A Case of Two Cities

8

CHIEF INSPECTOR CHEN ADOPTED a different approach with Jiang Xiaodong, the Director of the City Land Development Office.

It was an attempt with dual purpose. He had to investigate Jiang’s involvement in both the An case and the Xing case.

According to the information initially given to Chen, Jiang had never met Xing in privacy. Nor was there any record of his meeting with Ming. But for those pictures with An, no one could have suspected there was anything untoward about the approval of the land development.

But Chen was not going to use the pictures too early. The scandal would spell the downfall of the corrupt director, but it would not necessarily prove Jiang a murderer nor lead to a breakthrough in the Xing investigation.

So Chen started by focusing on something small, the company car service for Jiang. In China, a Party cadre, once promoted to a certain rank, would be provided with a company car. Theoretically, the car was meant for business use only, but a dinner or karaoke party could be claimed as necessary for business. No one would raise any question about those requests. At the rank of a chief inspector, Chen had the use of the bureau car, though not exclusively, and not with a designated driver. At Jiang’s rank, a car and driver were at his service, but they were not available twenty-four hours a day or parked at his residence. Jiang still had to call beforehand. So the chief inspector would check through the Chen trail first.

Early in the morning, Chen went to Jiang’s office, which, like Dong’s, was located in the City Government Building. Instead of entering the building, he headed straight for the parking lot, where he saw a small office with a couple of people dispatching various cars. It took him no time to find out that Jiang’s driver was Lai Shan. Lai had already left to get the car maintenanced that morning, so Chen had to wait there patiently.

Around ten-thirty, someone in the office said to Chen, “Lai has come back. He’s probably going to have lunch in his car. A couple of steamed buns-you know.”

Chen stepped out to find Lai, but quickly changed his mind. He walked out to the square and hailed a taxi to Xinya Restaurant on Nanjing Road. It took him only five minutes to get to the restaurant, where he had the taxi wait for him. He chose a roast Guangdong duck, had the chef slice it, meat and skin together, and put it into a plastic box. He had the duck bones put into a larger plastic box and, in addition, he got steamed buns and a six-pack of Budweiser. He then rushed back.

Lai was a man in his early fifties, short, swarthy. He was reading a newspaper in the car, yawning, staring out at the approaching cop. Chen handed in his business card with a plastic lunch box in his hand.

“I’m Chen Cao, of the Shanghai Police Bureau. I have a couple of questions for you. Nothing wrong with you, Comrade Lai. Don’t be alarmed. I happen to know you have not had lunch yet, neither have I. So how about us talking over our lunch together?”

“Fine. I only have cold buns,” Lai said, eyeing him up and down. “If my boss needs me, I have to move immediately.”

Chen moved in and put the plastic box between them. A popular way to eat a roast duck was to have the duck slices wrapped in pancakes, but it was not too bad wrapped in the soft, warm buns from Xinya. When Chen popped open the beer, it was like opening the chatterbox between them.

“ Guangdong roast duck is different from Beijing roast duck, not so fatty. So I had the chef slice the meat and skin together.”

“Yes, I had Beijing roast duck last night. Nothing but crisp duck skin in pancakes, with green onion and Beijing sauce. Really tasty, but I like duck meat too. Guangdong roast duck is better for me.”

“It’s a pity that we can’t have the duck bone soup here,” Chen said, finishing the second bun. “It has to be hot, with a lot of pepper.”

“Exactly, that’s one of the three celebrated ways to eat a duck,” Lai said, smacking his lips. “Thank you so much for the lunch. I have heard your name before, Chief Inspector Chen. No free lunch in the way of the world, I know. You are a busy man with a lot of questions. So go ahead.”

“Did Director Jiang use your car last night?”

“No, Jiang didn’t request the car service last night. I was at a wedding. My friend’s daughter got married at Yanyun Pavilion.” Lai took a picture out of his wallet. “Look at the picture. What a grand wedding. Twenty-five tables altogether. And an impressive array of luxury cars. The bride had an uncle coming in a Mercedes, and they insisted on my driving the Lexus there too.”

Chen took a glance at the picture. The date was imprinted on the right corner of it. No mistake about the date. The part about luxury cars also sounded true. It was an age when being rich meant being glorious. For a wedding, people would show off their wealth in whatever way possible.

“Let me ask you a different question. Does Director Jiang use your car all the time?”

“Theoretically, my job is from eight to five, but as you know, there’re a lot of dinner parties in the evening. To be fair to Jiang, he makes a point of discussing his schedule with me. So like today, I took my wife to hospital in the morning. And he gives me twenty extra hours every month. That helps.”

“So he uses your car all the time-late into the night?”

