Chapter 6

Taken In

A Drunken Cop; A Distracted PSB Officer; A Dilusional Detective

Back now at Hill Bar and no wiser to the fate of my bank card or the whereabouts of Peter, I decided to Email my sister about money. My laptop was stored there with a small travel bag in a backroom where the bar's fix-all man, Lao Shen lived. He greeted me with his usual broad smile and "Heyro Miko!", shaking my hand most genuinely. It was people like him that kept me in China so long. The friendship of one earnest and happy migrant worker was more desirable to ten of the new middle class yuppies anytime.

If I wanted to do some writing, reading or surfing the Net, I would go sit at one of the old fashioned cafe-style booths, located beside large floor-to-ceiling windows. These looked out onto lush greenery: bushy ferns, cast iron plants and bamboo, all overshadowed by immense Kapok trees, or "Hero Trees", their wide, flower laden branches draping over the park area and Huang Xi Dong Lu. I would wile away the hours there and observe the world go by.

While booting up my laptop, a dark mass of people entered the front door. A contigency of policemen, or "Jĭng Chá" stood just inside, looking around for someone. I was the only person in the bar, or I had been 15 minutes before. But then I noticed Peter, who seemed to magically appear, sitting in the same spot at the bar an hour before and was now completely ignoring the scene transpiring behind him. How he did he get into the bar? Why had he not sat with me, or at least said hello? Then I knew he had everything to do with the police coming to the bar that day. Some time later I worked out how he was involved with my dilema.

From the small clump of officers near the doorway came a singular old policeman. He approached my dark little corner of the bar. With the blood shot eyes and ruddy complexion of a drunk, he leaned toward me, the strong scent of "Bai Ju" (Chinese wine) wafting off him, said in horribly mangled English, "Paaashh-paawt-uh?" At first I had no idea what he had said. My look of confusion had not gone unnoticed, so he repeated more slowly, making it sound even more ridiculous, "Pa-a-a-sh-h-h p-a-a-w-t-uh!"

I shrugged my shoulders to convey I didn't comprehened what he had said. Sighing out a lung full of his putrid dragon breath, he straightened up and looked toward the knot of officers and addressed a Chinese gentleman wearing a suit who had been lingering behind them. "dragon breath" rolled off some slurred Cantonese to him. The man looked over an officer's shoulder and said, "Passport" in clear English. He then glanced at Dragonbreath for approval, who in turn looked at me for recognition. I had none to offer.

Then I was struck by a realization--this was the Sergeant of the police station where I made my theft report several nights before! He was the obnoxious one; strutting about like a plane-delayed businessman, talking loudly to no one in particular, waving his hands around exaggeratedly. He had ignored Daisy and I the same way people ignore beggars on the street. My first impression of him had not been good and now it was doubly so. "Suit man" spoke again, "They wish to see your passport". I pointed to "dragon breath" and said, "He knows my passport is stolen! His station took my report!"

The suit man wore the plain, masked expression so typical of the Chinese men when confronted with the unexpected. He looked back at dragon breath the same way, speaking no more than two words, and I knew at once that he had not told the officer what I had just said. He had simply said in Chinese, "Mai yo", meaning "not have". So much for honest translation; suit man was now in the same company I held dragon breath in--not good.

{Needs Editing Below]

A young and handsome Cantonese boy who had only been working at the bar a short time, interrupted the conversation after the policeman said something else to me. Perhaps he didn't like that Suitman had not translated properly for me, or he simply wanted to help because he knew me. He told me the police wished for me to come with them. At this point I looked at Peter, who was trying his best to fade into the wood grain of the bar and become invisible. It's worth mentioning the reason for Peter's behavior; he had been living in China on an expired visa, in fact several months out of date, so I felt it my duty to call attention to him now. I was fed up with his lecherous ways and his psychological abuse of Daisy and also of his complete indifference toward ever paying me back the thousands he owed me.

