Qiu Xiaolong - Shanghai Redemption

“You really are an experienced cop,” Peiqin said.

“That’s what Chen said.”

Old Hunter then pulled out a small cassette tape. “Peiqin is right. No one can remember everything that’s said, and most of their conversations are probably irrelevant, but Chen might be able to pick out what we’re missing.”

“Give me the tape,” Peiqin said. “And the one with your conversation with Tang, too. I’ll duplicate them, and you can come to my restaurant tomorrow morning to pick up the copies. I’ll also make a copy of the tape of our conversation tonight. And, of course, I’ll give you a bowl of our best noodles.”

“That sounds good.”

“If you think you’re going to meet with Chen in the next few days, you can give him the recordings. But if necessary, I can also give them directly to him.”

“But how, Peiqin?”

“He likes noodles. If he calls you, recommend the noodles at Shanghai Number One. That’s what he calls our new restaurant, since he likes the noodles mixed with green onion and oil so much. He’ll know what you mean,” she said, then added, “Of the three of us, I might be the least noticeable. A lot of people come to the restaurant. So if Chen comes in, no one will suspect anything.”

WHEN OLD HUNTER FINALLY left, it was already past ten thirty.

“Go ahead and go to bed, Yu,” Peiqin said. “I’ll join you as soon as I’ve finished cleaning up.”

Yu lay on their bed, smoking, thinking, and listening to her footsteps in the kitchen. It would take her a while to clean up, he supposed. Turning over, he pulled out the cassette player and put in the tape that Old Hunter had recorded in the ernai café. The tape didn’t start from the beginning, but that was fine with him.

A: We really are pathetic, spending hours with a cup of coffee, stirring our lives with a little spoon, serving our men from head to foot. And as a result, we’re called all sorts of bad names, as if we’re the ones responsible for the problems of a corrupt society.

B: Oh be content, woman. What those provincial sisters earn by working hard all day isn’t enough to even buy a cup of coffee here.

C: Not only is it a pathetic life, we don’t know even how long it’ll last. Youth slips away like a bird. It’s just a matter of time before we’ll be dumped in the trash like a worn-out mop.

B: Enjoy it while you can. Why worry so much?

A: There are always younger girls out there, pushing forward, wave upon wave, as in the grand Yellow River. We live in a state of constant apprehension, afraid that we’re going to be replaced at any time.

C: Kang is sending his daughter to private school in the States. The tuition alone is forty thousand dollars. And he’s spending twenty thousand more for a chaperone.

E: Kang’s daughter is nothing. Have you heard about the First Son? He’s getting an apartment to himself in the best neighborhood in New York City. And it was all paid for in cash.

B: Well, my man is not heartless. He’s promised to pay for me to go abroad in five years…

Yu pressed the stop button, wondering how the conversations on the tape could possibly lead to anything. Then he pulled out a granite go board along with a box of black and white stones from under the bed.

It was a game he enjoyed playing with Chen. Both of them felt like they were talking through the white and black stones, as if they were comparing notes. Chen was brilliant but eccentric, inclined to putting his pieces in positions unimaginable to others. In contrast, Yu preferred a more conventional approach, building up pressure, step by step, until the game reached a climax. They had one thing in common, however. Neither of them gave up easily. Each of them, when faced with a board that seemed hopeless, would persist, making one stubborn move after another, hoping for a dramatic turnaround.

Yu found himself positioning one black piece on the board, and then a white one, as if his right hand were playing against the left. Pondering the possible moves in both sides of a game of go was a bit like weighing all the possible actions he could take as the new head of the Special Case Squad.

At present, he was pushing ahead with the Liang case, whether it was relevant to Chen’s current troubles or not. It wasn’t really a “special case.” Liang was a crooked official, the head of the commerce department for the Huangpu District, and he ran a private company on the side. Unluckily for him, his corruption had been exposed on the Internet.

Yu wasn’t nearly as Web-savvy as Peiqin, but he’d learned how to run a search on the Internet, combing through all the online posts on a particular topic, some of them barely relevant, and some, barely reliable. Liang’s case, however, was a classic example of unbridled corruption. Liang, as an official, was involved in the emerging high-speed train industry being established by the central government. Liang’s private company supplied furnishings for the trains, such as chairs, tables, sinks, and other low-technology items. A couple of weeks ago, a copy of the invoice that Liang’s company was charging the government for those furnishings had been posted on the Internet. The invoice caused a huge storm on the Internet because of the prices Liang was charging the government. A chair, for instance, was being invoiced at 200,000 yuan. On the Internet, people were raising legitimate questions about pricing practices and possible corruption and were demanding that a broad search be launched for any other corruption surrounding Liang and his company. Liang, however, had disappeared before the government could take him into custody. So right now, it was a missing persons case, which had been turned over to Detective Yu’s squad.

Liang couldn’t have pulled off a complicated scheme like that on his own, Yu suspected. According to the People’s Daily , the high-speed train project was both a political and an economic priority. It was a symbol of China’s great progress and was therefore a high-profile project for the central government as well as every department that had a piece of it, including the state council in Beijing, the Railway Ministry, and the Shanghai city government.

According to the rules, any contract had to be awarded to the company with the lowest bid and the most experience. Liang’s company, however, didn’t have any experience manufacturing equipment for trains, and it was widely believed that Liang had used his political connections to land those unbelievably lucrative orders.

There were several popular theories on the Internet about Liang’s disappearance. One was that Liang had gone into hiding somewhere nearby. But with new information and photos constantly being posted on the Internet, he would be spotted the moment he poked his nose out-he couldn’t expect to stay hidden long. Still, it couldn’t be ruled out entirely. Liang might have fled in panic, without giving too much thought about the future.

Another possibility was that Liang had fled China entirely. If this was true, he had to have started preparing for it long ago, had a passport and visa ready, and a substantial sum of money stashed abroad. But would he really have left his wife behind? Other “naked officials”-people whose corruption was exposed on the Internet-sent their families out of the country before they themselves fled. However, there might be something special about Liang’s wife that kept Liang from sending her abroad. Yu thought he’d heard something about her having a dubious background, but he couldn’t remember anything specific.

There was yet another possibility, Yu thought broodingly, but so far there was nothing to support it except for a slightly odd conversation he’d had with Party Secretary Li. Li had asked Yu about the progress of the investigation into Liang’s disappearance, and when Yu filled him in, Li clearly implied that it wasn’t necessary for the Special Case Squad to go all out to find Liang.