David Rotenberg - The Shanghai Murders

Getting the number for Special Investigations proved more difficult than she thought. Shanghai, unlike Moscow, does have phone books but they are of course in Chinese. They are also notoriously inaccurate. But, with the concierge’s help she finally got a number.

She returned to her room intent upon a bit of privacy while she made the call. It took her several tries before she got up the courage to complete the seven-digit number. Like calling a boy when you’re a teenager, she thought to herself. Finally she completed the call and was met with a Chinese “Wee” on the other end.

She said, “Zhong Fong please,” and waited.

On the other side she heard some talk in Chinese and finally another voice came on the phone with another “Wee.” It sounded French this time. Once again Amanda said, “Zhong Fong please.” She heard a general discussion on the other side. The discussion stopped abruptly. Amanda called into the phone, “Hello,” but there was no answer. Then the phone went dead.

For a moment she felt the unfairness of it all. She wondered what the fuck she was doing there. She wondered what to do next. She wondered if the Chinese breakfast she had eaten that morning was upsetting her stomach.

Later that day she got the concierge to make the call for her. He was told that Inspector Fong was not in at the moment. “Leave a message for him, will you. Tell him that Richard Fallon’s widow is in Shanghai and would like to speak to him.” The concierge did so and Amanda retreated to her room on the fourteenth floor. The maids had come in and done up her bed. She turned on the TV and got the CNN world service, which proceeded to tell her that if she lived in Hong Kong she could see Larry King Live at 11:00, in Kuala Lumpur ol’ Lar came on at 1:00 and in Pusan at 12:00. Amanda wondered briefly where Pusan was and then turned off the television.

She leafed through the hotel directory and found a health club listed on the fourth floor. She called down and learned that she could use the gym, pool, and weight room without an additional fee and also that there were swimsuits there if she wanted to use them.

The health club turned out to have some surprising features. A bowling alley for one. Young middle-classlooking Chinese couples were bowling just as if they were in Toledo, Ohio.

At the pool it looked as if it were “Bring Your Secretary Day.” Along with a number of young male executive-looking types who kept hopping out of the pool and using their cellulars were numerous secretaries, all in one piece swimsuits and incongruously floating inside red rubber rings. They were busily frog kicking-perhaps to keep down the cellulite on their thighs? That’s the only reason Amanda could come up with for their peculiar behavior. Periodically one or the other of the women would let out a scream as her pretty face slipped too near the water. Immediately her handsome boss would “rescue” her with more body contact than was strictly necessary considering that the pool was never deeper than five feet.

Amanda handed in her room key and was given a large white bathrobe, a purple towel and a locker key on a Velcro wristband. In the locker room, festooned with signs in English and Chinese proclaiming the hotel’s innocence should any of the patrons’ possessions disappear from the lockers, she removed her clothes and locked them away in her designated locker. Then, with the robe on, she headed for the sauna.

It was clean. It was hot. It took the tension out of her body. With her head leaning back against the sauna’s red-wood slatting, she reviewed her progress over the last few days. It occurred to her that having come all the way to Shanghai she might consider leaving her hotel and its westernness even if just for a short while. Then she thought of danger and how unfair it was. If she were a man. . . but then she remembered that Richard had been a man and the one thing that no one was denying was that he was very dead.

She reached into the wooden water bucket and sprinkled a few drops on the coals. They gave off a gratifying hiss and splutter. She rolled her robe into a ball, placed it at one end of the bench and stretched out. The heat of the wood felt good against the back of her legs. The scent of the redwood filled her nostrils. And the heat took her back. Back to a place where heat made the loving so special. “Be cool in the heat, baby,” he’d said. “Gotta be cool in the heat or we’ll slap and slosh and no one but the laundress will be pleased with the outcome.” That was only seven months after she’d married Richard. Seven months of frustration and feeling fat. Seven months of not writing or even really thinking. Just being Mrs. Richard Fallon. Then she’d met this real southerner who hated air conditioning but loved to “do the dance, Cher. Find the rhythm and do the dance.” And he was good in the heat. Bodies only touching where they had to. Standing. Leaning over. Mirrors to see. Hands to touch and grace. Joined but not on top or on bottom. A delicate balance in the heat. A blessed relief from the mistake of marrying Richard Fallon.

She’d been told that men changed once they got married but she really only believed that happened to other women. Women who couldn’t keep their men’s attention. And keeping men’s attention had never been a problem for Amanda. The problem was that the Richard she had married became a new Richard after they got married. He became obsessed with money. His interest in the wildlife issues of his work seemed simply to stop. The few friends from work whom she had really liked stopped coming around. When she would call them she clearly got the impression that they were happy enough talking to her but that they no longer cared to socialize with her husband. Richard seemed encased in an invisible shell. As if a deep solitude had descended upon him. Then the calls began to come in the middle of the night and then the business trips. And a secrecy that was not there before came between them, as easy to feel as a Canadian front blowing into New Orleans to relieve the humidity of summer. Their small house in the Garden District filled up with things she’d bought, but none were hers. She no longer really lived in the house in the Garden District with the man named Richard Fallon. For he was not the outgoing warm man that she had married. He was a silent man, a man alone.

The chatter of a Chinese woman entering the sauna, buck naked, with a cellular phone stuck to her ear, broke the spell of the heat and the smell of the redwood. Amanda sat up and headed toward the shower.

After her cold shower she dressed, got her key, and went back to her room. The message light was on. She called down to the desk and was told that an Inspector Fong had returned her call. They gave her a number to call and assured her that it would be answered by someone who spoke English.

She thanked them and dialled the number.

The phone was picked up on the first ring. “Forensicks, Lily talking.”

“I was given this number to call to get through to Inspector Fong.”

“Dui, right, you called here, good yes. Name please.”

“Mrs. Richard Fallon.”

For a moment Amanda thought she heard the words Dim Sum something or other said to someone standing near by, then Lily spoke into the phone. “Inspector Zhong not here now.”

“When there?” Amanda almost shouted into the phone, annoyed that she’d been reduced to speaking pidgin English.

“Inspector Zhong want to talk to you but not here.”

“Where Inspector Zhong?” Pidgin again!

“In theatre. Shanghai Theatre Academy on Hua Shan, 630.” Then the phone clicked off.

Fong looked at Lily. He wasn’t pleased.

“Lady sound desperate for seeing you, Zhong Fong.”

Then, in wonderful saucy Shanghanese, she added, “This lady in front of you is more than desperate, this lady waits in sweet anticipation for seeing you.”