A Loyal Character Dancer

Chapter 36

The airplane was delayed again.

Inspector Rohn, Wen, Detective Yu, and Party Secretary Li, Sergeant Qian, everyone except Chief Inspector Chen, was at Shanghai ’s Hongqiao International Airport, standing by the arrival/departure monitor, which as yet showed no departure time scheduled for the United Airlines flight to Washington, D.C.

According to Detective Yu, Chief Inspector Chen was on his way to the airport. Yu had heard from him an hour earlier. That was not like the punctual chief inspector. Inspector Rohn was concerned. Since their meal last night at the Yus’, she had not heard from him. In spite of the “successful conclusion” of her mission, as Party Secretary Li had put it, some of the questions they had had during the investigation remained unanswered. And the flight would take off, if not further delayed, in only one and a half hours.

The afternoon sunlight sifted through the tall window. Wen stood alone, her face pallid, lifeless, like an alabaster mask except for the bluish smudges of stress under her eyes. Yu was busy making inquiries about the weather in Tokyo. Qian, whom Catherine met for the first time, seemed a dapper young man who spoke in a pleasing manner and offered to fetch drinks for them. Secretary Li once more harped on the friendship between the Chinese and American peoples. Catherine excused herself and went to Wen’s side.

She found it hard to offer comfort in Chinese. “Don’t worry, Wen,” she said, repeating what she had said in Suzhou. “If there is anything I can do for you in the United States, I will do it.”

“Don’t worry, Inspector Rohn,” Wen echoed. “Your work here is successfully completed.”

She did not feel “successful.” As she tried to find something else to say, she saw Chen and Liu enter the airport carrying several plastic shopping bags.

“Oh, Liu Qing’s has come with Chief Inspector Chen to see you off!” Catherine exclaimed.

“What?” Party Secretary Li hurried over to them. Yu and Qian followed. Wen took a step backward in disbelief.

“I have brought Comrade Liu from Suzhou, Party Secretary Li,” Chen said. “I did not have time to ask for your approval.”

“Liu has cooperated with us,” Catherine said. “We could not have succeeded in persuading Wen without his help. They should have the chance to say good-bye.”

“Not just that, Inspector Rohn. There is something further I need to discuss with Comrade Wen Liping,” Chen said. “Let’s move to the airport meeting room over there. We have to talk.”

It was an oblong meeting room, elegantly furnished with a marble table and two rows of leather-covered chairs, where city officials met distinguished foreign guests during their brief, temporary stays in Shanghai. Catherine seated herself with Wen and Liu on one side of the table, Chen with his colleagues on the other. At the end of the meeting room, there was a small anteroom, in which the travelers could relax on the sectional sofas.

“Inspector Rohn, Party Secretary Li, Detective Yu, I apologize for having not discussed a new development with you,” Chen said.

Catherine looked at Yu, and then at Li, and they both looked back at her in puzzlement. She noticed that Chen did not address Qian, who seemed to be fidgeting with his drink. Was it because Qian was just one of his low-level subordinates?

“Where were you last night?” Yu was the first to ask. “I waited for your call for hours.”

“Well, my original plan was to bring Old Hunter with me to a meeting with Gu Haiguang, but Gu called me first and wanted to meet me alone, earlier. So I came to your dumpling feast early and then met with Gu.”

“You did not tell me about this appointment,” Catherine said.

“I had no clue as to what Gu was going to say. Then there was no time to fill you in. I had Little Zhou drive me to Suzhou immediately. Liu had a late business meeting. I waited until he came home, spoke with him, and we started back before dawn. That’s why we have just made it to the airport.” Chen paused to take a breath, saying in a suddenly official tone. “Inspector Rohn, can you promise us one thing on behalf of the U.S. Marshals?”

“What’s that, Chief Inspector Chen?”

“As soon as you arrive in the United States, relocate Wen and Feng. At once.”

“That’s what we planned, but why the urgency, Chief Inspector Chen?”

“Because the gangsters will make every attempt to harm Wen even after she joins Feng.”

“Why?” Yu took out a cigarette.

“It’s a long story. The Flying Axes learned about Feng’s deal in the States early in January, weeks before Wen started to make her passport application. She preferred to stay in Fujian rather than go to live with him. But they coerced her into a conspiracy: she was to join Feng and then to poison him. They promised to get her out of trouble afterward. She agreed. Not because she hated Feng so much that she wanted to kill him, but because she knew what the gangsters would do to her if she refused.

