Qiu Xiaolong - A Case of Two Cities

Nor did she know anything new about his personal life. He had a girlfriend from a high-ranking cadre family in Beijing, but the relationship was described as “not exactly working out.” On the immigration form, he had still circled himself as single. Then she checked herself, sitting up on the bed and hugging her knees against her chin. She was a marshal and assigned to a homicide case here.

She moved to the window. Looking out, she couldn’t see the U.S. Marshals office building, which wasn’t far from the hotel. This was her city, the streets not yet jammed with the traffic, hardly a pedestrian in sight. Those mornings in Shanghai, strolling on the Bund, seemed so long ago, irrecoverably blurred. A cloud was riding across the sky, steady in its direction.

They had worked together on an anti-illegal immigration case in China, and came to know each other with mutual admiration. But their work came to a conclusion, and they parted, as in the poem he had read to her, rubbing her strained ankle, in the ancient Suzhou garden, “grateful, and glad / to have been with you, / the sunlight lost on the garden.” It was a moment they’d shared and lost. So that’s about it, she told herself again.

When her boss had wanted her to join the delegation as an interpreter-escort, it wasn’t exactly a surprise. She wasn’t so sure, however, about the triple task the CIA specified: finding out Chen’s real mission, helping to solve the homicide, and preventing anything else from happening to the delegation.

The first part was practically impossible. Whatever the circumstance of their meeting, she hardly expected him to give her a straightforward answer. He was a conscientious Chinese cop, and a Party cadre-no mistake about it. As he had quoted from Confucius, there are things a man can do, and there are things a man cannot do.

For the second part, she didn’t think she could help much, not having been trained as a homicide investigator. That was up to Lenich and his colleagues. Still, she wondered about the possibility of a political conspiracy behind the homicide case. She was going to try her best. She shuddered at the possibility of anything happening to Chen. Her personal concerns aside, a disastrous international case wouldn’t serve the interests of either country.

The phone started ringing. The call was from her boss, Director Spencer, of U.S. Marshals, St. Louis Office.

“You made the right decision in staying at the hotel with them,” Director Spencer commented in approval. “Both the CIA and the marshals will do whatever necessary to help. Just tell us what you need.”

“What I really need is more background information on the Xing case,” she said, “not just because of how it relates to Chen, but because it might be relevant to the homicide case as well. As detailed as possible.”

“That can be arranged.”

“I’ll need a laptop. So I can work from my hotel room.”

“I’ll have it delivered. By the way, does Chen have a computer with him?”

“I don’t think so, but I’ll double-check.”

Shortly after she hung up with him, a call came in from Bao. “Can we go out in a group today?”

“I think it’s okay, and we are going to the Arch-in a group.”

“Really! You should have told me earlier.”

“Mr. Chen, Detective Lenich, and I discussed it late last night. He may not have had the time to tell you.”

The next call was unexpected, from Zhong, just as she was about to head to the shower.

“I thought about it all night. I don’t think Little Huang went out with any special plan. Before he left, he took a long bath in Chen’s room. No less than twenty-five minutes. I should have discussed it with Detective Lenich, but no one would have taken such a long, luxurious bath if he had some plan in mind.”

Again it was difficult for her to respond. Zhong might have a point, but how could he be so sure that the bath took “no less than twenty-five minutes”? Perhaps Lenich was right. There was something strange about the delegation. She had a feeling that she might have to be here for quite a few days.

“You should raise this with Detective Lenich today.”

“He’s going to be with us all day again today?” Zhong snapped. “That’s absurd!”

“Oh, we are going to the Arch, but he won’t be with us. He’ll be working in the hotel, and you can always contact him.”

It couldn’t be easy to be an interpreter-escort under normal circumstances, let alone this far-from-the-normal situation. The Chinese seemed to be in a collective lousy mood; the investigation meant a prolonged stay in St. Louis, with all sorts of restrictions imposed. Detective Lenich’s questions, while quite routine, must have sounded unpleasant to the Chinese, she thought as she took her shower. As she stepped out, still wrapped in a towel, the phone shrilled again.

“Sorry to call so early in the morning, Catherine,” Chen said.

“You aren’t that early. This is the third or fourth call this morning.” She took a look at the clock, drying her hair with the towel. Not even eight yet. “I’ll come down. We’re meeting at eight-thirty, right?”

“Yes. Yesterday I tried to talk to hotel security, but we didn’t have time. So this morning I thought you might be able to help me before we leave. Just a few questions. It won’t take too long.”

“Fine, I’ll be down in one minute.”

She dressed quickly and headed down to the lobby. She saw him standing in a corner, toying with a cell phone in his hand, a plastic bag on the chair beside him. He was dressed in a three-piece black suit with a scarlet silk tie. He looked like a Chinese official.

“Good morning, Miss Rohn.”

“Morning, Mr. Chen.”

“Look, I called you with this cell phone,” he said smiling. “Last night, Detective Lenich talked about the hotel phone records. There’s one thing I forgot to tell him. Two of us also have cell phones. Bao and I. I have to call China while traveling from one city to the next; my mother is in poor health. The prepaid cell phone is expensive. I don’t know how and why Bao has one. I don’t even know his number.”

“I’m sorry to hear about your mother’s health,” she said. But the part about the cell phone was strange, she thought. He could have told Lenich about it. It was an odd thing to say to her first thing in the morning. She looked up at him and he flipped the phone closed emphatically.

“Oh, this is for you,” he said, already changing the subject as he handed the plastic bag to her. “Last night, there were people in my room, and I came over in a hurry. The writing set is from Mr. Gu. The book is from me. You like Chinese poetry, I know.”

“Thank you so much, Chen. Can I take a look? The Chinese way is to open the present later, I know.”

“Now we are in St. Louis, so do as St. Louisians do.”

Shasha’s appearance in the lobby, however, interrupted their conversation. “Oh, you two are down early,” Shasha said in mock surprise.

“Miss Rohn has been doing a great job for us,” he said. “To express our gratitude, I am giving her some small gifts.”

“The writing set is expensive,” Shasha said, picking up the miniature water ladle and turning it over to read the tiny engraving on its back. “Eighteen-karat gold. I have a similar set at home. Four or five thousand yuan.”

“Really!” Chen exclaimed. “A friend gave it to me, and I think it will make a good present for Miss Rohn, a would-be sinologist.”

He didn’t reveal that it was a gift to her from Mr. Gu and Catherine knew why.

“A new book by you?” Shasha went on, picking up the book.

“An advance copy,” he said. “A collection of classic Chinese poetry in translation.”