The First Excellence: Fa-Ling's Map (12 page)

“
We are what we are,” Wang Yong-qi said, “and we know what we must do. In the end, we understand the truth may need to be tamed, so it doesn’t run wild and bite us in the ass.”

“
Ever the diplomat, my friend.” Cheng nodded. “So, we are agreed that our Chen Sui Ming did not take his own life. We are agreed that a person or persons unknown are responsible for his murder. What now? If we record this as a case of foul play, the shit will hit the fan. Fat will not rest until we recant our theory.”

Fat was the department chief, a tin pot dictator who ruled his department like a tyrant, but who knew how to toady up and turn on the oil when it suited his purpose. His artful fawning and scraping in front of visiting government officials was a phenomenon to be marvelled at.

“
What I am suggesting,” Yong-qi said, encouraged by Cheng’s willingness to consider the options, “is that we turn our reports in as we usually do. Fat won’t read beyond the first couple of sections anyway. We say ‘Apparent’ Suicide. That’s the key: Apparent. That will give us a justification later should we wish to formally re-open the case.”

“
On what grounds could we later re-open it?”

“
I’m getting to that. We should insert our true observations, but not in a prominent manner. We do not want Fat to question our findings. In my report I will mention vaguely the chair was used to break the window, as evidenced by the glass piece, and it was later returned to its proper spot. I will also note the other physical evidence of the candle being blown out and laid neatly on the bed. I will not comment on the fact these things are inconsistent with a suicide.”

“
What about the witness?” Cheng asked. “The Kader woman heard male voices arguing.”

“
I will leave it to you to insert the witness statement into your report,” Wang said. “After all, it is the critical piece of evidence. No offence, but your writing is terrible. Fat will be less likely to read through your report than mine. You will need to keep your comments vague, so they will not be noticed. Mrs. Kader is in China to adopt a child. She will not be anxious to talk further to police. Hopefully by the time anyone realises her statement conflicts with the official findings, she will have returned to Canada.”

“
She’s an odd one, Mrs. Kader.”

“
Do you think she was lying?” Wang asked.

“
Yes, but not to us.”

“
I agree. She was telling the truth about what she heard. She was genuinely frightened by the situation. I don’t envy that husband of hers.”

“
Can we drag our feet on the reports?” Cheng asked.

“
Not for long — a day or two at most. Fat will be looking to close the case.”

“
We let him close the case, but we continue to investigate. What if we are caught?”

“
Then,” Wang said, “we refer back to our original reports. We say that, after discussing it further between ourselves, we began to notice discrepancies. There were details on your report I overlooked, and vice-versa. We simply wanted to find out if there are grounds to re-open the file.”

“
OK,” Cheng agreed. “Suppose we uncover proof of foul play?”

“
It depends on what the proof is. Naturally if we discover that President Hu Jintao’s favourite nephew set the poor bugger on fire, then we will not call the press. On the other hand, if we learn some local vigilantes decided to ‘flame the Fong’, let’s nail their carcasses to the wall.”

“
As long as the “vigilantes” aren’t employed by the Ministry of State Security,” Cheng said.

“
We’ll have to play it by ear.”

The two men worked on their vodka in silence, each contemplating the many hazards associated with an excess of truth in a society that thrived on secrecy.

A sound of breaking glass caught Yong-qi’s attention. He turned lazily in time to see the pretty waitress back away from one of the tables with a red face. Two drunken roosters crowed with laughter. One began to pick up the broken glass, while the other rested his hand on the girl’s back.

Cheng leapt to his feet, his forbidden M 77B pistol in his hand.

“
What’s happening?” Wang said, jumping up to help his partner.

Wang’s surprise concerned the expression of cold rage he saw on Cheng’s face. He supposed his partner possessed a normal range of emotions including anger, but he had never seen evidence of it.

In the years they had been together as a team he had come to respect Cheng’s steady professionalism. Cheng would do what was necessary to get the job done, without hesitation, but his actions were never motivated by anger. He preferred to rely on logic.

