Amah Jiejie was waiting outside in Colonel Tan’s old Red Flag limousine, accompanied by two hard-bitten members of Tan’s elite security squad, all of whom were selected from the colonel’s former mountain commando brigade. The driver was the sergeant who had driven Shan from Tan’s hospital back to Zhongje. Beside him was a lieutenant who had served with Tan for so many years, his own face held a hint of the silent snarl that was Tan’s defining feature. Amah Jiejie had adorned her severe grey business suit with three military medals. She did not hesitate at Shan’s proposal when he had called her, did not even suggest any need to contact Tan.
As Shan slipped into the rear seat beside her, there was a flurry of movement and the door swung back open. Judson and Hannah Oglesby climbed in, pushing down the jump seats, expectant gazes fixed on Shan. He quickly introduced them to Amah Jiejie, who had laughed when he explained his proposal for getting inside Longtou. The Deputy Secretary himself had expressed the wish that the Americans could visit the showcase prison, and no prison would refuse a request from Colonel Tan, a renowned prison overseer himself, for a special delegation to visit. Tan’s word would get them past the walls, and the visiting American dignitaries would be Shan’s cover once they were inside.
* * *
The prison guards responded like obedient sons as they escorted Tan’s senior civilian aide and her guests through the three separate security gates leading into Longtou Prison. Tan’s two soldiers brought up the rear, part of Amah Jiejie’s own cover, and looked in great curiosity at the smoldering hulk of a military truck that had apparently caught fire near the inner gate.
The Deputy Warden was a small, round man with a puffy face who seemed well accustomed to hosting visitors. Beijing had reacted to Western criticism of its prison system not with reform but by establishing public affairs units at the more conspicuous prisons, managed by well-trained senior officers. “Ours is a state-of-the-art facility,” the Deputy Warden boasted after tea had been served in a reception hall lined with overstuffed chairs. “All the modern techniques are practiced here.” Shan’s eyes were on the chamber, not their host. The large room had been painted and fitted with the usual framed posters of joyous factory workers waving wrenches and hammers, but the walls spoke of a time before the prison. Large stains reached up from a line four feet high. The room had once been lined with altars, and the residue from their lamps was seeping through the paint.
As the stout officer delivered his well-rehearsed speech, he fixed each of his visitors in turn with a hollow smile, pausing uncertainly over the two mountain troops. “We have the honor of being responsible for the rehabilitation of fourteen hundred and fifty fellow citizens who have accepted the need to adjust their relationship with the motherland.” As the words slipped off his tongue, the Deputy Warden’s gaze kept returning to the Americans.
“The role of Longtou in helping to reshape reactionaries is one of Tibet’s shining beacons,” he continued. “Our facilities excel in cleanliness, on-time production, and participation in voluntary patriotic activities.”
Longtou, Shan knew, held what Public Security called high-value prisoners, prisoners who might cause particular discomfort for the state if they escaped, so no work details left the prison grounds. And no one would escape through the three perimeters of barbed wire, razor wire, and high stone wall.
Shan discovered that Amah Jiejie was staring at him. She held his gaze for a moment, then turned to their host. “Surely we will be able to witness the wonders of your facility. You must be aware that Colonel Tan’s camps in Lhadrung have the highest inmate count in all of Tibet. No doubt you can teach us valuable lessons.”
“Of course!” The Deputy Warden beamed. “We will be showing you our crown jewel, the pride of the entire correctional system. Afterwards, there will be a luncheon.” He stood and gestured his visitors to a door at the end of the chamber, then escorted them down a long corridor with windows that opened onto the prisoner exercise yard. Rows of frail men in faded grey prison uniforms waited for the orders that would allow them to walk in turn their assigned rounds of the yard.
Someone nudged him. He had not realized he had stopped at a window, unable to take his eyes off the haggard prisoners. Amah Jiejie pushed him on, then hesitated at the window herself. She had a brother in the desert gulag.
