The Ghost Shift (14 page)

Madame Zhou smiled tightly. She looked as if she had plenty of contacts she could call in an emergency. Mei guessed she was right—she ran a brothel with flashing neon lights in the middle of Shenzhen, and nobody had closed it down yet.

“You help me and it won’t happen. A girl called Tang Liu used to work here, didn’t she?”

“The men liked Tang Liu. She got plenty of calls.”

“Why did she leave?”

“They all leave. I guess she got bored.”

Mei sat opposite. “I heard she found herself a boyfriend.”

Madame Zhou shrugged. “Maybe.”

“A westerner? In town for business?”

“Maybe.”

“What happens when your girls find a special man? Do you let them go and wave goodbye?”

Madame Zhou grimaced. “Young girl, you’re crazy. I take good care of them. I tell them, don’t give a man your number. Don’t get trapped in a hotel where no one can see. Some men think they can do what they want with you. Don’t want to get into trouble? Better be careful. If he wants to visit you, he can call Madame Zhou and make an appointment. I’m your chaperone.”

“And you take the money.”

As if on cue, there was a bang and a scream from the hallway. Madame Zhou was at the door in an instant. Mei followed her into the hallway. The businessman she had seen in the VIP room with a girl on his lap was splayed on the ground, held down by a youth in a black T-shirt.

Madame Zhou chuckled icily. “Who’s been a silly boy? It’s time to drink water. Enough fun for the night.”

She turned to Mei. “See? I care for them. I cared for Tang Liu.”

Mei nodded. “So you’ve got her boyfriend’s number.”

Madame Zhou regarded her carefully, weighing her best strategy, and then she nodded.

Lockhart was standing
by the window when the phone rang. He was on the sixteenth floor of the Peninsula Hotel in Kowloon, watching the Star Ferry plow its way across Victoria Harbor to Hong Kong Island. A southern wind was blowing, pushing the smog toward the mainland.

Hong Kong’s skyscrapers gleamed in the dark—the lattice of the Bank of China and the white-tipped International Financial Center tower. The water was covered with ferries, lit with neon colors. When he’d come to China, Hong Kong had been an island of wealth in a sea of poverty. Now Kowloon was rich and Shenzhen’s skyline had erupted to the north. The money had moved across the water.

The mobile phone on the bed pealed with the Nokia ringtone, and he turned in hope. Hardly anyone knew this number, and only one person was likely to be calling him. He strode across the room and threw himself on the bed, fumbling with the buttons. The terrible weight of anxiety and guilt lifted as he answered, longing for relief.

Even in desperation, Lockhart did not say his name, nor utter hers—he was better than that. He waited for her voice.

“Mr. Davies, how are you? It is Madame Zhou calling.”

The voice was unbearably bright and polished, and he felt a crushing sense of misery as his hope died. He spoke instinctively, not knowing what he was saying but desperate to finish the call, to close the blinds and to lie there in darkness, shutting out reality.

“Hello, Madame Zhou.”

She did not appear to hear. “Can you hear me, Mr. Davies?” she repeated loudly. “It is Madame Zhou. We haven’t seen you for a long time. My girls wish to entertain you again.”

“That’s kind, but—”

“Would you like to visit? When can I make an appointment for you?”

“I’m afraid I have business here.”

“Mr. Davies, I have a message for you from Tang Liu. She is here and wants to spend more time with you.”

Lockhart shut his eyes, unable to cope. He had believed that he had seen Liu for the last time. She would disappear back home and stay there until the job was done. He had tried to find the most stable of Madame Zhou’s brood, had thought the deal would stick. It was her namesake he longed to see again.

“I thought she had gone home.”

“She has returned. We are so happy to see her again.”

“Please tell Liu I hope she is well. But it will be difficult to meet with her. I’m sorry.”

There was a pause on the other end of the line. Lockhart thought he heard a whisper in the background.

“Liu says you must come. She will not be able to keep her secret unless you help her.”

His instinct was to shut the phone off, go down in the elevator, and throw it into Victoria Harbor. He didn’t want anything to do with the Golden Dragon or Tang Liu or this tawdry blackmail. But he couldn’t do that—the device was his only lifeline. He crafted a reply, trying to calculate how much trouble they could cause. He imagined that Madame Zhou had done this before.

“Could I speak to her, Madame Zhou?”

“It is impossible, I’m afraid. Liu is not here at the moment, but she wants me to arrange a meeting.”

He sighed. “Is it money? Can I help in that way?”

“Oh, Mr. Lockhart.” She sounded shocked, as if he were rude to suggest that cash was her motive, rather than engineering a touching reunion. “Liu wants to see you. Please don’t disappoint her.”

“Very well. I will come tomorrow,” he said and terminated the call.

Lockhart put the phone back on the bed. He’d known this kind of thing before—a fool thinking that, because Lockhart had paid a bribe, he could be blackmailed for more. He wondered if it was Liu’s idea or a racket by Madame Zhou. Either way, they would discover they were wrong.

The news broke overnight. Two women caught Mei as she stepped out of her room to ask if she’d heard.

“I can’t believe it,” she said, and they nodded with wide eyes and solemn faces, excited at passing on the gossip but aware that they should not look like they relished it too much. She did believe it, of course: She’d been dreading it for days.

They had come to arrest the Wolf at four in the morning—a matter of show since guards were posted outside his house and he’d been asleep, alone. The police could have walked across the compound after breakfast just as easily. But that wasn’t how the Party behaved when it wanted to make a public example of someone. After all, the official in charge of preventing corruption had been caught taking a bribe.

