The Hua Shan Hospital Murders (9 page)

CHAPTER ELEVEN

At first, Shanghai’s five-star hotels ignored the police request to check their guests against the following description: Caucasian male, thirty-five to fifty, overweight, six-foot-one or -two, white belt, white shoes, golf shirt, glasses on a silver chain around his neck, video camcorder. Then they heard about the police command post set up dead in the centre of the Hilton’s lobby. In an effort to keep Shanghai cops out of their own lobbies the luxury hotels started diligently to compare the police description to the appearance of their hotel guests. Soon data began to flow from the hotels to the police.

As it did, Joan Shui, the arson specialist sent by the Hong Kong constabulary, was in a stare-down with an immigration officer at Shanghai’s International Airport, Hong Qiao. She’d already shown the man her Hong Kong passport, a copy of the Shanghai police commissioner’s faxed request, and her Hong Kong constabulary ID. As far as she was concerned, it was enough – fuck, it was more than enough.

Her opinion on this matter was not shared by the hard-faced immigration officer across the table from her. For the third time he asked about her exact origins. For the third time she asked him why he needed to know that information and demanded to see his superior. He refused and allowed his eyes to linger just long enough on the triangle of skin exposed by the undone top button of her blouse so that Joan almost winced. “Funny,” she thought, “stuff like that never used to bother me.”

“I’m a cop. I’ve been asked to help in a serious case of arson in your city.”

“The baby bomber.”

She didn’t nod. She didn’t do anything. To dismiss the fire bombing of an abortion clinic as the work of a “baby bomber” was breathtakingly callous, even for a Chinese male. Before she could help herself she muttered, “Fucking ignorant peasant” – not exactly the most tactful approach to class politics in the People’s Republic of China.

The immigration officer leapt to his feet and began screaming at her. His Shanghanese was so loaded with colloquialisms and colourful local idioms that she only got the gist of the rant – imperialist, running dog capitalist, yeah, yeah, yeah, and yeah. God she wished mainlanders would get past this ancient crap.

The man’s bellowing brought several guards on the run. The guards didn’t bother her, but their drawn Kalashnikovs were another matter. For the briefest moment it occurred to her that should she be shot to death in this situation St. Peter would laugh at her as she approached the pearly gates. “Why didn’t you just tell them your father was Chinese and your mother of indeterminate Northern European heritage? And a whore – such things happen.”

“My background is my business, St. Peter.”

“How quaint of you to think that. But surely you understand that now it is my business too,” he said, his voice filled with a warbling laugh.

On second thought she wasn’t sure if a woman whose last sexual dalliance was little more than a wispy memory of limousines and champagne cocktails would ever get the chance to hear St. Peter laugh.

Then, without warning, the shouting in the office stopped and the weapons were quickly shouldered. The deep voice of Wu Fan-zi ordered the young soldiers back to their stations. Then his bulky frame filled the door. He reminded Joan of the New Zealand rugby players who played for the All Blacks. Not the fleet runners but the solid men in the scrum. She liked solid men. She instantly liked the man in the doorframe though she didn’t even know his name.

When he grabbed her documents from the desk, warned the immigration officer to keep his nose out of police business, and apologized to her for the “inconvenience” – her fondness grew by a full leap if not a bound. Hustling her out of the immigration section he muttered under his breath, “Welcome to Shanghai.” She nodded and smiled. And he had a wry sense of humour – what more could a girl ask for? Then he said, “They found a second fetus in a cage.”

“No bomb?”

“Not yet.”

She stopped smiling. She’d fought to get this assignment because she desperately needed to work on something that had some meaning. She’d had her fill of saving oodles of money for insurance companies that were already richer than some Third World countries. She whispered a silent promise, that this one was different – this one was important.

* * *

The hospital cleaner was coming round. They’d found him unconscious, stuffed into a closet. He had a deep wound on the back of his head. Now he sat, frightened and bleeding, in front of Fong.

“Nothing. You say you saw nothing?”

“Yes, he hit me from behind. Don’t believe me? Look at my head.”

“Do you know when it was?”

“Before.”

“Before what?”

“Before now.”

Fong looked at the man’s wrist. He had no watch. No doubt he woke with the sun and went to sleep when it got dark. As the head of housekeeping had said, “He’s a peasant.” Suddenly Fong envied him. “They’ll patch up that head of yours now.”

The man harrumphed.

Fong left the room and almost bumped into a cleaner’s trolley. It looked much like those used by chambermaids in big hotels. The bottom half of the thing was covered by sheets on both sides. Fong pulled back one of the sheets. There was lots of room to put a titanium cage there.

