The Shanghai Murders - A Mystery of Love and Ivory (5 page)

The commissioner seemed to have just removed a look of dismay and replaced it by his ever smiling, politically connected “good” face. “How are you today, Detective Zhong?”

Swell, he thought. I’ve been up since five A.M., seen a body in pieces, had a screaming match with a newspaper editor, held half of a heart in my hand and watched a set of dentures munch on it—all before lunch. But he said, “Okay.”

“Good,” said Commissioner Hu and smiled.

The commissioner had one of those smiles that turned his face inside out. As if the action of smiling was completely unnatural for him and he was practising it. And with intense practice came intense fakery. “Pretending is not acting. Acting is about selecting from what you know,” Fu Tsong said in his head. Her voice was so real, so close, so intimate that for a moment Fong lost track of what Commissioner Hu was saying.

Then he caught the drift. His Hu-ness was upset about his not returning the American consulate’s phone call. His Hu-ness was also going on about a meeting with the Americans later in the day but that he was to allow the Chinese State people to do the talking. Fine, he thought, the last thing I want to do is chat with U.S. Consulate folks.

“And I thought because your English is so good, you could also translate for us,” concluded his Hu-ness.

“Pardon me for saying this but I think that we need a professional translator in a situation like this. I speak conversationally but I cannot claim any real expertise.”

“Conversationally is good enough in this case.”

“But. . .” Fong never got to complete his sentence. The smile mask was back on and his Hu-ness was indicating that it was time for him to leave. So Fong got to his feet and headed out.

It was only as he was leaving the secretary’s office (the woman still refused to meet his eye) that he realized why he was being asked to act as translator—the powers that be wanted as few people in on this conversation as possible. But why?

On leaving the commissioner’s office Fong headed toward the basement of the building and the forensic labs. He knew that there wouldn’t be anything to report yet but he wanted to check and see if there were any preliminary responses. Besides, he liked Forensics and the people who worked there. It was the Buddhist end of police work—silent, slow, and patient.

He was waved through forensic security and headed down the long corridor toward the main lab in the back. There was the slightest pop of suction as he pulled open the frosted glass door. He thought to himself that this is probably the only well-fitted door in all of Shanghai. He checked for a manufacturer’s label. German, naturally.

Once inside, the hum of the fluorescent lights was about all there was to hear. Several of the scientists looked up and then returned to their work. They knew Zhong Fong but saw no need to distract themselves enough to say hello.

Near the south end of the lab he found Xia Hong Shia, who liked to be called by her English name, Lily. Lily was an attractive, tightly put together woman in her late twenties who seemingly spent every penny on her wardrobe. All to fetching effect. Lily’s English wasn’t great but she made a real effort and liked to practice, so Fong addressed her in English. “What’s up, Lily?”

Momentarily missing the idiom, Lily looked skyward and then smiled at him. “Not a thing fucking.” Lily was especially fond of English slang.

Pointing at the microscope in front of her, “May I?”

“Shit, okay.”

He put his eye to the lens and squinted. He was always amazed how hard it was to actually see anything through a microscope. After a little fiddling with both his eye and the focus, he managed to get an image of some sort of crystal-based solid.

“What is it, Lily?”

To explain, Lily reverted to Mandarin. “It’s standard to ask for a piece of the lung. It usually doesn’t show anything, but I found tiny shards of this in the tissue,” she said indicating the image on the slide.

“And you don’t know what it is yet?”

“Not yet, copper,” she said in her smiling English.

There was an unmistakable twinkle in her eye and she stood just a little closer to him than was absolutely necessary. He’d heard rumours that her relationship with her boyfriend had soured but as he looked at her, it occurred to him that his days with younger women were numbered if not in fact over. He didn’t know what he felt about that.

“The wallet’s in scrapings and should be out soon. Blood typing is almost done. There were a few partial prints on the credit cards,” she said in her beautiful Mandarin. Then she added in English, “They’re being worked up now.”

“Your English is getting very good, Lily.”

“I’ve got CNN. It helps. I think I love Larry King.”

“Who?”

“Just an older man with lots of attitude, like someone else I know and also care deeply for.” She literally twinkled with her own cleverness.

