Death of a Red Heroine [Chief Inspector Chen Cao 01] (49 page)

“Then who did she see?” Chen was growing impatient.

“Guan Hongying. None other! The well-known national model worker. Jiao immediately recognized her, having seen Guan’s picture so many times in newspapers and on TV. Guan walked very fast, never looking around.”

“Did she see anybody else with Guan?”

“No, except the one who drove the car.”

“Did she see him?”

“Not clearly. He stayed in the car.”

“What kind of a car?”

“A fancy one. White. Perhaps imported. She could not tell what make. But not a taxi. There was no taxi sign on top.”

“Could there have been someone else in the car besides the driver?”

“No, she does not think so. In fact, she’s quite positive there was only one person in the car.”

“How can she be so positive?”

“She observed something Guan did. Every time, before heading for the dorm, Guan would lean into the window on the driver’s side.”

“What could that mean?”

“Guan leaned into the window for a long, passionate kiss.”

“Oh, I see.” It started to sound like a scene from a romantic movie, but the peddler could be right.

“She’s certainly imaginative,” Old Hunter chuckled. “A devilish woman.”

“Excuse me, Uncle Yu. I’m just curious,” Chen said. “How did she come to tell you all this?”

“Well,” Old Hunter took a deliberately slow sip at his tea before reaching the climax of his story. “I’ll let you in on a secret, but don’t tell Guangming or anybody. And you can take the credit for discovering the witness.”

“I won’t tell anybody, but the credit remains yours.”

“It’s another long story. After my retirement, I made up my mind not to be a bore. I have seen too many retired policemen dogging their grandchildren’s footsteps. I just wanted to walk around by myself, visiting various parts of the city I hadn’t seen for years. Shanghai has changed such a lot. Slums have turned into parking lots, parks into factories, and a few streets have disappeared completely. But soon I had seen them all. To keep myself from being idle, I started working for the neighborhood security committee as a sort of watchdog. One of the areas I have patrolled is the food market on Fuzhou Road.”

Chen knew that part of the story well. Detective Yu had told him all about it. At first, the patrolling job seemed to work out well for the old man. With the free market still regarded as politically “black”—an undesirable threat to the state market system—the work consisted of taking private peddlers’ bamboo baskets and stamping on them vigorously. The job paid little, but the market patroller derived a good deal of pleasure from it, wearing a red armband, imagining himself a staunch pillar of justice whenever he drove a weeping country wench out of the market. But when times changed and the free market became a necessary complement to the socialist state market, the old man suddenly lost his purpose there.

“Are you still working there?”

“Yes. Things change so fast nowadays. Guangming and the other kids all wanted me to quit, but I’m still doing it. Not for money—just for something to do. Besides, a number of the peddlers are still up to no good, selling bad stuff and overcharging customers. And my job is to catch those guys in the act. It’s not too much to do, but it’s better than nothing at all. There should be somebody to keep an eye on them.”

“I see,” Chen said, “and I think you’re right. So you patrol the market on Fuzhou Road.”

“I can position myself anywhere close to the market, or the area related to it. These days peddlers no longer have to confine themselves to a market. So of late, I positioned myself close to Qinghe Lane, and I happened to catch Jiao, the peddler, in the act of stuffing her dumplings with ground pork that wasn’t fresh. For something like that, she could have her license taken away. I told her that I used to be a cop, and that my son works in the bureau. That scared her out of her wits. I guessed she must have heard of Guan’s death, since she does business in the neighborhood. I beat about the bush a bit, asking her to give me some information about the case. And sure enough, she did offer something in return for my not dragging her to the police station.”

“You’re not retired, Uncle Yu. And you’re so experienced and resourceful.”

“I’m glad that the information could be of some use to you. If necessary, she’ll testify in court. I will see to it.”

“Thank you so much. I don’t know what else to say.”

“You don’t have to. Guess why I wanted to see you,” Old Hunter said, looking into his tea, instead of at Chen. “I still have some connections, in the bureau and elsewhere. I’m a retired nobody, so people are not so guarded talking to me.”

“Of course, people trust you,” Chen nodded.

“I’m old. Nothing really matters that much to me now. You’re still young. You are doing the right thing. An honest cop, there are not many like you left nowadays. But there are some people who do not like seeing you do the right thing. Some people high up.”

So Old Hunter had called him for a reason. He had ruffled feathers at a high level. And people were talking about it. Was it possible that he had already been placed under surveillance?

“Those people can be dangerous. They’ll have your phone tapped, or your car bugged. They are not amateurs. So take care of yourself.”

“Thank you, Uncle Yu. I will.”

“That’s all I can tell you. And I’m glad Guangming’s working with you.”

“I still believe justice will prevail,” Chen said.

“So do I,” Old Hunter said, raising his cup. “Let me drink a cup of tea to your success.”

