“Hey . . .”
“You’re a suspect in a multiple murder case, Miss Sun. Consider yourself lucky that I don’t charge you right here. Get back out there and talk to Inspector Zhong.”
Sun Li Cha slowly put her heels back on then looked down at Lily. “I like your blouse, where’d you get it?”
“Could it really be about clothes,” Lily thought. “Sleep with men to get money to buy good clothes so that men will want to sleep with you?”
Sun Li Cha’s beautiful hand touched Lily’s arm.
Lily shrugged off the hand. “Huai Hai Road.”
“What about Huai Hai Road?”
“It’s where I got the blouse.”
“Swell.” Sun Li Cha reached out, allowing her fingers to linger on the top button of Lily’s blouse. Lily didn’t know what to do. The whore smiled at her discomfort but she didn’t remove her hand. She said languidly, “I think I’ll go out and talk to your boss now – or is he something more, honey?” The whore’s fingers expertly undid the button exposing the strong sinew of Lily’s neck. “Sweet,” Sun Li Cha whispered then turned and sashayed out of the toilet. Lily found her eyes drawn to the whore’s retreating figure. She felt a surge of envy followed by a flush of anger.
“Good pee?”
“Yummy. What can I do for you, Inspector Zhong?”
“Three months ago you were on a luxury boat on Lake Ching.”
“Was I?”
Fong tossed Sun Li’s business card onto the table. “You left this there,” he lied smoothly.
“You can get one of those at the front desk of dozens of hotels.”
“Perhaps, but I’m sure the fingerprints on the back of this one would match yours and at least one of the men on that boat. Now, we can throw you in jail for the five weeks or so it will take to finish the fingerprint analysis or you can talk to me here. Your choice.”
After briefly considering her options she smiled and said, “I guess I was there.” Fong nodded. “I said I was there,” she repeated. Fong simply nodded again. She smiled. “So is that it? Anything else in your cute little head?”
“Tell me about it.”
She fluttered her beautiful hands just long enough to attract Fong’s eye. “It was cold. They told me to wait on the dock and greet the foreigners who . . . who were there.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah. So what?” Fong saw fleeting lines of fear cross her face then disappear. Surely she’d heard about the murders on the boat. There it was again. Fear. Like an animal realizing it was trapped. “I didn’t do anything,” she barked. Fong didn’t respond. She reached for her purse and lit a cigarette, forgetting that she already had one smouldering in the ashtray. Fong stubbed it out. She smoked Kents. If he ever took up smoking again, he’d definitely change brands. “Besides, they arrested those three peasants for . . .”
“Do you really think three peasants are capable of planning and executing the murder of seventeen foreigners on a boat?” Fong snapped.
“Well . . . maybe . . .”
“So you greeted the foreigners on the dock?”
“Yeah.”
“Then what?”
“I went on board the ship when they told me to.”
“Who told you to?”
“The Chinese guy who was in charge.”
“The boat owner?”
“No, the old Taiwanese who piloted the thing.”
“Then what?”
“The boat got out into the middle of the lake and I served drinks.”
“Champagne.”
“Yeah,” she said, surprised that he knew that. “Just champagne.”
“Were there any other kinds of liquor on board?”
“No.”
“That didn’t strike you as odd?”
“Well yeah, but it was none of my business. I was being paid. So I did what I was asked to do. I served them drinks. I danced for them on this corny runway thing then I spent some time with the two Americans.” She paused then added, “You know . . .”
That hung in the air for a bit. Fong asked, “Did you have any champagne yourself?”
“No. They wouldn’t let me.”
“When did the crew leave the ship?”
“Just after I finished with the Americans. They were . . . well, sort of too drowsy to . . . you know. So they didn’t do anything.”
“How long after you left the dock was that?”
“A guess? Maybe an hour and a half . . . two, tops. Then the other guys came on board.” Fong held his breath. She shrugged, “You know, those odd-looking peasant guys.”
“Why do you say they were odd-looking?”
“Well, they all sort of looked the same, you know. Weird. Looked like the old guy who was on board. Farmers, you know.”
“Of course,” Fong thought, “it was a celebration. Iman would have been invited.” He smiled at her and asked, “How many of them were there?”
“Dozens. Hundreds. A lot – counting’s not my idea of fun. They seemed to be everywhere. I don’t think I’ve ever seen that many up close. You may have noticed, I’m a city girl.”
She touched his arm. He shrugged her hand away. “How do you know they were farmers?”
“They carried tools.”
Fong saw the scraped-off faces of the Chinese men in the bar. He closed his eyes and asked, “Hoes?”
“I don’t know what you call them. The wide, short, sharp things used for . . .”
“Hewing. Building terraces. I’ve seen them,” he said almost in a whisper.
“If you say so – how would I know what they are?”
But Fong wasn’t listening to her. He had retreated into the recesses of his mind. A terrible truth sat there. All the island farmers did the killing onboard that ship.
Dizziness threatened to engulf him but he breathed it away and asked, “And these farmer types took over running the ship?”
“I guess. The guests seemed really sleepy, except for that old guy who they all looked like.”
His mind supplied the unwanted image of islanders entering the rooms, slashing blows of the hewers, gunshots, gutting, castration – fury – chi. He looked up at her. “How did you get away?”
“The fisherman.”
“What?”
“I was out on the deck and a fisherman . . . you know, one of those guys with the birds, yelled at me to jump. I thought he was nuts. The clothes I was wearing cost me a fortune. Besides, I don’t swim much.”
“How did he get you to jump?”
“When I saw how excited he was I figured that maybe I’d better listen to him. Know what I mean? Anyhow, I didn’t have to jump, he brought his boat in close and helped me down. I didn’t even get wet.” She stopped for a moment. “I didn’t kill anyone. Shit, I didn’t even fuck anyone. Or any other stuff. I just took off my clothes. Is that a crime in the New China? If so, since when?”
They were on their way to the China news agency across town as Fong finished telling them about his conversation with Sun Li Cha.
“It makes no sense, Fong. One girl for seventeen foreigners.” With a smile she added, “Chinese women are extraordinary, but seventeen to one seems . . .”
“You forget the girls pushing the broken-down bus Chen saw outside of Ching that night.”
“Russian craftsmanship strikes again,” added Chen.
“That breakdown probably saved their lives.”
“Sorry, sir, I didn’t mean to be . . .”
He never got to complete his apology. “So how did Sun Li Cha get there, Fong?”
“She drove, Lily.”
“She has a car?” Lily asked, astounded.
“Evidently her business is thriving.” Lily frowned. He didn’t. “Are we getting close to the news bureau, Captain Chen?” The younger man nodded. “Who are we talking to there, Lily?”
“There’s a Reuters correspondent, a CNN guy and an Associated Press stringer.”
“Were they all there in December?”
“Not the Associated Press guy, but the other two were.”
“They’re all covering the story of the murders?”
“Well, they were until the government threatened to remove their credentials.”
“So there’s been no coverage overseas of the murders?” Fong asked incredulously.
“There was a furor for a while, then came the arrests. The recreation model was displayed prominently to the press as proof that prosecutions were imminent.”