Qiu Xiaolong - Shanghai Redemption

Back in his room, he went through the newspapers one more time, looking through them page by page for any reference at all. With another cup of coffee in hand, he finally found something. On the fourth page of Wenhui Daily , there was a tiny piece tucked in a corner.

“A new collection of T. S. Eliot’s poetry is finally being published, which has been much anticipated by poetry-loving readers. A grand book launch party was held by Shanghai Publishing House last night, and a large number of people came to the celebration.”

It didn’t mention where the party was held, who attended, or anything about Chen, the primary translator, giving a talk at the event.

It was possible that the journalist simply wrote the piece based on a press release, without so much as a fact-checking phone call about the details of the party. Or was it possible that no one there, including Wuting or Rong, was aware of the raid? It would certainly be understandable for the nightclub management to keep mum.

All of this, however, pointed to the scenario that occurred to him last night: that the raid was targeting not the Heavenly World, but rather someone who was there-a surprise attack by the police in collaboration with the nightclub management. Chen recalled the surprising overtures of the cat girls and realized that it was very possible that the person they were targeting was the former chief inspector Chen himself.

If so, if he was indeed the target, then he’d had a very lucky escape last night. But that kind of luck wouldn’t last long.

That kind of political assassination was most thorough. Pan Ming, the former Shanghai Propaganda Minister, had been personally and professionally annihilated in a very similar way. During the eventful summer of 1989, Pan had chosen the “wrong side” and was removed from his position. But his political enemies worried that he might be able to stage a comeback. So one evening, he was caught in the company of a naked massage girl. It was obviously a setup, but there was evidence and witnesses, so Internal Security nailed Pan to “the pillory of humiliation.” After he was released from prison several years later, it was rumored that Pan was a broken man, running a small eatery somewhere near Shanghai.

The sponsor of the book launch party, Rong Pan, undoubtedly had close ties to the local government, otherwise his non-state-run bank wouldn’t exist in the first place. As for his fondness for and knowledge of T. S. Eliot, he could have been stuffed with it like a Peking duck, all for the purpose of staging that party.

Was Wuting involved? To what extent? It was a convenient fact that Wuting got an emergency phone call, causing him to leave the nightclub shortly before the raid. Chen had always thought of him as a capable publisher. But it wasn’t easy to run a decent publishing house in this materialistic age, especially under the constraints of Party censorship. That Wuting’s survival might have required some sort of collaboration between the publisher and the authorities wasn’t unimaginable.

But for his mother’s call, Chen-if he was indeed the target-could have ended up like Pan, caught by the police in the company of the two undressed cat girls. There would have been no use in his arguing or trying to explain. Being discovered in such a scenario would have finished him and put him beyond redemption.

Suffering another assault from his dull headache, Chen didn’t want to speculate further.

He picked up the phone and called his mother.

“I’d planned to come over yesterday, Mother, but something unexpected came up. So I had the pictures delivered to you instead.”

“Don’t worry. I know you’re busy. The pictures arrived,” she said. “Last night, I placed them on the small table in front of the Guanyin image and burned incense and candles. Guess what? Sparks flew up from the candles like small flowers, and then the picture quivered a couple of times. It’s a sign.”

She was a devout Buddhist, capable of seeing signs in many things. Chen never tried to argue with her.

“What time, Mother?”

“It was almost ten, I think,” she said. “I was thinking of your father. So the candle must have been his message to us. He’s still around here, blessing and protecting us.”

“Yes, I think so too.” That was around the time the black-clad police were sneaking into the nightclub.

“About the grave renovation-you do whatever is necessary, but don’t spend too much. And don’t go out of your way. You already have a lot on your hands.”

“I have a week’s vacation time right now, so I’m going to go to Suzhou and supervise the renovation. But I’ll come back from time to time.”

“That’s good.”

He said his good-byes and put down the phone. He thought that the sparks from the candle were just another coincidence. As a cop, he didn’t believe in coincidences for the most part, but neither did he see it as a sign.

He started pacing about the apartment. It was a two-bedroom apartment, assigned to him in accordance to his cadre rank. His new bureau head position would entitle him a larger one. In China’s one-party system, to be a Party official meant access to all sorts of privileges, including better housing. In return, he was supposed to place the Party’s interest above everything else.

The pacing didn’t really help him think. The ex-inspector felt an attacking wave of nausea instead, and a cold sweat broke out all over his body.

During the trip to Suzhou, he had thought about lying low, but doing so hadn’t made a difference. The day he came back to Shanghai, he had been lured straight into what might well have been a devilish trap. He wasn’t going to just sit there worrying, with his arms crossed, waiting to be crushed.

But was he absolutely sure that he was the target of the police raid? Or was he being paranoid?

He had to find out.

It would be difficult for him to “investigate.” He had no idea who might be plotting against him in the dark. For years, he had acted, unwittingly or not, against the interests of many people: random speculation was useless. So he decided to start by checking into the nightclub and the people associated with it. But he wasn’t a cop anymore-he didn’t have access to resources like he used to, and any move he made might be closely watched. He looked up the phone number of Tang, the cop who was at the nightclub last night, but before he called Tang, Chen hesitated again. A low-level cop in the Sex Crimes Squad, Tang might not have been told anything about the real target of the raid, particularly one conducted at well-connected place like the Heavenly World.

It wasn’t a good idea, he concluded, for him to contact Tang-at least, not at this moment. There was no telling how Tang would react. Still, if Chen was in fact the target, information from Tang would be essential before Chen could make any definite move.

Had he still been a chief inspector, Chen would have been able to check into the background of the nightclub and its untouchable owner, Shen. As it was, all he could do was stir up the snake.

Approaching Rong could also backfire, given all his possible connections to the people in the city government. For the same reason, Chen thought he’d better not contact Wuting either.

At the same time, he knew that if he was being targeted, he needed to try and buy some time, however short, before the next strike against him.

Finally, Chen wandered back to his desk and settled down to compose a request for one more week’s leave from the city government. In his e-mail, he maintained that he needed more time to prepare for the new position. As a chief inspector, he’d been too busy handling one case after another, and he hadn’t had any time to study the legal system properly. He thought that such a request might not appear unreasonable to the higher authorities. The Legal Reform Committee was rumored to be one of the offices where Party cadres were sent as they prepared for retirement: a nondeputy position, with all the corresponding perks and benefits but not much responsibility. As such, a week off didn’t really matter.