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The proverbial "room began to spin" thing happened. I felt the whole of my vision alter out of balance, focus and perception. Destroyed? ATM? Me? How? What? All these thoughts burned through my mind like wildfire. What was she on about? I managed to take control of my now gaping mouth and spoke to them slowly, carefully, as my brain verged on popping a vessel or just shutting down altogether. The room was still out of kilter, but talking seemed to slow the vertigo feeling. "Last night, I remember attempting to get money from an ATM. When it didn't give out any money or my card, I remember punching several buttons, then hitting my hand on the keypad, but, destroy? No way!" The woman turned to her partner and made subtle signals between them with their eyes and faces. They didn't believe me. I thought a moment, as it had been several hours since this had transpired and for the first time I truly felt out of sync with myself, as if something on me or in me was out of alignment, or even missing. Think of waking up and breathing, only you can't catch a full breath because overnight one of your lungs collapsed, that's how I felt, incomplete and nervous just beneath the surface. I knew right now that it was very important that I didn't show any outward sign of stress, anxiousness or nervousness. Anything could be interpreted wrong by a questioning authority, and a foreign one at that.
I continued, "I went out this morning...with, with a friend... to try and find the ATM center where my card was lost. You realize the machine stole 500 RMB from my account, don't you?" The woman looked at her partner, said a few words and then continued our conversation. To this day I have no idea why the other officer was there. He never spoke, only nodded his head a lot. Was he there as a witness? Her boyfriend or husband? Someone in training? Regardless, she would always say something to him and like an obedient lap dog, he would nod his head and nothing more, good doggy. I later realized that all people in touchy situations like this must have an abiding witness present to back up any lie, half-truth or non-evidence that is produced by the questioning party.
I then said I wished to call my Embassy. As she and her "dog" walked out, she turned to me and said to me with a disdainful smile on her pretty little mouth, "You can call your embassy, in fact, you can call anyone you want, but nobody can help you now!"
Now it was she who had a look of incredulous disbelief. She even laughed, if a bit nervously. "You mean..." she paused to look at her partner again, and continued, "You don't remember beating the ATM to pieces? There is video! We have photos! Would you like to see?" At this moment she opened a folder she had with her and took out some color copies with images on them. She spread them out in front of me and I looked at them. They were color prints taken from a surveillance camera. In one photo it showed a close up of an ATM; there was no glass cover, but a small TV-type monitor sat askew inside a larger rectangular hole, a few wires poking out around it. In a second photo, a long dull gray metal object lay at the foot of an ATM, looking a bit like a section of rain gutter. The other two photos were obscure pictures of the room where ATM was and another photo showed a man in a yellow shirt and longish, wavy hair exiting the room, presumably me.
I looked at them both, tossed up my hands and folded them on the table and sighed despondently, "These mean nothing to me. It doesn't register. I recognize that it is a mangled ATM, I assume that one photo is me from the back, I did have on a yellow shirt yesterday. All I remember is what I told you. I made a transaction on an ATM. I heard the machine process it, you know that sound? Whiiiiiiiiiirrrrrrrrrrrrr! That's what I heard, it was counting the money. The door opened and nothing was there! The whole thing shut down and kept my card!" I looked at them earnestly, with no reaction. I continued, "I punched buttons, I banged on the keypad and then the last thing I remember, I was standing in front of the Garden Hotel, with no memory of having walked there or leaving the ATM place." Then I simply stared at them, waiting.
They talked between themselves for a moment, then she gathered her files and folder, and stood to go. I told her I would like to go now, and she smiled and informed me I wouldn't be going anywhere for some time. I then said I wished to call my Embassy. As she and her "dog" walked out, she turned to me and said to me with a disdainful smile on her pretty little mouth, "You can call your embassy, in fact, you can call anyone you want, but nobody can help you now!" As she turned and they walked away, the huge and horrific weight of realization fell upon me--I was in deep trouble, and I was in a Communist country, known for abusing its own citizens for far less, what would happen to me, a foreigner?