They arrived in an antechamber that had been constructed against the wall of a massive stone building. Beyond the inner door came hissing and metallic rumbles, sounds of machinery. The Deputy Warden waited until their small group had gathered beside the door before opening it with a dramatic flair. “The pride of the entire system!” he repeated as a wave of heat and acrid chemical smells washed over them.
A man wearing a white lab coat over a white shirt and tie greeted them. His smile faded as he saw the Americans, but as the Deputy Warden whispered into his ear, his smile, now forced, returned. “Ask about production rates,” their stout guide urged his guests before excusing himself to finish arrangements for lunch. “Every unit is blessed by patriotic fervor.”
They were led past mixing stations where buckets of chemicals were poured into large vats that fed into stainless steel pipes. The prisoners who handled the chemicals—Tibetans whose clothes and skin bore dark stains—did not look up.
“What the hell is this place?” Judson muttered to Shan, who had no answer.
The antechamber, Shan realized, had been the entry hall to a spacious sanctuary. No effort had been made to erase the murals that once adorned its high walls. Pipes supported by steel struts penetrated the eye of a magnificent ten-foot-high painting of the Compassionate Buddha. A pipe extending from the wall pierced the abdomen of a fading dakini goddess.
Shan was vaguely aware of the guide’s commentary as he gazed at a line of protective deities who appeared to be fighting against the struts and bolts that pinned them to the wall. The equipment had been recycled from a plant in Chengdu, he heard their guide say, trucked in a special convoy straight to Longtou. A web of pipes divided and fed into great metal blocks positioned on carts under valves, hoses, and instrument dials. They followed such a cart with its block into the next, even larger chamber. Shan realized the blocks were molds, and with a look of smug anticipation, the man in the lab coat hurried them to a workstation where the mold was being opened. A human figure cast in fiberglass emerged.
Shan’s gut turned to ice.
“Fuck me,” Judson whispered. Amah Jiejie cast an anxious glance at Shan. The old monks and lamas, imprisoned by Beijing, were being forced to produce fiberglass statues of Chairman Mao.
There had been speeches on town squares all over Tibet—always the same speech—in which local officials solemnly proclaimed that the Party was Tibet’s new Buddha, then unveiled such a statue of Mao, usually on the same spot where the town’s traditional image of Buddha had sat for centuries. An old Tibetan stepped forward, holding a large file to smooth out the rough edges of the molded statue. He had the kind, open face of a lama, but it was scarred and stained from the hot fiberglass that spilled out of the molds. Shan wanted to weep.
Judson appeared at his shoulder again. “You couldn’t make this up,” he said. “What a country.”
“At lunch,” Shan reminded him. They had reviewed his plan the night before. “I have to disappear for a while. Keep them thinking this is about you, about impressing our American guests.”
A mischievous grin crossed Judson’s face, and he nodded.
Shan let himself be pushed along, past prisoners who polished away all blemishes on the face of the Great Helmsman, into the final production chamber, where still more prisoners painted the statues with airbrushes. Some of the figures were coated with textured paint for the appearance of granite, others bronzed, still others painted with shades of flesh, hair, and clothing for a more lifelike rendition. Their guide motioned them to follow a forklift through a set of double doors. They were in a warehouse where plastic Maos stared unblinking from row after row of shelves.
Amah Jiejie put her arm on Shan’s and led him away as if she sensed he might collapse.
The private dining room where their lunch awaited was on the far side of a huge mess hall where at least five hundred prisoners ate bowls of gruel. Not one of the prisoners looked up. The unsettling silence, enforced by guards wielding truncheons, was broken only by the rattle of spoons on bowls. As soon as the door to their dining chamber closed behind them, Amah Jiejie nudged Shan to look at the clock. He paused at the waiting buffet long enough to furtively grab a momo dumpling, then met her at the door. Twenty steps down the long hall, he turned to see the stone-faced commando officer from Lhadrung following them.
“Just looking for lavatories,” he tried.
