IT MIGHT BE HIS last day in St. Louis, Chen supposed, stepping into the shabby motel near Jefferson Road. Behind the motel, not too far away, the Arch stood silhouetted against the gray sky, still, splendid as always.
He had been told to meet with Feidong, a military attaché from the Chinese Council in Chicago. The meeting was arranged more out of formality, though the location of it intrigued Chen. They could have met in the hotel where the delegation stayed.
Feidong conveyed his congratulations to Chen on behalf of the Culture Ministry and the Foreign Ministry. Then basically the same message: in view of the new situation, the delegation would return to China. Speaking as a government representative, Feidong showed proper respect to the chief inspector.
“The leading comrades in Beijing are pleased with your work.”
“What work?”
But there was no point arguing with Feidong, or even raising the question. He might not have any clue what work Chen was really engaged with here.
“Well, they are concerned with the safety of the delegation,” Feidong went on without directly responding to his question. “If anything else happens, it would be a diplomatic disaster. Then, huge responsibilities.”
So the meeting was not merely one of formality. It functioned as double insurance. After Zhao’s talk, the message was reiterated more like a warning. Chen had to lead the delegation back. Period.
Chen remained polite, saying little throughout the meeting, because it was a decision he had to accept. There was no point in fighting it.
“Also, there will be no mentioning Comrade Huang’s case whatsoever to the Chinese media. The delegation members are not supposed to talk or write about it upon their return.”
“Why?”
“It’s in the Party’s interests.”
Of course, anything would be so justified. There was little Chen could do about it. A case might be given to him one minute, and taken away the next. It was a fact he had long known. The final decision was always made in the interests of the Party.
The meeting was shorter than Chen had anticipated. There was hardly anything new to him. He had to be content, he tried to comfort himself, with whatever role was assigned to him-with the appearance that he had played the role successfully. He should not have felt so frustrated. He left the motel and started walking along the deserted street.
A blue jay flushed up, swirling around overhead before it flew away, as if carrying the sun on its back.
Had General Li met with the First Emperor of Han, / he could have easily been a duke. The lines Zhao had quoted in Shanghai came back to mind. In some of his cases, Chief Inspector Chen might not have gone all the way- for one reason or another. This time, he believed he had gone the extra mile, but for what?
A taxi slowed down beside him. An Arabic driver tentatively rolled down the window. Chen got in and gave the hotel name absentmindedly. As the car started out, he realized he was in no hurry to go back. He didn’t know how to explain the government’s decision to the delegation, though they probably wouldn’t make too much of it. It was about time for them to go back.
He didn’t have to announce the decision immediately. The delegation was having a meeting with a group of local Chinese writers with a Chinese dinner afterward. They all knew he had a meeting with the embassy people. A meeting no one would try to question. Not even Bao.
So Chen had the late afternoon for himself. He had done what he could, he kept telling himself, and further speculation would not help. Because things were beyond his control. Because he knew his limits. Because it depressed him to think. He did not have to be a cop or a delegation head every minute-at least not toward the end of his last day in the city.
For him, it remained an unfamiliar city, tall buildings looming up along the way like indecipherable signs against the horizon, ebbing to stunted slums before rising up again. He saw a Budweiser billboard of an eagle ceaselessly flapping its neon wings. The brewery had its successful joint ventures in China, its beer so cool and refreshing in Chinese TV commercials, and promoted everywhere by those scantily-clad Bud girls. The company already made a huge profit in only a few years after its entry into China ’s market, he had read. He thought of Tian and his ex-Bud-girl wife, whistling softly. Reaching into his breast pocket, he took out the address book, and read out a street name to the driver.
“So that’s where you want to go now?” the driver said without looking over his shoulder.
“Yes. Sorry about the change.”
“No problem. It’s not far away. In University City.”
He had not made any plan with Catherine for the evening, for he’d had no clue how long his meeting with the embassy official would last. So he’d told her he would be busy that afternoon, and perhaps that evening too. As most of the local writers at the afternoon meeting were bilingual, her services were not needed. She’d mentioned that instead of staying with them, she might go home.
As the taxi reached the intersection of Delmar and Skinker, he told the driver to stop. Handing the man a twenty-dollar bill, he didn’t ask for a receipt, which might reveal his whereabouts. Everybody knew about his “important” meeting this afternoon.
