

Removing his spectacles, wiping the lenses with his cuff. His eyes incredibly small.

“People have a habit of dying around you two. I don’t intend to be one of them.
Dao-mei
. That’s what you are. Fucking
dao-mei
.”

“Hasn’t lost his sense of humour, has he, Boss?”

“No. No, he has not.”

Piao taking the letters one by one from the Big Man’s hand. One by one tearing them up and throwing them into the cold fire grate.

“The equipment?”

Looking at Yaobang.

“Zoul promised it this afternoon, Boss. The full package. Also telephone lines and an Internet connection. He’ll be able to start working this afternoon.”

Smiling. The remnants from a hurried breakfast of peanuts and pickled vegetables still across the front of his teeth.

“Be happy in your work Comrade Rentang.”

“Fuck off, fat man. I just want to do my time in Gongdelin and start afresh. Someone with my skills will always be in demand. I’m the best there is. The very best.”

Piao moving into the bathroom. The sound of water. Cold. Bitter.

“You will do as we ask. We want names. A
cadre
, Shang-hainese, but educated abroad. Possibly PLA. Possibly PSB, but look also within other bureaus. He likes killing girls, raping them. He enjoys torturing comrade officers.”

Behind spectacle lenses the Wizard’s eyes expanding.

“He might already be known for his violence, or for depraved sexual acts. But he has friends in high places and they have already leant on our Comrade Chief Officer, so these records might not be in the usual places. So look in the unusual places … and he has a harelip.”

Rentang moving to his feet.

“Harelip? Torture? Killings? Friends in high places? Your mother’s a ‘turtle’s egg’, Piao. I’m doing nothing for you.
Ta ma de
.”

Turning, walking toward the door. The Big Man, one hand pushing him back into his chair. Piao, his shirt falling to the floor; water, with a reluctance, soaking into polyester.

“I want the lot. Personal histories, personal data,
danwei
records, financial profile, associates …”

Returning to the living room and lighting the last cigarette in the pack. The first of the day. The best of the day. The last of the day. Pulling on a fresh shirt.

“There will be other data needed also. Data to add to a file of Investigator Di’s that I am wading through. Three prostitutes murdered; a fourth, a survivor, cut-up.”

“Then let him do it.
Ta ma de
. Di, the lazy fucking bastard.”

“He’s fucking dead, you arsehole. Crucified with steel spikes and then this harelip played on his body with an oxy-acetylene torch.”

Visibly paling, Rentang. His face as lead grey as his spectacle lenses.

“A good man, Di. A good man. Did me a few favours. Looked in the other direction more than a few times.”

Piao throwing a pad of paper onto his lap. Virgin white sheet, except for a single number spiking its centre.

473309169972

“This number is on that file. Discover what meaning it has.”

Unable to find a comb, the Senior Investigator dragging his fingers through his wet hair.

“It could be a report number. Possibly a case number. A passport number? Start close to home, PSB, Party records,
Luxingshe
, and work your way out. You will live here, sleep here, shit here, until the job is done. Deputy Investigator Yaobang will enlarge upon what I have said in his usual eloquent manner.”

The Wizard, his eyes avoiding Piao’s.

“Three more months in Gongdelin and I’m a free man. A job across the river or in the New Territories. A life and dollars by the bucket-full. And so,
wangba dan
, Investigator. You keep your sad life, I’m out of the sewer that you and your fat Deputy run in.”

Attempting to stand, but the Big Man’s palm in his chest, pushing him back down.

“I also want to know how I managed to be released from a hand that does not relax its grip:
Ankang
. Where the trail leads back to. Who put me in, who took me out.”

“You’re not hearing me, Piao. Did
Ankang
turn you deaf, or did the medication turn you stupid? You’re bad news, yesterday’s news. You’re dangerous, Senior Investigator. My days of doing shitty jobs for you are over.”

Again, attempting to stand, but pushed deeply back into place. The Senior Investigator carefully placing his China Brand in the ashtray. Pulling a large envelope from a drawer and tipping its contents onto the Wizard’s lap. Taking the spectacles from his fingers and placing them oh so carefully on the bridge of his nose. Photographs, so familiar, taking shape. Blurs into focus. Images translating into a rising pulse rate.

“Your better work, if I may say so. Of course the court did not have the opportunity to appreciate that, did they? They never got to see these more personal photographs.”

One by one, turning them over in Rentang’s lap.

“That is Comrade Bai of the Supreme People’s Procurate.”

Another print.

“The
tong zhi
, Lu Shiying, Head of the Institute for Legal Sociological and Juvenile Delinquency.”

Another print.

“Comrade Yang Chun Xi, Associate Professor at the Institute for Crime Prevention at the Ministry of Justice.”

Yaobang watching from behind, his hands braced on the Wizard’s bony shoulders.

“Fuck me, who are the
yeh-jis
, Boss?”

“The prostitutes were brought in specially from Hong Kong. That one was sixteen years old. That one, also sixteen. The one on her knees is just fourteen years of age.”

“It’s good to know that our most esteemed comrades are keeping abreast of juvenile delinquency and crime prevention, eh Boss?”

Piao gathering the prints up and slotting them back into the folder.

“Good scam. Your business associates put on a party. Free alcohol, drugs, sexually transmitted diseases. What
cadre
could refuse such an offer?”

The Wizard’s cheeks, with the crimson blooms of a ‘wild pheasant’s’ lipsticked kisses.

“How did you get the images? From a wardrobe? A telephoto lens?”

Re-sealing the folder. The Wizard’s eyes never leaving it.

“I stand in a wardrobe for no one. State of the art technology. Fibre optic, remotely controlled.”

Standing over him, Piao.

