Read Night in Shanghai for Free Online

the top-ranking Japanese officer in Shanghai.
    “Morioka is his name,” said Kung.
    “Our new Viceroy,” Du said sarcastically. “Yes, I know.”
    “You do?” said Kung, drawing and relighting. “Regrettably, I have heard nothing personal about him yet.”
    “Wait a moment.” Du knocked three times on the side of the desk, and one of his many secretaries came in, a senior Cantonese named Pok. “Sir,” he said to Du respectfully, and then again to Kung, “Sir.” Lin Ming he ignored. His fluent Shanghainese was stretched by the drawling tones of his home dialect as he spoke. “One of my men has an informant who works in the officers’ section of the new Japanese Naval Headquarters.”
    Kung drew his brows together in thought. “The old Gong Da Textile Mill they took over and reinforced, that one?”
    “Yes. The new Admiral has his apartments there. Here is what your servant has learned: Morioka goes out at night and drinks, but is never drunk. He is married, but his wife and children did not accompany him, nor does he have their pictures.”
    “There will be something he cares for,” Du insisted.
    Kung nodded. “His weak spot.”
    “Yes, Teacher,” said Pok. “You are correct. There is indeed a thing he loves—music. His quarters are filled with gramophone records.”
    “Really.” Du’s cold, serpentine gaze lit with interest, flicked to Lin, and then back to Pok. “What kind of music?”
    “Jazz,” said Pok.
    “You don’t say,” Kung said in English, sending a twinkle toward Lin Ming, not yet seeing how the news was strangling him with terror. “And for you, Teacher,” Kung went on, back in Chinese, “What a bolt of luck! You don’t have to do a thing. He’ll come to you.”
    Lin stood in the center, feeling everything around him crashing. He did not ask for much, just to bring music from over the sea, to shepherd his musicians, to be with his favorite girl, Zhuli. He did not expect to be free; he understood that his father, and the Green Gang, controlled his life, and might even end up choosing the time and manner of his death. He also accepted the fact that he personally was powerless to stop Japan. But his musicians, his flock that he’d brought from America and nurtured here in Shanghai’s endless night—they should be left alone.
    Pok backed out, with Du’s thanks. Du always treated his secretaries well.
    “Lucky. As for you, do not worry so much,” Kung said to Lin. “There is no reason why they should sacrifice the plum tree for the peach tree.”
    Kung’s kindly joke in turning the phrase around—in the old saying, the plum tree
did
get sacrificed—failed to allay Lin’s fear. Meanwhile, Du Yuesheng nodded approvingly, for ancient military strategy was the kind of traditional tidbit he loved.
    Lin stood motionless. “Please,” he heard himself say, small and squeaky.
    “What?” Du looked over sharply.
    “There are so many jazz men in Shanghai, others could serve as bait—”
    But his father held up a silencing hand. “It is not up to us. It is he who will decide. No one can resist Shanghai for long, including Morioka. He will be like a bird hovering over a field of flowers. Sooner or later he will light, and then we will have him.” He looked hard at Lin. “Wherever he comes to rest.”
    Lin ducked his head, burning with hatred—for his father, for Japan, and for himself most of all—because he knew that no matter what order he received, even if—when—it put one of his own in danger, he would have to obey it.
     
    Thursday was Christmas Eve, 1936, and after rehearsal, Thomas decided for the first time not to go home and practice, but to go out. He was not homesick, far from it; he remained glad to be far from America. Things here put his homeland to shame. Every day he woke up expecting to feel some nostalgia, yet it never came. He missed his mother, but that was different, for nothing was going to bring her back.
    On Christmas Eve, he could not take the