Red Mandarin Dress

by Unknown

  “I trust you, Chief Inspector Chen, but then why?”

  “It’s about another case,” he said. “Of course you’re not involved.”

  “So what do you want to talk to me about?”

  “Whatever you know about him. All that you tell me here will be confidential—kept within this room. I’ll never use it for the housing development case, I give you my word on that.”

  “That’s a lot to talk about,” she said slowly, crisscrossing her legs again. “I think I’d better talk to my attorney first.”

  He had anticipated this. Xia wasn’t one of those girls who would give in easily to a cop. It could take days for him to obtain her cooperation under normal circumstances.

  “You know why I’ve come to you like this, Xia?” Chen said. “It’s about the red mandarin dress case.”

  “What? But that’s impossible. How could he have done that?”

  “He’s the primary suspect at this moment.” He paused deliberately before going on. “The bureau will stop at nothing. Anyone connected with him will be interrogated and reinterrogated. There will be a hurricane of publicity and that won’t be good for you or for your business. So I want to talk to you first. I would hate to drag you through all that unpleasantness.”

  “Thank you for your thoughtfulness,” she said. “I appreciate it.”

  “If he is not guilty, your statement will serve only to help him. It has nothing to do with the housing development case.” He reached out his hand, patting hers. “Mr. Gu may have exaggerated about me, but he is right about one thing: good friends help each other. You are doing me a favor, I know.”

  It was a hint about an exchange of favors, and perhaps something more, which she couldn’t miss. Rather bogus for a cop, but justifiable in an exigency, something recommended even in the Confucian classics he had been studying.

  “So where shall I start?” she said, looking up at him.

  “From the beginning,” he said, “from your first meeting.”

  “It was about three years ago,” she said. “I was a college student then, in my third year, when Jia came to give a talk about career choice. I was impressed. Several months later, I had an opportunity for a modeling career, so I went to consult with him. To be fair, I was the one that took the initiative, but he sent me flowers after my first performance. So we started going out. He was a broad-minded man, caring little about the gossip concerning my profession.”

  “What kind of man did you find him—not just as a lover?”

  “A good man: intelligent, honest, and successful too.”

  “Did he talk to you about his life?”

  “No, not really. His parents passed away during the Cultural Revolution and his childhood was not a happy one.”

  “Did he ever show you pictures of his parents? Say, his mother, who was quite beautiful?”

  “No. He never even talked about her, but I knew he came from an illustrious family. I brought up the subject once, and he was surprisingly upset. So I never touched on the topic again.”

  “Did he often lose his self-control?”

  “No, nothing like that. He could occasionally lose his temper, but for a busy attorney, it’s understandable.”

  “Did he talk to you about his pressures or problems?”

  “In today’s society, who isn’t under pressure? No, he didn’t talk about it, but I could sense it. He handled controversial cases, you know. I saw several psychology books in his office. Possibly in an effort to find ways to release stress. From time to time, he would appear absentminded, as if suddenly thinking of a case, even during our closest moments.”

  “Did you notice any other symptoms?”

  “Symptoms—of what?” she said. “Well, he didn’t sleep well, if you want to count that as a symptom of something.”

  “Now, in your intimate moments, did you notice anything unusual about him?”

  “Can you try to be a bit more specific, Chief Inspector Chen?”

  “For instance, did he ever want you to dress in a special way?”

  “Not really. Off the runway, I didn’t want to dress like a model, and he showed no objection to that. He bought some clothes for me. Expensive, elegant, but not too fashionable. Which is his taste, I think. Once, he wanted me to go barefoot in a park like a country girl and a small rock cut my foot. He never asked me to repeat the experience.”

  “What about any special dress—say, a mandarin dress?”

  “Mandarin dress? Not everyone can wear one well. I’m too tall and skinny. I explained that to him, so he didn’t insist on it.”

  “Now a more personal question, Xia. Any deviance or problem in his sex life?”

  “What do you mean?” She stared at him. “Is that supposed to be the reason we broke up?”

  “I’m asking you this question, Xia, because it’s relevant to our investigation.”

  No immediate response. A shrewd businesswoman, she knew how important it was to maintain connections with a senior police officer, especially when such a case loomed in the background. She propped herself up with a couple of pillows and picked out a cigarette.

  “That’s something to talk about in a private room,” she resumed with a wry smile. “Do you want to know how we parted?”

  “Yes,” he said, lighting the cigarette for her.

  “People talked a lot about our relationship, but in reality, it didn’t go that far. In a restaurant or a café, he would let me hold his hand, and that’s about the extent of the intimacy between us. Believe it or not, he never kissed me properly, just a peck on the forehead or something like it. About a year ago, there was a fashion show at the Thousand Island Lake, close to the Yellow Mountains, where he happened to have a meeting the same week. So I arranged for us to check into the same mountain hotel. At night, I walked into his room, where we embraced and kissed like real lovers for the first time. Perhaps because of the height, about one thousand feet above sea level, you know, we felt above and beyond the earth—so lost in passion, like in the waves of white clouds outside the hotel window. But of all a sudden, he disengaged himself, saying that he couldn’t. What a disaster! The next morning we left the hotel, a shadow between us. That’s how we parted.”

