The First Excellence: Fa-Ling's Map (26 page)

She struggled to control her emotions, forcing herself to recall her high school geography class. Silver, tin and aluminium — three minerals the region was known for. Grains, fisheries, Zhuang cultural heritage and a deeply rooted sense of superstition, along with renowned hospitality in the smaller villages and farming communities.

“
Shall I take you to Elephant Trunk Hill?” Quan asked.

“
Yes,” Fa-ling said. “Afterwards I need to go into Guilin city.”

“
Very well.”

They reached the tourist lookout and Quan parked the car. He had strict orders from Heng-ri to stay near the girl. He followed Fa-ling to the ridge and stood next to her.

Fa-ling stared at the porous limestone elephant ‘trunk’ for which the formation had been named. It looked so peaceful, dipping into the placid waters of the Li River. Her thoughts, though, were anything but placid.

“
Let’s go,” she said, turning away.

“
There are many other beautiful lookouts,” Quan said. “I can take you to Fubo Hill, or to the Thousand Buddhas Cave.”

“
No, thank you,” she said. Suddenly she’d seen enough of mountains, and of this river for which she had been named. Its surface was deceptive and coy, pretending to be calm and soothing, luring unsuspecting hearts and minds towards its motherly arms.

It was not, however, a mother, nor was it gentle. It was a river. When one least expected, it could rage and crash like any other river, killing anything foolish enough to underestimate its power.

“
I have business in the city,” Fa-ling said. She removed her notebook from her pack and slid the tattered map from its pages. She smoothed it against the hood of the car, tracing her finger along the squiggle representing the Li River and onward down the jumble of Guilin’s streets.

Quan looked at the map dubiously. “Do you know the address of the place?”

“
No,” Fa-ling answered, “but I do know what it is called. Maybe we can ask directions.”

“
Very good. Once we are in Guilin we’ll ask for help.”

They found the building without difficulty. It was more dilapidated than she remembered, and a great deal smaller. In her dreams it was massive and teeming with children of every age. That must have been a trick of the memory. The place was actually small, dingy and almost deserted.

Certainly the playground was deserted. Fa-ling got out of the car and walked to the metal fence, staring at the ancient swings that hung idle now, swaying in the breeze, and the broken sawhorses that had been broken even back then. She felt as though she was outside of herself, like an alien from another planet.

“
Please stay here,” she said to Quan, who had joined her at the fence. “I will be inside for awhile. I need to go alone.”

“
I’ll wait at the door,” he said, pointing at the front entrance where a bench sat shedding its paint in the scorching sunlight.

“
OK.” Fa-ling took one deep breath, then another. With Quan at her heels, she climbed the steps, pausing only for a moment before opening that most hated of all doors.

“
May I help you?” the boy at the front desk said in Cantonese.

“
I am looking for Shujia,” she answered.

“
Great Aunt is busy at the moment.”

“
Then I will look around. Please tell her Li Fa-ling is here from Canada. If she can make time, then I will speak with her.”

“
You can’t go in there,” the boy said, starting after Fa-ling. She did not hesitate, and he gave up, heading instead in the other direction to get help.

The stairs were at the back, just as she remembered. It was not a tall building, only three floors above ground, with the kitchen, pantry, storage and help quarters all located in the basement.

Fa-ling put her hand on the black plastic railing, feeling the banister sway loosely beneath her touch. Her feet found each of the stained wooden steps in turn, lifting her ever higher, past the second floor to the third, then down the dirty grey corridor that needed paint more badly than ever, to the little room at the end of the hall. It was a closet really, but she had shared it with Daphne for what had seemed an eternity. There, she and little Fa-dao had clung to each other against the frightening sounds of the night.

The room was empty. Whichever lucky child lived here these days was away at school, or maybe taking lessons in the big room on the ground floor, the room where Shujia had so forcefully imparted her considerable wisdom to her eager disciples.