“I have just saved your life, Comrade Rentang. Blackmail carries a death sentence. Working for me in this flat, just the risk of a few bed-bug bites.”

In his tadpole eyes, calculations. Checks and balances.

“This folder, I will get it back? It will be mine if I do what you ask of me?”

“Absolutely.”

“For me to do with as I wish?”

“Completely.”

Mathematics. The mathematics of
yuan
, dollars, euros. In his head, an instant multiplication allowing for exchange rates. The Wizard smiling.

“Okay. You have a deal, Investigator.”

“No, Wizard, it is you who has a deal. ‘Is not the colour of a crow’s arse also black?’ ”

Holding out his hand to shake Piao’s, but the Senior Investigator already turning toward the front door, folder of photographs under his arm.

On the brink of the Wu Jin Road, as if too nervous to attempt to cross it, the hospital. A vast hand of discoloured white stone, from some angles seeming to beckon. From other more obtuse angles, warding all away. And even before its gaping outer doors, the odours that all hospitals seem to possess. And with them, reminders of
Ankang
. Disinfected water in a dented bucket. Fresh shit, old vomit, doctors’ eau de cologne, nurses’ milky breasts, and above all, lives rotting on the vine.

A room at the end of a once white-walled corridor, now yellow with nicotine.

China Brand swiftly pulled from lips, tunic buttoned, a nod from a sleepy-eyed PSB Officer as Piao and the Big Man passed. The officer running back to open the door leading to her room. The Senior Investigator noticing that his boots were muddy. A good sign. Officers with pristine, shiny boots, never to be fully trusted.

Medical light, harsh, and banishing all mid-tones. At the very centre of the room, a metal bedstead. Chrome bright bars along its sides. Wrapped in its protective weave, a bundle of bandages and dressings totally hiding a face and head.

Piao sitting, gently taking one of the delicate hands into his own. His fingertips over the stitches’ secret Braille. His eyes closed for an instant, sensing the steel that had parted such soft, perfect flesh. She had used her hand as a shield. Turning the hand with the gentleness of a lover. Across her wrists, train-track parcels of catgut sutures. A sudden ache deep in his own wrists. Gently laying her hand back to white aertex, wrist down. Sharply turning away, not wishing to see the images starting to form in his own mind.

“You all right, Boss?”

Slowly the pain abating.

“Yes. Just somebody walking over my grave.”

Her torn lips muttering. Words louder, her eyes darting frantically. A panic, legs kicking chromed metal. Arms flailing.

“It is ok …”

Piao’s hand to her bucking shoulder.

“We are here to help you.”

Feet crashing against the bedstead in vibrating concussion. His hand across hers, calming the storm.

“We are PSB. We are here to help you. Protect you.”

Her eyes suddenly seeing. Darts of black recognising the Big Man’s uniform. Pupils widening to the gold and red epaulettes, the red star’s crimson bloom. Her body rearing up. A sudden eruption of arms and legs. From beneath the bandages, her mouth opening, lips curling in a piercing scream.

“Fucking pimps. Pimps, fucking pimps.”

Wilder her kicking, her flailing arms bruising against the steel cot. A frightening abandonment of self.

“The bell, get the bell.”

Yaobang wrenching at a discoloured cord. In a faraway nurses’ station, a light flashing. Chipped mugs of
lucha
thudding to the table. Tales of boyfriends’ wandering hands and flowing bank accounts cut short. Feet running, doors slamming back on resigned hinges.

The Big Man, Piao, backs to the cold wall, as the nurse swept into the room. A doctor following, hypodermic already in his palm. The nurse holding her down.

Piao into the doctors’ ear.

“Her bandages, when can they can be removed?”

“Why, Senior Investigator?”

“I need to see what has been done to her.”

“A voyeur, Senior Investigator?”

Piao’s gaze nailed deeply to the doctor’s dull eyes.

“Even in such violence a signature will be present. I do not wish to cause her pain, but I need to see her.”

“
Dao-mei
, Senior Investigator, for you and for her.”

The doctor, too young to shave, but old enough to amputate a leg, walked toward the door.

“But to satisfy your need, Senior Investigator, we will un-bandage her tomorrow.”

The door opening. Shaking his head.

“What worth is a
yeh-ji
that has been on a butcher’s slab anyway? Who will pay good
yuan
to screw her now.”

Moving through the door and into the corridor.

“They should have left her to die.”

The door closing.

*

The next day
…

“The Clinical Psychiatrist saw her late yesterday afternoon. He was impressed.”

Impressed. Never hard to impress a Clinical Psychiatrist, Piao knew. Sanity, insanity, both making an equal impression in the head of such a professional whose stock in trade was the weaving of words.

“He felt, however, that to remove her bandages, as you requested, Senior Investigator, could traumatise her further.”

Crab fingers adjusting the neat row of pens in his top pocket.

“She is calm, much calmer. She is now on powerful sedatives.”

Yes, the Senior Investigator remembered calmer. Dribbling, shuffling, staring into the empty hours that formed one day after another. Yes, he remembered calmer. It came in a plastic bottle, in the shape of pretty little pink pills.

Leaning forward, smiling, and adding unnecessarily.

“In fact what the Clinical Psychiatrist actually said was that he was reluctant to allow this cheap show to progress any further.”

Piao moving around the anteroom, counting the steps to diffuse his anger.

“She is a witness to a brutal crime that many other
yeh-jis
have suffered and not survived.”

“But the trauma to her psyche, Senior Investigator. The Clinical Psychiatrist will not allow …”

“The Clinical Psychiatrist …”

Piao reaching into his inner breast pocket for his documents of authority. Tossing the heavy wallet onto the table. Weathered-hide flipping open; dog-eared papers and the Star of the People’s Republic.