The Lake Ching murders

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Well before the Jeep reached Xian, Fong sensed the approach of the desert. A dry stillness seemed to suck at the air. Something from before time. Then the first structures of the ancient Qin capital, China’s very first, materialized on the horizon. Shortly after, the wind picked up and fine grains of desert sand began to pelt their vehicle – grains of sand all the way from the mythologized Silk Road – the first conduit between East and West. Xian in its day had been the Middle Kingdom’s port of entry. Camels crossing the torturous Silk Road brought the West to China 2,500 years ago.

Soon the Jeep entered the crumbling outer ring of the Old City. This was not the tourist Xian; this was the Chinese Xian. The Muslim quarter with its souk tents and dusted colours came first. It was bigger than Fong had expected. A small Tibetan sector abutted the Muslim quarter. The people there seemed sullen and angry. As the Jeep made its way toward the centre of the old place, it passed through many different communities. The faces in this city were composites. Clues. Hints of Mongol, Manchu, Turk, Afghan, Tibetan in the faces, but all Chinese now. Oh yes, they were all Chinese now. The great ocean China salts every river.

The desert dust was blowing hard as Chen parked the Jeep outside the Xian central police station. Fong helped the coroner out of the car as Lily approached them. The wind-blown sand got into the old man’s lungs and he let out a hacking cough that ended with him doubled over in pain. Lily was clearly shocked by his appearance. He looked awful.

The ride, like most such endeavours in the Middle Kingdom, was much more exhausting than expected. Twice they had to stop and let the old man out. Both times Fong walked at his side as Grandpa moved slowly along the road’s edge, like an old dog looking for the scent he needed to defecate. At the end of the second stop the coroner hooked his arm through Fong’s and allowed himself to be led back to the car. The man’s touch had startled Fong.

“I’ve got our meetings set up, Fong. The news guys are expecting us later this afternoon. The vice cops are ready for us now,” said Lily.

“Good,” said Fong.

As they entered the police station he whispered, “Have you found anything more on that DNA patent?”

“Not yet. It’s hard to get any exact information. But I’m still trying.”

The vice cops were cordial enough and offered to pick up Sun Li Cha, the Mistress of Cervical Arts, for them. Fong declined the offer. “Just tell us where we can find her.”

The possibility of seeing Sun Li Cha seemed to cheer up the coroner. “An unexpected benefit,” Fong thought.

The police began listing places to check.

Fong cut them off, “Does she have a home address?”

“Yeah,” said the youngest vice cop, “but we’ve never found her there.”

“Where does her mother live?” asked Lily.

Fong saw a flash of anger cross the officer’s face. Perhaps the man didn’t like being questioned by a woman or maybe he found it offensive to bring the mother into this. Xian was getting to be a big city; he’d have to learn that mothers are often the best way to daughters. Change is hard on us all.

Pockets of new wealth were in evidence throughout Xian. Although not pristine, the city was clearly maintained in such a way that Western tourists would find it acceptable.

Shanghai too Western? Chungking too crowded? Beijing too political? Don’t worry, there’s always Xian, real old Chinese. Foreigners certainly bought the pitch. They jammed the narrow streets. They were everywhere.

Sitting in the Jeep and waiting for Chen to return from his errand, Fong found himself put off. An old reaction. For years Chinese citizens had been fed a steady diet of hatred for the Westerners who had bled their country dry. It is hard to get over one’s racial training. “We’re all raised as racists,” he said aloud.

“Even from you, Fong, that has to qualify as an unusual statement,” croaked the coroner from the back seat of the car.

“Think about it,” Fong replied. “You’re born into a family. I sure was.” He noticed Lily cock her head in interest at that. He pressed on: “The first training you get is that your family is better than the one next door. Then you get that your street is better than the one behind you. Then your village is better than the village to the north.”

The coroner folded his arms across his chest, leaned against the door and closed his eyes. Fong continued, “Naturally enough, if all those things are true, your country has to be better than all other countries . . . and your race better than any other.”

The coroner began to snore.

Lily spoke softly, “So, Fong, does that make us all bad?”

Fong heard the concern in her voice buried beneath the veneer of a casual question. “No. Having racist feelings and behaving as a racist are two completely different things. It takes an effort to overcome the training of your youth. Often the initial biases are overturned, but sometimes they linger despite our best efforts to erase them.”

