Shanghai Redemption

EIGHT

THE NEXT DAY, CHEN made his way back to Suzhou and the cemetery with his father’s grave. This time, he brought with him a hardcover book.

It was a study of neo-Confucianism written by his father and published posthumously just last year. The publication quite possibly had something to do with Chen’s then-position as chief inspector and rank as a Party cadre. Now it was his mother’s request that, once the renovation of his father’s grave was complete, the book be buried in the casket.

There had been almost a supernatural aspect to his first trip to Suzhou, Chen reflected. Because he went to visit his father’s grave, because he decided that he needed to have his father’s grave restored and renovated, and because he took pictures of the grave and sent them to his mother, he’d gotten a call from his mother while he was at the nightclub. All these things seemed to be connected through the inexplicable links of yin and yang, as if guided by an invisible hand.

Had he told his mother about what happened at the nightclub when he stepped out to return her call, she would have declared that he’d been protected by his late father. It seemed the least he could do to return the favor was to pay personal attention to the restoration. The trip might also serve as a signal to anyone who might be trying to ruin him that the ex-chief inspector had given up, and instead of trying to fight back he was simply keeping himself busy among the graves in Suzhou. Providing them with a sideshow wouldn’t hurt, whether they believed it or not.

If no one else, his mother believed in Chen’s trip to oversee the renovation of his father’s grave. She wasn’t materialistic, but the knowledge that the grave of her late husband would be properly tended to would help her sleep at night. Her request that Chen have his father’s book buried with his remains originated in a dream of hers in which the late Confucian scholar was frantically searching for his copies of the classics stored in the attic room, worrying that they had been burned. During the Cultural Revolution, one of the crimes his father had been accused of was his condemnation of the first Qing emperor’s burning books as a means to control people’s minds. Mao happened to admire the first Qing emperor.

At the cemetery, on the hillside with his father’s grave, Chen saw two farmers in their early fifties standing nearby. They were smoking and talking, but not working. These were the workers supposed to be doing the restoration job. Chen introduced himself and lit cigarettes for them. Then, as Chen stood watching, the workers picked up their tools with undisguised reluctance.

Chen decided to stay there for a while, take a look around, making a comment every now and then and pretending to supervise. At one point, Chen walked over to a moss-covered stone step, sat down, and opened the book he’d brought with him. But he couldn’t concentrate on all that Confucius said. Soon he got up and started pacing about, making a renewed effort to visualize the details of the renovation.

Around eleven, the farmers declared they had to leave for lunch, tossing down their tools. It was still early, but Chen chose to say nothing.

With the workers gone, Chen, too, walked down the trail, casting a look around and wondering if he was being followed. So far, he hadn’t noticed anything suspicious. It was more than possible, however, that somebody would check with the cemetery office. Chen might as well stop in and let the office confirm that Chen was in Suzhou.

Manager Hong welcomed Chen to the office with open arms, leading him to the same sofa as the last time.

“Let’s talk about the project,” Chen started, moving straight to the point.

“We’re doing our best, Director Chen. You can be assured that progress is being made. And that the work is of good quality, too.”

“I have a week before I must get back to work in Shanghai. So I plan to spend some of that time here in Suzhou.” Chen showed Hong the book he was carrying. “This book was written by my father. It’s my mother’s request that I place this copy of the book in my father’s casket myself.”

“Let me say it again, Director Chen, a filial son like you will be blessed. But you don’t have to worry about the restoration work on your father’s tomb.”

“For the work to be completed in time, however, the farmers might have to work overtime. I understand that this might cost extra, and I want to reassure you that that’ll be fine. Just make sure to give me an itemized list of expenses.”

“To be honest, Director Chen, some of the local farmers might not be pulling their own weight. But I will visit your father’s grave site frequently and keep an eye on the workers for you. I give you my word on it. If you want to stay in Suzhou for a short vacation, there is a lot to see in the ancient city.”

A lot to see in the ancient city-that’s what his father had said when they were in Suzhou many years earlier.

“Thank you, Manager Hong,” Chen said, his tongue suddenly dry. “Time alone will be able to show my gratitude. The blue mountains always stand, the green water flows along the unchanging course.”

Chen’s response sounded like something from a martial arts novel, but his mind had suddenly gone blank, and that was all he could come up with.

