David Rotenberg - The Lake Ching murders

Fong stood and looked down at the man. “Did you know?”

Dr. Roung looked up at Fong and screamed, “No!” The sound of the single word echoed off the walls of the old factory and repeated itself over and over and over again as it spiralled downward, like water from a dirty tub, into the nowhere beneath.

Fong knelt in close. “Where in Beijing, Dr. Roung? What box in that city of boxes sent you the typhoid?”

Dr. Roung Chen shook his head.

Fong got to his feet and turned up the music. “Dance for him, Chu Shi!”

Lily felt an odd relief to be able to move. Then a horror at what she was doing. She imagined men watching her coming to life. Their hands moving. Their mouths cheering her. The death shroud seemed to be falling off her of its own accord. As if seeking a way back to its mistress thrice buried on the island.

Fong turned the archeologist’s face once again to the stage and using his fingers kept the man’s eyes wide open. “Look, Dr. Roung. Look what they did to your Chu Shi.”

The archeologist tried to pull his face away from the horror but Fong held him tight. Finally the man barked out, “The ministry.”

“Which ministry, Dr. Roung?” snapped Fong.

“The Interior Ministry,” the man cried out.

Fong found himself unable to breathe. The Interior Ministry! That was no small box of dissidents or hotheads. Not some solitary rogue. This was a full-fledged insurrection!

Dr. Roung fell to the floor on his knees. Tears streamed from his eyes. Saliva dripped from his mouth. Then he shouted, a haunted cry to the ceiling. “My mother did this!”

Fong turned slowly, “Madame Minister Wu is your mother?”

Lily heard it but didn’t hear it. Her own terror was rising. She was somehow or other back in the forensics lab all those years ago. The man on her. His hands ripping aside her skirt. Tearing her panties. Hurting her. Then Fong was there and somehow the man was gone and Fong was holding her, telling her, “It’s okay, Lily. It’s okay. You did great. We’ve got all we need.”

But that’s not what he’d said back then. He’d just held her. He’d hardly said anything. Then she felt his hard body holding her tighter. And she wrapped her arms around him and held him to her as if he were the last way out of a dawning nightmare.

The door of the jail cell clunked as it opened.“You wanted to see me?” The politico looked as if he had been awakened from a deep sleep. “I said . . .” Fong turned.

“I heard what you said,” Fong snapped as he walked past the politico and slammed the door shut. “Okay!” Fong yelled.

Somewhere beyond their line of sight Captain Chen threw the switch to lock the door. The politico jumped when he heard the tumblers slam home.

Fong looked at the man. Something was missing. The thug, of course. Two generals. Always two generals. Parallel patterns. Fong knew that the politico reported to the Beijing government. That meant the thug wasn’t here because . . . because . . . because he reported to the rogue – Madame Wu.

Fong laughed. The politico looked at him. Fong didn’t explain. He was relishing a vision of the bull of a man on the run. China was a big country but it was impossible to hide in China. Fong knew that. Oh yes, he knew that.

“You have something for me, Traitor Zhong?”

Fong looked at the politico. The man looked ridiculous claiming to still have power.

“You need me. I don’t need you,” Fong barked. “This is a jail. I’ve lived in one of these cells. You haven’t.”

The politico paled. “What do you want . . .” his voice tailed off before he said the words “Traitor Zhong.”

Fong pushed aside the surge of anger he felt and ordered his thoughts. “I know who murdered the foreigners on the boat in Lake Ching.”

The politico pulled himself up to his full height, making as if somehow this dank cell were his office in some government building. “Yes – Fong. You have done your duty as all citizens of the People’s . . .”

Fong spat. “This is a jail cell, not an office in Beijing.” Fong spat again. This time the spittle landed close to the politico’s feet.

The politico looked at the gob, then at Fong. Suddenly he seemed to see the jail cell. His eyes glazed over. He opened his mouth to speak but Fong spoke first. “And I know who in Beijing ordered the murders, which is what you’re really after, isn’t it?”

The politico was very still. As if his interior was reconstructing itself after a total collapse. Fong could almost hear the ticky-tack of the man’s ribs reconnecting to his spine. “So do your duty and report your findings.”

That floated in the thick air of the cell. Fong didn’t move. Didn’t speak. Didn’t breathe.

“What do I get?”

“Excuse me . . .”

“You heard me, lackey. What do I get? I have information you want. No. You need. No. Your masters need. I have what they need and only I have it. Now, I want something too. Something in return.”

The demand seemed to calm the politico. This he understood. “Of course it would,” thought Fong, “I’m behaving like him.” For a moment he considered telling the politico to wipe the sick smile off his face and fuck himself. Then he discarded the idea. “Let’s deal.”

The politico nodded, again in full control. “Tell me what you want, Traitor Zhong.” He smiled.

Fong thought about justice. About the relativity of it. When he spoke, his words sounded like they came from faraway. “I want my job back – in Shanghai – head of Special Investigations.”

The politico nodded as if it were nothing out of the ordinary to make such a request. He lit a Kent and blew out a line of smoke. “We assumed that would be part of the price – what else?”

Fong almost faltered then marshalled his forces again. “I want this damn thing taken off my ankle.” He pulled up his pant leg and planted his foot on the wall beside the politico, who reached over and tapped in four numbers of the code. His eyes locked with Fong’s. He was enjoying this. He tapped in the fifth number and the thing clattered to the cement floor. The sound it made somehow reminded Fong of the clinking his wedding ring had made when Fu Tsong hurled it against the wall of their small rooms in Shanghai.

Fong shook aside the memory and stepped away from the politico. The man was smiling broadly now. “You’re no different than me, Traitor Zhong. There is nothing special about the great Zhong Fong.”

Had he heard that or was it only his conscience speaking?

“What else do you want for the information that is rightfully mine, Traitor Zhong?”

“Tell me who the specialist was?” Fong knew he was on dangerous territory. Unscripted territory.

The politico laughed. A hearty, un-Chinese laugh. An are-you-kidding-me laugh.

“Madame Wu, Minister of the Interior is the rogue in your midst,” Fong shouted.

The laughter stopped.

A tense silence followed. For the first time the politico looked wide-eyed at Fong.

“Are you . . .?”

“Sure? Yes. Positive. Madame Wu induced the deaths on board that boat. She might as well have given the order. She sent wine with the cultured typhoid that killed the girl on the island. Then she showed the islanders how to get their revenge. The farmers from the island committed the actual deeds. A man named Jiajia was the head butcher if that matters to you.”

The politico was having trouble digesting the information. He couldn’t care less who did the actual killing. He kept circling back to Madame Wu. Madame Minister Wu! Pieces began falling into place for him. His mouth opened then shut before a word could come out. He reached for a cigarette then realized he already had one in his lips. He removed it. “My partner . . .”