“You haven’t asked the only question worth asking.”
“Which is?”
“All these human organs looking for a body, and all these terminally ill patients looking for an organ-where is the surgery done?”
I shrug. “Here in China?”
He nods. “Sure, some of it is, at the lower end of the market, but what about the Yips? They don’t have a base on the mainland, probably wouldn’t want one-the government is too capricious, it could change its mind about them anytime and clap them in jail. Nor can they afford to expose their upmarket Western clients to some makeshift surgery in a garage that might be raided at any time by a rival consortium-or even by the police on a legitimate law enforcement exercise.”
“What are you saying? The Yips have a fully equipped surgery somewhere overseas, which they rent out to rival groups when they’re not using it themselves?”
Chan smiles.
Now we are shuffling along Nanjing Road amid a great herd of humans, the slow pace set by the law of density. Inspector Chan ostentatiously takes out a small pillbox and pops something into his mouth. I guess there must be a message here, something he wants me to know, or he wouldn’t take his medication so openly. I raise my eyebrows in case he is waiting for a prompt.
“Lithium,” he says. “But don’t tell anyone, or I’ll be forced to deny it and sue you for defamation.”
“You’re bipolar, and you haven’t told your superior officer?”
He throws me a glance, then jerks his chin at the solid block of people moving slowly forward in front of us, each one of them in a tearing hurry that they are forced to repress, like snails fleeing a fire. “Can you believe it? I live in Hong Kong, but I can’t take crowds like this. I just can’t.”
I myself have felt the odd jolt of fear at being trapped on all sides by a slow-moving human tsunami, which might lift you up and dump you just about anywhere.
“I’m going to have to dive in here,” Chan says.
He’s referring to a Starbucks right on Nanjing Road. Inside, it seems almost as crowded as the street, but the Chinese patrons prefer to stand. Chan and I grab a spare couch; then I go to order two lattes, trying to separate merged flesh without being rude. Now I’m negotiating the press of customers with the tray and two lattes, catching sight of Chan from time to time between bodies; he has turned gray and looks awful. When I reach the couch again and sit next to him, he jerks a chin at the crowds on the other side of the window. I look on the solid block of people and remember how humid it is out there; the thought of going out into that urban “war of all against all” is daunting.
“I don’t know if I’m bipolar or if it’s something worse,” the inspector admits. “Schizoaffective disorder and cyclic major depression are also possibilities. The shrink said he wasn’t sure, but since lithium is the standard medication for all three, I may as well take it-or go to some expensive doctor who will end up prescribing the same thing after a lot of tests that would bankrupt me. No one gets cured of mental illness anymore. You are expected to make the drug companies richer by staying sick. Naturally, a citizen should feel privileged to be contributing to capitalism in however small a way.” He sips his latte. “Personally, I think I’m just lonely.”
“You don’t have a partner?”
“Me? I’m too confused. Look, I grew up in a genuinely modern city, where nobody even pretends to know who they are. I could be gay. I’ve thought about it. It’s true that I’m sexually aroused by young naked women, but on the other hand I can never convince myself that my sperm would be safe with them. Next thing you know she’s had your baby, never wants to see you again, but demands child support for the next twenty years as an alternative for having you indicted for rape. At least with a man you’re safe from that gambit.” He shakes his head. “Cops know too much.”
I freeze with the latte halfway to my lips because of the way he’s looking at me. “You can’t be serious?” I say.
“Why not? How d’you know it wouldn’t work? Your wife wouldn’t have to find out.”
“You are serious?”
He shifts his gaze. “Just speculating. What d’you think of Sun Bin?”
“Ah, in what way? His sexual attraction, professionalism, mental health-my whole image of a modern cop has expanded since I met you.”
“Yeah, you’re kind of old-fashioned, even quaint. He’s a homophobe. That’s another reason why he’s acting funny around you. He’s not sure if you and I do it together or not, and if we do, would we want him to join in a threesome-that kind of thing. He thinks anyone from Hong Kong is fey and likely queer.”
“Really?”
Chan jerks a chin at the window. “Look at that, will you? How can anyone take murder detection seriously, when the only rational reaction is to shoot half of them just to clear the street?” He frowns. “This is the way your head goes, sooner or later. It has to. We weren’t designed for this.” He sighs. “So, you really want to talk about the case?”
“Yes.”
“What d’you want to know?”
“Everything you know.”
“What will you do for it?”
“Nothing.”
He grins. “Just testing. So, let’s start with the Yips. Their grandfather was one of the biggest gangsters in Shanghai before the revolution. He got out of opium and into heavy armaments when he saw the war with Japan was inevitable. He didn’t know a thing about armaments, just made a factory owner an offer he couldn’t refuse and made himself gloriously rich. When he saw Mao was about to win the civil war in forty-nine, he put the whole damned factory on a ship and set up shop again in Hong Kong. Naturally, he made sure he brought the factory’s general manager with him, along with the most skilled workers. But he kept up his connections to the Shanghai underworld, which quickly got itself party cards.
“His son, his only child, was sent to one of those British schools for colonial quislings, which turned him into a pedophile-a total no-no as far as the old man was concerned. So the son takes to drink after he’s managed with great effort and years of trying to sire twin daughters, who are allowed to do what they like from the age of about zero. They’re intellectually very gifted, but wild and compulsive gamblers, and the first big gamble of their lives-the big win that brings them all they dream of at that time-is to seduce their father when they are about thirteen years old.
“Naturally, the poor creep is instantly addicted to their little game-at the same time loathing himself from the bottom of his heart. They quickly drive him deeper into drink-and death. They teach anatomy after graduation for about a minute, then get restless and decide to use their grandfather’s connections. Some of the mob from that time are still alive. Some are quite senior in the party. One is a party cadre in Correctional Services.” Chan looks at me, waiting for comment.
“I see.”
“No, you don’t. You’re stuck in the parochialism of a medieval culture. I’m trying to teach you third-millennium social reality here. Today everyone has to have an edge-even beautiful, highly educated women from the upper strata of Hong Kong society. And for those two that edge was always going to be crime.” He stares at the street and adds in a sad tone: “Chinese are connoisseurs of power-we’ve been victims of it for five thousand years.”
“You’re not going to tell me these cases are really all about rival consortia with the best guanxi?”
“Those consortia have created identities. Those identities are at war-identities usually are. Any Chinese would understand that. Of course, what the war is really about… I guess you need to be not only Chinese but mainland as well. Shanghainese may be the only ones properly wired for this case. There are theories by Chinese academics to the effect that psychologically we Chinese are never far from the Warring States period, when the country was in total anarchy.” He sips his latte.
“How exactly do the Yips get away with it?”
“I told you,” Chan says. “They’re with the Ministry of Correctional Services. You see, good doctors are a scarcity in China-no way they want to waste them on the dead. A reasonably gifted person with good digital coordination can be trained to remove organs without damaging them in about a week. When two pure-blood Chinese girls with degrees in anatomy turned up, boasting connections with high-level party cadres, were they