A patient in a chair across the way barked out, “Watchya’ lookin’ for? You lost your daughter or sumptin’?” Fong looked at the near toothless man. He had no clever retort, not even a snarly comeback. So he turned on his heel and headed out without saying a word.

* * *

As Wu Fan-zi drove up the ramp to the newly built Gao Jia Expressway, the Hong Kong specialist perused the new photos of the blast site that he had given her. Then she set them aside and concentrated on the latest facts and figures. It didn’t take her long to come to a conclusion. She let out a sigh.

“Yeah,” Wu Fan-zi said.

“Your figures are right?” It wasn’t really a question.

“Yes, they are.” It wasn’t really an answer.

“Then it has to be an exotic,” she said. “The formula for force has been with us since that British guy ate that apple or whatever it was he did. Even in the matrix of relativity it still basically holds, especially in a confined space.”

He turned to her, “I know.” Wu Fan-zi slammed his ham of a fist down hard on the car’s horn. It blared and a path through the cyclists slowly opened.

“What are bicycles doing here? I thought this was an expressway.”

“This is Shanghai. Pavement is pavement here.”

Wu Fan-zi drove for a while then asked, “So which exotic?”

She thought about that for a moment then said, “I wonder if it matters.”

“How do you mean?”

“I assume all the exotics are available in Shanghai if you have the contacts to find them and the money to buy them.”

“True.”

“The contacts would be hard to generate but it could be done. But the money involved – I don’t know. Exotics are incredibly expensive, not to mention his little trick with the titanium cage.”

With a final honk they exited the expressway. A silence followed. Wu Fan-zi guided his car expertly through the thick traffic of Hong Qiao Lu moving toward Ya’nan Lu.

Finally she spoke, “Why not ignore the explosive for now and follow the money? You might get lucky.”

Wu Fan-zi almost had an accident as he hurtled the car across three lanes of traffic and screeched it to a halt on the sidewalk. He turned to her, “Explain.”

“The force co-efficient tells us that an exotic combustible was used. Right?”

“Right.”

“Exotic combustibles are expensive.”

“Right.”

“Whoever did this wouldn’t dare carry either the explosive or tons of cash into the country with them, would they?”

“Not if they were in their right mind.”

“Oh, I think there’s very little doubt he’s in his right mind. Not our right mind, but his.”

“Got that.”

“So if he didn’t carry the money he’d have to have it transferred to him here – no?”

Wu Fan-zi nodded.

“This is the People’s Republic of China, isn’t it?”

“Last time I checked.”

“Well, the last time I checked the People’s Republic of China monitored all bank transfers to and from foreigners. No?”

Wu Fan-zi was too busy calling Fong on his cell phone to answer the beautiful woman’s question. When he finished his call he looked at her. “What’s your name?”

“Joan Shui.”

“You look like an actress.”

“I’m not. I’m a cop. May I ask you a question?”

“Sure.”

“Are you married, Wu Fan-zi?”

The stolid man blushed. She liked him even more for that.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The lobby of the Shanghai Hilton was awash with cops and hoteliers trying to give their information to those cops. In the midst of the mayhem Fong called in Wu Fan-zi’s suggestion to the section of Special Investigations that monitored banking transactions in and out of the Middle Kingdom. They promised to get right on it.

Fong sat back and watched the mounting chaos around him. He knew that nothing would come from the search for the American tourist with the camcorder or from the people looking into the bank transfers until morning. By midnight they should have some basic data. By dawn it could be narrowed down by removing those who weren’t in Shanghai on the appropriate days or in the case of the camcorder tourist, those who are of the wrong age. By midmorning they’d probably have a list of fifty tourists who vaguely fit the description and double that having hefty bank transfers during the appropriate time period. Preliminary interviews could start by mid- to late morning. There was nothing much for Fong to do until that time.

The banking information and the tourist with the camcorder were his best leads but they were hardly solid and he knew it. So he trebled the security forces at the sixteen hospitals that provided abortion services for the greater Shanghai area and left the Hilton lobby.

Shanghai was beginning to prepare for the evening. Young couples walked arm-in-arm and stole kisses in the shadows. Some right out in the light. How different they were from him and Fu Tsong when they were young and courting. He got into his car and radioed ahead to the nearest of the hospitals. The captain there reported that he had been supplied with a small corps of troops that he had stationed inside and around the hospital’s perimeter. Fong warned him not to talk to reporters. The man acknowledged that he understood. Fong ended his conversation saying, “I want any Caucasian found on the grounds or even near the hospital held for questioning. Is that clear?”

“Totally, sir.”

“Good. I’ll expect a report in the morning.”

