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from Detective Yu, who had entered the force earlier and had technical training and a police family background. But Chief Inspector Chen was anxious to be judged on what he could achieve in his position, not on the way he had risen to it. So he was tempted to take the case. A real homicide case. From the very beginning. But Detective Yu was right. They were short of men, and with many “special” cases on their hands, they could not afford to take on a case that just happened to come their way. A sexual murder case—with no clue or witness, already a cold case.
    “I’ll talk to Party Secretary Li about it, but in the meantime, we will have the picture copied and prints distributed to the branch offices. It’s a necessary routine—whoever is going to take the case.” Chen then added, “I’ll go to the canal if I have some time in the afternoon. When you were there, it must have been quite dark.”
    “Well, it’s a poetic scene there,” Yu said, standing up, grinding out his cigarette, and making no attempt to conceal the sarcasm in his tone. “You may come up with a couple of wonderful lines.”
    “You never can tell.”
    After Yu left, Chen brooded at his desk for a while. He was rather upset with the antagonism shown by his assistant. His casual remark about Chen’s passion for poetry was another jab. However, Yu’s critique was true—to some extent.
    Chen had not intended to be a cop—not in his college years. He had been a published poet as well as a top student at Beijing Foreign Language Institute. He had his mind set on literary pursuits. Just one month before graduation, he had applied to an M.A. program in English and American literature, a decision his mother had approved, since Chen’s father had been a well-known professor of the Neo-Confucian school. He was informed, however, that a promising job was waiting for him in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In the early eighties, all graduates had their jobs assigned by the authorities, and as he was a student on the president’s honor roll, his file had been requested by the ministry. A diplomatic career was not his own choice, even though such a position was generally considered fantastic for an English major. Then, at the last minute, there was another unexpected change. In the course of the family background check by the authorities, one of his uncles was found to have been a counterrevolutionary executed in the early 1950s. It was an uncle whom he had never seen, but such a family connection was politically unthinkable for an aspirant to a diplomatic position. So his name was removed from the ministry’s list. He was then assigned to a job in the Shanghai Police Bureau, where, for the first few years, his work consisted of translating a police interrogation procedure handbook, which no one wanted to read, and of writing political reports for Party Secretary Li, which Chen himself did not want to write. So it was only in the last couple of years that Chen had actually worked as a cop, first at the entry level, now suddenly as a chief inspector, but responsible only for the “special cases” turned over to him by others. And Yu, like some people in the bureau, had his com- plaints fueled not only by Chen’s rapid rise under Deng’s cadre policy, but also by his continuing literary pursuits, which were conventionally—and conveniently—viewed as a deviation from his professional commitment.
    Chen read through the case report for a second time, and then realized that it was lunchtime. As he stepped out, he found a message for him in the large office. It must have been left before his arrival that morning:
Hi, it’s Lu. I’m working at the restaurant. Our restaurant. Moscow Suburb. A gourmet paradise. It’s important I talk to you. Give me a call at 638-0843.
    Overseas Chinese Lu talked just like that—excited and ebullient. Chen dialed the number.
    “Moscow Suburb.”
    “Lu, what’s up?”
    “Oh, you. How did it go last