“Who would have thought it possible: wit from a secretary of state.”
“Perhaps, but not funny. China will not be bullied on this issue. Tiananmen will continue to stand as a barrier to some western investors.”
“Some, I guess.”
“More when you add the conservationists’ concerns about ivory to the civil rights concerns. Civil rights concerns, Tiananmen if you wish, won’t go away, but ivory will. When the smugglers understand that they chance being carved into-” He stopped himself. “I’m sorry.” For the slightest moment Amanda couldn’t figure out what he was apologizing for. Then she did and turned away.
He sensed that she was able to hear the rest so he went on. “The ivory trade will continue but not here, not in Shanghai. Shanghai will be free of ivory. And the West will be pleased with us. The smuggling of ivory may be a small issue but it is a strategic one and if you put it together with Tiananmen it could be enough to close the floodgates of western investment in Shanghai. And make no mistake, every building project you see here is leveraged to the tip of its bamboo scaffolding. It all depends on a continuing and growing stream of Western money. Money that the smuggling of ivory endangers.”
“Are you saying that Richard and that African man were killed to stop the ivory trade?”
“No, they were killed so the money pipeline from the West to Shanghai will not spring a leak.” His eyes trailed across the street. On the other side of the traffic was a massive construction site, its I-beam bones protruding above the wicker fence.
Leaving Amanda at her hotel, Fong called the office. A joyous Lily picked up.
“Are you at my desk?”
“No, I’ve had all your calls forwarded down to me, hoping that I’d be the one to break the good news. Now you have to ask me, ’What’s the good news, Lily?’”
After a moment, really in no mood for this, “What’s the good news, Lily?”
“I’m free for dinner, I have new satin sheets, and I’ve practiced tai chi for a month to get my sexual tension level up to yours.”
“Lily!” he yelled into the phone.
But she cut him off. “We found the killer’s bicycle.”
The whole bike had been dusted for prints but none were found. Wearing white gloves for riding bicycles was very fashionable, so it was not surprising that the killer’s hands were covered. But he had left other tailings. Several threads from garments, a partial shoe tread on one of the pedals, specific samples of mud from tires. The length of the frame and lowered seat gave them the killer’s height. Photos of the bike were given to hundreds of policemen who headed out to the sidewalk bicycle repairmen throughout the city.
That night Fong watched Geoffrey stage the scene at the end of the third act of Twelfth Night. This production had many unique features. It began with Orsino dressed like Mozart banging away at a piano with a quartet trying to keep up with him. At a given moment, when the music is clearly not coming together, Orsino lifts his hands from the keys and slowly the others stop playing. The effect is like a deflating bagpipe. There is a moment of silence and then a furious Orsino yells at the quartet, “If music be the food of love, play on.” And they do. But once again the music degenerates quickly into notes and numbers. Orsino stops playing and the notes become noise. Then silence.
Throughout the production Orsino keeps returning to his piano and working on that same melody but to no effect. However, at the end of the third act, Viola (Hao Yong) creeps beneath the piano, curls up and falls asleep. Orsino, not seeing her, sits down to play. The moment he puts his fingers on the keys, the failed melody that we have heard several times before comes pouring out of the piano. The noise has become music again. The presence of Viola has returned music to the world of Orsino. Love knits the notes together and makes the harmonies joyous.
Fong felt his heart leap in his chest as he heard the music swell. And he felt his heart break at the truth that Geoffrey Hyland saw. Only love made the mathematics of sound into the glory of music. But in Hyland’s Twelfth Night Orsino never sees Viola asleep beneath the piano and hence never knows that Viola is the source of the love that restores music.
Fong almost leapt from his seat as a hand landed on his shoulder. When he whirled around it was Amanda Pitman.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you.”
He was going to deny that he had been startled but thought better of it. “I was someplace else for a moment there.”
“Me too,” she said looking up at the stage.
In the musty theatre Fong could smell her perfume again and he sensed her closeness. Was it possible that after four years he was beginning to feel again? That this strange westerner could see what he saw, feel what he felt, know what he thought only Fu Tsong could know.