Fong looked in the rear-view mirror. The coroner had a gentle smile on his grizzled face. He began snoring louder.

In the other side of the mirror, Lily looked pensive.

“Lily?”

“Fong, we were all trained to hate Caucasians. There are still times when I can’t believe how ugly they are.” She stopped as if she were entering territory that was too complicated – perhaps too dangerous.

“You have a question, Lily?”

“I do.”

“Ask.”

“The white woman.” Fong instantly knew that she was talking about Amanda Pitman, the wife of the New Orleans police officer who had been found chopped into small pieces in an alley off Julu Lu almost five years earlier. He’d spent four days – and nights – with her.

“What about her, Lily?”

Lily allowed her tongue to trace the front of her teeth. Despite the new thinking in China and Lily’s almost constant exposure to Western media, she didn’t know how to broach issues of male sexuality. Especially with Fong.

“What about her, Lily?” Fong repeated. His voice carried a definite edge.

She let out a deep breath then said in English, “No gain without a penny for a pound, right Fong?”

Fong had no idea what she was trying to say but decided to nod.

“You won’t hate me in the morning?” she asked in English.

Fong was quite lost. Which morning? What had she done to be hated? He looked at her. She looked so earnest that he shook his head.

“You’re sure?”

He shrugged.

“Okay. Good. Okay.” She took a deep breath and switched back to Mandarin. “Did you sleep with the big white woman?”

Fong was shocked.

“Don’t look at me like that, Fong. You told me it was all right for me to ask. So I asked.”

Fong took his eyes from the mirror and looked out the front window. Chen was returning to the Jeep with a bag of steamed buns and about a dozen cheap Triad medallions dangling from his wrist. The timing of the gods was merciful for once. But as Chen approached the car, Lily hissed, “Was she good? Do you like big tits? What did she smell like?”

Chen opened the door and got in. “Sorry I was so long, the crowd was . . .”

“Just get in, will you!” Fong ordered angrily.

Chen didn’t know what to say, so he apologized again.

“Don’t apologize, fire plug. Your absence provoked a fascinating conversation,” said the coroner with a big smile on his craggy face. “What kind of cop are you, Fong, to take snoring for sleeping? Hey, how about one of those buns back here.”

Fong looked in the rear-view mirror. The coroner was laughing. Lily was not.

Then the coroner coughed – and coughed and coughed. Rattles deep inside him began to sound. A knell that everyone in the Jeep heard.

Twenty minutes later, Chen pulled the car out of traffic, headed down a side street and stopped in front of a modern building.

“Her mother lives in a government office block?”

“No, sir, this is where the autopsy was done on the island girl who was disinterred. I thought Grandpa wanted . . .”

“Grandpa wants to see Sun Li Cha, that’s what . . .” but the old man didn’t get another word out as he saw the scowl on Fong’s face. “Actually, a lively bit of scientific bibble babble beats meeting a mistress of the ancient arts any old day,” he said, stepping out of the car.

As Fong walked with him toward the building he noted the greyness that seemed to be growing around the man’s eyes. “Do you want me to stay with you, Grandpa?”

“No.” The older man unhooked his arm from Fong’s and climbed the steps to the building slowly but with a fierce determination. He stumbled and righted himself. He swore loudly – that gave Fong hope.

When Fong got back into the car he was smiling. “What did that old coot say?” asked Lily.

“Nothing much.”

“So why are you smiling?”

“He’s angry. As long as he’s angry he’ll be fine. Once he gets sentimental I’ll begin to worry.”

“Does his family know he’s here?”

Fong almost responded, “He has a family?” then realized that saying it aloud would admit how little he knew about the old man. So he said nothing.

At first Sun Li Cha’s mother wasn’t particularly happy to see them, but she warmed up quickly. There was something of the old coquette about her. Fong had seen it many times before. Older people were ignored in the New China. A burden. Now, all of a sudden, she was wanted. People cared about what she thought. Were willing to listen to her stories.

Both Fong and Chen sat patiently as she claimed ownership of a very exciting, although totally implausible, personal history. It was Lily who finally brought matters to a head.

“Do you think we’re idiots, old lady?”

