Shanghai Redemption (14 page)

“There are too many old gardens in Suzhou, and no matter how ancient, a garden doesn't bring in much income.”

“But don't people choose the hotel because of the garden?”

“Well, truth be told, more guests stay here because of the nightclub,” the doorman said. He added in an exaggerated whisper, “It's so convenient. After a couple of hours at the club, you may take a girl back to your room at no extra charge, since you've already checked in. And no one will say anything—”

His enthusiastic introduction was interrupted by a skinny girl who emerged from the club's interior and scampered over to their side.

“So you're a guest at the hotel, sir. Welcome.”

The doorman slipped inside, as if on cue.

“You've got nothing to do this evening, right?” she went on. “It's lonely for a traveler, I know. So you need someone to keep you company—”

But she broke off right there and abruptly turned her head to watch a Jaguar that was pulling up at the curb. A plump woman in her fifties, wearing a light Burberry trench coat and a large diamond ring, stepped out of the car and walked toward the club. The doorman rushed past Chen and hurried outside to get the car keys from her.

“I've a question for you,” he said to the young girl after the older woman disappeared into the club.

“What's your question?”

“Are most of customers here staying at the hotel?”

“No, not necessarily, but it's easy for hotel guests to walk over to the nightclub. And it's also easy for them to make arrangements afterward.”

“I see,” he said, nodding. “I've another question, if you don't mind my curiosity. The lady who just went in was in her fifties…”

“Of course, we have female clients as well. She's a regular here. If you have money, you can buy anything—ducks too.”

“Ducks?”

“Gigolos,” she said. “You've got so many questions, sir. How about coming inside with me? In a cozy private room, you may fire away to your heart's content, and I'll try my best to respond to your satisfaction.”

If it weren't for his experience at the Heavenly World in Shanghai, he might have agreed. Instead, he pulled out a hundred-yuan bill and gave it to her. “Just buy yourself a drink tonight. Next time we'll go inside. For now, I have just a couple of questions more.”

“You mean—” she said, snatching the bill in surprise.

“For instance, the lady customer who just arrived,” he said. “She must be someone important.”

“Yes, she has a meat company that went public about half a year ago.”

“So she's a well-known Big Buck here. Aren't people like her worried about police raids?”

“Are you from Mars?”

“What do you mean?”

“The club owner is connected all the way at the top, so customers don't have to worry about their security.”

“So it's just like the Heavenly World in Shanghai?”

“Oh, you've been there? Then surely you know better. Our club is affiliated with the Heavenly World.”

“Affiliated—how?”

“The owner of the Heavenly World owns shares in this club. When his Big Buck customers come to Suzhou, he refers them here. And his connections help too. But that's about all I know.”

“That makes sense. The name of this club makes the association with the club in Shanghai clear,” Chen said, nodding like a truly bookish customer. “But cell phones and surveillance cameras are everywhere, and all it would take is one picture of someone prominent going up on the Web for their presence here to cause damage. That would seem particularly true for Party officials.”

“For those people, there are also private clubs.”

“Private clubs?”

“Not open to the public like this one. They offer absolute security. Each floor has its own private garage that leads directly to a particular floor offering all the services imaginable.”

“Really!” he said, thinking of the vacation Gu had suggested to him.

“Have you heard of the Obama Club?”

“What?”

“Some rich female clients fancy black studs…”

“Have you been to it?”

“A friend of mine worked at such a place in Sheshan. And she saw a number of untouchable elites there, including the one at the top.”

“Sheshan in Shanghai—there are a lot of villas there,” Chen said, thinking. He knew he had heard something about that area lately, but he couldn't remember what.

“Of course, not everybody is there to take advantage of the available services. They might just want to meet someone in private to discuss important business. No one knows.” She added, “But you have nothing to worry about here. Our club is connected in both the white and the black ways.”

