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Heroes
and Crooks
Business as usual in the city of Shanghai, thought Wei Jiang wryly. He was careful not to step on any sewage or get his new navy suit jacket wet as he crouched down to examine the body closer.
A woman. Early twenties.
Stark naked like some butchered hen.
The putrid stench of death mixed with the heady toxins from the polluted river engulfed him, but Wei barely blinked. He’d seen variations of this scenario far too many times in his profession to become weak-kneed over it.
“Isn’t it a little too early for you to be out and about?”
Wei Jiang let a grin creep onto his hardened face as he straightened up his angular frame. He’d know that sultry, lilting voice anywhere.
“You know what they say, Sui Feng, there’s no rest for the wicked in Shanghai”.
Sui Feng gave a short, tinkling laugh before clasping Wei’s outstretched and calloused hand. They’d met each other in their rookie years on one of those mind numbingly boring patrols, he a sharp-tongued cynic following his father’s footsteps, and she a tough-as-nails kind of girl out to prove her worth. They had become instant friends; however, Wei hadn’t seen her in almost two and a half years.
The two moved away from the riverbank where the cops were swarming around to stand under one of the nearby streetlamps. It flickered dangerously, just barely keeping the ominous shadows at bay.
It was 3 am, but the brisk, neon rhythm of the cityscape was still pulsing and flickering. It was under this flashy show of fashion and glamour that had dazzled so many, where the real Shanghai was buried. The heart of the city, once tender and pink in its innocence and beauty, was now bloated and marred by a black cancer of crime and corruption. Each neon heartbeat clogged the arteries of the city further with drugs, prostitution, gang wars and beggars in thrall to their daily bowl of rice. This dying organ was the Shanghai which Feng and Jiang were all too familiar with, and the tourists were all too ignorant of.
Wei’s eyes flickered back to the body. Wouldn’t that make a nice postcard for the tourists, he thought sardonically.
“So, what brings you to this end of town on such a fine morning?” Wei asked as he turned his attention to Sui and regarded her casually. She still looked just as good as the day he’d last saw her, in her form-fitting suit pants and low-cut blouse, complete with a designer black leather jacket.
“I was transferred from Beijing Narcotics back to Shanghai Homicide just yesterday. Lucky me to get a call for a case already”, her ruby-painted lips formed a mischievous grin, “and with the Wei Jiang, Detective Extraordinaire, no less. You’ve certainly been busy playing the hero: busting open opium dens, cracking homicide cases and shutting down brothels…”
Wei twisted his mouth into a smirk. “Hero? I’m flattered, but really, I’m just the unlucky guy who got nominated for clean-up duty.”
She laughed luxuriously, but Wei noted that her eyes remained as hard and impassive as obsidian glass. However, before this observation could fully develop, he found himself focusing on Sui’s sashaying hips as she moved back towards the riverbank.
“Come on, the case isn’t going to solve itself, and I’d like to get some sleep soon”. Wei, however, took his time to catch up, wanting to appreciate the view a little longer.
There were still some officers moving around the cluttered desks, murmuring quietly into phones, flipping through papers stained with coffee rings from Styrofoam cups, or taking a deep drag from cheap cigarettes as they worked over the details of their case yet again. Outside, flashing advertisements blinked a kaleidoscope of colour through the shuttered windows, casting a garish glow.
“Still no luck, I’m guessing?” Sui’s dulcet tones queried as she sauntered into his office and leaned over him to peer at the computer screen. One of her breasts brushed distractingly across his shoulder, and he failed to notice Sui sliding her hand underneath his desk, or the barely perceptible click of something attaching itself to the underside of the dark wood.
“Well, I’m going to stretch my legs and get some coffee”, Sui announced. “Oh, and I’ve just picked up the coroner’s analysis. So, you can get started on it”. She casually dropped a manila file on his lap before breezing out.
Wei’s eyes flickered towards the clock. 4:57am. Resigning himself to a very long day, he picked up the report, quickly scanning through the information and flipping over several detailed close-up shots, but a particular picture caused him to sit up straighter in his chair.
It was an enlarged photo of a serial number tattooed upon the victim’s bikini line, like some plastic Barbie doll. Wei hadn’t recognised the girl, but the first three numbers were unmistakable. Any female bearing them was a prime asset of Master Zhou’s highly profitable hooker industry, a figurative collector’s item amongst the Jade Dragon triad Boss’s other enterprising products and services of drugs, blackmail, children, and hitmen.