“For really personal business,” Lai said slowly, “Director Jiang does not always request my service. Taxis are available outside that famous subdivision of his-Riverside Villas. It takes too much time for me to get there.”

“I see. Does he ever drive himself?”

“No, he doesn’t. So he doesn’t have the car parked in his subdivision. It saves me one and half hours of taking bus home, the tunnel is usually terrible with traffic congestion.”

But that didn’t necessarily mean Jiang stayed at home last night. In fact, Chen himself didn’t request car service all the time either. For his visit to the bathhouse, for instance, or his date at Golden Island. As a fast-rising Party cadre, he had to be careful about his image. He thought he detected a slightly sarcastic note in Lai’s emphasis on “really personal business.”

“One more question-what is his schedule for the day?”

“He’s going to Qingpu in the afternoon. Then there will be a dinner party there. I don’t think I will make it back until after ten. Is there something you want to talk to him about today?”

“No, I’ve finished all my questions. The last one was really for the duck bones. You’d better keep them in a refrigerator if you’re going back home so late.”

“I see. Yes, there’s a refrigerator in the office.”

“That’ll be great. To make the duck bone soup, you have to cook them over a small fire for two hours at least, I think, until the soup turns milky white. You can add some cucumber slices into the soup with a handful of black peppers,” Chen said, pushing open the door. “It’s been a wonderful lunch, Lai. I don’t think you need to mention it to anybody. Bye.”

“Bye. Chief-” Lai reached out of the car, a piece of duck in his hand and puzzlement in his eyes. It could have appeared like a free lunch to him, an inexplicable one. Chen did not think Lai would talk to Jiang about it.

Chen then hailed a taxi, telling the driver to go to Riverside Villas in Pudong.

“Go through the tunnel?” the driver said.

“Yes,” Chen said. “It’s quicker.”

“Perhaps, if there’s no traffic.”

Pudong had once been a largely rural area east of the Huangpu River, with a few old factories interspersed here and there. In his days of English studies at Bund Park, the view across the river was mostly an expanse of somber-colored farmland. There was a popular saying at the time, he remembered: A bed west of the river is better than a room east of the river. At the end of the eighties, however, the city government began a tremendous effort to turn Pudong into the Wall Street of Asia, declaring it a special zone and offering attractive government policies for foreign investment. The landscape soon underwent a fundamental change; new buildings shot up, and housing prices soared to the skies.

Chen had heard of the Riverside Villas. It was one of the most expensive new residential areas in Shanghai, bordering on the eastern bank of the Huangpu and boasting a superb view of the river and of the Bund across it. People described the area as another Bund, even more modern and magnificent. Such a change no one would have dreamed of half a decade earlier. Jiang must have purchased the apartment here through his insider knowledge.

Riverside Villas was a high-end subdivision, where a security guard stood in front of its gate with an archlike top. There was a booth with a phone, a desk, and a chair. Once more Chen had to produce his badge. The middle-aged security guard named Aiguo cooperated zealously. According to him, the gate closed at midnight, and residents returning later had to speak to the night security through the intercom before getting in. Aiguo happened to be the one working here last night.

“Oh, you’ve been working continuously for more than forty hours,” Chen said, glancing at his watch.

“It’s not a fancy job, but I can doze, off and on, in the booth at night,” Aiguo said, scratching his head. “There were only two who came back after twelve last night. Jiang was one of them, around one, in a taxi. I had to put it in my time sheet.”

It did not exactly fit with the time of death the police estimated for An, Chen thought.

“In addition, I had the taxi license number copied,” Aiguo went on. “If you want to know more, I can call for you here, Chief Inspector Chen. The taxi belongs to the People’s Taxi Company, I know.”

“I appreciate your offer, Aiguo.” Chen was surprised by his eagerness to cooperate. He wondered whether Aiguo bore any personal grudge against Jiang. “But tell me first a little bit about Jiang in general. He’s lived here for a couple of years-one of the earliest residents in the subdivision, I’ve heard.”

“Who can afford to live here?” Aiguo responded. “Corrupt officials and big-buck capitalists. At the price of twelve thousand yuan per square meter, I could save all I earn for ten years, without eating and any other expense, and I still would not be able to buy a bathroom in the area. The gap between rich and poor is really like that between cloud and clod. When Jiang bought it, he paid only one thousand yuan per square meter, not to mention a special discount no one knows about. Is that fair in our socialist society?”

“No, it’s not fair.”

“But what can you do? Jiang, like other residents here, simply takes a security guard like me as trash. Especially Jiang, one of those damned night animals. It seems as if they never have to sleep, like rats. Two or three times a week, he comes back after the closing of the gate. Sometimes two or three o’clock. I have to get up to open the gate for him. But I’m a man, and I need to sleep. Right now it’s not too bad to get up a couple of times at night, but in the winter, it’s hell. I shiver like a straw man. They have heating at home, but there is nothing in the booth here. Nothing but an old army overcoat. And what can he be up to until two or three at night? Not official business, surely.”

