Shanghai Redemption

FOURTEEN

AROUND SIX THIRTY THAT night, Chen stood in a crowded subway train to Pudong. With people pushing in and out at every stop, he had a hard time holding on to the overhead handrails.

After the call from Old Hunter, Chen had mulled over his decision to spend the night in Shanghai. It was possible to travel to Suzhou and back again, getting in to Shanghai tomorrow morning. But an unexpected delay would wreck the plan, and he couldn’t afford to be late for tomorrow morning’s meeting in the park. The retired cop might be dramatic, but he knew what was at stake.

If Old Hunter had something new, Chen would be able to show Qian that progress was being made. Perhaps in return, she would try to find out more for him.

But that wasn’t the only reason for staying in Shanghai. He was concerned about his mother, and it was reassuring to be in the city, somewhat nearby, in case he was needed.

But it wasn’t advisable to stay at his own apartment, and he couldn’t stay at Yu’s place, for the same reason. A hotel wasn’t an option, given that all hotel registrations were monitored. So he was going to see Overseas Chinese Lu. An old schoolmate and friend, Lu owned a large luxury apartment near Century Park and had invited Chen over several times. Even showing up unannounced, Chen would be a welcome guest at the Lus, who would most likely urge him to spend the night. Also, since Lu knew nothing about Chen’s troubles, there wouldn’t be many questions for him to answer.

He was reminded of an old Chinese simile used to describe a hopeless situation in which one has nowhere to go-like a homeless dog. The Party system, on which he’d once thought he could fall back, now seemed more like an omnipresent, omnipotent surveillance camera, following his every move.

He was then beginning to have second thoughts about the visit to Lu, who could be an overenthusiastic host, which was not something he was looking forward to.

The subway station announcements came every two or three minutes. He glanced up at the blinking station map opposite him. The train was now passing through the tunnel under the river, and the next stop was Lujiazui.

There he found himself moving toward the door.

White Cloud had told him about her new apartment in Lujiazui. He wasn’t going to ask her to put him up for the night, he reassured himself. He just wanted to drop in for a short visit. It was on the way to Lu’s.

What Qian had told him about the Heavenly World’s law firm was a potential lead, and White Cloud might be able to tell him something more about it. She might also know some other details that she hadn’t shared in her earlier phone call. Walking out of the subway in Lujiazui, he thought of a phrase he’d read years earlier-the way up is the way down. Why did he think of that phrase now? He had no idea. Near the exit, he saw an old woman with thread-bound white jasmine sprays in a bamboo basket. Fragrant and yet only one yuan for a single bud. It was something he hadn’t seen for a long while. Perhaps it was too cheap for this new age. Leaning down, he paid for a single white spray. In his childhood, his mother would occasionally pick up a spray of jasmine for ten cents, wear it through a buttonhole in her mandarin dress, and then, one or two days later, put it in a cup of green tea.

At this moment, she was alone in the hospital, frail, frightened. He felt wretched at the thought of it. Once again, he was tempted to turn around and go to the hospital. But what about his meeting with Old Hunter tomorrow morning? From the moment he left his mother’s side, Chen would probably be shadowed, which would then lead his enemies to the retired cop. The “burglary” of his mother’s room could have been arranged simply to smoke him out, as well as those trying to help him.

He looked up to see a lone black crow flying overhead. In a forest of surrounding high-rises, the tiny darksome bird seemed to come out of nowhere. Possibly, it was another omen.

White Cloud had told him that the apartment complex was close to the subway, but the streets were new to him, and tall buildings obstructed the view, so it took him a while to find the Bingjiang subdivision.

Chen walked through the gate to the building. At the entrance, there was a gray-attired doorman sitting in a cubicle. He poked his head out and asked sleepily, “Who are you visiting?”

“3012. Miss Bai.”

“The elevator is just over there, but you have to call up first.” The doorman asked no further questions but simply sat back, grinning, with a cigarette in his hand.

Chen was about to push the intercom when the elevator came down. A young mother stepped out, pushing a red stroller. He got in without bothering to call up.