He gave Hong his regular cell phone number, which Hong entered into his own cell. Hong then called a taxi for him.

“Where are you staying, Director Chen?”

“It’s a hotel called-” He had not booked a hotel yet, thinking that he could find a cheap one close to the cemetery. But that wouldn’t fit the persona of a high-ranking director. “Southern Garden, I think that’s the name.”

“That’s a nice hotel, the Southern Garden. It’s just about twenty minutes from here. That should be very workable for you.”

Chen said his farewells and walked out of the office to see a taxi driver waiting, arms crossed, a cigarette dangling between his lips.

“Southern Garden Hotel,” Chen said, after settling into the backseat.

“Oh, the Southern Garden, I know it well,” the driver said, nodding. “Years ago, Mao and other top Party leaders used to stay there. It’s a really nice hotel, in the old city section. Most tourists don’t know anything about Suzhou, and they swarm to newly built five-star hotels in the new city section.”

As a result of China’s economic reform, Suzhou had grown into a much larger city. There was now an outer ring called the new city and an inner section called the old city. The hotels in the old city were generally less desirable, with their old buildings and gardens little changed from the old days. Most visitors preferred the recently built high-rise hotels in the new city.

Fifteen minutes later, the taxi pulled up in front of a hotel located on Ten Perfections Street. What “Ten Perfections” referred to, Chen had no idea. Chinese people often believed in the power of certain numbers, and ten happened to be a lucky number.

Chen walked into the hotel, taking stock of the antique-style lobby and the southern-style garden in a sweeping glance. Things seemed to be little changed. The hotel was said to have been built on the site of a Qing dynasty garden, and the original grotto had been kept intact. The room rate was somewhat higher than what Chen had been planning on, but for a couple of days, he could handle it.

In the Ming and Qing dynasties, it was fashionable for the southern literati, when successful, to be Confucianists and to be intent on worldly achievements. When not successful, however, they tended to be Taoists focused on self-cultivation. For the Taoists, the southern-style garden represented a metaphysical landscape as well as a physical one, with the grotto, stream, and bamboo grove all clustered together in imitation of nature.

At the front desk, Chen registered, got his room key, and, just before he turned to go, decided to pick up a train schedule as well. Flipping through it, he saw that there was a Shanghai-bound train leaving Suzhou roughly every twenty minutes. If need be, he could leave Suzhou in the morning and return in the evening.

His room was on the second floor of the main building. It was a cozy, comfortable one, furnished partially in the Qing style. On one wall, there was an impressive row of pictures showing visits of high-ranking Party leaders in the fifties and sixties, eloquently documenting the hotel’s glorious past. The wall opposite displayed a long rice-colored silk scroll of a seventh-century Tang poem copied by a modern calligrapher.

Chen decided to take a short rest and slumped across the bed. The mattress came as a pleasant surprise-it had a foam cushion covering the old-style mattress. Of late, he’d slept badly, and he could use a nap. However, he lay on the bed and tossed restlessly.

There was a strange sound-not loud, but persistent-a tapping against the window. Chen got up and saw that it was a lone twig trembling in the wind, creaking until it finally snapped. It reminded him of a story he’d read long ago.

The work at the cemetery seemed to be off to a decent start. What worried the ex-cop was his inability to do anything in Suzhou that could make a difference in Shanghai.

He pulled out his laptop. The hotel provided free Internet service, so he connected and started surfing the Web. He came across an anecdote marked as the daily top pick. It was written by Jian Hao, a Web-based writer popular in Shanghai, about a lunch of meatball rice on the train.

I was traveling on the high speed train to Beijing. An attendant came by selling meatball rice lunches. “Come on,” he said. “The meat is a joke, I don’t need to tell you that. The balls are made of nothing but flour with a generous pinch of MSG.” Such an unbelievable tone of irony. The attendant was trying to pitch his wares by insisting they were fake. With the story of the dead pigs still so fresh in everybody’s mind, nobody had any appetite for meatballs. Could the attendant be telling the truth? The heart of the matter is that the list of “truths” in China can be too long. It’s not just dead pigs, toxic milk powder, contaminated fish, DDT-sprayed ham, and formalin-whitened shrimp…

I recently heard a joke about the people of Shanghai being blessed… they enjoy pork rib soup every day for free. There are so many things that are beyond imagination in this miraculous country. At the end of a TV soap opera I was watching, a Ming dynasty imperial concubine said to her secret lover, “Why are your brows knitted so deeply? I would love to smooth the lines with an electric iron.” Can you believe that? Still, let us pray that there will be such a miraculous iron to smooth out all of our frowns and worries over a portion of meatball rice.