“No, I don’t, dearie. I think you’re cops.” She laughed so hard at her own cleverness that she snorted like a pig.

“Just tell us where your daughter is!” Lily demanded.

Fong could have killed Lily. All this patient waiting and smiling was meant to build up credit with the old lady so she’d do just that.

“How should I know? Young people have no respect anymore. Like you,” she barked at Lily. “Sun Li doesn’t tell me anything. Do you tell your mother where you’re going, girl?” Before Lily could defend herself the crone continued, “Or that you sleep with these two men. Oh, I see the way they look at you. I’m not new to the Earth you know.”

“Does your daughter have a boyfriend?” asked Fong gently, before Lily could tear a strip off the lady’s old carcass.

“No.”

“Come, Grandma, a girl as beautiful as Sun Li must have men around her all the time,” said Chen gently.

The old woman softened. Fong looked to Chen who just smiled.

“Only beautiful mothers give birth to beautiful daughters,” Chen added. Lily almost puked down the front of her dress.

The old charlatan reached over and touched Chen’s arm. “True. Beauty begets beauty. Very true.” She patted his arm twice more and then said, “Your mother must have been a real dog. Bow-wow wow-wow. Know what I mean?”

Fong was about to leap to Chen’s defence when the younger man held up a hand. “What you say may be true, but I haven’t seen my mother for many, many years. Perhaps she has become, like you, beautiful in her old age.” He smiled.

She smiled back.

Then she said, “You could try the Humming Way bar in the Sheraton. Sometimes she’s there.” Then sadness crossed her face and she said, “She’s an entertainer, you know.”

The Humming Way bar at the Sheraton was dark and stank of cigars and expensive perfume. When Fong’s eyes adjusted to the murk he saw many foreigners with Chinese women. The women were all overly made up and wore tight-fitting clothing.

“Westerners didn’t understand us at all,” Fong thought. These girls were openly disdainful of the men. Yes, their hands rested with seeming ease on the Westerners, but their body language spoke openly of their aversion. Why couldn’t Westerners see that?

It was Lily who picked Sun Li out from the others. “There,” she said pointing at a back booth where a tall Han Chinese woman laughed loudly at something the Western man at her side had said. She touched his hand with her elegant fingers, but her body canted away. A second Westerner returned to the table, balancing three martinis. A small cheroot dangled from the side of his mouth.

“Chen, guard the entrance.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Lily, you take the door to the woman’s toilet.”

“Why?”

“This isn’t a forensic lab, Lily,” he snapped. “Just do as I tell you.” Lily, surprised by his tone, didn’t question him further.

Fong turned from Lily and surveyed the bar closely. He would be more careful with this interrogation than he’d been with Hesheng’s. The image of the terrified islander’s face came to him. He breathed it away.

Once Lily and Chen were in position, Fong strolled over to the booth. Sun Li Cha’s right hand was beneath the table on the thigh of the young Westerner on her right. Her other hand held a half-emptied martini glass. The older man on her left had an arm around her shoulder, his stubby fingers dangling close to the top of her low-cut silk blouse.

Her laughter stopped when she saw Fong.

“What’s wrong, honey? Who’s this?” the older of the two men said in English.

In furiously quick Shanghanese, Fong spat out, “Tell them to go away.”

“Is that accent real?” She smiled but a tiny crack appeared in her bon vivant mask.

“I won’t ask a second time. Tell them to go.” He almost added, “Tell them to fuck their own daughters, not ours,” but didn’t.

“Bug off, fella,” said the younger one but before he could say more, Sun Li whispered something in his ear that made him glow with expectation. “It’s a deal.” She smiled as he got to his feet and signalled for the other man to follow him.

Fong slid into the booth. The buttery leather gave to accept his weight. Sun Li touched the lip of the martini glass, lit a cigarette. She had the most beautiful hands he’d ever seen. And she knew it.

She blew out a line of smoke and turned to Fong. “So?” Her voice was consciously low and smoky.

“I’m a police officer . . . ”

“No!” she laughed. “Even before you came into the room I knew that. I could smell you. Hey, I got to pee first, then we can chat, okay?” Fong shrugged. She put a hand on his thigh and leaned in close to his face. “Won’t be a second.” She slid out of the booth adjusting her skirt just enough to cover the crease between her long legs and her nether portions.

