It sounds like both the father and the son made enough political enemies that this piece must have been left unblocked on purpose. Chen chose not to say it out loud.
As Peiqin pressed the number for another red song, he tried to change the subject.
“Neither of us likes these songs, so why waste time talking about them?”
“Sorry, I got carried away,” she said. “How are things with you?”
Chen began to recount what had happened in the last few days, focusing on Qian’s death, while avoiding personal details. He summed everything up by going through what continued to mystify him.
“As a cop, I’ve ruffled plenty of feathers, and some of them have tried to retaliate. So the attempted raid at the Heavenly World makes sense. But why would they drag an old, helpless woman like my mother into this horrible mess? Why go after a young powerless woman like Qian? I don’t think I’m worth all this trouble.”
“The burglary might have been a coincidence. An old woman living alone makes for an easy target.”
“What about the murder in Suzhou?”
“That, possibly, was a robbery that went wrong.”
“But what about the man who was in her apartment afterward?”
“What about him?”
“It couldn’t have been her father. I’m positive of that. What’s more, anyone who was in her apartment when I called would have already known about her death, yet he kept asking me to leave a message for her. He was trying to set a trap for me.”
“You have a point,” Peiqin said slowly. “But how could he have known about you? Did he find out from Qian?”
“She wouldn’t have discussed what she wanted from a private investigator with anyone. I made a point of calling her from a public pay phone, but she did call my cell phone once. So it’s possible that her phone was tapped.”
“But why would they do that? They didn’t know she’d gone to a private detective. They didn’t even know your identity.”
“They might have suspected somehow. Or her phone was being tapped for some other reason. For a man in Sima’s position, it wouldn’t be difficult to arrange. Then perhaps something in her conversation with me triggered her killing.”
“The conversation was just about her, wasn’t it?”
“No, she had made inquiries for me as well, and she mentioned things that she’d learned about the nightclub.”
“Sorry, I didn’t know anything about that. Yu and I assumed it was just another of your budding affairs.”
“Come on, Peiqin. An affair now? With everything that’s going on? But if it was just about her, then after she was dead, why was the man still in her place, waiting by her cell phone, trying to get information about me?”
“No, you’re right, that doesn’t make sense.”
“Perhaps the stakes for them were much higher, for reasons still unknown to me.”
“But how can you find out what those stakes are?” She added deliberately, “If they are using whatever dirty means possible, I don’t think you have to play by the rules, either. You’re no longer a cop-”
There was a knock on the door.
“Free buffet time,” an attendant said from outside, her head partially visible through the glass panel in the door.
“Thank you,” Peiqin said. “We’ll be there in a minute.”
“A free buffet. That’s not bad,” Chen said.
“It’s bad for our restaurant. The management here uses it as a gimmick. Some of the overnight customers might stay a couple of hours longer just for the buffet. It’s convenient for the customers, and it costs the karaoke club practically nothing.”
“You know a lot about this karaoke club, Peiqin.”
“Only that the buffet here is terrible. A number of their customers have told us about it. Anyway, we’re not here because of the buffet.”
“Yes, what you were saying before the knock on the door?”
“We have to hit back, and by whatever means possible, too.”
“Well, there’s one thing we have to do first,” he said, reaching into his pocket. “We have to change the SIM card in our cell phones. I’ve already changed mine. You need to give one of these new SIM cards to Old Hunter as soon as possible. I’ve got one for you, and one for Yu too. But don’t contact me unless it’s absolutely necessary. And if you do, use a public phone.”
“I see. So these are just for receiving calls. I’ll give the SIM card to Old Hunter today. Don’t worry about it.” She then said emphatically, “If only we could find out who they are, and why they are so anxious to get you out of the picture.”
Chen had been wishing the same thing for a long time, but he chose not to respond to her statement, instead pressing the buttons to play another red song.
“Is there anything new in the case Yu’s investigating?”
“He visited Liang’s company and the law firm that represents it.”
“The law firm?”
“Yes, Kaitai. It’s a very powerful firm.” She added, “With the construction of the new high-speed train being seen as symbolic of China’s economic reform, it is also a highly political case.”
Peiqin then briefed Chen about what Yu had discussed with her about the case.
“Yu has quoted an old saying a number of times,” she said. “‘To treat a dead horse like a living one.’ I think that’s something he picked up from Old Hunter.”
“Like father, like son.”
It meant Yu didn’t think the investigation was going anywhere or had any relevance to Chen’s troubles.
“Based on what Yu told me about these latest cases for your squad, I tried to comb through the Internet as much as possible. With the firewall-climbing software Qinqin installed for me, I was able to look at some forbidden ‘hostile Web sites.’”
“What did you find?”
“With regard to the dead pig scandal, they don’t see it as an isolated incident. To them, it’s just a part of the general moral landslide resulting from the uncontrollable corruption rooted in the one-party system.”
“The moral landslide. That’s a term that was used by the premier, but the day after he said it, the People’s Daily ran an editorial denying the very idea.”
“There’s something unusual happening at the top. Several of the overseas Web sites touch on the idea that there’s a power struggle in the Party between the left and the right wings,” Peiqin said. “But back to the dead pigs. People have been bringing powdered milk in from Hong Kong and elsewhere ever since the scandal about the contaminated powdered milk. Now some are talking about bringing in pork from other countries too. It’s a devastating blow to the Shanghai government’s image.”
Chen thought about his meeting with Sima the other day and nodded.
“Also, a Chinese meat company is trying to buy an American meat company as a kind psychological assurance. ‘Only the Communist Party can save and rule China’? Surely you remember that red song. Well the netizens-the people who post and comment frequently on various newsgroups and Internet sites-have posted a parody version of it: ‘Only the Americans can save and rule Chinese pork.’ It’s another slap at the city government. Lai is said to have been livid when he heard the parody.’”
“What black humor!”
“And it’s related to another matter too. In the eyes of the Maoists, the netizens are being hard on Shang’s son because Shang is a symbol of those red songs. So the Maoists believe that investigation of Shang’s son is being carried out for political reasons,” she said. “That may be true to some extent. By the way, did you quote the old saying that ‘A prince, if found guilty, should be punished like an ordinary citizen’ in a recent article?”
“Yes, but that was just an old saying. I wasn’t using in reference to anybody in particular.”
Once again, he was surprised. In an interview for Wenhui, Chen had indeed said something about everybody being equal before the law, along with quoting the old saying Peiqin had noted. The interview wherein he made that statement had been conducted a couple of days before the scandal involving Shang’s son broke. But the son was hardly a prince in any real sense, and Shang was just nominally a general. Nevertheless, some people might have been enraged by Chen’s remark.