Citizen One (27 page)

“I am not to know, neither is my Deputy.”

Their eyes meeting. A passing of so many things between them.

“You are afraid of knowing, aren’t you?”

“It is best that we do not know for the time being.”

“You are afraid that this
tai zi
will use you to get this information. To find out where I am. To hurt me.”

“Such a princeling has long arms and methods that could be persuasive. I do not wish you to be hurt again, ever.”

Silent, her footsteps. A shock down his spine as her hands found his shoulders. So warm her body against him.

“Ever again? Ever is a very long time, Senior Investigator.”

Gently pulling him around. Her hands back to his shoulders, her body firmer, hotter against his.

“Are you to be my own personal PSB protector?”

Suddenly her lips on his. Her taste unexpected. Not of paged ‘greenbacks’ by the thousand, not of other men’s fantasies embodied in a bound menu and realised in the curves of her flesh. But their taste uncomplicated, freely given. Kissing her back, so soft, so hard. The taste of a woman, how he had missed it. But what is a kiss to a woman such as this, when so many have been bought?

“We have much in common, Senior Investigator. When this is over we will compare scars.”

Her fingers to the missing button on his collar.

“I see a complication in your life, Senior Investigator.”

“Sun.”

Her finger orbiting the amputated thread where the button had been.

“A complication, Sun. When one who has no one to sew buttons onto his shirt, meets someone who has never had someone who they can sew buttons on for …”

His fingertips tracing the curve of her face in a premature farewell. She reading the signs.

“You have to go.”

“Yes, I have to go.”

Kissing him once more. A second kiss. A last kiss? Not of neon late nights and salt-bruised lipsticked lips, but of future hopes married to present concerns. Watching him walk away, a glance back across his shoulder, stunned by her beauty. But already Lan Li turning away. Words of a sweet song sung out of key, braided through the water’s scalding fall.

‘After peach flowers are bloomed,

chrysanthemum blooms.

My lover wants something that belongs to me.’

The old mama catching him as he reached the short hallway.

“You tell my grandson to wear a vest. The nights are cold. He will listen to you as he admires you. The girl, she’s a good girl. Do not worry yourself, Senior Investigator. She will be safe. You just make sure that you are as safe.”

For several seconds studying Piao’s eyes.

“You have much in common with her. I see that.”

Into the small of his back, the mama’s hand, pushing him out of the door and toward the stairs. Door closing, but not before he could hear the last words of her song. Lan Li’s off-key lament, slowly fading as he left.

‘First he wants my pillow,

and then he wants my bed,

and then he thinks that I am his medicine.’

A favour for a favour. Guan-xi, the oil that lubricates the wheels. Teacher’s whisky, the oil that lubricates the throat
.

The launch was small. Insignificant in the river’s grasp, cutting through the storm’s premature midnight. Conscious, even in the sanctuary of the tiny wheelhouse, of the Huangpu’s waters. Water that should be sweet, but tasting of everything except water: diesel spills, factory breath and humanity’s picked bones.

Cuff dripping river, Yaobang pointing. The launch’s crew, a flint faced Mongol grunting as he adjusted the wheel.

“Do you know where you are going?”

“Of course, Boss. There. Traced it all the way down the fucking river.”

Lightning, his face chromium dipped.

“Tried to do it the proper way, paperwork, Harbour Master. Fuckall, invisible. So I tried it the realistic way; witnesses, office workers, boatmen, dockers. The Happy Sow Import Export Company. An old warehouse storing pork bellies, until the bottom fell out of the market.”

A roll of thunder. Distant drums.

“A warehouse attendant a few blocks down saw it all. Well, saw the activity and a mountain of tarpaulin. He has a set of keys for the Happy Sow Import Export Company.”

Tapping the Mongol on the shoulder, shouting, pointing in fierce stabs.

“There, there. Turn for fuck’s sake. Turn in or we’ll be in Taiwan.”

A fierce correction. Heads swimming with nausea. Waves in thunderous applause against the side of the launch.

“He was left a spare set of keys years ago. Safety precaution, but no paperwork.”

“Nobody knows?”

“Exactly Boss.”

“Has he been in the warehouse? Has he taken a look?”

“Too fucking scared Boss.”

‘PLA uniforms. When seen, people always heading in the opposite direction.’