The lieutenant frowned as if disappointed in Shan’s excuse. “I have my orders. Colonel Tan said to see you safely inside and assure your safe return. Which means I stay beside you. I couldn’t care less about the bastards who run this chemical factory. Do what you want. I am here to get you out when it is time.” The officer looked to Amah Jiejie, who nodded her approval, then motioned Shan forward.
Dolma waited where she had promised, inside the open door of a utility closet at the end of the corridor. The former nun shrank away when she saw the soldier.
“Please,” Shan said. “I have only one chance.” He tried to force more confidence into his voice than he felt. “The lieutenant does not work here. He is a ghost. Ignore him.”
Dolma instead studied the officer, then Amah Jiejie whispered into her ear and a sly smile crossed her face. “We won’t ignore him. We will do the opposite,” she said, then from her apron extracted a small tsa tsa, one of the little high ceramic saints made in Yamdrok. The officer’s stony expression did not change as she tucked it inside his tunic pocket. She began urgently speaking to the man. After a minute, she gestured Shan inside the closet, where he changed into prisoner garb, stuffing the dumpling into his shirt, while she found an empty bucket and began tossing objects into it from the shelves. Pliers. A hammer. Wire. A rubber tube. A small bottle of bleach.
The lieutenant said nothing as Dolma guided them down the two flights of stairs that led to the isolation cells. They had made a terrible mistake! a voice shouted inside Shan. Never trust a soldier. A quick word from the lieutenant could send Shan into the prison population with no record to account for him. He paused at the last flight of stairs, leading into musty shadows. He had never been so reckless, but he had also never been so desperate. He turned to Amah Jiejie. “If something happens to me you have to tell my son.”
She replied with a small somber nod, then stood in the hall as they proceeded toward the cell blocks.
When they reached the iron bars of the entrance to the isolation cells, Dolma patted the lieutenant on the arm as if in encouragement. He stepped to the gate. “Cell Fourteen. Now,” the officer snapped to the guard inside.
The guard opened the gate but blocked their progress. “I will need to see your orders.”
“My orders come from Colonel Tan, Governor of Lhadrung County,” the lieutenant growled. “They are not the kind you write down.” Shan kept his eyes on the floor, not having to conceal his worry.
“What do you want with the old man?”
“This one”—the lieutenant jerked a thumb toward Shan—“is not cooperating. We discovered the old man is a friend of his.”
Dolma extended the bucket to the lieutenant. “Please. I cannot. I am just on the cleaning crew.”
“And there will be much to clean up,” the lieutenant snapped, and pointed her toward the cells.
A thin smile grew on the guard’s face as he looked into the bucket and saw the familiar tools. Collateral manipulation might be the new euphemism for it, as Tan had explained, but surrogate interrogation had been part of Public Security manuals for years. For many Tibetan prisoners, direct torture was unsuccessful, but they almost always broke down when someone they cared about was tortured in front of them. The guard stepped aside then, as if in afterthought, extracted an electric cattle prod from a wall rack and handed it to the lieutenant.
The only light in the cell came from the naked bulb hanging in the corridor. The lieutenant, still showing no expression, spun about and positioned himself as a sentry by the heavy wooden door.
Lokesh lay on his side, facing the rear wall. Shan steadied himself against the stench and stepped inside. On the walls were images Shan had seen in many isolation cells in Tibet—crude drawings of deities and mantras inscribed in blood, porridge, sometimes even feces.
He dropped to his knees and with a trembling hand touched his friend’s shoulder. For a brief, horrible moment he thought the worst when Lokesh did not respond, then the old man slowly sat up, blinking, and then staring with an empty expression. He jabbed Shan with a finger to confirm he was no ghost.
Shan’s heart leapt. Despite his nightmares, Lokesh was alive. His teacher, his confessor, the bedrock of his life was alive. Shan desperately needed the steady soothing voice that had become a salve to his battered soul.
