Qiu Xiaolong - A Loyal Character Dancer

“That’s my impression, too,” Zhao said. “She seems to have remained an outsider here all these years.”

Wen might have shut herself up right after her marriage, Yu thought, but twenty years was a long time. The fourth interviewee on their list was a woman surnamed Dong in the house opposite Wen’s.

“Her only son left with Feng on the same ship, The Golden Hope, but he has not contacted home since,” Zhao said before knocking at the door.

The person who opened the door for them was a small, white-haired woman with a weatherbeaten, deeply lined face. She stood in the doorway without inviting them in.

“Comrade Dong, we are conducting an investigation into Wen’s disappearance,” Yu said. “Do you have any information about her, specifically with respect to the night of April fifth?”

“Information about that woman? Let me tell you something. He’s a white-eyed wolf, and she’s a jade-faced bitch. Now they’re both in trouble, aren’t they? It serves them right.” Dong drew her lips into a thin, angry line and shut the door in their faces.

Yu turned to Zhao in puzzlement.

“Let’s move on,” Zhao said. “Dong believes Feng influenced her son to leave home. He’s only eighteen. That’s why she calls him a white-eyed wolf-the most cruel one.”

“Why should Dong call Wen a jade-faced bitch?”

“Feng divorced his first wife to marry Wen. She was a knockout when she first arrived. Locals tell all kinds of stories about the marriage.”

“Another question. How could Dong have learned that Feng’s in trouble?”

“I don’t know.” Zhao’s eyes did not meet Yu’s. “People here have relatives or friends in New York. Or they must have heard something after Wen’s disappearance.”

“I see.” Yu did not really see, but he did not think it appropriate to push the matter further at the moment.

Yu tried to shake off the feeling that there might be something else behind Sergeant Zhao’s vagueness. Sending a cop from Shanghai could be taken as a rebuke to the police in Fujian. That he found himself working with an unenthusiastic partner and unfriendly people was not much of a surprise to him, though. Most of his assignments with Chief Inspector Chen had been anything but pleasant.

He doubted whether Chen’s work was going to be easier in Shanghai. It might appear so to others-the Peace Hotel, an unlimited budget, and an attractive American partner, but Yu knew better. Lighting another cigarette, he thought he would have said a definite no to Party Secretary Li. Because this job was not one for a cop. And that, perhaps, was why he would never become a chief inspector.

When they finished their interviews for the day, the village committee office had closed. There was no public phone service in the village. At Zhao’s suggestion, they were about to set off for the hotel, a twenty-minute walk. As they reached the outskirts of the village, Yu approached an old man repairing a bicycle tire under a weatherbeaten sign. “Do you know anybody with a home phone here?”

“There’re two phones in the village. One for the village committee, and the other at Mrs. Miao’s. Her husband has been in the United States for five or six years. What a lucky woman- to have a phone at home!”

“Thanks. We’ll use her phone.”

“You have to pay for it. Other folks use her phone too. For their people overseas. When people call home from abroad, they speak to Miao first.”

“Like the public phone service in Shanghai,” Yu said. “Do you think Wen used Miao’s phone too?”

“Yes, everybody in the village does.”

Yu turned to Zhao with a question in his eyes.

“Sorry,” Zhao said in embarrassment. “I did not know anything about it.”

The gate had finally opened.

A group of first-class passengers emerged, most of them foreigners. Among them Chief Inspector Chen saw a young woman wearing a cream-colored blazer and matching pants. She was tall, slender, her blond hair fell to her shoulders, and she had blue eyes. He recognized her at once, though she looked slightly different from the image in the photograph, taken perhaps a few years earlier. She carried herself with grace, like a senior executive of a Shanghai joint venture.

“Inspector Catherine Rohn?”

“Yes?”

“I’m Chen Cao, chief inspector of the Shanghai Police Bureau. I’m here to greet you on behalf of your Chinese colleagues. We will be working together.”

“Chief Inspector Chen?” She added in Chinese, “Chen Tongzhi?”

“Oh yes, you speak Chinese.”

“No, not much.” She switched back into English. “I’m glad to have a partner who speaks English.”

“Welcome to Shanghai.”

“Thank you, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“Let’s get your luggage.”

There was a long line of people queuing up at customs, holding passports, forms, documents, and pens in their hands. The airport suddenly appeared overcrowded.

“Don’t worry about customs formalities,” he said. “You’re our distinguished American guest.”

He led her through another passage, nodding at several uniformed officers by a side door. One of them took a quick look at her passport, scribbled a few words on it, and waved her through.

They walked out with her luggage on a cart and pushed it into the designated taxi area in front of a huge billboard advertising Coca-Cola in Chinese. There were not many people waiting there.

“Let’s talk at your hotel, the Peace Hotel on the Bund. Sorry, we have to take a taxi instead of our bureau car. I sent it back because of the delay,” he said.

“Great. Here comes one.”

A small Xiali pulled up in front of them. He had intended to wait for a Dazhong, made by the joint venture of Shanghai Automobile and Volkswagen, which would be more roomy and comfortable, but she was already giving the hotel name in Chinese to the taxi driver.

There was practically no trunk space in a Xiali. With her suitcase in the front seat beside the driver, and a bag beside her in the backseat, he felt squeezed. She could hardly stretch her long legs. The air conditioning did not work. He rolled down the window, but it did not help much. Wiping the sweat from her brow, she slipped her jacket off. She was wearing a tank top. The bumpy ride brought her shoulder into occasional contact with his. Their proximity made him uncomfortable.

After they passed the Hongqiao area, traffic became congested. The taxi had to make frequent detours due to new construction underway. At the intersection of Yen’an and Jiangning roads, they came to a stop in heavy traffic.

“How long was your flight?” he asked, out of the need to say something.

“More than twenty-four hours.”

“Oh, it’s a long trip.”

“I had to change planes. From St. Louis to San Francisco, then to Tokyo, and finally to Shanghai.”

“ China ’s Oriental Airline flies directly from San Francisco to Shanghai.”

“Yes, it does, but my mother booked the ticket for me. Nothing but United Airlines for her. She insisted on it, for safety’s sake.”

“I see. Everything-” he left the sentence unfinished- Everything American is preferable. “Don’t you work in Washington?”

“Our headquarters is in D.C. but I am stationed in the St. Louis regional office. My parents also live there.”

“ St. Louis -the city where T. S. Eliot was born. And Washington University was founded by his grandfather.”

“Why, yes. There’s an Eliot Hall at the university, too. You amaze me, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“Well, I have translated some of Eliot’s poems,’ he said, not too surprised at her surprise. “Not all Chinese cops are like those in American movies, good for nothing but martial arts, broken English, and Gongbao chicken.”