“He’ll meet us on the riverside, by his warehouse.”

Looming up, concrete strung with old tyres, massaged by strong sable fingers of the river. A nauseous vomit of spent diesel as the prop was thrown into reverse. A rich reek as the Huangpu’s waters churned to the hue of mould on cheese.

“Told you I knew where I was going, Boss.”

Rope in hand, the Mongol bounding onto the concrete apron. Hand over hand in frantic binding.

“What about you, Boss, do you know where you’re fucking going? Lan Li, Boss. A woman like that could be trouble? You know what they say, Boss, never mix business with other fucking business.”

“Who are ‘they’?”

“Don’t know, Boss. ‘They’. Probably the Party. They always say ‘never’. They know how to say ‘never’ in ten thousand fucking ways.”

The Senior Investigator stepping onto the concrete apron. With solid ground, the nausea backing away. Replying with a single word.

“Exactly.”

From the shadow came another shadow, a man waving, Yaobang waving back.

“I see what you mean, Boss. So I shouldn’t worry then?”

“No, Deputy Yaobang. Thank you, but you should not worry.”

Following the figure into the cracked brick alley between the warehouse walls. Danger. Suddenly aware of the vulnerability of soft flesh and the cold heat of a pistol in slumber against a polyester shirt.

Breathless, the man, his words ragged through slit of lips.

“A thousand
yuan
to get you in. No
yuan
, no deal.”

The Big Man laughing. Turning away, farting.

“Take the change out of that, you arsehole. That’s all you’re getting out of me.”

Walking back toward the Mongol and the river. Piao into the warehouseman’s ear.

“He means it, Comrade. My Deputy, not a man to give you the drippings from his nose. If I were you, I would come down in price. Maybe a bottle of whisky? Teacher’s? I would ask him while he is in a good mood. I would not recommend asking him when he is in a bad mood.”

Shouting into the wind.

“Whisky, and I will get you in. Whisky.”

Yaobang stopping, turning.

“One bottle, no fucking more.”

Shaking his head.

“A thousand fucking
yuan
. Who do you think I am? You’d have to make me Party chairman for me to pay you a thousand
yuan
. Now, which way.”

“Here. Here. It’s safe. No one around. No one.”

But pistols already to sweat of palms, their shadows flowing over the brick and loading bay shutters. Keys fumbled, jangled, and then into lock. A black rectangle of space opening. Squeezing through it, an immediate sense of a vast area opening up. Their eyes straining to see in a darkness in which nothing could be seen.

“In here they unloaded. In here. We need light.”

A thump of arc light. The vast area, illuminated but showing nothing but scarred floor.

“I saw them load from the barge. Here. I saw them. Two loads.”

Piao following a slug’s path, grey, almost silver in the light. Crushed, powdered concrete from the centre of the warehouse floor to where steel shutters fell. A deeply recessed button, the Senior Investigator pushing it. A wail of motor and a squeal of a shutter torturously rolling upwards.

“What are you doing? What are you doing?”

The warehouseman running toward the rising wall of steel.

“Don’t be stupid, they will see us.”

Palm seeking the large, red mushroom button. Piao grabbing his wrist.

“They are long gone, Comrade, long gone.”

Across the loading bay apron and the arc lit cobbles leading to where apron met the quay and the river … a stop-start trail of crushed concrete.

“Last night, that’s when they were here.”

Red button. Silence. The steel wall stalling.

“That’s when they moved the loads. Last night.
Wangba dan
. I wasn’t here last night.”

The button, an agonised squeal. The steel wall falling back into place.

“Who would have been here last night?”

“No one.”

“Who would have seen them?”

“No one. All the warehouses are empty. There’s no one anymore, no one.”

“No one? You are sure?”

Pacing. Palms thudded against forehead.

“Yap. Old man Yap.”

“What the fuck’s Yap?”

“Across the river. Yap, I play
mah-jongg
with him. Cheating bastard.”

“What does he do?”

“Yap is Yap. He combs the riverfront. Scrap metals, plastics, anything he can find, or steal …”

“He will have seen?”

The warehouseman already walking to the light switch, the door. Already tasting the fire of the whisky. Japanese whisky, Yamazaki, only ever tasted occasionally. But many years since he had felt the fire of proper whisky across his thirsty tongue.