But when Lokesh spoke, his voice was cracked and hoarse. He leaned into Shan’s shoulder. “I am ashamed of my life,” the old Tibetan groaned. “What have I done with it?”
You’ve worked miracles, Shan wanted to say, considering that more than half your life has been spent in Beijing’s prisons for the crime of being in the Dalai Lama’s government. But the emotion that welled up proved too much for speech. He wrapped his arms around Lokesh, pressing the old man’s head more firmly into his shoulder, and felt tears washing his cheeks.
Shan became aware that Dolma was in the cell beside him. She took charge, setting the slop bucket outside the door, then folding the tattered blanket and setting Lokesh’s tin cup and bowl on the short stool by the door. She knelt beside Lokesh and from inside her apron produced a vial of antiseptic, a swath of gauze, and a water bottle filled with a dark brown liquid. With a matronly air, she gently pried Lokesh from Shan’s arms. As she leaned him against the wall in a pool of light, Lokesh and then Shan groaned.
The old Tibetan’s eye was still swollen, almost shut. Blood from a dozen cuts was caked and dried on his face and arms. The finger that was splinted was discolored. On a rock that jutted out from the wall, Shan saw a tooth.
“A medicine tea,” Dolma explained as she opened the bottle of brown liquid. “A very old recipe used by the doctors of the old abbey.” Shan and Lokesh both stared at her with vacant expressions.
Dolma shook Shan’s shoulder. “We’ve all seen worse,” she reminded him. “Time is short.”
Shan stirred from his paralysis and began unrolling the gauze as the former nun produced half a dozen pills for Lokesh to swallow with the tea. She worked efficiently, using the gauze to swab the wounds with antiseptic. She was savvy in the way of prisons. The former nun did not try to apply bandages, for Lokesh’s prison handlers would consider them to be interference with their work. She invoked the Compassionate Buddha with the mani mantra as she worked, and Lokesh’s face began to regain color, his familiar crooked smile gradually returning.
“I almost forgot,” Shan said, reaching into his shirt for the momo dumpling.
Lokesh bowed his head as he accepted the dumpling, but then set it on the floor in the corner of his cramped cell and clucked his tongue. The head of a mouse emerged from a hole in the mortar. It was a gesture Shan had often seen during his imprisonment. Starving lamas would choose to gain spiritual merit instead of eating.
Shan waited for the mouse to take a bite, then he lifted the momo and broke it in half, setting one piece on the floor. “I am sure your new friend wishes to show compassion for you as well,” he said, and extended the second half to Lokesh. The old man smiled again and began chewing.
He seemed to regain his strength quickly. He took another bite and looked up. “I didn’t tell them anything, Shan. I would never tell them.”
Shan gazed at his friend in confusion. “But they hold you only to intimidate me.”
Lokesh gave a hoarse laugh and chewed more of the momo.
It was Shan’s turn to be silent. The old Tibetan was a treasure, a storehouse of tradition but also of secrets. They had spent much of the past few years together, but every few weeks, Lokesh would leave for days at a time, explaining only that he was on personal pilgrimage.
“I must know, Rinpoche,” Shan said, using the term for “revered teacher.” “What did they ask you?”
“A Chinese woman from Religious Affairs came with a lightning bolt on her collar. Wu was her name. She said it wasn’t too late, that they could still open the door and I could return to my life.”
“If you told them what?”
“About nuns. About poems. About the Tiger’s Lair.”
“Taktsang?”
“They have a Lotus Book there, Shan, one of the biggest ones in Tibet. Many volumes.”
Shan’s mind raced. The Lotus Book was a living, ever-expanding compilation of histories and lives from old Tibetans, and testimonies about the scores of thousands who had died.
“There is a nun named Dawa who they think is organizing the immolations.”
Lokesh finished his dumpling before replying. “A good death poem,” he observed, “is the story of a life.”
Something cold touched Shan’s spine. “Lokesh, how could you know anything about the immolations?”
