The Mao Case

connections to
     Western media. Besides, if we push too hard, Jiao might act rashly, out of desperation.”
    “What can I do?”
    “You are going to approach Jiao from a different angle. Check her out, as well as the people associated with her, and more
     importantly, discover what was left by Shang and retrieve it —”
    “Hold on. What different angle?”
    “Well, whatever approach you think will work. Soft rather than tough, you know what I mean.”
    “No, I don’t. I’m no 007, Minister Huang.”
    “This is an assignment you can’t say no to, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen. Any slander against Mao, the founder of the Chinese
     Communist Party, will affect the legitimacy of our Party. This is a special task and, Comrade Zhao recommended you to me.
     Based on what Internal Security has learned, one possible approach would be through the parties she frequents. You can blend
     in, speaking your English or quoting your poetry.”
    “So I am to approach Jiao as anything but a cop —”
    “It’s in the interest of the Party.”
    “Comrade Zhao said that to me in another case,” Chen said, realizing that it was pointless for him to argue. “But there’s
     still no guarantee that Shang left anything behind.”
    “You don’t have to worry about that. You go ahead in whatever
manner you choose, and we trust you. I’ve already talked to your Party Secretary Li. He’s going to retire soon, you know.
     When this job is accomplished, you’ll advance to a position of greater responsibility.”
    It was an unmistakable hint, but was Chen looking forward to such a position of greater responsibility? Still, he knew he
     had no choice.
    Minister Huang said farewell and hung up. Chen closed the phone. When he moved back into the eatery, the noodles on the table
     were quite cold, the house special, greasy and gray on the surface of the urn, and the beer, stale and bubbleless. He had
     no appetite left.
    Auntie Yao hurried over, offering to warm up the noodles, which, having soaked so long in the soup, would taste like paste
     anyway.
    “No, thank you,” he said, shaking his head as he took out his wallet. Gang came limping over to Chen again.
    “Now I recognize you,” Gang said. “You used to live in the neighborhood, calling me Uncle Gang. Don’t you remember that?”
    “You are…?” Chen said, unwilling to admit he had long recognized him.
    “A successful man may not have a good memory,” Gang said with a fleeting gleam in his eyes. “I’ll take care of the leftovers
     for you.”
    “I’ve not touched anything — except the fish head,” Chen said.
    “I trust you,” Gang patted on his shoulder. “Now you’re somebody.” The smoked carp head stared at the two of them with its
     ghastly eyes.

TWO
    WHEN CHEN GOT BACK to his apartment, it was past eight.
    The room was a scene of desolation, as if corresponding to his state of mind: the bed unmade, the cup on the nightstand half
     empty, a mildew-covered orange pit in the ashtray looking like a mole — the mole on Mao’s chin.
    He pressed hard on the lid of the thermos bottle. Not a single drop of water came out. Putting the kettle on the stove, he
     hoped that a cup of good tea might help to clear his head.
    But what first came to mind was, unexpectedly, a fragmented image of Ling serving tea in a Beijing quadrangle house, her fingers
     breaking and strewing petals into his teacup, standing by the paper window in a white summer dress, silhouetted against the
     night like a flowering pear tree…
    The news of her marriage wasn’t entirely unexpected. She wasn’t to blame, he told himself again; she couldn’t help being the
     daughter of a Politburo member.
    No more than he could help being a cop at heart.

    He willed himself to focus on the waiting work, pressing a fist against his left cheek, as if battling a toothache. He didn’t
     want to conduct an investigation concerning Mao, even indirectly. Mao’s portrait still hung high on the gate of Tiananmen
     Square, and it could be a political suicide for a Party member cop to be even tangentially associated with the skeleton
     of Mao’s private life.
    Chen took out a piece of paper and was trying to scribble something down to help him think, when Party Secretary Li called.
    “Minister Huang told me about your special assignment. Don’t worry about your work at the bureau,” Li said. “And you don’t
     have to tell me anything about it.”
    “I don’t know what to say, Party