The Christie’s exhibit was closing. It was one o’clock, late for some businesses in this town to stay open, but not for those that were serious about being part of Shanghai’s economic miracle.
Loa Wei Fen glanced one more time at the Chagall, then made his way out of the Shanghai Centre, which sits like a tortoise in its shell over the wall of water that fronts the Portman Hotel. A uniformed northerner nodded toward the revolving door as he approached.
Mr. Lo passed through the lobby, heading toward the elevator. He got off at the second floor and watched the bank of elevators to see if any other stopped at that floor. None did. He then walked to the end of the hall and, pushing open the stairway door, headed up.
His room was on the twenty-seventh floor. He took the stairs two at a time and arrived without a trace of sweat on his person. The hotel room always surprised him. So much space, so unnecessary. But being a guest at the Portman disguised his mission well.
He removed his clothing and went into the bathroom. He examined his torso in the floor-to-ceiling mirror. Sinew, not muscle, dominated as it should. The lithe movement of tendons beneath the skin as he raised his arms pleased him-like snakes inside. With a breath he released the snakes and felt the life surge within him and flare on his back. The life that for now feeds on others.
He had booked a week at the Portman. He had no idea how much more there was to do in Shanghai. He had been paid a substantial sum of money and hence assumed that there would be more work than just the dismembering of the American policeman. But that was not his concern. He had been paid for the week and for the week’s work.
He looked out the small vertical bathroom window. Shanghai sat at his feet, its neon lights blinking a welcome. While across the Huangpo River the new Pudong industrial area was lit by ghostly, high-intensity mercury vapour lights. The better for the night shifts to build by.
After a moment Mr. Lo crossed over to the toilet. He lifted the cover, stood on the rim, and squatted. Like everything else in his life Mr. Lo controlled the working of his bowels with complete certainty. As he climbed down he wondered how a westerner could sit to take a shit.
It would never have occurred to Mr. Lo to think about the incongruity of the two cultures he embodied; evacuating in the way of his Asian ancestors, about to don an extravagant English suit. It would never have occurred to Mr. Lo that he was in the employ of some extremely unsavory people. Mr. Lo was a pure being, an immaculate conception, an idea set into motion when he was taken as a child from his loving mother’s arms so many years ago in far off Yan’an province. As the rest of the country went through the throes of the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Lo had been put through the rigours of a different kind of change: The boy who loved was replaced by the man who killed. He never knew the people who paid for this transformation. He only knew the teachers. He had known that he was in Taipei but did not know exactly where. He knew that he was valued but didn’t know for exactly what. He knew that he had passed his physical tests and that had pleased his teachers. He knew that he had passed their cultural training and that had pleased them as well. He well remembered the first man that they brought for him to kill. He remembered the resistance of the man’s windpipe as he crushed it beneath his heel. He remembered that he hadn’t felt anything when the light went out in the man’s eyes. He remembered the clean incision that parted the man’s breastbone. He remembered the crack as the ribs separated under his fingers. He remembered cleaving the still-twitching heart in two. Then he remembered the taste of the piece of the man’s heart that had been placed in his mouth by his favourite teacher.
Mr. Lo knew that he was an investment, a dearly nurtured commodity. What he didn’t know was that he was an expendable weapon in the war to bring capitalism to this country of socialists.
The body pieces had been found in an alley off Julu Lu near the former residence of Dr. Sun Yat-sen. As with so many of the tourist sites in Shanghai, Fong had never bothered with it or its historical significance. His wife had dragged him to the YuYuan Garden in the Old City shortly after they were married, but to this day he’d never been to the Temple of the City God, which so fascinated tourists.
Fong didn’t expect the crime site to reveal anything of interest except a large red stain and perhaps some small body bits that the rookie cop had missed. The idea of finding something like a fingerprint in a Shanghai alley was a joke.
So Fong was surprised when he entered the alley to find that the crime scene unit had sectored the area with lines of string and was investigating each square meter with great care.
Showing his badge, Fong passed by the cop at the mouth of the alley. The unit had set up three strong over-head lights, which cast hard-edged shadows on the rough pavement. Although late April, it was a cool night and Fong pulled his coat tightly around himself as he moved toward the CSU head, Wang Jun.
He noted that Wang Jun wasn’t smoking, which was odd. He also noted that the older man’s usually stoic face seemed slightly amused by something.
“What?” said Fong as he came into Wang’s light.
“What, what?” snarled back Wang Jun.
Wang Jun was Fong’s senior by twenty years, maybe more, and didn’t take kindly to the flippancy that he perceived in Fong. However, a grudging respect for Fong had grown, over time, into real friendship. They had worked together on several troublesome cases in the past, and Fong’s instincts had proven invaluable in solving some that Wang Jun had thought were beyond solution.
“You look like you swallowed a snake,” said Fong.
“I like snake, cooked properly, of course,” replied Wang Jun.
He signalled Fong over to one side. When they were out of the light and away from the prying eyes of the others, Wang Jun reached into his pocket and pulled out a wallet in a crime scene plastic bag.
“This is the victim’s wallet?” blurted out Fong, openly surprised.
“So it seems,” replied Wang Jun with a cold smile.
“Hence the sector search?”
Wang Jun nodded.
Fong held up the wallet inside the plastic bag. “It wouldn’t tell us, by any chance, who the victim was, would it?”
“It would if you believed it.”
“And you don’t?” asked Fong.
Wang Jun popped a cigarette in his teeth and lit it. After a beat, he spoke. “I hate this.”
“What? Murder?”
“No. Murder I’ve grown to appreciate. It’s this,” he said, pointing to the wallet. “This I can’t stand.”
“Would you care to elaborate?”
Ignoring the comment Wang Jun charged on. “Did you see the body?“
“Yeah, I saw the pieces,“ replied Fong.
“Do you know that the guys are calling him the Dim Sum Killer?”
“No I-”
“It’s better not to make jokes with rookie cops, Fong,” rasped out the older man.
“Point taken.”
“Good, now get this,” he said, grabbing the wallet.
“The person or persons who sliced and diced this guy were pros. They carved him up like a side of beef, and my bet is they knew exactly what they were doing. It wasn’t even that late when it happened and there are people out here at all hours. So this was done fast. This was thought through. This was done by a pro, agreed?”
Fong nodded, noting that Wang Jun had already dropped the “or persons” part of his earlier statement.
Wang Jun held up the evidence bag with the wallet and asked, “Then what the fuck was this doing near the body parts, happy as a leech in a rice field?”
Fong took the bag and used a pen from his notebook to fish out the wallet. Then, laying it flat on the plastic bag, he flipped it open. With a set of tweezers he removed a New Orleans Police Department ID. Holding it up to the light he said, “My guess is that our killer’s sending a message. He wants it known that-” Fong tilted the plastic card toward the light and read the name in his singsongy English-“that Richard Fallon of the New Orleans Police Department met his end in a Julu Lu alley and that he was filleted like a fish.”