a man. How could he expect that men wouldn’t take notice of her? That’s what he had wanted and that’s what had happened.
He may have borne some responsibility for what had happened, but not all of it. The worst offender was the official who was blackmailing his wife. Cheng could think of no worse a character than a man who would prey on women, particularly someone else’s woman.
It made no difference that the man in question was a high-ranking party official. He could have been on the PSC for all Cheng cared. His sin was unforgivable. There was only one way he could make restitution—with his life.
But before he died, Cheng wanted the man to repent for what he had done. While he could have beaten him into repentance and then death, Cheng wanted it to appear to have been an accident. The less people suspected, the less of an investigation would be conducted. The man was overweight, a drinker, and a heavy smoker. A heart attack wouldn’t have surprised anyone, but that might elicit pity. He wanted people to shake their heads when they reflected on the embarrassing stupidity of his death.
Cheng waited until the official’s family had gone to Shanghai for the weekend and he was alone. When he came home from dinner and drinking, Cheng, pistol in hand, was waiting for him. The man was belligerent at first. He had no idea what was happening. He thought it was a robbery. Then Cheng explained who he was and why he was there. The blood drained from the party official’s face completely. He was afraid, and with good reason.
Cheng forced the official to hand over the video of his wife. Then he forced him to open the email account he had used to solicit her. When that was done, Cheng directed the man to a small powder room off the kitchen.
There, a bottle of scotch and a glass sat on the sink. Cheng ordered him to fill the glass and drink it down. The man found it difficult. He was already drunk and gagged several times. Eventually, he succeeded. Cheng then told him to refill the glass and do it again.
As the man tried to get the smoky beverage down his raw esophagus and into his inflamed stomach, Cheng explained the price he would exact on the man’s legacy.
Chinese culture was about its male heirs. The party official had been blessed with one boy. Cheng explained that the boy would spend the rest of his life paying for the sins of the father. Drugs and a murder weapon had already been planted in his apartment where police would find them. He had made sure the boy had no alibi. His life would be ruined and along with it, the family’s reputation. Everything the party official had worked so hard for was about to crumble.
Enraged, the man charged, but Cheng was ready for him. He deftly parried the clumsy attack and spun him back into the bathroom where he stumbled and ran headfirst into the toilet. He lay on the floor not moving. Cheng felt for a pulse. He was alive, but unconscious.
Cheng picked up the glass and the bottle of scotch in his gloved hands and placed them on the island in the kitchen. He then retrieved the Styrofoam cooler hidden in the front closet, along with a bath towel and roll of painter’s tape.
Standing on a stool, he sealed off the bathroom vent with the painter’s tape and then rolled the block of dry ice from the cooler into the sink and turned on the faucet. He took a camera-phone picture of the man’s position on the floor and then adjusted his legs so they would clear the door.
Removing the stool from the bathroom, he exited and pulled the door shut behind him, leaving the party official still unconscious on the floor. He stuffed the towel into the crack under the door and then sealed the rest of the edges with the painter’s tape. After that, all he had to do was let the dry ice do the work.
While he waited, Cheng cleared out all traces of communication with his wife from the party official’s computer. When enough time had passed, he unsealed the tiny bathroom and looked inside. The carbon dioxide from the dry ice had done its job. The man was dead.
Consulting the picture, Cheng positioned the body as it had been. He then stripped away the rest of the painter’s tape from the vent