Red Mandarin Dress (11 page)

Forty-five minutes later, Yu arrived at the hotel lobby dressed in a gray jacket Peiqin had bought him. No one seemed to recognize him. He soon saw Yaqin, a short woman wearing her hair in an old-fashioned knot, though probably only in her mid-forties. She sneaked him a photocopy of the passport. It showed that Weng left via Guangzhou the day Jasmine was murdered and came back only this morning. Weng would have hardly had the time for the first crime. Definitely not for the second.

“Thank you, Yaqin,” he said. “Is Weng still here?”

“Room 307,” Yaqin said in a whisper.

“I’ll call you later,” he said in a low voice. “So we can meet away from the hotel.”

She nodded, picking up a full ashtray from the lobby table like a conscientious hotel employee.

He stepped into an old elevator, which bobbed him up to the third floor. Following the narrow corridor to the end, he knocked on a brown door marked 307.

The door creaked open. The man inside appeared to be in his early forties, his hair uncombed, his eyes red, slightly swollen. Yu recognized him as Weng, though his passport picture looked younger. It was evident that Weng had not changed since his arrival, his clothes rumpled, encompassing his stout body like an overstuffed duffle bag. Yu produced his badge and came straight to the point.

“You must know why I am here. So tell me about your relationship with Jasmine, Mr. Weng.”

“You are moving fast, Comrade Detective Yu. I’ve just come back this morning, and you already have me as a suspect.”

“No, I don’t. As you may not know, there’s been another victim here while you were in the States. You don’t have to worry about being a suspect, but what you tell me will help our work. You want to avenge her death, don’t you?”

“Yes, I’ll tell you what I know,” Weng said, letting Yu into the room. “So where shall I start?”

“Let’s start when you met—but no, let’s go to the very beginning. Tell me first about your trips back to Shanghai,” Yu said, taking out a mini recorder. “It’s just our routine procedure.”

“Well, I left Shanghai to continue my studies in the United States about seven or eight years ago. I got my PhD in anthropology there, but I couldn’t find a job. Finally I started working for an American company as their special buyer in China. With no factory or workshop, the company designs the products in the US, has them manufactured here, and then sells them for a good profit all over the world. Sometimes they simply buy wholesale at the Yiwu Small Product Market and put their own labels on them. They hired me because I speak several Chinese dialects and am capable of negotiating and bargaining in the countryside. So I fly back and forth regularly, with Shanghai as my base. After all, it’s my home city, and it’s convenient for me to go anywhere from here—”

“Hold on a minute, Weng. You still have your family here, why don’t you stay at home?”

“My parents had only a room of sixteen square meters, in which my elder brother still lives with his wife and two kids, all huddled up together. I can’t squeeze back into that one single room. My brother might not say anything, but his wife would grumble nonstop. The company pays all the expenses for my business trips. Why should I save money for them?”

“I see,” Yu said. “So you met her during your stay in the hotel.”

“I met her about half a year ago, in an elevator incident. The ancient elevator stopped moving between the fifth and sixth floor. We were trapped inside, just two of us, facing each other and the possibility of its crashing down the next instant. All of a sudden, I felt her so closely. In her hotel shirt, skirt, barefoot in plastic slippers, carrying a pail of soap water. At a flowerlike age, she looked too good to be at such a menial job. Then the light went out too. She grasped my hand in panic. After the longest five minutes in my life, the elevator started moving again. In the light, which came back like soft water, she looked so pure and charming. I asked her to have a cup of tea with me in the canteen—to relieve the shock in an old convention. She declined, saying that it was against the hotel policy. The next morning I happened to see her again in the lobby. She looked worn out, having just finished the night shift. I followed her out and invited her to a restaurant across the street. She agreed. That’s how things began to develop.”

“What kind of a girl did you find her?”

“A really nice girl. There are not too many left like her nowadays. Not materialistic at all. She could have earned much more at a nightclub, but she would rather earn her honest money at the hotel. I don’t think she took me as a Big Buck. She knew better. And she was so devoted to her sick, paralyzed father too. An extraordinarily filial daughter!”

“Yes, I’ve heard that. Have you visited her home?”

