Qiu Xiaolong - Shanghai Redemption

“Not about any of the specifics. To us, he simply said that it might be just as well.”

“Why do you think he said that?”

“I think Ji might have guessed something. The target in question might have been someone important, possibly a high-ranking official. If a powerful person is caught, there can be consequences for the squad. Ji usually keeps to himself, you know. That’s why he was made the head of the squad.”

“A different question. Do you remember which room at the nightclub?”

“As I said, it was on the second floor. It was the one overlooking the street… let me think. Suite 230. Why do want to know?”

“I’m just curious. A Suzhou opera singer has to grasp all the details,” Old Hunter said. “Who was the manager that met you outside the club?”

“I have no idea. He didn’t introduce himself to us. Likely he was the boss there-or one of the bosses. The girls knew him. They were cringing, speaking of him in awe.” Tang went on, after finishing the last spicy catfish nugget in the earthen pot. “Now that I think about it, there was something else weird. Usually, raids like this are reported in the newspapers the next day. This one wasn’t.”

“It must have been a setup. What tough luck for the person who arranged it all!” Old Hunter said, shifting the direction of the conversation. “Thanks, Tang. Things in those places can be so complicated.”

What Tang had told him about that night confirmed the suspicions Chen had expressed to Old Hunter when the two had talked in the teahouse.

As Old Hunter sat there, thinking over the implications of Tang’s narrative, the beer spilled from his trembling hand.

EARLY THE NEXT MORNING, Chen found himself at Cai’s Noodles, sitting at a mahogany table in a slightly raised section on the second floor. His table was leaning against a quaint lattice window that overlooked the somber green canal. He was one of the first customers. He’d slept badly the night before, so he decided to come as soon as the restaurant opened at six.

The other customers appeared to be locals, mostly in their sixties or seventies and some of them even older. He wondered why they were clustering around the lower section near the staircase, instead of sitting on the second floor, close to the windows with their pleasant views.

A waitress placed saucers of local specialties along with a pot of green tea on the table. The dog-eared, oil-stained menu she handed him spoke for the popularity of the restaurant. He began flipping through its pages. The prices weren’t too expensive, especially considering the location of the place. Perhaps Qian was right: the proprietor wasn’t so concerned with making money with the restaurant, having made enough elsewhere.

Sipping at his tea, Chen remembered a vacation not too long ago, when he was still a chief inspector. He was waiting for an attractive woman in a tiny eatery, in another city not too far away…

Now, he was no longer a cop. He was not on vacation. In no mood for romantic fantasies at all.

Last night, he’d gotten another phone call from Old Hunter. The information from Tang confirmed what Chen had suspected. He was the sole target of the raid. The room number, the statements from the two cat girls, the books piled in the room… all of this led to one unmistakable conclusion. The book party had been a setup orchestrated at a higher level and was designed to entrap him.

After the phone call, Chen couldn’t fall asleep. He lay there, awake, trying to put the pieces together in his mind, but got nowhere. By morning he was worn out, and haunted by the ominous feeling that he was far from grasping the crucial piece of this puzzle.

The waitress came over to pour him another cup of tea.

“I’m still waiting to order,” he said, holding up the menu.

Glancing at his watch, He began wondering whether Qian would appear. It was now seven ten. It didn’t really matter, he thought. All he really wanted to do this morning was enjoy a bowl of Suzhou noodles, not dwell on his troubles.

As he was breathing deep into his second cup of the fragrant tea, he heard a flurry of footsteps coming up the stairs. Qian appeared on the landing in a ray of dazzling morning light, waving her hand.

She was wearing a light blue, short-sleeved mandarin dress, with a white cashmere shawl over her shoulders. It accentuated her slender figure, as if she was stepping light-footedly out of another poem by Du Mu.

Down and out, I wander around / crossing rivers and lakes / with a cup of wine, / and her waist willowy, / as if capable of dancing / on my lone palm.

Chen stood up to greet her and then poured her a cup of tea, rather than the wine featured in the Tang lines.

“It’s such a nice place. Thank you for your recommendation, Qian.”

“You have a good memory, Chen.”

The waitress came over to take their order. Chen chose the double topping of smoked fish and slow-cooked pork belly and the noodles in red soup, while Qian settled on shredded pork fried with pickled cabbage in white soup.

“The deep-fried rice paddy eel is the chef’s special. It’s from Cai’s personal farm, so it’s guaranteed to be hormone-free.”

So along with the noodles, they agreed to share a platter of the eels.

“I didn’t think you’d call,” she said, chopsticking up the noodles as the waitress withdrew with an empty tray.

“I’m a detective for hire. So why not? But I’m here in Suzhou to oversee the renovation of my father’s grave. My mother insists that I personally attend to the details, and I happened to have a few days off.”

“You’re a filial son, aren’t you?”

“Well, you may tell my mother that,” Chen said, picking up an eel slice for himself.

“How did you happen to pick that hotel?”

“Because of what you said about this restaurant the last time we met. The hotel is a nice one; it’s also close to here and to the club.”

“So you have also been to the club?”

“No, not yet. But I’ll go there.”

“I didn’t know you were a Suzhou opera fan.”

“What does that have to do with Suzhou opera?”

“You just mentioned the club.”

“Don’t you mean Southern Heavenly World, the nightclub that’s in the hotel?”

“Oh. No. I was talking about the Suzhou opera club. It’s just two minutes’ walk from here.”

“A Suzhou opera club-” That was a disappointment. He’d invited her out for information of a different kind. “Of course I’ll go there too.”

“The Southern Heavenly World nightclub murders the landscape.”

“I couldn’t agree more. Because of my job, I have to visit such places. It reminds me of the Heavenly World in Shanghai, which has almost the same name.”

“I’ve heard that the nightclub here is affiliated with the one in Shanghai. A former colleague of mine works in the Shanghai nightclub.”

“I see,” he said. This was the second time someone had mentioned the affiliation of the two clubs, and this time it was from a more reliable source. “This noodle restaurant is fantastic. There are a lot of customers this early in the morning. We’re lucky to be able to get such a great table, with just the two of us sitting by the windows.”

“This raised section by the windows is more expensive. They charge double for the view, and for the service. The other customers at this hour are mostly local retirees who are not well-to-do like you with your lucrative jobs.”

“Ah, that explains it.”

“And there’s another reason they come so early. They want to get the noodles from the first pot of the morning.”

“Why’s that?”

“When the noodles are freshly made, and boiled in the first pot, the taste is particularly delicious. As the day goes on, the chef has to frequently add water to the pot. Let’s say you come here around noon. At that stage, the water can be floury from all the noodle residue, and there’s a huge difference in the taste.”