Qiu Xiaolong - Shanghai Redemption

There was more than an hour before the car was due to arrive.

Back at his apartment, Chen checked in his refrigerator, since he’d left the hotel in Suzhou too early for breakfast. There was only a half a bag of frozen dumplings from a long time ago. He boiled a pot of water and threw in the dumplings. While he was waiting, he began jotting down some points for his talk. He’d given speeches like this before. It wouldn’t be too difficult to pull this one together.

Halfway through his outline, however, he got another spam text message on his phone. This one was even more bizarre than the first. It actually consisted of nothing but the last stanza of “Sweeney among the Nightingales” by T. S. Eliot, by no means a frequently quoted poem. Chen recognized it because of its inclusion in the new volume of Chinese translations. In an intertextual twist, the Eliot stanza alludes to the fatal scene of Agamemnon walking across the purple carpet, entirely unsuspicious, the moment when he’s murdered by his wife.

But how could that possibly be a practical joke sent as a spam text?

What… what if it was the message meant for him alone? From someone familiar with Eliot, sent to him as a warning about some imminent disaster, from something or someone he didn’t suspect at all.

He shuddered at the possibility.

Then he was reminded of Rong, whom he had met at the Heavenly World the night he was set up. Rong was familiar with Eliot, and familiar with Chen’s knowledge of Eliot. Chen hadn’t had the time to check into the background of the banker yet, but judging from the e-mails gathered by Melong, Rong hadn’t been involved in the setup at the book launch party. As a literature-loving banker, and possibly a designated donor, Rong might have heard about something that was going to happen at today’s conference.

It might be a wild guess, but Chen was starting to think that perhaps it wasn’t so important that he attend the conference this morning…

He was startled by a metal smell wafting over from the stove’s gas burner. The water had boiled away, and the dumplings had burned into a black and reddish mess at the bottom of the pot. He quickly threw the pot into the sink.

Glancing at his watch, he decided to leave.

He tried to think while he was heading out. He turned off his cell phone, lest his thoughts be interrupted by the phone.

As he walked past, several people stood by side of the road, waving frantically at taxis, shouting in vain. Party Secretary Li was probably right about needing to send over a bureau car. Still, it didn’t look like it was about to rain anytime soon.

Abruptly, he stopped walking and took out his phone. He checked the weather forecast, and an image of a smiling sun beamed at him. He pondered for a moment, then composed a short text message to Li. In the message, Chen said that there was an accident during the renovation of his father’s grave site and that he had to rush back to Suzhou. Then, turning off the phone, Chen headed to the train station.

He wasn’t ready to go back to Suzhou. Instead, he planned to continue his research from the train station until evening, when he would go visit his mother. This way, it would be possible for him to claim that he’d actually hurried to Suzhou and then come back to Shanghai.

In Zhuangzi , there is a well-known saying: “To hide most effectively is to hide in the busiest section of the city.” So here he was, bent over his laptop at a train station café like many others, surrounded by the nonstop flow of commuters. From the train station, if need be, he could easily take the subway to Peiqin’s restaurant. She might have something new to share from her firewall-climbing efforts on the Internet. In the meantime, he’d try to sort through more of those e-mails.

Soon the e-mails overwhelmed him again with their conflicting, contradicting currents of possibilities. As he was working on his second cup of coffee, he decided to try a new approach. In the three files of e-mails, was there some intersection, something that all of them touched upon?

There was. To his surprise, it was the death of the American.

The topic came up in various contexts. In the e-mails between the ernai, it seemed it was just a curiosity to gossip about. Though such a death touched upon his work in the Foreign Liaison Office, Sima’s e-mails seemed very cautious on the subject. What struck Chen as particularly suspicious was the connection in those e-mails to someone named FL.

Was foul play involved in the American’s death?

If so, the death would become an international scandal, which would be far more disastrous to the city government than all of the other cases combined.

Perhaps his having gulped two cups of coffee without any breakfast was making him too intense and paranoid. He was beginning to feel something like coffee sickness.

A waitress came to refill his water glass. “Are you all right, sir? You look so pale.”

“I’m fine. I just need to sit by myself for a while.”

He turned on his cell phone to check for messages, and immediately the phone started ringing. Chen picked it up.

“Where are you, Chief?” Yu said breathlessly.

“At the Shanghai Railway Station.”

“Thank Heaven,” Yu said, with an audible sigh of relief.

“What happened?”

“Earlier this morning, Skinny Wang said that he was going to drive for you. He was excited…”

“Yes, I was told that a bureau car was being made available and to wait for the pickup,” Chen said, “but I had to leave before he arrived. Something urgent came up, so I sent Li a text message.”

“Skinny Wang had a car accident.”

“A car accident!”

“Just about an hour ago. There was a deafening bang, something like an explosion, apparently, and the car went out of control. There are different accounts about the accident, but it happened on his way back to the bureau. It’s so hard to understand. He’s such an experienced driver.”

“How is he?”

“He’s still at the emergency room. His life isn’t in danger, but he might end up paralyzed.”

“Go to the hospital for me and bring some money with you.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be there. You take care of yourself,” Yu said and ended the call.

Chen was reminded of the “spam” text messages he’d received, particularly the one that quoted “Sweeney among the Nightingales.” Now the warning was unmistakable.

Whoever sent that message was someone who had been informed that something devilish was being orchestrated but was too shrewd to send Chen an explicit warning.

For the moment, however, Chen decided not to speculate about who sent the warning. And not to contact Peiqin as he’d originally planned.

He was reminded of a proverb she’d quoted, which she’d gotten from Old Hunter: Treating a dead horse as if it were still alive .

He stood up, shaken but ready to move.

CHEN STEPPED INTO THE public phone booth at the railway station, pulled out a phone card, and dialed Qi Renli, the associate head of the Songjiang district police bureau. Last year, Qi had worked under Chen on a special case. Afterward, Chen had described Qi’s work as “energetic and creative” in a recommendation letter he wrote as part of the Party cadre promotion process.

“Chief Inspector Chen-no, Director Chen.”

“Are you alone in the office, Qi?”

“Yes, I’m alone-and I understand. This call is confidential.”

“I’m afraid I don’t have much time to talk. Last month, the death of an American in Sheshan was reported to your district office?”

“Yes, it was reported to the Sheshan precinct in our district. They got a call from a hotel and immediately sent two policemen over, but when Internal Security arrived at the scene, they were kicked out.”