Qiu Xiaolong - The Mao Case

“Thank you, Chen. Song didn’t bring too much pressure to bear on Mr. Xie, not after he provided his alibi. Song asked me some questions too, but not too many. We’ve already talked to an attorney Mr. Xie has known for years – just to be on the safe side.”

“Yes, it is better to be on the safe side,” he said. “By the way, did you know Yang well?”

“No, not that well. She was a fashionable girl, flitting around like a butterfly. She seemed to know a lot of people.”

“I see,” he said, taking “a butterfly” to be a negative metaphor. “She attempted to drag you to another party the other day, I remember.”

“You’re very observant, Mr. Chen.”

“I couldn’t help noticing you,” he said, smiling. “You’re so different, like an immaculate crane standing out among the chickens.”

Now it sounded like flirting with an attractive girl – the “approach” Minister Huang had implied. He didn’t push, though, and took another sip of the coffee, which tasted strong and bitter. Nor did she respond, sitting there demurely, her eyes downcast.

The short spell of silence was punctured by the ringing of a cell phone in her dainty purse.

“Excuse me,” she said, jumping up and hastening out through the French window, leaving her slippers behind. The phone against her cheek, she stood framed against the window as if in an oil painting, merging into the verdant background. In her pink and white mandarin dress, she looked like a plum blossom, which vaguely reminded him of a poem. Slightly pensive in the morning light, she seemed to be nodding to that invisible speaker on the phone. She raised her right foot up backward against the window frame, scratching at her ankle, her red-painted toes shining like petals.

Years earlier, Mao could easily have been fascinated by someone like her…

Chen stood up, walked over to the antique typewriter on the corner table. Underwood. There was no paper in it. He struck two or three keys at random, all of which were rusted, stuck together. Worthless junk somewhere else, yet a valuable decoration here.

“Sorry about the phone call, Mr. Chen,” she said, sliding back into the room. “By the way, you have a maid at home, don’t you?”

“A maid?” He wondered why she was asking him about a maid. And it came out more like a statement than a question. Perhaps it was something taken for granted given his assumed identity. He responded vaguely. “You must have one too.”

“I used to, but she quit abruptly, without explanation or notice. Now things are a mess here and I have to come over to help. I need someone at home.”

He didn’t have a maid at home. There was no need for one. His mother had talked about the necessity of having someone to take care of things for him, but he knew what she was driving at. It meant anything but a maid.

Was Jiao really in need of a maid? Only a year ago, she was working as a receptionist, a position that paid little more than a maid. She was young, living alone, probably not much house work in her apartment.

But it presented an opportunity he couldn’t afford to miss. She hadn’t invited him to her home. Nor was that a possibility in the near future. Having a maid there, keeping her eyes open for him, could make the difference.

“Yes, you definitely need one.”

“Those people recommended by agencies are not dependable. It takes weeks to find a good one.”

“Mine is quite reliable,” Chen said, improvising. “I trust her. She has been working in her field for years. She must know some good people.”

“That would be fantastic. Could you find one for me? I trust you.”

“I’ll talk to her about it today.”

She appeared genuinely relieved. Picking up her coffee cup, she shifted her position on the sofa, resting her feet on the sofa arm. It was a pose not becoming for one in a mandarin dress, but she wasn’t exactly a lady like Shang. Actually, she struck him as uniquely lively, sitting like that, with a blade of grass from the garden stuck on her sole, a tiny detail that actually made her real, close – not an insubstantial echo from the faraway legend of Mao and Shang.

After what help he had offered, first with the real estate company and then with the Yang murder case, though indirectly, both Xie and Jiao had become quite friendly to him. The candlelight dinner with Jiao might have made a subtle difference too. There was something in the way she spoke to him. At least she had come to trust him, as she had just said. He wished that he could prove to be truly trustworthy.

She got up again, aware of the wistful expression on his face. “I’ll take a look upstairs and tell him you’re here. You may have something to say to him.”

“No, don’t worry about it. I have to leave now,” he said, rising too, “for a lunch appointment.”

He was going to find a maid for her. That could be a move crucial to the investigation. The maid had to be someone he himself was able to trust, making it out of the question to approach the bureau for help.

Hardly had he stepped out, however, when he realized that he didn’t have her phone number. So he turned back in haste.

Jiao was speaking on her cell phone again. She said something hurriedly at the sight of him.

“Oh, I forgot to ask for your phone number, Jiao.”

“Sorry, I forgot about that too,” she said, covering the phone with her palm. “I have yours. I’ll call you in a few minutes, so you’ll have mine too.”

Leaving again, closing the door after him, Chen decided to walk for a while. In the late summer morning, he heard cicadas screeching, sporadically, in the green foliage of French poplars that lined along the street. The area had belonged to the French Concession in the early years of the century.

He took out his phone and started dialing White Cloud, but he halted after pressing only the first three numbers. It wasn’t only too much of a risk for her. She was too young and too fashionable. No matter how she tried, she wouldn’t pass as a maid. After a minute’s hesitation, he dialed Old Hunter, explaining the situation.

“So I need to find a maid for Jiao. A reliable one. Not really for her, but for us. Someone who can work inside while you patrol outside.”

“I’ll talk to my old wife about it. She knows quite a lot of people,” Old Hunter said. “I’ll call you back as soon I have any news.”

Putting the phone back into his pants pocket, Chen looked ahead to see a stinking tofu peddler bending over a portable stove and wok on a shaded side street. Chen realized he must have smelled it first, the familiar tang strong in a breeze. A typical Shanghai snack with a special pungent flavor, which he liked – an unlikely moment for temptation, which he tried to resist.

Still, he found himself turning down the side street, at the end of which he could take a shortcut to the subway station. He had walked this route before. It was also quieter here, better for his thinking.

If there was anything interesting to the visit this morning, it was the extraordinary concern Jiao had, once again, exhibited for Xie. It was perhaps more than what was usual between a student and his teacher, but he couldn’t identify the ulterior motive that Song – and Chen himself – had suspected.

He passed by a wrought-iron gate across the entrance to a lane. In front of it squatted a man wearing a black Chinese-styled short-sleeved shirt, smoking, who looked up at the passing Chen from under a white canvas hat pulled low, shading most of his face. It was not an uncommon sight in the city, with so many people laid off in the recent years. The smell of the stinking tofu floated nearer, more pleasantly pungent…

But then Chen became aware of footsteps hurrying up from behind. Glancing over his shoulder, he glimpsed the white-hatted man rushing over to him, wielding an iron bar in one hand, cursing between clenched teeth, “You busybody bastard!”