Read Online The Shanghai Murders - A Mystery of Love and Ivory by David Rotenberg - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: David Rotenberg
Ads: Link
Shanghai is to grow and prosper it is,” said a middle-aged Chinese voice. It was affirmed by an American twang.
Once more there were murmurs of assent.
“How can a culture love animals so much?” the old man thought for the thousandth time. He remembered seeing a picture of a German concentration camp commandant tenderly petting a dog while in the background, the dead and the dying were kept behind wire. Like the Japanese at Kwongjo, he thought. Sentimentality is a dangerous thing.
Insurance like that which he had set in motion with the Canadian director was its antidote.
He noted again that the room was waiting for him. It was getting harder and harder to get enough air into his lungs to speak. The operation had greatly drained his powers. Gulping deeply, he forced out, “Then let us authorize a second message.”Beneath the massive city, the fibre optic networks glimmered light. And faster than a thought an African man’s fate was sealed.
Being a black man in China was like being an extremely expensive pet tiger who refused to wear its leash. The Chinese all stared at you but because you were supposed to be oppressed, like them, they didn’t gawk the way they did at white people. Ngalto Chomi, Zairian consul general, had everything a robust young male could ever ask for. An almost inexhaustible supply of money from his private and ever-so-confidential “importing” business, cars, women, and the crucial linchpin of diplomatic immunity. So Shanghai was a playland awaiting his tastes and proclivities. After six months of confinement in the Beijing embassy, constantly under the watch of the conservative ambassador, he had been transferred to the new consulate in Shanghai. He’d been sprung. No more Russians here, just Chinese and a few westerners. Not even many black people. It was a rare day that he encountered another black face on the streets. And he was on the streets of the city all the time. What a city! A candy store of infinite proportions that catered to all tastes, all curiosities. The Chinese were curious about him, too. He felt the eyes of the young women watching him as he moved past them on the crowded streets. He felt the envy as he slid into his sleek Mercedes with its Chinese chauffeur. He felt them—so many of them—all watching him.
The one person watching him that he didn’t pick out was a slight-figured Chinese man in a nicely tailored but unremarkable suit. He didn’t notice Loa Wei Fen. No one noticed Loa Wei Fen. But Loa Wei Fen was taking note of him, and carefully recording where he went and how long he stayed at each of his stops. Mr. Lo was still the lion cub on the roof, but with every passing day he was getting closer to the edge—to the leap onto that narrow strip.
The large African got back into his car, and Loa Wei Fen slid onto his bicycle. At this hour of the day, a bicycle could make as good time as a car. The large car pulled off Nanjing Road and headed south toward the Old City. Loa Wei Fen guessed he was going to the Old Shanghai Restaurant around the corner from the YuYuan Garden.
He was wrong. But he was close.
Signalling his driver to stop, Ngalto Chomi hopped out on Fang Bang Road just south and west of the popular garden. He was in the heart of the Old City. He liked it here. Here they stared at a black man, and here, he stared back at them. Here his six feet seven inches of height gave him a view of the world of the little people. The people who hacked and spat and called him very “colourful” names. The people who resented his presence. The people who knew so much about opium.
He grabbed a plastic bag of cut-up pineapple off one of the stands, threw down a ten-kwai note and, without waiting for the change, headed north on He Nan smiling and munching as he went. The day was clear but the Old City had its own thickness, not of heat but of intense human experience. Chomi loved it here.
The African’s turn off He Nan into Fu Yu surprised Loa Wei Fen. Fu Yu
Once more there were murmurs of assent.
“How can a culture love animals so much?” the old man thought for the thousandth time. He remembered seeing a picture of a German concentration camp commandant tenderly petting a dog while in the background, the dead and the dying were kept behind wire. Like the Japanese at Kwongjo, he thought. Sentimentality is a dangerous thing.
Insurance like that which he had set in motion with the Canadian director was its antidote.
He noted again that the room was waiting for him. It was getting harder and harder to get enough air into his lungs to speak. The operation had greatly drained his powers. Gulping deeply, he forced out, “Then let us authorize a second message.”Beneath the massive city, the fibre optic networks glimmered light. And faster than a thought an African man’s fate was sealed.
Being a black man in China was like being an extremely expensive pet tiger who refused to wear its leash. The Chinese all stared at you but because you were supposed to be oppressed, like them, they didn’t gawk the way they did at white people. Ngalto Chomi, Zairian consul general, had everything a robust young male could ever ask for. An almost inexhaustible supply of money from his private and ever-so-confidential “importing” business, cars, women, and the crucial linchpin of diplomatic immunity. So Shanghai was a playland awaiting his tastes and proclivities. After six months of confinement in the Beijing embassy, constantly under the watch of the conservative ambassador, he had been transferred to the new consulate in Shanghai. He’d been sprung. No more Russians here, just Chinese and a few westerners. Not even many black people. It was a rare day that he encountered another black face on the streets. And he was on the streets of the city all the time. What a city! A candy store of infinite proportions that catered to all tastes, all curiosities. The Chinese were curious about him, too. He felt the eyes of the young women watching him as he moved past them on the crowded streets. He felt the envy as he slid into his sleek Mercedes with its Chinese chauffeur. He felt them—so many of them—all watching him.
The one person watching him that he didn’t pick out was a slight-figured Chinese man in a nicely tailored but unremarkable suit. He didn’t notice Loa Wei Fen. No one noticed Loa Wei Fen. But Loa Wei Fen was taking note of him, and carefully recording where he went and how long he stayed at each of his stops. Mr. Lo was still the lion cub on the roof, but with every passing day he was getting closer to the edge—to the leap onto that narrow strip.
The large African got back into his car, and Loa Wei Fen slid onto his bicycle. At this hour of the day, a bicycle could make as good time as a car. The large car pulled off Nanjing Road and headed south toward the Old City. Loa Wei Fen guessed he was going to the Old Shanghai Restaurant around the corner from the YuYuan Garden.
He was wrong. But he was close.
Signalling his driver to stop, Ngalto Chomi hopped out on Fang Bang Road just south and west of the popular garden. He was in the heart of the Old City. He liked it here. Here they stared at a black man, and here, he stared back at them. Here his six feet seven inches of height gave him a view of the world of the little people. The people who hacked and spat and called him very “colourful” names. The people who resented his presence. The people who knew so much about opium.
He grabbed a plastic bag of cut-up pineapple off one of the stands, threw down a ten-kwai note and, without waiting for the change, headed north on He Nan smiling and munching as he went. The day was clear but the Old City had its own thickness, not of heat but of intense human experience. Chomi loved it here.
The African’s turn off He Nan into Fu Yu surprised Loa Wei Fen. Fu Yu
Similar Books
