A Loyal Character Dancer - [Chief Inspector Chen Cao 02] (7 page)

“Feng divorced his first wife to marry Wen. She was a knockout when she first arrived. Locals tell all kinds of stories about the marriage.”

“Another question. How could Dong have learned that Feng’s in trouble?”

“I don’t know.” Zhao’s eyes did not meet Yu’s. “People here have relatives or friends in New York. Or they must have heard something after Wen’s disappearance.”

“I see.” Yu did not really see, but he did not think it appropriate to push the matter further at the moment.

Yu tried to shake off the feeling that there might be something else behind Sergeant Zhao’s vagueness. Sending a cop from Shanghai could be taken as a rebuke to the police in Fujian. That he found himself working with an unenthusiastic partner and unfriendly people was not much of a surprise to him, though. Most of his assignments with Chief Inspector Chen had been anything but pleasant.

He doubted whether Chen’s work was going to be easier in Shanghai. It might appear so to others—the Peace Hotel, an unlimited budget, and an attractive American partner, but Yu knew better. Lighting another cigarette, he thought he would have said a definite no to Party Secretary Li. Because this job was not one for a cop. And that, perhaps, was why he would never become a chief inspector.

When they finished their interviews for the day, the village committee office had closed. There was no public phone service in the village. At Zhao’s suggestion, they were about to set off for the hotel, a twenty-minute walk. As they reached the outskirts of the village, Yu approached an old man repairing a bicycle tire under a weatherbeaten sign. “Do you know anybody with a home phone here?”

“There’re two phones in the village. One for the village committee, and the other at Mrs. Miao’s. Her husband has been in the United States for five or six years. What a lucky woman— to have a phone at home!”

“Thanks. We’ll use her phone.”

“You have to pay for it. Other folks use her phone too. For their people overseas. When people call home from abroad, they speak to Miao first.”

“Like the public phone service in Shanghai,” Yu said. “Do you think Wen used Miao’s phone too?”

“Yes, everybody in the village does.”

Yu turned to Zhao with a question in his eyes.

“Sorry,” Zhao said in embarrassment. “I did not know anything about it.”

* * * *

Chapter 5

he gate had finally opened.

A group of first-class passengers emerged, most of them foreigners. Among them Chief Inspector Chen saw a young woman wearing a cream-colored blazer and matching pants. She was tall, slender, her blond hair fell to her shoulders, and she had blue eyes. He recognized her at once, though she looked slightly different from the image in the photograph, taken perhaps a few years earlier. She carried herself with grace, like a senior executive of a Shanghai joint venture.

“Inspector Catherine Rohn?”

“Yes?”

“I’m Chen Cao, chief inspector of the Shanghai Police Bureau. I’m here to greet you on behalf of your Chinese colleagues. We will be working together.”

“Chief Inspector Chen?” She added in Chinese,
“Chen Tongzhi?”

“Oh yes, you speak Chinese.”

“No, not much.” She switched back into English. “I’m glad to have a partner who speaks English.”

“Welcome to Shanghai.”

“Thank you, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“Let’s get your luggage.”

There was a long line of people queuing up at customs, holding passports, forms, documents, and pens in their hands. The airport suddenly appeared overcrowded.

“Don’t worry about customs formalities,” he said. “You’re our distinguished American guest.”

He led her through another passage, nodding at several uniformed officers by a side door. One of them took a quick look at her passport, scribbled a few words on it, and waved her through.

They walked out with her luggage on a cart and pushed it into the designated taxi area in front of a huge billboard advertising Coca-Cola in Chinese. There were not many people waiting there.

“Let’s talk at your hotel, the Peace Hotel on the Bund. Sorry, we have to take a taxi instead of our bureau car. I sent it back because of the delay,” he said.

“Great. Here comes one.”

A small Xiali pulled up in front of them. He had intended to wait for a Dazhong, made by the joint venture of Shanghai Automobile and Volkswagen, which would be more roomy and comfortable, but she was already giving the hotel name in Chinese to the taxi driver.

There was practically no trunk space in a Xiali. With her suitcase in the front seat beside the driver, and a bag beside her in the backseat, he felt squeezed. She could hardly stretch her long legs. The air conditioning did not work. He rolled down the window, but it did not help much. Wiping the sweat from her brow, she slipped her jacket off. She was wearing a tank top. The bumpy ride brought her shoulder into occasional contact with his. Their proximity made him uncomfortable.

After they passed the Hongqiao area, traffic became congested. The taxi had to make frequent detours due to new construction underway. At the intersection of Yen’an and Jiangning roads, they came to a stop in heavy traffic.

“How long was your flight?” he asked, out of the need to say something.

“More than twenty-four hours.”

“Oh, it’s a long trip.”

“I had to change planes. From St. Louis to San Francisco, then to Tokyo, and finally to Shanghai.”

“China’s Oriental Airline flies directly from San Francisco to Shanghai.”

“Yes, it does, but my mother booked the ticket for me. Nothing but United Airlines for her. She insisted on it, for safety’s sake.”