“It’s hard for you,” Chen said, nodding. Aiguo’s animosity was understandable. And it was an opportunity for Chen. He might as well gather as much information as possible here, even if Jiang’s nocturnal activities were not related to An’s case.

“Now, one night’s expense for people like Jiang can be far more than one month’s pay for me, Chief-” Aiguo made an abrupt halt as a black Lexus came rolling in view.

Out of the car emerged a middle-aged man Chen recognized from the pictures as Jiang.

“Hello, Chief Inspector Chen,” Jiang said in a loud, warm voice, walking over in strides. “You are looking for me, I’ve heard.”

It was an encounter Chen had not anticipated. Jiang must have cut short his visit to Qingpu. But it was an inevitable encounter, Chen reflected, considering the photographs in his briefcase.

“I’ve heard a lot about the area. I happen to have a meeting in Pudong this afternoon, so I wanted to take a look here.”

“Now that you’re here, why not come in?”

“Yes, in front of a temple, I’d better go in to kowtow to the clay image.”

“Well, you won’t go to a temple without having something to pray for.”

Aiguo listened to the exchange of proverbs between the two with a knowing smile, waving his hand at Chen as he walked in with Jiang.

Jiang’s apartment was on the top of a twenty-two-story high rise. The suite was renovated, featuring a spacious living room and a bedroom on one level and another bedroom and a study on an added second level. It looked like a townhouse in a new style called fushi, popular for its economical use of space in the overcrowded city.

But this apartment, Jiang explained, had been designed for a different purpose: Jiang’s paralyzed wife. The barely furnished living room was simply a larger area where she could move around in her wheelchair. His wife managed to hiss out a greeting in a raucous voice.

“She was paralyzed fifteen years ago in a car accident,” Jiang whispered. “It affected her speaking ability too.”

The normal sexual life for the two might also have been affected, Chen observed. Still, Jiang had been nice to her in his way, at least in designing the interior of the house. But did that justify his affair with An?

They went upstairs to the study in silence. Jiang closed the door after him, and they sat on either side of the desk. Chen could hear the wheelchair rolling about downstairs.

There was no point in beating about the bush. Chen started talking about the Xing investigation, focusing on the approval Jiang had given Ming’s land development request.

As Chen had anticipated, Jiang made a total denial, as if he could push out the moon by shutting the window.

“I didn’t know anything about Ming’s relationship with Xing, Chief Inspector Chen. The land development was approved because I didn’t see anything wrong with the plan in itself,” Jiang said with a serious expression. “You question the part about the continuous factory operation, but it had been studied and approved by Comrade Dong of the State Company Reform Office before it had been submitted to me.”

“So you have never looked into the matter yourself.”

“Do you know how many applications I have to read every day? No way can I do careful research on a particular one. The market is money-oriented. Property development involves a lot of risk. No businessman wants to do things for others, or for the country. So it was with Ming’s application, but other than that, I didn’t find anything out of the ordinary.”

“Well,” Chen said, knowing he had no choice but to play his trump card. “Can you tell me where you were last night, Director Jiang?”

“What do you mean?” Jiang snapped, staring at Chen with daggers flying out of his glare. “How can you talk to me like that?”

“I am talking to you as an emperor’s special envoy-that is Comrade Zhao’s term-directly under the Party Discipline Committee,” Chen said, producing the authorization on the committee’s letterhead. “I would hope you would cooperate with me.”

“An emperor’s special envoy? It’s almost the end of the twentieth century, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen. I feel ashamed for you.” Jiang made a visible effort to control himself. “I have explained to you everything about that matter with Ming. He disappeared several weeks ago. Why, all of a sudden, do you want to know my whereabouts last night?”

“Why can’t you give me a direct answer, Director Jiang?”

Chen’s cell phone rang. It was Aiguo. Chen excused himself and walked to the window.

“I’ve already learned something from the taxi driver. He picked up Jiang around twelve last night at a bathhouse called Niaofei Yuyao.”

“Niaofei Yuyao, I see,” Chen said. An ironic coincidence that they had visited the same bathhouse. The one who retreats for fifty steps should not laugh at the one who retreats for a hundred steps. “Thank you so much, Aiguo. That’s very important.”

But that practically ruled out the possibility of Jiang’s being the murderer, Chen contemplated, turning off the phone. He sat back down at the desk and said to Jiang, “I apologize for the interruption, Director Jiang.”

“Now you’d better give me an explanation, Chen,” Jiang demanded. “I’m a Party cadre of eleventh rank. What do you really want with me? You approached my driver stealthily this morning, and then the security in the subdivision.”

