Red Mandarin Dress

by Unknown

  “A question. Do you still have the pictures, Comrade Fan? The pictures of the death scene, I mean.”

  “Yes. I have them at home, but it may take a while to dig them out.”

  “I would really appreciate it if you could show them to me today.”

  “Wait a few minutes for me then.” Fan got up and strode out of the eatery.

  Chen was sitting alone at the table, waiting, when the waiter put the bill down. As he had guessed, the taxi money left in his pocket was more than enough for the meal. It cost less than seven Yuan each. For the amount spent in the nightclub last night, he could come here every morning for three months.

  In Dream of the Red Chamber, a young girl calculates that a crab dinner in the Grand View Garden costs more than a farmer’s food for a whole year. The same gap had appeared in today’s society.

  Chen rose to pay the bill at the counter. As he took the change, he cast another look at the couplet on the door. It was in bold calligraphy, a sharp contrast to the shabby appearance of the eatery. The horizontal comment—“True in your mouth”—seemed to be humorous, yet thought-provoking.

  “It’s not just about food,” the restaurant owner said with a smile. “The character ‘mouth’ carries an association of food, but of language as well. All the words come out of the mouth, true or false.”

  “Yes. The couplet reminds me of another one in the Dream of the Red Chamber, in a celestial palace—”

  “I know the one you are talking about, on the arch in the Illusion Wakening Palace, where Jia Baoyu reads the couplet and gets lost, but I can’t remember the exact lines.”

  “The couplet reads like this,” Chen said. “‘When the fictional is real, the real is fictional; where there’s nothing, there’s everything.’ ” Jia zuo zhenshi zhen ji jia, wu wei youchu you yi wu.

  “Exactly. You must be a well-to-do scholar. A prosperous attorney or something,” the owner said, glancing at the briefcase on the table.

  The Italian leather briefcase was a gift from Gu, who insisted that it became Chief Inspector Chen. Ironically, it could have become him in the eyes of Green Jade too, who also took him as a prosperous “attorney or something” last night.

  “The author of Dream of the Red Chamber was good at making puns,” the restaurant owner said, “even in the names of the characters. The name Jia Baoyu, the hero of the saga, could mean ‘fictional gemstone,’ and there is another family in the book, Zheng, which means ‘real’—”

  At that word, Chen’s heart skipped a beat.

  Ending the conversation abruptly, he went back to the table and pulled up his briefcase. Before his departure for the vacation village, he had stuffed the files on the housing development case into the briefcase along with those on the red mandarin dress case, though he hadn’t planned to study either of them there. In his hurried return to Shanghai, he hadn’t had the time to look at them.

  He took out the folder on the housing development case and started reading the part about Jia.

  It was scanty and simplistic, focusing on Jia’s possible antigovernment motive. It provided little solid information. Only a couple of sentences about his unhappy childhood during the Cultural Revolution, in which he had lost his parents. It didn’t even mention his parents’ names.

  But that seemed to be enough for Director Zhong to conclude that Jia took the case for revenge over the Cultural Revolution.

  Chen moved on to the part about Jia’s personal life in the last few years.

  Again, it was scanty. Perhaps because Jia kept a low profile in spite of his controversial cases. It was said that the US stocks left by his grandfather were worth millions, making Jia one of the most eligible bachelors in the city. So his continuous celibacy was noteworthy. Some even had suspicions about his sexual orientation, though there was nothing to support that. In fact, he’d had a girlfriend—a model—though they had since parted. She was surnamed Xia, about fifteen years younger than he.

  On impulse, Chen snatched up his cell phone and called White Cloud.

  “Do you know someone named Xia in the entertainment business? She was a model before.”

  “Xia—Xia Ji, possibly. I don’t know her personally, but she’s well-known in those circles,” she said. “She no longer works as a model. She’s said to have shares in a bathhouse, Gilded Age. She’s a success story, which is why I’ve heard of her.”

  “A model for the bathhouse business?”

