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  Kovic was through the doors now and flying down the stairs, past a roomful of vacuum cleaners, in the middle of which a man and woman stooped over one, as if performing resuscitation.

  ‘Emergency exit?’

  The man nodded at a large aperture in the back of the room with a cargo jib for hoisting stuff up from the street. Kovic looked out. The alley was strung with washing lines, a few damp items that hadn’t been taken in before the rain. Below them, several pig carcasses hung from hooks, a bucket under each to collect the remaining drips. From behind them came the sound of chopping, and to the right was a dumpster from which came a rhythmic hissing, like a miniature steam engine. He could just make out a crouching figure beneath it, his shirt bloodied. To his left, two men were coming up the alley. They had seen the croucher; it was Wu, hiding, gasping for breath.

  ‘Hey! Guys! Up here,’ Kovic yelled down at them.

  They both looked up. The adrenalin surged through him, the aches and pains from the border incident anaesthetised. He was pumped, ready to take on the world, and in this mode he knew he was also apt to do stupid things. But what else was there to do?

  He flung himself off the ledge and dived towards the lead guy, who broke his fall. Kovic went blank for a few seconds, coming to just in time to roll out of the way of a blade that swept down towards his eyes. Wu emerged from behind the dumpster. He was limping, wounded and exhausted. The second man was on him. Kovic summoned another burst of energy and lunged at the knifeman. They both collapsed on Wu. Kovic scrambled for the knifeman’s arm, wondering when the other guy was going to run him through. He looked round to see a rotund man coming out from the rear of the butcher’s with a basin full of animal parts. Knifeman two crashed into him and they both tumbled, spilling the meat and bone over the cobbles. Furious, the knifeman slashed out at the rotund man as he rose and a great red fissure opened up in his vest as he sank to his knees. The sheer wanton senselessness of this filled Kovic with fury. He snapped knifeman one’s wrist backwards and wrenched the weapon out of his flailing hand. It clattered on the ground. Wu seized it, as Kovic kicked his remaining boot into the ex-knifeman’s face. Knifeman two bore down on them. Kovic could see the poor butcher clutching his guts as he rocked forward and fell face first into a puddle. He dodged the knife and smashed his forehead into the knifeman’s nose. He staggered back, still slicing the air with the blade. Kovic kicked him in the chest but lost his balance, his feet sucked from under him by some slimy offal underfoot, and he was down on his back, the knifeman on top of him. Wu sprang on to him but the knifeman, wild with rage, flung him off. The blade bore down towards Kovic’s face, quivering a couple of inches above his eyes. Evidently his assailant wanted to savour the moment. This was Kovic’s chance. He found the feeling in his arms and clamped his hands round the knifeman’s. For a long half minute the knifeman fought to drive the blade into Kovic’s face while Kovic tried to force it upward and away from him. He could see the lethal intent in the other man’s eyes as they fought for control of the weapon.

  ‘I hope you’ve got a good pension, pal. Your family’s going to need it.’

  The knifeman spat something back but with all the blood and saliva accompanying his words it defied translation. Agonisingly slowly the blade started to turn, but Kovic could feel his strength going. Wu, finally free of the other guy, grabbed the man’s head and lifted it. At last Kovic had control of the blade even though it was still in the knifeman’s hands. He forced it towards his assailant until it was pointed under the chin. With perfect timing, Wu thrust the head downwards. The tip of the blade entered the soft tissue just between his throat and his Adam’s apple. Wu drove the head down until the knife was embedded right up to the hilt. Blood bubbled out of his mouth as the knifeman went limp and rolled over on to the ground.

  Kovic slowly got to his feet. Wu knelt, his chest heaving from the exertion, wiping the palms of his bloody hands on his thighs. Kovic unpeeled the dead man’s fingers, which were still wrapped round the knife, and with the tip of the blade lifted his coat cuff. The tattoo went halfway up his arm. Three snake heads on a trident clutched by a flaming fist.

  Wu leaned over and looked.

