Citizen One (11 page)

Face downcast, just the top of his head in the torchlight, his long, thick, wavy hair, a curtain hiding his face.

“The boss gave an order, and suddenly it stopped. Your officers would have felt little. The hammers were very heavy and the spikes were very sharp.”

Piao kneeling, a hand on the
tong zhi’s
trembling shoulder.

“This man, this boss with the scarred face …”

“A
ganbu
. A
ganbu. Wangba dan
…”

“How do you know that he was a
cadre
, Comrade?”

“His look. His walk. His smell.”

Pulling his face up level with the Senior Investigator’s, each word seared by anger.

“You think that I would not know a
ganbu
? Maggots in the rice bowl.
Wangba dan
.”

“What can you tell me about this ‘maggot’,
tong zhi
? What else did your fine eyes see?”

Faraway thoughts. Distant memories of other
ganbu
that he had been asked to describe in his life. Tried by his testimony, sentenced by his words. The walls that they were placed against, so cold. The volley of rifle rounds, so hot. What is one more to a soul already holed?

“The
ganbu
, he was young. Younger than me. Younger than you. Perhaps thirty years. A Shanghainese by birth, by his words. But his accent was afflicted. He had been educated abroad.”

“You’re sure about this, old daddy?”

A look fired at the Big Man. This
tong zhi
, now old and worn down by life’s heel, but in his younger days, not a man whose shadow you would want to have had passing over yours.

“I am not your daddy, Mr Policeman. Do not doubt me, a comrade who helped liberate this city and whose fellow comrades’ blood washed this city’s gutters clean in the process. A fact that you would do well to remember.”

Unsettling, the light at the back of the old papa’s eyes. Not the first time that Piao had witnessed its coal ember glow in the eyes of old Red Guards.

“This
cadre
, you would recognise him again?”

The
tong zhi
, a hand grasping Piao’s collar and pulling him forward. Close. Breaths mixing. Each word from the old papa’s mouth, as fruit rotting on the branch, acidic and sweet.

“Yes, I would know this
ganbu
. There is not a
ganbu
who has crossed the path of my life that I cannot remember.”

Yaobang laughing. Kneeling beside the Senior Investigator.

“It was dark, old man. A
cadre
looks like a
cadre
. The suit, the shoes, the fatty meat complexion. Seen one, you’ve seen them fucking all. How can you be so certain that you’d recognise this one?”

“
Wangba dan
. I said that I would recognise him and I mean it. This
ganbu
, he was once as I am.”

Piao calming the
tong zhi
, stroking his face.

“What do you mean that he was once as you were, old papa?”

“He was once like me. See, see …”

Grabbing Piao’s hand, the old papa. Directing the beam of the torch directly onto his own face. Onto his mouth, lips. With his other hand, smoothing the hairs of his straggly moustache and beard, upwards, away from his top lip. The fruits of his mouth exposed. Harelip in split, ripe tomato hangings. Cleft palate in a dark valley of divide.

The
tong zhi’s
hands falling to his lap. Many seconds before he wiped his mouth with the blanket and spoke once more.

“In my village, in my life, there was never the privilege or the money to correct birth’s mocking. Unlike him.”

Smiling. For the first time, smiling.

“Imagine, a
ganbu
and a vagrant joined together by the same curse. Imagine. A political statement in this, yes?”

Patting the old papa’s face.

“Yes,
tong zhi
. One that even the Great Helmsman did not foresee.”

Smiling, the old papa.

“I think that identifying such a
ganbu
as this, Comrade Policeman, will be within even your capabilities.”

“I am sure that it will be, old papa. But I would sleep better at night if you allowed us to protect you. These are dangerous criminals, powerful criminals.”

“Do you think that I am worried about your sleep, Comrade Policeman, when you have rudely woken me from mine?”

A deep phlegmy laugh. Grubby fingers pulling the holed blanket over his head.

“Now fuck off and let me be. Even a
guang guan
, even a harelip such as me, needs his beauty sleep.”

The mouth of the Yanandonglu Tunnel, Pudong
.

The Jin Mao building, 420 metres of sculpted glass and fashioned steel. The People’s Republic’s tallest hotel.