The old Tibetan looked down at the mouse hole. “That woman Wu didn’t understand when I thanked her for putting me in this cell.”
Shan hesitated, uneasy at the way Lokesh’s eyes went out of focus, aimed toward the wall. “I heard it in the night. An ancient mantra, a dead mantra. Held in the stones for all these years and echoing across time. Spoken by a monk who sat in this cell centuries ago.”
“A dream, Lokesh.”
The old man gave another hoarse laugh then reached for his tin prisoner’s bowl and flipped it over. The bottom was shiny from being rubbed for hours on the stone wall. “A dream and not a dream. He told me it was here, if I could only pierce the illusion.”
“I don’t understand,” Shan said, then realized Lokesh had turned the bowl to reflect the light from the corridor over Shan’s shoulder.
Dolma gasped. Lokesh laughed again.
On the wall over the door, the darkest place in the cell, now illuminated by the makeshift mirror, was an intricate circular mandala, four handbreadths wide. Inside it were patterns of symbols and images Shan did not recognize.
“It was not visible through the grime. I used my water ration to uncover it.”
Dolma began a hurried prayer under her breath, wonder on her face.
“I still don’t understand,” Shan said.
“The deity grows stronger and stronger, coming back to help Tibetans at last. I smelled scorched rubber yesterday.”
Dolma’s eyes went wide. “An army truck burned near the gate.”
Lokesh grinned. “I knew it! He’s awakened after all these years! He reached out to me!”
Shan stared at the mandala, struggling to make sense of his friend’s words. “Who awoke?” he asked.
Lokesh pointed to the center of the mandala, where a god rode a ram. “Don’t you see? It’s Agni, Shan! The fire god!”
* * *
Shan steeled himself as he approached the immaculate two-story building reserved for Party members. The pillared entrance was flanked by planters of dying flowers. In the parking lot were several limousines and black utility vehicles. Hanging from poles along the back of the lot, a banner read GLORY TO THE COMMUNIST PARTY, PROTECTOR OF THE MOTHERLAND. In eastern cities, the banner might have been a city block long.
A Tibetan groundskeeper looked up as Shan passed by. A Tibetan woman sweeping the entry paused and bowed her head. At the desk inside the front lobby, a young Chinese woman made a quick assessment of Shan and frowned. “I am afraid access is only for those of the Party.”
“There should be a sign,” Shan suggested. “Members only.” The woman’s stern expression did not change. He pointed to his armband. “Surely you’re not suggesting the government would select someone outside the Party as a Commissioner.”
She murmured something that may have been an apology and pushed a button to release the inner door. He stepped into a large chamber furnished with soft sofas and upholstered chairs grouped in squares on elegant Tibetan carpets. Half a dozen officials lounged in the room, reading newspapers and books from shelves that ran the length of one wall. Attendants carried trays of tea and snacks. Arranged along the walls were familiar posters depicting valiant struggles of the proletariat, interspersed with framed quotes of the Great Helmsman. A pair of posters at the end of the room was highlighted by soft spotlights. POLITICS IS WAR WITHOUT BLOOD, said one. A REVOLUTION IS NOT A DINNER PARTY, stated the other.
Shan passed along the shelves. Every Party reading room had the same prescribed collection of books. He could have recited the titles of half the volumes. Mao on Guerilla Warfare. Mao on Contradiction. Reports on every Five-Year Plan and every plenary Congress since the birth of the People’s Republic.
He lingered long enough at a light buffet bar to sample a spring roll. Printed on the napkins were verses from Mao, written in the indefatigable Chairman’s nearly illegible hand. He glanced into two private dining rooms, confirming they were empty, then climbed the carpeted stairs, past a vacant reception hall and out onto the roof terrace. Heinrich Vogel sat alone at a table, reading the English-language China Times. Shan slipped into the chair beside him.
Vogel reacted very slowly. He seemed to finish the article that had his attention before lowering the paper to acknowledge him with a cool smile. “Comrade Shan.”