“Let us go,” he murmured to himself.
That section of Delmar was lined with bars and restaurants. He strolled past a café. A number of customers sat outside. A young girl was singing with an electric guitar near the entrance, her bare feet beating out the rhythm on the sidewalk, as if in correspondence to what had been already lost in his memory, distantly, with a string and a peg. Next to the neon sign was a secondhand bookstore. He resisted the temptation to step in.
Her apartment building was an old brownstone near the beginning of a quaint side street. One of the second-floor windows was decorated with a spreading cluster of dark green ivy underneath. He thought he recognized it from a picture she had once shown him.
He believed he had learned some things during the trip. Among others, people had to make appointments to visit here. No one simply dropped by, like in Shanghai. It wouldn’t do for him to knock on her door like this.
He pulled out his cell phone and called her home number. No one answered. Then he tried her cell phone, which was turned off, unfortunately. It was about four-thirty. She would probably come back soon. He thought he might as well wait awhile here. A nice surprise for her. And he found himself quite contented with the anticipation of it.
For the moment, he didn’t want to think about his responsibilities- being a government delegation head or being a chief inspector. Simply being a man waiting for a woman.
He turned into a street corner bar. Instead of sitting outside, he chose a table inside, leaning against the window, keeping her building in sight. It was a small, cozy bar; its walls presented an impressive array of old trophies and posters in a nostalgic statement against time. There was also a stuffed deer head gazing down, forever forlorn. A young waitress in high-heeled slippers came over, blowing out a gum bubble, and put a menu on the table. He wasn’t hungry so he had a glass of Chardonnay, and started sipping, watching out. He saw a bald man in shirtsleeves leaning out the window above hers, with a curl of smoke rising peacefully from a pipe.
Raising his glass, he became aware of the other customers there watching him. A Chinese sitting alone in an American bar, he didn’t feel comfortable. He wondered whether it was appropriate for him to sit here drinking without any appetizer. The bar was not as hilarious as in the TV show he had watched. No one said anything to him here.
He decided to think over the latest development in the Xing case. Sipping at the wine, he took out a notebook and drew several connected lines across a page. He tried to figure out what had really happened between Xing and the Beijing government.
Apparently, Beijing ’s agents had been working behind the scenes in the States before Chen’s arrival. Xing was a calculating businessman, everything being negotiable. However sordid the bargain, it would be justified as being in the interest of the Party. After all, it was a case concerning the very top, or the very basis, of the Beijing government. Its full consequences would be comprehensible, as Comrade Zhao had suggested, only if viewed from a higher position. That was probably why Zhao had copied out that Tang poem for him.
But if so, why send Chief Inspector Chen to the United States? To get him out of the way for one or two weeks? He didn’t think so. It would have been much easier to do that in China, one way or another. Nor did he believe he had been chosen for the delegation on his merit. So here was the heart of the matter. Why all the bother? To the agents working here, the presence of Chen could only prove to be obstructive.
For the first time another possibility occurred to him. He might have been dispatched for a different reason. To attract the attention of the Americans, who had long known about his law enforcement background, and to whom his last-minute delegation appointment must have appeared suspicious. Now it made sense that Party Secretary Li had talked about his investigation at a press conference-so the Americans would learn about it through the Chinese media. Then the agents could work on Xing without being noticed or discovered.
As Detective Yu had guessed from the beginning, it was a show investigation, perhaps never meant to be taken seriously. But Chen had thrown himself headlong into the role, like an earnest yet effective Don Quixote, flourishing his lance, to the annoyance of some people in the Forbidden City. First in China, then on the trip abroad. Literally following Comrade Zhao’s talk about a general’s free decisions, the chief inspector proved to be a serious threat to the red rats, especially through his exploration into Xing’s connection with Little Tiger, leading to the very top. That had triggered the pursuit of his mother in Shanghai, and the attempt against him in St. Louis. Unfortunately, Little Huang fell instead.