It was no wonder, Chen thought, that Jian Hao had so many followers online. He really knew how to effectively poke at social realities. Chen stood up and began pacing about the room, liked a cricket jumping in a corked bamboo container. His cell phone rang: it was White Cloud.

She spoke very fast, as if anxious to finish the call. There was some traffic noise in the background.

“Following your instructions, I’m calling from a public phone,” she said. “About what happened at the club, nobody seems to have noticed anything unusual that night. A little disturbance at the Heavenly World is not surprising. But it might be because the people I’ve talked to-who are just girls like me, not the top management-know only a limited amount. I’m still working on it, though, and you can count on me. As for any particular topics that the clubgoers are talking about, you might as well simply check out the hottest topics on the Internet. Some of them that don’t appear at first to be related to the club actually do have a connection. For instance, the notorious Watch Boss Yao. He was said to have spent a night at the club right after the scandal broke, spending time with two top girls in a private room before he committed suicide the next day. Then there is Shang’s wife, who was also seen coming to a party at the club. She was coming to sing, though not necessarily like one of those singing girls, you know-”

“Watch Boss Yao-hold on, I know who you are talking about, I think. He was the unlucky city traffic bureau chief who got into trouble because of a Wenhui picture of him at the scene of a traffic accident, smiling and wearing an expensive watch. Overnight that picture turned him into a target on the Internet.”

“Yes, that’s Yao. After that photo appeared, people started asking a simple question, ‘How could he afford that gold Rolex watch if he’s not corrupt?’ That was even the caption for the picture when it was posted on some muckraking Web site. Soon after it was posted, other pictures of him showed up. Ultimately, photos turned up online showing him with a total of fifteen or sixteen other watches. Together they looked like window of a luxury watch shop, and it didn’t leave him with even a shred of credibility-”

“Okay, so that was Yao. But who is Shang’s wife?”

“She’s Little Red Star’s mother. You must have heard of Shang’s son?”

“Oh yes, I have. Shang’s son. I see. But how did she end up at the nightclub?”

“Before she married Shang, she used to sing professionally at a club.”

“Used to?”

“That was years ago. I don’t really know the details, but if you want, I can check. Nowadays, she might be just earning some money on the side. But it is strange that she was at the Heavenly World and performing at a private party for ‘distinguished guests.’”

“That’s strange indeed. I think I saw her singing on TV last year. She’s not exactly-”

“She’s not a beauty, I know. I wondered why she was hired for a private party as well, but I was told that the people throwing the party wanted to hear her singing red songs. That it was exciting for them.”

“That’s perverted.”

“The fact that she is a PLA general’s wife added to the kick. It was the juxtaposition of a red general’s wife singing red songs in the middle of all the decadence and over-the-top luxury of the club.”

“How absurd!” he said. “Can you find out more about her? Such as what was she paid for her appearance, and who paid her fee?”

“I’ll try my best.”

“Is there anything else?”

“Just more stories like that. All kinds of people come to the club, for all kinds of reasons. But there is one more big story going around-everyone is talking about the death of a client, an American client.”

“He died at the club?”

“No, somewhere else. It was in a hotel in Sheshan. One of the girls told me he was very well connected and spent money like water. There are a lot of clubgoers like that at the Heavenly World, but there was something special about this one. People have been whispering about it. Perhaps it’s because he was a regular at the club, and some of the girls knew him well.

“As for Rong, people there haven’t heard of him before-at least, not in connection with the nightclub. It’s possible that he knew somebody there and that that’s why he chose to hold the book launch party there.” She then added with a touch of hesitancy, “Finally, about Shen, the owner of the club. I don’t know him well, but I know how to get to him, if need be. He might have something to say.”

“I don’t know how I can ever thank you enough, White Cloud.”

“I wish I could do more.” The noise in the background was getting louder, and she paused. “Sorry, someone outside the booth is knocking, waiting to use the phone. I might be able to call you later with another message. Bye.”

