Field shook his head slowly. “No.”

“I usually deal with visitors in the registry.”

“I know.”

“Then do me the courtesy of calling when you wish to see me.”

“I need to keep out of the office until tempers cool.”

“Well, this is not a rest room.”

“Who was Slugger?”

Maretsky frowned. “Slugger?”

“Prokopieff taunted Caprisi by referring to a Slugger…”

“Slugger Davis. Alan Davis. A detective from London. Caprisi’s partner until the end of last year.”

“What happened to him?”

Maretsky turned back to the newspaper. “Ask Caprisi.”

“He won’t say.”

“Then I won’t, either.”

“I think I should know if I’m working with him.”

“You think you are.”

“What does that mean?”

Maretsky frowned. “What do you want, Field?”

“Can I smoke in here?”

“No you can’t.”

Field crossed his arms. “Why did you walk out of the briefing?”

“Don’t you have work to do?”

“You know I’m on the Orlov case.”

“The Orlove case,” Maretsky said, raising his eyebrows. “I see. When is it a case, not an incident, I wonder?”

“What do you mean?”

“A little Russian princess. A whore. Bit of a playful end. Why would anyone care about that?” He looked at Field, his piggy eyes burning with angry intensity. “You care about it, Field, why is that?”

“She was murdered.”

“She was a Russian prostitute.”

“So it doesn’t matter?”

Maretsky hesitated. “Is that a philosophical question or a practical one?”

“It’s just about doing a job…”

“Oh, is it? Of course. How foolish of me.” He turned back to his desk. “We work within our limitations here, Mr. Field, and if you haven’t learned that, you soon will.”

“You mean you do.”

“I mean I do, yes. I can see you’re not a member of the club, but a bright young man…” He smiled. “It won’t last, so I wouldn’t worry about it.”

Field tried not to betray his confusion. “Tell me about this case, Maretsky.”

“You’re the detective.”

“So Lu can do whatever he likes?”

Maretsky faced him again. “Please, I have work to do.”

“Tell me about him.”

“You really don’t understand, do you?”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“Don’t patronize you?” Maretsky sighed deeply. “All right, I’m sorry, I’m just not used to idealism.” He breathed out again. “Or perhaps I should say ignorance. You seem to be… energetic, but what will happen if you pursue this case with any vigor is that you will make a certain amount of headway and then you won’t get any further. If you get somewhere close to the truth, it will become very dangerous for you. As to evidence, forget it. Witnesses will be too frightened to speak, and will be eliminated if they are foolish enough to do so.” He rolled his eyes. “This is Lu’s girl. He killed her himself, or gave her to someone else for the purpose-it doesn’t much matter.”

“But we can still establish the truth, can’t we? Or do you consider that naive, too? We can still determine whether the murder was carried out by Lu himself, and if not, who it is he is protecting and why.”

Maretsky didn’t answer.

“Will he do it again?”

“Probably.”

“Has he done it before?”

Maretsky hesitated. “Possibly. I can’t be sure. We have no record of anything like… specifically like this, and the French say they have none… but…”

Field could tell that, despite himself, Maretsky was interested. “But what?”

He shrugged. “There is a confidence to it.”

“What do you mean?”

Maretsky was silent. “It’s a developed fantasy,” he said.

“You mean he’s done similar things before?”

“I mean there is a history leading up to this. You would have a pattern of violence against women. To begin with, beating, sexually abusing… the abuse becomes steadily more violent. Then, one day, it gets out of hand and he actually kills a girl. He enjoys it. So now he goes about achieving the same satisfaction with greater confidence. He knows what he wants. The kind of attire he likes, tied up, under control.”

“So there might be a pattern?”

“There is a pattern. One might be able to find it.”

“And now it will accelerate?”

“I would say he has done this before. It will certainly continue now, and it might accelerate.”

“Other girls in Lu’s possession?”

“I don’t know.”

“So we do nothing?”

Maretsky shrugged.

“So you won’t help me?”

“I wish you good luck.”

“Tell me about Lu.”

“What about him?”

“He’s your private obsession.” Field looked at the clippings on the wall.

“Only in an academic sense.”

“Then tell me about him in an academic way. Whatever has happened, he is at the center of it.”

Maretsky closed his newspaper. He took off his glasses and placed them carefully on the desk. “There are many files,” he said quietly.

“And most of them are not in the system.”

Maretsky stared at his hands for a long time.

“Lu is restless. In ten years he has accrued to himself absolute power. You won’t believe me, of course, won’t accept the true nature of the word ‘absolute,’ or the influence I ascribe to him. Only those who know the city completely do. But it is true nevertheless. However, his power is never enough. Never. There is always someone not quite under control… something that is irritating, like a fly.”

Field wiped away the sweat that had gathered on his forehead. “Money? In the French Concession, I mean. He’s bribing people. Is that it?”

Maretsky smiled. “In the French Concession. Oh yes. Don’t they say every man has his price?” He straightened. “It’s true, of course. Every man does have his price.”

“So he buys people.”

“You misunderstand me. Every man has his price, but that does not mean every man can be bought.”

“Try to be less obtuse.”

“You’re an intelligent man, Mr. Field.” He nodded. “I can appreciate that, though perhaps not why you ended up here. I don’t doubt you are flushed with idealism and an optimistic and perhaps even opportunistic sense of the possible.”

“So it’s not always about money? He finds other ways of controlling people. Blackmail?”

“It is not always money. He likes the feeling of absolute control and has developed a taste for more, shall we say, persuasive measures. He is a gangster, a nobody from nowhere who had terrible bad luck as a child in a country where bad luck usually means destitution and death. He survived. With a cunning and ruthlessness and skill we can only imagine, he has dragged himself up through the underbelly of this city to a position he could never have dreamed would ever be his. He has power and money beyond the imagination of most Chinese, let alone those who began life in such desperate circumstances. His position is an obsession. He will leave nothing to chance and do anything to protect it. He has systematically set out to buy everyone and everything in this city so that he can never go back to the world he has fought so hard to get away from. The fear of a return to poverty keeps him awake at night, still. In this city it is the survival of the fittest, and believe me, he has done everything in his power to ensure no one can touch him. He is unassailable. If he is behind these murders, then you cannot win and you may as well not try.”

“So what other measures does he use?”

Maretsky frowned, as if frustrated that his message was not getting through. “Ask Caprisi to tell you about Slugger, Field.” Maretsky shook his head. “But why do you, a bright ambitious young man with the right social connections-or so I have heard-why do you care about a poor Russian princess who fell by the wayside?”

Field straightened. He felt his face reddening.

“You are a knight in shining armor, is that it?”

“No one is unassailable, Maretsky.”

“Then how little you really know.”