Murder At the Drum Tower

Tang's happiness couldn't last. In December 1999, the meter factory's parent group was sold off by the government as part of a campaign to streamline the state sector. The new owners absorbed more than 2,000 workers, including Tang and Yu, pledging to honor all salary, pension, housing and medical-insurance deals.

But everything was changing. Tang's new bosses began shutting down the old, unprofitable production lines. After years as a skilled machine-tool operator, Tang was reassigned to be a common guard at the factory gate. Yu was laid off in 2003; by that December, the company persuaded Tang to take early retirement in exchange for a cash buyout from his $100-a-month job, together with outright ownership of the sunny apartment where he and Yu lived. Back in the early '80s, when Tang began work, the government was the nation's landlord. Now he was a homeowner. That was one reform he could welcome.

Even so, the marriage suffered. Tang and Yu began quarreling, as out-of-work couples often do. By 2004, their fights were the talk of the neighborhood. Tang reportedly accused Yu of cheating on him; sometimes he would hit her, according to Zhang Liping, a former co-worker who was quoted in the Chinese media. When asked by NEWSWEEK about the wife-beating allegation, a neighbor refused to answer directly, but hinted, "It's all too common, especially if she made him lose face by having an affair." (Maintaining face is important in China, where people sometimes go to extremes to avoid shame.) Tang and Yu divorced in June 2005. Yu seems to have left the area without registering a new address and could not be reached for comment.

Divorce was rare in Mao's day, when formal approvals had to be obtained from each party's workplace, and neighborhood committees were tasked to persuade couples to stay together. But the rate has soared, especially after a new law in 2003 enabled couples to get a divorce in just one day at minimal cost. Last year alone the divorce rate jumped 18.2 percent; marriages rose only 12 percent in the same period. Social stress, higher expectations and looser norms are all factors. Tang married again in March 2006. They lasted barely two months. No one in the neighborhood seems to know anything about his second wife, not even her name.

After his failed marriages, local police say, Tang placed all his hopes on his only child, determined to give him the best of everything. He sold the apartment on Peace and Happiness Street for about $28,000 and began lavishing the proceeds on Wenjun, now 21. (The son could not be reached for comment.) Wenjun was seen driving a minibus, sometimes as a gypsy cab or a delivery truck. Acquaintances assume Tang bought the vehicle. Police say Tang's money was gone within a year.

Tang's once sleepy neighborhood is now festooned with flyblown piles of garbage and construction rubble; tacky pink- or gray-tiled houses have sprung up all around, built by newly wealthy farmers who rent out single rooms to migrant workers. Tang moved into one such room, and Xu, Wang and other community workers tried to help him find a job. "He always made excuses," says Xu. "He needed to eat, but he didn't want to work." Wang says she would phone Tang whenever job recruiters approached her. "He'd say, 'I don't feel well'," she recalls. When a department store wanted a security guard, she says, "Tang was polite, but he said his health wasn't good." He said no to a crossing guard's job, telling her "he'd have to bake in the sun and stand on his feet all day." "Tang didn't want to lose face by doing menial work," says a former neighbor.

Though tall and neatly dressed, Tang was otherwise nondescript. But people remember his extravagant taste in cigarettes. His brand, Zhonghua, was a favorite of party cadres and other elites in the old days. They usually go for about $7 a pack, nearly twice the price of ordinary smokes. Tang lived on noodles at 75 cents a bowl and spent most of his waking hours playing cards or mah-jongg until late at night, near his old apartment on Peace and Happiness Street. Gambling is one of the very few escapes for depressed or anxious people in China, says psychologist Wei: "There are many distractions in the West, but not in China." As Tang's money problems grew, he gambled almost every day.