A Clear Blue Sky April 21, Friday afternoon
I was escorted back to the main building as the two young PSB officers talked with a few policemen, then left in their own car. Inside, instead of being seated on the wooden couch by the reception desk as before, I was led to a small room adjacent to that desk where a long and wide wooden table dominated the space. Only two chairs stood on the back side of the table, so I walked around and sat down. Another man, Chinese, squatted in a corner. He looked to be a migrant worker, most likely there for stealing something. Another man, or I should say boy, stood guard at the door. He was interesting only by the fact that he was trying to appear human. I thought of him as monkey boy. He didn't wear a policeman's uniform. He had on army fatigues and he wore weight lifter's gloves–the kind with half the fingers cut off. He wore military style boots and he looked at me with dull, unintelligent eyes. He simply stared at me, so I gave him a Robert Dinero, "You lookin' at me?" challenge. He just kept staring, I thought at any moment a long string of drool would spill over his half open mouth. He walked over to a barred window to one side of the room and brought up something thick and disgusting from the dark regions of his throat and spat it out through the bars, then he walked back, still watching me and parked himself by the door. I stared back a while, a half smile on my face, showing him I had no fear and he could stare all he wanted. He finally looked away, realizing I wasn't like the Chinese he was used to intimidating with his demeanor, and played with his stubby, short fingers, which looked as if they hadn't been washed in a week. He then attempted to wedge one grimy little digit into one of his nostrils and later inspect what he laboriously spent a full half minute to disengage from the shallow recesses of his intertwined nasal and brain cavity.
Later, they came for the skinny man, who monkey boy dragged out rather roughly and they disappeared. Shortly after I heard screams from another part of the complex and I at once knew that the thief was being beaten. about an hour later he was brought back and he acted as if he had trouble standing on his feet or straightening his back. He shifted constantly on the balls of his feet, groaning and sighing, never opening his eyes. monkey boy stood at the door again, leaning against the jam, glancing at me with his incredibly dull, "No lights on in the attack" look. I tried something. I stood up and walked slowly around the side of the table toward him. He stood up straight right away and approached me with open hands, arms at length. I looked passed him at the wall. he tried to push me back, but I pointed over his head, I said in Chinese, "I see the time." Then I turned back and sat down, smiling at him as he glared at me, what else could the moron do? Then I thought, "Nobody knows I am here" and I realized I could be in for some very real trouble. There was already two stories of foreigners who had mysteriously died in recent years; one a covered up murder on the streets by the PLA, the other, a man taken in and beaten to death by police.
Later a uniformed policeman showed up, said something to monkey boy and took his place. The policeman looked at the man in the corner and said something to him, with only a grunt for a reply, then he asked me in fair English, "You want food?" I said yes, and water please? He left momentarily and came back about ten minutes later with a Styrofoam container, chopsticks and a plastic cup of water. I opened up the container and ate heartily. It wasn't bad actually, probably the same things the officers were eating. Some steamed green vegetable, an egg and pork mixture, along with an ample helping of rice. I had not eaten since mid-afternoon the day before, so this might as well have been a rib-eye steak. At some point the thin man was removed and never returned. I on the other hand sat there in that chair, slept on folded arms on the table or walked around occasionally for the next 24 hours. Sometime in the morning I was served more food, and again in the afternoon.
Finally, around 4:00 pm or 5:00 pm I was brought out into the reception area and asked to sit upon the wooden bench. A bit later two gentlemen, one much older than the other, came in and the older gentleman addressed me. "Please come with us." And with that I was escorted to a black SUV with the two men and a third, who sat in the back with me. They handcuffed me before I got in and as we drove out of the station, the man in the back chatted with me. I can't recall anything he or I said, but it was small talk to be sure. Ten minutes later we pulled into a large building complex. Several buildings surrounded a central courtyard, where a number of vehicles were parked. I guessed this to be another police station. I was ushered into a waiting room and there the man who had sat with me on the ride there came to me and talked while the other two men disappeared.
"You know, this is a simple case. If you offer to pay for damages, I am sure this will all be over soon." I got excited at this information. Finally! Someone was telling me something I wanted to hear. "Can you pay for the damages? Also, if you apologize, it will help." I told him of course I could pay, but I would have to contact my sister, because my money was in the USA. He seemed to accept this as a good answer, then he went off. Later the other two men appeared and talked to a receptionist at the desk before me. They signed some paperwork, then they ushered me to follow them. We walked out into the open air courtyard where the older man stopped me as the younger man went ahead to another building with several small barred doors, one of which he unlocked, turned on some lights, and sat at a computer desk. To this day I have no idea who the other man had been. For all I knew he could even have been some representative of the court, being sure I was treated humanely as I was being moved out from the jurisdiction of the small neighborhood police station and now onto more daunting real estate, that of the Guangzhou Detective Bureau of Investigation. cont. | prev. | main
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