The Mao Case

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the next day, Chen might not have the time to start exploring that direction. Still, he followed Gu over to Hua, who had a
     round face and flabby cheeks and was sporting an extensive grin.
    “So you are Gu’s friend. My name is Hua,” Hua said, extending his hand. “Are you also in the entertainment business?”
    “My name is Chen. I’m not a businessman,” Chen said guardedly. “A writer, an entertaining one.”
    “Ah, a writer, I see,” Hua said, a light flicking in his eyes. “There are so many fashionable writers moving around the city.”
    “With the city changing so fast,” Chen said, not knowing what Hua was driving at, “and so many new buildings replacing old
     buildings, writers can’t help moving around.”
    “I admire writers, Mr. Chen. You build houses with your words, but we have to build them with concrete and steel.”
    Chen sensed a subtle shift in Hua’s repartee, to something like hostility, though it was fleeting, only a quick flash. He
     debated with himself as to how much time he should spend talking here. It probably wasn’t leading anywhere — not anytime soon.
    A blond waitress approached them light-footedly, carrying a glass tray. Hua picked up a tiny roast duck pancake pierced by
     a toothpick. An exceedingly slender woman in a white summer dress sidled up to Hua, and Chen excused himself.
    He saw that Gu was busy talking to others, so Chen left without talking to anybody else. Outside, it was a glorious afternoon
     on the Bund. He took a deep breath and walked on, trying to think about the latest developments. It might be too late, he
     admitted to himself. Too late in spite of his efforts and all the help from Old Hunter, Detective Yu, and Peiqin. What he
     had earned so far concerning the Mao Case were nothing but scenarios without substance. Nothing to prevent Internal Security
     from taking action the next day.
    He took out his cell phone, yet didn’t dial. The sound of a siren came trailing over from the river, reverberating into the
     imagined signal.
    It hadn’t been his case to begin with. So why not let them take it
off his hands? He would have no responsibility or involvement. No worry about the black or white way.
    Nor about Mao.
    It would not be realistic for an investigation to expect a breakthrough each and every time. There was no point in him being
     stuck with one particular case. And an absurd case too, for that matter.
    Following a flight of stone steps to the raised waterfront, he looked out over the expanse of the shimmering water. Several
     gulls glided above, their white wings flashing in the afternoon sunlight, as in a dream.
    Chen headed toward Bund Park, with a cruise ship sailing into the view, its colorful banners streaming in the breeze.
“Confucius says on the bank, / ‘Like water, time flows on and on.’ ”
Those were the lines Mao had written after swimming in the Yangtze River before the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution.
     When Chen had read the lines for the first time, he was still a middle school student, walking along the Bund, before or after
     school. There weren’t many classes at school in those years.
    It took him only a few minutes to get to the park. Entering through the vine-wreathed gate, he strolled along the bank, which
     had been recently expanded with colored bricks along the borders.
    To his frustration, he failed to find a seat there. A row of cafés and bars seemed to have sprung up overnight along the embankment,
     like gigantic matchboxes with shining glass walls. It wasn’t a bad idea for the park to have a café with a view to the river,
     but was it necessary to have so many of them that they left no space for the green benches once so familiar to him? Looking
     in through the glass, he saw only a couple of Westerners sitting and talking inside. The price marked on a pink menu standing
     outside was staggering. He could afford it, but what about the people who couldn’t?
    In his middle school textbook, he had read about the park once having at the entrance a humiliating sign:
No Chinese or dogs allowed
. That was at the beginning of the century, when the park was open only to Westerners. After 1949, the Party authorities used
     the story as a good example for lessons in patriotism. Chen wasn’t so sure about
the authenticity of the story in his textbook, but now it was pretty much true:
No poor Chinese allowed
.
    Finally, when he reached the back of the park, he succeeded in finding something like