He got out on the thirtieth floor, found apartment 3012, and pressed the doorbell two or three times. There was no response. But since he was already there, he took out his cell phone and called on the cell he’d given her.

“Who’s there?” she said, having picked up the phone on the first ring.

“Me. You gave me the address in your salon the other day, remember?”

“Yes, please come up. The top floor.”

“I’m already at your door.”

“Oh, just one minute.”

The door opened, and she was standing there in a white robe, drying her hair with a towel, her face glowing.

“Sorry, Chen. I was taking a shower. I didn’t hear the doorbell. Luckily I had the cell phone with me in the bathroom,” she said. “What favorable wind has brought you over today?”

“I was in the subway, and I heard ‘the next stop is Lujiazui,’ so I decided to get out and drop by for a visit.”

“I’m so glad you did.” She looked excited, as she finished towel-drying her hair.

“I should have called first, but what a nice apartment! It suits your status as a successful businesswoman.”

“You don’t have say that, Chen. Besides, the room is a mess.”

It was a spacious living room, but it was something of a mess. There were rumpled clothes on the couch by the window and a yoga mat stretched out on the floor, with a pair of high heels beside it. It looked like she’d been doing her workout routine before taking a shower.

Following his glance, she blushed. She pulled up a chair for him and seated herself on the edge of the couch. Her hair still wet, she gave off a clean smell, probably of herbal shampoo. Barely settled on the couch, she stood up again.

“What would you like to drink?”

“Water is fine with me.”

“I’ve a bottle of very rare Irish whiskey.”

“Whatever you have.”

She took a bottle from a glass cabinet, poured for him half a glass of the amber-colored liquid, straight, and for herself, just two or three drops over a lot of ice cubes.

“Oh, I’ve forgotten to give you the apartment tour,” she said, combing the slightly wet hair with her fingers. “Finally, I have something like a home in the city of Shanghai.”

“That’s the Shanghai dream, isn’t it?”

“In a couple of hours, when all the lights are on, there is a fantastic view of the Bund across the river. It’s your favorite part of the city, and you can’t miss it.” She added softly, “You told me how, as a student, you spent so many mornings studying in Bund Park, dreaming about the future.”

So she wanted him to stay for “a couple of hours.” After all, it was his first visit here. She was probably aware that there was something more than the merely social behind his unannounced visit. But for the moment, she seemed to be pleased to have him there.

Had we but world enough, and time… But they were not in Andrew Marvell’s world, and there wasn’t the time.

Her cell phone rang. She picked it up and looked at the screen without saying anything. It was probably a text message.

“Sorry, it’s about business,” she said, typing a response. “I have to reply.”

“What a hard-working businesswoman.”

“You don’t have to laugh at me.”

“I’m in no position to laugh at a successful entrepreneur.”

“Let’s go into the other room,” she said with a touch of coyness. “It’s too messy in here.”

It was to the bedroom rather than the office that she led him, however. She gestured him to a corner sofa, and then perched herself on the edge of the bed. She was half facing an antique mahogany dressing table, which must have been made in the days when a Chinese lady didn’t have the luxury of a separate bathroom. Now the table served more as a decoration than as furniture. Not far from them, the bathroom door was ajar.

“Sorry, my hair is still wet,” she said, taking a look into the mahogany-framed mirror above the dressing table before she sat down again, half reclining against the headboard.

He’d come here on the spur of the moment, but now the situation unnerved him. She was surprisingly nice to him, lying there gazing at him.

He was in such deep trouble. Why drag her in? There was no way he could ever pay her back.

She seemed to be reading his mind, but she said nothing.

“I want to thank you again for your help that day at the salon,” he started with difficulty.

“You were my first customer there-my first personal customer. Usually, one of these girls would wash a customer’s hair. And guess what? That afternoon I thought of something from my childhood in the Anhui countryside. In those days, it took a lot of effort to wash one’s hair. For my father, it was almost like a ritual, and he did it only once or twice a year. On New Year’s Eve, my mother had to boil two kettles of hot water, and then dip his head in and out of a small plastic basin, constantly mixing hot and cold water. I was a little girl then, and I remember giggling at the sight of his hair covered in grayish bubbles.”

Was she hinting at something?