“Lai told you that?”

“He tried to put the duck bones into the refrigerator in the office, and I found everything out.”

“Now let me tell you something, Director Jiang. Because I took into consideration your cadre rank, I tried to conduct the investigation in an inconspicuous way, and to approach Lai and the security informally first. Why? One of the people involved in the land approval was murdered last night.”

“What? Are you considering me a suspect in a homicide case?” Jiang rose in indignation.

“Calm down, Comrade Jiang. As a police officer, I have to check into everything. I have evidence about your involvement with her.”

“Her? Evidence! Don’t bluff me like a three-year-old kid.”

“Have you heard of the death of An Jiayi?”

“You mean the anchorwoman. Yes, I read about it in the newspaper today. A shameless slut on the sly.”

Chen was infuriated in turn by Jiang’s callousness.

“You knew the slut only too well on the sly, Jiang,” he said, also rising from the desk. He tossed the pictures on it. “Take a damned good look at them. And then you can say that to me again.”

Jiang stared at the pictures in disbelief, as if he had too hard a time changing back from the lover in the pictures to a high-ranking Party cadre in his study. His face turned to white, then to red, and he was unable to say a word.

The sound of the wheelchair rolling around on the floor below came up to them through the silence.

“Undeniable evidence,” Chen said in a low voice.

“How could you have stooped so low?”

“Will you believe it if I tell you, Director Jiang, that people have been watching you for a long time? There’s one thing I can assure you. I didn’t do it. Nor do I know who did.”

It was true, and full of implications too.

“So what do you want me to do, Chief Inspector Chen?” Jiang said. “I was with some friends last night. They can prove it.”

“In a private massage room, with another naked girl serving you hand and foot.”

“You-” Jiang stammered in astonishment

It was only a guess, but Jiang’s reaction proved it. Panic-stricken, he believed that he had been followed everywhere.

“Let’s not talk about last night yet. Tell me what you know about Ming. And about An,” Chen said. “I don’t want to brag about my special position, Director Jiang, but I can do something with the ‘imperial sword’ in my hand, I want you to bear that in mind. For instance, I can withhold these photos from the higher authorities, and I can also give them to Shanghai Morning.”

“Now that I have learned of Ming’s relation to Xing, Chief Inspector Chen,” Jiang started on a different tune, “how can I not try to help? Ming could have used An as his PR person, I see, in a devious scheme. As for An, her marriage was long on the rocks. In the Western world, she would have automatically divorced her husband-such a long separation. And my married life was totally wrecked in the car accident.”

“That’s neither here nor there, Director Jiang.”

“But if you think the approval for the land development went through because of her relationship with me, you are wrong, Chief Inspector Chen. Such an application has to travel from one office to another, either through the front door or the back door. Not only in Shanghai, but also in Beijing -with other connections at a much higher level.”

“Connections at a much higher level.” Chen had thought about that. After all, Jiang had functioned only as one link in a long chain, all of which Chen had to trace. In order to minimize his responsibility, Jiang might be willing to drag some others into the mire. “Tell me about them.”

“Yes, I think-I think I know some names possibly connected,” Jiang said hesitantly. “But it’s such an important case, and with a murder involved, that I have to verify some information first. It won’t do to throw out irresponsible accusations.”

“You know I can’t wait. So you may give me the names. I’ll do the background check first.”

“Like the background check you’ve been doing on me?” Jiang said with a bitter smile. “It’ll take only a couple of days for me to find out. I can’t tell you anything at this moment.”

“You don’t have to go into details,” Chen said, wondering whether Jiang had recovered from the blow and begun procrastinating. “Anything you can think of. I have to make my report to Comrade Zhao.”

“If you really can’t wait for a day or two, Chief Inspector Chen, you may go ahead and do whatever you have to do. I have been a Party member for many years, and I know better than to destroy other hardworking Party cadres-like me-for things they might not have done.”

Those pictures would be more than enough to crush Jiang’s career. Once Chen turned them over, however, he would have no cards left in his hands. Jiang would be a dead pig, and the water, no matter how steaming hot, made no difference. His confession about his adulterous relationship with An might be hot in tabloid magazines, but that wasn’t what Chen wanted to read. As Jiang had said, Ming’s deal was not one Jiang alone could have approved. It might be true that he had to verify something first, and that he had reasons to be very cautious about things at a “much higher level.”

Downstairs, his wife burst into a violent fit of coughing.

“I’ll give you a couple of days,” Chen said, rising again. “But no more than that. I have no choice, you know.”

In the meantime, Chief Inspector Chen would keep a close surveillance on Jiang, who, like An, might have to contact others in desperation.