  “That could be very important to our work. Thank you so much, Xia,” he said. “But I still have more questions for you.”

  “Yes?”

  “In the mountains, he couldn’t, or he wouldn’t?”

  “He couldn’t. He would have checked into the hotel without having any thoughts about it.”

  “I think you’re right. So it’s a physical problem.”

  “Yes, he sort of acknowledged it, but he wouldn’t listen to me about seeing a doctor.” She said after a pause, “He had a lot of books in his office, as I mentioned, some on sexology and pathology too. He might have tried to help himself.”

  “I see. Have you kept in touch with him?”

  “I didn’t really resent him. He couldn’t help it. After we broke up, he still sent me flowers from time to time. On the opening of the bathhouse too. So when I read about the housing development case, I sneaked into his office one evening.”

  “Did he arrange the meeting?”

  “No, I didn’t even call beforehand, because he had told me that his phone line might be tapped.”

  “You can’t be too careful,” Chen said, “but he might not have been in the office, and people could have seen you going there.”

  “He usually works late. When we were still seeing each other, I went to his office a lot. He gave me a key to his office’s side door. So it’s not easy for other people to see. Neither of us was interested in publicity.”

  “How does it work? I mean going through the side door.”

  “He bought his office, a large suite for himself, when the building was still under construction. Those buildings built in the late eighties don’t have a proper garage. An office unit usually gets a parking spot or two in the back of the building. As his office suite is on the corner, th
ere’s a space at the side, sort of an enclave, between the outside wall and his suite, enough for an additional car. He had a side door installed so he can walk out of his office and almost directly into his car.”

  “Hold on, Xia. You mean no one can see him moving out of the office into his car?”

  “If his car is parked there, yes. Though he has a reserved parking space in the back as well. Occasionally he has important visitors who don’t want to be seen visiting him, so instead of using the front entrance, they park by the side door. I think that’s what he told me. Anyway, he gave me keys to the side door so I could get in that way. No one could really see me, especially late in the evening—”

  “I see. When did you meet with him about the housing development case?”

  “About a month ago.”

  “So you had something important to tell him.”

  “To be frank, I have some official connections of my own. They threw out hints about the complications of the case. About a power struggle not only in Shanghai, but in Beijing too. Whatever the result, it won’t do him any good.”

  “Yes, I have heard that too. What did he say to you?”

  “He told me not to worry. Somebody in Beijing had contacted him, assuring him of an open and fair trial for the case. He didn’t go into details, but he urged me not to contact him anymore.”

  “Did you ask him why?”

  “Yes, I did. He wasn’t specific, but he said it wasn’t just because of the case—the housing development case.”

  “Did you notice anything else unusual about him?”

  “He seemed to be even more restless than before. Something heavy on his mind. When I left his office, he hugged me and recited an odd quote from a Tang dynasty poem: ‘Oh, if we could have met before I was married.’ ”

  “Yes, that’s strange. He’s still single—”

  Their talk was interrupted by a knock on the door.

  “I have told them not to interrupt,” she said apologetically before rising to open the door.

  The man standing in the doorway was Detective Yu, whose expression was no less startled than hers.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  “CHIEF INSPECTOR CHEN!” Yu made no attempt to disguise his surprise.

  He had hurried all the way over to the Gilded Age, not too surprised at the urgency Chen had requested for the meeting, yet wondering why Chen wanted to meet him there, of all the places, especially after his unexplained disappearance.

  Now the door opened on a scene that more than confounded Yu. There, Chen was in the company of a gorgeous woman, both of them wrapped in bathrobes, like a couple relaxing at a luxurious resort.

  “Oh, Detective Yu, my partner.” Chen sat up to make the introductions. “Xia, the most celebrated model in Shanghai, also a partner in this grand bathhouse.”

  “Detective Yu, I’ve heard of you. Welcome,” she said, smiling. “It’s time for me to go back to work. Call me if you need anything else, Chief Inspector Chen.”

  “Thank you so much, Xia.” He added, as if in afterthought, “Oh, do you still have the key?”

  “The key? Yes, I may still have it. I’ll check.”

  She walked out gracefully, her bare feet treading soundlessly on the carpet, and closed the door after her.

  Yu knew he shouldn’t be surprised by anything his eccentric boss did. Still, he couldn’t restrain himself from making a sarcastic comment.

  “You’re really enjoying your vacation here, Chief.”

  “I’ll explain everything—in time,” Chen said, “but let me make a phone call first.”

  Chen called someone he knew well and left a short message. “Come to the bathhouse, Gilded Age.”

  Chen then turned and said to Yu, “Now sit down and tell me what you’ve found about Tian.”

  “I went to the factory this morning,” Yu said, perching on the couch where Xia had reclined. The couch had a long impression, still slightly wet and warm from her body. “Most of his colleagues have retired or passed away. What I learned comes from here and there, some of which you may have already learned from the interview records.”

  “Maybe, but I haven’t had the time to grasp it as a whole. So please tell me from the beginning.”