After White Cloud hung up, Chen sat there for a few minutes staring at his cell phone. Her failure to find any real clues didn’t surprise him. Nor did the fact that no one was aware of the attempted raid or any other disturbances that night. As for the hot topics of discussion at the club that she’d uncovered, none of them seemed to be worth following up on.

For instance, Watch Boss Yao’s visit to the nightclub. A corrupt official, aware of his doom, Yao very likely wanted to have his last “heavenly fling” there before leaving the world. It was understandable that the visit was never mentioned in the official media. Chen hadn’t paid much attention to the situation. The punishment of a Party cadre was the responsibility of the Party Discipline Committee, not the police.

Chen also didn’t see anything relevant in the death of the American clubgoer. There were so many Westerners living and working in Shanghai these days that it was nothing shocking that some visited the club. That night he was at the Heavenly World, Chen himself had seen a foreigner chasing a half-naked girl down the corridor.

As for Shang’s wife, she would have been even less relevant except for the case of Shang’s son having been assigned to his former squad just before Chen was promoted out of the police department. While he didn’t see a connection, he couldn’t help feeling curious. Who were the clients paying her to sing red songs in that environment? Red songs supposedly meant a lot to the down-and-out, the people who missed the days under Mao. But why would they interest the elite who rented that private room?

What White Cloud was able to learn couldn’t help but be limited. The hair salon of hers was nothing compared to the high-end club. She had made her way up from the bottom, but she was still a long way from the top. Her current associates and contacts were mainly the girls who worked at places like the club. There was something vaguely disconcerting about the way she referred to her contacts as “girls like me.”

Opening the window, he saw that it was a fine day outside. A chirping note, off and on, came from the peaceful garden. It was still too early in the year for crickets, he thought.

Chen decided to go walk around the garden. He left his room, bought a pack of cigarettes at a kiosk in the hotel lobby, and headed out into the hotel’s garden.

Once he was in it, the garden somehow seemed smaller. Nonetheless, it was a pleasant scene. He cut across a white bamboo bridge, which spanned a pond with a shoal of leisurely golden fish, lit from below by lambent lights on the pebbled bottom. Chen stopped for a moment, leaning against the bamboo rail, and wondered whether the fish enjoyed the artificial effects.

Master Zhuangzi says, “You are not a fish, and how can you tell whether a fish enjoys itself or not?”

As he walked off the bridge, another hotel guest enjoying the garden nodded at him. Chen strolled farther, reaching the back of the garden, where he seated himself on a stone stool at a round stone table, partially obscured from the view of others by a bamboo grove. He took out a notebook and a pen and placed them on the table.

A go board was carved into the tabletop. Running his fingers over it, Chen found himself missing Detective Yu, his longtime partner. Yu was an enthusiastic go player, and his wife, Peiqin, was a great hostess and chef. Chen had spent many evenings at their home, playing go over tea and, sometimes, delicious appetizers. In Chinese, go was sometimes called “hand talk.” Sitting in the garden, Chen was tempted to give Yu a call, but he decided against it. The present situation resembled a go game in some ways. He was in trouble, waiting for the coming attack, without knowing when or where.

In a go game, however, one knew who was attacking and why. Chen did not have this advantage.

Once again, he thought about the cases recently assigned to the Special Case Squad, wondering which, if any, might have posed a real threat to someone powerful, who then neutralized Chen by removing him from the police bureau.

When a go player didn’t know how to respond, one option was to position a piece anyway. Though it was a questionable move, it added the element of confusion to the game, and an opportunity might arise from the opponent’s surprised response. It was sometimes referred to as a response-seeking move.

As Chen was lost in thought, his pen in hand and notebook in front of him, a young hotel attendant came over. She was dressed in an indigo period uniform, possibly that of the May Fourth movement. She placed a teacup on the table near him and a bamboo-covered hot water bottle on the ground.

“Are you writing a poem, sir?” she asked, speaking in a soft voice, her long black queue swaying at her back.

It was almost a scene from a classical Chinese painting: a poet enjoying the tranquil landscape of a picturesque garden, musing on something while a young, smiling, pretty maid stood in service.

“Well, I’m thinking about it, but not a single word has come up yet. Somehow, the garden seems smaller?”

“The Lion Garden is just a five-minute walk away,” she said, not responding to his question. “It’s larger and fairly quiet too.”

“Thanks. I might go there. But for the moment, let me sit here in peace for a while. If I need anything else, I’ll let you know.”

