A Loyal Character Dancer

Chapter 9

It was Detective Yu’s third day in Fujian.

There had been hardly any progress, but he had had second thoughts. The discovery of Feng’s phone call seemed to lead in a new direction. Interviews with Wen’s neighbors, however, had diminished the probability that she was hiding in the area. Wen had no local friends or relatives, and Feng’s had long since cut themselves off. Some villagers showed undisguised hostility by refusing to talk about the Fengs. It was hard to conceive that Wen Liping could have lain low there for days.

As for the possibility of her having left the area, that also appeared unlikely. She had not boarded the only bus passing through the village on that particular night, nor any of the buses passing within a radius of fifty miles. Yu had conducted careful research at the Transportation Bureau. There was no possibility of a taxi coming anywhere near the village unless it was requested several hours beforehand. And there was no record of such an order.

Another idea suggested itself. Wen might have left the village, but been abducted before she boarded a bus. If so, unless the local police took direct action against the gangsters, she would never be found in time, or at all.

So Detective Yu had talked to Superintendent Hong about possible moves against the local triad. In response, Hong gave him a list of the leading local gangsters, but the list indicated that none of them was available-all were either in hiding or out of the district. Yu suggested that they make arrests of low-level members. Hong maintained that the ringleaders alone would have the information they sought, and he also declared that it was up to the Fujian police to decide how to cope with the gangsters. In terms of cadre rank, Superintendent Hong’s was higher than Chief Inspector Chen’s. So Detective Yu was left with the useless list, as well as an impression that the local police were not pulling their weight-at least not on behalf of a Shanghai cop. And he suspected, gloomily, there might be something else involved.

Whatever his suspicions, Yu had to keep on doing what he now considered futile-interviewing people who had no relevant information, just as Chief Inspector Chen was doing in Shanghai.

On the interview list for that particular day, there was an appointment with the commune factory manager Pan in the late afternoon, but Yu got a call from Pan around nine in the morning.

“I have a business meeting this afternoon. Can we move our appointment up?”

“When would you like it?”

“What about between eleven thirty and twelve?” Pan said. “I’ll come to your hotel as soon as I have finished things here.”

“That will be fine.”

Yu contemplated informing Sergeant Zhao of the change, but he thought better of it. For the past few days, Zhao had been of little help. Sometimes Yu even had a feeling that interviewees chose not to talk because of Zhao. So he phoned Zhao, saying that Pan could not come in the afternoon, and that he himself would stay in the hotel for the day, writing a letter home, doing some laundry, and drafting a report to the bureau. Zhao readily agreed. Yu had heard a rumor that Zhao had a profitable business sideline; perhaps he was glad of some time free of police-work to devote to it.

Yu considered it too wasteful to have his laundry done by the hotel when he could save two Yuan a day by doing it himself. Kneading the dirty clothes on a wooden washboard in a concrete sink, he thought of his years like the foaming water dripping away through his fingers.

In his childhood, he had nurtured dreams about a career in the police force, listening to his father’s stories about solving cases. A few years after he himself became a cop, however, he had few illusions left about his career.

His father, Old Hunter, though an experienced officer and loyal Party member for so many years, had ended up a sergeant at retirement, with too meager a pension to indulge in a pot of Dragon Well Tea. Detective Yu had to be realistic. With his lack of education and social connections, he was in no position to dream of a great career in the force. Just one of the insignificant cops at the bottom, making the minimum wage, having little say in the bureau, forever at the end of the waiting list of the housing committee-

And that was another reason he had not been keen on this assignment. There would be a housing committee meeting late this month in the bureau. Yu was on the waiting list. If he stayed in Shanghai, he might be able to push the committee members a little, perhaps in imitation of a recent movie, by sleeping on his bureau desk as a gesture of protest. He believed he had every reason to complain. He’d had to stay under his father’s roof for over ten years after his marriage. It was a crying shame for a man approaching forty not to have a home of his own. Even Peiqin occasionally complained about it.

The housing shortage had a long history in Shanghai, which he understood. It became a burning issue for people’s work units- factories, companies, schools, or governmental bureaus-which got an annual housing quota from the city authorities and made assignments based on an employee’s years in service as well as other factors. It was especially difficult at the Shanghai Police Bureau, where so many cops had worked all their lives.

