“But they are our enemies. If they want to use an American as bait, we should work against them and-”
“Miss Song,” he said, so surprised at her that he used her real name, “your opinion was not requested.”
She blinked back.
“You will help this plan.”
“Yes,” she said, resistance hammering inside her.
“And also,” Chen continued, “we still need money. So if there is any way that you can-”
The door opened, and Miss Wu sauntered through. “Food is coming,” she said, proud of her competence in arranging this.
Chen Xing slid smoothly into his other self. “What do you mean, you think Hu Die is pretty? She’s a great actress-did you see her in Twin Sisters?-but she’s too noble to be pretty, almost like a carving, a face made of stone.” He drew Miss Wu to him. “I prefer a real girl!”
Song sipped her tea, watching them laugh and trade banter, understanding that the meeting was over. Chen Xing wore his public face now, puffy-eyed, weary, brined in a thousand shallow nights-a complete change.
He looked up. “As I was saying, Mrs. Gao, if there is any way that you can again attend the weekly salon, we would all be so grateful. What you contributed was valued by all, last time. We hope you will return again.”
She smiled neutrally. “I will try. Mr. Gao keeps me busy.” She rose, aware that her dress was frumpy and out of date and that she herself was old. “Please give my best to your family. Good day. Good day, Miss Wu.”
The girl looked up as if surprised she was still there.
She swept out, her final turn as the regal matron, and did not let her mask drop until she was outside, her heels tapping on the sidewalk, her profile echoing her in the shop windows she strode past. What was she going to do? She could not support a plot with Thomas as its bait. And what would she do with the diamonds, three in the wall behind her night table and at least twenty-five more in the pouch on the back of Du Taitai’s picture frame? Du Taitai had forgotten them once again, and no one else knew of their existence.
Maybe, she thought, boarding the clanging trolley, she should take them and emigrate. And this strange, exotic thought stayed with her all the way home, to Rue Wagner.
The assassin Du hired, Zhao Funian, came highly recommended by the Nationalists’ paramilitary force as a cold killer, though his background was ordinary in every way.
Zhao had been raised south of the Yangtze, in the painted beauty of Zhejiang, where his father owned five mu of land-and also had five sons, prompting Zhao Funian to leave home at an early age. This was the modern world, and men no longer had to spend their lives serving their clans, especially fifth sons with no land and no wives of their own. So he went to Hangzhou, where he managed a numbers game and collected monthly bribe envelopes from merchants, eventually becoming bodyguard to the city’s Beggar Boss. From there it was only a matter of time until the Nationalist Secret Police tapped him to eliminate collaborators. Competitive, clever, secretive, charming when he needed to be, he was perfect for the work.
“And the jazz man, is he to die too?” he had asked Du Yuesheng.
“Spare him, but only if you can.” Du’s eyes narrowed; they were dead eyes, Zhao noted, unencumbered by emotion. “The Admiral’s life is worth any price, Chinese or foreign never mind.”
Zhao knew this was the most important thing he would ever do. He spent excited hours in the little room he had rented in a house behind the Royal, smoking, stubbing out cigarettes on the windowsill, watching the back door and the musicians and the comings and goings of cooks and maids and waiters. He picked out the pianist easily, for he walked like a man in charge, and passed in and out without an instrument.
Still, Zhao Funian needed someone inside the theater to tell him what went on, especially any words that might be exchanged between Thomas Greene and that whore Admiral Morioka, and soon his crosshairs settled on a waiter named Cheng Guiyang. A few nights before, he had overheard him at a noodle stall near the theater after closing, speaking in the soft, sibilant accent of Wu, as familiar to Zhao Funian as his own voice. The man was from Zhao’s part of northern Zhejiang, maybe even from Pingyao County itself. Zhao had paused nearby, pretending to study the turnip-shred-stuffed cakes in the opposite stall, listening until he was sure and even, in a stroke of the gods’ favor, hearing the man’s name when another waiter walked past and addressed him: Cheng Guiyang. Thus blessed by fate, he had been able to learn enough things about the fellow to create a spiderweb of guanxi between them from the first hello. Cheng was a perfect target: he slept in a room of stacked bunks with seven other men, who called him Wing Bean; ate but twice a day; and sent every other copper cash back to his family.
Zhao made the opening move at two thirty A.M., after following the waiter to a food stall. Cheng was tearing into a plate of xiao long bao, soup dumplings filled with hot broth and ginger-scented pork. As he was passing, Zhao contrived to drop a handful of copper cash so that some would roll under Cheng’s stool, forcing him to stop eating as Zhao picked them up. “You should be more careful,” Cheng admonished him.
Zhao said, “Your accent-I know the speech of Wu. You are from Zhejiang?”
“Yes,” said Cheng, annoyance evaporating into curiosity.
“The northern part, near the Yangtze?”
“Yes-”
“Wait! My friend, this is not possible!” Now Zhao had assumed the opposite stool, moving as lightly as a shadow. “I believe I recognize you. Could you be from Cheng Family Village on the Li River?”
“I am!” Cheng stared.
“Your father brewed vinegar, isn’t it? The Tai Yang Company, that one? He was brew master there?”
Wing Bean’s eyes widened. “You knew my father?”
“Yes. Such a good man.”
“I don’t remember you.”
“I was from Guo Family Village.”
He saw Cheng studying him, raking his mind for a memory. Time to play his high card. “About your father,” he said, tilting his head in sympathy. “It’s too pitiable about him passing over.”
The younger man froze, stricken, and looked down at his half-eaten dumpling, the pork fragrance steaming up. He blinked, and closed his eyes for a second.
“There, my friend,” said Zhao, and settled a warm hand briefly on the younger fellow’s shoulder. “All will be well. The gods have watched out for you if they have brought you to Shanghai.”
“No. They have not.” Cheng lowered his head, and for a moment he looked no older than a child. “I work hard but I earn nothing. At home they need my help, but I can barely feed myself.”
“Ei,” said Zhao. “It’s like that, is it? Put yourself at ease.” He too was speaking in their home accent, pouring it on nice and thick. “Persons from the same native place should stick together, isn’t it so?” He held up some coins and called to the vendor for more dumplings. “Now, my friend-what is your name again? Your given name?”
“Guiyang. Cheng Guiyang. Everyone calls me Wing Bean.”
“Guo Liwei,” Zhao lied, indicating himself. “Now listen, Wing Bean.” He moved closer. “I’d like to lay a proposition before you.”
The next night, when Du’s retinue walked out of the Royal at two A.M., Song slipped a scrap of paper into Thomas’s hand at the door. Neither acknowledged the other or made eye contact; to all who observed, each gave the appearance of not even noticing the other. She walked right past him in her gossamer-silk qipao of ivory white, embroidered all over with pale pink butterflies, while he continued his conversation with a British man in black tie. Yet their hands touched, and when he took the paper, he touched her fingers quickly, reassuringly, in return. She vanished, and he moved the slip discreetly to his pocket as he went right on greeting people, burning inside. She had something to say to him.