“It’ll be there. May I ask a question – sir?”

“Go ahead, Captain.”

“Do you think he’ll try again?”

“No.”

“No, you don’t think he’ll try again or no you don’t
think
he’ll try again because you know he’ll try again?”

Fong allowed a moment of silence then said, “Are you native Shanghanese, Captain?”

“Born and bred.”

“Me too, Captain – so you know the answer to your question, don’t you?”

“The latter.”

“You bet. Keep your eyes open – especially around surgery rooms with windows.”

“Yes, sir.”

Fong hung up and dialled the second hospital on the list. He went through the same procedure. After contacting the last of the sixteen hospitals he headed home. But even as he parked his car, he knew he wasn’t heading toward Lily and Xiao Ming. He was heading toward his one place of true calm, his only real sanctuary in Shanghai, the decrepit old theatre on the academy’s campus that had been his first wife’s, Fu Tsong’s, favourite place to perform.

While Fong waited for rehearsal to begin he leafed through the newspapers he’d bought outside the academy grounds at the kiosk run by the smiling boy with the bad teeth. Fong had bought papers there for years. Of late he’d noticed a distinct change in the young man. Now the boy called himself an entrepreneur and had raised the price he was charging for the papers. Fong wasn’t about to pay any more than was required.

“You not able to read the price printed on the masthead?” Fong asked.

“That’s the wholesale price. I’m a retailer,” said the boy sticking out his chest with pride. Fong snatched the papers he wanted and barked, “You, my young friend, are a paperboy in a wooden box, not the Shell Oil Company.”

Fong opened the first of the papers and was happy not to see any story on the abortion bombing. The Shanghai paper led with a story about nine men killed in a fireworks explosion, not a new disaster in this part of the world. On the sidebar was a story about China’s trade with Taiwan – US$32 billion in 2001. Fong had no way of knowing if that was above or below expectation. He did assume that once you traded that much with Taiwan it could be hard to make them do as you wished. At the bottom of the page there was a surprise, an article about China sending Buddha’s finger bone to Taiwan for display.

Fong smoothed out the paper on his knees. Deaths in a fireworks accident, trade issues with Taiwan, and Buddha’s finger bone – was it only him who found those things incongruous all on one page.

He put aside the local paper and took the biggest of the Hong Kong dailies. This paper had an even stranger mix. The lead story was about a new design for the black hoods used to hide a suspect’s identity while being transported to and from courtrooms. This was accompanied by a large photo of the hood. Below the picture was an article about a man who was arrested for shouting loudly into a policeman’s ear. If that was not odd enough, the whole bottom of the front page was filled with a by-lined article about a man who successfully sued an attempted suicide victim for damaging his car in his fall from a six-story building. It was only on the second page that a news story actually appeared. The mainland government had agreed to allow visa-free trips to the Pearl River Delta via Hong Kong.

The Taiwanese paper led with a story about the record number of Taiwanese wanting to study on the mainland, followed by an article chronicling a 20-percent rise in AIDS cases on the island. Then an article about Taiwan’s desire to increase trade with Japan and their Premier’s desire for a meeting with Jiang Zemin. “Fat chance,” Fong thought. But it was a small article at the bottom of the page that drew his full attention. The Taiwanese were bragging about their assistance in obtaining the release of a young American who had been caught smuggling Bibles onto the mainland.

Fong quickly grabbed the local Shanghai paper. The article about Buddha’s finger bone and the Taiwanese article about the Bible smuggler were both in the bottom right-hand corner of their respective papers. Fong put them aside and leaned back in his chair. He tried to remember when religious stories began to appear in newspapers. He couldn’t recall. When had faith become central to the news? Why was organized superstition now on the front page?

The director of
Othello
, Roger, walked out on the stage and asked for quiet in the house. “
Mei you fa tze
– it’s good luck,” Fong thought. A Chinese rehearsal room was often as loud as it was smoky. And it was always smoky. When a foreign director asked Chinese actors not to smoke they assumed that he meant don’t smoke now. So they’d butt out then light up again within the hour, the half hour – almost immediately. It was pretty much inconceivable to most Chinese actors that there is a way of acting without a cigarette.

Tuan Li entered the stage from prompt side and the house got as quiet as it gets. The Afro-American actor playing Othello quickly joined her. The main set pieces for their bedroom were moved forward.