As Sun Li moved toward the washroom, Lily caught Fong’s eyes with a what-am-I-supposed-to-do look. He mouthed back, “Stop her.”

The woman’s toilet was brightly lit and spanking new. Three stalls. Beautiful swan head faucets. And to one side a partly opened window. Sun Li Cha kicked off her high heels and made a beeline for the window. She already had one of her long legs on the counter beneath the window when Lily, catching her off-balance, yanked her back to the floor.

“Hey . . .”

“You’re a suspect in a multiple murder case, Miss Sun. Consider yourself lucky that I don’t charge you right here. Get back out there and talk to Inspector Zhong.”

Sun Li Cha slowly put her heels back on then looked down at Lily. “I like your blouse, where’d you get it?”

“Could it really be about clothes,” Lily thought. “Sleep with men to get money to buy good clothes so that men will want to sleep with you?”

Sun Li Cha’s beautiful hand touched Lily’s arm.

Lily shrugged off the hand. “Huai Hai Road.”

“What about Huai Hai Road?”

“It’s where I got the blouse.”

“Swell.” Sun Li Cha reached out, allowing her fingers to linger on the top button of Lily’s blouse. Lily didn’t know what to do. The whore smiled at her discomfort but she didn’t remove her hand. She said languidly, “I think I’ll go out and talk to your boss now – or is he something more, honey?” The whore’s fingers expertly undid the button exposing the strong sinew of Lily’s neck. “Sweet,” Sun Li Cha whispered then turned and sashayed out of the toilet. Lily found her eyes drawn to the whore’s retreating figure. She felt a surge of envy followed by a flush of anger.

“Good pee?”

“Yummy. What can I do for you, Inspector Zhong?”

“Three months ago you were on a luxury boat on Lake Ching.”

“Was I?”

Fong tossed Sun Li’s business card onto the table. “You left this there,” he lied smoothly.

“You can get one of those at the front desk of dozens of hotels.”

“Perhaps, but I’m sure the fingerprints on the back of this one would match yours and at least one of the men on that boat. Now, we can throw you in jail for the five weeks or so it will take to finish the fingerprint analysis or you can talk to me here. Your choice.”

After briefly considering her options she smiled and said, “I guess I was there.” Fong nodded. “I said I was there,” she repeated. Fong simply nodded again. She smiled. “So is that it? Anything else in your cute little head?”

“Tell me about it.”

She fluttered her beautiful hands just long enough to attract Fong’s eye. “It was cold. They told me to wait on the dock and greet the foreigners who . . . who were there.”

“Did you?”

“Yeah. So what?” Fong saw fleeting lines of fear cross her face then disappear. Surely she’d heard about the murders on the boat. There it was again. Fear. Like an animal realizing it was trapped. “I didn’t do anything,” she barked. Fong didn’t respond. She reached for her purse and lit a cigarette, forgetting that she already had one smouldering in the ashtray. Fong stubbed it out. She smoked Kents. If he ever took up smoking again, he’d definitely change brands. “Besides, they arrested those three peasants for . . .”

“Do you really think three peasants are capable of planning and executing the murder of seventeen foreigners on a boat?” Fong snapped.

“Well . . . maybe . . .”

“So you greeted the foreigners on the dock?”

“Yeah.”

“Then what?”

“I went on board the ship when they told me to.”

“Who told you to?”

“The Chinese guy who was in charge.”

“The boat owner?”

“No, the old Taiwanese who piloted the thing.”

“Then what?”

“The boat got out into the middle of the lake and I served drinks.”

“Champagne.”

“Yeah,” she said, surprised that he knew that. “Just champagne.”

“Were there any other kinds of liquor on board?”

“No.”

“That didn’t strike you as odd?”

“Well yeah, but it was none of my business. I was being paid. So I did what I was asked to do. I served them drinks. I danced for them on this corny runway thing then I spent some time with the two Americans.” She paused then added, “You know . . .”

That hung in the air for a bit. Fong asked, “Did you have any champagne yourself?”

“No. They wouldn’t let me.”

“When did the crew leave the ship?”

“Just after I finished with the Americans. They were . . . well, sort of too drowsy to . . . you know. So they didn’t do anything.”

