Fong turned back and took a long look at Lily. He didn’t know why, but he believed her. Six months later, when Tong Tzu was found blind and raving in a K-TV room at a tourist hotel, his body fluids almost 0.7 percent rubbing alcohol, Fong’s admiration for this wiry woman increased. It was Fong’s second major lesson in Shanghanese justice: bosses who overstep their bounds must be dealt with – but in an appropriately surreptitious manner.
Fong pocketed his notebook and asked in Shanghanese, “Do you want anything?”
“Yeah.”
“What?”
“A promise you’ll not talk about this even to that gorgeous actress wife of yours.”
He was surprised that she knew about his marriage. “I promise.”
“Good, and one more thing.”
“What?” he asked totally at a loss as to what he could do to help Lily.
“A hug.” She opened her arms. He moved to her. The pain was still in her body – he could feel it. He held her close. Tremors began to take her then subsided. When they stopped, she hugged him harder then pushed him away, saying in English, “One of you Richards is enough for one night.”
He looked at her – lost again.
“Richards! Don’t talk Engrish yous?” she shrieked. The glass beakers on the desk behind him rattled in their stands.
“Richards?”
She shouted in Mandarin, “Cock, prick, pecker, member, thing.”
“Ah, Richard – you mean dick,” he said.
“Yes, Richard, like President Nixon. Richard.”
“Dick is the word you’re looking for,” Fong said, more than a little confused to be supplying this sort of linguistic information.
She didn’t answer him so much as dismiss him with a running commentary of “Richard, dick, stick, shick, who fuck give?”
When he left she was still muttering to herself in half-English, half-Mandarin. Fong thought of it as “Manglish.”
So RICHARD was Dick. Lily was telling him not to get his organ frozen off out here. Solid advice, but easier said than done. He looked at the next line. WATCH OUT. “Will do, Lily,” he said aloud. TONS OVER HEAD GOING DOWN ON YOU SOON. Fong understood Lily’s attempt to underline her warning. And her emphatic addition of REAL SUCKING TONS, YOU NEED A HAT was just her way of underlining the underline.
Fong stepped out the door and looked at the snowdusted fields. “Tons overhead going down on you soon, real sucking tons,” he said to the cold air. Then he sighed. He didn’t know if he was up to the challenge. To any challenge. He’d been out of commission, in every conceivable sense, for over four years. Four years – forever. The most serious problem he’d investigated during that time was a dispute between two village farmers over a misbegotten calf. The farmer with the cow blamed the bull; the farmer with the bull of course blamed the cow. The calf was beyond blame. Actually almost beyond recognition. Two legs and a stump. A bloated head. Ulcerous belly. A preternaturally ancient thing. A natural-born monster ready for the grave. Fong beat the poor thing to death with a tire iron and then ordered the owner of the bull to return half the stud fee to the owner of the cow.
This solution was greeted with toothless disapproval by Fen Tzu Hong, the only “officer” assigned to Fong’s command. “City nonsense. Both farmers hate you now. Make one pay and at least you have made one ally. Must have allies to live in China, dumb city man.” He wagged his old head in disbelief, “You will never learn.” He’d thrown up his liver-spotted hands and muttered, “A Shanghanese moron will always be a Shanghanese moron – a Shanghanese moron traitor.”
“Maybe you’re right, you old thief,” said Fong out loud. “Maybe you’re right.” His breath misted before him. He looked up at the cold night sky where the clusters of stars maintained their silent vigil.
Two days after Lily’s telegram arrived, just past midnight, Fong dreamt of the mongoose again. On his very first day in the village he’d seen a young mongoose kill a large snake. The lithe creature had leapt above the lunging serpent and come down, teeth first, just behind the reptile’s head. As it shook the lengthy snake to death, the mongoose stared unblinking at Fong. Then the rodent dumped the snake in the dust and ran between Fong’s legs into his hut. The thing was just a baby. Fong fed it and it kept him company through several long nights. Then one night Fong dreamt the mongoose. Dreamt his life. Dreamt honouring him. Dreamt him whole. The next morning, the animal was gone. But from then on Fong thought of the animal as sleeping inside him. At the base of his spine.
The crunch of a heavy vehicle coming to a stop in front of his mud hut awoke the mongoose. Before the second door of the vehicle slammed shut Fong had pulled on his pants and his padded Mao jacket, which had his one remaining valuable possession sewn into its lining. If he’d owned a hat, he would have put it on as Lily instructed – but he had no hat.
Fong knew that whatever was coming down on him was just outside his hut.
He went to open the makeshift door, but was a step too late. The rotted wooden planking splintered under the sharp blow of the butt of an automatic weapon. Two more blows and the thing fell off its ancient hinges. Fong was going to say, “I could have opened it for you and saved you the trouble,” but kept his mouth shut when he saw the size of the man with the AK-47 and the tall, thin, cruel-eyed northerner standing behind him.
Fong recognized the technique. It’s always best to display unassailable physical superiority in making a night arrest. That and the darkness are often enough to intimidate a suspect into saying whatever you want. Fong had found this approach useful when he needed information from pimps. But he was not a pimp and these were not policemen. The big one was a water buffalo parading as a man. A thug. The tall one who lit a cigarette and leaned against the door frame was a politico. Fong swore softly under his breath.
The politico coughed out a laugh and spat on the mud floor of the hut. He took a long drag then tossed the barely smoked thing onto the wet floor. Fong felt the impulse to reach for the cigarette. He’d been without his beloved Kents for over five years. The butt hissed out. “A traitor doesn’t get to smoke, Zhong Fong.” The man extended the vowels of the word traitor just to ensure that Fong understood their relative positions. He was master. Fong was serf. Fong dropped his chin to his chest, a posture he’d learned in Ti Lan Chou, the political prison. The man smiled. “Good, Traitor Zhong. It is good to remember who one is and what place one holds in China. Don’t you agree?” The man’s voice was high. He lisped. The accent was northern. The question was no question.
The man lit a second cigarette and began to talk – something about the swift and sure nature of justice in the New China. Fong smiled inwardly. This man liked the sound of his own voice. Such men talked too much and often said more than they ought to. The man laughed again. Fong didn’t care. The politico could laugh all he liked. Fong knew it was an act.
They had come for him because they needed him. There could be no other reason to bother with him. To awaken him. To dig him up. They needed him to do something for them. He didn’t need them; they needed him, so he was in the position of power.
The man’s chatter stopped. A darkness crossed his face. Fong panicked. Had he spoken his thoughts aloud? Then he saw something else in the tall man’s cold eyes. A real hatred. Beyond politics. Personal. Fong wondered where that came from.
The northerner signalled to the big man. The water buffalo, after a slight hesitation, rushed at Fong and threw him against the wall. Before Fong could get his balance, the thug cuffed his wrists in front of him then shackled his legs. The politico sidled up to Fong and leaned down so that he was no more than an inch from Fong’s face.