In the west, the sun was wrapped in the gathering dusk, as if it were on the wing of a black bird, sinking into the darksome water.

“They’re still in Anhui. I thought about moving them to Shanghai, but I don’t know whether they’d be happy living here with me.”

“How could they not?”

“They are very old-fashioned, and they don’t know anything at all about my business. I’m not a filial daughter,” she said, contemplatively. “Anything new about you?”

“Well, I didn’t say much on the phone the other day.”

“Yes, please tell me about it, Chen. It may help if I’m able to focus on something more specific.”

The big clock on top of the Customs House began chiming, the sound faint from across the river, as if accentuating her words in some sort of mysterious correspondence.

He made up his mind to tell her what had happened over the last few days. It wouldn’t be fair to ask for more help without giving her a true, hopefully objective picture of the situation. Only then could she decide whether she wanted to get further involved or not.

She listened quietly, without interruption. But when he mentioned what had happened to his mother earlier that day, she sat up, crossing her bare legs.

“In her old age, my mother still worries about me,” he concluded with a sigh. “Do you know why she refuses to move in with me?”

“Why?”

“She wants me to have the privacy to bring a girl to my apartment, so I can settle down and have my own family.”

“Then why don’t you?” she asked.

“There’s something I’ve never discussed with her. Even though it looks like I’m successful and well connected, I’m actually holding on to the back of a tiger. It’s just matter of time before the tiger throws me to the ground and finishes me up. The system doesn’t have room for a cop trying to seek justice when it’s not in the Party’s interest.

“It’s nothing short of miracle that I have survived this long. If it wasn’t for luck, and the help I’ve gotten from people like you, Peiqin, Yu, and others, I would have perished long ago. So I’ve kept telling myself: I can’t think only of myself. As a cop, I accept both the job and the consequences. But it wouldn’t be fair to drag anyone else into all the troubles.”

“But what if that someone doesn’t care about those troubles?”

“Still, I have a responsibility for others, both as an investigator and in my personal life.”

“You’re always a cop, before anything else,” she said, sitting up, her bare toes digging into the lush carpet.

“Now I’m a fired cop.”

A short silence fell over the room.

“What can I do for you, Chief Inspector Chen?”

It was the first time that evening she had used his former title, and in doing so, she’d made herself clear. Whatever the changes in his position or troubles in his career, she was ready to help.

“I’m glad you’ve come to me tonight,” she went on, “in the midst of your troubles. It shows that you think of me as one you can trust.”

“This afternoon, when I first learned about my mother, I felt so sick and helpless. Perhaps it’s not too late for me to throw in the towel-to forget about all the politics, to live an ordinary life, to be a filial son, at least one who doesn’t bring trouble to her.”

“You’re just tired, Chen. Tomorrow morning, you’ll be the ambitious, energetic chief inspector again,” she said, suddenly standing up to open up the blinds behind her. “Look at the river. I remember the lines in one of your poems. ‘It’s not the river, but the moment, / the river comes flowing into your eyes.’”

He gazed into her eyes rippling in the lambent lamplight, and behind her, the skyscrapers lit with the neon lights and signs, and vessels moving across the water.

Unexpectedly, another poem came to his mind.

The aspiration of rolling clouds and roaring wind gone, / I am leaning against the dressing table, / waiting on the ripples in your eyes. / Lest “Master Liu” grow despondent, / combing your hair, you pull up / the curtain to the view of the grand Yellow River.

It was a poem written by Gong Zizhen, a celebrated Qing dynasty poet who dreamed of making a contribution to the country. For most of his life, Gong remained down and out, unable to achieve his aspirations. During a trip to the capital, he visited a young woman named Lingxiao in Huai’an near the Yellow River. Lingxiao served in the Qing dynasty equivalent of the Heavenly World. That night, despondent and disillusioned with all the setbacks he’d encountered, Gong was about to give up and spend his life in her company, composing decadent poems in a Baudelairean fashion. Aware of his frustrations, Lingxiao encouraged him to continue pursuing his ideals. The poem was a scene between the two lovers: the first half unfolded as a monologue of Gong’s, and the second half consisted of Lingxiao’s reaction. At the time, a girl wouldn’t raise her curtains before she was finished making herself up, so Lingxiao, while preparing herself, encouraged him by directing his attention to the grand Yellow River. In classical Chinese poetry, the river was commonly seen as symbolic of the magnificent and sublime.