Shan spoke in a low, conversational tone. “They say that Tibet is the farthest place you can go and still be on the planet,” he observed, speaking English. “No doubt an interesting journey from Leipzig.”
“An utterly fascinating journey,” Vogel replied, lifting his glass to toast Shan. He drank half the glass, then refilled it from a can at his side. Coca-Cola.
“If I am not mistaken, Leipzig was in the eastern sector. The German Democratic Republic. But surely you are not old enough to have served in that government.”
“Most perceptive. Yes. I was in the foreign service of the GDR. Very junior. Carried the laundry for ambassadors, you might say.”
“Which makes you what? A communist German?”
Vogel seemed amused. “A diplomat with a special capacity for appreciating the Chinese perspective.” He produced a small tobacco pipe, a rarity in China, and Shan watched with interest as he filled it from a small leather pouch and held a lighter to it. “You know I am from Leipzig. All I know about you is that you are a reformed criminal who once served high ranks of the government in Beijing. Now there’s a journey that’s farther still,” Vogel said with a level gaze. He had lines around his eyes. His well-groomed hair showed hints of silver that Shan had not noticed before.
“Your smoke is scented,” Shan observed. “Tibetans use such smoke to call in the gods. Some say no one can lie when they are wrapped in fragrant smoke.”
“Reformed criminal,” Vogel repeated. “Such a mouthful.”
“Such an obsolete term!” came a deep voice behind them. In this particular case, the smoke had summoned a demon. Deputy Secretary Pao set a small glass in front of Shan and sat down, sipping from his own glass while carefully eyeing him. “Refocused public servant! A graduate of one of our best finishing schools, the 404th. This man is a socialist hero, Heinrich!”
Shan fought the impulse to flee.
“What wonderful timing!” Pao exclaimed. “Drink, Comrade Shan! Our friend Heinrich has recently sworn off alcohol, but I love to taunt him. I can see his self-righteousness burn brighter each time I swallow!” Pao drained his glass and sighed. “French brandy. There’s a distillery in Fukien Province that claims to make the stuff, but theirs is like kerosene compared to this.” He held his empty glass out in the sunlight, studying the resin left on its sides. “French brandy in Tibet! Internationalism is no longer a plague—it is our glory, our destiny!” He spoke toward the other tables. Even on a rooftop bar, he could not refrain from making speeches.
Pao placed a hand with two gold rings on Shan’s arm. “And this man, Heinrich, this most energetic member of our Commission, is our unpolished gem. His modesty knows no bounds. When I ask about him in Beijing, I hear of the famed Inspector Shan who relentlessly purged the ranks of corruption, whose clever ways were too much for even the shrewdest criminals. Special investigator for the Council of Ministers. An impossible job. A thoroughly wrongheaded concept.” He playfully shook Shan’s arm. “Of course you slipped. Who wouldn’t slip from such a tightrope?”
Vogel leaned closer to Shan as if to see him better.
“But look at him!” Pao pressed. “Emerged from his reeducation a better man, the perfect servant to the people.”
“The best ditch inspector for miles and miles,” Shan suggested.
Pao’s laugh was so loud, the other patrons stopped to look. “All history. That is behind you, Shan. What a treasure you are. I could name half a dozen posts in Lhasa you’d be a perfect fit for.” As the Deputy Secretary lifted his empty glass toward a waitress, Shan saw something new, a scar on the back of his cheek like a lopsided V.
“You knew each other before the Commission,” Shan stated. He glanced back at the scar. Something about it nagged him.
It was not the reply Pao expected. He quieted. “The circle of those in international affairs is small. And of course I would want to have had some personal knowledge of the senior international representative on the Commission. Heinrich and I have attended some of the same conferences. Hong Kong. Singapore, I recollect.”
Suddenly Shan remembered Kai’s final motion before passing into unconsciousness on his infirmary bed. Shan had asked about who had spoken with him in Lhasa, and he had made a checkmark near his ear. “And Macau,” he added.
