A Loyal Character Dancer

here. Your command of Chinese would be an invaluable asset to them.”
     
    “A lot of companies send people to China, but only those with business backgrounds. It is cheaper for them to hire a translator locally. A micro-brewery did offer me a position as a bar manager. An American girl wearing their special bar costume for Chinese customers—sleeveless and backless top and mini shorts.”
     
    “So you applied for the Marshals Service?”
     
    “I had an uncle who is a Marshal. Guanxi —I suppose. He sort of introduced me. I had to attend training seminars, of course.”
     
    “How did you become an inspector?”
     
    “After a few years, I was promoted. There is plenty to do in the St. Louis office, and I go to D.C. or New York occasionally to deal with things related to China. From day one, my supervisor promised I would have an opportunity to come to China. At last here I am.”
     
    “Chinese people are not unfamiliar with the image of American policewomen—Lily McCall in Hunter, if I remember her name, was one. That was one of the few American TV series available to us in the early eighties. Officer McCall was a huge hit here. In the window of the Shanghai First Department Store, I once saw a sleeveless silk pajama top called the McCall Top. It was because the female detective wore such a seductive top in one episode.”
     
    “Really! An American policewoman inspiring a Chinese fashion?”
     
    “In one episode, McCall decides to marry someone. She quits her job. Some Chinese fans got so frustrated that they wrote to the newspapers to say she should go on being a cop, and a wife, too, though some doubted her ability to do so. They saw an insoluble contradiction.”
     
    She put down her juice. “Maybe Chinese and Americans are not that different.”
     
    “What do you mean, Inspector Rohn?”
     
    “When you are a woman and also a cop, it is difficult to maintain a relationship with a man unless he’s also a cop. Women often quit their jobs. Now, what about you?”
     
    “Me?”
     
    “Yes. Enough about my career. It’s only fair for you to tell me about yours, Chief Inspector Chen.”
     
    “I majored in English and American literature,” he said, with a trace of reluctance. “One month before graduation, I was told that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had requested my file. In the early eighties, the government was responsible for college graduates’ job assignments. A diplomatic career was considered great for an English major, but at the last minute, during the routine family background check, one of my uncles was found to have been a ‘counterrevolutionary,’ executed in the early fifties. He was an uncle I had never seen. This connection nonetheless disqualified me for the foreign service. Instead, I was assigned to the Shanghai Police Bureau.
     
    “I had no preparation for police work but I had to be given a job—the so-called benefits of the socialist system at the time. No college student had to worry about finding a job. So I reported to the bureau. Existentialists talk about making choices for yourself, but choices are more often made for you rather than by you.”
     
    “Still, you have had an excellent career. Chief Inspector Chen.”
     
    “Well, that’s another story. I’d better spare you the sordid details of bureau politics. Suffice to say that I’ve been lucky so far.”
     
    “It’s interesting to think about a parallel between us. Two cops in Bund Park, neither one of us having set out to become one. As you said, life is like a chain of unpredictable events— seemingly irrelevant links.”
     
    “One more example. The very day I took over Wen’s case, just a few hours earlier, I had been shown the body in the park. The way it came to my attention was coincidence. I happened to have received a ci collection from a friend of mine. So I went to the park that morning to read a few pages.” With the coffee cup in his hand, he began to tell her about the Bund Park case.
     
    At the end of his account, she said, “Maybe the victim was connected to Wen in some way.”
     
    “I don’t see how. Besides, if the Flying Axes had killed the man, they would not have left so many ax wounds on the body. It’s like putting their signature on it.”
     
    “I don’t have an answer to that,” she said, “but it reminds me of something I read about the Italian Mafia. They killed in imitation of another organization, in order to muddy the water, to confuse the