“I understand. Enjoy.”

He watched her retreating figure, struck with a sense of déjà vu, recalling the lines by Yan Shu, a poet in the eleventh century.

A new poem over a cup of wine, / the last year’s weather, the unchanged pavilion. / The sun is setting in the west- / how many times? / Helpless that flowers fall. / Swallows return, seemingly known. / I wander along the sweet-scented trail / in the small garden, alone.

Then his reverie was cut short by a wave of panic. Was he being watched even here-perhaps by this pretty young attendant, who was now looking back in his direction?

Since that night at the Heavenly World, he’d started to react to nearly every situation with paranoia. He took a deep breath and tried to reassure himself.

He gazed into the cup of the tea, the leaves rising to the surface, then sinking reluctantly, with an occasional ripple.

One thought returned yet again. His enemy wasn’t going to stop after just one failed attempt to entrap him. His attempt at calming himself was shattered.

Then his cell phone buzzed. It was Old Hunter, who jumped right in.

“I’ve just been to see your favorite chef in her restaurant.”

“Chef?” Chen didn’t know what Old Hunter was talking about-the old man wouldn’t have called him to talk about chefs.

“She talked to me about some new developments in the office,” Old Hunter went on. “The computer was taken away overnight, and everything in the office was turned upside down. Her husband protested, but he almost got fired as a result.”

Chen got it. The restaurant Old Hunter was talking about was a coded reference to Peiqin’s cooking, and thus to information from Peiqin and Yu: the office was his own at the Shanghai Police Bureau, from which the computer apparently had been taken away, possibly as part of a thorough search. That was mean. When Chen had been told he was being promoted out of the police department, Party Secretary Li had assured him that there was no rush for him to start packing up his office. Chen had planned to go back there in a couple of days to start cleaning it out, though he hadn’t left anything really important in the office or on the computer. What infuriated him, however, was learning that Detective Yu was at risk because of his relationship to the now ex-chief inspector. Chen thanked Old Hunter for his call and quickly hung up.

Chen then pulled out his regular cell phone and dialed Party Secretary Li. It wasn’t a call he’d rehearsed, but it was one he’d thought about.

The call might be recorded, which was what he wanted.

“Director Chen,” Li started cordially, “how are you getting along in that new position of yours?”

“I haven’t started yet. I’m in Suzhou at the moment.”

“In Suzhou again?”

Chen didn’t remember telling Li anything about his first trip to Suzhou, but that wasn’t something to worry about now.

“I’m currently having my father’s grave renovated and restored. It looks terrible, practically in ruins. My mother has been complaining about it, and she’s right, it’s long overdue.”

“As we all know, you are a filial son. Do whatever you need to do in Suzhou, and if your mother needs any help while you’re away from Shanghai, I’ll see what the bureau can do.”

“Thank you, Party Secretary Li. This morning, as I was standing at his grave, I couldn’t help thinking about what my father said to me long ago. As a Confucian scholar, he always wanted me to pursue an academic career. For years, though, I thought I’d been doing a good job, in my own way.”

“You’ve been doing an excellent job. There’s no question about it.”

“No, I don’t think so. Things are so complicated in China. What appears to be the right thing may turn out to be wrong. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way. So I can’t help but doubt my ability to fulfill any official position, including this new one at the Legal Reform Committee. This might be an opportunity for me to think it over.”

Li didn’t respond immediately, so Chen plowed ahead.

“So that’s what I am planning to do. While I’m supervising the restoration of my father’s grave in Suzhou, I’ll spend some time reading and studying before I’ll decide if I’m qualified for this new assignment. If I decide that I’m not, I’ll try doing something entirely different. In college, I dreamed of a career as a poet. Perhaps that’s what I’m meant to be, instead of a chief inspector.” Without waiting for a response, he then added, “In the meantime, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about recent events. Particularly about what happened that night at the Heavenly World.”

“What happened at the Heavenly World? I’m totally confused, Director Chen. I haven’t heard a single word about it.”

Chen couldn’t see Li’s expression, so it was impossible to tell whether he was lying or not. Li should have been briefed by the Sex Crimes Squad about the raid, but Chen gave him a brief account about that night nonetheless.

