A Case of Two Cities

glass of wine in his hand. He might have overheard something in connection with the name of Zhao Yan, and he handed over the wine without speaking a word. Chen took it, and he raised the phone as a gesture of apology before Lei moved back in.
     
    “Xing has caused a huge loss to our national economy, and great damage to our political image. Having fled to the United States, he continues making no end of trouble there.”
     
    Chen did not know anything about Xing’s activities abroad. There seemed to be quite a lot about Xing in the newspapers. People could be cynical about believing what they read, but when it came to brazen corruption cases involving senior officials, most readers seemed willing to suspend their usual skepticism. But little was written about Xing’s flight and afterward.
     
    “Our committee is determined to push the investigation to the end. Anyone involved, no matter how high his position, will be punished. As our premier has pointed out, corruption can be a cancer of our body politic. It is an issue concerning the future of our Party, and our country too.”
     
    “Yes, we have to deal a crushing blow to those rotten elements in our Party,” Chen said, echoing. “A crushing blow.”
     
    “It’s more easily said than done, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen. We kept a close watch over Xing, but he got away with his family. How? It still beats me.”
     
    “Possibly through his connections—” Chen stopped, not completing the sentence: at the top.
     
    “Now he is dragging China through the mire, presenting himself as a victim of a power struggle, and making false accusations against the Chinese government. We have to do something about it.”
     
    “How, Comrade Zhao?”
     
    “All the information will be delivered to you. You are in charge of the investigation in Shanghai.”
     
    “What am I supposed to do in Shanghai?” Chen said. “Xing is in the States.”
     
    “Xing got away, but not those connected with him. Dig three feet into the ground if need be. You are fully authorized by the committee to take any necessary action. You are a qinchai dacheng —Emperor’s Special Envoy with an Imperial Sword, so to speak. In an emergency, you are empowered to search and arrest without reporting to anyone—without warrant.”
     
    Chen did not like the term Emperor’s Special Envoy, with its feudalistic connotation. In a Beijing opera, Chen had seen such a powerful figure with a shining sword in his hand. It was a high title, but it indicated an assignment involving people even higher up.
     
    “But what about my work in the bureau, Comrade Zhao?”
     
    “I’ll talk to your Party Secretary Li. It’s a case directly under the committee.”
     
    * * * *
     
    Afterward, Chen did not want to go back in. He was not in the mood to return to the hall, where the girl might not have finished her job. There was still some wine left sparkling in the cup.
     
    A short poem by Wang Han, an eighth-century Tang dynasty poet, came to mind:
     
    Oh the mellow wine shimmering
    in the luminous stone cup!
    I am going to drink
    on the horse
    when the army Pipa starts
    urging me to charge out.
     
    Oh, do not laugh
    if I fall dead
    drunk in the battlefield.
    How many soldiers
    have come really back home
    since time immemorial?
     
    The poem carried a disturbing premonition. Chen was not a superstitious man, but why his sudden recollection of those lines? Surely Chief Inspector Chen looked like anything but such a 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.
     
    * * * *
     

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