“I see. Everything—” he left the sentence unfinished—
Everything American is preferable.
“Don’t you work in Washington?”

“Our headquarters is in D.C. but I am stationed in the St. Louis regional office. My parents also live there.”

“St. Louis—the city where T. S. Eliot was born. And Washington University was founded by his grandfather.”

“Why, yes. There’s an Eliot Hall at the university, too. You amaze me, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“Well, I have translated some of Eliot’s poems,’ he said, not too surprised at her surprise. “Not all Chinese cops are like those in American movies, good for nothing but martial arts, broken English, and Gongbao chicken.”

“Those are just Hollywood stereotypes. I majored in Chinese studies, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“I was joking.” Why had he become so sensitive about the image of the Chinese police in her eyes, he wondered. Because of Party Secretary Li’s emphasis? He shrugged his shoulders, touching hers again. “Off the record, I’m quite good at cooking Gongbao chicken, too.”

“I would like to taste that.”

He changed the topic. “So what do you think of Shanghai? It’s your first time, right?”

“Yes, I’ve heard so much about this city. It’s like a dream come true. The streets, the buildings, the people, and even the traffic, all seem strangely familiar. Look,” she exclaimed as the car passed Xizhuang Road. “The Big World. I had a postcard of it.”

“Yes, it’s a well-known entertainment center. You can spend a day there, watching different local operas, not to mention karaoke, dance, acrobatics, and electronic games. And there’s a variety of Chinese food available in Yunnan Gourmet Street beside it. The street is lined with snack bars and restaurants.”

“Oh, I love Chinese food.”

The taxi turned into the Bund. In the play of the neon lights, the color of her eyes seemed not to be exactly blue. He saw a greenish tinge. Azure, he thought. It was not just the color. He was reminded of an ancient line:
The change from the azure sea into the blue mulberry field,
a reference to the vicissitudes of the world, which came to have a melancholy connotation—about the experience of the irrecoverable.

To their left, concrete, granite, and marble buildings stretched along the Bund. Then the legendary Hong Kong-Shanghai Bank came into view, still guarded by the bronze lions which had witnessed numerous changes in its ownership. Next to it, the big clock on the top of the neoclassical Custom House chimed the hour.

“The building with the marble facade and pyramid-shaped tower at the corner of Nanjing Road is the Peace Hotel, originally the Cathay Hotel, whose owner made millions from the opium trade. After 1949, the city government changed its name. Despite its age, it maintains its rank as one of the finest hotels in Shanghai...”

The taxi pulled up in front of the hotel before he finished his speech. That might be as well. He had a feeling that she had been listening to him with tolerant amusement. A uniformed porter strode over, holding the door for the American. The red-capped-and-red-clad employee must have taken Chen for her interpreter and showered all his attention upon her. Chen observed this with wry humor as he helped to put the luggage on a hotel cart.

In the lobby, he heard fragments of jazz. A band composed of old men was playing in a bar at the end of the hall, pumping out old standards for a nostalgic audience. The band was so popular that it was mentioned in the newspapers as one of the Bund’s attractions.

She asked about the dining room. The porter pointed to a glass door farther down the corridor, saying the dining room would remain open until three in the morning, and that there were bars nearby that stayed in business even later.

“We could have a meal now,” he said.

“No, thanks. I ate on the plane. I’ll probably stay awake until two or three o’clock tonight. Jet lag.”

They took the elevator to the seventh floor. Her room was 708. As she slid in the plastic card, light flooded over a large room furnished with dark wood furniture inlaid with ivory. The room was decorated in Art Deco style; posters of actors and actresses of the twenties contributed to the period feeling. The only modern items were a color TV, a small refrigerator beside the dresser, and a coffee maker on the corner table.

“It’s nine o’clock,” Chen said, glancing at his watch. “After the long journey, you must be tired, Inspector Rohn.”

“No, I’m not, but I would like to wash up a little.”

“I’ll smoke a cigarette in the lobby and return in twenty minutes.”

“No, you don’t have to leave. Just sit down for a minute,” she said, gesturing toward the couch. As she headed to the bathroom with a bag, she handed a magazine to him. “I read it on the plane.”

It was a copy of
Entertainment Weekly
with several American movie stars on the cover, but he did not open it. First, he checked the room for bugs. Then he moved to the window. Once he had wandered along the Bund with his schoolmates, wondering, looking up at the Peace Hotel. To look down from its windows had been beyond his wildest dreams.

But the view of Bund Park pulled him back to the present. He had not done anything about the homicide case yet. Farther to the north, buses and trolley buses rumbled across the bridge at frequent intervals. Nearby bars and restaurants displayed neon signs that flashed incessantly. Some stayed open all night. So there would have been hardly any possibility that people could climb into the park without being noticed, just as he had initially surmised.

He turned to make a pot of coffee. The talk he would have to have soon with this American partner would be difficult. He decided to call the bureau first. Qian was still there, dutifully waiting by the phone. Perhaps he had misjudged Qian.

“Detective Yu has just phoned in with an important lead.”