Now a look of utter fury sat like a mask on the large man’s countenance. He strode across the room, Wang following nervously with his less impressive Type 77 pistol drawn and ready.

“
On your knees!” Cheng shouted, waving his gun at the young men. One of them dropped to the floor instantly. The other pulled his hand away from the waitress’s back as if she were on fire. “You, too. Get on the floor, beside your buddy.”

Wang stood helplessly beside Cheng, confused by his actions.

“
What’s going on,” he repeated quietly.

“
Lulu,” Cheng said to the girl, “are these punks bothering you?”

“
No,” the frightened girl whispered. “Please, Uncle Minsheng… I don’t want any trouble.”

“
What did this one say to you?” Cheng demanded.

“
He only asked for a drink.”

“
Does he have a tongue? Must he ask for a drink with his hands? You,” he said, pointing at the man who had touched Lulu, “show me your tongue.”

The man, who was really more of a boy, stuck out his tongue. Cheng grabbed it with his left hand and pulled it firmly, pretending to inspect its quality. Wang shuddered at the thought of that dirty hand on the poor man’s tongue.

“
This looks like a perfectly good tongue to me.” He nodded at Yong-qi happily. “In the future,” he said to the young man loudly, “please use this tongue to ask for your drinks. Your hands should be kept on the table at all times. You never know when an angry uncle who is also a cop will pull out a huge mother of a gun and blow your hand clean off your wrist.”

“
Cheng,” Yong-qi began, but his partner was already waving his arms like a benevolent Buddha, telling the men to get up off the floor and seeming unaware of the fact his right hand still held the barbaric weapon.

The 77B was considered by the government to be too heavy and ungainly, and far too deadly for use by the general police force. The official propaganda insisted it was sold only for export. The manufacturer denied it was available for purchase within China.

“
There, there,” Cheng said, “everything is all right now. We just had a little misunderstanding, didn’t we, Lulu? Now you run along and get these fellows a drink, and I’m sure they will have a generous tip for you when they leave.” He spoke loudly, his face changing from anger to camaraderie quickly and completely.

“
Everyone, go back to your drinks. In fact, Lulu, bring new drinks for everyone. There is no trouble here. These gentlemen are intelligent. They understand now what will happen to them if my little Lulu should ever feel she has been violated.”

He motioned for the men to sit down and they complied. Then he pulled two more chairs to their table and waited politely for Wang to sit before joining the group.

“
No hard feelings, Gentlemen,” he said. “This round is on me.” He tucked the gun into the pocket of his seedy grey jacket and smiled.

Wang Yong-qi could hardly talk, so shocked was he by his friend’s bizarre behaviour. Once they were back in the early morning darkness of the Nanning streets, he had to speak up.

“
What the hell was that all about?” he said.

“
Are you referring to my little Peking Opera?” Cheng said. “What do you think? Was I convincing as the deranged uncle? Did I make my point?”

“
Loud and clear, my friend, to everyone in the place. Don’t you think, though, it was a bit overdone?”

“
Not at all, Yong-qi. Every bit of theatre has a purpose. Those two boys, they are nothing. They are harmless. I think one of them pissed his pants, he was so scared. However, my friend, they weren’t the only men with ears in that room.”

“
So you were delivering a more general message?”

“
Indeed. Several mornings ago, little Lulu came home crying to her mother. It seemed her nasty bug of a manager was making inappropriate suggestions to her. She had a similar problem at her last position, and she was worried about losing this job. It is the curse of being young and beautiful, I’m afraid.”

Wang smiled. Cheng spoke as if he truly understood the curse of beauty.

“
My sister is a widow,” Cheng continued. “She does not always see things clearly the way a father would. She came to me for advice. I offered to confront the cockroach directly. Lulu was frantic. She was deeply embarrassed by the whole situation, and felt her boss would take revenge if he lost face in public.”

“
You waited for a chance to make your presence known without having to confront him directly,” Wang said.

