“So that was the end of your affair?” Yu asked.

“Yes. He never contacted me again.”

“Just one more question: Was Wu Xiaoming seeing somebody else when you parted with him?”

“I was not sure, but there were other girls at those parties.”

“Did you know someone named Guan Hongying among them?”

“No. Guan Hongying-isn’t she the national model worker? Heavens.”

Yu took a picture of Guan out of his pocket. “Do you recognize her?”

“Yes, I think so. I saw her only once at Wu’s place. I remember her because she clung to him all the evening, but I did not know her name at the time. Wu did not introduce her to anybody.”

“Wu certainly would not have done that,” he said. “Do you know anything else about her?”

“No, that’s all.” She fumbled in her bag and found a handkerchief.

“Contact me if you can think of anything, Comrade Ning.”

“I will.” She then added, “You won’t tell other people?”

“I’ll try my best,” he said.

She accompanied him to the door, her face streaked with tears, her head hung low, no longer the hostile antagonist of an hour ago, her hands nervously pulling again at the lower edge of her oversized T-shirt.

Detective Yu had succeeded in bluffing her and getting information he had not expected. But he was not elated. Ning, too, was a victim.

He began the long walk home. The new facts, instead of diminishing the puzzle, seemed to add to its complexity.

What an HCC monster! So many women in his life. Even in his most intimate moments with a woman, Wu had not forgotten to take those horrible pictures for his ulterior purpose. But what was the point of conquering so many women if there was no future with any of them? What was the point?

There had been only one woman in Yu’s life-Peiqin. But Yu was a happy man because of it.

Was there a woman in Chief Inspector Chen’s life? There had been one-according to Jiang-in Beijing, years earlier. Yu had never heard anything about it, but it was said that of late there was a female often seen in Chen’s company. According to the bureau housing committee, however, there was no one. Otherwise Chen would surely have tried to make a point of it when applying for an apartment.

Even Jiang seemed to have a soft spot for the chief inspector. At least she changed her attitude abruptly because of his note. The fact that Chen had recognized her in the picture also intrigued him. Nothing but her bare back showed in that photograph. Was it the black mole on the nape of her neck that had revealed her identity to him?

Could there be something between the two? Immediately Yu hoped he was wrong. He had come to think of Chen as a friend. It was time for Chen to settle down, but not with somebody as modern as Jiang.

It was Chief Inspector Chen’s fifth day in Guangzhou. He had awakened to find a note on the nightstand. It was just an address with a short line underneath it.

Xie Rong. 60 Xinhe Road, #543.

You will find her there. Have a wonderful day.

Ouyang

Xinhe Road was not one of the main streets. Walking past a run-down Turkish bathhouse with a pasty-faced girl in the doorway and a pretentious coffee shop with several computers on the glass-topped tables beside a sign saying “Electronic Mails,” Chief Inspector Chen reached a tall building at the address given him.

Old and dilapidated, the building was neither an office building, nor was it residential. Yet, there was a doorman sitting there, sorting mail at the entrance desk. He stared up at Chen over his reading glasses. When Chen showed him the address, the doorman pointed at the elevator.

Chen waited for about ten minutes without seeing any sign of the elevator coming down. He was about to climb the stairs when the elevator arrived with a thud. It appeared even more ancient than the building itself, but it carried him to the fifth floor and bobbed to a stop.

As he stepped through the squeaking door, he had a weird feeling of stepping into an old movie from the thirties. Song Girl-he recalled its name. There was a narrow corridor, smelling of dead cigars, lined with a number of suspiciously closed doors, as if General Yan of the movie, still wrapped in scarlet silk pajamas, would pop out of a door in the next minute to take a bouquet of roses from a flower girl. The flower girl had been played by Zhou Xuan, so breathtaking in those days.

Chief Inspector Chen knocked at the door marked 543.

“Who is it?” a young girl’s voice called out.

“Chen Cao, Mr. Ouyang’s friend.”

“Come on in. The door is not locked.”

Pushing the door open, he found himself in a room with a half drawn velvet curtain. The room contained little in the way of furniture: a double bed, a large mirror on the wall just above the headboard, a towel-covered sofa, a nightstand, and a couple of chairs.

Propped up on cushions, a young girl was reclining on the sofa, reading a paperback. She wore a blue-striped bathrobe that showed most of her thighs; her bare feet dangled over the sofa arm. On the coffee table was a crystal ashtray with lipstick-marked cigarette butts.

“So you are Chen Cao.”

“Yes, has Ouyang told you about me?”

“Sure, you’re special, he’s told me, but it’s a bit early for me, I am afraid,” she said, moving to a sitting position. “My name is Xie Rong.” She got to her feet, not embarrassed as she straightened her robe.

“I should have called first, but-”

“That’s okay,” she said. “A distinguished customer is always welcome.”

“I don’t know what Ouyang has told you, but let’s have a talk.”

“Take a seat.” She gestured toward the chair beside the bed. He hesitated before sitting. The room smelled of strong spirits, cigarette smoke, cheap cosmetics, and something faintly suggestive of body odor.

Walking barefoot across the carpet, she poured some coffee from an electronic coffee pot, and handed him a cup on a Fuzhou lacquered tray.

“Thanks,” he said. Chief Inspector Chen was in for something he had not expected, or not even imagined, he realized. Maybe that was why Ouyang had left the address with no explanation. A poet searching for a young girl in a large city could have appeared suspiciously “romantic”-enough for Ouyang to bring him and the girl together in a flight of best-seller fantasy. There was no use blaming Ouyang, who had meant well.

“So let’s get on with it.” She climbed onto the bed, sitting there, her arms folded across her knees, studying him intensely, in a posture rather suggestive of a Burmese cat. It was not a repulsive association. In a way, she reminded him of someone.

“A first-timer, eh?” she said, misreading his silence.”Don’t be nervous.”

“No, I’ve come here to-”

“What about something to relax you first? A Japanese massage-a foot massage-to start with?”

“A foot massage-” he echoed. A foot massage. He had read about it in a Japanese novel. One of Mishima’s, perhaps. Something of an existentialist experience, though he had never liked Mishima. But it was a temptation. He would probably never come here again. Whether he was stepping over the line he had drawn for himself, he did not know. It was too late, however, for him to back out-unless he flashed his I.D. and started questioning her as a chief inspector.

But would that work? To Xie Rong, as well as to other ordinary Chinese people, HCC like Wu Xiaoming led an existence far above them, and above the law, too. So it was quite likely she would not dare to say anything against Wu. If she refused to answer his questions, Chief Inspector Chen could not do much in Guangzhou. One thing he had learned in the past few days was the unreliability of his local colleagues.

“Why not?” he said, flashing a few bills.

“What a generous tip! Put it on the nightstand. Let’s go to the bathroom.”