Red Mandarin Dress

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.”

“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.”

“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, there’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.