“Yes, I have heard that too. What did he say to you?”
“He told me not to worry. Somebody in Beijing had contacted him, assuring him of an open and fair trial for the case. He didn’t go into details, but he urged me not to contact him anymore.”
“Did you ask him why?”
“Yes, I did. He wasn’t specific, but he said it wasn’t just because of the case-the housing development case.”
“Did you notice anything else unusual about him?”
“He seemed to be even more restless than before. Something heavy on his mind. When I left his office, he hugged me and recited an odd quote from a Tang dynasty poem: ‘Oh, if we could have met before I was married.’ ”
“Yes, that’s strange. He’s still single-”
Their talk was interrupted by a knock on the door.
“I have told them not to interrupt,” she said apologetically before rising to open the door.
The man standing in the doorway was Detective Yu, whose expression was no less startled than hers.
TWENTY-EIGHT
“CHIEF INSPECTOR CHEN!” Yu made no attempt to disguise his surprise.
He had hurried all the way over to the Gilded Age, not too surprised at the urgency Chen had requested for the meeting, yet wondering why Chen wanted to meet him there, of all the places, especially after his unexplained disappearance.
Now the door opened on a scene that more than confounded Yu. There, Chen was in the company of a gorgeous woman, both of them wrapped in bathrobes, like a couple relaxing at a luxurious resort.
“Oh, Detective Yu, my partner.” Chen sat up to make the introductions. “Xia, the most celebrated model in Shanghai, also a partner in this grand bathhouse.”
“Detective Yu, I’ve heard of you. Welcome,” she said, smiling. “It’s time for me to go back to work. Call me if you need anything else, Chief Inspector Chen.”
“Thank you so much, Xia.” He added, as if in afterthought, “Oh, do you still have the key?”
“The key? Yes, I may still have it. I’ll check.”
She walked out gracefully, her bare feet treading soundlessly on the carpet, and closed the door after her.
Yu knew he shouldn’t be surprised by anything his eccentric boss did. Still, he couldn’t restrain himself from making a sarcastic comment.
“You’re really enjoying your vacation here, Chief.”
“I’ll explain everything-in time,” Chen said, “but let me make a phone call first.”
Chen called someone he knew well and left a short message. “Come to the bathhouse, Gilded Age.”
Chen then turned and said to Yu, “Now sit down and tell me what you’ve found about Tian.”
“I went to the factory this morning,” Yu said, perching on the couch where Xia had reclined. The couch had a long impression, still slightly wet and warm from her body. “Most of his colleagues have retired or passed away. What I learned comes from here and there, some of which you may have already learned from the interview records.”
“Maybe, but I haven’t had the time to grasp it as a whole. So please tell me from the beginning.”
It was hot in the room. Yu took off his padded jacket, wiping sweat from his forehead. Chen poured him a cup of oolong tea.
“Thanks, Chief,” Yu said. “Tian started working there in the early fifties, one of the ordinary workers. At the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, mass organizations like Red Guards and Worker Rebels sprung up everywhere. He joined a group of Worker Rebels called Red Flag, whose members came from factories all over the city. In response to Mao’s call to grab the power from the ‘capitalist road officials,’ Tian turned into a somebody overnight, beating and bullying ‘class enemies’ in the name of the proletarian dictatorship. Shortly afterward he enlisted in a Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team that was dispatched to the Shanghai Music Institute. There he was said to be even more swashbuckling, riding roughshod over the intellectuals.”
“Was there anything unusual about his activities in the team?” Chen interrupted.
“Normally, a Mao Team was made up of the workers from one factory and dispatched to one school, but at his own request, he joined a team consisting of the workers from a different steel factory. As for his ‘revolutionary activities’ there, I haven’t learned much. That steel factory went into bankruptcy two or three years ago. No one at Tian’s steel mill really knew anything, except that he must have bullied his way around. In the late seventies, with the Cultural Revolution officially declared a well-meant mistake by Mao, Tian withdrew from the colleges, crestfallen, returning to the factory.
“Then a policy was formulated regarding the ‘three evildoers’ during the Cultural Revolution. Tian fell into that category, but there were many ‘Rebels’ like him, and nothing was really done about them. But surprisingly, letters against him were sent to a city government cadre whose father, an old professor at the music institute, had been badly beaten during those years. The letters claimed Tian was the one who broke the old man’s ribs, so an investigation was carried out. Some said he beat another teacher into paralysis, some claimed that he looted gold coins, and some mentioned that he had forced a woman to have sex with him through the power of his position. Nothing was really proved, but as a result, he was fired and sentenced to three years in prison. His wife divorced him and left with his daughter-”
There was a light knock on the door. Chen opened it and in came a couple of girls wearing house pajamas and slippers.
“Do you need massage service?” one of the girls asked sweetly. “Everything’s on the house, General Manager Xia has given us specific instructions.”
The other girl carried in a thermos bottle and made more tea for them in new cups with fresh tea leaves and hot water.
“No, we don’t, thanks. Tell Xia not to worry about us. If we need anything, I’ll let her know.” The girls withdrew from the room and Chen resumed. “Well, so much for his history as a Mao Team member. How about his bad luck?”
“Strange things happened to Tian and his family. His ex-wife started seeing other men, which was to be expected for a divorced woman in her early thirties, but soon pictures of her sleeping with her boyfriend got around. Some were sent to her factory and those pictures ‘nailed her to the pillar of humiliation.’ In the early eighties, it was still a crime for people to have sex without a marriage license. She committed suicide out of shame. The local police looked into it. They suspected the incident was a dirty trick played by one of her lovers, but the investigation yielded nothing. The daughter went back to Tian.”
“That was strange,” Chen said. “An ordinary worker, divorced, not too young, and with a child. The men she was seeing were perhaps ordinary workers too. How could those pictures have been taken? By a professional? I don’t think an ordinary worker could have afforded to hire one for that.”
“Strange things also happened to Tian’s restaurant-”
“Yes, I checked into the restaurant part,” Chen said. “Did you talk to his former colleagues about his rotten luck?”
“Like his neighbors, his colleagues saw all of this as retribution,” Yu said. “Whatever the interpretation, he has had the worst luck imaginable, like in some folk story.”
“Retribution is a common motif in our folk stories. A man who has committed wrongs in his life-or in his previous life-is punished by a supernatural force that metes out justice. But do you really believe in such?”
“Do you believe there is something behind his bad luck?” Yu said, looking up sharply. “As a paralyzed man, more dead than alive, how could Tian be involved in the case?”
“Yesterday morning, I was at the Jin’an temple, rereading your interview with Weng, Jasmine’s boyfriend, when an idea occurred to me. What if it wasn’t luck, but a series of mishaps caused by a man? Something you learned at Tian’s factory might very well confirm my suspicions.”