When Red is Black

riders who tore in and out of the lane all the time. The new onion-cake maker must have heard about the newspaper column. The first time Yin came to the booth to buy food, he refused to accept any money from her.
     
    Business was not bad. Lei soon had a local girl working with him, and she became his girlfriend. Nor did it take long for him to begin to plan to expand. In addition to the onion cakes, he began a lunchbox service, offering a variety of popular specialties such as pork steak, beef in oyster sauce, dry-fried belt fish, or Aunt Ma’s spicy tofu, each choice served on top of steamed rice, plus a small cup of hot and sour soup. Since his space was rent-free, Lei was able to provide fairly good food at low prices. The plastic boxes and disposable chopsticks especially appealed to white-collar workers from the new office buildings nearby. The fame of Lei’s lunch boxes spread. Customers had to stand waiting in long lines to order. He set up a second big coal stove at the lane entrance, and hired two provincial girls to help him.
     
    “In misfortune, there is a fortune; in fortune, there is a misfortune. That’s exactly what Laozi said in Tao Te Ching thousands of years ago,” Old Liang commented. “How true it is, even today, even for Lei in our lane.”
     
    “Someone with a new girlfriend and a fresh business plan,” Yu said, interrupting Old Liang’s narrative, “is unlikely to have murdered a neighbor.”
     
    Old Liang argued, “But he needs money more than ever for business expansion. Where can he get capital? Judging by his tax return, Lei hardly breaks even.”
     
    “Oh, his tax form. Have you talked to him about that?”
     
    “Yes, I have. He denied having anything to do with the murder, of course, but he offered no explanation about where he plans to get capital for expansion.”
     
    “What about his alibi?”
     
    “Lei starts the coal stove fires around five thirty every morning. Several people recall seeing him at work at the stoves that morning.”
     
    “So his alibi is solid.”
     
    “Still, I don’t think we can rule him out. He could have dashed back home for a minute or two. No one would have noticed. He keeps most of his supplies in the courtyard, or in his room, so he often goes back and forth.”
     
    “It’s possible,” Yu said. “Still, I think he must be grateful for Yin’s help. Her comment changed the course of his life.”
     
    “Gratitude from such a man? No, no way.” Old Liang shook his head vigorously. “In fact, there’s something else about him. Of all her neighbors, Lei alone has entered Yin’s room a couple of times to deliver lunch boxes. Heaven alone knows what he might have noticed there.”
     
    “You have a point, Old Liang. I’ll talk to him,” Yu said. “Now, the next one?”
     
    “As for the next one, his name is Cai. Not exactly a resident here, at least not registered as a resident. So you see, we have not excluded other possibilities.”
     
    “Okay, but why have you picked him out?”
     
    “It’s another long story.” Old Liang lit a cigarette for Yu, and then another for himself. “Cai is Xiuzhen’s husband. She and her mother, Lindi, and her brother Zhengming live in a room at the end of the north wing. When Cai and Xiuzhen got married, he ran one of the few private hotels in Jinan District and talked a lot about buying a high-class apartment.”
     
    “So he was a Mr. Big Bucks,” Yu said.
     
    “Perhaps, at the time. Xiuzhen was then only nineteen years old. Most people believed that she had made the right choice, even though Cai was eighteen years older, and had served several years in prison for gambling. On their honeymoon, they stayed in a suite in the hotel because he was registered at home with his mother in the slums in the Yangpu District. Cai did not have time to look for a new apartment, Xiuzhen explained to her neighbors.
     
    “But things with him were not as rose-colored as he had described them, she soon found out. The hotel business was in terrible shape, running into debt, and she was already pregnant. The rice is cooked, nothing that is done can be undone. When her baby was born, the prospect of moving into a nice apartment totally disappeared. Not long afterward, the hotel went out of business.
     
    “His slum home is in an area designated for a new housing project, where most the buildings had already been torn down. A few families have refused to move out unless their demands are met, and