With that he got to his feet and went through a simple door that opened to, for Shanghai, an extremely large studio space. There, mounted on end vises, were six large tusks. Each was an incomplete work. He directed them toward the largest of the tusks.
“I have been working on this piece for almost eight years. Thirty years ago there were over three hundred registered ivory carvers in Shanghai. Now there are fewer than ten. And most of us. . . elderly.” He loosened one side of the end vise so that the tusk could be rotated. It was like looking into a living cave peopled with animals and plants and magic beings-all impossibly detailed. His work had progressed out from the fullness in the centre all the way to one end of the tusk and was now expanding toward the other side. His fingers touched it lovingly. He pointed toward a largish figure of a woman twirling, her dress floating out behind her, her sash out in front of her, her hair flying back. “Only in ivory. The material is so dense, so intrinsically solid and yet soft enough to work with hand tools. Only ivory allows this.”
The sadness at his loss was clear.
“I could tell you that all these tusks come from Chinese elephants in our southern Hunan province who died natural deaths but you would not believe me. No one believes. The papers say that ivory is smuggled into Shanghai. The papers want it stopped. Save the elephants. Perhaps they’re right.”
“Where does this elephant tusk come from, Mr. Fen?”
In a dull voice, almost not there anymore, the old man said, “From our Hunan province, in the south, it was taken from an elephant who died from natural causes.”
Fong withdrew a photo of Ngalto Chomi from his pocket and put it on a table. “You know him, don’t you, Mr. Fen?”
The old man’s eyes slid across the picture, the recognition clear on his face.
“Did he supply you with some of these tusks?”
Slowly the old man looked at the strange couple before him. It was a different age. He took a deep breath, then said, “Some? No. Not some. All. All my beauties.”
When he shook their hands at the door, all that Amanda could think of was that his hands felt like rice paper. And his eyes were so sad that tears would never leave them.
Fong saw it too, but read it a little differently. Fong saw them as the eyes of one in love. The eyes of one addicted to the thing he loved, who knew that the source of his addiction had dried up. That when his work on these tusks was finished, he would have no further reason to live.
Just as Li Xiao was about to board the plane for Taipei he was summoned to the front desk by a page. When he took the offered phone from the hand of the airline hostess he noted her nails were painted blood red. He smiled at her and said his name into the phone. He listened briefly. “Yes, I’ve kept the records. No, I’d prefer to be there when they’re examined. I’ll be back tomorrow. It can wait, Wang Jun. The woman died almost four years ago, so it can wait another day.”
He had slammed down the phone harder than he had intended. Red Nails looked at him, “Bad news?” she asked meekly.
“Yeah, bad news. Thanks,” he said, handing back the phone. Fucking bad news, he thought. He liked Zhong Fong, but there were still too many unanswered questions about his wife’s death. Too many for Li Xiao, who had been in charge of the investigation since its inception four years ago, to ignore.
Amanda and Fong walked along Chong Shu in the silence left from their meeting with the old carver. Fong was turning an idea over and over and over again in his mind. Ivory was being smuggled into Shanghai. Both of the dead men were connected to ivory smuggling. Someone was killing ivory smugglers. Why? To stop ivory smuggling. Why? It wasn’t a big business. To corner the marketplace in ivory? Is this killing off the competition? If so, why kill them that way and leave messages who they are and that this has to do with ivory as witnessed by what the street cleaner found? Two dead ivory smugglers as a message to others to stop smuggling ivory into Shanghai. But why? Who would benefit from the stoppage of the smuggling of ivory? Not the jade sellers or anything like that. This couldn’t have to do with business that way. Fong went back and turned the “idea bauble” another way. Who opposes the smuggling of ivory into Shanghai? In other words, who would be made happy by the stoppage of said smuggling? Friends of elephants. Anyone else? He racked his mind but could come up with no one else who would be made happy from stopping the smuggling. Only the friends of elephants. Fong searched for the English word for such people. And found it: conservationists. Who’s killing the great smugglers of ivory? Conservationists? No! For a moment vertigo enveloped him like a sickly cloud.
Amanda turned to look at him. “Are you all right?”
“Yes, no, I’m just a little tired.”
“You are a terrible liar. Come on, we’ll get you some tea.”
Sitting in the window of the quiet restaurant, Amanda put up her hand as Fong began to order. Then she said to the waitress, “lu tsah” (words she knew meant green tea). For a moment the waitress’s face fell into a pattern of shock, and she was about to say something harsh to Amanda when Fong interceded with a few Chinese words and the waitress with an icy smile turned on her heel and left.
Amanda looked at him. He smiled. “Right words. Wrong sounds, wrong stresses, wrong tones.”
“She looked like I insulted her.”
“You did”
“Well, I didn’t mean to. What’d I say?”
Not wishing to allow Amanda to pursue her line of inquiry, Fong posed a question of his own. “How strong are American conservationist lobbies?”
“Now, quite strong,” she replied, surprised by his question.
“Strong enough to sway the United States government?”
“Their opinion carries weight on some issues, yes.”
Fong thought for a moment. “Would the conservation lobby be pleased to hear that Shanghai was no longer in the ivory trade?”
“No doubt about that.”
Fong put both his hands flat on the table. For just a moment he smelled Amanda’s perfume. He stared right into her eyes and said, “What are the American concerns about investing in China, Shanghai in particular?” Then he counted them off on his elegant fingers. “One, the fear that the Communist government of China will at some future time nationalize their businesses. Two, what happened at Tiananmen Square, what you call civil rights. And. . .” here he held up three fingers and circled his thumb and index finger, “three, the accusations of conservationists that ivory and rhino horn are still being used in China. Are there more?”
“I’ll let you know if I think of any.”
“Do that,” he said. But he wasn’t awaiting an answer.
He was completing his own thoughts out loud.
“Premier Deng in 1987 opened the doors to the West with a remark which was taken to mean that money from the East is no more valuable than money from the West. That began it all.” He swept his arms wide to encompass the notion of all the building in Shanghai. “Surely there must have been assurances given at the highest possible levels to Western business that there would be no takeovers. I may not like Western businessmen but they have never struck me as foolish when it comes to their money. Do you agree?”
“I guess. So that leaves only Tiananmen and smuggling as obstacles to western investment, right?”
“I agree. Tiananmen and smuggling. American secretary of state Warren Christopher broached this human rights business the last time he was here but got nowhere. He was quoted as saying that he wished the meeting was as good as the lunch.”