“In Suzhou, I’ve been listening to Suzhou opera,” Chen said, seemingly shifting the topic. “There are so many wonderful proverbs in it. For one, ‘You’d better not chase the desperate foe too hard.’ And for another, ‘The cornered dog can jump over the wall.’”

“You’re really into the proverbs, Comrade Director Chen.”

“Some of the investigations I’ve conducted involved people higher up, and I, being too bookish, might have made things difficult for them. So now it’s payback time. I’m not complaining, far from it. The Party has always emphasized the importance of acting in the interest of things larger than oneself, but what good is it, if one drops dead because of it?”

“You should take a break, whether in Suzhou or back here in Shanghai. After all these years, when you’ve worked so hard-”

“Party Secretary Li, what this sudden promotion really means, both you and I know only too well. At one point, you were my mentor in politics. So I want to consult you about what I’m going to do now.”

“No, don’t say that, Director Chen. I’ve never been your mentor. By no means,” Li said in haste. “We’ve worked together, but-”

Apparently Li was only too aware that their conversation might be taped and was anxious to separate himself from Chen.

“I mean it, Party Secretary Li,” Chen insisted, taking a perverse delight in Li’s embarrassment. “Thanks to your showing me the ropes at the bureau, I’ve been able to become first a chief inspector of the Shanghai Police Bureau, and now director of the Shanghai Legal Reform Committee.”

“Now-I’m lost, Director Chen. The decision to move you to your new position was made by higher authorities. I knew nothing about it until it was announced that morning.”

“But you know what?” Chen said, barreling ahead. “I haven’t been a cop all these years for nothing. I’ve put something away, in case there was a need to protect myself.”

“Whatever you may have put away-” Li said tentatively, before changing direction. “I knew so little about your work, about those special cases you worked on. Nobody else in the bureau knew anything about them either, except for your longtime partner, Detective Yu.”

“That’s another reason I’m calling you today. Whatever I’ve put away, it’s not with Detective Yu. You can be assured of that. I’ve worked on too many special investigations to make such a mistake. And don’t think I’ve kept anything on the office computer. I definitely didn’t leave it in any of the obvious places that others could lay their hands on. If I fall, then what I’ve stored away will automatically come out on the Internet.”

This time, there was no response from Li.

“For what I’ve done, I’ll take responsibility. My late father used to say, ‘There are things a man will do, and things a man will not do.’ But if anything happens to Detective Yu because of me, then anything is possible. Then we’ll all learn what it’s possible for me to do.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about. Detective Yu is doing a great job as head of the Special Case Squad. How could anything happen to him?” Li managed with difficulty. “You must have overworked yourself. I’ll have a word with the leading comrades about the stress of your job.”

Li was playing dumb. But there was no point in pressing him too hard. Events must have been planned at a level way above him.

“Take care, Director Chen,” Li said, in a hurry to get off the phone. “Bye.”

With a dial tone suddenly sounding in his ear, Chen put down the phone. He wondered whether the call, made on the spur of the moment, would make any difference. Perhaps his enemies might have to slow down a bit and think about their next moves more carefully. Optimistically, it could make Chen’s opponent narrow down his “enemy list.” Pessimistically, well, it could hardly be any worse than it already was.

But it was a call he had to make, for Detective Yu’s sake.

The young attendant was coming over to him, carrying two saucers on a stainless steel tray. One saucer contained fried watermelon seeds, and the other, white-sugar-covered yang mei berries.

“I saw you were on the phone,” she said, “so I didn’t want to interrupt.”

It had been a long time since he’d had a sweet bayberry. When he was a child, his mother once bought him a tiny bag, which he finished, to her chagrin, in less than ten minutes. Now he picked up only one berry from the saucer, satisfied with both the taste and service.

“Your room number?” she asked.

So it would be charged to his room. But it had been naive of him to think otherwise. When she presented him with a slip, he signed his name without bothering to check the amount.

He got up, wrapped the remaining berries in a paper napkin, and walked back along the winding trail like any other tourist.

A black bat flitted around overhead, first circling, then uttering a strange sound that sounded just like Chinese character shou, and finally disappearing into the dusk. The heat was steady, enclosing him like a grasp. The eerie noise reminded him of another garden-the Qing Dynasty Summer Palace. The Empress Dowager Cixi had the palace in the north built lavishly, imitating the southern landscape, thereby spending all the money in the treasury that had been reserved for the navy. In the Summer Palace, the shou sound made by the bats, a character that could mean longevity in Chinese, was so pleasant to her that she kept a skyfull of them.