Levels 3 to 50, accommodating 10,000 office workers. The floors up to 87, occupied by the world’s tallest 5-star hotel, the Hyatt, with 555 guest rooms. Its 86
^th
level providing a club for entrepreneurs only. On the 88
^th
floor, the highest viewing point in the People’s Republic. Views as far as Hangzhou Bay, the Yellow Sea, the East China Sea, and if you were gifted with imagination, the Pacific Ocean.

But it was a local tea house that they sat in, in the shadow of the Jin Mao building. Dark and long the shadow. A vast ebony knife slowly cutting the new financial hub of the city into portions.

Amongst chrome and marble, the tea house sat forgotten; clinging by bitten fingernails to a place that it no longer belonged to. The tea house, a maiden aunt, long past her best. A little frayed. A little too much make-up. A little worse for alcohol. But a little bit of how Shanghai used to be before the dollars sloshed and the diggers bit and the cranes hauled even higher. Still the same tea house, the best in Shanghai. Still the best tea and
baozi
, the steamed bread filled with meat.

But now, whether day or night, the tea house ten degrees colder than the surrounding buildings. Now, whether day or night, the tea house in darkness. As if it had been banished to another land. A darker, colder land.

*

A menu of bright smiles and easy pockets. No extra
fen
for the view, because there wasn’t one, or the white linen tablecloth, because the tabletops were bare, or the marble cladding, the chrome’s sparkle, the pianist’s winking smile, because the tea house was devoid of all of these trappings. Just tea as you have never tasted before. And the mama’s wobble-hipped sway between the tables and her broad smile at being left a tip of a few bent coined
fen
.

A cigarette, a tea.

“Is this all you have for breakfast, Boss?”

Piao pushed a full ashtray away, pulling a fresh one closer.

“No, sometimes I vary it. I have a cigarette, a beer. Another cigarette, another beer.”

A beckon, a wink towards the mama at the kitchen hatch. Formica and steam. His best smile, the Big Man. Amalgam and macerated peanut.

“Mama Lau, more of your specialities. And more of your delightful smile.”

Minutes of crashing activity. Chipped cups, stained glasses on a wobbly tray, moving in between the tables to Mama Lau’s hips in synchronous roll. Plates unloaded. Pickled vegetables, peanuts,
Mantou
, stuffed with red bean paste.
Doufu
, soya cheese. Tsingtao beers, and
hongcha
, red tea, as bitter as a widow’s tears.

A full beamed glare of false teeth as the mama swept like a tanker around the tables, back toward the kitchen, followed by Yaobang’s admiring gaze.

“Built like a fucking tenement block, eh Boss? Just how I like them.”

“Like them, but never had them.”

“Now, now, Boss. A bit grumpy aren’t we, not enough sleep? Come, eat, Boss. A man needs to eat, especially active comrades like us. You have to keep your energy levels high.”

Tea washing the bitterness away with sweetness, in two gulps, the cup empty. Across its insides, across the Big Man’s tongue, a seeding of shredded leafed Hongcha.

“I mean, shit, you never know what’s around the corner in this job.”

Piao stirring the tea again, three times, and then another for extra luck.

“I want you to go and see the Comrade Chief Officer. Tell him nothing about what we know or what we have seen. Tell him only of what we need now. The computer equipment. The Internet connection. We will operate from my flat.”

“Isn’t that taking a bit of a risk, Boss? Why not a safe house out of the city? These murderers are not shy about blooding a PSB uniform.”

“For now we stay here. A panda is not an unusual sight amongst a group of other pandas, but place it within a herd of buffalo. Then see Chief Warden Mai Lin Hua at ‘Virtue Forest’. Rentang. I want him out early to do some work for us. Mai Lin Hua can fix it. He owes me. He owes me big …”

“ ‘The Wizard’. What’s the bastard in for this time, Boss?”

“Profiteering and selling pornographic images over the Internet. Bring him to my place early tomorrow. He can base himself there.”

“Think he’ll give me some free samples, Boss?”

A look over the chipped crescent moon of the cup enough. The Wizard, not a man, as any Shainghainese mama would say, who would even give you the ‘drippings from his nose’.

“Anyway, what do you want him for, Boss? You know what he’s like. He’ll shit in your back pocket and tell you it’s loose change.”

“He has specialist skills. He can reach places that we cannot. ‘
Cao-mu jie-bing
’, always a good tactic if you get the opportunity.”