“Now the situation is even more complicated,” Chen went on, heedless of the effect of his revelation upon his audience. “Once she gets there, she will be in danger not only from the Flying Axes, but from the Green Bamboo as well. The latter have a branch in the United States. They present a very serious threat to her.”

“What are you talking about?” Yu asked again. “What do these Green Bamboo have to do with anything?”

“The Green Bamboo is an international gang, far larger and more powerful than the Fujian-based Flying Axes. In their effort to extend their operations, and to take over the human smuggling operation in the Fujian area, they planned to extort crucial information from Feng by holding Wen as a hostage. In fact, it was the Green Bamboo, not the Flying Axes, that approached Feng in the United States. And they were the masked men who attacked us in Changle Village.”

“How did you learn all this, Chief Inspector Chen?” Li said.

“I will explain everything in due course, Party Secretary Li,” Chen said, turning to Wen. “Comrade Wen, I now understand why you changed your mind about the passport application, why you wanted to stay with Liu, and why you insisted on going back to Fujian. If you were going to the United States, you needed to bring with you the poison the Flying Axes had given you. You had left it behind when you fled on April fifth.”

Wen did not utter a word but as Liu touched her shoulder lightly, she dropped her face into her hands and began to sob.

“Feng ruined your life. The gangsters gave you no choice. The local police did a poor job protecting you. You had to think of your baby,” Chen continued. “Any woman in your position would have considered doing the same thing.”

“But you cannot, Wen,” Liu said in an emotional voice. “You must start a new life for yourself.”

“Liu has done such a lot for you, Wen,” Catherine interjected. “If you do something stupid, what will happen to him?”

Chen said, “I am not saying this to scare you, but you have stayed with him for a couple of weeks. People will suspect that you two planned it together. And Liu will be held responsible.”

“I cannot see how Liu can keep out of trouble if anything happens to Feng.” Yu added, “People must find somebody to punish.”

“Nor can I see how the Flying Axes will be able to get you out of trouble afterward,” Li joined in.

“They won’t be able to,” Qian said, speaking up the first time, like an echo.

“I’m sorry, Liu,” Wen sobbed, clutching Liu’s hand. “I did not think. I would rather die than get you into trouble.”

“Let me tell you something about my Heilongjiang years,” Liu said. “My life was a long tunnel without any light at the end. Thinking of you made the only difference. Thinking of you holding the red loyal character with me on the railway platform. A miracle. If that was possible, anything might be possible. So I hung on. And everything changed for me in 1976, at the end of the Cultural Revolution. Believe me: Things will change for you, too.”

“As I promised you in Suzhou,” Chen said, “nothing will happen to Liu as long as you cooperate with the Americans. Now, in the presence of Comrade Party Secretary Li, I’m making the same promise.”

“Chief Inspector Chen is right,” Li said with all sincerity. “As an old Bolshevik with forty years in the Party, I, too, give you my word. If you act properly, nothing will happen to Liu.”

“Here is an English dictionary.” Yu took out of his pants pocket a dog-eared book. “My wife and I were both educated youths. In Yunnan, I never dreamed that some day I would become a Shanghai cop speaking English with an American officer. Things change. Liu is right. Take the dictionary. You will have to speak English there.”

“Thank you, Detective Yu.” Liu accepted it for Wen. “It will be most helpful.”

“Here is something else.” Chen produced an envelope, which contained the picture of Wen leaving Shanghai as an educated youth, the picture used in the Wenhui Daily.

Catherine took it for Wen, who still had her face buried in her hands, sobbing inconsolably.

Twenty years earlier, at the railway station, a turning point in her life…Catherine gazed at the picture, and then at Wen. Now at the airport, another turning point in her life, but Wen was no longer the young, spirited Red Guard loyal character dancer looking forward to her future.

“One thing about the witness protection program,” Catherine said quietly. “People can leave at their own risk. We do not recommend it. Still, things may change. In several years, when the triads have been wiped out. I may be able to discuss a new arrangement with Chief Inspector Chen.”

Wen looked up through her tears, but she did not say anything. Instead, she reached into her purse, produced a small package, and handed it over to her. “Here is the stuff the Flying Axes gave me. You don’t have to say more, Inspector Rohn.”

“Thank you,” Chen and Yu said, in chorus.

“Now that she has promised full cooperation with you,” Liu said, casting a glance at the adjoining small room, “can we have some time for ourselves?”

“Of course.” Catherine said promptly. “We’ll wait here.”