Red Mandarin Dress

pleasure to serve as your little secretary.”
    “I have to ask you another favor today,” he said. “You are a computer pro, I know. Can you do an Internet search for me?”
    “Of course. If you want, I can also bring Mrs. Gu’s laptop back to you.”
    “No, I don’t think I have the time,” he said. “You must have heard of the red mandarin dress case. Can you do a search on the dress—a comprehensive search, about the history, the evolution, and the style during different periods? Anything directly or indirectly related to such a dress—not just currently, but also in the sixties or fifties.”
    “No problem,” she said, “but what do you mean by anything directly or indirectly related?”
    “I wish I could tell you more specifically, but let’s say any movie or book that has a mandarin dress as an important part of it, or somebody known for it, either wearing or making it, any relevant comments or criticism about it, and of course any mandarin dress bearing a resemblance to the one in question. And I may need you to run a couple of errands for me too.”
    “Whatever you want, Chief.”
    “Don’t worry about the expense. A portion of the chief inspector fund hasn’t been spent this year. If I don’t use it up soon, the bureau will cut the fund next year.”
    “So you are not going to quit, Chief Inspector Chen.”
    “Well—” He cut himself short, the soup spurting out of the thin-skinned bun despite his caution. She was perceptive, handing over a pink paper napkin to him. It was not too bad to be a chief inspector, after all, to have a “little secretary” sitting beside, like an understanding flower.
    At the end of the meal, she asked the waiter for a receipt as Chen was producing his wallet.
    “Don’t worry,” he said. “Let me buy this meal for you. No need to ask for government reimbursement.”
    “I know, but it’s for the government’s benefit.”
    The waiter gave her something like two receipts, one for fifty Yuan, and another for a hundred.
    “The city’s tax income has increased more than two hundred percent last month, because of the newly invented official receipt with a lottery number on it,” she said, scratching the receipt with a coin. “Look! You bring me luck.”
    “What?”
    “Ten Yuan. Look at the lottery number printed on each receipt.”
    “That’s a novel idea.”
    “Capitalism in China is like nowhere else in the world. Nothing but money matters here. In restaurants, people didn’t ask for the receipt except for ‘socialist expense,’ so most restaurants reported losses. With the lottery practice, everybody is asking for receipts. It’s said that one family won twenty thousand.”
    Chen also scratched a receipt. No luck, but no disappointment, with her hair touching his face over the number on the receipt.
    They then walked out to the oriental clothing boutiques scattered in the back area of the market. A sort of niche business created for foreign tourists, the small stores displayed an impressive array of mandarin dresses in their windows. Taking his arm, she led him into one of them.
    “The dress you are investigating is old-fashioned, not like any of these you may see here,” she said, examining around. “He is perverse, humiliating the victim in such a dress.”
    “Oh, you mean the murderer? Elaborate for me.”
    “He wants to display her as an object of his sexual fantasy. The graceful mandarin dress, elegant yet erotic with the torn slits and loose buttons. I have seen several pictures in newspapers.”
    “You’re talking like a cop,” he said. At this moment, everybody in the city seemed eager to be a cop, but she had a point. “Surely you know a lot about the fashion.”
    “I have two or three mandarin dresses. Occasionally, I have to put one on in haste, but I have never ripped the slits.”
    “He might have put the dress on her after her death—her body rigid, and her limbs uncooperative.”
    “Even in that scenario, the ragged, torn slits don’t make sense. Whatever way you put it on, you won’t damage it like that,” she said, turning to him. “Would you like to do an experiment—on me?”
    “An experiment, how?”
    “That’s easy,” she said, scooping a scarlet mandarin dress from the hanger and dragging him into the fitting room. Closing the door, she handed the dress to him. “Put it on me as roughly as possible.”
    Kicking off her shoes, she was peeling off her dress, and in less than a minute, she was