"Hey Peter! Can you come here a moment? I need you to take care of my computer for me." The police now focused on Peter momentarily and I reveled in it for a few seconds. I shut down my computer, put in it the carrying case and handed it over to Peter. I asked him to contact Daisy so she could come translate as well, but he said she was working. He looked at me with a hopelessness which he was so very good at portraying.

It turned out that would be the last time I ever saw Peter, although I would eventually get my computer back, no thanks to him. Even though he would be contacted by the American Consulate on my behalf various times in person or through email, and the Vice Consulate had informed me they had given him my messages, my simple requests to him never transpired. Fate finally caught up with the Welsh devil, and he has completely disappeared, owing money to several other people.

I was escorted to a parked vehicle not far from the Hill Bar. I climbed in the back, pinned between two other riders. There were three policeman and Suit-man. I didn't understand his presence until much later. The entire ride he simply stared straight ahead, while I pondered this new and odd predicament.

We arrived at the same police station that I had been to several days before. I was ushered into the same receiving room that night with Daisy and left to sit for a long time, at least an hour. When I asked about my passport, no one responded. When I stood up, an officer told me to "Sit please". So I did. It was then that I realized that there was more going on than I realized. A terrible panic began to settle into the space behind my ribcage.

Two young Chinese, a man and a woman, appeared in the doorway. The girl spoke with the officers who had brought me there for a moment, then she told me in very clear English to follow them out. We walked down a sidewalk toward the back of the police compound to a building in the rear. We walked into a large dark room that contained two conference tables, big enough to seat at least 15 people each. At the far end of the room sat several off duty or on call police at one table. Me, the girl and the young man sat at the other, alone. I notice that the two of them had badges hanging from necklaces, much like FBI or CIA. Later I discovered they were from the dreaded Public Security Bureau, or the PSB for short. They handled all things involving foreigners, much like the Customs Agency in the USA.

The first question was asked by the young woman. "What can you tell me about the ATM last night?" I looked at her with a blank look, then at the man and I stated, "What are you talking about?" My lost bank card was the last thing on my mind, I wanted to get my passport back.

The woman snorted, like a pig grunting and re-asked the question, "What can you tell me about an incident with an ATM you...used last night?" Small and smoky wheels began to grind and turn noisily in my head. I heard sounds, I saw flashes of images, but it all dissipated as soon as I became aware of it. Something amiss.

I cleared my throat and told them, "I thought I was brought here because they found my passport, or found something out about my stolen property!"

The girl paused, pursing her lips and now she had the blank look, borrowed from me, and then she passed that look to her partner, who shrugged and shook his head and raised open hands with a "no clue" gesture.

In the next few minutes I told them about the robber and then produced my police report from my pocket. If there had been a large clock on the wall, everyone would have heard it grinding to a halt. They studied the report, then she looked over toward the languishing officers at the other table. I noticed that two of the officers were involved in my case. One was the passenger of the police car that night, the other, the one who wrote the report.

"Those two officers know about it. That one took that report. The other drove in a car with me and my Chinese friend to where the incident occurred." These guys looked at one another and said nothing. I had the feeling they wish they could dissolve into the woodwork much like Peter had earlier that morning. The woman got up and along with the young man, approached these men and questioned them, handing the paper to the officer who had written the report. He glanced at me, then at the paper, played with his hat a moment, realizing he was in trouble and said something to the woman. It was in that moment that I realized something that I had suspicions about all along, and this is what I mentioned that I would point out earlier in the previous chapter--the police report had never been filed, and now I knew for sure. Something was being covered up.

The woman talked a moment more, then tapping the paper with her other hand, she returned to our table, handing me the report and sat down, clearly thrown off balance by this new information. Smoky wheels were turning in her head now. She talked a moment with her partner, eyeballed the other policemen, glaring it seemed, then she turned her attention back to me.

A new look, only for a moment, came over her face, expressing what I believed to be an acknowledgement of my previous conclusion, I had been shanghaied. She began again with some information that finally shed light on why I was now obviously being detained there.