“How long after you left the dock was that?”

“A guess? Maybe an hour and a half . . . two, tops. Then the other guys came on board.” Fong held his breath. She shrugged, “You know, those odd-looking peasant guys.”

“Why do you say they were odd-looking?”

“Well, they all sort of looked the same, you know. Weird. Looked like the old guy who was on board. Farmers, you know.”

“Of course,” Fong thought, “it was a celebration. Iman would have been invited.” He smiled at her and asked, “How many of them were there?”

“Dozens. Hundreds. A lot – counting’s not my idea of fun. They seemed to be everywhere. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many up close. You may have noticed, I’m a city girl.”

She touched his arm. He shrugged her hand away. “How do you know they were farmers?”

“They carried tools.”

Fong saw the scraped-off faces of the Chinese men in the bar. He closed his eyes and asked, “Hoes?”

“I don’t know what you call them. The wide, short, sharp things used for . . .”

“Hewing. Building terraces. I’ve seen them,” he said almost in a whisper.

“If you say so – how would I know what they are?”

But Fong wasn’t listening to her. He had retreated into the recesses of his mind. A terrible truth sat there. All the island farmers did the killing onboard that ship.

Dizziness threatened to engulf him but he breathed it away and asked, “And these farmer types took over running the ship?”

“I guess. The guests seemed really sleepy, except for that old guy who they all looked like.”

His mind supplied the unwanted image of islanders entering the rooms, slashing blows of the hewers, gunshots, gutting, castration – fury – chi. He looked up at her. “How did you get away?”

“The fisherman.”

“What?”

“I was out on the deck and a fisherman . . . you know, one of those guys with the birds, yelled at me to jump. I thought he was nuts. The clothes I was wearing cost me a fortune. Besides, I don’t swim much.”

“How did he get you to jump?”

“When I saw how excited he was I figured that maybe I’d better listen to him. Know what I mean? Anyhow, I didn’t have to jump, he brought his boat in close and helped me down. I didn’t even get wet.” She stopped for a moment. “I didn’t kill anyone. Shit, I didn’t even fuck anyone. Or any other stuff. I just took off my clothes. Is that a crime in the New China? If so, since when?”

They were on their way to the China news agency across town as Fong finished telling them about his conversation with Sun Li Cha.

“It makes no sense, Fong. One girl for seventeen foreigners.” With a smile she added, “Chinese women are extraordinary, but seventeen to one seems . . .”

“You forget the girls pushing the broken-down bus Chen saw outside of Ching that night.”

“Russian craftsmanship strikes again,” added Chen.

“That breakdown probably saved their lives.”

“Sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to be . . .”

He never got to complete his apology. “So how did Sun Li Cha get there, Fong?”

“She drove, Lily.”

“She has a car?” Lily asked, astounded.

“Evidently her business is thriving.” Lily frowned. He didn’t. “Are we getting close to the news bureau, Captain Chen?” The younger man nodded. “Who are we talking to there, Lily?”

“There’s a Reuters correspondent, a CNN guy and an Associated Press stringer.”

“Were they all there in December?”

“Not the Associated Press guy, but the other two were.”

“They’re all covering the story of the murders?”

“Well, they were until the government threatened to remove their credentials.”

“So there’s been no coverage overseas of the murders?” Fong asked incredulously.

“There was a furor for a while, then came the arrests. The recreation model was displayed prominently to the press as proof that prosecutions were imminent.”

“And now?”

“I think not much.”

“But that’s not the point, is it, Fong?” asked Lily. “Isn’t the issue how they got word of the story in the first place?”

“It sure is Lily, which is why I think maybe you ought to conduct these interviews.”

“Me?”

“Who else knows CNN and that other Western stuff better than you?”

Lily thought about that for a moment. “True. But I can’t meet them looking like this.”

“What’s wrong with the clothes you’re wearing. They look fine to me. Right, Chen?”

Chen blushed. “Maybe Lily has different standards than we do, sir.”

It had never occurred to Fong that Chen would be attracted to Lily. Well, why not? The young man’s marriage was falling apart. And Chen was a lot closer to Lily’s age than he was.

“Turn here, Chen,” Lily said, indicating a street at the right. It led to an area of high-class restaurants and fashionable shops.

