Free Night in Shanghai by Nicole Mones

mouth a rueful pucker. “Really, you should not become involved.”
    His words were barely out when Du Yuesheng’s bodyguards reappeared in the corridor.
    Song dropped her eyes before her master came into view and caught her speaking to the man next to her.
These are Communists, and I know, and you do not
. She could barely contain the thrill that swelled inside her, for she had found a source of power, a way to live. And years later, it had led her here, to wait alone in a secret room behind the herb master’s place.
    A half-bald man in a rumpled gown whom she knew well stepped in—her guide. She hid her disappointment as he addressed her, using one of her false names. “Mrs. Ma, how are you? All is well?”
    “Yes, Mr. Guo, thank you.” She did not know his real name either.
    “Do you have any news?” he said.
    “I know Du gave two hundred thousand Chinese dollars to the Nationalists for the war effort. Even if Chiang did just agree to fight side by side with our army!”
    They traded smiles. A deal had been struck and Chiang Kai-shek released; now the Nationalists and Communists would form a united front against Japan. “How are your relatives up north?” she said, code for the Communist stronghold and the frontline struggle to push back Japan.
    He shook his head. “They can eat bitterness and endure fatigue to the end, but they are overwhelmed. They are starving. They have no—” He abandoned all pretense of talking about his relatives. “They have no ammunition. We need money.”
    She blanched. She had never been asked for money before, only information. It was impossible of course, she had no access to money. “I cannot imagine how I could help, Mr. Guo, but the cause is everything. I will go to the temple and pray to the gods to send a solution to your dilemma.” A light knock sounded on the door, and she rose, her moves well studied. “My prescription is ready. Good day.”
    Out on the street, she tucked the packet of herbs away in a silk pouch she carried. How could she get money? Du’s money was out of reach, for he knew the whereabouts of his every copper cash. He also had his hands in all the city’s banks, holding a seat on their boards or simply controlling their directors as if by so many puppet strings.
Curse all lords and bosses like him, all the masters who steal and extort and drown the city in opium
. She may have willingly offered her life in trade for her father’s debt to be canceled, so her clan could avoid poverty and her little sisters could be educated, but she was still a piece of property—on the outside. Inside, she had this, her life, her pledge to her country.
If they catch me, let them kill me
.
    This was real power, and it lifted her lips in a smile as she crossed the street.
     
    “You gave the house steward your salary?” said Lin Ming. He and Thomas stood outside the Cathay Cinema, on Avenue Joffre, waiting to see
Pennies from Heaven
with Bing Crosby and Louis Armstrong.
    “He’s done well, so far. Eight and a half percent.”
    Lin grinned at this proof that his bandleader was doing more than playing his role, he was thinking. He had deduced from the beginning there was something more to this one than met the eye. “That’s higher than the bank.”
    “It was for that reason we reached a deal.”
    With a blink, Lin Ming realized Thomas was staring at the
shuoming shu
Lin had been perusing, the bastardized and unfailingly entertaining English-Chinese plot summary that was passed out at most Shanghai movie houses. No, he was mistaken, the American had to be looking at something else. The
shuoming shu
, with its sophisticated cult following, was strictly the province of Shanghai’s cognoscenti.
    “When you’re finished with that, can I keep it?” Thomas said, dispelling all doubts.
    “You
read
them?”
    “I collect them.” And they laughed together as the line started to move. Good. Lin needed something light to take his mind off the new danger posed by this