Red Mandarin Dress (37 page)

“It’s a difficult case, but it’s also an opportunity to show our Party’s determination to fight corruption. The people see Peng as representative of it. So let’s make an example of him.”

“I haven’t been helpful with the case. I am sorry. But I will be there tomorrow. Those corrupt officials should be punished.”

Zhong had no idea that the phone conversation was going on in the presence of Jia.

“Then I’ll see you in the courtroom tomorrow,” Zhong said.

Turning back at the end of the phone call, Chen said, “Sorry about the interruption, Mr. Jia.”

It was then that the mahogany clock started striking, sounding like the bell in the temple.

Twelve o’clock.

THIRTY

IT WAS A NEW
day, technically speaking.

Chen finished his wine in a gulp, looking up at the mahogany clock. The restaurant owner had done a good job reviving the money-intoxicating and gold-glittering atmosphere of old Shanghai, paying extra attention to the details. The clock appeared to be a genuine one, having survived all those years, with its brass pendulum burnished like new.

He might have broken the cycle. It was Friday now. There was practically no possibility of Jia’s trying to claim another victim before the trial.

So he picked up the silver bell from the table and rang it.

White Cloud came to the table in a floating florid dress, blossoming like a night flower. “Yes?”

“The special course for the night,” Chen said. “Don’t forget any details.”

“All the details,” she said, lighting two candles on the table before leaving.

Jia watched, making no comment about Chen’s unusual instruction to her.

Chen lit a cigarette. A sudden silence wreathed the room; only the pendulum of the antique clock remained audible.

Suddenly, the lights went out in the room and there was only candlelight, shivering in the draught as the door reopened.

She returned in a red mandarin dress, with its slits badly torn, several of her bosom buttons undone, and her bare feet shining on the carpet.

Jia stood up, his face suddenly bleached of all color, as if having seen a ghost.

In a Song dynasty tale of Judge Bao that Chen had read, a criminal was shocked into confession by the apparition of a murdered woman. At that time, people were still superstitious, groveling before the fury of a ghost.

Jia was making an effort, however, to pull himself together as he slumped back in his seat. He kept his head low, wiping his forehead with a paper napkin, to avoid the sight of her.

She carried a glass pot on top of a gas stove in her hands. As she put the stove on the table, leaning over to light it, her breasts became visible through the opening of her unbuttoned dress.

There was a turtle swimming in the pot above the stove. Unaware of the water temperature that was beginning to change, it looked out at leisure. Another cruel course, that live turtle soup. With the fire turned on low, it could cook for quite a long while.

“A special soup made of chicken and scallop broth,” she explained. “The turtle absorbs the essence of the soup in its struggle, so its meat, when cooked, will have an extraordinary flavor. Its movement will also make the soup more delicious.”

“A strange course, an unusual restaurant,” Jia said, regaining his composure, though still sweating profusely. “Even the waitress is dressed so dramatically.”

“This used to be a mansion, and its mistress was a legendary beauty, especially in an elegant red mandarin dress,” Chen said. “I wonder if she ever wore the dress like this. Or if she ever served such a cruel course, which is like a murder, with the young girl suffering, struggling against a sense of inevitable doom.”

“You’re full of associations,” Jia said.

In a way, Jia had suffered a similar fate, helpless, doomed in spite of all his struggles. Looking into the glass pot, Chen had a momentary vision of the turtle turning into a boy, holding out his hand against the inevitable. He felt a sick knot churning on his stomach.

But as a cop, Chen was responsible for punishing the man for his crime against Jasmine, against the other girls, and against Hong, his colleague.

“So inhumanly cruel,” he muttered in spite of himself, “but I can do the same.”

“You are lost in the flight of your imagination, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“No, I’m not,” Chen said.

He rose, scooped up his trench coat from the clothes tree, and put it over White Cloud’s shoulders. Reaching his hand out, he buttoned a breast button for her before he said, “Thank you so much for all your help. You are done here. Keep yourself warm. It’s Dongzhi night, and you may want to join your family.”

“No.” She blushed, looking more attractive than he had ever seen before. “I’ll wait outside for you.”