It could be his last case as a chief inspector, Chen thought somberly, as he made his way out of the crowded City God’s Temple Market, if he insisted on continuing the investigation. If he buckled under the pressure, however, it might still be the last case for him. For he would not be able to call himself either an honest cop or a man with a clear conscience.

* * * *

Chapter 27

hen Chen reached Henan Road he thought he noticed a middle-aged man in a brown T-shirt walking behind him steadily, always at a distance, but never totally out of sight. The pressure of feeling watched, with every movement registered, every step followed, was a new experience. But when he went into a grocery store, the man in the brown T-shirt passed without slowing. Chen heaved a sigh of relief. Maybe he was too nervous. It was already past four. He was in no mood to go back to the bureau. So he decided to go to his mother’s home, which was located in a small, quiet, graveled lane off Jiujiang Road.

He went out of his way to buy a pound of roast suckling pork in Heavenly Taste, a new privately run delicatessen. The suckling pork skin looked golden and crisp. She would like it. Though in her seventies, she still had good teeth. She had been out of his thoughts for days. He had even forgotten to buy anything for her in Guangzhou. He felt bad; he was her only son.
                 

As the old house came in view, it struck him as strange, nearly unrecognizable, despite the fact that he had lived there with his mother for years, and in his own apartment for only a few months. The common cement sink by the front door was so damp he spotted green moss sprouting abundantly near the tap. The cracked walls would need extensive repairs and redecoration. The stairway was musty and dark, and the landings were piled with cardboard boxes and wicker baskets. Some might have been there for years.

His mother was silhouetted against the light falling through the curtain pulled halfway across the attic window.

“You haven’t called for a few days, son.”

“Sorry, Mother. I’ve been so busy recently,” he said, “but you’re always in my thoughts. And this room, too.”

The familiar yet unfamiliar room. The framed photograph of his father in the forties in cap and gown stood on the cracked chest of drawers, an earnest-looking young scholar with a bright future. The photograph shone in the light. She was standing by it.

She had never really gotten over her husband’s death, he reflected, though she seemed to manage, going to the food market every day, chatting with her neighbors, and doing Taiji practice in the morning. On several occasions he had tried to give her some money, but she declined. She insisted that he should save for himself.

“Don’t you worry about me,” she said, with the emphasis on the last word. “I’ve got a lot to do. I talk to your uncle on the phone almost every day, and I watch TV in the evening. There are more channels this month.”

She had accepted only two things from him: the phone and the color TV.

The phone was not really his. The bureau had bought and installed it for him. When he was about to move out, he had another one set up in the new apartment. Theoretically, Chief Inspector Chen ought to have given up the old one, but he had made a point of having to talk to his mother everyday. She was in her seventies, living all by herself. Party Secretary Li had agreed with a nod; it was like being given a check for three thousand Yuan. The phone set itself was not that expensive, but with so many Shanghai people on the waiting list, installation would have cost a small fortune, not to mention all the official documents required to prove its necessity.

To her, it would be an invaluable safeguard against loneliness.

And the TV, too. He had bought it at the “state price” on sale—affordable at his salary level. He was a chief inspector, not just anybody, and the store manager knew him well, too. And why not? During the Cultural Revolution, his father’s home had been ransacked by the Red Guards. In the early eighties, when his father’s losses were estimated, the figure was also calculated at the state price, that of fifteen years earlier. His mother’s five-karat diamond wedding ring, appraised according to the state price, had been valued at less than one-third of the cost of a color TV.

“Have some tea?” his mother asked.

“Fine.”

“A dish of Suzhou sugar-frosted haw to go with the tea?”

“Fantastic.”

He took the cup and saucer from his mother. In amazement, he watched her taking the jasmine blossom from her hair and putting it in her own cup. He had never seen anybody drinking jasmine tea made this way. The petals floated on the dark green water in her cup.

“At my age, I can indulge myself a little, I think. Only twenty cents for the flower.”

“Fresh jasmine flower tea,” he said. “What a wonderful idea!”

He was glad she had not put the flower in his teacup.

He suspected she had never stopped worrying about money. Her husband, though a well-known scholar, had left practically nothing, except the books she could not bring herself to sell. A celebrity’s widow, she considered herself above peddling. But her pension would hardly cover her most basic needs. The jasmine flower, perhaps two or three days old, was about to be discarded anyway. She had made a virtue out of necessity. Next time he would bring her half a pound of genuine jasmine tea, he promised himself. The famous Cloud and Mist tea, from the Yellow Mountains.

She put down her cup and leaned back on the rocking rattan chair. “Well,” she said. “Tell me how things are with you.”

“Everything’s fine,” he said.

“What about the most important thing in your life?”

It was a question he knew too well. She referred to his dating a girl, marrying her, and having a child. He always claimed to be too busy, which happened to be true.

“There are so many things happening at the bureau, Mother.”

“So you have no time even to think about it. Is that right?” she said, familiar with his answer.

He nodded, like a filial son, despite the Confucian saying,
“There are three things that make a man unfilial, and to have no offspring is the most serious.”