  It was hot in the room. Yu took off his padded jacket, wiping sweat from his forehead. Chen poured him a cup of oolong tea.

  “Thanks, Chief,” Yu said. “Tian started working there in the early fifties, one of the ordinary workers. At the outbreak of the Cultural Revolution, mass organizations like Red Guards and Worker Rebels sprung up everywhere. He joined a group of Worker Rebels called Red Flag, whose members came from factories all over the city. In response to Mao’s call to grab the power from the ‘capitalist road officials,’ Tian turned into a somebody overnight, beating and bullying ‘class enemies’ in the name of the proletarian dictatorship. Shortly afterward he enlisted in a Mao Zedong Thought Propaganda Team that was dispatched to the Shanghai Music Institute. There he was said to be even more swashbuckling, riding roughshod over the intellectuals.”

  “Was there anything unusual about his activities in the team?” Chen interrupted.

  “Normally, a Mao Team was made up of the workers from one factory and dispatched to one school, but at his own request, he joined a team consisting of the workers from a different steel factory. As for his ‘revolutionary activities’ there, I haven’t learned much. That steel factory went into bankruptcy two or three years ago. No one at Tian’s steel mill really knew anything, except that he must have bullied his way around. In the late seventies, with the Cultural Revolution officially declared a well-meant mistake by Mao, Tian withdrew from the colleges, crestfallen, returning to the factory.

  “Then a policy was formulated regarding the ‘three evildoers’ during the Cultural Revolution. Tian fell into that category, but there were many ‘Rebels’ like him, and nothing was really done about them. But surprisingly, letters against him were sent to a city government cadre whose father, an old professor at the music institute, had been badly beaten during those years. The letters claimed Tian was the one who broke the old man’s ribs, so an investigation was carried out. Some said he beat another teacher into paralysis, some claimed that he looted gold coins, and some mentioned that he had forced a woman to have sex with him through the power of his position. Nothing was really proved, but as a result, he was fired and sentenced to three years in prison. His wife divorced him and left with his daughter—”

  There was a light knock on the door. Chen opened it and in came a couple of girls wearing house pajamas and slippers.

  “Do you need massage service?” one of the girls asked sweetly. “Everything’s on the house, General Manager Xia has given us specific instructions.”

  The other girl carried in a thermos bottle and made more tea for them in new cups with fresh tea leaves and hot water.

  “No, we don’t, thanks. Tell Xia not to worry about us. If we need anything, I’ll let her know.” The girls withdrew from the room and Chen resumed. “Well, so much for his history as a Mao Team member. How about his bad luck?”

  “Strange things happened to Tian and his family. His ex-wife started seeing other men, which was to be expected for a divorced woman in her early thirties, but soon pictures of her sleeping with her boyfriend got around. Some were sent to her factory and those pictures ‘nailed her to the pillar of humiliation.’ In the early eighties, it was still a crime for people to have sex without a marriage license. She committed suicide out of shame. The local police looked into it. They suspected the incident was a dirty trick played by one of her lovers, but the investigation yielded nothing. The daughter went back to Tian.”

  “That was strange,” Chen said. “An ordinary worker, divorced, not too young, and with a child. The men she was seeing were perhaps ordinary workers too. How could those pictures have been taken? By a professional? I don’t think an ordinary worker could have afforded to hire one for that.”

  “Strange things also happened to Tian’
s restaurant—”

  “Yes, I checked into the restaurant part,” Chen said. “Did you talk to his former colleagues about his rotten luck?”

  “Like his neighbors, his colleagues saw all of this as retribution,” Yu said. “Whatever the interpretation, he has had the worst luck imaginable, like in some folk story.”

  “Retribution is a common motif in our folk stories. A man who has committed wrongs in his life—or in his previous life—is punished by a supernatural force that metes out justice. But do you really believe in such?”

  “Do you believe there is something behind his bad luck?” Yu said, looking up sharply. “As a paralyzed man, more dead than alive, how could Tian be involved in the case?”

  “Yesterday morning, I was at the Jin’an temple, rereading your interview with Weng, Jasmine’s boyfriend, when an idea occurred to me. What if it wasn’t luck, but a series of mishaps caused by a man? Something you learned at Tian’s factory might very well confirm my suspicions.”

  “Now there’s an idea,” Yu said, though impatient with the way Chen talked, digressing like Old Hunter before finally coming to the point, “but I still don’t see the connection to the case.”

  “You’ve just said that, as a Mao Team member, Tian forced a woman to have sex.”

  “Yes, somebody mentioned it, but it wasn’t confirmed.”

  “Do you know the name of that woman?”

  “No one mentioned her name but she was probably a faculty member at the institute.”

  “You’re following a very important trail. Let me show you something,” Chen said, producing a picture. “Take a look at the woman.”

  “The woman—” Yu said. “She’s in a mandarin dress.”

  “Look at the style.”

  “Yes, the style!” Yu examined it closely. “The very style. Do you mean—”

  “The woman in the picture was Mei, a violinist who taught at the institute. She was abused by Tian—to be exact, she was forced to have sex with him for the sake of her son. On the afternoon she died, Tian was seen sneaking out of her room.”