China changes, and China doesn’t change. Apparitions of the emperors and empresses seemed to be presenting themselves again in the flickering light in the ancient garden. Dusk was spreading out against the sky, and the last pale cloud began to retreat.

He thought of the rapid emergence of the princelings, the children of the party elite assuming high positions of their own. That was something new and yet old in China’s political landscape. And he thought of the newly resurgent red songs and their call for the Party to rule for thousands of years.

He left the garden and strolled out of the hotel. He turned right onto Ten Perfections Street, moving past small local stores and a bookstore tucked in behind the landing of a stone bridge that spanned a dark green canal. It was a scene he remembered from a literary festival several years earlier, one session of which had been held in the bookstore. There was a peach tree blossoming near the landing, just as there had been the last time he was there. Like before, the bookstore seemed more like a café, with a blond waitress flitting among the chairs and tables outside. He wondered whether the waitress was the same one as before. It might not a bad idea to come here for breakfast tomorrow morning, perhaps stir up possibilities in a cup of coffee.

One block farther on, the stores were interspersed with small workshops and factories, all unsightly in the dimming light. He turned and walked back the way he’d come.

Soon he found himself at the entrance of the hotel, but he walked past it in the other direction and was soon in sight of an impressive-looking Suzhou noodle restaurant with a black and gold sign: CAI’S NOODLES. It was closed for the day, which struck him as strange, as it was almost dinnertime. He took a look at their business hours. From six a.m. to one p.m.

He recalled something the young woman named Qian had said the other day. She mentioned a really good noodle restaurant close to that hotel. That was probably why he’d thought of that hotel back in the cemetery office. She also mentioned an interesting detail about the restaurant being open only for breakfast and lunch, but if she’d explained why, he’d forgotten.

He made his way back, absentmindedly, to the hotel again. A bright red convertible sped past him just as he walked in one of the side entrances of the hotel. To his surprise, Chen saw something that looked like a nightclub on his right. Why was there a nightclub in an ancient-style hotel garden? As fragments of music came wafting over, he saw a flashing neon sign saying Southern Heavenly World.

A uniformed doorman hastened toward him with an obsequious smile.

“Welcome, sir. I can see that you’re a guest at the hotel. Now, let me tell you that we have the best girls in the city of Suzhou and an incredibly large number of them for you to choose from. Superior quality, affordable price. Satisfaction guaranteed.”

Grinning from ear to ear, the doorman spoke like an experienced salesman.

“So the nightclub is part of the hotel?” Chen asked.

“Yes and no. The nightclub was built in the hotel complex, and the profits are split with the hotel.”

“So the club was built on the grounds of the ancient garden?”

“There are too many old gardens in Suzhou, and no matter how ancient, a garden doesn’t bring in much income.”

“But don’t people choose the hotel because of the garden?”

“Well, truth be told, more guests stay here because of the nightclub,” the doorman said. He added in an exaggerated whisper, “It’s so convenient. After a couple of hours at the club, you may take a girl back to your room at no extra charge, since you’ve already checked in. And no one will say anything-”

His enthusiastic introduction was interrupted by a skinny girl who emerged from the club’s interior and scampered over to their side.

“So you’re a guest at the hotel, sir. Welcome.”

The doorman slipped inside, as if on cue.

“You’ve got nothing to do this evening, right?” she went on. “It’s lonely for a traveler, I know. So you need someone to keep you company-”

But she broke off right there and abruptly turned her head to watch a Jaguar that was pulling up at the curb. A plump woman in her fifties, wearing a light Burberry trench coat and a large diamond ring, stepped out of the car and walked toward the club. The doorman rushed past Chen and hurried outside to get the car keys from her.

“I’ve a question for you,” he said to the young girl after the older woman disappeared into the club.

“What’s your question?”

“Are most of customers here staying at the hotel?”

“No, not necessarily, but it’s easy for hotel guests to walk over to the nightclub. And it’s also easy for them to make arrangements afterward.”

“I see,” he said, nodding. “I’ve another question, if you don’t mind my curiosity. The lady who just went in was in her fifties…”

“Of course, we have female clients as well. She’s a regular here. If you have money, you can buy anything-ducks too.”