After she left the room, he said to Jia, “No, it’s not a night for stories, or special courses, you know, Mr. Jia.”

“You mean it’s Dongzhi night? Yes, I know.”

“I want to thank you first for filling in the holes in the red mandarin dress case,” Chen said, “but it’s time for a showdown between us.”

“What? What are you driving at? You said you wanted to tell a story. Perhaps there’s something else in the story, that much I guessed, but now it is becoming the red mandarin dress case!”

“We don’t need to pretend any longer. You are the protagonist in the story, Mr. Jia, and also the murderer in the red mandarin dress case.”

“Now, Chief Inspector Chen. You can write any story you like. But such a fictional accusation—you don’t have anything to support it. Not a single shred of evidence, or the shadow of a witness.”

“Evidence and witnesses there will be, but they may not even be necessary. The murderer will talk—with or without them.”

“How? Now you’ve crossed the line into fantasy. As a reader, I don’t see how you as a cop could do anything to prosecute such a case as described in your story.” Jia remained calm, hanging onto his role as a reader. “If a cop were really so confident, he would be writing a case report instead of fiction.”

“You keep using the word fiction, Mr. Jia. But there is also nonfiction. Nonfiction sells better in today’s market.”

“What do you mean by nonfiction?”

“A real story about Mei and her son. Authentic, nostalgic, graphic, and tragic as the Old Mansion itself. A lot of people will be intrigued. For the time being, I may not even have to elaborate on the mandarin dress case aspect. Just some hints here and there. You can bet it would be a sensational bestseller.”

“How could you stoop so low, Chief Inspector Chen, for the sake of making a bestseller?”

“It’s about the tragedy of the Cultural Revolution, and its tragic repercussions even today. As a cop and a writer, I don’t see anything low about it. If it becomes a bestseller, I’ll donate the money to a private Cultural Revolution museum in Nanjing.”

“A nonfiction writer has to be wary of being sued for slander, Chief Inspector Chen.”

“I am a cop, and I write like a cop, basing every detail on evidence. Why should I worry about a lawsuit? It will bring in a lot of publicity, and a large number of reporters too. They are hunting for anything related to the red mandarin dress case. Don’t expect them to miss the point in the book. And along with the text, I have something that will grab their interest.”

“What cards have you not yet put on the table?”

“Remember the pictures I’ve told you about on the phone—oh, I’m so sorry. I should have shown them to you earlier,” Chen said. “The old photographer used five or six rolls of film. I’ll have all of them published.”

He produced the pictures from his briefcase and spread them out on the table.

It must have taken all Jia’s willpower not to snatch up the pictures. Instead, he cast a casual glance at them in nonchalance.

“I don’t know what pictures you are talking about, but you don’t have the right to publish them.”

“The photographer’s widow has the right. For a poor old woman, the money from the pictures may help a little.” Chen helped himself to a spoonful of the snakeskin before he took up the magazine again. “When I first looked at the picture, it reminded me of several lines from
Othello
: ‘If it were now to die, / ’Twere now to be most happy; for, I fear, / My soul hath her content so absolute / That not another comfort like to this / Succeeds in unknown fate.’ Absurd, you may say, but I came to understand your insistence of putting each victim in a red mandarin dress. You want to remember her at her happiest moment, your happiest as well. To do you justice, you might have wanted those victims to be happy, and beautiful too, for that moment.

“So I’ll call attention to the similarities between the pictures and the murder case. In a couple of the pictures, the bosom buttons of her dress appear slightly undone. And in several of them, she walks barefoot. Not to mention the mandarin dress itself. The same material and style. The same craftsmanship too. An authority I have consulted about the mandarin dress will back me up. And what about the background of the original mandarin dress? A private garden. Now except for the last victim, the scenes where the victims were found invariably had something to do with flower and grass. The symbolic correspondence is impressive too. In fact, the flower-bed background for the first victim is only a stone’s throw from the music institute.”

