The Mao Case

know how to thank you, Peiqin.”
    “Don’t mention it. I don’t know anything about your investigation, but working at her place, I’ve learned a few new recipes.
     Come to our place this weekend.”
    “I’ll think about it, Peiqin.”
    “Take good care of yourself, Chief. Bye.”
    Peiqin was concerned about him. He could guess why. He hadn’t been to their place for weeks. But his heart sank at the thought
     of the weekend, by which time her generous help would have come to nothing. He lit the cigarette he had been holding for a
     long while, inhaling deeply. He was bothered by a feeling of having missed something in the Mao Case. Something elusive, but
     essential. Peiqin’s phone call had intensified the feeling.
    Perhaps the park was really an eventful place for him, whatever the feng shui. He had hardly put the phone back into his
     pants pocket when it rang again. It was Ling, from Beijing.
    “Where are you?” she said, sounding so close, like water lapping at the shore. “I called your hotel, but you had checked out.”

    “I had to rush back to Shanghai. Sorry, I didn’t have time to say goodbye to you, Ling. I took the night train, and it was
     too late to call when I got on it at the last minute.” He went on, grasping the phone, “I’m at Bund Park. The park we visited
     the last time you came to Shanghai, remember? I really appreciate your help. It made a huge difference to my work.”
    “I’m glad it made a difference to your police work. You can be exceptional in what you choose to do, Chief Inspector Chen.
     So be an exceptional policeman,” she said, her voice suddenly distant again. “Perhaps it’s like the poem you wrote, in imitation
     of a British poet as I remember, about the urgency of making a choice,” she said.
“You have to choose your play / Or time will not pardon —”
    “I’m so sorry, Ling,” he said, aware of her resignation, after all they had gone through, to his being a cop first, before
     anything else.
    “Keep in touch when you are not that busy. And take good care of yourself.”
    “I’ll call you —”
    A click. She already hung up.
    But what choice did he have? Again, a cicada chirped in the verdant summer foliage behind him.
Sad it’s no longer sad, / the heart hardened anew, / not expecting pardon, / but grateful, and glad / to have been with you,
     / the sunlight lost on the garden
.
    That was the last stanza of the poem she had just mentioned on the phone. In the end, he had no choice except to redeem himself
     by being a cop.
    It came as an answer, however, and not just to that question. In a dazzling illumination of the instant, a new possibility
     presented itself to him.
    He turned and set out for the park security office in haste, where he showed his badge to a gray-haired man sitting at a long
     desk.
    “I’ll need to use your fax machine. Someone will fax something here,” he said, starting to copy the number.
    “No problem, Comrade Chief Inspector,” the gray-haired man said. “We know you.”

    He called Peiqin on his cell phone, wiping the sweat from his forehead. “Are you still at Jiao’s apartment, Peiqin?”
    “Yes, I’m leaving.”
    “Leave the key under the doormat when you go.”
    “What?”
    “Yes, and don’t tell anybody about it.”
    “No, I won’t.”
    “Fax your list to this number in five minutes.”
    “I will.”
    The moment he finished with Peiqin, he called Gu. “I need your car for the night. It’s a new Mercedes, right?”
    “It’s yours, it’s a Mercedes, 7 Series. Did you find out anything at the cocktail party, Chen?”
    “Have your chauffeur pick me up at Bund Park in ten to fifteen minutes. I’ll explain it all to you later, Gu. I appreciate
     all that you have been doing for me.”
    “You don’t have to explain anything to me, nor to thank me for it. What’s a friend for?”
    Since their first acquaintance during another a case somewhat related to the park, Gu had declared himself a friend to the
     chief inspector, and he acted like one too. A shrewd businessman, Gu might have seen Chen as a valuable connection. On several
     occasions, however, Gu had generously exerted himself.
    “whatever you are going to do,” Gu went on, “you aren’t doing it for yourself, that much I know.”
    Chief Inspector Chen was going to do something he had never done before, that was about all he knew. He had to be there himself —
     in Jiao’s room.
    It wasn’t like the visit to Mao’s room,