Nevertheless, Gong ended up a despondent poet, never achieving the political reform of which he dreamed. His personal life was also a disastrous failure.

“What’re you thinking?” White Cloud said.

“Nothing, really. Just about the Heavenly World. It’s difficult for me to find out anything more about it. I’m not a cop anymore, and it’s possible that I’m being watched day and night. Still, I have to make my move before anything else happens.”

“I’ll try to find out more for you, but can you tell me specifically what you’re trying to learn?”

“You mentioned that you know Shen, the owner of the club?”

“Not exactly,” she said, sounding vague. “We’ve met a couple of times.”

Another short silence ensued.

“The law firm that represents the nightclub very likely employs a special advisor who is connected to the city government. That might be important.”

“Yes,” she said, waiting for him to go on.

“You’ve already been able to find out for me what the people who go to the club are talking about. But why are they talking about it? And are they talking about anything new?”

“I’ll get in touch with all my connections and see what they can tell me. I’ll leave no stone unturned.”

“I really appreciate it, White Cloud,” he said, glancing at his watch. “It’s late now, and I think I have to go.”

“Where are you going? Oh, that’s right, you mentioned you were headed to somewhere in Pudong.”

“I’m off to see my old friend Overseas Chinese Lu, who has a new apartment near Century Park.”

“But it’s-” she started, casting a look at the clock on the wall. She didn’t finish her sentence.

She’s right, Chen thought. It’s already past eight fifteen. It could be nine by the time he got to Lu’s.

“I have something important to do in the city early tomorrow morning. It’s too much trouble to go back to Suzhou tonight, and then return to Shanghai tomorrow…”

“Well, stay here, then. You can take the bed, or the couch.”

“It’s so kind of you to offer, but-”

“Before your arrival, I was thinking of going out. Naturally, I would love to play the host, but I think I’ll go out as planned. What time I’ll make it back, I honestly don’t know. So you can stay here, and don’t wait up for me.”

He wondered why she had suddenly decided to leave. Because of something he’d said? Because she wanted him to stay there and not feel awkward about it?

“But it’s late.”

“It’s not too late for me,” she said with a mysterious smile. “I might even go to the salon afterward.”

“If you leave, I’d better leave with you, White Cloud.”

“How can you be so obstinate? It’s too late for you to go to your friend’s, and clearly it’s not advisable for you to go back to your apartment or your mother’s.”

“I can make do with a public bathhouse for the night. They don’t bother to check ID regularly, and for one hundred yuan, I can enjoy a good foot massage and then sleep in a bath-towel-covered folding chair overnight.”

“Come on. That’s not only uncomfortable, it’s risky too. From time to time, the cops raid those places. You don’t need me to tell you that,” she said. “Don’t try to be such a gentleman. Besides, I might learn something about the nightclub tonight.”

He didn’t respond immediately.

“Oh, come to the study with me,” she said, taking his hand. “If you want to use the computer, both the laptop and desktop are yours. The desktop is hooked up to the printer. So make yourself at home.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Here, let me enter the computer’s password for you.”

She leaned over him, typing in the password, her long hair brushing against his cheek. He moved the chair closer to the desk, catching a glimpse of her breasts through the opening of her robe.

“In case you need to reenter it later, it’s CC123.”

Was that a coincidence? “CC” could refer to the initial letters of his name in Pinyin.

But she had already turned away and was padding back to the bathroom in her bare feet.

There, with the door half open, she slid off her robe, her snowy white back flashing under the light.

He stood up and walked out to the balcony. Out there, he took a deep breath of the night air.

Across the river was the Bund that was so familiar to him. It also seemed strange, as he looked at it from this different perspective. The Bund seemed to change and change again with the pulsing of the city.

Years slip away like water…

“How do I look, Chen?”