“No, she didn’t like the idea. She wanted to keep our relationship a secret.”

“Because you were staying at the hotel?”

“You could say that.”

“But you went out a lot with her. People would have discovered your relationship sooner or later.”

“Maybe, but we didn’t go out that much. I was busy, flying here and there, and she had to take care of her father.”

“Now a different question. Did she ever wear a red mandarin dress in your presence?”

“No. She was not a fashion butterfly. I tried to buy some new clothing for her, but she invariably said no. She had a pajama top made from her mother’s fifteen years ago. No, she did not—” Weng broke off, as if overwhelmed in memories. “The Old Heaven is blind. A girl like her should not have suffered such a string of bad luck, and such an end—”

The room phone started ringing. Weng snatched it up as if he had been expecting it.

“Oh, Mr. Newman, about that deal—hold on,” Weng turned around, covering the phone with his hand. “Sorry, it’s an international call. Can we talk another time?”

“That’s okay,” Yu said, pulling out a business card and adding the cell phone number the bureau had temporarily given him. “You can call me anytime.”

The visit hadn’t yielded much, but at least he could rule out two possibilities. First, Weng was excluded as a suspect, and more importantly, Jasmine was not an easy-pick-up target engaged in sex business, contrary to Liao’s suspicions.

Still, he felt he might have missed something in the interview. Though what it was, he couldn’t figure out.

ELEVEN

AGAIN
,
PEIQIN WAS TRYING
to help in her way.

She attempted to gather background information about Qiao, the eating girl. Since Peiqin herself worked in a restaurant, she had no trouble getting people to talk about those girls. Chef Pan turned out to be knowledgeable on the subject.

“Oh, three-accompanying girls—singing, dancing, eating,” Pan started with great gusto over a dish of peanuts flavored with Daitiao seaweed. “Another characteristic of China’s brand of socialism. Socialism still has to provide a cover for everything, like a sign of a sheep’s head, behind which dog or cat meat is selling like crazy. The Party authorities keep saying that there’s no prostitution here, black words on white paper, so there appeared the gray area of three-accompanying girls.”

“You’ve worked at high-end restaurants,” Peiqin said, pouring him a cup of ginseng tea, a gift from Chief Inspector Chen, “and you surely know a lot.”

“Confucius says, ‘Enjoyment of delicacy and sex is of human nature.’ In the unprecedented economic reform led by Comrade Deng Xiaoping, what industry has scored the most incredible expansion? The entertainment industry. All the new and fancy restaurants and nightclubs, where Big Bucks and Party cadres are spending money like water. So eating girls appeared as a matter of course.”

“But how does an eating girl make her money?”

“For a Big Buck rolling obscenely in money, the company of an attractive girl adds a finishing touch to a perfect night, her nestling against him at the table, putting the delicacies on his plate. It boosts enormously his feeling of power and success, a sensual candle flickering between them. Actually, there are high requirements for the profession. She has to be pretty, and clever too, capable of convincing a Big Buck that he is getting his money’s worth with her company. For her, it’s a free dinner, plus a huge bonus. Through her choice of expensive wine and delicacies, the bill can be staggering, from which ten percent goes to her, not to mention the tip. In addition, she may strike a clandestine deal on the table, or under the table. What happens afterward does not concern the restaurant. So all in all, it’s a sizable income for her.”

“You have observed well, Pan.”

“Eating girls won’t come to a shabby place like ours, but they bring profit to a restaurant. We will have to change too.”

“Thank you so much,” Peiqin said, though slightly disappointed with the general introduction. For her purpose, she needed to know something more concrete.

The tidbits about three-accompanying girls from her other colleagues were also secondhand, vague, unreliable with their embellishments. After all, none of them had any real experience.

So Peiqin went one step further. Through her connections, she succeeded in obtaining help from Ming River, the particular restaurant where Qiao had served for the last year. The restaurant manager, Four-eyed Zhang, suggested to Peiqin that she should talk to Rong—a “big sister.”

“Rong, the eldest among the girls, is in her mid-thirties, a big sister with longer experiences, more connections, and more importantly, a list of those regular customers requesting the service. And she’s well-read in her way, too, especially about Chinese culinary history, which makes her popular among old customers,” Zhang said. “Some of them will call ahead for eating girls, and she helps to make arrangements. As for new customers, it’s not always easy to approach them, and her experience can be invaluable. Rong is also said to have befriended Qiao.”

