A Case of Two Cities Read Online Free PDF

general, standing in the corridor with a white towel wrapped about his shoulders.
     
    Across the corridor, the door of the private room opened silently. A massage girl walked out, barefoot, much prettier than those in the hall room, her slender fingers tying up the string of her scarlet silk bralike dudou at her back, her hair tousled, her face flushing like a dream.
     
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2
     
     
    C
    HIEF INSPECTOR CHEN PL ANNED to stay at home the following morning, reading the material about Xing. The initial part had been delivered to him in five bulging folders the previous night. There was also a special one-page document, a statement on the letterhead of the Party Discipline Committee.
     
    “Comrade Chen Cao, of the Shanghai Police Bureau, is hereby authorized by the Party Discipline Committee to take whatever action necessary for the investigation. Full cooperation with his work is expected at all government levels in the Party’s interest.”
     
    There was not only a red seal of the committee imprinted underneath the statement but also the signature of Comrade Zhao. It was not just a gesture, it could serve like the imperial sword in ancient history: execute before reporting to the emperor.
     
    He started studying the file on Xing. Secret surveillance of Xing must have been going on for a long time. Some of the reports were quite detailed, covering the length of several months. Chen had to get a general picture before making a move.
     
    He took only one short break. Around nine-thirty, he went out to a hawking street-corner peddler and bought a small bag of fried buns with minced pork and shrimp stuffing. The hot buns tasted delicious, and he devoured them one by one over the dossier. As he was picking up the last bun, he got a call from Detective Yu.
     
    “You’re not coming to the bureau today, boss?”
     
    “No. What’s up?”
     
    “You have a special assignment, I guess?”
     
    “Yes. Did Party Secretary Li tell you anything?”
     
    “No. How about meeting you at your place around noon?”
     
    “Great. Come for lunch.”
     
    “Don’t worry about lunch.” Yu added, “Go on with your work. See you soon.”
     
    Yu didn’t explain the occasion for his visit. The timing concerned the chief inspector. He wasn’t supposed to talk about his new work with any of his colleagues. But for Yu, his longtime partner and friend, also the one in practical charge of the special case squad, he had to make an exception.
     
    So the last bun was left there untouched, stuck to the paper, cold, greasy, flaccid, and dispirited. It was almost like his changed mood, as he went on reading the file about Xing.
     
    In the early eighties, Xing had served as the Party Secretary of Huayuan County, Fujian Province. It was then a backward agricultural area consisting of four or five poor People’s Communes. For the year-long labor, farmers there made less than a hundred yuan. Xing got caught up in the early waves of the economic reform, setting up several commune factories. Those nonstate business entities enjoyed tax breaks as well as other competitive edges in the new market. Their success soon changed the local economic landscape. Xing became a national model Party cadre in “leading the people on the way to wealth and prosperity.” Instead of accepting promotions, he insisted on working as the number-one boss in the county.
     
    As the reform gained further momentum, those companies became private—his companies. His business rocketed up, reaching out into large cities. Like many other upstarts, Xing could not help showing off. If “it is glorious to get rich,” as Comrade Deng Xiaoping said, few appeared more magnificent than Xing. He paraded through Fuzhou in a bulletproof Red Flag allegedly manufactured for Chairman Mao. For his family, he built mansions after the fashion of the Grand View Garden. In a visit to his elementary school, he handed a bunch of hundred-yuan bills to a poor old janitor, like a