A Loyal Character Dancer Read Online Free PDF Page B

investigation now.”
     
    “Yes, a murder victim found in Bund Park is another political priority for us.”
     
    “Of course, Chief Inspector Chen.”
     
    Then he telephoned Peiqin, Detective Yu’s wife.
     
    “Peiqin, this is Chen Cao. I’m at the airport. Sorry about sending Yu away on such short notice.”
     
    “You don’t have to apologize, Chief Inspector Chen.”
     
    “Has he called home?”
     
    “No, not yet. He will call you first, I bet.”
     
    “He must have arrived safe and sound. Don’t worry. I’ll probably hear from him tonight.”
     
    “Thank you.”
     
    “Take care, Peiqin. Give my best to Qinqin and Old Hunter.”
     
    “I will. Take care of yourself.”
     
    He wished that he could be with Yu, discussing hypotheses with his usual partner, even though Yu was not enthusiastic about taking on the Wen case—even less so than he was about the Bund Park case. Though the two men differed in almost every way, they were friends. He had made several visits to Yu’s home and enjoyed himself there, despite the fact that the entire apartment consisted of a room no more than ten or eleven square meters in size, where Yu, his wife and son, slept, ate and lived, next to the room which was his father’s home. Yu was a warm host who played a good game of go, and Peiqin was a wonderful hostess, serving excellent food and discussing classical Chinese literature, too.
     
    Regaining his seat in the corner, he decided to do some reading about human smuggling in Fujian. The material was in English, as this topic was banned from Chinese publications. He had read no more than two or three lines when a young mother pushing a stroller came to the seat beside him. She was an attractive woman in her mid-twenties, with thin, clear features and a touch of shadow under her large eyes.
     
    “English?” she said, glancing at the material in his hand.
     
    “Yes.” He wondered whether she had taken the seat next to him because she had glimpsed his English reading matter.
     
    She wore a white dress of light material, a caftan, which seemed to be floating around her long legs as she rocked the stroller with a sandaled foot. There was a blond baby sleeping in it.
     
    “He has not seen his American daddy yet,” she said in Chinese. “Look at his hair—the same golden color.”
     
    “He’s cute.”
     
    “Blond,” she said in English.
     
    There were many stories about cross-cultural marriages nowadays. The sleeping baby looked adorable, but her emphasis on the color of his hair bothered the chief inspector. It sounded as if she thought anything associated with Westerners was something to be proud of.
     
    He got up to make another phone call. Luckily, he discovered a booth that took coins for a long distance call. Time is money . That was a newly popular, politically correct slogan in the nineties. It was certainly correct here. The call was to Comrade Hong Liangxing, superintendent of the Fujian Police Bureau.
     
    “Superintendent Hong, this is Chen Cao. Party Secretary Li has just assigned me to the Wen case, and I don’t know anything about the investigation. You are really the one on top of the situation.”
     
    “Come, Chief Inspector Chen. We know the decision has been made by the ministry. We will do everything possible to help.”
     
    “You can start by filling me in on the general background, Superintendent Hong.”
     
    “Illegal emigration has been a problem for years in the district. After the mid-eighties, things took a turn for the worse. With the Open Door policy, people gained access to the propaganda of the West and began to dream of digging into the Gold Mountains overseas. Taiwan smuggling rings established themselves. With their large, modern ships, the journeys across the ocean became possible, and hugely profitable too.”
     
    “Yes, people like Jia Xinzhi became snake heads.”
     
    “And local gangs like the Flying Axes helped. Especially by making sure people made