Geoffrey was pleased with the scene. It didn’t make him cry or leap for joy but it was deeply satisfying to find a theatrical moment so fully realized. He also knew that the moment touched those watching in the house. Even the cackling house manager and costume mistress had shut up for a moment. He knew that the blond woman was in the back, one row behind Fong. He knew that she had put a hand on Fong’s shoulder. But he didn’t really care. The moment he had staged was something that he and Fu Tsong had planned for their production of Twelfth Night. The one they had never gotten to do.
The moment was broken for actors and viewers alike when the house manager decided that she just had to talk to the costumer-in a voice that could cut cheese at thirty paces. When Geoffrey first came to China he let this kind of thing pass. But not anymore. Without a moment’s hesitation he turned and pointing at the woman, yelled in fluent Mandarin, “If you have something to say, you cow of a woman, pick up your fat ass and say it outside.”
She yelled something back at him, which he assumed had to do with him being a stinking long nose who was lucky to be invited into the Middle Kingdom and if he didn’t mind his manners she’d grind up his dick and serve it to his children as dumplings. . . or something like that.
Whatever it was, he ignored it and turned back to the actors. It pleased him that she was upset, but when he looked back out into the house a few moments later it was he who was upset. Upset to see that Fong and the blond woman had left the theatre.
Nights in April in Shanghai can be chilly, especially if the dampness from the sea comes inland. And this was such a night. Amanda was wearing only summer clothing and she shivered slightly in the damp. Fong saw it and for a moment thought of offering her his coat but stopped himself. Somehow the offer of a coat was a first step in a process that he was not sure that he was interested in, or even capable of completing. So they walked side by side without contact, but closer to each other than either would openly admit.
This did not escape the eyes of Loa Wei Fen.
The very fact of their closeness awoke a pang of jealousy deep in the assassin’s heart but he controlled it. This would not be like the last time with the black man.
There was no time limit on this kill. He would do it properly. He would be patient. Resume control. And when completely sure of his quarry, strike. This way he could once more move to the edge of the roof. Perhaps even leap to the slender path with the other lion cubs.
Dearest Sister,
I spent a large part of today with the head of Special Investigations, Shanghai District. I was his “ivory date.” I’ll explain another time.
This evening I sought out his company in the back of a darkened theatre, and later still he walked me back to my hotel through the never empty, but gratefully quieter, night streets of this enormous city. The air was cold and I was wearing only a blouse and a cotton skirt. I know that he saw me shiver, and I know that he thought of offering me his coat, but I know he didn’t offer because it would appear forward. We did not touch all the way to the hotel. Nor did we talk, not a word. But as we approached the lobby I picked up my pace so that he had to hurry to keep up with me-through the door and directly to the bank of elevators, one of which, thankfully, was open. I do believe he followed me simply to have a chance to say good night. To be polite. Nothing more. But with the elevator door closing I noticed that it was now he who chose not to speak. He followed me silently to my room. Once inside I sat down on the bed and turned to him, I would guess a flush was on my cheek. He looked at me as if I were a series of lines and planes. As if he were at an art gallery and I was a piece on view. It was a unique and wonderful experience to be looked at that way. Then he drew up a chair at the end of the bed and sat on it. I don’t know the directions but if I was facing west he was facing east, our heads were side by side. I leaned toward him and could smell the earth. He didn’t kiss me. His hands touched, no, explored my face, as an artist does a piece of granite he is about to sculpt. Then his right hand slowly moved down my neck between my breasts and he lifted my skirt. I parted for him as his hand, inside my panties, encompassed me. Cool fingers, knowing fingers. With a shock I realized that I had my eyes shut. I opened them. He was looking into my face and inviting me to look back into his. Searching. So I did, first look and then touch. His hand still on me, a finger now gently inside, a thumb performing magic-I reached for him. A shift, a button loosed, a zipper pulled and he was in my hand, cool and hard to the touch.