  ‘Any ideas?’

  Wu shook his head.

  ‘Think I’d like to show that to someone.’

  Several men had emerged from the butcher’s to help their colleague. Kovic went up to one who was holding a cleaver.

  ‘May I?’

  Something in Kovic’s face decided the owner against protesting. He handed him the cleaver. Kovic went back to the knifeman and with one decisive swing, severed the forearm below the tattoo. He passed the cleaver back to his dismayed owner.

  ‘Thanks, do you have a bag?’

  15

  Shanghai Old Town

  The room was smoky and the yellow paper shade round the low single bulb projected a warm golden glow on to the scrubbed wooden walls. Xiang reminded Kovic of a new-born baby. The wisp of hair, the sheen on his forehead and sparkly inquiring eyes. Kovic was momentarily propelled back to a nativity scene at his elementary school. But there wasn’t anything holy about Xiang in the ninety-seven years that had passed since the occasion of his birth.

  After toasts with sorghum liquor, which Kovic likened to a liquid firecracker, he unwrapped the forearm and laid it on the table like an offering. Xiang didn’t show the slightest alarm, which said a lot about the world he had inhabited and why Kovic was consulting him.

  Xiang looked round to the boy standing in the doorway.

  ‘My glass, please.’

  The boy disappeared then reappeared holding the largest magnifying glass Kovic had ever seen.

  Xiang slowly raised it to his face and bent over the arm. He moved it up to the three snakeheads and back down to the flaming fist.

  He let out a series of hen-like clucks, which Kovic eventually deciphered as laughter.

  ‘You Americans, your appetite for trouble is insatiable.’ He clucked some more, put down the glass and nodded. Kovic started to wrap up the arm. Xiang gestured at the tattoo, then took another pull on his long, thin pipe and exhaled.

  ‘Very showy.’

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  Xiang swatted the air gently with his fingers, then tugged at his sleeve and revealed a simple cross with splayed ends, faded almost to invisibility on his leathery walnut coloured skin.

  ‘Very simple, you see.’

  Kovic knew better than to hurry the old man. They were seated in the back room of the bar his grandson now ran on Danfeng Lu Street. Xiang had been born in the room upstairs, had formed his first gang from this room in 1931, killed his first man, a rival gang leader, on the front step while he was still a teenager, severed his head with a machete to show who was boss, and also brokered a truce with the four main Shanghai gangs right here as the Japanese were bombing Pearl Harbor. As well as being a distinguished member of the resistance, Xiang was also the CIA’s first Chinese recruit. Kovic only knew all this because he had sought out the old man’s archived file in Langley.

  ‘They gave me my own aeroplane, very generous. A German Junkers Ju 52 with floats so we could land on any water. And fuel. We did a regular run to Hokkaido to pick up arms and opium. Terrible shortages after the war. We did what we could to stop the Reds but—’

  He let out a sigh so long that Kovic worried for a moment it was his last. Perhaps he was silently mourning the passing of Shanghai’s previous crazy era before Mao came in and spoiled all the fun. The city had been the vice capital of the East and gangs like Xiang’s passed for legitimate businesses.

  ‘We had our own notepaper; we used trained accountants. It was very professional.’ There was something almost touching about Xiang’s badges of respectability.

  Curiosity had originally brought Kovic to Xiang’s door. He had assumed the legendary gangster turned CIA asset had rotted away in some gulag decades ago. Just out of curiosity he had tracked down the bar, only to find Xiang alive and well in this back room. How he
survived the worst of Mao’s purges was a miracle. Not only was he a criminal, he had backed the nationalist Kuomintang in their losing battle against the Reds before they retreated to Taiwan, never to return. Even worse, Xiang was in the pay of the Americans, surely another death sentence.

  ‘What was your secret?’

  ‘Simplicity,’ Xiang told him. ‘Simplicity is a great asset.’ He tapped the tattoo on his wrist and waved at the scrubbed walls around him. ‘Many of my rivals acquired the trappings of success – elaborate cars and mansions. Examples had to be made of them. While I’ve always lived more like a true Communist than any of the real ones.’

