the little red internet

The Washington Post, U.S. Firms Balance Morality, Commerce, Feb. 19, 2006:
BEIJING -- A congressional hearing in Washington last week focused attention on the practices of four U.S. Internet companies doing business in China -- Google Inc., Yahoo Inc., Microsoft Corp. and Cisco Systems -- amid mounting criticism that they are making money in the world's second-largest market of Internet users at the expense of human rights.
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The following is the first chapter of a mystery novel recently smuggled out of China. Written by a dissident angry about the lack of internet freedom, it has yet to find a publisher.

Blood spattered the gravel around the crime scene. A man's corpse, the source of the blood, had a knife sticking out of its back.

Arriving at apartment building, Detective Leung opened the door of his cruiser.

"You're late," said the patrolman who had radioed dispatch. "I called for back-up over two hours ago."

Leung removed a pair of sunglasses and stared down the officer.

"I would have been here sooner," he said, "but some roads were closed and I was not able to get driving directions from any sort of frequently updated map source."

The officer softened his face. "I understand. I often find myself on a quest for maps. If there was a way to type in the address I was going to, or the intersection, and get instructions for how to get there, life would be easier."

Both men walked to the corpse.

Detective Leung donned a rubber glove and removed the knife from the man's back.

"I'll send this to evidence," he told the officer. "It was probably purchased with cash, which will make it difficult to trace. My job would be a lot easier if there were some sort of online shopping centers from which criminals could buy weapons using their credit cards. That way I could obtain the records and find a list of suspects who owned the weapon in question."

"Something like that would be helpful for me too," said the patrolman, as he put a piece of gum in his mouth. "Not for crimesolving, but for shopping. I can never find the time to stop by the market and get what I need."

Leung made a note of the dead man's position. "My old partner used to say the same."

"You used to work with Detective Lin, right?"

"Right."

"What was he like?"

"I never really knew him that well. If there had been an easily accessible catalogue of his favorite books, movies, TV and shows, plus comments from his friends, I might have gotten to know him better, and counted him as one of my friends." Leung sighed. "Instead, I never felt like he opened up his personal space to me." In fact, Leung had never even met Lin's wife, although if he had, and if he had seen pictures of what they looked like in high school, he might have exclaimed "She married him?!" due to the fact that she looked rather nerdy back then, while Lin looked like a popular student.

Leung squatted down to examine the corpse, and felt a flash of pain in his back. Lately he had found it difficult sleeping on the small bed in his tiny apartment. Not for the first time did he wish he could find a better place to live. Real estate agents were expensive, Leung knew, but if he could bypass the middle men and find people who had rooms to rent or apartments to sublet. Leung's friend Craig had talked of creating a list of availabilities he knew about, but had not yet done so. It was hard to find a place Leung could afford on his own, but he was not yet married. And it was so hard to meet people. Last night on his way home he had seen a woman and felt a connection to her. She was sitting on a bench reading Chairman Mao's Little Red Book. He was standing at the bus stop, also reading Mao's book. But Leung had missed his chance to talk to her -- there was no way he could get in touch with her.

The officer grunted, bringing Leung back from his thoughts.

"What a horrible way to die," the officer said. "An argument gone too far."

"What happened?" Leung asked.

The officer explained that two men had been overheard arguing about who directed the first Big Momma's House movie. When neither man agreed with the other, the argument escalated into violence.

"It probably never would have happened if there was some resource or database they could have consulted to find out the cast and crew of any movie," said the officer. "But there is no such thing, and now one of them is dead. What makes people act like this?"

"Well," Leung said, "we all have a little bit of evil in us. But what can you do? It's not like you can say 'Don't be evil' and expect everything to turn out fine." Leung took out his notebook to begin the investigation. Maybe somebody nearby had seen something. "Any chance that a witness will pop up?"

"Not with this block," the patrolman said, pointing to the empty residences lining the street.

This made Leung upset. The best representation of his emotional state would have been for him to stick out his downturned thumb while his eyebrows arched and little lines of anger emanated from his head. But since this was not possible, he settled for a simple frown.

The officer seemed to eagerly await some comment from Leung, almost as if he was eating from a small bag of popcorn in front of his round yellow face.

"I'm not feeling lucky," Leung said.