“There.” Lily said, pointing at a large, Western-style store. “Stop the car, Chen. That looks promising.” She hopped out and leaned in the window. “What’s my budget?”

Fong had no idea if they even had a budget. Chen reached into his wallet and withdrew a credit card. “It’s got about four hundred American dollars left on it.” As Lily took the card, Fong stared at Chen. “Left on it?”

“It’s a smart card, sir.”

Fong nodded as if he understood what was said to him. But he didn’t. He’d been on the wrong side of the Wall for a long time. How could a credit card be smart – or dumb for that matter?

The store spread out before Lily like a cave freshly opened to the light. She stood on the entry dais some six feet above floor level. The Western influence was evident everywhere. This was a place for the privileged. There seemed to be more shopgirls than buyers in the store. To one side a few Western women were speaking too loudly as their bored husbands tried their best to be interested in more than just the price of their wives’ selections.

Two Chinese women moved with cool precision through the aisles, careful not to catch each other’s eyes. Each knew the compromises necessary to have the money to shop in such a store. Neither was anxious to broach the subject. Both were beautiful. Both were young. Both made Lily feel ugly and old for a moment. But only for a moment.

A shopgirl approached Lily and bowed slightly. Lily put on her best I’m-a-ranking-party-member look and moved past the girl who obediently followed in her wake.

Lily didn’t look back. She liked the unobstructed view. She liked shopping, especially on someone else’s budget – no, not someone, the government’s.

The selection was not as varied as in her favourite shops in Shanghai, but the quality of the merchandise was extremely high. The prices were shocking.

“Good,” she thought, “Beijing owes me something for my trouble.”

She paused by a display of eyeglass frames made in Paris. Such things were still extremely hard to find, even in Shanghai. A small sign indicated that these glass frames were for display purposes only but the frames could be ordered and that delivery would take between three and five months. “Probably closer to a year,” Lily thought.

At the end of the next aisle she saw one of the Chinese women looking at an array of mannequin torsos displaying lacy bras from Los Angeles. The woman’s beautiful figure hardly needed the accents offered by the expensive lingerie.

“Would you like to look, also?” asked the salesgirl from behind her.

“I’ll call for you when I need you,” Lily announced contemptuously. But the moment she’d spoken, she wished she could take back her words. This was a country girl. Pretty. Trained, but a country girl. Not a hardened Shanghai store clerk. Lily turned around. “Perhaps you can help me.”

The girl’s eyes lit up.

Lily came down the stairs of the store like a queen descending from her throne. The two shopping bags dangling from her arms swayed to the rhythm of her hips.

The men were standing by the car. Chen stared openly at her, his mouth a little too agape. Fong examined her as he would a work of art. His eyes were not easily deceived. The black silk shirtwaist was delicately embroidered with silver threads. The garment accentuated her narrow waist and the length of her slender upper body. The leather skirt just peeked out enough to announce its presence. Her long elegant legs were silvery grey in sheer stockings that led the eye to black pumps with high heels. She was a corporate vision in black and grey. Her always-deep eyes were now alive and bright.

She raised her hands and executed a half-turn while keeping her eyes on the men. “So?” She looked at Chen, whose mouth had opened even a little more than before. “Good,” she murmured, “You may comment if you wish.”

“What’s in the bags?”

“My old clothes, Chen,” she snapped. Then in her sweetest voice she said, “I take it that you approve of my choices.”

“I do.” Chen did his best to collect himself.

“And the older member of our team?”

For a moment Fong thought she was referring to the coroner, then he remembered that the old man was at the morgue. He did his best to hide his disappointment. “Your choices are excellent for our purposes.”

“You sound like a Russian.”

“That bad?”

“Yeah.” Then in English she pleaded, “Tell you me like it. Please.”

Fong was touched – and relieved. In English he replied, “I like it Lily. I really do.”

She smiled and handed the bill and the card to Chen. “I wouldn’t try using that thing until it’s refuelled. Oh, by the way, in case you didn’t know, you have overdraft protection on the card. Had overdraft protection,” she corrected herself. “I used that up too.”

Fong’s decision to have Lily lead the interrogation at the China news agency was a good one. The three Westerners were charmed by her and answered her questions without a moment’s hesitation. On occasion her Shanghanese accent puzzled the men, so Fong translated into English.

