A Loyal Character Dancer

Anything else?
     
    Tong: That’s all, Officer Yu. A bastard like him does not want to talk
    much when he is satiated. I did not want to appear interested in
    Feng. I did not know you would come today.
     
    Yu: Well, if what you have told me is true, you probably won’t hear
    from me again. But if it is not, and I find out, you know what will
    happen.
     
    Tong: It’s nothing but the truth.
     
     
    Chief Inspector Chen pushed the off button and lit a cigarette.
     
    He was depressed. He had been involved with more sordid cases, but something troubled him about this one. Sitting, resting his head against the hard headboard, he seemed to see exotic patterns of light and shadow dancing on the opposite wall, like a devil-mask dancer in a movie.
     
    He did not like his job.
     
    It more than shocked him that Wen’s life had been so horrible. Now he saw why she had not applied for the passport in January. Why should she want to join such a husband? That immediately led to another question. What had brought about her change of mind? For a once-high-spirited girl, “the prettiest leftist,” wearing the proud armband of the Red Guard, how could she have chosen to live the rest of her life like a piece of stale meat on a cutting stump, to be carved and cut by a butcher of a husband?
     
    The tape presented a more disturbing question. Again, here was a Hong Kong visitor, rather than a local thug. Tong’s judgment was questionable. There’s nothing too low for a gangster, whether from Hong Kong or Fujian. But why should the Flying Axes have sent a Hong Kong gangster to approach Tong, a salon girl in Fujian?
     
    What’s more, what was the “something” that would bother the gangsters, and make them stop at nothing to find Wen.
     
    Tong might not be a reliable informant. Nevertheless, Chen was struck with an ominous premonition.
     
    Something might be terribly wrong with his earlier hypothesis. He only knew that he was at a critical juncture. One move amiss, and the whole game would be irrecoverably lost.
     
    In a game of go, he would change his position by leaving that battle for the time being, to focus on another, or to start a new one. Tactical repositioning. After all, he might stage a comeback when the situation changed. So one possible option was for him to close the investigation. Give up.
     
    From Party Secretary Li’s point of view, Chief Inspector Chen had already done his job well enough. And Catherine Rohn’s supervisor also wanted her to return.
     
    As for Wen Liping, ironic as it might appear, he had to acknowledge that wherever she was, it would probably not be much worse than in Feng’s company.
     
    Party Secretary Li was right about one thing. Inspector Rohn’s safety was a matter of top priority, for which Chen felt immensely responsible. The gangster had said at any cost —that made him shudder. If anything happened to her, he would never be able to forgive himself.
     
    Not merely because of politics.
     
    He had sensed her sympathy earlier in the day. Particularly by his father’s grave. No one else had ever accompanied him there. The gesture had a meaning for him. He realized that despite their differences Inspector Rohn had come to mean more to him than a temporary partner.
     
    But it was absurd of him to be contemplating such things with his investigation bogged down in a mire of unanswered questions, inexplicable complications, unpredictable hazards, and with Wen Liping still missing.
     
    Could he really quit now, with what he saw as the national interest at stake, and risk Feng failing to testify against Jia? With the possibility of “eighteen axes” looming for Wen—a pregnant woman, helpless, with no money or job?
     
    The cigarette burned his fingers.
     
    He was seized with an urge. To forget those contradictory thoughts, about Wen, about politics, about himself. He longed for an evening at the Cold Mountains Temple, by the Maple River, with the moon rising, the crow calling, the frosty sky enfolding, the riverside maples swaying, the fishing lights glittering, and the arrival of a guest boat at the stroke of midnight.... To lose himself in the world of Tang poetry, for however brief a moment.
     
    As he stepped out of his room, he saw the light still on in Catherine’s. But he continued down the stairs to the front desk. There he picked up the phone, then hesitated. Several; people were standing around idly. Not far away, another group of people sat in front of a