“ ‘Turning the dead cat’, and a fucking dangerous one, Boss.”

Silence as the mama cleared plates, replacing the gaps on the table with more food, more drinks. Pickling vinegar,
hongcha
, the steam from fresh
mantou
… the combination of sweet smells, earth smells, reminding Piao of funerals. So many funerals. So few baby blessings.

“The roads from the site, the National Stadium, you checked them?”

“Sure, Boss. What else have I got to do with my life? Two routes. One, nothing. Asked in shops, bakeries, offices. No one saw a thing. The second route less high profile. It runs parallel to the A-20 Highway through the Nan Hui District. Past the Sun Qiao Agricultural Zone it runs north to the Huangpu, just past the Yang Pu Bridge. Checked it all the way. Not a garage, house, or shop that I didn’t call in on. Less high profile route, but more twists and turns than a fucking whore’s walk across the city on a Saturday night.”

Opening another Tsingtao on the side of the table.

“Two low-loaders. Everybody on the route saw them, couldn’t miss them. Big bastards. Got caught at every junction, every fucking turn. Ploughed across one garden, the old mama had a right go at them.”

The thirst of a stray dog at a puddle. Finishing the bottle in three swallows.

“The route comes out on a concrete pier, an old wharf almost under the bridge itself. Checked the place out. The derricks are still working and had been greased up and used recently. Also cigarette butts in the cabs. And beer cans.”

“Any foreign cigarette butts?”

A shake of the head as Piao poured another cup of
hongcha
.

“Asked around. An office block across the river. Some of the workers – you know, suits, ties, and fucking tight arses – they saw two large barges being loaded up. Couldn’t see much else though, Boss. Everything shrouded in tarpaulins.”

The Big Man picking up another beer, his anger circling its bruised cap.

“You have more to tell me.”

“How do you know that, Boss?”

The Senior Investigator sipping the tea, the
hongcha
. Once, twice, three times. Wet leaves. Hot summer nights.

“ ‘Investigation may be likened to the long months of pregnancy, and solving a problem to the day of birth. To investigate a problem is, indeed, to solve it.’ ”

“So, who said that, Boss?”

“Mao Zedong.”

“He said a fucking lot, didn’t he?”

Fingers worrying away at the Tsingtao’s bottle cap, the Big Man.

“Should have handed this job over, Boss. A mistake, a big mistake.”

Shaking his head. Finally opening the bottle, its shiny bottle cap spinning to floor.

“The low-loaders, Boss, I’ve checked it over and over again. All the witnesses say it. They had PLA markings. The low-loaders had People’s Liberation Army markings.”

‘What really counts in the world is conscientiousness, and the Communist Party is most particular about being conscientious.’

Chairman Mao, Moscow, November 17
^th
1957

The People’s Republic of China.

56 million Internet users.

17 million computers linked to the Internet.

250,000 Chinese language websites.

200,000 Cyber Cafés …

Many open 24 hours a day …

Many with 1,000 Internet linked computers.

Such is the hunger
…

*

Such is the hunger
that all Inernet Service Providers are required to install specialist software. Recording every message sent and received. Messages that violate any law, such messages are to be reported, and forwarded to three government agencies. The Bureau for the Protection of State Secrets. The Ministry of Public Security. The Ministry of Information. The message is then to be deleted.

Such is the hunger
that all ISPs have signed a public pledge of 31 articles to promote ‘self-discipline’. To promote ‘patriotism and the observance of law’. Surfing, reaping the rewards that the Internet can bring, whilst creating a firewall that will save the populace of the People’s Republic from what is beyond. Ideas that could corrupt. Tastes that could water the mouth. Viewpoints that might taint.

Such is the hunger
that sixty sets of stringent regulations to govern Internet cafés, enforced by eight Ministries, led by the Ministry of Public Security, have been released. A business must be closed between the hours of 12 p.m. and 8 a.m. A business cannot be located within 200 metres of a school. A business must check the identification papers of its customers before they use a computer. A business must not allow its customers to access ‘subversive’ material. A business must show its records and customer details to the authorities on request. ‘Walkers’ are now employed in every cyber café. Looking over shoulders. Monitoring each Internet user. What they access. What they send. What they open.