The Third Page of the Register

Wang Qiang turned the register to page three. The ballpoint pen scratched the visitor column and left no ink. He shook it. The tip scraped a white line into the paper. On the windowsill, the pothos had two yellow leaves. The walkie-talkie crackled. He turned it down.

At 2:40, the gate was quiet. A yellow scooter came around the corner and stopped. An insulated box was strapped to the back, kangaroo on the side. The rider got off. The helmet had ears. Wang Qiang looked up and saw high heels. Thin ones. They clicked on the concrete. The uniform was yellow, the skirt short, the stockings black. His throat moved.

“Which building?” he asked.

“Building 2, Unit 2, Room 801.” She said it softly, like she did not want anyone else to hear.

He called the number. Speakerphone. Three rings. A man answered. “Yes, yes, I ordered it. Let her in.”

Wang Qiang wrote: Xiaolan. Female. Building 2, Unit 2, Room 801. She gave him a phone number. The pen ran dry again. He pressed hard. The paper tore. He let her through. Her heels clicked toward Building 2, steady as a metronome.

Xiao Wang met her another day. Wang Qiang knew nothing about that. Xiao Wang was a college student working summer deliveries. The elevator stopped at eight. A young woman in a yellow uniform stepped in. No insulated box. A small bag. Black stockings. High heels. Helmet under her arm. They were alone.

“You deliver too?” he asked.

She gave him a look, then went back to her phone. At eight, she got out. He rode up. When he came down, he smoked by the curb. The more he thought, the less it fit. He opened a social app and typed “delivery, door-to-door.” Code words filled the screen. He closed it. The cigarette burned his fingers.

Wang Qiang watched her go into Building 2. He sat in the booth. Stood. Sat again. The fan moved the pothos leaves. He checked the time: 3:20. Then 4:00. Then 4:40. A luxury car wanted the garage. He opened the gate late. The window came down. A man cursed him. Wang Qiang smiled and nodded. The car left. He checked the time again. 5:00. She had been inside for more than an hour.

He thought of a movie where someone was locked in a basement. He picked up the walkie-talkie to call Liu for the cameras. Before he pressed the button, she appeared at the far end of the path. Yellow helmet. Black stockings. Wrinkled skirt. The bag was gone. A long tear ran up her left stocking. She walked slowly.

“Miss, you okay?”

She turned her left leg away from him and smiled. “Fell.”

He watched her leave. He went back inside. A bug had landed on a pothos leaf. He flicked it off. On page three, Xiaolan’s name was still there.

Two days later, the police came. Wang Qiang sat in the interrogation room. He shifted in his chair. Zhao Yong asked what he had seen yesterday between three and four. Wang Qiang said he checked every delivery rider and logged every visitor. Zhao Yong asked about Room 801. Wang Qiang’s face went pale. He opened the register. Page three. Xiaolan. Building 2, Unit 2, Room 801. He called the number. Disconnected.

The surveillance came next. At 2:43, the female rider entered. At 2:47, a young man slipped in behind a group of residents. No registration. Wang Qiang stared at the screenshot. “I’ve never seen him.” Zhao Yong told him to look again. “He was avoiding me,” Wang Qiang said.

The man was Wang Gang, 29, Zhou Lan’s boyfriend. Zhou Lan was Xiaolan.

Room 801. The dead man was Xiao, 26, a programmer. He lay on the living room floor with seven knife wounds. Two had reached his heart. The door lock was fine. The window was broken. Glass on the floor. A cola can sat on the coffee table, half full. The keyboard cover was still on his computer. The medical examiner put death at 4 p.m.

The caller was a coworker. A game module had failed. He tried Xiao’s phone, got nothing, and came over. He described Xiao as polite, well paid, able to afford the building. Flaws? Arrogant. Liked women. Police lifted two fingerprints. One belonged to Xiao. One belonged to Zhou Lan.

They found Zhou Lan in a rented room. Loose T-shirt. Wet hair. Zhao Yong asked why she wore a delivery uniform to Room 801. She said she could wear what she wanted. He asked about her work record. She said she was unemployed. He asked for her chat logs. She said she had cleared her phone. Xiao Liu hit the table. “We have evidence.” Zhou Lan pinched her fingers. “Bring him here. We’ll talk face to face.” Zhao Yong told her Xiao was dead.

Her body went slack. She said he was alive when she left. They were friends. She took cash and walked out. Then she admitted it: she took orders through a private app, wore the delivery uniform as cover, and went to clients for illegal sex work. Xiao was a client. She entered Room 801 that afternoon and left an hour later. What happened after, she did not know.

The cameras caught Wang Gang entering the community. Baseball cap. Hands in pockets. He followed residents through the gate without looking at the guard. He went into Building 2 and took the elevator. When Zhou Lan came out, he was in the stairwell. He waited until she was gone, then knocked on 801. Xiao opened. Wang Gang went in. A fruit knife. Seven cuts. A broken window. He climbed into the vacant apartment next door and took the stairs. Three kilometers away, on a road with no cameras, police found a bloodstained jacket. Xiao’s blood. Wang Gang’s skin.

They picked him up in an internet cafe. He saw the police and went white. He said Zhou Lan was always on her phone. The money made no sense. He thought she was cheating. He followed her to Room 801. “I only meant to scare him.” Zhao Yong asked where the knife was. Wang Gang said he threw it away. Zhao Yong asked why he brought a knife to scare someone. Wang Gang said nothing.

Zhou Lan cried in the interrogation room. She used to work at a massage parlor. The pay was small. She wanted more. A delivery uniform got her past guards. One order could bring a thousand. Her best day was thirteen thousand. Wang Gang did not believe her. He asked where the money came from. She said deliveries. He asked if people delivered in high heels. She did not answer. He grabbed her phone. She grabbed it back. He slapped her. She ran. He chased. She said she wanted to break up. He said, “Don’t even think about it.” Then he followed her. “I didn’t think he would kill anyone,” she said. Zhao Yong asked why she never called the police. “What I was doing wasn’t clean either,” she said.

Wang Qiang went back to the community. The guard booth had a new register. Page three was gone. The trash can held an instant noodle cup and a torn sheet of paper. Another pothos leaf had turned yellow. He picked up the walkie-talkie. “Delivery at the gate. Building 2. Log it.”

A new rider came in. Sneakers. Old insulated box. Helmet without ears. Wang Qiang glanced at him and let him pass. He sat down. The ballpoint pen had ink. He wrote: Delivery, male, Building 2. Then he looked at the monitor. The elevator door in Building 2 opened and closed.

He picked up his thermos and drank. The water was cold. He screwed the lid on and set it beside the pothos. The walkie-talkie crackled. “Received,” he said.