The sad eyes stayed locked on Todd as the man’s right hand came out and patted him on the shoulder gently. “I am sorry about all this, Mr. Wicks. This is very intrusive of us. I can’t imagine how you must feel.”
Todd looked down at the floor.
The man’s English was good; he spoke with British English inflections slightly clipped in the Asian style.
“I am Wu Fan Jun, detective with the Shanghai Municipal Police.”
Todd kept his eyes lowered to the floor, the embarrassment and humiliation unbearable. “For the love of God, can I please put my pants back on?”
“I’m sorry, we have to log them into evidence. We will have something brought down from your room: 1844, is it?”
Wicks nodded.
To his right in the sitting room, the fifty-two-inch plasma kept going. Todd glanced at it and saw himself from another angle.
It was no more flattering than the previous one had been.
What the hell? Did these guys edit this in real time?
Todd heard the sounds of his own grunting and groaning.
“Can they turn that off? Please?”
Wu clapped his hands as if he himself had forgotten, then called out in Mandarin across the suite. Quickly a man rushed to the television and fiddled with the remote for several seconds.
Finally, mercifully, the screen went blank and Todd’s own moans of lust left the otherwise silent room.
Wu said, “There we are. Okay. I don’t need to tell you, sir, that we have a delicate situation here.”
Todd just nodded, eyes on the floor.
“We have been investigating certain… untoward activities here in the hotel for some time. Prostitution is not legal in China, as it is unhealthy toward women.”
Todd said nothing.
“Do you have a family?”
Wicks started to say “No,” a reflexive response to keep his family out of this, but he stopped himself. I have fucking pictures of me and Sherry and the kids in my wallet, all over my fucking laptop. He knew he could not deny they existed.
He nodded. “A wife and two kids.”
“Boys? Girls?”
“One of each.”
“A lucky man. I myself have a wife and one son.”
Todd looked up at Wu now, into the hangdog eyes. “What’s going to happen, sir?”
“Mr. Wicks, I am sorry about the situation you find yourself in, but I did not put you here. You provide us with evidence that we need in our case against the hotel. Their promotion of prostitution is a cause of great concern here in the city. Just imagine if it was your young daughter who had turned to a life of—”
“I’m really, really sorry. I don’t ever do this sort of thing. I have no idea what came over me.”
“I see that you are not a bad man. If it were my decision to make, we would just record this as unfortunate, a tourist who got caught up in something unpleasant, and leave it at that. But… you must understand, I will have to arrest you and charge you with engaging a prostitute.” Wu smiled. “How can I charge the hotel and the woman if I have no one else, no one to provide the third corner of the triangle that is this sad, sad crime?”
Todd Wicks nodded distantly, still not believing this was happening to him. But then he had a thought, and he jolted with excitement as he looked up. “I could provide a statement. I could pay a fine. I could promise to—”
Wu shook his head, and the low bags under his eyes seemed to droop even farther. “Todd, Todd, Todd. That sounded like you were trying to offer some sort of bribe.”
“No. Of course not. I would never consider—”
“No, Todd. I would never consider it. Here in China there is some corruption, I can acknowledge that. But not as much as the rest of the world insinuates, and, if I may be so intemperate to say, much of the corruption comes from Western influences.” Wu waved a small hand around the room, indicating that Todd himself had brought corruption on his poor nation, but he did not say it out loud. Instead he just shook his head and said, “I don’t know if there is anything I can do to help you.”
Todd said, “I want to talk to the embassy.”
“There is a United States consulate here in Shanghai. The United States embassy is in Beijing.”
“Then I would like to speak with someone at the consulate.”
“Of course, that can be arranged. I will mention, however, as a family man myself, that notifying American consular officials of this situation will make it necessary for my office to provide our evidence to the consulate. It is important for us to show them that this is not some sort of unfair charge against you, you understand.”
Todd felt a glimmer of hope. Having the U.S. consulate know that he had cheated on his wife with a Chinese hooker would be even more humiliating, but maybe they could get him out of this.
“And please don’t think the consulate can sweep this matter under the rug. Their involvement in this will be chiefly to notify your loved ones back in the United States about your situation, and to help you find a local attorney.”
Fuck that, thought Todd, and his glimmer of hope faded in an instant.
“What if I just plead guilty?”
“Then you will be here for some time. You will go to jail. Of course, if you fight the charge against you”—Wu scratched the back of his head—“although I don’t know how you would make that claim, as we have video and audio recordings of the entire… the entire act, but if you do, there will be a trial, and that will receive some publicity, certainly back in the States.”
Todd Wicks felt like he was going to be sick.
Just then, Wu raised a finger into the air as if he just had a thought. “You know, Mr. Wicks, I like you. I see you are a man who has made a serious mistake by listening to his prurient desires and not the wisdom of his brain, yes?”
Todd nodded vigorously. Was some sort of a lifeline coming?
“I can talk to my superiors to see if there is another way out of this for you.”
“Look… whatever you need me to do… I’ll do it.”
Wu nodded thoughtfully. “I think, for the benefit of your wife and your two small children, that would be best. I will make a phone call.”
Wu stepped out of the room, but he did not make a phone call because, in truth, he did not need to talk to anyone. He was not Shanghai police, he was not a family man, and he was not here investigating the hotel. No, these were all lies, and lying was an integral part of Wu’s job. He was MSS, the Ministry of State Security, and Todd Wicks had just been caught in his honey trap.
Normally Wu attempted to lure targets of opportunity into his traps, but Todd Wicks of Richmond, Virginia, was different. Wu received an order from his superiors with a list of names of technology employees. The Shanghai Hi-Tech Expo was one of the largest in the world, and it was no great surprise that three of the men on his superior’s wish list were in attendance. Wu had struck out with the first man, but he’d hit a home run with the second. As Wu stood in the hallway, he knew that in the suite on the other side of the wall he leaned on was an American man who would jump at the chance to spy for China.
He did not know what his leaders needed this Todd Wicks for, it was not his job to know, and it was not his way to care. Wu lived like a spider lives; his entire life, his complete being, was tuned to feel the twitches in his web that told him a new victim was approaching. He had wrapped Todd Wicks up in his web as he had done so many others, but already he was thinking about a Japanese salaryman in the same hotel, a target of opportunity Wu already had on the edge of his web, and a man Wu expected to wrap up before dawn.