He heard himself crying in his sleep but he couldn’t awaken. His eyes were drawn to that sash. For a moment it was still, but then it rose up and flared its back. A king cobra as thick as a man’s arm. And he was not above it now, but beneath it. In a bamboo construction-elevator shaft. The great serpent, its hood flooded with blood, its eyes remorseless, bore down upon him from above. Its armless body finding purchases unseen by man as it descended toward Fong.
Loa Wei Fen could hear the tears on the other side of the wall. For him they were the tears of Wu Yeh, the opium whore, as she cried for her African lover. They were the tears of the woman from whom he was taken when he was six. They were the tears deep inside him that were begging to come out. The tears that would bring him to the edge of the roof from which this time he must indeed jump or fall forever.
DAY TEN
The buses began their morning shriek. It was 4:00 A.M. Loa Wei Fen took a peek at the sleeping lovers as he soundlessly rose from his squatting position and made his way out of the destroyed building.The thud of the city was picking up as he moved eastward along the dusty streets toward the Old City. Shanghai was little more than a mirage to him now. But in that mirage there was an oasis of truth. A place of momentary peace in his hopeless dream. An opium whore whom he loved.
Moments after Loa Wei Fen entered the Old City, Wang Jun awoke from a fitful sleep. He got out of bed, careful not to wake the couple who slept on the other side of the drawn curtain. The water spat from the street spout as he turned it on. Its colour didn’t please him so he let it run until the colour thinned. Then, ducking his head, he allowed the water’s chill to waken his sleepy brain. Turning, he drank from the stream. “Might as well drink this shit, it’s already in our veins,” he thought. Spitting out the last of the water, he sat down on the pavement and looked at the Shanghai alley along which he had lived for the past twenty-two years. He had been twenty-nine when he first came to Shanghai. He was sixty-two now. And what did he have to show for those thirty-three years of work? A place to throw his weary body after a wearying day’s work. Little else. Oh yes, he also had a friend, Zhong Fong. A friend whom he was betraying even as he sat here. His cellular phone rang. He took it from his coat pocket and for a moment stared at its flickering lights. Then he punched it on. “Wang Jun.” The furious voice of his Hu-ness cracked the morning stillness. Wang Jun did not so much listen as endure the tirade. All he could do was hold on and allow the anger to wash over him. He noted that this kind of behaviour no longer hurt him. There was a time when his skin was less thick. A time when betraying a friend would have given him more pause.
Li Xiao was in the office by 6:30 and the pressure was already on. It was hard to answer the questions about yesterday’s failure to apprehend Zhong Fong. It was more difficult getting answers as to why the officers fired without his command. It was most difficult for him to accept that he was nothing but a pawn in this game- that he was head of this investigation in name only.
Late last night he had challenged Commissioner Hu on that point. All that the commissioner had said was “No one is beyond expendability here. China is bigger than anyone person. You will do what you are told to do or you will go away. The choice is yours.” He chose to say nothing. In China that choice means that you accept. Now, the next morning, he was dealing with the consequences of his choice.
The old man with the hoarse voice was not used to yelling. He was almost incapable of it. But he yelled at Commissioner Hu that today was to be the end of it all. That both men were to be dead by the end of the day or Commissioner Hu would be the commissioner of a ratinfested jungle outpost in the south. Commissioner Hu’s silence pleased him. It was assent and understanding. It felt very good to hang up on the commissioner. Such men were important to the system but left a foul taste in one’s mouth when one had to deal with them.
The man with the cobra on his back had hurt her. How badly she didn’t know. The opium was still alive in her bloodstream. Its neural lubricant had allowed her into another place as he ranted at her. Hurt her. But now the pain was welling up. So, as the man continued to sleep on the palate in her cubicle, she slipped out into the hallway and hobbled toward the front. She was aware of the blood slipping down her legs. She didn’t care. She got to the front and pulled the policeman’s card out of the drawer beneath the phone. She dialled the number on the card. When the phone was answered she asked for Lily. She was met by a lengthy silence and then a woman’s voice came on the time.
Lily only got in a few words before she was pushed aside by Shrug and Knock. “This is a call that the commissioner should hear about, isn’t it?” Lily sat stony still as Shrug and Knock forced answers from the opium whore. Lily wondered if this job was still worth having. She’d miss Fong.
Fong awoke from his cruel night’s sleep. His back ached from the crunch of the brick behind him. Amanda was still asleep with her head in his lap. He looked at her facial wound and breathed a sigh of relief. The wound was clean. It had crusted smoothly. He reached into her pocket and pulled out the bottle of antibiotic. He crushed a tablet in his fingers and powdered the wound again. Her colour wasn’t bad and there still seemed to be no fever. For a moment the phrase “Luck is on our side” popped into his head. But he pushed it away as soon as it arose. Luck had kept her alive through the night. No luck would keep them alive today. Only thought and action. She was five feet eleven inches tall, white, and blond. Hard to hide in a city where the average height was five foot six, where there were few whites and no blonds. Where do you hide an albino giant in a city of short dark folks?
Loa Wei Fen had heard Wu Yeh leave the cubicle. He didn’t move but he listened closely. His mind supplied him with a map of the opium den and the environs. He heard the click of the phone as she hung up. The snake rose on his back. Her padding feet were making their way back to him. The swolta seemed to move toward his hands. She who loved the black man would not see this day’s night. He who loved the opium whore would not see tomorrow’s dawn. At least not on this earth. Of both these things he was sure.
The padding feet stopped outside the cubicle.
Fong pushed Amanda’s head down as she hunched in the back seat of the taxi. As they were stepping into the cab, Fong had seen a woman with a red armband race out of a nearby building. Her ferret eyes locked on him and Amanda. She would file her report in less than a minute. “To the North Train Station and hurry,” he yelled at the cabbie. The small red car took off with a lurch and blared its way into traffic.
The call reporting Fong and Amanda was taken and transferred to Li Xiao’s cellular line. The young detective picked up the call just as he hopped out of his car and headed toward the door of the opium den. He barked into his cellular, “Get the cab number out to all the wardens and keep this line open. Send out everything that comes in to the police units on their radios and patch it through to this number as well.” He left the phone in the car and headed toward the opium den.
He paid no attention to the small man crouched against the storefront across the way.