“You are misleading people—”

“No, I don’t think I have to,” Chen pressed on. “The pictures of the beautiful hostess of the Ming Mansion—nowadays the celebrated Old Mansion—shall prove more than enough. There are about eighty pictures in all. Apart from using them in my story, I’ll sell one or two to a newspaper or a magazine—to achieve the maximum effect. Also, let’s think about a title for it. How about ‘The First Red Mandarin Dress’? People will surely unearth all the details. Dirty details. Sensational details. Sexual details. It will be a feast for the reporters. And I will do my best to help them.”

“We don’t have to talk anymore, Chief Inspector Chen. You invited me here for a story of yours, and I listened patiently to the end. Now you are suddenly talking about a felony, accusing me of being the murderer. I don’t think I need stay here any longer. As an attorney, I know my rights,” Jia said, looking at Chen in the eye. “You can come to me tomorrow with a warrant, either before, during, or after the trial.”

“Don’t leave, Mr. Jia.” Chen made a gesture for his patience. “I haven’t even started telling you about another selling point. For romantic suspense, I’ll include part of my interview with Xia.”

“You contacted Xia!” Jia said. “Yes, to undermine the housing development case, you are capable of anything.”

“No. A romantic affair between a successful attorney and a celebrated model is just another selling point for ‘The First Red Mandarin Dress.’ ”

“You are grasping at straws. We parted such a long time ago. It has nothing to do with your fiction or nonfiction.”

“People meet, people part, no one can help it. But why part? There are interpretations and interpretations. She may not say a lot, not to begin with, but I bet those paparazzi won’t let her get away. Sooner or later, they will be able to dig out more intimate details about your personal life, fitting them to the psychological profile of a sex killer. They will be especially interested to learn about the source of one peculiarity of the murder case: the fact that all the victims were stripped naked but not sexually attacked. It has already riveted the attention of the reporters.”

“You are making a serious mistake,” Jia retorted, standing up indignantly. “Before you can lock up the attention of the reporters, there may be one or two more victims. I don’t think people would be grateful to an irresponsible cop lost in his fantasy of a bestseller.”

That was a threat Chen had to take seriously. Like in a Chinese proverb, a desperate dog jumps over the wall. Jia was capable of striking out again, like he did at the Joy Gate, in spite of the police surveillance.

White Cloud came into the room again, still wearing the red mandarin dress.

“Sorry, it’s the time to put in the seasoning for the soup.” She lifted up the lid and poured in the seasoning. She also changed the spoons and saucers for them before she turned to Jia, smiling an apologetic smile. “Please be seated.”

She could have seen or heard what was going on through the frosted glass of the door. The turtle was swirling frantically in the pot, splashing out the soup.

Neither Chen nor Jia said anything in her presence. She left, lightfootedly. The room was silent except for the turtle hissing in the pot.

“It is Dongzhi night tonight. A night for family reunions, for the living and the dead,” Chen resumed. “My mother wants me to be with her. But in terms of Confucian priority, a matter for one’s country is more important. I have no choice. So I have to make sure there’s not another victim in a red mandarin dress, and I’ll take responsibility for it.”

“Then it’s your responsibility,” Jia said, “if you hang on to your wild story at the expense of letting the real criminal slip away.”

“The real criminal won’t slip away. No more than the turtle in the soup. Incidentally, it is a great boost to yin and yang, fantastic ambrosia.” Chen took a look into the pot. “Readers will really enjoy the part about sexual desire of the son for the mother. A taste of Oedipus complex as delicious as the soup!”

“Chinese people will not be bamboozled by your psychological terms like
Oedipus complex
.”

“Exactly. Our readers will not care so much about the difference between the conscious and unconscious. They will say, ‘He’s so damn horny for his mother, he can’t fuck any other women, and he kills them in a perverted way, achieving an orgasm in the imagined company of his mother.’ ”

Jia did not speak, gazing into the glass pot, in which the turtle was still moving, but much slower.

“In one of the thrillers I translated,” Chen went on, “a serial killer cares little about what happens to himself, for his life is just a long tunnel without a light at the end, but he cares about the one he loves. In our case, what about her? Again, her memories will be dragged through the mire of shame and disgrace—even worse than in the Cultural Revolution—with every detail examined and exaggerated. What will those reporters really do? I have no control over that.”