  He laughed for some time at this insight. Kovic laughed too.

  There was no rushing him. Xiang moved at his own pace. He would answer the question when he was good and ready – and maybe not at all, at least not directly.

  He sucked again on his pipe.

  ‘When the Reds came, we were doomed. Many of my rivals were put to the sword. Almost all the gangs simply became extinct. Those who had not been executed starved to death or were broken by hard labour in the camps. A very few of us were lucky. We just withdrew like tortoises into our shells.’ He made a shrinking gesture with his neck.

  Kovic shifted his weight. He longed to climb into a deep bath and soothe his battered body, but Xiang and his mysterious forgotten world fascinated him.

  Xiang tapped the tattoo with the end of his pipe.

  ‘This is more than one.’

  ‘There was more than one today.’

  Xiang laughed and shook his head. ‘No, no, you misunderstand. This symbol means that two gangs are in alliance. The Flaming Fist, they were most lucky. They were not purged. Instead, they were absorbed into the People’s Liberation Army. Mao needed his personal people he could call on to deal with – difficulties, like an acolyte becoming too big for his boots, a local commissar who had not shown appropriate respect—’

  ‘And the snakehead trident?’

  Xiang put down his pipe. ‘They were purged, gone. None are left.’

  He turned to his left, spat generously into a nearby spittoon.

  Kovic sensed a change of atmosphere. ‘Looks like they’ve made a comeback.’

  Xiang reached out a gnarled hand and laid it on Kovic’s shoulder.

  ‘You know I have always been careful. I choose my battles after much deliberation. So should you.’

  Kovic nodded. Xiang was winding up the conversation.

  ‘As a friend of America, a critic too but a friend at heart, my message is this: whatever your business is with these people, drop it. Because you will not win, not with all your might.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  He clucked again. ‘I’m ninety-seven. I know.’

  He tapped the package, still on the table.

  ‘Bury this deep. You won’t want to be found with it. I sense you are an impetuous man, Kovic. Don’t let this be your downfall.’

  ‘Sir, I feel there is more you could tell me. If you could just give me something on the other gang.’

  Xiang blinked slowly and drew in a breath.

  ‘We have arrived at a crossroads. Old and new must fight it out. Luckily for me, I have finished my battles.’

  He turned away and waved to the boy. ‘Show the gentleman out. He is ready to go.’

  Then he fixed his gaze on Kovic one last time. ‘It was pleasant to see you again, Kovic. But don’t come back.’

  Xiang slowly closed his eyes and leaned back. The meeting was over.

  16

  Kovic threw the arm in a dumpster and went in search of Wu. He found him at the repair shop that belonged to his cousin, bent over the battle-scarred X6, moving his hands over the destroyed body-work like a physiotherapist feeling for bruised vertebrae. The front bumper and lights were completely gone, the hood was riddled with bullet holes. The rear and two side windows were shot out and the tailgate that had been rammed was hanging drunkenly by one hinge. And all down the nearside, bright metal grinned through deep scores, as if it had been clawed by a huge monster.

  ‘I’m sorry, pal, I really am.’ Kovic put his arm round him. ‘But it’s just a car.’

  Clearly that wasn’t going to work. He was no good at this kind of moment. He groped for something positive to say.

  ‘Your cousin’s a skilled panel beater. I’ve seen his work. Incredible.’

  Wu said nothing; his normally buoyant optimism levels were flatlining.

  He looked at Kovic, his eyes hollow.

  ‘I did good today, yes?’

  ‘More than good. And so did the car – it saved our asses. Look, I’ll see what Uncle Sam can do.’

  He would just have to delve into his slush fund.

  ‘Will there be more like today?’

  Kovic took a deep breath. ‘You want out? I’ll understand.’

  ‘Is it going to get badder?’

  ‘Worse. Yes, it is going to get worse.’