“Would old man Yap have seen!”

Laughing, coughing, the warehouseman.

“Was Mao Zedong a fucking communist?”

*

“What’s it fucking worth?”

Yap, the old comrade, warmed his hands in front of a brazier. A one-roomed shack, old bits of wood, corrugated iron, tacked onto the side of a desolate warehouse; a single, rotting tooth in a black mouth. Barely room for them. Bundles of newspapers, boxes of scrap metal, plastics, in static falls around them.

“Worth? Worth?”

Outraged the warehouseman, his eyes glowing as he knelt.

“It is our civic duty, our social responsibility to assist our PSB comrades.”

Yap throwing another piece of driftwood onto the brazier. Sparks in yellow flight to a corrugated steel heaven.

“What’s it fucking worth?”

Head in hands, the warehouseman re-assessing.

“Half a bottle of whisky. Good stuff mind. Not Japanese shit.”

“Deal.”

Yap, spitting on a palm as tough as leather and extending it. The warehouseman grasping it reluctantly. Mourning that half a bottle of his whisky was now poured into it.

“So, old papa. What did you see?”

The beachcomber warming his hands, regarding Yaobang through bored eyes.

“
Ta ma de
. You’re a big boy. Bet your mama had a tough job squeezing you out.”

“Less of me, old papa. Think of your fucking whisky and tell us what you saw.”

“Not Japanese the whisky, eh? You’re sure?”

“Sure. Now get on with it.”

His eyes filled with the white and yellow fire of the embers.

“Late last night I was having a shit out the back. There was a boat, big bastard, tying up beside the warehouse, the Happy Sow Import Export Company. Unusual, very unusual. Lots of activity. Men jumping about. Civilian crew. Others in uniform … People’s Liberation Army.”

“You sure it was PLA, old papa?”

“As sure as you’re a fat bastard. Of course I’m sure, what do you take me for? Anyway, all in a hurry and jumping around like monkeys. The shutter goes up in the warehouse. Ropes, pulleys, and they’re hauling these cargoes across the concrete floor. Across and over the loading bay apron and across the cobbles. A right fucking noise.”

Piao staring across river, rubbing his hands and moving closer to the brazier, its fierce heat tightening the skin of his face.

“Comrade Yap, the river is wide at this point, and you saw all of this with your naked eyes?”

“Good eyes. Good eyes …”

Pointing fiercely at the bloodshot orbs, before rifling in a large box directly behind him.

“Good eyes and these.”

A heavy pair of East German binoculars, not unlike the Senior Investigator’s. Yap polishing the lenses with his dirty sleeve.

“Carl Zeiss lenses, found them on the foreshore, six years ago this August. The best, the very best. You can see Clavius with these. You can even pick out Copernicus in detail.”

“What the fuck are Clavius and Copernicus?”

Piao, a hand on the Big Man’s shoulder, a whisper in his ear.

“They are craters on the moon.”

Yap smiling.

“ ‘When the finger points to the moon the idiot studies the finger’.”

“So, Comrade Yap, through your Carl Zeiss eyes what else were you able to see?”

“Everything.”

“Everything?”

“Fucking everything.”

Piao warming his hands once more. A chill, a coldness, that would not leave him.

“So Comrade Yap, tell me of ‘fucking everything’?”

“From the quay they hoisted the cargoes onto the flat deck with the use of the derrick. The first one, there was no problems. The second …”

Looking deeper into the brazier.

“There was a stiff wind as now. One of the ropes tying down the heavy tarpaulin got fouled up on the derrick’s cable. They lowered the cargo back onto the quay. Then the funny business started.”

“What ‘funny business’?”

“He ordered all of the crew and uniformed PLA off the deck and downstairs. Then he and a few others untangled the mess, tied the tarpaulin back in place. Then the uniformed lot were called back on deck. They lifted the cargo and swung it onto the boat.”

“ ‘He’, Comrade Yap. You said, ‘he’.”

“Their
ganbu
boss. Top
cadre
. Well dressed, elegant.”

“Anything else about him that you would remember. Anything at all?”

“Elegant, but an ugly bastard. His face full of craters like the moon. His face, Clavius and Copernicus.”

“You fucking sure, old papa?”

“Of course. Of course.”