Nevertheless, Detective Yu took his job seriously, believing he could make a difference in other people’s lives. He had developed a theory about being a good cop in China now. It depended on one’s ability to tell what could and what could not be done effectively. It was because there were many cases not worthy of hard work as the conclusion was predetermined by the Party authorities. For instance, the outcome of those anti-government-corruption cases, in spite of all the propaganda fanfare, would be only to swat a mosquito but not to slap a tiger. They were symbolic, only for show. So, too, this investigation, though not part of a political campaign, seemed to be merely a matter of form. And that was perhaps true of the Bund Park case, too. The only effective action would be to uproot the triads, but the authorities were not ready to do so.

But Wen’s case had started to interest him. He had never imagined that an ex-educated youth could have led such a wretched life. And what had happened to Wen, he shuddered to think, could have happened to Peiqin. As an ex-educated youth himself, he felt obliged to do something for the poor woman, though he did not know what or how.

Shortly after he finished his laundry, Pan arrived at the hotel. A man in his early forties, extraordinarily tall and thin, like a bamboo stick, Pan had an intelligent face, adorned by a pair of frameless glasses. He talked intelligently, too. Always to the point, specific, not losing his way in details.

The interview did not provide any new information, but it gave a clear picture of Wen’s life during her factory years. Wen had been one of the best workers. There, too, she made a point of keeping to herself. As it seemed to Pan, however, it was not because she was an outsider, or because the other workers were prejudiced against her. She had been too proud.

“That’s interesting,” Yu said. The difficulty of reconciling the past to the present. Sometimes people retreat into a shell. “Did she try to better her circumstances?”

“She had no luck. She was so young when she fell into Feng’s hands, and then it was too late by the time Feng met his downfall, “ Pan said, stroking his chin. “ ‘Heaven is too high, and the emperor is too far away.’ Who cared for an ex-educated youth in a backward village? But you should have seen her when she first arrived here. What a knockout!”

“You liked her.”

“No, not I. My father had been a landlord. In the early seventies, I would not have dreamed of it.”

“Yes, I know all about the family background policy during the Cultural Revolution,” Yu said, nodding contemplatively.

Yu knew that perhaps he alone had reasons to be grateful for that notorious policy. He had always been ordinary-an ordinary student, an ordinary educated youth, and an ordinary cop, but Peiqin was different. Gifted, pretty, like those characters in The Dream of the Red Chamber, she might never have crossed his path but for her black family background, which had pulled her down, so to speak, to his level. He had once broached the topic to her, but she cut him short, declaring she could not have asked for a better husband.

“When I became factory manager in 1979,” Pan went on, “Wen was literally a poor lower-middle-class peasant. Not only in her class status, but in her appearance. No one took pity on Feng. I took pity on her. I suggested that she come to work here.”

“So you alone did something for her. That’s good. Did she talk to you about her life?”

“Not if she could help it. Some people like to talk about their misfortunes all the time, like Sister Qiangling in Lu Xun’s story ‘Blessing.’ Not Wen. She preferred to lick her wounds in secret.”

“Did you try to do anything else for her?”

“I don’t know what you are driving at, Detective Yu.”

“I’m not driving at anything. What about the work she took home?”

“Theoretically, the parts and chemicals are not allowed to be taken home, but she was so poor. A few extra Yuan made a difference to her. Since she was the best in the workshop, I made an exception for her.”

“When did you learn about her plan to join her husband in the United States.”

“About a month ago. She wanted me to write a statement about her marital status for her passport application. When I asked about her plans for the future, she broke down. Only then did I learn about her pregnancy.” Pan said after a pause, “I was curious about Feng’s efficiency. It normally takes years before people can begin the process of getting their families out. So I asked some other villagers. And I learned he had a deal there-”

There was a light tap on the door.

Detective Yu rose to open it. There was no one outside. He saw a tray of covered dishes on the ground, with a card saying, “Enjoy our special.”

“What great timing! This hotel is not bad. Have lunch with me here, Manager Pan. We can continue our talk over the meal.”

“Well, I owe you one then,” Pan said. “Let me buy you Fujian wok noodles before you leave.”

Yu took away the covering paper disclosing a large bowl of stir-fried rice, fresh and colorful, with scrambled egg and Chinese barbecued pork, a covered urn, and two side dishes, one of salted peanuts, one of tofu mixed with sesame oil and green onion. He was surprised to smell something like liquor as he pulled the paper lid off the urn.

