Qiu Xiaolong - A Loyal Character Dancer

“It is intentionally ambiguous.” Chen was amused. “I’m right here, so who do you have to look for? Or it could be about Wen, for all we know.”

They started to walk around in the temple, examining the clay idols on cushion-shaped stones-the deities of the Taoist religion. When they were out of the Taoist’s hearing, she resumed her questioning. “You are a poet, Chen. Please explain these lines to me.”

“What a poem means and what a fortunetelling piece means can be totally different. You’ve paid for the fortunetelling, so you have to be content with his interpretation.”

“What is wild-goose-flushing beauty?”

“In ancient China, there were four legendary beauties, so beautiful that everything else reacted in shame: the bird flushed, the fish dived, the moon hid, and the flower closed up. Later, people used this metaphor to describe a beauty.”

They then moved on, strolling into the temple courtyard. She started taking pictures, like an American tourist, he thought. She seemed to be enjoying every minute of it, shooting from many different angles.

She stopped a middle-aged woman. “Could you take a picture for us?” she asked. She stood close to him. Her hair gleaming against his shoulder, she gazed into the camera with the ancient temple in the background.

The bazaar in front of the temple was swarming with people. She spent several minutes looking for exotic but inexpensive souvenirs. Besides several baskets of herbs, which filled the air with a pleasant aroma, she bargained with an old peasant woman displaying tiny bird’s eggs, plastic bags of Suzhou tea leaves, and packages of dried mushrooms. At a folk toy booth, he rattled a slithery paper snake on a bamboo stick, a reminder of his childhood.

They chose a table shaded by a large umbrella. He ordered Suzhou-style dumplings, peeled shrimp with tender tea leaves, and chicken and duck blood soup. Between bites, she resumed her questions about the fortunetelling poem.

“The first and the second couplet are both by Lu You, a Song dynasty poet, but from two different poems,” he said. “The first is often quoted to describe a sudden change. As for the second, there’s a tragic story behind it. In his seventies, when Lu revisited the place where he had first seen Shen, a woman he loved all his life, he wrote the lines, gazing into the green water under the bridge.”

“A romantic story,” she said, swallowing a spoonful of the chicken and duck blood soup.

They reached the hotel in the growing dusk.

From her room, Chief Inspector Chen made a phone call to Detective Yu. Aware of Inspector Rohn’s presence, Yu did not say much on the phone, except that there would be a new interview tape delivered to Chen.

Then she said she wanted to phone her supervisor.

He excused himself to smoke a cigarette in the corridor.

It was a short conversation. She came out before he finished the cigarette. Looking out at the ancient city in the dusk, she said that her boss suggested she return home. She did not seem eager to comply.

“We may make some progress tomorrow,” she said.

“Let’s hope so. Maybe the fortunetelling poem will do the trick. I’ll take a rest in my room. Tomorrow will be a long day.”

“If anything happens, call me.” She remembered there was no phone in his room. “Or knock at my door.”

“I will.” He added, “Maybe we can take a walk this evening.”

He went to his room. When he turned on the light, to his surprise, he saw a man sitting there-to be more exact, taking a nap with his back resting against the headboard.

Little Zhou looked up with a start. “I’ve been waiting for you. Sorry I fell asleep in your room, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“You must have waited for a long time. What has brought you here, Little Zhou?”

“Something from Detective Yu. Marked to be delivered to you, ASAP.”

Since Qiao’s abduction, Chen had made a point of contacting Yu by cell phone, and in an emergency, through Little Zhou, whom Chen trusted.

“You didn’t have to come all this way,” Chen said. “I will be back at the bureau tomorrow. Nobody knows of your trip to Suzhou?” Chen asked.

“Nobody. Not even Party Secretary Li.”

“Thank you so much, Little Zhou. You are taking a great risk for me.”

“Don’t mention it, Chief Inspector Chen. I’m your man. Everybody knows that in the bureau. Let me drive you back tonight. It’s safer in Shanghai.”

“No, don’t worry. We have something to do here,” Chen said. “Let me talk to the hotel manager. There should be another room available. You can return to Shanghai tomorrow morning.”

“No, you don’t have to. If there’s nothing for me to do here, I’m leaving. But first I’ll go to the night market for some local products.”

“Good idea. Live river shrimps are a must. And Suzhou braised tofu too.” He wrote his cell phone number on a card for Little Zhou. “Both you and Lu can call me at this number.”

He walked out to the door with Little Zhou. “It’s a long drive back to Shanghai. Take care, Little Zhou.”

“Two hours. No sweat.”

Back in his room, he opened the envelope. It contained a cassette tape with a short introduction from Yu.

Chief Inspector Chen:

Following the interview with Zheng, I found Tong Jiaqing in a hair salon. Tong is a girl in her early twenties, charged with indecent practices on several occasions, though discharged soon afterward each time. The following is the interview with her in one of those private rooms. As you did in the national model worker case, I made an appointment at the salon.

Yu: So you are Tong Jiaqing.

Tong: That’s correct. Why do you ask that?

Yu: I am from the Shanghai Police Bureau. Take a look at my card.

Tong: What! A cop. I’ve done nothing wrong, Officer Yu. Since the

beginning of the new year, I’ve been working here as a law-abiding

hairdresser.

Yu: I know what you do. That’s not my business. As long as you

cooperate by answering my questions, I will not bring any trouble

down on you.

Tong: What questions?

Yu: Questions about Feng Dexiang.

Tong: Feng Dexiang? Um, he used to be one of my clients.

Yu: At this hair salon?

Tong: No, at the massage salon in the city of Fuzhou.

Yu: That’s where the police charged you several times. So did you

see him a lot there?

Tong: That was more than a year ago. He had some sort of small

business, trading fake jade bracelets or selling mud-covered crabs.

So for a while, about four or five months, he came to the salon

once or twice a week.

Yu: Give me the details of his visits.

Tong: Well, you can guess. Do I need to tell you the details? You’re

recording my statement. It will be used as evidence against me.

Yu: Not if you cooperate. You know Zheng Shiming, don’t you? He

gave me your address. I’m on a special assignment here. With

your past record, you know how easy it would be to put you back

in jail. No one will be able to procure your release this time.

Tong: Don’t scare me. I was just one of the massage girls. At a

massage salon, you know, there’s basic service and full service. A

client pays fifty Yuan for basic, but four or five hundred Yuan for

full, not including the tip.

Yu: Now at the price of four or five hundred Yuan, Feng came once

or twice a week for half a year. That was a lot of money. You must

have some expertise. Feng had a small business, as you said. How

could he have afforded this?

Tong: I don’t know. Those people never tell you what they really

do. They only tell you what they want you to do. And then they do