He turned to see her stepping out onto the balcony in a red mandarin dress with high slits. It reminded him of something from another case, several years ago, when she’d also helped him. For a moment, he was gripped by a sense of déjà vu. Was she wearing the same dress tonight?

“Ravishing, as always.”

“Make yourself at home,” she repeated.

She turned and walked out, looking back over her shoulder to flash another smile at him before closing the apartment door behind her.

She was gone before he had the time to ask where she was going. But was he really going to ask?

He stepped back inside the apartment and paced about the study before he finally sat down at the desk. Instead of working on the computer, he pulled out the cassette tape and listened to it again, focusing on the paragraphs he’d marked. He spent more than an hour listening to the tape, but he didn’t find anything really new.

Then he turned on the computer, typed in the password again, and started surfing the Internet. Immediately he read about a new twist in the dead pig case. A Shanghai meat company was trying to buy an American meat company, as a way of reassuring domestic consumers by implying that the company’s quality control standards were the same as those in the United States. All over the Internet, the move was being ridiculed as an attempt by Chinese socialism to buy superior quality from American capitalism.

Chen continued to surf around the Web. It seemed that Liang was still missing, but the high-speed train industry was being unanimously praised as another great achievement under the Party’s leadership. As for Shang’s son, he seemed to have been largely forgotten. With so many fresh scandals breaking every day, old scandals usually didn’t last long on the Internet.

He looked up from the screen, feeling worn out. The screen stared back at him, untiring.

Outside the windows, the view of Bund at night was truly breathtaking. The neon lights along the Bund projected beautiful abstractions onto the water and into the sky, while occasional ships slid down the river, casting shadows against the dreamlike horizon.

Once again he thought of some lines by Liu Yong, a decadent Song dynasty poet from the eleventh century.

All these beautiful scenes are unfolding, / but to no avail. / Alas, to whom can I speak / of this ineffably enchanting landscape?

He was dismayed by his own recurrent waves of self-pity. Was he really giving up, ready to become a decadent poet like Liu or Baudelaire?

It was just past midnight. There was no telling when she’d come back, and he had to get up early the next morning. So he went to the living room, and without undressing, he stretched himself out on the couch. It was fairly comfortable, and he dropped off to sleep quickly, in spite of himself.

He is standing in front of a door, hesitating. Finally, he raises his hand to knock, but there is no response. He pushes at the door, which opens into an empty room. There is nothing inside except an embroidered silk robe lying rumpled across the bed. He touches the pillow, which seems to be still warm and slightly wet. A red slipper anchors the silence of the room. Where is the other one? Outside the window, the footprints left by a night bird are being covered by freshly falling snow…

He was awakened by a phone ringing in the middle of his fast-fading dream. Disoriented in the grayness of the early morning, he rubbed his eyes. The ringing phone wasn’t just part of his dream. It was her phone on the corner table. Chen looked at his watch. Four twenty-five. He was alone in the apartment-she hadn’t come back yet.

Then the answering machine picked up and played the recorded message, “Sorry I’m not available. Please leave a message and I’ll call you back.”

From the other end, the caller spoke up. “It’s me-White Cloud.”

He crossed the room and picked up the phone in a hurry. White Cloud’s voice came rippling over the line. “I’m glad you’re awake.”

There seemed to be a strange gurgling sound in the background, like water coming out of a showerhead.

“I went to see Shen tonight, the owner of the nightclub,” she went on. “As I mentioned, I’ve met him at some parties before, and several times he’s invited me to his place. So he was pleased to see me tonight, but apparently he had something on his mind. Still, I managed to engage him in small talk, going over some of the currently hot gossip.

“About Shang’s wife, he said that the people who hired her to sing for them privately are perverted. They were after the sensation of a red general’s wife singing red songs in the same way that others hire a slut to entertain them in a private room. It’s not that she’s still young or pretty, but that they liked the very idea of it, for which they paid quite a lot. Some of the guests that night were quite high up in terms of their positions. So perhaps she didn’t do it solely for money. But Shen didn’t say who the clients were.

“About the law firm that represents the two Heavenly World nightclubs-Kaitai LLC-he mentioned an advisor. At first I had no clue who he was referring to, but then I realized that the advisor was actually the founder. She officially resigned from the firm out of political considerations-”

“She resigned?”