“Crab marinated in wine,” Pan said.

There was only one pair of plastic chopsticks on the tray. Luckily, Peiqin had packed several pair of disposable chopsticks in his bag, so Yu handed a pair to Pan.

Pan picked up a loose crab leg with his fingers.

“I love crabs,” Yu shrugged his shoulders, “but I do not eat them raw.”

“Don’t worry. There won’t be any problem. Soaking the crab in the strong liquor takes care of it.”

“I just can’t eat uncooked crab.” It was not exactly true. In his childhood, a bowl of watery rice with a piece of salted crab had been his favorite breakfast. Peiqin had made him give up raw seafood. Maybe that was the price of having a virtuous wife. “You have all the crab, Manager Pan,” Yu reluctantly offered.

The rice smelled pleasant, the pork had a special texture, and the small side dishes were palatable. Yu did not really miss the crab. They talked more about Wen.

“Wen did not even have an account in the bank,” Pan said, “All her earnings were taken by Feng. I suggested that she keep some money at the factory. She did.”

“Did she take it out before she disappeared?”

“No. I was not in the factory the day she disappeared, but she took none of her money,” Pan said, finishing the golden digestive glands of the crab with relish. “It must have been a decision made on the spur of the moment.”

“During all these years, has anyone come to visit Wen here?”

“No, I don’t think so. Feng’s insanely jealous. He wouldn’t have encouraged visitors.” Turning the crab’s entrails inside out, Pan had something like a small old monk sitting on his palm. “The evil guy, you know.”

“I know. In the White Snake legend, the meddlesome monk had to hide in the crab entrails-” Yu left the sentence unfinished as he heard a faint moan from Pan.

Pan was already doubled over in pain, pressing a hand to his stomach. “Damn. It feels like a knife piercing me here.” His face was beaded with perspiration and had turned a livid color. He began to moan.

“I’ll call for an ambulance,” Yu said, jumping up.

“No. Take the factory pickup,” Pan managed to say.

The pickup was parked in front of the hotel. Yu and a hotel janitor lost no time carrying Pan on to the truck. The county hospital was several miles away. Yu had the janitor sit beside him to give directions. Before he started the engine, however, Yu ran back to his room and picked up the urn of wine-soaked crab to take with them.

Three hours later, Yu was ready to head back to the hotel, alone.

Pan had to stay in the hospital, though he was pronounced out of danger. The doctor’s diagnosis was food poisoning.

“In an hour,” the doctor said, “it would have been too late for us to do anything.”

The result of the tests of the contents of the crab urn were highly suspicious. The crab contained bacteria-many times more than was allowable. The crab used must have been dead for days.

“It’s strange,” the nurse said. “People here never eat dead crab.”

It was more than strange, Detective Yu reflected, as he plodded along the country road. There was an owl hooting somewhere in the woods behind him. He spat a couple of times on the ground, a subconscious effort to ward off the evil spirits of the day.

The moment he got back to the hotel, he checked at the hotel kitchen.

“No, we didn’t send that food to you,” the chef said nervously. “We don’t have that kind of room service.”

Yu dug out a hotel brochure. Room service was not mentioned. The chef suggested that the lunch might have been delivered by a nearby village restaurant.

“No, we never got such an order,” the restaurant owner whined over the phone.

They could have made the delivery by mistake, and were now trying to deny responsibility. But that was unlikely: the delivery man would have asked for payment.

Detective Yu was sure that he had been the target. If he had stayed alone in the hotel and eaten all the food himself, he would have ended up in the hospital, or the morgue. No one would have bothered to test the leftovers in an urn. The gang would not have had to worry. Food poisoning accidents happened every day. The local police wouldn’t even have been called in. The schemer could not have known that Yu did not eat raw crab.

So he was getting on someone’s nerves. Someone wanted to put him out of the way. This was now a battle for Detective Yu. He was determined to fight, though his enemy had the advantage of prowling in the dark, watching and waiting, striking out at any opportunity. Like the lunch-

Suddenly, he detected an alarming hole in his theory. The gangsters should have seen Manager Pan come into his room. They should not have made the attempt. Had they received incorrect information that Detective Yu was alone in his hotel room?

Nobody but Sergeant Zhao had known his plans for the day. He had told Zhao he would be alone. And the lunch tray was meant for one, with only one pair of chopsticks.