David Rotenberg - The Shanghai Murders

As he was about to leave the shop, he saw an edition of the New York Times . He picked it up. On the back page of the first section was a full-page advertisement telling the Western world that Shanghai was free of smuggled ivory. That Shanghai cared about the endangered species of the world. That Shanghai was their kind of town. The only thing missing was the phrase Invest Now! Two murders was a small price to pay for the continuation of the lifeblood of Shanghai, Western money.

Fong felt sick. He and Richard Fallon and Ngalto Chomi had been nothing more than pawns in a game. But now he was on the run, and he knew that they were serious about getting him. One more bloody stain meant nothing to these men.

Loa Wei Fen felt the smoke curl down his throat, slither through his belly and clutch at his groin. He felt the beast on his back rear in angry protest. But then she was there to lull the monster and awaken the man.

She’d been awakening this man for several days now Slowly the man had spoken of things in his opium dreams. Dark things. The opium works differently on different people. The keepers of the drug know this and are wary of the signs that the drug is opening deeply placed, often hidden, doors in the smokers.

On his first night with her he had screamed in his sleep, “Old man, you stink of rotted paper,” and pushed her away. Later he had curled up and suckled at her breast for almost an hour, which seemed to give him peace and allow him to sleep. Lately his “reachings” had been incoherent jabs of speech and slashes with his body. But yesterday he had cried out in anger at her, “You love the black man, not me.” For a moment she was sure that he had awakened, that the opium had trailed with the dawn. But as she looked, his eyes had rolled all the way back in his head and the drug had taken him on another dream-filled loop.

She remembered all of that as she inserted him into herself. She also remembered the card that the policeman had given her. As she rocked to his rhythm she watched the drug take effect. The violent carving on his back calmed. As it did she wondered if she should call the number on that card.

Li Xiao had never been out of the country before and as the police car with the polished young driver took him into Taipei, he tried not to stare. All around him he saw wealth. Housing far superior to his present living situation in Shanghai or to any he could ever hope to have. Cars the likes of which Shanghanese policemen could only dream about. And these were the remains of the defeated Kuomintang who forty-five years ago had fled to Taiwan! The dogs who had retreated with their tails between their legs. The vanquished who for forty-five years had been supported by the United States and the immense treasure that they had plundered from the real China.

Their prosperity disgusted him.

As the car turned into the new central administration building, he saw two little girls holding their pregnant mother’s hands as they waited to cross the street. Three children! The ultimate injustice.

Inside, the building whispered and purred. Li Xiao was guided along carpeted hallways to the commissioner’s office. There were handshakes and nods and a lot of false smiles but quicker than he expected they got down to business. They handed him a computer-generated file. It started with a detailed report on a secret school that specialized in the kind of knife training that matched the old coroner’s data. There followed a few pages on the history and use of the school with a note that although the school was secretive it was not illegal. Names of the teachers came next and their present whereabouts, followed by names and ages of former pupils. Of the pupils, only seventeen were considered to fit the specifications forwarded by the Shanghai police. Of those seventeen, fifteen were accounted for during the period in question, which left just two men.

Two photographs followed.

Li Xiao flipped over the first. It was of a youngish teenager.

“How old’s this boy?”

“Fifteen when the picture was taken, seventeen now.”

“And he’s in China now?”

With a noticeable wince, the Taipei police commissioner said, “On the mainland, yes.”

“In China,” Li Xiao corrected him, then went on without waiting for a rebuttal. “And this?” He was referring to the second photograph. The one in which Loa Wei Fen stood in the Shanghai airport’s arrivals terminal.

“Taken less than two weeks ago. In the Shanghai Airport.”

“Yes, it was convenient to get the Shanghai Airport sign in the picture.” The commissioner stifled a response. Li Xiao knew a setup when he saw one. He was getting the sick feeling you get when you know that you’re being used but you can’t avoid it. “What’s this fucker’s name?”

“Loa Wei Fen. He’s a hired assassin, we’ve tracked him for some time.” Then with a broad smile, “He’s on the mainland even as we speak.”

Li Xiao looked at the man. At his finely tailored clothes and his expensive shoes. His eyes momentarily lingered on a large ring on the man’s hand.

“Is there anything further we can do to be of assistance, Detective Li?” asked the commissioner, still smiling.

“No, well yes, I guess there is.”

“And what’s that?”

“Tell me how you manage to sleep at night, get up in the morning, look in the mirror, and still believe you’re a man.” Before there was an answer, Li Xiao turned on his heel and left.

As he slammed his way down the marble-walled corridor, he couldn’t help feeling the injustice. This asshole was going to live a long and fruitful life while Zhong Fong, a cop whom Li Xiao truly admired, was going to take a big-time fall. He looked at the picture of Loa Wei Fen in his hand and said out loud, “And you, my friend, are going to wish you’d never been born.”

Fong had always considered Shanghai home. He’d known its physical intricacies since his boyhood and its metaphysical realities since the age of majority. But now it was a place of strangeness, a wary watching place about which he seemed to know little. Every intersection with its white-jacketed traffic cop, every block with its red armbanded street warden, every second block with its strolling brown-jacketed pair of patrol cops. . . In all these places all would soon be looking for him, if they were not already. So he headed for his home within home: the Old City.

As he entered it his pace slowed and, as if answering a call, he dropped his cop walk and became a part of the dankness of the ancient place, a member of the swamp. He had a long day to wait out, realizing that darkness might be the best friend he had left in his hometown.

His Hu-ness sat at the head of the table in the musty meeting room. At his side Shrug and Knock smiled a smile that upset the rest of those present-Lily, the coroner, and Wang Jun.

“Detective Li Xiao will join us shortly, I’ve been told his flight from Taipei landed an hour ago,” began Commissioner Hu.

“Then let’s wait until he gets here,” said Wang Jun.

Shrug and Knock smiled. “That’s not necessary, is it, Commissioner?”

“No, it’s not. I’ve ordered an all-points bulletin sent out for the arrest of Zhong Fong and he should be brought in shortly,” said the commissioner.

Wang Jun was not pleased. He knew that much of what was being said was a reminder to him that his IOU had come due. He was snapped out of his personal concern by the arrival of Li Xiao, who literally burst into the room. “I am heading this investigation. Who called this meeting in my absence?” he demanded.

Shrug and Knock nodded toward the commissioner. Li Xiao almost spat but decided against it. With barely concealed anger he barked out, “This is my case-the least you could have done is wait for my return.”