“You mean Liang’s… trouble?”
“That’s part of it. Under normal circumstances, Liang might have gotten shuangguied and punished for the high-speed train contracts, and then the newspaper would have declared it another victory attributable to the Party’s great determination to fight corruption. But what if Liang spilled his guts out about the other people involved in the scandal? You know what law firm Liang hired as the company’s legal representative, don’t you?”
She kept her head hanging low, muttering an inaudible word, her chin involuntarily quivering. Beside her, the bronze pendulum in a mahogany antique clock went on swinging, measuring the seconds in perpetual tranquility.
“Coincidentally or not, Liang’s company and the Heavenly World were both represented by the Kaitai law firm,” he resumed after a pause. “But perhaps most significantly here, the dead American, Daniel Martin, was also connected to the law firm. For some reason still beyond me, he posed such a threat that he had to be removed-or at least, so it seemed to Lai, or the people close to him.
“Now, there’s one thing I’ve learned during all my years as a cop. Murderers are capable of seeing something that makes sense only to their twisted and paranoid imagination. So what would paranoid people in power do? For one thing, anything or anyone that might be in their way would have to go. That’s why I was removed from my position. But that wasn’t enough: they were worried that I would still try to find out what was going on. For that reason, they put together an elaborate setup at the nightclub, one that would result in my complete disgrace. Then there was the explosion of the police bureau car. I’ll accept the consequences of my choices as a cop, but I can’t bear to see an innocent victim caught in the crossfire.”
“An innocent victim? You mean…” She didn’t finish her sentence.
“After the revelation of Liang’s death, you could have reacted in any number of ways.” He added after a deliberate pause, “Detective Yu told me you nearly collapsed when you recognized the tattoo on his body.”
“He told you that?”
“These kinds of details are important to a cop. But how might his killers interpret your reaction? In their minds, Liang might have confided in you, and you might try to do something with that knowledge. So what would people like that do? Such people live by Cao Cao’s statement, ‘I would let down all the people, rather than have any of them let me down.’ Furthermore, they see themselves as representing the Party, so they feel that whatever they do is politically justified. As the red song goes, ‘Only the Communist Party can save and rule China.’
“So I’m here now trying to help you-and to be honest, trying to help myself too.”
“Are you saying that you can’t even help yourself, Chief Inspector Chen?”
“No, I can’t. We have to find a way out, and we will. Not just for ourselves. You have to think of Liang, and I have to consider all of the victims,” he said in earnest. “Now, let me show you something. Yesterday in Wuxi, I came across the video that Fei took from the hotel surveillance camera. This is the reason for Fei’s disappearance. Kai was caught on tape entering the hotel room with the American, and leaving around the estimated time of his death.”
He produced the flash drive, and continued on without immediately putting it in his laptop. She stared at him without saying anything.
“In the meantime, I also came across these e-mails, some of which I just got a couple of hours ago. I have reason to believe they directly concern you,” he said. He turned on his laptop and opened the e-mail messages Melong had obtained for him. “You should take a look for yourself.”
“Now?”
But she moved over, kneeled beside him, started reading.
Not long after, she leapt to her feet shakily, shuddering. Chen reached out a hand to support her.
“I’ve come to the conclusion,” he went on, “that you most likely will be the next target. Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow, a surveillance camera will be installed here, as indicated in the e-mails. Twenty-four hours. But there are worse scenarios than surveillance that I’m worried about.”
“But why should I be worried? An ill-fated woman like me, it’s all destined,” she said, with a hysterical note in her suddenly husky voice. “The black widow of a white tiger.”
It was Chen’s turn to be astounded. That phrase again.
“And blue dragon and white tiger indeed!” she went on. “He believes that he is a dragon, meant to eventually take the throne.”
In Chinese slang, “white tiger” was sometimes an obscene expression used to describe a woman without pubic hair. There was also a superstitious belief that such a woman brings bad luck to her man. Chen wasn’t sure what was meant by “blue dragon.” In ancient China, an emperor was believed to be a dragon incarnate. But whatever the correct interpretation was, a “blue dragon” was believed to be able to mate with a “white tiger” without worrying about any bad luck.
But she used the present tense in her last sentence. So she couldn’t be referring to Liang. And that last part-“eventually take the throne…” It began to hazily dawn on him.
“Thank you for telling me all this,” she said, making a visible effort to pull herself together. “Now, please tell me what I should do.”
That was an unexpected turn. She leaned forward, grasping the chair arm with one hand, the other adjusting her silk robe embroidered with a soaring dragon.
“Tell me what you know about what was going on with Liang,” he said.
TWENTY-NINE
A SHROUD OF SILENCE fell over the living room.
The moonlight streamed through the flapping curtains and landed on her face, which was bleached of color, yet infinitely touching.
“I appreciate your telling me about this, Chief Inspector Chen,” Wei said, finally. She picked up the Suzhou opera CD with the profile of Qian on the cover. “Your story is so unbelievable that no one would have tried to make up something like that. I believe every word of it. There was actually a catch in your voice when you declared yourself responsible for her death.
“You’re worried about me, I understand. An ill-fated woman like me, though, is beyond worrying about. I’m going to tell you all I know, but do you know why?”
“Why?”
“Because I want to do something for Liang, just as you are trying to do for the other victims. Years ago, I also tried to do my best for him, but it all went terribly wrong. Did you read Kai’s e-mail joking about the ‘the black widow of a white tiger’? That really clinched it. Lai must have told her everything in bed, in an ecstasy of cloud rolling into rain.”
“Lai?”
“He must have been told about her murderous plan. After all, they’re the archetypal couple of a red prince and a red princess. What he’s said to me means nothing.”
There was something incomprehensibly confusing yet alarming in her words. Chen had a difficult time following the beginning of her revelation. Picking up his glass, he waited for her to go on.
“There has been a lot of gossip about me and Liang. What I’m telling you, though, is the truth. Like your story, mine has to be told from the beginning. As you said, only when all of the background is revealed can things come to light.”
“That’s right, Wei. I’m all ears.”
“You’re a writer, and someday you may write about us. If so, I hope you do Liang justice, at least in the part about our marriage. Believe it or not, Lai once told me you’re a good poet, but you’re just too bookish to be a politician. I remember that because my grandfather was a very bookish man. I grew up with him in a Jiangsu village, and he taught me how to read and write.”
“I wish I could write like in my college days,” he said, “but please go on.”
“After high school graduation, I failed to pass the college entrance exam. In the Jiangsu countryside, girls usually marry young. I was just seventeen when I married someone in the same village in a sort of arranged marriage. He was really good for nothing-gambling, drinking, hanging out with his wine-and-meat buddies during the day and beating me up at night. Soon lurid stories started to spread about me being a white tiger. Imagine him joking with other rascals, sharing the most intimate detail about my body, and blaming his bad luck at the mahjong table on me. White tiger! You know what it means, don’t you?”