“Ducks?”

“Gigolos,” she said. “You’ve got so many questions, sir. How about coming inside with me? In a cozy private room, you may fire away to your heart’s content, and I’ll try my best to respond to your satisfaction.”

If it weren’t for his experience at the Heavenly World in Shanghai, he might have agreed. Instead, he pulled out a hundred-yuan bill and gave it to her. “Just buy yourself a drink tonight. Next time we’ll go inside. For now, I have just a couple of questions more.”

“You mean-” she said, snatching the bill in surprise.

“For instance, the lady customer who just arrived,” he said. “She must be someone important.”

“Yes, she has a meat company that went public about half a year ago.”

“So she’s a well-known Big Buck here. Aren’t people like her worried about police raids?”

“Are you from Mars?”

“What do you mean?”

“The club owner is connected all the way at the top, so customers don’t have to worry about their security.”

“So it’s just like the Heavenly World in Shanghai?”

“Oh, you’ve been there? Then surely you know better. Our club is affiliated with the Heavenly World.”

“Affiliated-how?”

“The owner of the Heavenly World owns shares in this club. When his Big Buck customers come to Suzhou, he refers them here. And his connections help too. But that’s about all I know.”

“That makes sense. The name of this club makes the association with the club in Shanghai clear,” Chen said, nodding like a truly bookish customer. “But cell phones and surveillance cameras are everywhere, and all it would take is one picture of someone prominent going up on the Web for their presence here to cause damage. That would seem particularly true for Party officials.”

“For those people, there are also private clubs.”

“Private clubs?”

“Not open to the public like this one. They offer absolute security. Each floor has its own private garage that leads directly to a particular floor offering all the services imaginable.”

“Really!” he said, thinking of the vacation Gu had suggested to him.

“Have you heard of the Obama Club?”

“What?”

“Some rich female clients fancy black studs…”

“Have you been to it?”

“A friend of mine worked at such a place in Sheshan. And she saw a number of untouchable elites there, including the one at the top.”

“Sheshan in Shanghai-there are a lot of villas there,” Chen said, thinking. He knew he had heard something about that area lately, but he couldn’t remember what.

“Of course, not everybody is there to take advantage of the available services. They might just want to meet someone in private to discuss important business. No one knows.” She added, “But you have nothing to worry about here. Our club is connected in both the white and the black ways.”

It was then that Chen caught a glimpse of a black-clad man loitering near the hotel’s side entrance. He was raising a cell phone to his mouth. Something about the man struck Chen as suspicious. Was it something real or just Chen’s high-strung nerves?

“Thank you for all that you have told me, but I’m not ready to go into your club yet. I think I’ll go and eat something first.”

“We serve dinner at the club too.”

“I like the street food in Suzhou.”

It was a lame excuse, but it was nonetheless a true one.

When he looked over again, the black-attired man had already vanished.

“Here is my cell phone number,” she said, handing him a card. She was probably tired of being a consultant, even if she was paid not too badly. “I’m usually here a little after one. Give me a call, and I could come to your room. For a good man like you, I won’t charge you any extra.”

“Thank you,” he said, slipping the card into his pants pocket. “I’ll think about it.”

“Think about it indeed,” she said, touching his cheek with the tip of her slender finger.

He stepped back and then fled.

Outside the hotel and across the street, he saw a hot pot eatery named Little Lamb and a Hunan cuisine restaurant with young waitresses clad in Xiang style standing on the sidewalk, soliciting customers. There was also an American steakhouse just a stone’s throw away, sporting a large bilingual sign. The neon lights flashed and reflashed delicious temptations. Neither of them looked too bad, but to his surprise, he didn’t see a single restaurant offering authentic Suzhou cuisine. It would have been fantastic if the noodle restaurant were open for business at this time of day.

Another luxury car pulled into the hotel, honking and rolling in through the side entrance.

A thought struck him. “The restaurant is also near a club that I’ve been to quite a few times,” Qian had said. She’d been to this very club frequently, which wasn’t surprising, given the job she’d offered him. He wondered if she’d be able to tell him something about this nightclub-or, more importantly, about its connection to the one in Shanghai.

It was a long shot, but it was better than nothing.

He pulled out his cell phone, but he changed his mind as a motorcycle rumbled past.

Instead, he headed over to a phone booth at the corner of a side street.