Citizen One (29 page)

‘Words that another has said. Yes, exactly what another has said,’ thought Piao.

“You are not a cobblestone that has allowed itself to become worn, Sun Piao, smoothed. A trait that can make enemies. There are those that do not wish stones thrown into the stillness of the lakes in which they swim.”

Zoul, wiping his brow.

“No. It is not about what I want, Sun Piao. It is about one who swims in a lake that you have been throwing stones into. Large rocks into …”

A finger pointing into mist.

“It is about what he wants.”

Through the mist, a figure firming, hardening.

“You look surprised, Piao. I am disappointed that you should be surprised, an investigator of your reputation.”

“Then you are very easily disappointed, Colonel Qi.”

The
tai zi
pristine even when half-naked, a towel wrapped around his waist. Everything toned, gold, flexed and in place. A glossy magazine photograph in the flesh. Piao stunned. So much at odds with his world. A life of holes in your socks and in the soles of your shoes. Elastic of underpants, exhausted, drooping.

Zoul calling over another masseur.

“Colonel, lie on the marble. Let the masseur relieve you of the strains of the day.”

“Too far Zoul. You go too far. I will not have a blind man touch me. Get away from me.”

An aside designed only for the Comrade Chief Officer to hear.

“Don’t get above yourself, Zoul. We are not comrades-in-arms. We are not old friends. You serve a purpose, nothing more.”

A shrill alarm sounding out from a heavy watch on his wrist. Without even looking down, switching it off. Re-setting it for two hours later. Smiling at Piao.

“You will want to know why I am here? Why I have arranged this, this meeting of minds.”

“I will not disappoint again, Comrade Qi. But I might surprise you. I know why you wish me here.”

“You do, do you? Then tell me, Senior Investigator. Tell me.”

“The higher the
cadre
, Comrade
Tai Zi
, the further down for you and your sponsor, your father, to tumble. You wish to bribe. If that does not achieve the result that you seek, you wish to threaten. My surprise was only that you should be allowed to present your menu at the invitation of my Comrade Chief Officer.”

“I take objection …”

A sharp knife cutting Zoul’s words, as if they were fat, from a slice of pork.

“I was able to ‘persuade’ your Comrade Chief Officer that this was the best way forward. But down to business, Senior Investigator? Time, as they say, is
yuan
.”

Hands clasped in a manicured steeple of gold rings.

“You are an irritant, Senior Investigator. Nothing more. But I have, as they say, bigger pork bellies to carve than you. Business that I need to conduct that has the full blessing of the People’s Liberation Army. To put it bluntly, what I do raises much needed funds to increase the potency of an army that is massively underfunded by our government. I am serving a great national interest. Sometimes in this process irritants may need to be soothed. Bumps on the road to where I need to get to, smoothed out.”

“Young women, bumps in the road? Two of my Comrade Officers, bumps in the road, Comrade
Tai Zi
?”

Sitting up, the Senior Investigator, his head swimming. The masseur’s fingers leaving him. Now just another blind man, not knowing what to do with redundant hands.

“You talk of these human lives as if they were inconsequential. Mere inconveniences. I doubt that their parents, lovers, children, would agree, Comrade
Tai Zi
.”

“You fail to understand how important my work is.”

“More important than these lives, Colonel?”

Silence.

“No, Colonel Qi, you fail to understand how important these lives are.”

Silence.

“And you, Colonel
Tai Zi
, a Muslim. I thought that being a Muslim would bring purity to a life? An understanding of life’s value? The Koran has much to say on the worth of life. ‘All is from God’, Sura 4:80.”

“I am not a Muslim.”

“A Muslim who rips young women up, as if they were old copies of the People’s Daily. ‘Judgement is with God only’, Sura 6:57.”

“I am not a Muslim.”

“A Muslim who uses and trades in prostitutes. Who heads a pack of hounds that perpetrate the most depraved sexual acts. ‘Be good to parents, and to the kindred, and to orphans, and to the poor, and to a neighbour, whether kinsman or newcomer, and to a fellow traveller, and to the wayfarer, and to the slaves whom your right hand holds; verily God loves not the proud, the vain boaster’, Sura 4:40.”

“I do not use whores, and I am not a Muslim.”

“Three denials of your prophet, Comrade
Tai Zi
. Are there no lessons for you to learn from earlier prophets and their followers?”

The princeling’s smell of violence covered in a worn veneer of Cologne. Of anger suppressed by education and upbringing.

