David Rotenberg - The Shanghai Murders

“Won’t these killings frighten away investment money too?”

“Only for a moment, but that moment will pass. The killer will be caught as we planned,” said the elegant voice.

Once again there was a lengthy pause before the old man spoke. “It is a new world. All this because a group likes animals. . .”

“And Shanghai must grow or die.”

There was no message on his e-mail and that surprised Loa Wei Fen. His employers were no doubt upset. There had been no mention of the ivory anywhere in the press although the deaths had gotten prominent coverage.

Well, they would contact him, that was a certainty. He looked down at the computer notebook on the bedside table. He affixed the modem jack and turned on the machine. With a few quick commands, he brought up the e-mail concerning the Zairian consul general. Its return address was E-M-29-7976. There was no identified server. That didn’t surprise Loa Wei Fen. The People’s Republic of China was doing its best to control e-mail correspondence and hence had probably instituted a central server system for the country. With his technological advantage it didn’t take Loa Wei Fen long to locate and break into the server’s data banks. In short order the street address from which the e-mail had been sent flashed merrily on his computer screen.

He still had three days left on his contract and he thought that perhaps it was time to learn something about his employer. Time to be prudent. No. Now, it was imperative to be prudent.

There was something satisfying about breaking in on a pimp in midcoital pump with one of his girls. Dung Tsu Hong looked every inch a fool as he attempted to cover himself with a pillow while his ladyfriend whined that she was wet and there was no shower here and besides who was this guy?

It was always satisfying to shame them in front of the girls who were so frightened of them. That or rip their fancy clothes. Fong decided that since Dung Tsu Hong was naked, except for the pillow covering his crotch, the clothes option was out. So he grabbed the pillow away from the pimp and smiled.

“I’ve got a question or two for you.”

Dung Tsu Hong sank to the floor, holding his hands over his genitals.

Fong knelt down beside him. “I want information on the two killings. I want it by the end of the week. Under stand me, Dung Tsu Hong! I could come back every day and do this, it gives me so much pleasure. Now if you don’t want to see me for a while find the answers to these questions: Who’s the knife artist? And where is he?” With that he grabbed a handful of the man’s greasy hair and pulled hard. “Those are easy questions for a smart guy like you, Dung Tsu Hong. Who’s the knife artist and where is he. Got it? Up and down means yes.”

Dung Tsu Hong’s head moved slowly up and down. The whore on the bed giggled. Fong shot her a look. This one probably thought her work was fun. This one probably approached Dung Tsu Hong, not vice versa.

In the morning light, returning to his car, Fong felt none too good. The likelihood that the pimp would be able to find anything was not great. But at least it was something. The punching bag punches back. He turned on the flasher and hit the siren. He had two more calls to make before he went to the office and had to face Commissioner Hu.

Shrug and Knock pocketed his master key and cracked open the door to Fong’s office. He surveyed the interior. The Little Turd, as he called Fong, wasn’t there. Not usual for him. Then Shrug and Knock’s eyes were drawn to Fong’s schematic on the table. After a moment’s viewing he concentrated on the line drawn from the ivory pieces through the Dim Sum Killer to the circle with the large question mark inside it.

Shrug and Knock knew that this would interest Commissioner Hu.

Fong’s next two stops didn’t require violence, only the threat of it. The first was to an illegal money changer who frequented the Fu Yu market and also did a franchise operation off Haui Hai in the clothing market near the embassy district. Breaking in on him was not difficult and refusing the casually offered bribe proved that he was in earnest enough for the man to listen to him. The threat to close him down was enough to get the man’s full attention. Times were getting tough in the illegal money-changing business. Now that foreigner exchange currency, familiarly FEC, wasn’t being issued by the government to foreigners wishing to buy Chinese goods, a healthy chunk of the money-changers’ business, the exchange of FEC for REM (Chinese currency) was gone. Now a foreigner could get REM at any bank, just like a Chinese national. The money changers, formerly proponents of open markets, now had to compete against the Bank of China. They were learning that competition could be tough.

Fong repeated his questions. Who was the knife artist and where was he? The money changer virtually kowtowed as he promised his full cooperation.

Fong’s third stop was at the North Train Station across the Su Zhou Creek.

This train station used to be a place of great silences. During the Cultural Revolution, the forced move to the countryside of thousands, perhaps millions of people began here. Their leavetakings took place in the cavernous terminus under the watchful eyes of the Red Guards, eyes that did not permit sentiment. Tears were an expression of the bourgeoisie. So silence was the only farewell.

The train station was anything but quiet now, although it was still a place of vast sorrow. Every day thousands upon thousands of peasants from the countryside were disgorged from trains into the huge echoing building. They arrived hoping to find work in the economic miracle that was Shanghai. They arrived with sullenness and loathing in their eyes. Had they not fought the revolution to be equal to these execrable Shanghanese? Yet here they were like beggars on the street looking for the right to lift and haul with hands and carrying poles. Water buffalo work.

Only the men came. They came in anger and hate and in the noonday sun; they crowded the station’s steps as they sat on their red-white-and-blue-striped satchels and glared at the passersby. At some they spat. At most women they threw stones. At the funny-looking little cop’s approach they looked the other way. They might be from the country but they recognized a policeman’s walk when they saw it.

Fong passed by the huddled bunches of smoking men and entered the station. Its height always surprised him, but his business was not in the central hall. Flashing his police identification he quickly passed through security and was led to the customs warehouse.

Inside the old warehouse, the sun etched spider webs through grit-plastered windows. Fong took a deep breath and then asked to see Shen Lai. The man who took his request returned in a moment and asked Fong to follow him.

They walked down aisles with three-tiered shelves rising to the ceiling some sixty feet above them. All the shelves were piled high with crated goods. Stacks of electronic equipment from South Korea, Singapore, and Japan. Clothing and food stuffs from America. Heavy machinery parts from India. Coffeemakers from France. Goods from almost every country that Fong could name, all waiting here for customs clearance. At one time this warehouse had been filled with goods from the USSR and Albania. From Romania and North Korea. Now they were the few countries that seemed not to be represented. As the two men passed through the last aisle, Fong did spot an area where the packages were half rotted through and the wrapping so badly put together that it was coming apart. Without looking he knew that this was the Russian section. Some things never changed.

Shen Lai was not happy to see Fong. He was a roundfaced fat man in his early fifties with large puffy cheeks and the smallest mouth in the Eastern Hemisphere. Whenever he spoke his mouth looked like that of a goldfish, and that was in fact his nom de guerre , the Goldfish. Behind his back they called him Fish Face. Fong couldn’t see how the Goldfish was much of an improvement but then again Fong was never up to date on the intricacies of etiquette in the world of Chinese organized crime.