The Mao Case

Old Hunter’s cell phone rang. It was Chen. Without saying anything about his vacation, Chen went straight
     to the suspicious involvement of the special team from Beijing at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Among other things,
     Chen mentioned Shang’s passion for taking photographs, some of which might still be around, and Shang’s maid. It was a hurried
     call; Chen sounded guarded, as if nervous that the call was being tapped. He didn’t divulge the source of the information
     and hung up before Old Hunter had time to ask any questions.
    Still, Old Hunter managed to copy down the number from Beijing.
It was not Chen’s usual one. The phone call was clearly a tip on a direction Chen wanted him to follow here in Shanghai.
    Regarding the special team, Old Hunter had used up all his connections making inquiries, but got nothing. They came to Shanghai
     such a long time ago, and in such a secretive way.
    As for Shang’s pictures, he had also drawn a blank. It was trendy nowadays to collect old photographs — not just of Shang, but
     of other celebrities as well. whatever the case, he had no luck in finding pictures of or by Shang.
    So the only thing for him to do was to approach the maid. Possibly the same old woman who had visited Jiao in her apartment
     here.
    Consulting the Yellow Pages, he lost no time getting in touch with the orphanage. According to the secretary who answered
     the phone, there were records that people had visited Jiao years earlier, but there was no name or address of the visitor
     recorded.
    Still, it could have been Shang’s maid. In Suzhou opera, there were stories about such loyal, self-sacrificing maids.
    After several more phone calls, he managed to acquire some basic information about the maid, who was surnamed Zhong and now
     in her eighties. Instead of going back to the countryside after leaving Shang’s house hold, Zhong had stayed on in the city,
     alone, eking out a living on the “minimum allowance” of her registered city residence.
    Old Hunter put the small envelope of tea leaves back into his pocket. The owner of the hot-water house still remained behind
     the partition wall, indulging himself with a popular TV soap opera. For five cents per thermos bottle, the business was just
     an excuse to keep the place registered as business property — which would mean more generous compensation in the event of its
     being torn down for a new housing project. Lunch time was over and no one would pop in until dinnertime, when provincial workers
     might purchase hot water for their cold rice.
    Throwing ten cents on the table, Old Hunter left for a visit to Zhong.
    He had to take two buses before getting off at a stop close to San
guantang Bridge, which spanned the darksome water of Suzhou Creek. Zhong lived in Putou District, an area mixed with old slums,
     new skyscrapers, and ongoing concrete and steel constructions.
    Was Zhong going to tell him anything? He wasn’t going to approach her as a cop, as someone with authority, who could make
     her talk. He slowed down, thinking, in the small clearing under the beginning curve of the bridge, perhaps only about a couple
     of minutes away from the lane she lived in. He lit a cigarette.
    In a convenience store by the lane entrance, he bought a plastic bag of dried lychee. The end of the small lane brought him
     to an ancient two-story building. The black-painted door opened in to a narrow corridor littered with coal briquette stoves
     and bamboo baskets, and to a dark staircase leading up to an attic room. He fumbled for a while without finding a switch.
     So he groped up the stairs in the dark, the staircase creaking precariously underfoot, until he reached the top.
    The door opened without waiting for his knock. An old woman presented herself in the doorway, probably in her eighties, short
     and shrunk. In the light streaming down from the attic window, she looked like an ancient peasant woman from a backward village,
     wearing a gray towel around her hair and a string of Buddhist beads at her neck, and twirling a shorter string of beads in
     her right hand. Still, she appeared to be quite alert for her age.
    “What do you want with me?” she said, showing a frown on her deep-lined forehead.
    “Oh, you must be Auntie Zhong. I’m Old Yu,” he started with a rehearsed story. “Please forgive me for taking the liberty to
     visit you. For an old retiree like me, I have only one wish unfulfilled in this mundane