“With this new apartment, you no longer have an excuse to remain celibate.” She drained the glass with a toss of her long hair.

“Well, introduce some girls to me.”

“You need my help?”

“Why not, if you are willing to help?” He tried to change the subject. “But how are things with you? About your own apartment, I mean. Soon you will get one for yourself, I bet.”

“If only I were a chief inspector, a rising political star.”

“Oh, sure,” he said, raising his cup, “many thanks to you.”

But it was true, or at least to a certain extent.

They had first met on a professional level. She had been assigned to write about the “people’s policemen,” and his name had been mentioned by Party Secretary Li of the Shanghai Police Bureau. As she talked with Chen in her office, she became more interested in how he spent his evenings than in how he did his day job. Chen had had several translations of Western mystery novels published. The reporter was not a fan of that particular genre, but she saw a fresh perspective for her article. And then the readers, too, responded favorably to the image of a young, well-educated police officer who “works late into night, translating books to enlarge the horizon of his professional expertise, when the city of Shanghai is peacefully asleep.” The article caught the attention of a senior vice minister in Beijing, Comrade Zheng Zuoren, who believed he had discovered a new role model. It was in part due to Zheng’s recommendation that Chen had been promoted to chief inspector.

It was only partially true, however, that Chen had chosen to translate mysteries to enrich his professional knowledge. It was more because he, an entry-level police officer at the time, needed extra cash. He had also translated a collection of American imagist poetry, but the publishing house offered him only two hundred copies in lieu of royalties for that work.

“You were so sure of the motive for my translations?” he said.