There were the usual tourists on the promenade being led around like so many children on a string. Click-click for Japanese, scuffle and whine for Americans, and open haughtiness for Germans. Ah yes, the world’s lords had come to gawk at what had been theirs but was no more.
There were also the rural dispossessed. Recently arrived at the train station in the north end of the city and without work or a place to stay, they would wander down to the waterfront to sleep. A peasant can sleep sitting up, head in full profile on the back of his hand which in turn is balanced on a knee. They seem to sleep soundly. But try touching the filthy bag that contains his few worldly belongings and you will see that this delicately posed sleeper can awaken with a roar.
A sleeping peasant looks like a delicate mantis that has fallen into strong Chinese wine and for a moment is stunned into stillness-stunned long enough for the diner to nab him with a set of chopsticks, dunk him in the sauce, and eat him whole. A fate that, at least metaphorically, awaited many of these sleeping men.
There were the con men too. The ones who had enough English to approach white people did so. They all had some supposed family heirloom to sell or their services as guides to Shanghai’s many pleasures of the eye, the palate, or the groin. And there were the beggars, not many, not like Kwongjo, the Canton of old, but more than there used to be. The obscenity of his countrymen begging before foreigners always sent a special rush of anger through Fong.
Stretched out on a bench, between himself and Wang Jun at the kiosk, was a clubfooted man. His filthy clothes were pulled up to reveal the stumps that were his feet. A tin soup bowl was near his deformed extremities. Spittle ran from his mouth and there was the unmistakable reek of human waste about him. For a moment Fong’s anger subsided as he looked at this poor specimen of humankind.
“Are you in pain?”
The clubfooted man’s eyes fluttered open and tried to focus.
“Have you eaten today?”
Slowly the man shook his head.
“There’ll be help here in a minute, but you have to promise me that you won’t fight them. Is that a promise, do I have your promise?”
The man nodded.
“Good, I’ll be right back.” With that he made his way quickly through the thickening morning crowd and grabbed the phone from Wang Jun’s hand.
“Hey-”
But Fong had already punched in the phone number of special services.
“Is it ringing?”
“I don’t think so.”
Wang Jun took the phone, listened, and pressed SEND.
“You should think of joining the twentieth century sometime before it’s over,” he said, handing the instrument back.
Quickly Fong left orders for the clubfooted man to be picked up and brought to a shelter.
“You’re a sentimentalist, Zhong Fong, a dangerous sentimentalist. And at your age, really.”
“He’s sick, he’s hungry, our revolution meant something.”
“Did it really,” snapped Wang Jun. He began to walk.
Fong moved with him. “So?”
“Tell me about the newspapers and how they got the story, Fong.”
“They got clearance.”
“Bullshit. From whom? That kind of story has to have party approval before it sees the light of day. Surely that takes time. Or didn’t that cross your mind?”
Fong resisted the taunt. “They got authorization to run the story and that’s that.”
Wang Jun shook out a Marlboro and lit it. “I think the murderer was a pro.”
“I agree.”
“Anything on the wallet?”
“A little blood that will no doubt match the dead man’s. If there are prints on the wallet or credit cards I’ll bet they’ll match Mr. Fallon’s as well.”
“Why did he leave the wallet? A pro doesn’t make that kind of mistake.”
“I don’t think it was a mistake. I think it was a message.”
“If it was, then the sender’s pretty lucky that the papers got-” The older man stopped himself. Then he continued, “Pros don’t have luck, do they?”
“No, they don’t, Wang Jun. There is nothing about luck involved here as far as I can see. Somebody wanted to send a pretty gory message and they used you and me to send it.”
“You and me and Richard Fallon, member of the New Orleans police force. Let’s not forget that he did his part.”
Unable to resist, Fong said, “Parts.”
“Dim sum for giants.”
Suddenly it stopped being funny. “Yeah, man-eating giants. Cannibals.”
Wang Jun stared at his young friend. Fong met his gaze. “I’m not a boy, I’m not someone’s messenger boy. I want this lunatic found.”
“Who was the message being sent to is the question, isn’t it?”
“It’s a good question but let’s start with the killer. Find the street sweeper. I want her in my office as soon as you get her. Don’t let one of your men do it. I don’t want her scared. I want her charmed and treated like a lady, so I want you to get her and bring her to me.”
“You have great faith in street sweepers, Zhong Fong.” Fong had no interest in discussing his family’s long history as night soil collectors. “Just find her and bring her to me.” With that he turned his back on Wang Jun and headed toward his office. As he hopped the pedestrian barrier and crossed Zhong Shan Road, he reran his mental tape of the conversation just finished. For the life of him he couldn’t understand why that conversation couldn’t have taken place in his office.
Geoffrey Hyland handed his Canadian passport over the immigration counter at Shanghai’s Hong Qiao Airport. He always arrived in Shanghai with a sense of sadness but also a feeling of coming home. Eleven years ago, he had been invited to the Shanghai Theatre Academy to direct an obscure Canadian play called The Ecstasy of Rita Joe. The school’s acting faculty despised his non-Russian-based approaches, but to their shock and the delight of both students and audience, the play was a runaway hit. Six months later he was invited back by Shanghai’s biggest professional theatre, the People’s Repertory Company, to remount the play using the student leads from the first production to play the younger roles and the professional company’s members in the older parts. This too proved successful. It was not, however, successful for Geoffrey Hyland. This time in Shanghai he met and fell hopelessly in love with Zhong Fong’s wife, Fu Tsong.
That love endured until the day four years ago when, in his turn-of-the-century house in Toronto’s West End, he opened a letter from Shanghai. The words were blunt and seemed to burn, as if etched, on the rice paper. All it said was: Fu Tsong is dead. Many think her husband killed her. They found her body and the body of a fetus in a construction pit in the Pudong.
So stunned was he by the words that he never thought to question either the identity or the motive of the writer. Had he in fact been able to decipher the scribbled signature he would not have been able to recall the face of the author. All this was as intended by the writer.
Geoffrey became aware that the immigration officer was standing as he handed back his passport. The young man surprised Geoffrey by extending his hand and saying, “High Lan, yes? Lee Ta Jo, yes?” Geoffrey’s eyes brightened. Those productions were a lifetime ago to him, but the repertory company performed them regularly. To him “Lee Ta Joe” had been a time with Fu Tsong. Now was a time without her-a sad homecoming.
He shook the immigration officer’s hand and headed toward the airport’s lounge where he knew the driver from the Shanghai Theatre Academy would be waiting. The man looked exactly like the late American actor, Jack Soo. Geoffrey had told him that once, over lunch, and thereafter the driver insisted that Geoffrey call him Soo Jack. He also insisted that when Geoffrey needed a car, he be the driver.
As Geoffrey left the immigration counter a note was taken, a phone lifted, and an insurance policy put into motion.