“
Precisely. Those jackasses were in the right place at the wrong time. If they hadn’t acted up, I would have gone for them anyway. It was convenient.”

“
I hope you wouldn’t have shot them,” Yong-qi joked.

“
One never knows,” Cheng said, his face deadly serious, “what a crazy uncle with a gun might do.”

Jiu Kaiyu slumped over the keyboard in his darkened office at the Ministry of State Security in Shanghai. To save on energy costs, the building’s lights were turned off from eight p.m. till seven o’clock in the morning. Because he often kept strange hours, Jiu had placed a floor lamp in the corner of his tiny cubicle. By its light and by the glow from the computer monitor he was able to see well enough to make his way around.

Embarrassment kept him from heading back to the station the previous afternoon when he and his men were finished at the airport. Jiu had not wanted to face his boss, Chief Ho Lon-shi. He knew Ho would make a big production over his disgrace. Ho’s nephew Yi would feed into the tirade with innuendo concerning what he would have done differently in Jiu’s place.

Jiu was not up to dealing with the recriminations. He sent Yi home early — an offer Yi was far too lazy to question — then headed back to the Tan apartment with Ng-zhi. Free from Yi’s prying eyes, the two men turned the apartment inside out, taking care to leave behind no evidence of having done so. Jiu immediately discovered the girl’s bed in the laundry room. He shook his head at his own stupidity for having overlooked something so obvious. Under Ho’s direction, the entire division was becoming shoddy, and Jiu realised he was no exception.

Ng-zhi helped him to carry the girl’s bedroom furniture from the apartment and down to the building’s tiny parking area. They knew any items in good condition would soon fall prey to local scavengers. Painstakingly, the men sifted through every closet and cupboard, eliminating all evidence Shopei had once lived in the apartment. At the very least there was nothing left to underline Jiu’s blatant incompetence for having overlooked the girl’s existence.

He was not worried about Ng-zhi spilling the beans. He and Ng-zhi had an unbreakable bond, cemented in their common hatred for Ho.

Jiu Kaiyu remembered the photo on the living room bookshelf and went to retrieve it, stepping carefully around the bodies of Dahui and his mother. The picture was no longer there. The girl must have returned to the apartment after he and his men left, seen the bodies of her family, and rushed to warn Randy Chan of the immediate danger. She probably took the family photo with her.

When they finished cleaning the Tan’s apartment, Jiu joined Ng-zhi for a dinner of shrimp and noodles at one of the congee restaurants on the strip. It was only after their second drink, when Jiu was certain there would be no one left working at the office, that he dropped Ng-zhi at home and drove back to the station alone.

Jiu carried the heavy hard drive up the four floors to his cubicle. It took him awhile to re-arrange his own equipment on the small workstation to make room for Tan Dahui’s tower, but there was no way he was going to let some half-assed techie have the first go at whatever evidence was on the computer.

Once he had everything set up, Jiu reset the clock on Tan’s PC to the previous morning. He used Dahui’s email program to send a rash of photos and files to a private email address that was hosted by an obscure Internet provider in Thailand. There was no trail that could connect Jiu Kaiyu to the Thai email address.

This was something Jiu had been doing secretly for years — compiling a private collection of documents that could be used, if necessary, as evidence against his superiors. Usually he saved the files to disc, then sent them to the dummy address from a public Internet café. In this instance, though, he had the perfect opportunity to make it look as though Tan Dahui had sent the files if the transmission should ever be discovered, which was unlikely.

Of course, he understood it was probably a futile effort on his part. By the time Jiu Kaiyu found himself in a position where he would need to use the ‘insurance policy’, it would most likely be too late.

Jiu’s bosses didn’t drag their feet. There had been others like Jiu who had appeared to be permanent fixtures at the station, working their cases enthusiastically one day and disappearing the next, completely and without explanation. When the authorities wanted someone gone only a highly accurate set of I Ching divining sticks could save the poor lout.