It was then that Chen caught a glimpse of a black-clad man loitering near the hotel's side entrance. He was raising a cell phone to his mouth. Something about the man struck Chen as suspicious. Was it something real or just Chen's high-strung nerves?

“Thank you for all that you have told me, but I'm not ready to go into your club yet. I think I'll go and eat something first.”

“We serve dinner at the club too.”

“I like the street food in Suzhou.”

It was a lame excuse, but it was nonetheless a true one.

When he looked over again, the black-attired man had already vanished.

“Here is my cell phone number,” she said, handing him a card. She was probably tired of being a consultant, even if she was paid not too badly. “I'm usually here a little after one. Give me a call, and I could come to your room. For a good man like you, I won't charge you any extra.”

“Thank you,” he said, slipping the card into his pants pocket. “I'll think about it.”

“Think about it indeed,” she said, touching his cheek with the tip of her slender finger.

He stepped back and then fled.

Outside the hotel and across the street, he saw a hot pot eatery named Little Lamb and a Hunan cuisine restaurant with young waitresses clad in Xiang style standing on the sidewalk, soliciting customers. There was also an American steakhouse just a stone's throw away, sporting a large bilingual sign. The neon lights flashed and reflashed delicious temptations. Neither of them looked too bad, but to his surprise, he didn't see a single restaurant offering authentic Suzhou cuisine. It would have been fantastic if the noodle restaurant were open for business at this time of day.

Another luxury car pulled into the hotel, honking and rolling in through the side entrance.

A thought struck him. “The restaurant is also near a club that I've been to quite a few times,” Qian had said. She'd been to this very club frequently, which wasn't surprising, given the job she'd offered him. He wondered if she'd be able to tell him something about this nightclub—or, more importantly, about its connection to the one in Shanghai.

It was a long shot, but it was better than nothing.

He pulled out his cell phone, but he changed his mind as a motorcycle rumbled past.

Instead, he headed over to a phone booth at the corner of a side street.

 

NINE

OLD HUNTER FELT LIKE
a cop once again, in the middle of an investigation. He strode out of the subway in Pudong, holding a city map in his hand.

To an old man from Puxi, which was west of the Huangpu River, the area of Pudong, east of the river, was almost an unexplored world. The new subway system hardly helped. The underground hub was a maze, with confusing signs about line transferring and retransferring between Puxi and Pudong. It was supposed to be convenient, but to Old Hunter, it was not.

In the early eighties, he had had an opportunity to move to Pudong, but he chose not to go because of a then-popular saying: “A bed in Puxi is far preferable to a room in Pudong.” At the time, Pudong was basically farmland. Since then, however, it had undergone an unbelievable transformation. Now, featuring some of the fanciest commercial and residential developments, Pudong was almost unrecognizable. The old saying about changes in the world came to mind, “as dramatic as from the azure sea to the mulberry field.”

He plodded among the unfamiliar streets, rubbing his eyes, studying the signs and comparing them to the map in his hand, which proved to be of little use. It had been printed two or three years earlier and was already out of date.

But he knew how desperate the situation was. He understood why the ex–chief inspector had turned to him for help rather than to his son, Detective Yu. As a retired cop, he probably wouldn't be noticed. And the crisis was escalating. Soon Yu could be involved in it, too.

“You're a really experienced cop, but you can't be too cautious.” That's what Chen had said at the end of their conversation in the teahouse.

Experienced or not, Old Hunter would have to come up with an excuse to approach Tang, the cop from the Sex Crimes Squad. He was pretty sure he'd have no problem. Before retirement, Old Hunter had rarely worked with Tang, but there was still a common bond between the two. Despite their good, hard work, somehow both of them remained at the bottom of the ladder.

After several wrong turns, Old Hunter succeeded in spotting Jufeng Road, and from there, the sign for Carrefour Supermarket told him that Tang's home was close. Old Hunter pulled out his phone.

“Hi, Tang, it's Old Hunter.”

