David Rotenberg - The Shanghai Murders

Dearest Sister,

I spent a large part of today with the head of Special Investigations, Shanghai District. I was his “ivory date.” I’ll explain another time.

This evening I sought out his company in the back of a darkened theatre, and later still he walked me back to my hotel through the never empty, but gratefully quieter, night streets of this enormous city. The air was cold and I was wearing only a blouse and a cotton skirt. I know that he saw me shiver, and I know that he thought of offering me his coat, but I know he didn’t offer because it would appear forward. We did not touch all the way to the hotel. Nor did we talk, not a word. But as we approached the lobby I picked up my pace so that he had to hurry to keep up with me-through the door and directly to the bank of elevators, one of which, thankfully, was open. I do believe he followed me simply to have a chance to say good night. To be polite. Nothing more. But with the elevator door closing I noticed that it was now he who chose not to speak. He followed me silently to my room. Once inside I sat down on the bed and turned to him, I would guess a flush was on my cheek. He looked at me as if I were a series of lines and planes. As if he were at an art gallery and I was a piece on view. It was a unique and wonderful experience to be looked at that way. Then he drew up a chair at the end of the bed and sat on it. I don’t know the directions but if I was facing west he was facing east, our heads were side by side. I leaned toward him and could smell the earth. He didn’t kiss me. His hands touched, no, explored my face, as an artist does a piece of granite he is about to sculpt. Then his right hand slowly moved down my neck between my breasts and he lifted my skirt. I parted for him as his hand, inside my panties, encompassed me. Cool fingers, knowing fingers. With a shock I realized that I had my eyes shut. I opened them. He was looking into my face and inviting me to look back into his. Searching. So I did, first look and then touch. His hand still on me, a finger now gently inside, a thumb performing magic-I reached for him. A shift, a button loosed, a zipper pulled and he was in my hand, cool and hard to the touch.

He found a rhythm for me and I for him. Fingers stroking, coated, our eyes locked together, no speech except the symphony of touch and intent.

Asians call it the clouds and the rain.

It poured that night.

Pray for me, Your Sister, A.

Loa Wei Fen took note of Amanda’s hotel room number. Then he headed back down the stairs and, although he knew he shouldn’t, raced toward the release he knew he could find only in the arms of the opium whore, Wu Yeh.

The man with the hoarse voice read the e-mail report from Loa Wei Fen. He appreciated that Mr. Lo wanted to go slowly this time. He turned to his assistant and, handing him the printout, said, “Has Taiwan supplied the necessary information about Mr. Lo to the police?”

“They will do as you asked.”

“Good. Now let us twist the arm of the local police a little to throw off Inspector Zhong Fong-just in case Mr. Lo is not up to the task.”

There was a polite bow, and the plan was put into action-the end now in sight.

Shrug and Knock was smiling as Fong came into the office the next morning. The smile was so startling that Fong knew something was seriously amiss. So, without entering his office, he walked right past the door and exited down the exterior stairway. Once outside he crossed over to the promenade and waited in line at the crowded phone kiosk. When his turn finally came he called Lily.

“What’s up?” he queried in English.

“Really, but I think that’s unlikely, don’t you?” replied Lily uncharacteristically in content, tone and her use of Shanghanese.

“Someone’s there so you can’t talk?”

“Yes, I believe we in this office have answered that request before.” She then pretended to rifle through some files and continued, “Yes, we have, and what you say is true.”

“What’s wrong, Lily? Come on, tell me, what’s his Hu-ness up to?”

“Well yes, we are approaching an indictment in the case of that woman’s death in the Pudong. Yes, in fact we are waiting to make an arrest even as we speak.”

Fong didn’t need to hear any more. He understood. He didn’t know how long she continued to talk, he simply held the phone in his hand with no words coming to his mouth. The young man behind him claimed with a piercing yell that his beeper was getting heavy he had so many calls to return. Fong looked at the man as in a dream and, handing over the phone, walked to the river side of the promenade. The Pudong was booming across the water. Rising like a live thing taking sustenance from the very ground. . . the very ground where his wife and unborn child lay buried in cold obstruction.

He walked to the north end of the promenade and then crossed the Bund and walked up Beijing Road, the longest hardware store in the world. For over two and a half miles, the stores on both sides of the street sell nothing but hardware-all kinds and sizes, but in Fong’s experience never the piece you needed to fix the broken light switch in your room. Beijing Road was less travelled than most of the east-west roadways and Fong felt exposed. He crossed the street and headed north a block to the Su Zhou Creek. In fewer than twenty steps he was back in old China-sampans and river barges, people cleaning their clothes in the filthy stream. It calmed him enough to allow him to think.

He knew they had investigated Fu Tsong’s death. He knew they still had questions. He didn’t know who was in charge of the investigation.

That being the case, he may have already made a fatal error by calling Lily, but he didn’t think so. It occurred to him as he watched an elderly woman washing her dishes in the brown water that it was Lily he chose to call, not Wang Jun. He couldn’t justify his choice, nor at this moment did he wish to think about it. He’d try to contact Lily again. There were certain pieces of information that he needed. Today was the day he was to hear from Dung Tsu Hong the pimp, Shen Lai the customs broker/tong connection, and from the money changer. He was also anxious to get Li Xiao’s report from Taipei. But as he walked along the river, Why now? was the only real thought in his head.

Why were they reopening the investigation into Fu Tsong’s death now? Because I was getting close? It had to be. But close to the killer? No. Now they were trying to give me the killer. They had gone so far as to make Taipei cooperate, no mean feat. I must be getting close to the one who bought the killer’s services. Who owns him.

“Power,” Fong said aloud.

He headed back, away from the creek, toward the book shop on Han Kou, which in the thirties had been the fanciest brothel in Shanghai. He went to the newspaper section in the back and began reading through the papers. The coverage of Ngalto Chomi’s death was still front-page news. This truly loved African had touched the hearts of so many that there was a constant stream of testimonials to his goodness and the horror of his death. The papers also had more of the specifics than before. Still nothing about the heart, so the old coroner was clean-for the time being.

The death had even made it into the International Herald Tribune under the headline ZAIRIAN CONSUL MURDERED IN BUSY SHANGHAI ALLEY. The word was getting out. The message was disseminating worldwide. They’d hit the mother of all communication with this one. No one gave a fuck that Richard Fallon was dead but the world seemed to mourn the passing of Ngalto Chomi. An ironic twist on the usual story, thought Fong. White man ignored, ethnic gets all the attention. Well, maybe the world was changing.