A Loyal Character Dancer

people will continue their business. According to Karl Marx, for a three-hundred-percent profit, a lot of people are willing to sell their souls.”
     
    “I’m not entitled to be a critic today, not after I made my purchases.” She stirred ripples in her coffee with a silver spoon. “Still, something must be done.”
     
    “Yes, not just about the market, but also about the ideas behind it, the excessive exaltation of the material. With Deng Xiaoping saying that ‘to get rich is glorious,’ capitalistic consumerism has grown out of control.”
     
    “Do you think what people practice here in reality is capitalism rather than communism?”
     
    “You have to find the answer to this question for yourself,” he replied evasively. “Deng’s openness to capitalist innovation is well-known. There’s a saying of his: ‘It doesn’t matter whether it’s a white or a black cat, as long as it catches a rat.’”
     
    “Cat and rat, rhyme and reason.”
     
    “Few Chinese keep cats as pets, you know. For us, cats exist for the sole purpose of catching rats.”
     
    The rain had ceased. Looking out the window, he could see into Oriole’s store. The velvet curtain was still drawn. He was not sure if Oriole knew they had left. His prepayment of the price as marked must have been suspicious enough. He caught Catherine glancing in the same direction.
     
    “Fifteen years ago, those brands were never heard of here. Chinese people were content to wear one style of clothes: Mao jackets, blue or black. Things are so different now. They want to catch up with the newest world fashions. From an historical perspective, you have to say that it’s progress.”
     
    “You are capable of lecturing on a lot of things, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen.”
     
    “For a lot of things in this transitional period, I do not have an answer, let alone a lecture. I’m just trying to come to terms with them myself.” Without conscious thought, he had built a tiny edifice of sugar cubes, which was now crumbling by his coffee mug. Why had he been so willing—even eager to discuss all these things with her?
     
    It was then he heard a commotion sweeping down on the street like thunder rolling in from a distance, and people shouting and screaming in chorus: “They are coming!”
     
    He saw street peddlers gathering up their displays in a frenzy, store owners closing their doors helter-skelter, several people running with big plastic bags on their backs. In Oriole’s store, the girl jumped out from behind the counter, plunged the store into semi-darkness by turning off a switch, and tried to pull down the aluminum door. But it was too late. Plainclothes police were already rushing in.
     
    What he had suspected was confirmed.
     
    They had been followed. By someone with inside contacts. Otherwise, the police would not have come so quickly, nor rushed directly to that store. A tip had been given, perhaps via that light green cell phone. The informer must have supposed that Chen and his American companion were inside. But for his wariness, they would have been apprehended, together with Oriole. Catherine’s status as a U.S. Marshal would have caused serious complications. As for Chen, he had committed a serious violation of the foreign liaison regulations. The existence of such a street market was a political disgrace. He should not have brought an American here, let alone an American officer in the middle of a sensitive investigation. He would have been suspended, at the least.
     
    Had the Flying Axes orchestrated all this—in addition to other “accidents”? He wondered how a Fujian gang, which had never before made its impact felt out of its province, could be so resourceful in Shanghai.
     
    Another possibility suggested itself to him. Some people within the system had long planned to get rid of him. Internal Security’s report about his fastening Inspector Rohn’s necklace, for instance, must have found its way into his dossier because of this. This very assignment might have been a trap, set so he would commit a blunder in the company of an attractive American woman officer. It could backfire, however, if it was discovered that the attempt to entrap him was being made at the expense of an internationally important case. He was not without his ally at the highest level—
     
    Catherine touched his hand lightly. “Look.”
     
    Oriole was being marched out of the store. She was a changed girl, her hands handcuffed behind