“Oh, such a surprise! What favorable wind has brought you over to Pudong today?”

“I'm on an errand here for my part-time job. I just walked out of the subway, got lost—guess what—and I'm now near the Carrefour. You once told me that your home was close to the supermarket, and fortunately, I have your number stored in my phone. What about joining me for a cup of tea?”

“You're still thinking of me, Old Hunter. I'm flattered. Stay in front of the supermarket and I'll come find you. There's a neighborhood recreation center just about a block away, and we can get tea there.”

Tang appeared in less than five minutes. He was a gaunt man in his midfifties, with his hair streaked white and with a slight suggestion of shuffle in his steps. Tang was pleased by the unannounced visit.

Instead of the neighborhood center Tang had suggested, Old Hunter dragged him to a street eatery about a stone's throw from the supermarket.

“This is still a developing area,” Tang said. “It's too far away from Lujiazui, the center of Pudong, and there aren't many decent restaurants here. Still, it's much better than when we first moved here.”

“That was when the state housing assignment was still in effect, right?”

“That's right—so the apartments here can't compare to the new ones people are buying, but I still count myself lucky. We couldn't afford an apartment in today's market, and with the new subway, this area may see some improvement soon.” Tang said. Then he added shamefacedly, “To tell the truth, my place is overcrowded, now that my daughter has just moved back in with her crying baby. That's why I didn't invite you home.”

“You don't have to feel alone in that, Tang. I'm still living in one room at that old shikumen house, with my old wife bedridden. My two daughters and their children are all squeezed together in the same wing.”

“But this street stand is run by provincial sisters and is nothing more than a coal stove with benches and tables. I don't think—”

“But it's inexpensive, and it's my treat.”

On the recommendation of a “provincial sister” waitress, Old Hunter ordered a small tableful of food—red-pepper-oil-immersed catfish in an earthen pot, fried frog legs with tender green beans, steamed stinking tofu on top of wild mushrooms, grilled lamb cubes, and cold shepherd's purse blossoms mixed with dried shrimp and new sesame oil.

The waitress, who spoke with a strong Anhui accent, trotted back and forth from the wok, carrying steaming hot dishes stacked on her right arm and two bottles of Qingdao beer in her other hand.

“People have been talking about toxic food, polluted water, gutter oil, and whatnot. The country is really going to the dogs. But I'm in my seventies, already a man of longevity in Confucius's time,” Old Hunter said, putting a piece of hot stinking tofu in the hot sauce for himself and tearing up a large piece of fish meat for Tang. “And you're almost in your sixties, too. So why worry?”

Old Hunter had assumed the role that had earned him his second nickname, Suzhou Opera Singer. Suzhou opera was known for frequent digressions, sometimes with false surprises or suspense at the end of an episode to lure the audience back for the next. There was a reason, however, that he had adopted that style. It helped with his police work. In interviews, people wouldn't easily guess what he was really pushing for, and, as a result, they frequently came out with what he needed.

“You have ordered too much food. It'll be a waste if we can't finish everything.”

“If we don't finish it all, we can box the rest. Your home is just around the corner, isn't it? At the agency I'm working for, they have some quite lucrative cases. What I'm being paid for today's errand, more than covers our lunch.”

“That's quite a lot.”

“At my agency job, in two weeks—working only two days a week—I make more than my pension.”

“Wow, tell me more about this line of work. I'm retiring next year, and with my son laid off, unable to take care of himself, and my daughter divorced and squeezed back with us, I need to find a job like yours.”

“Believe it or not, I landed the job because of Chief Inspector Chen.”

“How?” Tang asked with the cup suspended in the air.

“Chen is a good man. I was once made a special consultant to the traffic control office because of him, remember?” Old Hunter said. He was watching for a change in Tang's expression, but he didn't see any.

“Yes, Chen served as the acting director of that office for a short while,” Tang responded, his tongue not beer-loosened yet.