Enjoying the game, but thrown a little by her forwardness, Fong pointed at the microscope. “Tell me what it is when you find out.” Then he turned and headed out.

As he did, he heard Lily whistle at him and mutter, “Yubba Bubla Doo, check out that butt.”

Mr. Lo entered the Jade Buddhist Temple up Jiang Ning Road near An Yuan and paid his fifteen kwai. Tourist season hadn’t begun yet so it wasn’t crowded. The scent of fresh incense was everywhere as the monks passed out bundles of the fragrant sticks to the faithful.

He avoided the main temple in the centre of the courtyard, with its three gaudy gold-painted statues and kneeling chairs, and headed to the east side of the compound where there was a vantage place from which he could see the carvings on the main building’s roof—what he thought of as “his statues.” The figures formed a unique motif that completed the ends of the upturned pagodalike eaves. On the end of each eave was a long narrow upcurving polelike extension, perhaps five feet long. At the highest point, the farthest from the roof, a tiny robed monk rode a peacock. Behind the monk, following him in a neat line were four lion cubs, each delicately balanced on the narrow pole. All four cubs wore serene smiles. But there was also a fifth lion cub, still on the roof, clearly frightened to make the leap from the safety of the roof to the narrow curving strut. This cub was clearly unhappy. His lack of bravery had kept him from the path—the
tao
. Clinging to the unreal world of apparent safety, the roof, had left him out of the true world—a world of serenity, the
tao
.

As he had so often in the past, Loa Wei Fen willed himself into the eye of the lion cub on the roof. From the cub’s eye he looked at the joy of his brothers on the other side. Then, in his mind, he leapt—across the abyss. Geoffrey’s ride in from the airport was as uneventful as a ride with Soo Jack could be. Long ago he had learned that it was better to sit in the front seat and take your chances than to sit in the back and be sure that Jack would spend the entire trip with his head craned around talking to you.

Although he had been in Shanghai only ten months before, the changes were obvious. Huge new handpainted billboards, behind which were massive building projects, lined Qiao Road and Yan’an as they headed into town from the airport. The air was thick but not as polluted as it would get later in the year. Geoffrey was happy just to watch the city’s life.

Shanghai is the largest city in Asia. Its population of fourteen million swells to almost twenty million on any given day because of the people who come into the city to shop and to look for work. The streets, always crowded with bicyclists, taxis, and buses, now had many private cars, some quite fancy, adding to the potentially deadly mix. Jack swerved to avoid a pedestrian who had wandered into the middle of the eight-lane road. He honked.

Everyone honked. Drivers in Shanghai honked to tell you that they were coming. They honked to warn you not to move. They honked to tell you they were passing. They honked to tell you not to swerve. They honked to tell you to go faster. They honked to tell you not to turn. They honked to let the car they were driving know that it wasn’t being ignored. Despite all the honking they seldom, if ever, swore or lost their tempers. They honked instead.

Jack was a registered Chinese Driver, not a private car owner or a cabby. Chinese Drivers were a breed unto themselves. They had real status in Shanghai. They were licensed by the government and knew every road, alleyway, good restaurant, historic site, and pleasure dome within four hundred miles of Shanghai. You want to go to the countryside, you want a Chinese Driver. You want to see the night life in Shanghai, you want a Chinese Driver. You want to shake up your lunch, you want a Chinese Driver.

At the Shanghai Theatre Academy, Geoffrey was met by Deborah Tong, his translator of many years. She showed him to his rooms.

After unpacking his various bags (he’d given up on travelling light years ago) Geoffrey went down the stairs of the guest house and wandered across the compound to the filthy old theatre that he adored.

The invitation from the academy to direct a production of Shakespeare’s
Twelfth Night
with a large professional cast and a few talented students came as an unexpected gift. It was unsolicited; usually he had to press the academy for invitations. But as he was to learn later, it was a gift complete with strings.

He’d wanted to work on
Twelfth Night
for years—since Fu Tsong had first begun to talk about the piece. She had said, “Shakespeare has written everyone into this play. We are all there. I know who I am in the play. Who are you, Geoffrey?”

