A Loyal Character Dancer

have made arrangements.”
     
    So Party Secretary Li actually wanted him to stop the investigation, though he did not say so explicitly.
     
    Why? Chen was perplexed. There were so many possible points for him to ponder over. As he had suspected, he’d been given this assignment more for the appearance of carrying out an investigation than to obtain a result. If he was going to do a real job, it would have to be done without the bureau’s knowledge.
     
    He tried to clear his mind on the way home, but he was still exasperated when his apartment building came in sight.
     
    Turning on the light in his apartment, he compared his strikingly plain room with Li’s. No exquisite orchids breathing the owner’s elegant taste. No silk scrolls sporting the calligraphy of renowned scholars. A room is like a woman, incapable of standing comparison, he reflected.
     
    He took out the cassette tape of Yu’s interview in the village. It had been express-mailed to his home. The information provided by Wen’s neighbors was not really new. The apathy shared by them was also understandable, considering what Feng had done during the Cultural Revolution.
     
    To some extent, the chief inspector thought he could understand the isolation Wen had inflicted upon herself. During his first few years in the police bureau, he had also alienated himself from his former friends who had started teaching in colleges or interpreting at the Foreign Ministry. A cop’s career had not been his expectation for himself, nor his friends’. Ironically, that was one of the reasons that he had thrown himself into translating and writing in those days.
     
    Wen must have been a proud woman.
     
    The tape rolled slowly on to the interview with Miao, the owner of the only private phone in the village, about how the village folks paid her for their calls to people overseas. When people called home from abroad, they also used her phone. Miao explained, “When someone calls from overseas, there may be a long wait before his family comes to the phone. As international calls can be very expensive, some of them make a point of calling at a scheduled time. For Feng, it was always Tuesday evening, around eight o’clock. But for the first two or three weeks, he called more frequently. Once Wen was not at home, and another time she did not want to come to pick up the phone. They did not get along so well, you know. With such a husband, I do not blame her. A fresh flower stuck in a heap of ox dung. It’s surprising that he calls every week. I don’t think he has made much money. He has been there for only a few months...”
     
    He pushed the stop button, rewound the tape, listened to it again, stopped it, made a note, and pushed the play button again.
     
    “Anyway, before eight o’clock on Tuesday, Wen would come to wait by the phone. The last call was an exception. It came on a Friday. I remember. Feng said that it was urgent. So I had to run to get her. I do not know anything about the contents of their talk. I thought she looked upset afterwards. That’s about all I can tell you, Detective Yu.”
     
    As the tape came to an end, Chief Inspector Chen lit a cigarette, trying to do some thinking.
     
    Normally, for the first couple of days, there were a number of directions to pursue in search of a missing person, but once they were covered, and no clue discovered, the search came to a dead end. Still, some details were worth exploring. For one thing, why would Wen have refused to answer an expensive international call? Even if their relationship was terrible, wouldn’t she still want to join her husband in America?
     
    He slipped off his shoes, lay down on the sofa, picked up a copy of Wenhui Daily. There was a column discussing doctors and nurses taking “red envelopes” or petty graft from patients. Maybe that was another reason why Mr. Ma enjoyed such good business. Visits to a state-run hospitals were covered by insurance, but the amount in the “red envelopes” could be staggering. Some called it a form of corruption; others attributed it to unreasonable distribution of wealth in the society. He put aside the newspaper, intending only to rest his eyes for a few minutes. He dozed off in spite of himself.
     
    The insistent clanging of the phone intruded into his fading dream. It was Old Hunter.
     
    “Sorry to call you so late,” Old Hunter said.
     
    “No, I’ve been waiting for your call,” he said. “I was with Inspector Rohn in the