Mei composed her expression into shocked surprise and kept it that way as she listened to the others. He’d tried to escape through his garden when they came, they’d found a stash of foreign currency beneath the frame of his piano, he had an apartment in Hong Kong. One cadre, the daughter of a village mayor who seemed perpetually on the edge of tears, denounced the Wolf in sorrow.
How can the people believe what their leaders say? It is a terrible day for the Party.

“What do you think, Mei?” she asked, her eyes glistening.

“It’s shocking,” Mei agreed.

She had known it was coming because he’d told her.
Goodbye, Song Mei
, had been his last words to her; later, he had put a finger to his lips as he looked down from the roof.
Don’t say anything.
Amid
her fear at what would happen and her sense of isolation, she was angry. He’d led her into a maze and abandoned her, shattering her life with only a hint as to why.
Find her father.
But if the girl was her sister, wasn’t her father Mei’s father too?
Her
father, the Wolf had said, and he used words deliberately.

She was used to isolation. She’d felt it from her first moment of consciousness, the knowledge that her parents had left her behind. As a toddler, it hadn’t worried her because her playmates were the same. But as she had grown, she had eventually realized that they weren’t average children. Others had mothers and fathers, if not siblings. They were born to two people who loved each other and together made a child to care for. She was not. It was a tantalizing, depressing unknown—a void that couldn’t be filled. Had they never loved her? Had she disappointed them?

Lectures were canceled, investigations put on hold. Everyone was told to gather in the auditorium at ten o’clock. When she arrived, the room was full of people awaiting fresh gossip. Mei scanned the space for Yao. He was sitting seven rows down, by himself. She walked around the rear circle and down the same aisle, taking a place two rows in front of Yao. When she glanced back at him to signal her presence, his expression didn’t change.

A single podium stood on the stage, the red national flag draped behind it. The audience waited in silence. After fifteen minutes, a door opened and a line of officials filed in, taking seats on the front row. Another five minutes passed. Then Pan Yue walked onto the stage. Her expression was like the cadres Mei had encountered first—solemn, yet filled with excitement. Her face was flushed, and she looked as if she had just won a prize.

“Young comrades, thank you for being here this morning. I know how busy you are,” she said, ignoring the fact that they’d been given no choice. “Remember this day, for it will be your most important lesson. All those who fulfill their duties with honesty and vigor need fear nothing. Only those who betray the Party will suffer. I know some will have doubts and may feel uncertain about the future. I cannot lift your spirits alone, and our leaders wish to encourage you. It is my honor to introduce Secretary Chen Longwei.”

Mei’s heart thudded and two cadres in the row in front of her glanced at each other in awe at how the Wolf’s arrest had so quickly overturned the old order. Chen had never intruded on the Commission’s business before—he had left the Wolf to run his empire. She felt sick at their eager innocence.

As Chen emerged from the side of the stage, the line of officials at the front stood up, and the cadres in the row behind them followed, the wave rippling past Mei to the rear. Mei studied Chen’s walk. He placed his feet as gently as he’d done on the roof of the Long Tan building.

Chen waved both hands downward to make his listeners sit. Microphone in hand, he walked forward until he was at the front of the stage and looked out at the faces.

“No need to be formal.” He smiled, and the officials laughed, the tension easing. “I wanted to come here today to talk to you and to reassure you. You know why that is important to me? Because you’re the future of this Party, its sixth generation, and you will determine whether it thrives past this generation, as it has thrived until now, in the service of the Guangdong people. That’s quite a responsibility, but I know you’re up to it.”

He passed a hand over his jaw and wiped away his smile.

“Yours is an enormous responsibility because the Commission ensures that the Party earns the people’s loyalty. There are many temptations and even those we least expect to succumb can fall into the trap. Even your leader—the man you most trusted—has let you down. It is an awful day when that happens. A moment of confusion and danger.”

He bowed his head, walking to the edge of the stage and then down some steps onto the floor. Then he leaned against the stage and raised the microphone. The room remained silent, but the silence had turned from expectant nervousness to rapt attention.

“I’m older than you. I’ve witnessed what can happen when the people lose faith. You’ve read your history books. Maybe your parents have told you things. Mistakes were made because the people lost trust in the Party. I was one of those who suffered. It won’t happen
again.” He paused for effect, then emphasized each word with stabbing gestures. “It—will—not—happen.”

Chen smiled, as if he’d been caught in terrible memories but had shaken them off. Then he slowly ascended an aisle of the auditorium as he spoke, like a talk show host moving through his audience. Mei realized with alarm that he was heading in her direction.

“We have a task. It’s simple, but tough. It demands effort from you all. You must be honest and willing to criticize yourselves. When something of this nature happens, we must ask ourselves searching questions. Did I compromise myself? Did I take part in wrongdoing? Did I hold my tongue when my duty was to speak?”

Chen’s eyes were on her. He was four steps away, then three. She could hardly hear. He halted one step below her and smiled at the cadres in her row.

“You’re young. I wish I had your energy and your ambition.” His gaze settled on the cadre next to Mei, and he spoke at her. His eyes were copper, his pupils narrow. “You can learn from this and move on. But if you lie to us, the Party will know.”

Mei’s fingers gripped her knee and she felt words rising in her throat. In that moment, she wanted to confess, to clear herself of whatever crime the Party thought she had committed—to cast aside the past few days. Chen walked on, his gaze switching off like a searchlight being extinguished. He took three steps forward and turned to the stage, his hand falling on Yao’s shoulder.

“Those who are open have nothing to fear, and I know that you will be honest and support Comrade Pan in her task. Then our Party’s leaders in Beijing will know we are loyal and true.”

He raised his hands, starting to clap. The sound of his palms echoed around the hall like a shot, then another one. As the third clap sounded, Pan rose and joined him, followed by the other officials and then the cadres, until the room echoed with applause. It died down only when Chen had left the stage and Pan had signaled for them to leave the auditorium.