Now as for Xing’s return to China, it might be another ironic casualty of misplaced yin and yang. Chen’s effort here, while unpleasant to the secret agents, brought about some surprising results. Through unforeseeable circumstances, Chen and his partners managed to arrest Ming, which, at least on the surface, appeared to be the last straw for Xing. Chen knew better, though; far more complicated factors had been working behind the scene.
But Chen still had no clue how Xing and his associates had learned that Chen had suspicions about Little Tiger. One possibility pointed to Tian. Not that Tian would have talked to anyone, but Bao and his mysterious L.A. man knew Chen had spent an afternoon with Tian. Still, two friends’ unexpected reunion wouldn’t have appeared so suspicious. The fact that nothing had happened to Tian spoke for itself. Other than Tian, Catherine was the only one aware of his secret work. He didn’t have to consider the possibility. Some of the most crucial information had come from her.
A more likely scenario would be that his phone discussions with Yu had been overheard. After the first few times, they had largely given up their weather terminology. A necessary yet disastrous decision. He had gambled on Yu’s home line not being tapped. In one of their discussions, he had mentioned Little Tiger in the context of the Xing…
But then these thoughts began depressing him. There would be time enough for him to think, once back in China, about whatever he was going to do or not do, as a cop.
He rose and took a local newspaper from a rack. The waitress came to him again. He had another glass of wine. Reading rather absentmindedly, he noticed three or four grammatical mistakes in one short article. He recalled what American writers had said of his English writing.
You can be a good writer here.
Perhaps he would be able to launch a new career here. The long-faded dream of his college years, of writing whatever he wanted to, and of not worrying about politics and corruption. It wouldn’t be a choice, he told himself, made out of any materialistic consideration. It might not be too late-with a wonderful friend staying in the background.
These thoughts had barely come crowding into his mind when he started to drive them out. Even in the confusion of a fleeting moment, he knew he had moved too far from the cherished vision of his college years. Like a green light he had read about long ago, already beyond his reach there and then. Or perhaps like Tian, who, with his booming business in L.A., like it or not, had found a new self with a young wife and a million-dollar mansion. Chen, too, had come to find himself more and more, ironic as it might appear, through those fatal investigations.
Besides, what about the people who stood by him all the way?
Looking out, he tried to refocus his thoughts on her, which seemed to be the only thing that could possibly cheer him up. With so many gloomy things surrounding him, with the memory of a poet musing at such an evening, with something like a pair of ragged claws scuttling across the floor of the subconscious, however, even those self-indulgent fantasies took on a self-debunking color…
He suddenly felt an impulse he had not experienced for a long time. Turning to a blank page in his notebook, he started scribbling-to his surprise, in English, in a quite different strain, almost like a parody.
He took a gulp of his wine, as if smashed with a bizarre combination of rhythm and rhyme-in a language not really his own, and with those lines coming out of nowhere. It appeared doubtful whether they would make their way into a poem, or into anything readable. But he’d better put them down, he knew, while the inexplicable urge still clutched him.
He was shocked by the lines rising out of the unlikely moment. In his college years, he had read about surrealist poets writing automatically, as in a trance. He wondered how such a similar experience befell him. Perhaps he could think of a number of explanations, but he was not in an analytical mood.
Because he would never be able, he knew, to squeeze the moment into a ball, to start it rolling toward where he would like to go. Not just about what he described in those lines, but more symbolically, like Eliot. No, he was not what he had imagined himself to be-not even in those lines. It was just a moment, and then it was gone.
And it was not a long moment.
He saw a black car pull up in front of her building. A man emerged from the driver’s side and opened the passenger door. She stepped out in that black dress with spaghetti straps.
The man did not go in with her, but they hugged outside the door, his hands lingering on her bare shoulders.
A long, passionate hug.
He kissed her on the cheek before moving back into the car. A shining black Jaguar. She stood on the doorstep, watching, waving her hand, until the car rolled out of sight in the growing dusk.
Chen kept watching, spellbound, like sitting in the movies.
She had been busy with the Chinese delegation for days. It was an afternoon when she had a few hours for herself. So of course she had taken care of her personal things.
It was unrealistic to imagine that a young, spirited woman like her would lead a colorless life like his. There should be a man-or men-in her life. Too absurd of him to imagine her shutting herself in after their meeting in Shanghai, as in a Tang dynasty poem-with the fallen petals in the yard, collected too much to open the door.