  ‘Ai ya! ’ said a voice from behind them.

  Wu turned and faced his cousin who was staring at the X6 in disbelief.

  A short exchange followed in Zhujinese, the local dialect that Kovic was glad he couldn’t follow. Wu’s crest fell even further.

  The cousin turned to Kovic and addressed him in English.

  ‘Explain – this is totalled. Goodbye car.’

  ‘Easy, pal,’ said Kovic. ‘This is a difficult time for him.’ He moved closer to the cousin, like a desperate relative beseeching a doctor. ‘Is there nothing you can do?’

  The cousin walked round the car slowly, assessing the damage and shaking his head.

  ‘It’s gonna cost you big dollars.’

  ‘Whatever it takes.’

  The cousin mentioned a sum in yuan that sounded uncomfortably far away from $10,000 – on the wrong side.

  ‘What about the family discount?’

  ‘That’s with family discount.’

  ‘Okay. You got a courtesy car?’

  ‘Maybe. Come back in the morning.’

  Kovic led Wu away.

  ‘It’s going to be okay, buddy. And look at it this way; when you get to the States you’ll get yourself a whole new car.’

  He knew the hint about a future in America would cheer him up – even though Kovic had yet to figure out how he was going to swing that for him.

  They went to a favourite food stall of Wu’s in Fanbang Lu and ordered Snow beers. Up on the wall, the TV was on. Wu squinted at it a moment then suddenly cheered up.

  ‘Jin Jié is back!’

  ‘Well, deck the halls,’ said Kovic.

  He was aware of the young politician, but had dismissed him as just another celebrity star burning brightly and briefly in the New China firmament. They watched the screen. At Pudong airport, on a small podium set up in front of the aircraft from which he had just disembarked, the young man with the improbably innocent face was waving at the crowd and throwing his arms in the air in a very un-Chinese manner. Each time he punched the air a fresh roar of delight rose from the crowd, followed by more chanting of his name.

  ‘So?’ Something about the spectacle irritated Kovic.

  ‘Very good man, very good for future.’ Wu’s English always took a nosedive when he was excited.

  ‘He’s a kid with a degree from MIT and good dental work.’

  Kovic knew that wasn’t quite fair. Jin Jié had just been named Time magazine’s Person of the Year. His book on the new global economy was a bestseller. America seemed to have taken him into their hearts. What did interest Kovic was how this American adulation would play back here, especially after what he had seen this morning.

  Kovic noticed some of the diners paying attention. ‘Jin Jié! Jin Jié!’ several tens of thousands of ecstatic fans chanted. Between the semi-continuous chanting of the crowd and the hyper-excited commentator a few phrases from Jin Jié’s speech floated through . . .

  ‘know that we can achieve whatever we put our mind to.’

  ‘. . . purs
ue our individual dreams but still come together as one nation . . .’

  ‘. . . keep, in the twenty-first century, promise alive . . .’

  And then he paused, and spread his hands to quiet the crowd.

  ‘. . . Our government should work for us, not against us, listen to all voices . . .’

  And at a reference to the thousands of dissidents banged up in China’s jails, the crowd broke into a rapturous roar. Kovic looked across at Wu, gazing wide-eyed at the screen. ‘Well that’s gonna go down like a cup of cold sick in Beijing.’

  Wu was oblivious to Kovic’s warning tone.

  ‘The man’s a visionary. We never had nothing like this before.’

  Kovic pondered the contrast between the protest earlier in the day, the angry mob on the point of lynching an American, and this upstart wowing the crowd having just come from the US where he was feted. Xiang was right: China was at a crossroads.

  17

  French Concession, Shanghai

  A cab dropped Kovic at his gate. He told the driver to keep the change and eased himself gingerly out of the back seat. He stood for a moment as the car moved away. It was night, the sky a smoky purple. The sounds of evening were in full flow: a mash up of TV, radio, Western pop, Chinese folk, advertising jingles and a heavy reggae beat under a shrill trilling falsetto.