  “Do you really not know?” she asked. “In a massage room there, everything is possible. But she’s a partner in the business.”

  He recalled something about the model girlfriend of Jia’s somewhere. He remembered because of her name, Xiaji, which in Chinese could also mean “summer.” Chen had actually met her on a panel for a contest entitled “Three Beautiful Contest—Heart, Body, and Mind,” a pageant sponsored by the New World Corporation. Chen served as a panelist out of obligation to Gu. As a published poet, he was supposed to be “capable of judging what’s poetic.” Xia was also there as a panelist. They didn’t talk much during the contest, nor had they spoken since.

  “Thank you, White Cloud. I’ll talk to you later,” he said, finishing up the phone call at the sight of Fan returning with an envelope in his hand.

  “Comrade Fan, would you tell me the boy’s name again?”

  “Why? Xiaozheng, or Zheng, so that should be Ming Zheng, or Ming Xiaozheng. I don’t remember which particular written character for ‘zheng.’ As for ‘Xiao,’ the character could have been added to the little boy’s name as a sort of endearment, you know.”

  “Yes, occasionally my mother still calls me ‘Xiao Cao’ too.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “Chinese names are capable of meaning something. For instance, Jia Ming can mean ‘fictional name.’ And Ming Zheng, at least in pronunciation, can mean ‘name real.’ ”

  “What are you driving at, Chief Inspector Chen?”

  “If that little boy changed his name to something like Jia Ming—false name of the descendent of the illustrious Ming Mansion, would that make sense?”

  “In Chinese culture, few would change their family name, but for Mei’s son, I would say it’s possible. The past could have been too painful for him. And the pseudonym may have a message in itself, as if telling the world that the one with that name was ‘fictional,’ hiding his real identity from public scrutiny. But who is Jia Ming?”

  “At this moment, it’s only a guess.” Chen decided not to go into detail and changed the subject. “Oh, you’ve brought the pictures.”

  Fan produced a bunch of photographs. They were black and white, not of high quality, shot from a number of perspectives. Some close-ups were blurred and out of focus.

  Still, they were shocking images. Different poses of a dead woman, abandoned, lying naked on the gray concrete ground. As Chen gazed, he juxtaposed them with the photograph of Mei wearing a mandarin dress, taking her son’s hand. . . .

  In poetry, when two images are juxtaposed, a possible new meaning emerges. He didn’t exactly grasp it yet, but he knew one was there.

  “I don’t know how I can ever thank you enough, Comrade Fan.”

  “I took the pictures as a cop,” Fan said with a sudden suggestion of uneasiness, “but I soon realized there would be no investigation. Who was going to bother about such a ‘black’ woman? And I hated the idea of having the pictures of her naked body being passed around—not for the investigation, but for—you know what I mean.”

  “You are a man of principle,” Chen said. “I am so glad I have met you today.”

  “After the Cultural Revolution, I thought about reopening the case. But the government wanted people to look ahead. So what could I do—with no evidence and no witness? Besides, Mei may have died because of Tian, but technically, it wasn’t even a homicide case.”

  “You are right,” Chen said, wondering why Fan made the speech.

  “I think you may be right about her son’s name change. He wants to forget abou
t the past. That’s why he sold the Old Mansion and never came back here.” Fan paused shortly before he went on, “I have done nothing for her, and if what I have told you will be used against her son—”

  “I have nothing but a theory at the moment. Whatever you have told me will never be used against him,” Chen said, deciding that was true, to a certain extent. “A child’s suffering in those years was no crime.”

  “Thank you for telling me that, Chief Inspector Chen.”

  “I have to ask you a favor. Can I borrow these pictures for a few days? I won’t show them to irrelevant people. I will return them to you as soon as I finish using them.”

  “Of course you may.”

  “Thank you, Comrade Fan. You have helped a lot.”

  “No, you don’t have to thank me for anything,” Fan said. “It’s what I should have done. If anything, I should thank you.”

