A Loyal Character Dancer

of a crazy motorcyclist. If it was no accident, what further threats to Inspector Rohn’s life might there be?

Chapter 8
     
     
    S
    tanding by a Mercedes, Chen saw Catherine Rohn stepping out of the hotel’s revolving door wearing a white dress, like an apple tree blossoming in the April sunlight of Shanghai. She looked refreshed and she broke into a smile at the sight of him.
     
    “This is Comrade Zhou Jing, our bureau’s driver,” Chen introduced her. “He will be with us for the day.”
     
    “Nice to meet you, Comrade Zhou,” she said in Chinese.
     
    “Welcome, Inspector Rohn,” Zhou said, looking over his shoulder with a broad grin. “People call me Little Zhou.”
     
    “They call me Catherine.”
     
    “Little Zhou is the best driver in our bureau.” Chen took his seat beside her.
     
    “This is the best car,” Zhou said. “And we are doing our best, Inspector Rohn, or Chief Inspector Chen would not be with you today.”
     
    “Really!”
     
    “He’s our ace inspector, the rising star in the bureau, you know.”
     
    “I know,” she said.
     
    “Don’t exaggerate like that, Little Zhou.” Chen said. “Keep your eyes on the road.”
     
    “Don’t worry. I’m familiar with the area. So I’m taking a short cut.”
     
    Chen started speaking in English to her. “Any new information on your side?”
     
    “Ed Spencer, my boss, checked the grocery store where Feng did his shopping. Feng does not drive. Nor has he any friends in D.C. Going to a couple of Chinese stores within walking distance is about all he does there. It is an old store, with no recorded connection to the secret societies. The receipt showed that Feng had visited the store on the day he phoned the warning. He bought noodles and rented several Chinese videotapes. On the way home, he also stepped into a Chinese gift and herb store, and a Chinese barbershop. So the warning could have been put into his grocery bag in these places too.”
     
    “I’ve discussed the new development with Party Secretary Li. It is important, we believe, to find out how the gangsters discovered his whereabouts.”
     
    “Beats me. Our special group consists only of Ed and me. Our translator, Shao, is an old CIA hand,” she said. “I don’t think there was a leak on our side.”
     
    “The decision to let Wen go to the United States was made at a very high level of our government. Neither Party Secretary Li nor I had heard anything about Feng or Wen until the day before your arrival,” Chen countered.
     
    “It was a blow to Feng’s confidence in our program. He called his wife without telling us first. Ed is about to relocate him.”
     
    “I would like to make a suggestion, Inspector Rohn. Keep him where he is. Put more men around him for his protection. The gang may try to contact him again.”
     
    “It may be dangerous for him.”
     
    “If they had intended to take his life, they would have done so instead of warning him first. I believe they just want to prevent him from speaking out against Jia. They will make no attempt on his life unless they have no other choice.”
     
    “You have a point, Chief Inspector Chen. I will discuss it with my boss.”
     
    Due to Little Zhou’s short cut, they soon reached Shandong Road, where Wen Lihua, Wen Liping’s brother, lived with his family. It was a small street lined with old rundown houses from the turn of the century. The street in the Huangpu District had been part of the French concession but, in recent years, as it was surrounded with new buildings, it had become an eyesore. The street entrance was crammed with illegally parked bikes, cars, and illegally stored rusty steel and iron parts from a neighborhood factory. Little Zhou had a hard time maneuvering the car to a stop in front of a two-story house. On the discolored, cracked front door the faded number hardly showed.
     
    The staircase was dark, steep, narrow, dust-covered, dim even during the day. The boards creaked under their feet, suggesting several steps were in bad repair. Most of the paint on the banister had long since peeled off. Catherine climbed up cautiously in her heels, and almost stumbled.
     
    “Sorry,” Chen said, grasping her elbow.
     
    “No, it’s not your fault, Chief Inspector Chen.”
     
    He noticed her wiping her hands on a handkerchief as they reached the second floor. There they saw an oblong room packed with odds and ends: broken wicker chairs, discarded coal stoves, a table with a