Red Mandarin Dress

dinnertime. That’s her shift. Of course, we didn’t really know about her work schedule.”
    “So she stayed at home all day?”
    “Not exactly. She could be busy with so many things. But when she left for her shift, she was dressed like a vamp. Always in her pantyhose and high heels. So we knew.”
    “Can you write me a report?” Yu said. “Include whatever you and your neighbors know about Tang.”
    Yu made some more calls, talking to her neighbors and coworkers. After more than an hour on the phone, he learned practically nothing beyond the initial details he had gotten from Liu.
    Shortly afterward, a three-page report came in through the fax machine. It was from Liu and contained everything he had learned from the neighborhood. It was fairly detailed, considering the short notice.
    Tang had lost her mother quite young. When her father was laid off, she, still a high school student, became a K girl with a government-issued license. Her father, too ashamed to continue living in the lane, went back to his old home in Subei. So she lived alone and occasionally brought people home. The committee was well aware of it, but unlike in the years of class struggle, the neighborhood cadres couldn’t go barging into her room without something like a warrant. Fortunately, most of her clients preferred to go to a hotel instead of her small room in the squalid lane.
    She had no phone at home, nor a cell phone, since both were still too expensive for her. Occasionally she used the public phone service at the lane entrance, but she had a beeper with text messaging, which she used a lot.
    Yu checked with the beeper company. The response came back fast. There was no activity on Thursday night.
    As Yu finished reading the report, another emergency meeting was called at the bureau.
    “Look at the headline. ‘Shanghai in crisis,’ ” Party Secretary Li said, his face livid, his words stumbling out in rage. “Our bureau is a laughingstock.”
    Neither Yu nor Liao had an immediate response. The headline might be an exaggeration, but the bureau was in a crisis.
    “Third! On the Bund!” Li went on. “Have you found anything?”
    Yu and Lao were pulling hard at their cigarettes, shrouding the office in smoke. Hong looked flushed, with a hand pressed against her mouth for fear of coughing out loud.
    “The investigation must take a new direction,” Liao said. “Two of the three victims were in the entertainment business—the sex business. Both the second and the third were easy targets at a restaurant or a karaoke bar. Most of those girls wouldn’t tell their families about their activities, so clues about their disappearance would be hard to find. More importantly, such a girl usually believes she is going out with a customer and goes to a secluded area to perform her job. They wouldn’t have resisted until it was too late.”
    “What about Jasmine?” Yu said.
    “She worked at a hotel,” Liao said, “but he could have easily picked her up. In fact, her boyfriend met her like that. That’s why I’ve been pushing for a different focus.”
    “What’s your point?” Li said.
    “The motive is evident. Hatred against those girls. He could have paid a terrible price because of someone in the business—a sexually transmitted disease, for instance—and wants revenge. That’s why he stripped those victims without having sex with them.”
    “What about the red mandarin dress?” Li asked again.
    “He makes a point of dressing his victims like the one who gave him the sexual disease. A sort of symbolism.”
    “But there could be different revenge scenarios,” Yu said. “A woman he loved, let’s say, dumped him for another. In his mind, she’s no better than a prostitute.”
    “But that explains his choice of locations too. Inspector Liao’s theory, I mean,” Hong cut in. “A protest against the booming sex industry in the city. He must blame not only those girls, but the city government as well, I believe, for allowing it to take place.”
    “Leave our government out of it, Hong,” Li said. “Whatever scenarios or theories we come up with, the killing will continue. And what are we going to do to stop the killer?”
    A short spell of silence ensued in the office.
    With the entertainment industry increasingly prosperous in the city, it wouldn’t be difficult at all for him to find new victims. And it was out of the question, everyone in the room knew, to shut down the business.
    “I suggest we check the