He had managed to duck the question. She was convinced that the play was about love as the ultimate expression of living. Geoffrey’s take was more of love as an addiction, a sickness. She had simply smiled at him and continued her analysis. She argued that Malvolio was indeed in love with Olivia, as was Toby, as was Aguecheek, as was Feste. He remembered saying, “That’s some woman to have so many men in love with her.” To which Fu Tsong had countered, “Oh, not just men. The boy Sebastian as well, not to mention the girl, Viola. All love Olivia deeply.” “And what is it that they love so much in this creature?” he had mocked. Totally ignoring his sarcasm she had answered, “Her
chi
. Her life inside.”

Ah, yes, her
chi
. Her life inside.

Sometimes, only through absence can a human being tell the value of what was, but is no more. So walking this campus in Shanghai, the People’s Republic of China, a country, an academy that no longer contained Fu Tsong’s
chi
, Geoffrey Hyland, Toronto theatre director, once more experienced the depth of his loss. How infinitely poorer this place was without its Olivia.

The American consulate’s air conditioning was cranked up so high that Fong thought his eyelids were freezing together. He sat between Commissioner Hu and one of the people from the State Department, a trade commissar whom Fong had never seen before. The only American present was the consul general. This surprised Fong.

The business part of the American consulate (known to the people who work there as the real American consulate) was near the seat of true power in Shanghai, the docks. Naturally there was a public consulate, in the pleasant back streets where Huai Hai and Fuxing cross down Wolumquoi, where people of all nations, colours and creeds can apply for immigration visas to the promised land. But nothing of international import got done there. If you wanted to really deal with America, you went down to the docks. Fong found this appropriate. The real American consulate was up the Huangpo River toward the Yangtze. The austere, newish edifice silently hummed its anthem of efficiency.

The size of American rooms didn’t seem quite right to Fong. He was used to high ceilings from his own office, but it was the width of the room that unnerved him. Form without function. American.

While translating the “hi, how are ya’s” and the “isn’t it gettin’ hot out there” stuff Fong studied the consul general, a white bear of a man, with bushy eyebrows and a big gut. Fong had known Americans who could play at being American but were in fact quite bright. Such Americans were also quite dangerous, Fong had found.

“So what’ve you folks found out about the passing of an American citizen, one Richard Fallon?” Fong translated and was told to give the American what he had worked up. Fong handed over an edited version of Wang Jun’s report, with copies of only some of the photos and then gave the consul general a list of reports yet to come in and their prospective dates of arrival. There was no mention anywhere of the heart or its missing piece.

“Ghastly business this. You think there’s a chance you’ll find the guy who did this?”

Again Fong translated and was told to respond.

“It’s too early to tell. We have a few leads to follow and a lot of basic investigation to get moving before we can even estimate chances.”

The consul general nodded as if in agreement but instead of replying to Fong’s statement, he said, “Be careful, sonny boy, you’re in way over your head on this one.”

Struggling to keep a straight face, Fong smiled. “Would you care to elaborate.”

The consul general smiled back and, while nodding, said, “No.”

Fong told his colleagues that the consul general understood that things were in their early stages and that he wished to offer the police any services that he could in the investigations. Both Chinese officials nodded sagely. Without asking permission, Fong turned to the consul general.

“Was Richard Fallon an active law enforcement officer at the time of his death?”

“Yes ”

“Was he here on any sort of government business?”

“You’re cold.”

“It’s the air conditioning.”

“No, no. This has nothing to do with that.”

“And what does it have to do with?”

The Chinese officials asked for an explanation and were given an edited precis.

“Will you allow us to use your computers to track his credit cards?”

“I will not.”

“Why?” burst out Fong.

The American just smiled, rubbed his belly, and stood.

The Chinese men stood as well and followed him to the door.

At the door, as if it were an afterthought, the consul general put a hand on Fong’s shoulder and said, “I’ve got a teensy favour to ask. Mr. Fallon’s widow is coming into town tomorrow or the next day to, well, you know, tidy things up, and I’m sure that she would like to be kept abreast of your investigations. Americans are like that, aren’t they?”