withdrawn. “ ‘Involved’ is perhaps the wrong word. Connected.”
“How am I connected?”
Caprisi shifted uneasily in his seat. “Lena Orlov was living in a flat which we have been led to believe belonged to you.”
Lu frowned, tapping the bottom of his chin with his fingers. “Happy Times block?” he asked himself, as if trying to recall it. “Yes, I believe it is owned by one of my companies. That is all.”
Field could see that, for the Chinese, this was a game. Recalling the hostility in evidence at the Majestic, he wondered how long it would last.
“You didn’t allow Lena Orlov to live there for free?”
“Why would I wish to do that?”
“So she was paying rent?”
“I do not know. Perhaps she had a relationship with one of my men.” He shrugged, to emphasize the extent of his disinterest. “I do not know. I have many companies, many men. I cannot know what is happening with them all.”
“So you did not know her personally?” Caprisi asked, his eyes conspicuously drawn to the photograph of Lena on the grand piano.
“I know many people, Officer.”
“So you knew Lena?”
“This city has many beautiful women to admire.”
There was something in the way he said this—the grotesque satisfaction of a man of humble peasant origins who has risen far enough to buy the right to abuse women he could once never have dreamed of even meeting— that so outraged Field that he had to restrain himself from getting to his feet. He looked at Caprisi and saw a muscle twitching rapidly in the American’s cheek. For the first time he felt naked without his revolver.
His aggression dissipated as he sensed the power of this Chinese man. Field could see how often and with what little consideration death was dispensed with a curt wave of one of those hands.
“So you did know Lena?” Caprisi asked.
“I knew the girl. I know many.”
Caprisi was sweating now and he wiped his forehead and took out his notebook. “Do you mind if I take notes?”
Lu looked unsettled for the first time, waving his hand at them and frowning deeply. “Better not.”
“We are detectives, Mr. Huang.”
“You are police.”
Caprisi left his notebook on his lap but didn’t open it. “Lena Orlov was not, then . . . You knew her, but she did not . . . You had no arrangement with her?”
“Arrangement?”
“She was not a concubine?”
He wrinkled his nose in disgust at the idea of having such a formal relationship with a Russian woman.
“There was no relationship?”
“What do you mean relationship?”
Caprisi sighed, leaning forward in his chair. “Mr. Huang, we have no wish to be difficult, but you will appreciate that Lena Orlov was murdered with extraordinary brutality, even by the standards of Shanghai.”
“You don’t like Shanghai?”
Caprisi bent his head.
“We both find it an exciting city,” Field said.
Lu shifted his eyes slowly, looking at Field for the first time. “Exciting, yes.”
“Perhaps the greatest city on earth.”
“Greater than London? Paris? New York?”
“Their equal. An example of harnessing the benefits and strengths of two cultures.”
“Or their faults.” Lu’s face was impassive.
“And their faults.”
“Lena was one of your girls,” Caprisi said more bluntly.
“My girls?” Lu had raised his hand, an ivory bracelet on his wrist trailing down half the length of his forearm. “We spoke a couple of times. I did not know she was living in a flat we owned.”
“You had no idea she lived in the Happy Times block?”
“Why should I know? I cannot know everything.” He smiled at Field, as if now considering him an ally.
“Lena was paying rent?”
He shrugged again, as if this was becoming absurd. “How can I know?”
