In the fading light, she took his arm, as if lost in thought.
They made their way back to their seats. Then the second half of the concert began, which they enjoyed all the way to the end. He was aware of her holding her breath, leaning toward him during the fantastic finale.
When the curtain fell, she still seemed enthralled by the music, clapping her hands longer than most people.
They walked out with the rest of the crowd. It felt suddenly noisy out in the open. Yet there was a pleasant breeze to greet them, ruffling a wisp of hair off her forehead.
“Thank you so much. I had a great evening,” he said.
“The pleasure was mine. I’m so glad you enjoyed it.”
He started looking for a taxi, which he knew might be difficult to find, with all the people still pouring out of the concert hall.
“You didn’t drive?”
“No, I don’t have a car.”
“Surely there is a bureau car you could use.”
“Yes, but not for a concert, and not when I’m in the company of an attractive young journalist.”
“Come on, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen,” she said. “Look at the line of people waiting for a taxi over there. It’ll take you at least half an hour to get one. Let me give you a ride. Wait right here for me.”
She came back around in her car, a silver Volvo. The model had a clever Chinese transliteration-Fuhao, which could also mean “rich and successful.” She opened the door for him. The car was brand new and had a GPS system, which was particularly helpful in still-expanding Pudong.
Her hands on the wheel, she looked confident as she maneuvered the car dexterously in and out of traffic, like a fish in water. The shimmering neon lights outlined and re-outlined the night outside. He enjoyed the play of the lights on her face as she turned toward him, pressed a button. The moon roof pulled back luxuriously. She flashed a starlit smile. He couldn’t help but feel that this city belonged to young, energetic girls like her.
She started to tell him bits and pieces about herself. She was born in Anhui, where her father had a small factory. Like a lot of non-Shanghainese, her father held on to a dream that his daughter, if not he himself, would be able to live and work in the city of Shanghai. To his great gratification, she obtained a job at Wenhui Daily after graduating from Fudan University. In spite of majoring in English, or perhaps because of it, she did well covering the financial news.
“You’re the number-one finance journalist. It says so on your business card, as I remember,” he commented as she took a sip from a water bottle.
“Come on. It simply means that you’re the one trusted by the Party boss, the top journalist in the section. It does come with a bonus of one thousand yuan per month.”
“That’s fantastic.”
“But it also means that to keep it, you have to write every piece with the interest of the Party in mind.” The car took an abrupt turn, and she went on, “Oh, look at the new restaurant on your right. That is the number-one-restaurant choice for lovers, according to the Mass Recommendation Web Forum. It is totally dark inside, like a cocoon. The young people can’t even see the food-instead, they are touching and feeling and groping the whole time.”
She had a way of talking about things, jumping from one topic to another, like a sparrow flitting among the boughs, but she surely knew more than he did about the young, glamorous parts of the city.
“I grow old-”
“What do you mean, Chief Inspector Chen?”
“Oh, it just reminds me of a line.”
“Come on. You’re still the youngest chief inspector in the country,” she said, patting his hand lightly. “I’ve researched it on the Internet.”
When the car slowed down in the jam-packed tunnel to Puxi, he asked her where she lived.
“It’s close to Great World. My father is a businessman, so he was able to make the down payment for me on an apartment there. It’s been a good investment, having quadrupled in value in less than three years.”
“Oh, so it’s close to my mother’s place.”
“Really! Drop by my place next time you visit her. I’ve got the latest coffeemaker.”
The car was already pulling up, however, by his subdivision near Wuxing Road.
She got out of the car at the same time as he did and was now standing opposite him, her clear eyes sparkling under the starry sky. It was an intoxicating night with a balmy breeze.
“Thank you so much. I’ve really enjoyed the evening. Not just the music, but also the conversation.” He awkwardly added, “It’s late, and my place is a mess. Perhaps next time-”
“So that’s a rain check,” she said, smiling and sliding back into her car.
He stood watching as her car disappeared into the distance. It was a wasted evening in terms of the investigation, but as he hastened to reassure himself, not entirely so. There was his visit to the Internet café prior to the concert, the mail from Peiqin with the pictures, and then the latest information about Melong. Perhaps some dots were beginning to form into possible lines, though nothing was yet clear…
Alone, in the stillness of the night, he might be able to figure something out.
Lianping reminded him, he realized, of a character from a French book he read long ago-Rameau’s Nephew.
And again, he was getting confused.
SIXTEEN
Melong was sitting alone in his home office, brewing his third cup of Pu’er tea that morning, and restlessly alternating between putting his feet on the desk and then putting them back down on the floor.
He felt like a trapped animal.
The Confucian maxim that one should “pay respects to ghosts and spirits, yet keep yourself at a distance from them” had been working out so far-at least in his dealings with the cops, the netcops, and with Internal Security and the city government as well. But this time, “paying his respects” didn’t appear to be enough. The human-flesh search initiated by the photo of the pack of 95 Supreme Majesty appearing on his Web forum had resulted in an avalanche of questions from the authorities. The initial reaction to the picture wasn’t totally unexpected, but the subsequent developments astonished him. Still, Melong didn’t think he could be blamed for the results.
What he did wasn’t that different from what others in his position had done, and controversy adds to the traffic of a Web forum. What he hadn’t told the netcops was the sense of satisfaction he felt over the downfall of another corrupt official, and in seeing the embarrassment of the “ever-correct-and-glorious” Party authorities.
Still, what he did tell them was true. He had no idea who’d sent the original picture. Using all his expertise, he’d traced the IP address of the sender to a particular computer, but it turned out to be at an Internet café. The netcops must have made the same effort and come up with the same results. So that was the end of it. Or it should have been.
But it wasn’t. The netcops concocted a conspiracy theory that somehow Melong had gained access to Zhou’s computer, got hold of that picture, posted it online, and then invented the story of an anonymous user having sent the picture from an Internet café. They based their scenario on his hacker credentials. After all, they claimed, an ordinary person wouldn’t have been able to read the cigarette brand from a newspaper photo.
They were bent on punishing him, not because they really believed their theory or because they were worried about his occasional computer hacking, but because the Web forum was becoming a chronic headache for the Party authorities. This was an opportunity to shut it down for a seemingly legitimate reason.
For the moment, the netcops might still be looking for evidence, but with or without it, they were going to “harmonize” the Web forum out of business. It was just a matter of time.
A loud coughing from the room in the back reminded him that the Web forum wasn’t the only thing worrying him. He’d never felt so helpless.