David Rotenberg - The Shanghai Murders

Loa Wei Fen had heard Wu Yeh leave the cubicle. He didn’t move but he listened closely. His mind supplied him with a map of the opium den and the environs. He heard the click of the phone as she hung up. The snake rose on his back. Her padding feet were making their way back to him. The swolta seemed to move toward his hands. She who loved the black man would not see this day’s night. He who loved the opium whore would not see tomorrow’s dawn. At least not on this earth. Of both these things he was sure.

The padding feet stopped outside the cubicle.

Fong pushed Amanda’s head down as she hunched in the back seat of the taxi. As they were stepping into the cab, Fong had seen a woman with a red armband race out of a nearby building. Her ferret eyes locked on him and Amanda. She would file her report in less than a minute. “To the North Train Station and hurry,” he yelled at the cabbie. The small red car took off with a lurch and blared its way into traffic.

The call reporting Fong and Amanda was taken and transferred to Li Xiao’s cellular line. The young detective picked up the call just as he hopped out of his car and headed toward the door of the opium den. He barked into his cellular, “Get the cab number out to all the wardens and keep this line open. Send out everything that comes in to the police units on their radios and patch it through to this number as well.” He left the phone in the car and headed toward the opium den.

He paid no attention to the small man crouched against the storefront across the way.

But Loa Wei Fen, now dressed in the rags of an opium addict, paid more than a little attention to the policeman. As the patrol cars arrived from every side and surrounded the opium den, Loa Wei Fen watched. Watched and felt himself moving closer to the edge of the roof. Ready at long last for the jump.

The gore of the opium whore was enough to turn Wang Jun’s stomach. Li Xiao cursed and stomped around. There were too many policemen for the tight corridors. The whole thing was out of hand. The commissioner was yelling for him somewhere off to one side. There was shouting and screaming everywhere. No one noticed the beggar man across the street rise and cross towards Li Xiao’s police car.

And no one noticed him reach inside and take the cellular phone.

The North Train Station was filled with people-but not filled enough to hide Amanda. Fong was faced with a hard choice. He was sure that the warden who saw them get in the cab had reported what she saw. If she had good eyesight she’d be able to supply the cab number. If so, Fong knew that they should change cabs. But if they got out of the cab Amanda would attract attention again. Then he saw them, bands of police officers moving quickly through the crowd. The recently arrived peasants moved out of the way as the police pushed their way through. “The bus station on the west side,” Fong snapped at the driver. When the driver paused, Fong reached into his pocket and threw a wad of kwai onto the front seat. The cab lurched forward. It was just past noon. Daylight was not their friend.

Fong leaned out the window. There was a slight mist hovering over the Huangpo. The promise of the first summer storm hung in the air. He wondered for a moment if they’d be alive to see the rain. To drink in its liquid hope.

The call from the North Train Station came in to all units. Wang Jun got it in his car. His Hu-ness was told of the call while yelling at Li Xiao in the corridor of the opium den. Loa Wei Fen got the call as he moved along Fang Bang Road and admired the building clouds to the east. Rain was going to come. A deluge to wash him over the edge.

The bus station was as stupid an idea as the train station. Fong didn’t even allow the cabbie to slow down before he shouted a new destination. The cabbie looked around at him like he was a nut. “The theatre?” he demanded. Fong turned to Amanda who held out a handful of money. Fong took it and tossed it to the driver.

The cab swung out into traffic and phones rang all over the city.

Fong spotted the roadblock before the cabbie did and yelled at him to pull over. Before the cab stopped moving Fong had the door open. He threw money at the driver and shouted an address far in the other direction. He didn’t really believe that the cabbie would bother to go where he was instructed. Fong didn’t need that. Just a five-minute head start. Just get the police to follow the cab for five minutes and he’d have a place for Amanda and himself to hide for the rest of the afternoon. The cab pulled a dangerous V-turn and sped away. As it did a police car roared after it but Fong didn’t stay to watch the show. Racing through the crowd and onto the overpass, he and Amanda crossed over Xian and then headed down a back alley. At the end of the alley, in front of a low door, he stopped. He looked back. There was no one following. A gnarled old man answered his knock. He looked at Fong inquiringly. “I’m Fu Tsong’s husband.” The ancient’s face lit up and he opened the door. They stepped inside.

Just as they did, a woman with a red armband leaned out her window to place her laundry out to dry. She thought she saw a small Chinese man with a tall white woman enter the back door of the theatre. That’s what she thought she saw. And she knew her duty: to report what she saw, thought she saw, or wanted others to believe she saw. She completed hanging her bamboo pole strung with laundry and then headed down the five flights of stairs aiming her bent figure toward the alley’s mouth and its phone kiosk.

Amanda was amazed. They were in the wings of an old theatre. Onstage were some of the sets of the Shanghai branch of the classic Peking opera. Before them dozens of actors in classical makeup and costume were readying themselves for rehearsal. Fong was standing to one side talking to one of the actresses. After a moment, she ushered Fong and Amanda into a small room, telling Amanda (with Fong interpreting) that she was “Su Shing, a dear friend of Fu Tsong’s. Fong’s wife.” She opened a large closet and removed an elaborate costume and pots of makeup. Fong had already removed his outer clothing and was sitting in front of the makeup mirror. Su Shing gave a slight bow and left the two.

“What are we doing?”

“Hiding. It’s the only place I could think of where you wouldn’t stand out. You might have noticed that you look somewhat different from almost everyone of the fourteen million people in this city.”

“Yeah, I noticed that.”

“Good. Put on the costume. I’ll do your makeup for you.”

“You’ll put on my makeup?”

“That’s what I said, unless you know how to do the Peking opera makeup for your character.”

“How do you know how to do this?”

“My wife was an actress.” She noticed him falter for an instant. Then he added, “For a long time.” After another clearly troubled moment he spoke again. “She was a great actress. She liked me to do her makeup for her. She taught me. I learned.”

Amanda was sitting now. Fong stood facing her with one of his legs between hers. His delicate hands pushed aside her hair. “Hold this back.” She did. He reached for the pot of white makeup. “I’ve got to go over your wound. It’ll hurt. Okay?”

She nodded and took tight hold of his leg. He took a large swath of the white ointment and spread it over her cheek with a smallish trowel. When it touched the wound her nerves sent shards of pain straight down the bones of her face to her chest. She bit her lip to hold back a scream.

He saw it but kept on. With her face covered in the white paint, he reached for the costume’s headdress. Its long feathers swayed as he placed it over her blond hair and tucked in the tendrils. Tears were running down her cheeks as the pain continued. He ignored them and helped her out of her blouse, skirt, and shoes and into the elaborate costume, adjusting the many hidden straps. Finally he slipped her feet into the black and white platform shoes.