“ ‘We will inflict on them the torture of Hell’s fire. Each time their skin will be torched, burnt totally, we will replace it with a new one, to make them taste still more the torture’. You know these words, yes, Comrade PLA? You used them as you walked from the
fen-chu’s
interview room. Sura 4:56.”

Silence.

“Your silence is another denial of your prophet, Comrade PLA. It intrigues me that should you deny being a Muslim, although I realise that it is not the religion of your father, the Senior Colonel?”

Silence.

“Our Muslim comrades are not under persecution within the People’s Republic, unlike other religions. So why deny a truth? What is the secret that is at the heart of this, Comrade PLA?”

Closer. Eyes locked together.

“I cannot walk away from this, PLA. Not this. Too many things I have walked away from in my life. And my soul is holed by those acts. As a Muslim, you would understand. But I will not walk away from this, or from you, Comrade PLA.”

Qi’s breath smelling of peppermint and putrid meat.

“Not even with 500,000
yuan
in your pocket, Senior Investigator? Or perhaps you have no need for money, Comrade PSB?”

“No, Comrade
Tai Zi
, even though money thinks that I am dead I cannot walk away with your
yuan
in my pocket. Not when I have seen the faces of those who you have murdered and those who mourn them.”

“Such a waste, Piao. You have nothing in your hands but, but …”

Manicured fingers raking the air.

“Mist.”

“It is your turn to disappoint me, Comrade Colonel. And my turn to surprise you once more.”

Lying once more on the marble. Its coldness shocking him. The masseur’s fingers back to his skin.

“I have much more than you think. The ligature tightens, Comrade Colonel. Can you not feel it?”

Qi, pulling loose the heavy gold necklace.

“No, Piao.”

Eyes meeting through the mist.

“You have nothing. Nothing.”

Cao-mu jie-bing
. “The dead cat turned.”

“Mao Zedong. August 20
^th
, 1933. Southern Kiangsi.”

The Comrade Colonel, like a boxer rolling with the punch.

“Perhaps even I underestimated you, Senior Investigator. There is nothing more dangerous than an honest man.”

Getting to his feet and standing over Piao. A fierce whisper across his cheek.

“You know that you, and those whom you protect, will not survive, Senior Investigator? You have become irritants. You have become bumps on a road that I must go down.”

“A threat of murder to an officer in the service of the People’s Republic of China. An employee of the Ministry of Security. A serious charge, Comrade PLA. I am sure that my Comrade Chief Officer who is a witness to that threat will agree?”

Zoul desperately looking to Qi for a sign.

“He is correct, Comrade Colonel, such a threat is, is …”

“Is what, Zoul, dangerous, unwise, undiplomatic.”

Laughing, the
tai zi
, but it stitched in place with raw anger.

“You are not dealing with a common
tu-fei
, Senior Investigator. Murder, Senior Investigator? I have not talked of murder. I am a Colonel in the PLA. No, Piao, not murder. You have become too high profile for such a blunt instrument.”

Zoul stuttering.

“C-Comrade Qi, please. Please. So many witnesses. Such a scene, it is not necessary. Perhaps you should modify your language.”

The
tai zi’s
hand to the sweaty flab of his shoulder, pulling the Comrade Chief Officer from the marble plinth.

“Quiet Zoul. It was not your time to speak.”

Laughing as his vice-like grip increased.

“No, Piao, not murder. There are many ways to skin a cat …”

*

The Big Man, China Brand embraced between his lips, was sitting in the Shanghai Sedan on the Yi Shan Road. As a stepping stone in a river of bright water, streams of Forever Bicycles smoothing their way around the Sedan’s dented bumpers.

“So how was it mixing with the fucking rich and powerful, Boss?”

The sound of a cigarette lighter. Of a long, lingering inhalation of cheap smoke.

“What about the massage, Boss? I’ve heard that those blind masseurs have magic in their fingertips.”

Just the sound of bells. So many bright, tinkling bells. Yaobang studying Piao’s face before starting the car, sounding the horn in warning to the cyclists as he pulled further out into the Yi Shan Road, moving north.

“That fucking bad Boss?”

Flicking his cigarette butt out of the quarter window.

“Then let’s hope that the Wizard has had a better day than you.”

*

Home. Flat 402, the December 10
^th
1949 apartment block.

A door’s creak and open. Electric light, as yellow as sixty-a-day-nicotine fingers, spilling into the hallway.