No, it wasn’t fair to think of Shujia that way, with such bitterness. She hadn’t been a monster. She had done her best, Fa-ling was sure of it. The evils of the world did not begin at her feet.

So many years had passed. Shujia was probably very old now. Besides, whatever else she might be accused of, the rigid little woman had instilled in Fa-ling an eternal love of learning. For that, if for nothing else, she was owed a debt of gratitude.

Forgiveness is the order of the day,
Fa-ling thought.
If I am to see her, to look into her eyes, then my heart must be free of malice.

She laid her hand on the metal frame of the single bed she had shared with Fa-dao. For a moment she was tempted to lie down, to hold the pillow the way she had held her precious sister, to close her eyes…

She turned away from the bed. Shujia would soon be looking for her. She had other rooms to visit before the woman found her.

It was past noon when Wang Yong-qi parked his car in the lot of the Golden Lion Hotel. His underarms were already moist under the fresh beige t-shirt. He removed his tan jacket and laid it across the seat of his car.

Despite having slept on the plane he was exhausted. Just the same, he felt compelled to talk with the young woman who had caught his imagination. Yong-qi was a man who normally lived in his own head. He could read people well, but he was not a man of action in the sense that Cheng was. If he allowed Li Fa-ling to leave town without at least trying to obtain a promise to stay in touch, he would be annoyed with himself.

The night concierge, Henry, was off duty. His daytime replacement was a tall man of thirty-something with movie star good looks and a deep voice. Yong-qi noticed how easily he spoke with an elderly couple in English. No doubt the management of the Golden Lion Hotel found Henry’s fawning mannerisms and comical appearance to be better suited to the night shift.

Wang Yong-qi was in no mood to wait his turn to speak to the concierge. He placed his credentials on the counter in front of him.

“
I am Detective Wang,” he said. “I would like to speak with one of your guests immediately.”

“
Which guest?”

“
Miss Li Fa-ling in room 606.”

The concierge picked up the desk phone and dialled Fa-ling’s room. After several rings, he replaced the receiver.

“
Miss Li is not in her room at the moment. May I leave her a message?”

“
I’ll wait,” Yong-qi said.

“
Very well, Sir.”

Yong-qi chose a comfortable armchair facing the main entrance. He assumed Fa-ling was on the tour bus with her group. It might be hours before she returned to the hotel. In some perverse way he hoped it would be hours. He would enjoy the chance to annoy the manager by planting himself in the main lobby for the afternoon.

He lifted a magazine from the coffee table and settled in for a read, his eyes lifting every few moments to fix on the revolving door.

**

Chief Ho Lon-shi glared at Jiu from across the table. There were a dozen men in the room — all men, since Ho was not inclined to hire women — including senior agents like Jiu Kaiyu and their subordinates. In the more than twenty minutes since the start of the meeting, Ho’s insulting stare had rarely left Jiu’s face. Things had gone wrong with the cleanup job and Ho knew exactly who to blame. Jiu Kaiyu and Ng-zhi had better find a way to ingratiate themselves with young Master Yi, or they would find themselves on the wrong side of his powerful uncle.

Ho had no intention of getting rid of Kaiyu. He secretly admired the younger man’s ruthlessness and ingenuity. He hoped his idiot nephew, the lackadaisical Yi, would benefit from being trained by the master agent Jiu and his long-time partner Ng-zhi.

On the other hand, Jiu had a tendency toward insubordination that had to be trimmed back every once in awhile. By dressing him down publicly, Ho was also sending a warning to his other agents that no one was indispensable.

“
Tell me again,” Ho said, “what happened at the airport.”

Jiu hid his annoyance at being humiliated in front of his peers.

“
There was a girl,” he repeated. “We don’t know who she was, or how she knew we were coming. In any event, she got to Chan before we could apprehend him. They escaped together. To the best of our knowledge, they are both still in Shanghai.”