A chance encounter, like in the poem he had once read for her, memorable as the light produced out of their brief meeting, and then they had to move on, along their respective directions. In fact, they had both known it the first time, in China.
So it was this time. He really should be grateful for the unexpected second time. There’s no stepping twice into the same river, but it sort of happened to him. Different, yet nonetheless wonderful.
But for her generous help, he would have got nowhere in his investigation. Or worse, his fate could have been sealed like that of the interpreter.
She was the more realistic one. There was no future of them being together. She knew. So parting like this would be best.
Long after she had gone back into the building, he remained sitting there, against the window. He took his time sipping, after the fashion of a regular customer. The waitress put down another glass for him, and he nodded over those lines, like one really lost.
The window of her room was lit up. He pushed back his chair one or two inches farther from the window. Dimly, he could see her figure silhouetted against a scroll of traditional Chinese landscape paintings hung on the wall.
The sun is setting in the west-
how many times?
Helpless that flowers fall.
Swallows return, seemingly no strangers.
He was about to finish his last glass of wine when she came out, carrying a black plastic trash bag. Now in a white T-shirt and shorts, barefoot, she looked more like a college student. She went into a small lane next to the building. Then, emerging with the trash bag gone, she came to a stop by the mailbox at the foot of the staircase, the doorway framing her against the twilight, her face wistful. He rose from the table. She took out her cell phone.
To his surprise, his phone rang. He glanced at the number shown on the screen. It was from her. No mistake. But for some inexplicable reason, he hesitated to push the talk button.
What would she like to talk to him about? Not about the scene he had witnessed, surely. And what would he say to her?
Then the ringing abruptly stopped.
And she disappeared into the building again. The street stretched in front of the bar, like a tedious argument of ambiguous intent, again leading to an overwhelming question.
Indeed, what could be said by him? A cop who had hardly met his responsibilities, or, to say the least, who was stuck halfway in his work, with two people killed because of him, and their justice apparently beyond hope, with his investigation ordered to stop, which he accepted without a fight. No use denying the fact to himself, he contemplated. The parody of Prufrock threw unexpected light on his spineless self. After all, he was no poet like Eliot, who redeemed himself through writing about those flickering moments. Chen was but a cop beating a pathetic retreat, in spite of all the high sentences from Beijing, and the lines on the notebook did not change that fact. So how could he prove himself worth answering her call? How should he presume-
His phone rang again. He pressed the button in a hurry. “Catherine-”
“No, it’s Yu.”
“Oh, what’s up?”
“Lei’s in trouble.’’
“Lei?”
“Your friend at the Shanghai Morning. He called me, saying that you alone can help-to prove that he did nothing wrong that afternoon in the bathhouse. It’s urgent, he said, and he insisted that you would understand.”
Chen thought he knew why this was happening. Whatever trouble it was for Lei, it was really designed for the chief inspector. A “confession” by Lei would serve to prove Chen’s “decadent bourgeois way of life.” So those rats were pouncing on him. Lei might be holding on for the moment because he believed in Chen’s power to intervene.
“Tell Lei to hold on for one or two days. I’m coming back. And I’ll take care of it.”
“You are coming back so soon, Chief?”
“Yes. And I’ll have a lot to discuss with you.” Chen added, thinking, “Call Comrade Zhao about Lei’s trouble. You may tell him I wanted you to make this call.”
It might provide some help. Also, Comrade Zhao would explain the Beijing decision to Yu, who had not yet learned anything about the latest development. It could spare Chen the disagreeable task.
“Great. I’ll do that right now. Tell you what. Peiqin has been talking about a special dinner for you.”
“In celebration?”
“Not exactly. She’ll explain. Old Hunter is going to join us too. He’s so proud of the part he had played in breaking China ’s number-one corruption case. And his invention-’red rats’-has gained incredible circulation in the city. He’ll bring an urn of Maiden Red he has saved for thirty years.”
All that sounded wonderful. He wondered what the occasion could be. Surely it wasn’t yet another dinner in honor of his return to Shanghai -in addition to the one in Comrade Zhao’s hotel, with his bottle of Maotai, Chen reflected, draining the glass.
