“According to Detective Lenich,” she said, “a Chinese man asked about your room number at the front desk, and then made a call in the lobby.”
Chen recalled now. The afternoon, upon his arrival, a call came into his room. When he picked it up, the caller hung up.
He didn’t give it a thought at the time.
He knew he was in more serious trouble than he cared to admit. A possibility he had so far refused to acknowledge scuttled across the floors of his subconscious. He took a drink, trying not to show any change in his expression.
“There’s one thing about being a poet,” he said. “Occasionally, you may be followed by your fans all the way.”
“Here is the tape. The transcript was done in a hurry. So you can listen more carefully.”
“I don’t know how I can thank you enough, Catherine.”
“I’m concerned about you. It’s also in the common interest of our two countries that nothing else happens to your delegation,” she said, glancing at her watch. “It’s time for us to go back, I think.”
“Yes, I’m afraid so.”
It was a fact, he knew, but it disappointed him. He didn’t want to talk about it. The music from the café seemed to be slowing down with a dying fall.
There was a black bat flitting around over their heads.
25
THE FOLLOWING MORNING PROMISED to be an easy one for Catherine, with the delegation scheduled for a visit to Washington University.
“You must have stayed up quite late,” Shasha said to her over breakfast. “Chen could be a romantic poet.”
Catherine smiled without giving a response. It was true that she had stayed up late last night. Back from the Central West End, she had a long discussion with Detective Lenich on the phone. He stuck to his theory of insider involvement. For such a hypothesis, Little Huang had to be somebody of secret significance. According to Chen, however, there was nothing to support that. She believed her Chinese partner and Lenich had not been that pleased with her inclination. Then she did more research on her laptop, late into the night.
When she finally went to bed, she read a couple of short poems in the collection Chen had given her.
It was a touching poem, but how could a Tang dynasty poet be so sure of someone far, far away missing him like that? That was the last fleeting, self-contradicting thought in her mind before she sank into a dreamless night.
When they arrived at Washington University, there was a group of Chinese-speaking staff and students assembled to welcome the delegation. They were quite eager to talk to the visitors in Chinese, so she didn’t have to interpret that much.
She didn’t have any opportunity to talk to Chen. At least he didn’t appear concerned now that he had studied Bao’s phone record. He talked with Bao in high spirits. He moved around like a fish in the water-at the university founded by Eliot’s grandfather. Chen took pictures of the bronze plaque indicating that at the front entrance. He was eager to find out more about Eliot, he declared. In contrast to the other delegation members, all of whom dressed formally, Chen wore a white jacket with the emblem of Washington University. It was a present given him by the dean of the Arts and Sciences school in return for a copy of his Chinese translation of Eliot. Chen had put the jacket on immediately.
Bao succeeded in finding a copy of his poems in the East Asian Library, and discussed them with an old professor who had studied Chinese poetry in the sixties. Shasha was radiant. Several students who had read her books gathered around asking for her signature. Peng started reading Chinese newspapers in the library. Some of the Taiwan and Hong Kong publications were not accessible on the mainland. Zhong was nowhere to be seen at first, but it was then reported he couldn’t tear himself away from the sound system of the university theater.
There would be a lunch reception in honor of the Chinese delegation around twelve. A lot of people were coming. Some from other schools, some from the local Chinese community. Chen was going to give a talk in the early afternoon. As Catherine started walking toward him, an old gray-haired American woman approached him first.
“Oh, you have come back, Professor Pu Zhongwei!”
“You-” Chen turned around in astonishment.
It was a mistake-an understandable one with his jacket bearing that emblem. As the old woman shuffled away with a profusion of apologies, Catherine felt a sudden chill pouring down her spine.
To some Americans, Chinese people must have looked more or less alike. If Chen had been taken by mistake here, the same could have happened to Huang outside of the hotel. So somebody else-Chen-could have been the real target. The murderer might have followed Huang out of Chen’s room and killed him without taking a close look.
It was not a likely mistake, but not unthinkable for a hired killer who knew nothing about Chen except his room number. Huang’s emerging out of Chen’s room, having taken a bath there, and then closing the door after him would have been enough. Huang, about the same height as Chen, actually bore a slight resemblance.
Thoughts came in somersaults across her mind, as Catherine stood transfixed there, watching Chen talk to American students about T. S. Eliot.
“A Chinese reader once told me that he quoted Eliot to impress his girlfriend because the poet was considered a modernist. Now a successful entrepreneur, he is trying to introduce the musical Cats to a Shanghai audience. He says he can make a huge profit of it, and he makes no mistake about making money…”
The murderer must have realized his mistake since then, she contemplated. So the effort would not be dropped. What had prompted him to strike in St. Louis, she didn’t know, but Chen’s investigation must have come close to hitting home. So Xing and his associates had to get him out of the way. With the cops on the scene, the murderer might be more careful, prowling in the dark, but still capable of striking out at any moment.
The police might do a good job of protection here, but there was no guaranteeing Chen’s safety elsewhere in the U.S., or back in China, as long as he persisted with the investigation. Nothing could help Chen except a fundamental change of the situation-in which the people posing the threat no longer had the capability or necessity to do so.
Chen moved on to talk with Professor Thurston of the Chinese studies department, she observed, about Ming and Qing short stories. She edged close to him. Chen tried to respond with the newest terms favored by the serious sinologist.