Qiu Xiaolong - A Case of Two Cities

Afterward he lay awake for a long while, thinking. Whether her information could lead to anything, he didn’t know. But he supposed that she had gone out of her way for him, and possibly at risk to herself. She might have done so without her boss’s permission. On campus, she hadn’t said a single word when giving him the large envelope. Instead, she held his hand in hers for a minute. He understood. He read the genuine concern in her eyes. Her eyes so blue, deep, serene, like the Beijing sky in autumn again…

Finally he sunk into a slumber full of dreams. One of them was a recurring nightmare from his childhood. The black night rubbing its muzzle on the windowpane, licking its tongue into the corners of the moment, he found himself turning into a cat, curling itself in contentment before suddenly jumping out of the attic window, running along the tile roof, fleeing from a faceless enemy. In his then neighborhood, all the ramshackle houses were perilously connected. He kept leaping from one roof to another. Any minute, he could irrecoverably fall into the abyss, but not yet…

The shrill of the cell phone startled him from his recollection of the broken dream. It was Catherine.

“Can you tell me what the Chinese visitors would like to do today?”

“Good question.” He did not have an immediate answer. She had a hard time making all the arrangements for the delegation. St. Louis was not a tourist city with many sightseeing alternatives. Shasha could spend another afternoon at the shopping mall, perhaps. She had just received her book contract with a decent advance. As for the others, he had no clue. Then he remembered what Tian had told him about other Chinese delegations in L.A.

“Isn’t there a casino boat in the river?”

“Yes, but what about your delegation regulations?”

“As the American host, you can make suggestions. Mark Twain wrote several short stories about sailing on the Mississippi River. So it may have a lot to do with the tradition of American literature.”

“I see,” she said with a giggle. “It is like a Chinese proverb: To steal a bell with your ears stuffed -you simply believe others will not hear the sound.”

So she suggested it at breakfast. No one raised any objection, except Peng, who said something more like a question:

“The boat did not move, I noticed. How can a boat be moored all the time?”

“It used to be a real riverboat, all right,” she explained. “According to the state law, it’s illegal to gamble on land, but legal in the river-as entertainment. As long as it is on a boat, it doesn’t matter whether the boat moves or not.”

“An excuse,” Zhong commented.

“So hypocritical,” Bao observed, “typical of American capitalism.”

“It’s the same everywhere. Gambling is forbidden in China, but the government has recently legalized mahjong,” Shasha said. “Everyone knows mahjong is no fun without money put on the table.”

Still, no one had any objection. Not even Bao, who might be just as eager to experience the forbidden.

“Well, one place is as good as another,” Chen said, understanding it was up to him to say something. “Let’s follow the footsteps of Mark Twain. No point staying in the hotel all the time.”

“Yes, it’s so close,” Catherine said.

So around eleven, they got out of the hotel and into a minivan. Chen took his seat in front, behind the driver, and Catherine sat in the seat across the aisle, her hair tied into a plait with a scarlet velvet string. She was wearing a white shirt, a beige blazer of light material, and a matching skirt. Then he noticed she was frowning. Leaning down, she rubbed her bare shapely ankle. He resisted the impulse to do what he had done that evening in the Suzhou garden. He felt her nearness, as if through the memory. Abruptly, his cell phone rang. It was Detective Yu in Shanghai.

“Breakthrough, Chief.”

“What?”

“Ming was caught!”

“Really! How?”

“It’s a long story. Thanks to the phone record-”

“Where is he now?” Chen knew he had to cut his partner short. It was too sensitive a case to discuss at the moment, with all the delegation members, and Catherine too, sitting in the car.

“I turned him over to Comrade Zhao-”

“Great.” Chen understood why his assistant had done so. For someone like Ming, the Shanghai Police Bureau or Party Secretary Li might not be a safe bet. After all, it was a case under the Party Discipline Committee. “I’ll call you back. We are going to a riverboat.”

This was great, Chen thought. Ming might not be that important to Xing’s entire empire, but at least their activities in Shanghai would be exposed, and those red rats could be punished. Some of the evidence thus obtained might help with the eventual deportation of Xing from the U.S.

Also, the investigation of An’s case could continue, to which he had made a personal commitment. And it might lead, one way or another, to Little Huang’s case.

So he believed that as a cop, he played a positive role in this important case for his country, even though he had long given up some of the Confucianist ideals regarding an intellectual’s responsibilities. Chinese people had been complaining that the government slapped only at the mosquitoes, but not the tigers. This time, however, it was different.

He turned to Catherine. There was no change in her expression. The conversation might not have given her enough clues. He wanted to tell her about the breakthrough in Shanghai, but not in the car. He was not sure about the driver.

Their minivan arrived at the multistoried casino boat moored only two or three minutes’ walk from the Arch. At the casino entrance, they were greeted by a chorus of the money dancing and singing out of numerous slot machines, by the neon lights presenting the temptations of fabulous wealth and success. To the Chinese writers, the casino itself was like a surrealistic kingdom in the Journey to the West, a classic Chinese novel Chen had read in his childhood.

Bao took a few nervous steps forward and backward before perching himself on a high stool before a slot machine. It seemed as if he were instantly glued onto the stool. He played small, holding a plastic cup in his hand, putting in a quarter a time, and pulling down the handle deliberately, like the conscientious worker he had been in the fifties. Zhong and Peng started walking around like hunters in new, unfamiliar woods, and then vanished like water into sand. Shasha went over to the roulette wheel, watching intently, like a character in the movie adapted from her novel.

Perhaps they were still self-conscious, with all the Chinese regulations in mind, so they did not want to stay in each other’s company. And no one wanted Catherine to interpret or explain. So Chen and Catherine were left alone in the first-floor hall, surrounded by the soundtrack of all the coins pouring out of the machines.

“What you gave me was really helpful,” he said.

“What did I give you?” she said.

Was she not willing to talk about it? Perhaps it only proved his guess: she had done that for him-in a way she wouldn’t like anybody else to know. So he’d better not talk about it.

Shasha wandered back to them with a plastic cup similar to Bao’s, with the chips heavier, and different-colored.

“You’d better not try your hand today, boss,” Shasha said with a broad grin.

“Why?”

“As an old saying goes, the one who enjoys the peach blossom luck may not have the money luck.”

“You are joking again, Shasha.”

“Well, try your luck with her,” Shasha said. “I am going to try my own somewhere else.”

But he believed in his luck for the day, with Detective Yu’s call about the great breakthrough. Once more, Gu’s advance came in handy. He took his seat at a blackjack table with ten-dollar chips. He dragged Catherine to his side.