“That would be the perfect one for me. Thank you so much, Manager Zhang.”

“But you have to get her to talk. She’s quite a character.”

So she phoned Rong. Peiqin introduced herself as a would-be writer. Having learned from Zhang about Rong’s knowledge of Chinese cuisine, she invited Rong out to lunch at Autumn Pavilion, a restaurant known for its fresh seafood. Zhang must have known Rong well as she agreed readily.

Rong stepped into Autumn Pavilion in a white jacket and jeans. A tall, slender woman, with no makeup or jewelry, she was not easily recognizable as an eating girl. Choosing a table in a quiet corner, Peiqin explained what she needed—in addition to an introduction to China’s culinary tradition, she would like to learn something about Qiao, so she might be able to write a short story about it. It was not too difficult for Peiqin to play a would-be writer, filling her speech with popular quotes, but she wondered if Rong really believed her.

“It’s interesting,” Rong said. “Not too many people want to be writers nowadays. You crawl on the paper for months, and all the money you make can hardly buy a meal.”

“I know. But I’ve been working in a restaurant for more than ten years. I have to do something different besides caring about three meals a day.”

“You may be right about that. Now, we are sort of colleagues, so you don’t have to order like those Big Bucks,” Rong said in a crispy voice, picking up the menus. “Slices of lotus roots filled sticky rice, home-grown chicken immersed in Shaoxin yellow wine, live bass strewn with ginger and onion slices. These should be enough.”

“What about the appetizers?”

“Let’s have a couple of deep-fried oysters. I’m going to Ming River tonight, you know. We are here to talk.”

“Great,” Peiqin said, glad that Rong knew better than to be an eating girl in her company. “Now, how long have you known Qiao?”

“Not too long. From the time she came to work at Ming River. That’s about a year ago, I think.”

“According to Zhang, you kindly befriended her. So you know a lot about her.”

“No, I don’t. In our business, people usually don’t ask and don’t answer. She was young and inexperienced, that’s why I gave her a suggestion or two. Now that she’s dead, I don’t think I should tell—even if I knew something.”

“Whatever you tell me goes only into the background of my story. No real names will be given. I give you my word, Rong.”

“So it does not have to be about her?”

“No, not necessarily.” Peiqin understood her reservation, for people could sell the information about Qiao to a tabloid magazine. “Zhang knows me well. Otherwise he would not have given your name to me. It’s just for my fictional story.”

“Well, here’s a fictional story,” Rong said, draining her cup in one gulp and holding a golden-fried oyster in her fingers, “but with real background information about the profession. I won’t give the girl’s name. For a story, you don’t have to take it too seriously.”

It was smart of Rong, whose insistance on its being fictional meant she was not responsible for whatever she was going to say.

“She was born in the early seventies,” Rong started, nibbling at the fried oyster. “The maxim that ‘beauty is not edible’ was a favorite one for her parents. On the wall above her cradle was a poster of Chairman Mao’s ‘iron girl,’ tall and robust, muscles hard like iron. Indeed, when people have a hard time feeding themselves, beauty is like a picture of cake. In her elementary school, she drew a magnificent restaurant as her dream home, which she didn’t step in until she was fifteen.

“Her beauty blossomed in the mid-eighties. While her parents’ maxim might no longer be universally true, it still applied to her. In an age of connections, it took much more than looks to become a model or a star. She had no connections. For a girl from an ordinary worker family, a state-run factory job was considered an ideal ‘iron bowl.’ So upon high school graduation, she started working in a textile mill, a job made available through her mother’s early retirement.

“There, her beauty meant nothing. She worked three shifts, dragged her tired feet around the shuttles, back and forth, like a fly circling the same spot. Back home, she kicked off her shoes and clasped her callused soles. Outside the window, the willow shoots barren in the autumn wind, she knew one thing for a fact: a textile worker grows old quickly.
Soon, the spring splendor fades / from the flower. There’s no stopping / the chill rain, or the shrill wind.