“On the night of December 28 you were contacted?”

The eldest reporter, the one from Reuters, brushed at the coffee stains on his expansive white shirt, as he answered for the others. “Two of us were. Me and him.” He pointed at the handsome CNN reporter. “We were the only ones here then.”

“Who contacted you?”

“Beijing.”

“Beijing’s a big place.”

“It was a woman. An older woman. She called and told us that there had been a massacre of foreigners on Lake Ching.”

“Did you go to the lake?”

“We tried, but our usual drivers had been told not to take us out of Xian. Even our gypsies had been grounded.”

Lily spoke in highly colloquial Shanghanese so the Westerners couldn’t follow, “So someone called them to tell them about the murders then someone else made sure they couldn’t get to the lake?”

“That would be my guess. Parallel lines again.” Fong turned to the reporters. “When did you finally get to the lake?” Fong asked in English.

“Late January. And there was nothing to see.”

After the specialist came and the boat sank.

“Except that incredible model.”

“Very fancy, but who could tell dick from that?”

Lily wore a puzzled look, “What means who could tell dick?”

“Richard. Dick. Remember?”

“Oh,” Lily blushed. Fong thought she looked lovely when she was a little off-balance.

Chen tapped the elaborate display on the telephone on the reporter’s desk. “Did the call come to this phone?”

“Yeah,” said the Reuters man.

“This has call display, doesn’t it?”

“Sure.”

Chen flipped over the phone and read the Chinese inscription on the bottom. “It has memory.”

“So?” demanded Fong.

“So maybe it still has the number that called you from Beijing.”

The new world. It was as if he’d been asleep for a hundred years on the west side of the Wall.

Chen followed the digital instructions to the memory. He punched in 12/28 and three punches later several blinking zeros appeared in a neat digital line.

Chen was about to apologize, but Fong cut him off and turned to the reporters. “You keep a phone log don’t you?”

“Yeah, but . . .”

Fong followed the man’s eye line to a well-thumbed notepad on the desk. He flipped it to December 28. There, logged in as the sixth call of the day, was an eightdigit number preceded by the Beijing area code.

“Hey!”

“We’re taking this as evidence.” Before anyone could complain further, Fong headed toward the door with the phone log under his arm. He had already memorized the number. Fong repeated the number slowly to himself. Was this a way back to a rogue in Beijing? Probably not, but at least it was a place to begin. He looked down at the tracking bracelet on his leg. Its single red eye blinked up at him. “A way to be free of you, you cyclops,” he thought. He didn’t dare think it might be a way to get home, back to Shanghai.

Half an hour later Chen pulled the Jeep up outside the Xian morgue. The coroner looked ancient. He was sitting on the poured concrete steps with his pants rolled up exposing his bony pale shins. Fong got out of the car and went over to him.

“You asleep, Grandpa?” The coroner looked up at Fong and shook his head. “Sick?” The old man looked away. “What then?”

The coroner spat on the pavement. Then said one word: “Typhoid.”

Fong suddenly felt he was sweltering with fever, his grandmother looming over his bed. Her words hot with anger at his sickness, his weakness: “Die boy if you’re going to, but be quick about it.”

Years later a ragged man had come to the rooms he shared with Fu Tsong at the theatre academy and announced that Fong’s grandmother was gravely ill and had requested his presence. He’d slammed the door in the man’s face. Then he warned Fu Tsong not to question him about this. Not about this!

He shook himself free of the memory and asked, “This girl from the island, this Chu Shi, she died of typhoid, Grandpa?”

“That’s what the autopsy report says,” he said, struggling to his feet.

“But that can’t be. They’ve been farming with feces as manure for ages. Why would typhoid all of a sudden break out?”

“It didn’t, Fong.”

“It didn’t . . . what?”

“This was a cultured strain of typhoid.”

“A what?”

“Cultured strain.” On seeing Fong’s lost look, the old man spat on the pavement a second time and said, “It was grown in a lab, Fong. This strain can’t naturally occur in nature. It was grown. Planted. It was cultured.”

He moved past Fong toward the car, his figure even more bent now than before. As if the extent of human evil were weighing him down.