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  FOR THE FIRST TIME, Chen felt he was on the right track.

  After leaving Fan, he made a phone call to Jia’s office. A secretary answered the phone and told him that Jia was out of town until this afternoon. That might be just as well, Chen reflected. He needed time to think.

  He contacted the housing office of the district government, asking for the documents concerning the sale of the Old Mansion, particularly the seller’s real name and his relationship to the original owners of the mansion. The clerk promised to provide the requested information as soon as possible. For the moment, Chen decided not to reach out to Director Zhong for any more background information about Jia.

  But in the meantime, he thought he should do something else. So far, what he had learned was about Jia’s past, things that had happened over twenty years earlier. Now he had to learn about Jia’s current life. Too much was at stake that night, and Chen couldn’t afford to make a mistake.

  He dialed Little Zhou and asked him to meet him in front of the Old Mansion.

  He walked over to the restaurant, which looked different in the morning. With no neon lights and pretty waitresses standing outside, it looked more like a residential building.

  After finishing a cigarette, he thought about calling Overseas Chinese Lu, when Little Zhou arrived in the bureau car.

  “Do you know Gilded Age?” Chen asked.

  “The bathhouse on Puming Road,” Little Zhou said. “I’ve heard of it.”

  “Let’s go there. Oh, stop by a bank on the way. I need to get some cash.”

  “Yes, it could be obscenely expensive,” Little Zhou said, starting the car without looking over his shoulder.

  Chen could see the bureau driver glancing at him in the rearview mirror. A morning trip to a bathhouse was unusual, not to mention his unexplained disappearance for the past week.

  The traffic was terrible. It took them about forty-five minutes before the car arrived at the bathhouse, which looked like a splendid imperial palace. There were already a large number of cars in the parking lot.

  “I may need the car for the day, Little Zhou. Can you wait here for me?”

  “Of course,” Little Zhou said readily. “It’s important, I know.”

  At the bathhouse entrance, Chen made inquiries about Xia.

  “Yes, Xia’s here,” a young girl said, looking at her watch. “In the restaurant on the third floor.”

  As White Cloud had thought, Xia turned out to be a partner in the bathhouse. She was responsible for public relations and entertainment, including the fashion shows during lunch and dinner.

  Chen was asked to purchase an entrance ticket and to change into bathhouse pajamas and plastic slippers before going up. He complied rather than reveal his identity as a cop.

  As the elevator door opened out on the third floor, he glimpsed Xia sitting at a table in front of a stage near one end of the restaurant, wearing the identical house pajamas as Chen. She was sitting in the midst of several other girls and giving orders with the air of a prosperous entrepreneur.

  Naturally, not all the girls would end up being as lucky as Xia, as in a line from a Tang dynasty poem, “A successful general comes walking out of the skeletons of ten thousand soldiers.” Chen thought of the victims in the serial murder case.

  Instead of moving to the table, he asked a girl to send his business card to Xia, who rose at once and came over.

  “I saw you coming in, like a white crane standing out among the roosters, even before I recognized you,” she said amiably. She took his hand and led him to another table. “I’ve seen your picture in the newspapers, Chief Inspector Chen. So you have to be our special guest today.”

  “I’ve seen more of yours, and on TV too,” he said. “Sorry for having come to you like this, but I need to talk to you.”

  “You want to talk to me, Chief Inspector Chen?” she looked surprised.

  “Yes. Now.”

  “But now isn’t a good time. I have to take care of the fashion show for our anniversary party. It starts soon.”

  The fashion show might have less to do with fashionable clothes than with bodies barely covered in clothes. For the anniversary party, however, Xia had to take care of special guests.

  “Are you going to walk on the stage yourself?”

  “No, not necessarily.”

  “If it wasn’t important, I wouldn’t have come here without calling you first,” he said, glancing toward the stage. “Maybe we can talk during the show.”

  She looked hesitant. The girls were standing at a respectful distance, waiting for her instruction. The band had already started to tune up a light melody. It was perhaps not a good place to talk.