“Yes. I’m not finished yet. Sorry, but I have to speak in a hurry.”

She didn’t say why she was in such a rush.

“The founder is Kai, none other than the First Lady of Shanghai.” She didn’t have to say that Kai was Party Secretary Lai’s wife-everyone in Shanghai knew that. “Because of her husband’s position, the law firm attracted too much attention. Her resignation was just a show, of course, and she’s still in control. The Heavenly World retained her law firm as their legal counsel, and that’s why no one dares touch it.”

Chen had heard of Kaitai, the law firm. On at least one occasion, Lai had talked about Kai’s resignation from her firm as a sacrifice she had made for the best interests of the Party, a noble move to avoid any possible conflict of interest due to his position.

“There was something strange. While talking about Kai, Shen made a comment on an unrelated topic. He mentioned an American businessman who recently died. He was somehow related to the club, possibly a regular customer, I suppose. But there are so many foreign customers there that his comment struck me as odd.”

“What was the context of his comment?”

“After mentioning the law firm, he jumped right to the topic of the dead American. And then, all of a sudden he said, ‘The First Lady is a real bitch.’ That’s what he said,” she said breathlessly. “She seems to be putting pressure on him.”

“A bitch?” He was more than surprised.

The “First Lady” could be more involved with Shen than simply working as his nightclub’s legal representative. Could she have been behind the raid that night?

Chen had never met Kai before, and he couldn’t remember any of his investigations having anything to do with the law firm.

Even if Chen’s troubles were somehow related to Kai and her law firm, Kai, after the failed raid, shouldn’t have had any reason to put pressure on Shen. Shen wasn’t in any position to do more, because Chen would never set foot in the club again.

“I’ve got Shen’s e-mail address,” White Cloud said. “Do you have a pen?”

He grabbed a pen, wondering at this unexpected piece of information.

“This is his personal e-mail, not the office e-mail,” she said, reading it out to him. “He’s a cautious man. Sorry, I have to go now. There’s some movement in the other room. Bye.”

It wasn’t difficult to imagine where she was calling from.

She was with Shen, which she didn’t try to hide, and calling from the bathroom, with water running in the background, like a shower, to cover the sound of the call. She had to be cautious, knowing that the man in the other room could wake up at any time.

Shen had invited her to the club several times, Chen knew, but she hadn’t gone there until tonight. In fact, she hadn’t said anything about going out tonight until after he’d asked for help. She was doing this for his sake, to uncover information about the Heavenly World, which could be crucial to his survival. Feeling sick to his stomach, Chen willed himself not to imagine what was going on with White Cloud anymore.

As he sat there on White Cloud’s couch, more fragments of his dream resurfaced, but what the dream meant continued to elude him. He found himself thinking about the first time he met White Cloud. Almost to his irritation, several lines by Yan Jidao, a poet in the eleventh century, came crashing back to him.

Holding the jade cup, / her bare arms reaching / out of the florid sleeves, drinking, / unaware of her cheeks flushing, / dancing with the moon sinking, / in the willows, singing / until too tired for her / to wave the fan that unfolds / peach trees blossoming…

Or was he still imagining the scene between White Cloud and another man tonight?

She had done that for him-despite the cost to herself.

Her passing Shen’s e-mail address on to him also spoke to her thoroughness. Had he ever told her about the help he’d gotten from a hacker in another case? He wasn’t sure, but her hint was unmistakable-she expected him to use Shen’s e-mail address to find out more.

Across the river, most of the lights along the Bund were off. The skyline appeared barren and lusterless, like an aging woman with all her makeup removed. Wherever White Cloud was, she wasn’t coming back anytime soon.

It hurt for him to sit alone-he couldn’t do it any longer.

The People’s Park probably opened at six, and he couldn’t afford to miss Old Hunter.

He found a piece of paper and scribbled a quick note.

“Thanks.”

That was all he could think of to say.

He took the white jasmine spray he’d put in his pocket and placed it on the note.

The tiny bouquet was badly rumpled, and several petals fell onto the desk.