The threat was not lost upon him, and it certainly wasn’t going to be lost upon the crime lord. And guess whose ass is on the line for not knowing who the hell is behind this. Irritation flashed across his rough features before he schooled his face back into a flawless mask. He retrieved his cell from the depths of his jacket and punched in the familiar numbers.
“Xia, it’s me. Yeah, we got a problem…”
Here, thick, cool darkness, leeched even the palest of light, and Wei shifted a little, letting the long shadows blanket his presence. He checked his watch again impatiently.
11:13 pm.
Xia was supposed to meet him here thirteen minutes ago, and one thing that everyone knows about Xia is that he’s never late. Wei was starting to get a sick feeling which had nothing to do with the reeking stench of urine, alcohol and cigarette smoke that pervaded the area like a heavy fog.
The sound of a car captured his attention and he looked up to see it park across the street. Wei tensed as the driver stepped out. Something was wrong, and the ominous click of high heels on the dirt-encrusted pavement heading his way only served to reinforce the feeling. The driver managed to catch the glow of the Gate’s sign, and he glimpsed a pair of ruby-painted lips before Sui Feng finally stopped in front of him, shade sketching her profile.
She was levelling a gun directly at his chest.
“I thought I’d come and save you from wasting your night. Xia’s going to be a no-show, I’m afraid”.
All pretences out in the open, Wei dropped his mask too, and a completely different person seemed to step into his shoes. The contours of his face had hardened, and his features became more deeply carved and twisted. Easy disposition gone, his eyes were now carved from glacial crystal and his voice was cold and unyielding as steel.
“What did you do?”
“Let’s just say that his housekeeper is going to have a bitch of a time getting the blood stains out of the carpet”, Sui replied flippantly.
The click of the safety coming off triggered disjointed scraps of memory to cascade before Wei’s eyes. Sui leaving for the Beijing Police Narcotics Department on that murky Wednesday morning before virtually disappearing. The pale body with unmarked skin. Xia remarking casually during a drug run about Zhou’s hot new property. The tattooed serial number. Sui’s obsidian glass eyes. Her left hand under the desk. A bug. She’d planted a bug. He’d talked to Xia about Dragon right over it.
Wei slowly started to clap, the sound reverberating mockingly along the empty alleyway. “My my, Sui. I have to commend your skills at undercover work. A cop amongst the Jade Dragon’s highest commodities for two years. Who would have thought? And slipping a photo of your own tattoo into the file, knowing I’d panic…bravo. You’ve set me up quite brilliantly.”
A flicker of surprise on Sui’s face was all the confirmation that he needed.
“It’s a shame that we never met during one of Zhou’s Mah Jong gatherings”, Wei continued coolly.
Sui ignored the bait, almost shaking from barely controlled rage at Wei’s casual references to his criminal connections. She tightened her grip on the gun as she ground out “Why, Wei? All those achievements were bullshit; you were being paid to take out the competition for the Jade Dragon! You sold out! What happened to justice, to honour, to protecting the people?”
Wei let out a sharp, barking laugh, vastly different from the throaty chuckles of a few hours ago. “You think it’s just that simple, don’t you? Justice and crime, good and evil, heroes and crooks. But let me tell you something: those mean nothing in this new Shanghai”.
He swept his arms expansively. “Look around you, Sui. These people don’t need protecting; they revel in this hypnotising symphony of materialism and greed. After all, everyone wants their own slice of paradise. Shanghai’s cancer can only spread further, until no one is innocent anymore. What’s a man to do in times like these?”
Wei spread his hands leisurely, almost callously, and grinned predatorily. “Are you going to shoot me now?”
Sui stared in disbelief at the man that had once been her close friend, struggling against the anger and betrayal that threatened to tear her in two.
The brief hesitation was all he needed.
Wei launched himself forward, hard hands grappling for the gun. There was a moment of heavy breathing, scuffling feet and muffled gasps of pain.
The shot exploded through the air like a Chinese firecracker, but was barely registered, and neither was the dull thud of a body hitting the blackened floor. This was Shanghai after all, and the city continued to writhe in the brisk neon rhythm, Sui’s body placed neatly in the trunk of the car, as Wei drove towards the Huangpu River.