The German smiled, but Shan did not miss the worried glance he shot at Pao. “So many conferences. Who can remember them all?” the Commissioner said.
“I hear the Garden Princess Hotel is memorable. Captain Lu enjoyed it so.”
Vogel wrinkled his brow. “Lu?”
Shan shrugged. “You forget I am from Lhadrung. A small backwater. To have an officer from our county government attend was such an honor. The local paper had an article.” Shan nodded at Pao. “The Deputy Secretary was the star, delivered the keynote address. Of course, Lu would just have been a face in the crowd to dignitaries such as yourselves.”
Pao accepted another brandy and downed half of it. “A promising officer, I seem to recall. Lhadrung must be very proud of him.”
“His funeral was well attended. A traffic accident, I heard.”
Pao sighed. “A loss to the motherland.”
Vogel puffed on his pipe and gazed out over the mountains to the east and pointed to the junction of two peaks, miles away. “When the sun is just right, a rock glows brilliant white in that high pass.” He seemed eager to change the subject.
“Not a rock,” Shan corrected. “A chorten, a very old shrine.” He pointed to the next pass, and the next, making an arc that swept the horizon. “Every pass has a chorten to house a protective god. They tame the demons that sometimes rise up out of the earth and watch over what goes on below. Tibetans say they may act very slowly, but eventually they find a way to right all wrongs in the lands below.”
Pao saluted Shan with his glass. “You humble us, comrade. If only everyone had your appetite for cultural knowledge. Have you ever considered a job in Religious Affairs?”
* * *
Confident that Vogel and Pao were finished with their workday, Shan hurried back to the Commission offices. He watched from down the corridor as Choi and Zhu exited, then waited until their elevator door closed before heading to one of the small back offices reserved for use by Commissioners. A secretary glanced at him, saw his armband, and returned to watching a clock.
He extracted the card for Detective P. L. Neto and dialed the number in Macau.
“Neto,” came the answer on the third ring.
“My name is Shan, calling from Lhasa,” Shan began. “I am investigating someone involved in the Sanoh Kubati case.”
“Lhasa. Mountains. Lamas. Ever see a yeti?” The man spoke with a peculiar accent, slurring syllables at the end of his words.
“Sanoh Kubati,” Shan repeated.
“Never heard the name.”
Shan read the case number Lu had written on the card.
“Never had this phone call.”
Now he was getting somewhere. “I am going to tell you a story, Detective Neto. You tell me if I am a liar. A casino dealer who moonlights as a sex worker is found dead in an alley near the Garden Princess Hotel, where a conference of government officials is being held. She was last seen going upstairs with someone from the conference. A very important person. They were drunk. Things got rough. No one saw her alive again.”
“I don’t know who you are.”
“Neto,” Shan said. “What kind of name is that?”
“Not Chinese, if that’s what you mean. You called Macau, comrade. Read some history. It’s been fifteen years since we joined China, but before that we were Portuguese for four hundred. I am what they call a White Chinese.”
Shan struggled with the accent. “Can we speak English?”
“Sure,” Neto said, switching languages. “I like you better already.”
“You didn’t call me a liar.”
“Maybe I don’t know the word in Chinese. Why would you call from Lhasa about some dead whore in Macau?”
“This is the land of the lamas. We like to discover impossible truths and contemplate them.”
“Come to Macau, and I can cure you of that.”
“You didn’t call me a liar,” Shan repeated. “Deputy Secretary Pao wouldn’t take well to questioning.”
“After five minutes, he was asking how I would feel about a career cleaning out shitpots on some Chinese fishing boat.”
“She was raped. But you didn’t do any DNA workup of the rapist.”
“I am going to hang up.”
“I was a friend of Captain Lu. He died under mysterious circumstances.”
The words brought a long pause. “Sometimes,” Neto said at last, “the real mystery is how certain people stay alive as long as they do.” He hung up.