But he was still worried about Lei. It came to an ironic circle. He had first heard of the Xing case in the company of Lei, in that bathhouse, and now at the end of the case, Lei was in trouble because of his company. But how could people have learned about that afternoon in the bathhouse? The net around the chief inspector must be a phenomenally large one. Again, it might prove naive of him to think that Comrade Zhao would step in to help. Then, did he really have a choice?
“One more thing, Chief. Jiang has booked a ticket to Canada. Through a Canadian airline.”
“What’s the date?”
“Early next week.”
That would be before his originally scheduled return, and Jiang could change the date when he got the news that Chen was returning early.
“Hold on, Yu-are you calling from a public phone?”
“Yes, anything else?”
“I’m leaving for China tomorrow. Tomorrow evening, Shanghai time, you move ahead and arrest Jiang and Dong.”
“Jiang and Dong-what about the arrest warrant?”
“Remember the authorization for my work as an emperor’s special envoy with an imperial sword? Don’t worry about a search or arrest warrant. Yu may act on my behalf, that’s what Comrade Zhao has agreed too.”
“But can we wait until you come back?”
That was a good question. Chen didn’t know what would befall him upon his return. He would be relieved of his power as an emperor’s special envoy, that much was certain. In a worse scenario, he wouldn’t even be able to walk out of the airport as a government delegation head.
“Did you wait until I came back for the raid of the Apricot Blossom Village?”
“I thought-”
“You are a good go player. In a go game, as you know, you sometimes have to make a win-or-lose strike. I’m not sure I’ll have the power to make that strike once I come back.”
“Oh, so it’s not time for a celebration dinner yet,” Yu said. “You don’t have to say any more. I’ll tell Old Hunter to get ready.”
“No, anybody in the special case squad will do, but don’t say a word beforehand. Search their homes thoroughly. Keep whatever you find. If people question you, tell them that it’s my order-under the Party Discipline Committee. I’ll take full responsibility.”
“Whatever responsibility, Chief, is mine too.”
“Choose a couple of the pictures I gave you-without An’s face, if possible, but definitely with Jiang’s. Give them to Lei, along with the information about Jiang’s Canadian visa. He should know what to do with them.”
It was a moment of the fish dying or the net breaking. He had to take action while still in the position to do so. Comrade Zhao had emphasized a successful conclusion for the chief inspector in St. Louis, but it didn’t necessarily mean his investigation of those connected to Xing in Shanghai. Thanks to the earlier limelight on Chen and his investigation, and with Lei at his side, he might be able to stir-fry it through the official media too. With the evidence in his hands-Xing’s statement at the temple, and then during his phone conversation-Chen should succeed in removing Jiang and Dong from their positions. Somebody would try to intervene, but the news would have spread out. A canoe is already carved out of the wood. The Parthian shot by the emperor’s special envoy would be seen as justified.
And it could be more than that. With luck, Yu might find more evidence, leading to further developments in the investigation. It might not get Chen too far-he told himself that he had to be realistic-but he would fight every step of the way. From the arrest of Jiang and Dong, Chen would be able, at least, to work his way to the solution of the An case, to which he had pledged himself.
Chief Inspector Chen had always been told to act in the interests of the Party, but for once, an emperor’s special envoy for the Party, he believed that he didn’t need to wait to be told so.
What was more important, he had been fighting this time, in spite of being blacklisted by some in the Forbidden City, in spite of knowing that his luck, like in the casino boat, was capable of changing at any minute.
And he really should consider himself lucky so far. He was not alone. But for the help from all those people, Yu, Peiqin, Old Hunter, Tian, and of course, Catherine, he would never have pulled through, and because of them, he wasn’t going to quit.
Indeed, what more could he possibly have asked for?
In a way, he even had those poets on his side. Poetry could still make something happen. It was through those Prufrock-inspired lines that Chen once more made up his mind to be someone different, someone not always politic, cautious, and meticulous, someone worthy of answering her call, even across mountains and seas…
As he walked out of the café, he looked up to her room again. She was reaching out of the open window, looking up to the sky. She did not see him.
He saw a pale moon rising in the sky.
Several lines Su Dongpo’s came back to him in correspondence to the moment.
Chief Inspector Chen was ready to go back to Shanghai.