“Comrade Piao, I really must complain. The stranger in your flat, really. The noises that he has been making. And the comings and goings. I have to notify you that I will be writing a letter to the Party. Your attendance at the small group’s meetings has been pitiful. You really must …”

Piao turning, facing the Street Committee Chairwoman.

“I am sorry, Comrade, I do not understand what you mean. Noises?”

“You know exactly what I mean, Comrade Piao. Noises like I have never heard before. As if a pig was being castrated in your living room.”

Eyes catching eyes, a message passed between them. Immediately turning, Piao, the Big Man, moving silently up the staircase. Hands to the inside of their jackets, fingertips to diamond-cut steel. Silhouette pistols moving ahead of them. Senses alive, seeking a shift in the unlabelled nuances that marked this place as home. Nothing in the deeply cornered folds of blackness, nearing the landing … nothing.

Behind them, the Comrade Street Committee Chairwoman following, her voice rising, reverberating.

“How dare you walk away from me, Comrade. This is official business, Party business. Have some respect.”

Piao spinning around, the Street Committee Chairwoman’s eyes widening. Hands moving to her baby-bird face. Her toothless mouth, a tunnel of screaming words.

“A gun. A gun.”

For an instance, Piao also glancing down at the pistol. Always shocking him to see his hand wrapped around its steel. A doubt, but then swiftly moving back up the steps that he had retreated from. The Big Man passing him, moving toward the Street Committee Chairwoman. His hand, dinner-plate huge, clamping around her mouth.

The alarm now sounded. Each step, knowing that they would know. And only the one entrance into his flat. Rimless rounds’ sightlines already chosen? A headshot? Shot to mid-chest?

Piao, two steps at a time now. A violent charge. Deep guttural yell in his throat. Slamming the half-open door into the wall. A splinter of wood, a yelp of metal hinges twisting. Expecting the bullet’s burn, but nothing. Almost on his knees, crouched, ball-like, except for the stretched extension of double arms, meeting, pointing with rude anodised finger. His whole body at one with his gun. Unmoving. Senses reaching out for the signals that danger emanates. Nothing. Slowly, with effort, his posture relaxing, adrenalin’s tide receding. Moving down the short hallway. Slowly rounding the door. The Wizard, static, facing the computer, his back to the door, a half-full bottle of Southern Comfort within reach.

Moving further into the room. And then it was upon him, like the heat of a dog’s breath before its teeth puncture your skin. One smell, besides that of hot wiring and hot plastic that a new computer possesses. Only one smell, as clearly defined as your own signature on your own cheque, a monsoon of blood. The Senior Investigator holstering his pistol.

Slowly moving around the side of the Wizard. Eyes alive to all. Each spent angle, horror, in fanning degrees. Horror at the gradations and depths that the colour red can possess. From the Wizard’s mouth, down his chin, neck and chest, pooling in his lap … blood. From his lap, down his legs, into his shoes, onto the carpet. So much blood, it would have to be a large wound to cause such a tide. Piao’s eyes searching, but finding nothing obvious. Reaching for Rentang’s wrist, no perceptible pulse.

“Yaobang, here. Quick.”

Footfalls in the hallway. The Street Committee Chairwoman’s face married to the palm of his hand. As the Big Man breached the living-room door his hand falling from the old woman’s face. Piao answering the question unasked.

“I think he’s dead. I cannot find a pulse. An ambulance, call one immediately.”

Blood spattered over the telephone. The Big Man using a loose sheet of paper to pick up the handset, so as not to leave his own fingerprints. Not noticing as the Street Committee Chairwoman ran for the stairs, both hands to her face in witness to a silent scream. Not noticing unconsciousness chasing her down with faster feet, her legs folding as if they were deck chairs. Not hearing her body meet the floor in a violent embrace.

The Senior Investigator’s attention drawn to a tumbler, deeply filled, near the far right corner of the computer monitor. The tumbler, its red contents almost overflowing. Southern Comfort, tainted to the hue of tinned tomatoes. Piao, with reluctance, knowing already what he would find, taking a pair of tweezers from his inside pocket, forcing them wide open. Fishing. Something solid in liquid. Bobbed squirms, away from the tweezers pinch, but steel snaring its quarry. Through the liquid, a deeper red moving through red. Slowly, carefully, withdrawing a tongue, root and branch. The Wizard’s tongue.