“Who is it?”
It was the same Beijing-accented voice that had answered her cell phone the last time. Chen hung up.
SEVENTEEN
IT WAS GOING TO be another busy day, Yu thought, when he woke up.
It was still quite early when he heard Peiqin slip out of the room lightfootedly. Her long-standing morning routine was to get to the food market before six a.m., and then back home to prepare the breakfast for the family. Lately, though, she hadn’t been getting up that early, what with Qinqin staying at his college dorm during the week, and her going to bed later, after staying up surfing the Internet.
The moment she closed the door, he sat up and reached for the case files. Taking out a pack of cigarettes, he hesitated, but then lit one. He started reading over the files yet again.
About six twenty, Peiqin came back with a basketful of vegetables, fish, and a live chicken.
“Is someone coming for dinner?” he asked, quickly moving the ashtray out of sight.
“No, it’s for Chen’s mother. She’s checking out of hospital today. So I’m cooking something for her.”
“That’s a good idea. How is she doing? You didn’t tell me much about how she’s coping.”
“There’s nothing really wrong with her, but she was badly scared. She’s a frail old woman, and the doctor is concerned. He’s not sure her heart could stand that kind of shock again.”
“That worries me too. Whoever is after Chen will not let him go so easily.”
“Then whatever happens next, no one can tell,” she said, taking a plastic container out of the basket. “Oh, I almost forget. I also bought soy milk for you, fresh from the market. Drink it. And the earthen oven cake too. Eat it while it’s still hot.”
He took a bite of the cake. “Another question. You’ve been spending a lot of time online. Have you found anything special?”
“About your boss?”
“Or anything related to Chen, even remotely related.”
“Well, I haven’t seen much about the police department, but there seems to be a lot of chatter about Red Prince Lai and his campaign of red revolutionary songs,” she said, perching herself at the edge of the bed and breathing into the cup of soy milk in her hand. “You know I’m not interested in politics, but those red songs give me goosebumps. I remember how, during the Cultural Revolution, I trembled, along with my black parents, the moment those red songs started blaring from the street loudspeakers. Are we really going back to those days?”
“I doubt it. I don’t think people are interested in going back to those years.”
“But Lai is on the rise. He’s the head of the red princelings. With his ever-increasing band of followers, it seems that he’s on his way to the very top. There are rumors and stories about power struggles in the Forbidden City,” she went on, sipping at her soy milk. “For instance, there’s an article online about Lai’s son, and with it is a picture of him, clearly drunk, standing with the American ambassador’s daughter. The caption on the photo is, ‘A red prince of the third generation.’ The article seems to reveal a lot about his behavior at college, an expensive American Ivy League college, and how he’s spending money like water. As for how they can afford to send him to such an expensive university, Lai has told contradictory stories. On one occasion, Lai said his son was able to enroll because he was awarded a scholarship, and on another, he declared that they were able to pay the expensive tuition with his wife’s savings, money she earned as a most brilliant lawyer. Even though she publicly resigned, she’s rumored to be still in control of the law firm. She was initially nicknamed ‘the First Lawyer,’ and now that she’s resigned from her firm, they call her ‘the First Lady.’”
“The First Lady-” Yu cut in. He’d heard that before, but referring to her that way publicly was taboo in China’s politics. That title was reserved for the wife of the Party’s general secretary, the number one. “But what does all that have to do with Chen?”
“It’s about making sure all the prince’s men are lined up behind him. That’s an absolute necessity in China’s politics. Is Chen one of Lai’s men? Hardly, and if he’s not, how can Lai allow Chen to remain in such a crucial position? He can’t. He can’t afford anyone who isn’t completely loyal. The Party congress scheduled for the end of the year is Lai’s big opportunity, and there’s not even the slightest chance he’ll risk letting anyone spoil that for him.”
Peiqin knew what she was talking about. However, it was one thing to remove Chen from his crucial position in the police department, and it was another to go after him relentlessly, determined to publicly destroy him. Events were coming to a crucial juncture, with the Party congress coming up, and such a move against Chen could backfire. Chen had been a popular chief inspector, having conducted a number of high profile anticorruption investigations.
“There’s also one post about your new position,” she said. “It’s in relation to your investigation of the Liang case.”
“What about it?”
“Commenters have proposed a lot of different interpretations, speculating about what really happened to Liang. Generally, they believe that Liang was caught off guard but that he had been preparing for his exit, securing a passport or even several of them, a long time ago. So as soon as the Internet started buzzing about him, posting evidence of his corruption, he fled.”
“But there’s no record of him leaving the country.”
“He could have sneaked out under another name, with a false passport, or he could be in hiding somewhere in the country. With all the money that he’s hoarded away, it wouldn’t be difficult for him to lie low for a while and then, when the time is right, stage a comeback.”
“You’re right, Peiqin,” he said, finishing the cake. “But I think I have to leave early this morning. There are so many pending cases that the squad is investigating.”
“You go ahead. After I finish preparing the dishes for Chen’s mother, I’ll go see her at the hospital, and then I’ll leave for the restaurant around noon.”
Yu didn’t explain what he was going to be working on that day. Yesterday, Party Secretary Li had initiated another talk with him, asking questions about the squad’s work, focusing on the progress of the Liang case. Li seemed anxious for Yu to declare it a “cold case.” In other words, a case that wasn’t yet resolved, but one on which there was no more productive work to be done.
Yu called Xiao Yang, a young officer in the squad, telling him that he had to take care of something and would be in later. After hanging up, he headed to the subway entrance near Huangpi Road.
Liang’s company was located on West Nanjing Road. According to the company profile, there wasn’t a factory or workshop at that location. In the Shanghai dialect, such a company was sometimes called a briefcase company, meaning all of its assets could be put into a briefcase.
But to his surprise, when he got there, the company had a large, luxuriously decorated office in a tall building next to Henglong Center, another new landmark in Shanghai. The office was partitioned into a large number of cubicles, but there were only five or six people there. The phones, however, were ringing constantly. The office manager, a man named Jun, received Yu with an ill-concealed mixture of indifference and impatience.
“Your people have already been here. What more can I possibly tell you? We’re more anxious than anybody to learn what’s happened to Liang. His wife, Wei, is worried sick.”
“You’ve heard nothing new?”
“Nothing. But in the meantime, we have to keep the business going, and it’s been very difficult. So please find him as soon as possible. He’s not shuangguied, is he?”
Shuanggui-“double gui” or “twin designations”-was something beyond the legal system. A corrupt Party official might be detained for inter-Party interrogation at a specific place (the first gui), for a specific time (the second gui), before going through any legal procedure. It was done to protect the interests of the Party. This way, whatever details the corrupt official might spill wouldn’t come out in the media. If a Party official wasn’t shuangguied, then it might mean he wasn’t in serious trouble.