“
Shanghai is a big place,” Ho said. “How do you propose to find them?”

“
We have a bulletin out to all of the major transportation terminals, bus stations, domestic and international flights, the railroad. We’ve emailed Chan’s photo to the major taxi dispatchers. If he hasn’t turned up by this evening, we will have a wire sent out to all television networks.”

“
Once you go to the networks, you’d better have an air-tight story. Chan is an American. The US will want to know why we’re looking for him.”

“
Exactly,” Jiu agreed. He was pleased with himself. He had no intention of notifying the networks about Chan, but wanted to give Ho the opportunity to state the obvious. If Jiu knew anything about human nature — and he liked to think he did — Ho’s mood should lighten for the remainder of the meeting.

Predictably, Ho Lon-shi was now in a much-improved state of mind, having demonstrated to his department he still had a keen grasp of the obvious. Talking down to his men always brightened Ho’s day. He did respect Jiu after a fashion, at least as much as his personal sense of privilege and entitlement would allow. It was agreed they would continue the search for Chan quietly, keeping all details of the operation within their own unit.

The team would have to come up with something that would draw Chan in, some ‘bait’ as it were. The task fell to Jiu, Ng-zhi and Yi to come up with a plan.

Jiu had anticipated this eventuality. Prior to the meeting, he and Ng-zhi had taken Yi aside to discuss a plan Jiu Kaiyu had already devised earlier that day. Naturally, the details had been carefully mapped out. However, to mollify Ho, Jiu convinced Yi to ride point at the meeting and present the plan as his own. He knew Yi’s vanity would welcome the opportunity to shine.

“
I have an idea,” Yi said, addressing his uncle.

Don’t screw it up,
Jiu thought.

“
What is it, Yi?” Ho asked.

“
We can arrange for the Tan bodies to be discovered by one of our people,” Yi said. “When we remove them, we shroud the two elders, but we make it look like the son, Tan Dahui, is still alive. We splash it all over the news. Tan Dahui is alive and in care at the nearest hospital. That should bring Chan and his female associate forward.”

“
That might work,” Jiu said, careful not to overstate the compliment. “I think it’s worth a try.”

“
Brilliant idea, young man!” Ho said. He was not stupid enough to believe Yi had come up with the idea on his own. Still, Yi was now positioned to gain the respect of his peers, those other young men who would one day follow his command after Ho had stepped into retirement.

From Jiu’s perspective, the meeting could not have gone better. He’d allowed both uncle and nephew to puff themselves up — Ho, by taking pleasure in demeaning his men, especially Jiu, and Yi by accepting credit for an idea he could never have developed on his own.

All in all, it had been a good day in the job-saving trench warfare that was the Chinese civil service.

Fa-ling paused in the empty classroom. With China’s growing industry in International adoptions, the number of school-aged orphans had diminished since her days at the Sunshine Rooster facility. Those children still under State care beyond the age of five were largely made up of mentally or physically handicapped.

Certainly the ‘Shujia’ of Fa-ling’s memory had little tolerance for weakness. Her meter-stick danced to a hair-trigger temper and would come crashing down on the desk, and sometimes on the head, of any girl who did not appear to be learning her lessons quickly enough. She took State inspections seriously, insisting her girls be scrubbed raw and dressed in clean, pressed clothes. Any child who embarrassed her by slouching or picking her nose was dealt with privately and harshly.

Fa-ling turned from the voices in her imagination —
one, two, three, four…
, the children counted off their phantom presence — and left the big room. She was surprised Shujia had not already come to confront her. She made her way back to the staircase, descending slowly into the basement.

The large kitchen was tidy but dirty. Fa-ling wandered around the open space, reaching into a canister and liberating a biscuit for old time’s sake, chewing it slowly as she worked her way toward the pantry. The door was rigged to stay open, probably to discourage children from hiding among the shelves of rice and noodles. Several refrigerators stood along one wall, filled with fruit and juices of every variety.