  “You aren’t here for the show, I guess,” Xia said. “How about you take a break in a VIP room, and I’ll join you the minute the show gets under way.”

  “Fine, I’ll wait for you there.”

  A young girl led him down to the second floor into a dimly lit room with an attached bathroom. There were two couches covered with white towels and a coffee table between them. A clothes tree stood with a couple of white terrycloth robes on it. Simple, yet cozy. Leaving, the girl closed the door behind her.

  The room was warm and, sitting on the couch, he felt drowsy. A shower might help, he thought, so he took off his pajamas and stepped under the showerhead.

  But the shower didn’t help. Stepping out, he felt weak and light-headed. He left a message for Yu, asking him to come over to Gilded Age after he was finished at the steel mill.

  Chen lay down on the couch. Some light music floated over, faint, vague, like the chant from the temple in his childhood. In spite of himself, he fell asleep.

  He woke up, aware of another person moving in the room. It was Xia, wearing a white terry robe, walking barefoot on the soft carpet, her hair still wet from a shower. She perched herself on the edge of his couch, putting her hand on his shoulders.

  “You look tired,” she said. “Let me give your shoulders a good rub.”

  “Sorry. I didn’t—” He did not finish the sentence. There was no point telling her that he hadn’t slept last night.

  “Your friend Mr. Gu talks a lot about you,” she said, her fingers soft on his shoulders, “and about your valuable help to his business.”

  That accounted for her hospitality. He hadn’t made clear the purpose of his visit, so she must have assumed it was in connection to her business. A cop could make things difficult for a bathhouse with all its private rooms and massage girls. On the other hand, he could also choose to provide “valuable help,” as Gu had phrased it.

  “Mr. Gu is always exaggerating,” he said. “Don’t take his word for it.”

  “Well, what about the huge difference you made to his New World Project?”

  Stories about his friendship with a Big Buck would do him no good, but for the moment he might as well let her believe them. He wasn’t exactly in a position to force her to cooperate.

  “Thank you for the massage,” he said. “It’s unbearable to receive favor from a beauty—and a model entrepreneur too.”

&nb
sp; “A romantic poet in a cop’s uniform,” she said giggling, “but one cannot be a model forever. ‘Pluck a flower while you may, / or there will be barren twigs left for you.’ ”

  The lines came from a Tang dynasty poem. It was surprising that she would quote them like that, talking about her own beauty as something to be plucked.

  But then she was rolling him over as she changed her own position, kneeling, drawing her legs under her. He thought he caught a glimpse of her breast through the opening of her robe. She started massaging his back.

  “You have a lot of knots in your back,” she said, focusing on his lower back, her red-painted toes appealing against the white towel.

  He recalled Scholar Zhang’s comment about a femme fatale in “The Story of Yingying.” It was a timely reminder as he lay there, weak and exposed, but it was strange that he would think of it at this moment.

  “Thank you, Xia. You really have the magic touch. I’ll have to come again.” He stopped her and sat up. “But today I need to talk to you about something else.”

  “Yes, whatever you want to talk about,” she said, moving over to the other couch. She sat reclining against the headboard, crossing her legs, revealing her bare thighs. As he had suspected, she had nothing on under the robe. “No one will disturb us here. The next show won’t start until six. We have the afternoon to ourselves.”

  “I won’t beat about the bush. It’s about Jia, your ex-boyfriend.”

  “Jia—why?” She added in haste, “I broke up with him a long time ago.”

  “We have reason to believe that he’s involved in a serious case.”

  “Whatever he might be involved in,” she said, sitting up, “I don’t know any more than what is in the official newspapers. That housing development case must be a serious headache to some important people.”

  She clearly thought that Chen had come about that case.

  “That’s an anticorruption case, and he’s doing a good job. A headache to corrupt officials, as you said, but it’s not my concern. I know better than to side with those corrupt Red Rats. Trust me. The reason why I am talking to you today has nothing to do with that case.”