A Loyal Character Dancer

have requested. What do you want to tell me?”
     
    “Let me level with you, Liu,” Chen said, despite the knowledge that he could not. “I admire your intention to help her, so I would like to say something personal.”
     
    “Please, go ahead.”
     
    “You’re playing with fire.”
     
    “What do you mean?”
     
    “She is aware of your feelings for her, isn’t she?”
     
    “I liked her—as early as in high school. It was such a long time ago. I do not have to erase the past.”
     
    “But your feelings are the same, whether for the queen in high school, or a middle-aged woman pregnant with another man’s child,” Chen said. “You are Mr. Big Bucks and a lot of women would fall for you head over heels. Let alone after what you have done for her. She cannot help returning your affection.”
     
    “I’m afraid I do not see your point, Chief Inspector Chen.”
     
    “No, you do not see it. As long as you can indulge yourself in reliving your high-school dream, treating her as part of your memory, and as long as she is content with being your insubstantial dream stuff, existing only in your remembrance of the past, things may work out between you two. But in time, she will have recovered enough to be a real woman. Flesh and blood. So on a romantic evening, she may throw herself into your arms. What shall you do?” Chen grew sarcastic in spite of himself. “Will you say no? That will be most cruel. If you say yes, what about your family?”
     
    “Wen knows I’m married. I don’t think she will do that.”
     
    “You don’t think so? So you’ll let her stay as an ex-schoolmate for months, for years. Yes, you are happy to help. But will she be happy when she has to suppress her feelings all the time?”
     
    “Then what the hell am I supposed to do? Turn her away? Send her to the husband who abused her?” Liu retorted angrily. “Or let some gang chase her around like a rabbit?”
     
    “That is what I want to discuss with you.”
     
    “What?”
     
    “The threat from the gangsters. They are frantically searching for her at this very moment. Whatever the police bureau’s reaction to my report, and I have to make a report, you know that, I’m sure the gang will soon learn that she’s staying here with you.”
     
    “How?” Liu demanded “Will the police pass the information to the gangsters?”
     
    “No. But the triads have inside connections. Just as they have learned about Feng’s deal, they will get wind of Wen’s whereabouts. During the last few days, Inspector Rohn and I have been followed everywhere”
     
    “Really, Chief Inspector Chen!”
     
    “On the first day, Inspector Rohn was nearly run down by a motorcycle. On the second, a staircase broke down as we were leaving. On the third, a few hours after our visit to a pregnant Guangxi woman, a gang abducted her, mistaking her for Wen. Detective Yu was almost poisoned in a Fujian hotel. Finally, the day before we came to Suzhou, we were almost caught in a police raid set up to entrap us at the Huating Market.”
     
    “Are you sure these incidents were all attributable to gangsters?”
     
    “These were no coincidences. They have ears inside the police both in Shanghai and Fujian. The situation is serious.”
     
    Liu nodded. “They are infiltrating the business world, too. Several companies here have hired gangsters to collect their debts.”
     
    “You see the point, Liu. According to the latest information I’ve got, the gangsters will not let her alone even after the trial, whether Feng cooperates or not.”
     
    “Why? I’m confused.”
     
    “Don’t ask me why. All I know is that they will do whatever it takes to ferret her out. To make an example of her. And they’ll succeed. It’s a matter of time. She simply deludes herself thinking things will work out if she stays with you here.”
     
    “As a chief inspector, can’t you try to do anything for her, a pregnant woman?”
     
    “I wish I could, Liu. Do you think it’s easy for me to admit how helpless I am—a pathetic example of a policeman? Nothing would make me happier than if I could do something for her.”
     
    All his frustration came out in his voice. For a cop, it was more than a simple matter of loss of face to concede his helplessness, but he could see the response in Liu’s eyes.
     
    “So if you are going to take this into consideration,” Chen continued earnestly, “you can see that it is really in her interest for her to leave.