construction of plain-looking concrete “workers’ homes” there in the sixties and seventies had hardly helped. There weren’t any well-known stores or attractions there, and with the terrible traffic congestion in the city, they had previously no reason to spend a couple of hours going there.
But Zhabei had changed a lot in recent years. As Yu and Peiqin stepped out of the subway, recently extended to this part of the city, they saw a number of new high-rises.
The overall impression was, however, singularly mixed. Just two or three blocks from an ultramodern skyscraper, they saw shabby side streets with dilapidated buildings, tiny lanes with sordid entrances, and scenes that they imagined were typical of the old neighborhood.
They approached a small family grocery store near the entrance of the lane in which Mrs. Liu had lived. To their surprise, Xiong, the owner of the store, a garrulous woman in her early fifties, claimed to know Mrs. Liu well, having been her childhood neighbor and friend. According to Xiong, Mrs. Liu came back quite regularly, though her parents had passed away. Her old home was unoccupied most of the time, with only occasional visitors staying there. Among her old neighbors, Mrs. Liu had plenty of face, having once invited a large group of them to a fancy restaurant. She also owned a high-end apartment in Xujiahui, one of the top areas in Shanghai, but she didn’t seem to go to that apartment often, and none of her old neighbors here had ever visited. Still, the very location of it spoke volumes about her wealth.
“You should see the way she plays mahjong-a hundred yuan a game, not including tips. It’s as if she was printing money at home,” Xiong said, in proud excitement.
“She comes all the way back here to play mahjong? Does she lose a lot too?”
“She won’t bankrupt herself on a mahjong table. You don’t have to worry about that. For a woman, having a good husband is far more important than having a good job,” Xiong concluded. “She always has an eye for men. In the early years, Liu was still a nobody from the countryside, yet she followed him all the way to Wuxi. No one else had that kind of far-sighted vision. No wonder he provides her whatever she wants.”
But all of this information was neither here nor there, and despite her claims of profound friendship with Mrs. Liu, Xiong hadn’t even heard about the death of Mrs. Liu’s husband.
After taking their leave of Xiong, Yu and Peiqin then approached some of the other neighbors. They didn’t learn much, and some of the neighbors were suspicious of them and refused to answer their questions. Yu and Peiqin managed to get into the stunted two-story building and up to the room Mrs. Liu kept there. The door was locked, of course, but from the outside it looked no different from her neighbors’.
Mrs. Liu appeared to be a success story, all the more so when compared to her neighbors, Yu thought. He went fishing for a cigarette in his pocket, but he decided not to take one out around Peiqin. Why Mrs. Liu kept coming back to the impoverished old neighborhood remained a mystery. Her family hadn’t been that well off, though in the context of the neighborhood, they might have done okay. The only possible explanation Yu could think of was that she wanted to show off, but what would be the point of showing off repeatedly, continuously, for years?
“If she was happily married,” Peiqin said, as if reading his mind, “why would she come back so often?”
“I don’t know,” Yu said, shaking his head. He had no idea what Chen wanted him to find out. But then Chen himself might not have a clear idea.
It was then that his cell phone rang. It was Chen again.
“I have to ask you another favor, Yu.”
“Go ahead, Chief,” he said, then added, “I’m in Mrs. Liu’s old neighborhood right now.”
“Thanks, Yu. The Wuxi Number One Chemical Company here is about to go public. The head of the company, Liu, was the one who was murdered. I have only a little information about its IPO plan. It could help if I knew more about how such a plan works. Now, as I recall, Peiqin said that her restaurant belongs to Plum Blossom Pavilion Group, which is also going public soon. I’m wondering whether Peiqin could, as an accountant, find out something about the IPO for the Wuxi company. Perhaps she knows a thing or two about it.”
“I’ll tell her. In fact, she’s right beside me. Do you want to talk to her?”
“No, that’s about all I could tell her. Please let her know that I appreciate her help. I owe you both.”
Chen said his good-bye, and Yu returned the phone to his pocket. He looked over at Peiqin.
“Something for me to do again?” Peiqin inquired with a smile.
Yu explained Chen’s request.
“Ours is just one of the numerous small restaurants owned by the Group,” Peiqin said, shaking her head. “These things are determined by the bosses of the Group and have nothing to do with me.”
“But do you know something about the way an IPO works?” He knew she had been dabbling a little in the stock market.
“Different companies have different ways. It’s something new and unprecedented in China, at least since 1949,” she said. “I’ve heard a little about the so-called large noncirculating shares and the small noncirculating shares. The bosses who initiate an IPO each get a number of shares, an amount in accordance with his position, at a symbolic price which is practically for free. Once a state-run company goes public, the Party member CEO can become a millionaire or even a billionaire. No one can tell the difference between socialism and capitalism anymore.”
“That’s totally against the Party tradition. Cadres are supposed to serve people wholeheartedly, selflessly.”
“That’s why people want to be Party cadres nowadays,” she said with an ironic smile. “But as for an IPO, that’s about all I know. How could I know anything about a company that’s far away in Wuxi? Your boss must be desperate. As the proverb says, When one’s seriously sick, he will go to any doctor.”
“You mean you think that Chen’s in trouble?”
“He’s desperate for something. Perhaps it’s because of the affair with the young woman. Anyway, the stock market is closed on Saturday, so it would be useless for us to go there. Besides, I don’t know anyone who works there.”
“And I can’t approach anyone there. Chen made a point of saying he didn’t want me investigating officially. Even if I did try to ask a few questions, they wouldn’t have to cooperate with me. I have no authority whatsoever in these matters.”
“No, it would be of no use,” Peiqin said. “Unless we could find someone who has inside connection and information.”
“So, what are we going to do now?”
“Let’s go to visit the other one’s neighborhood. Fu’s.”
That area happened to be Peiqin’s childhood neighborhood, where she had lived until the start of the Cultural Revolution. Her family, being a “black” one, had never mixed much with their neighbors and then during the Cultural Revolution had been driven out of the neighborhood. The memory of being a “black puppy,” with its head hung low and its tail tucked in, still stung. Peiqin hardly ever went back there.
“After so many years,” she said pensively, “I may not find anyone who still knows me, let alone someone who will tell us anything about Fu. The address you have is in a side lane, if I’m not remembering wrong, and in those years I didn’t go there often.”
However, after having made several calls on the way, Yu had better luck. One of his colleagues was acquainted with the neighborhood cop there, Wei Guoqiang, who promised to help.
Wei was waiting for them at the neighborhood committee office. Though no longer as powerful as it had been in the years of “class struggle” under Mao, it was still something of a grass-roots organization responsible for neighborhood security. Wei had no problem obtaining information for a general background check on a local resident.
According to Wei, Fu had been born to and raised by a poor family here in this mainly lower- and middle-class neighborhood. Three generations of Fu’s family had been squeezed into a single room of fifteen square meters in a
“Hold on,” Yu cut in. “Fu serves as the head of a large state-run company in Wuxi. He should have been able to buy an apartment for himself, if not for the family.”
“Is he already the head?” Wei asked, then went on without waiting for an answer. “But there’s a reason he hasn’t bought an apartment here, that I can tell you. This neighborhood is included in the city reconstruction plan. The old houses may soon be pulled down and replaced by new construction. When that happens, the Fu family will