Fong reached for Fu Tsong’s copy of the
Complete Works of Shakespeare
. The actors moved toward the bed. They eyed each other, quite ignoring the director. As Fu Tsong had told him so many times, “No director can help you even half as much as a good acting partner.” Tuan Li sat on the bed and suddenly her Othello thrust his great hand directly at her face, stopping a mere inch from her nose. She gasped but held her ground. Then his long fingers encircled her throat as he said:

“Was this fair paper, this most goodly book,
Made to write ‘whore’ upon? What committed!
Committed! O thou public commoner!
I should make very forges of my cheeks,
That would to cinders burn up modesty,
But I did speak thy deeds.”

Tuan Li didn’t move her elegant head from her Othello’s hand and, as Desdemona, stared straight into his eyes and replied,

“By heaven you do me wrong.”

He returned her stare and bellowed:

“Are you not a strumpet?”

releasing her head with so much force that she stumbled back to the bed, almost falling. But she kept her balance and most impressively her composure.

“No. As I am a Christian.
If I preserve this vessel for my lord
From any other foul unlawful touch
Be not to be a strumpet, I am none.”

Othello was once again quickly upon her.

“What! Not a whore?”

To which she snapped back:

“No, as I shall be sav’d.”

Fong looked down at his text to get the Mandarin translation for the last exchange and noticed Fu Tsong’s note:
The Christians have a god that saves them if they are pure. What is there here for us like that? What for me is like being saved for Desdemona?

Fong read Fu Tsong’s note a second time, then a third. How little he had known her. He wondered if she had ever answered her question? Did she think she was going to be saved even as she fell into the pit? Fong had to admit that he didn’t even know if she was religious. He looked up. The Afro-American actor was in full flight:

“I cry you mercy then;
I took you for that cunning whore of Venice
That married with Othello. You, mistress,
That have the office opposite to Saint Peter,
And keep the gate of hell.”

Fong nodded his head. If they believe in a heaven and being saved they no doubt believe in a hell and being damned. He wasn’t sure it was worth the trade and although there was much of Marxist rhetoric that he rejected he didn’t dismiss the claim that religion was nothing more than an opiate for the masses. Fong had seen many things that had struck him as wrong – but evil – evil was different and sat in territory that made him extremely uncomfortable. He found it more than uncomfortable – he found it dangerous. Who gets to say what is evil and what is not? Although not a young man himself, he wasn’t at all pleased with the idea that sapped-out old men with beards could or should dictate to the rest of the species by playing on every person’s innate fear of death. That these old assholes could dictate the rules of behaviour with fairy stories of rewards and punishments struck him as obscene.

He looked at Fu Tsong’s markings at the top of the next page of text. It referred back to an earlier line in the play – Act III, Scene III, line 270. Fong turned to the reference Fu Tsong had sited and read Othello’s lines aloud:

“I had rather be a toad,
And live upon the vapour of a dungeon
Than keep a corner in the thing I love
For others’ uses.”

Fong allowed that to seep into him as Fu Tsong had taught him to do. Then he checked another of her citations at the bottom of the page – Act IV, Scene II, line 60 – Othello says:

“Where either I must live or bear no life,
The fountain from the which my current runs
Or else dries up; to be discarded thence!
Or keep it as a cistern for foul toads
To knot and gender in!”

Fong then looked at Fu Tsong’s comment beside these lines:
This guy really has a thing about toads. Toads “gendering” together. He should have this checked by a specialist and soon.

Fong found his hand touching her words on the page and a profound sadness descended upon him. He had managed to forget that about her. She had been funny. So very funny.

He flipped the page and was confronted with a long section of Fu Tsong’s writing that seemed to have no reference to particular lines:
We all die. Some are taken by time and care. Others by a murderer’s hands. But are we never the cause of our own demise? Even of our own murder? Can life never get so horrid, the pain of living so great – that death is the better way? That the pain of the here and now is greater than any fear of the hereafter.

It is my job as an actress to make the most compelling character that I possibly can within the constraints of keeping away from eccentricity. A character that is lost in the darkness is less compelling than one that sits in the light. Let us grant whatever possible knowledge Desdemona could have and work from that point.

Is it possible that Desdemona is in so much pain that she causes her own death?

Is it possible that her love for Othello is so profound that there is almost none of herself left when she is with him – that it would be better to die than be so consumed by her love for him? Is it possible that Desdemona is as frightened of her love for Othello as I am of my love for Fong?

When he looked up he could hardly see. He knew he was crying but he didn’t know when his tears had started. He brushed them aside and was surprised to see Tuan Li standing over him. He didn’t know what to do – so he apologized.

“For what?” asked Tuan Li. “You are Fu Tsong’s husband, yes?”

He nodded. She held out a handkerchief. He took it and wiped away his tears then went to hand it back but didn’t know if that was proper. The scent from the handkerchief was on his face.

“Is that her copy of the play?” she asked tentatively and reached for her handkerchief.