Red Mandarin Dress

for everything.
    But it was different tonight. He wasn’t going all the way, but some intimate knowledge of the profession might be helpful for the investigation.
    And he could spend the rest of the night there, cozy and comfortable in the company of a young girl, instead of wandering like a homeless skunk, running about in the cold night.
    “Please, Big Brother,” she went on with a pleading smile. “You are a man of distinction. I wouldn’t pull your leg.”
    His distinction probably came from the fact that he emerged from the Old Mansion, one of the most extravagant restaurants in the city. Still, he thought he had just over a thousand Yuan left in his wallet, not including the small change in his pockets. Enough for a night in the club.
    “Our girls are so beautiful, and talented too. You don’t have to sing if you don’t want to. Some of them are highly educated, with BA or MA degrees. They talk like understanding flowers.”
    “Show me the way, then,” he said in Shanghai dialect. He might learn something from talking to a girl there, the way he wouldn’t have talked to White Cloud.
    There were several tough-looking men standing at the entrance of the nightclub, yawning, turning suspicious eyes on Chen, who didn’t look like a regular client.
    The woman led him to a room on the second floor. Barely had he seated himself on a black leather function sofa when a bevy of girls swarmed in, wearing slips or bikinis, their bare shoulders and thighs flashing against the wall behind them, like a jade screen of female bodies.
    “Choose one,” the madam said with a broad grin.
    He nodded toward a girl in a black mini slip, who had almond-shaped eyes and cherry lips curving into a sweet smile. Probably twenty-five or twenty-six, slightly older than the rest. She slid down beside him, her head resting against his shoulder naturally, as if they had known each other for years.
    After the others moved out, a waiter came in, put a fruit platter on the coffee table, and handed over the menu to him. Too embarrassed to study the menu carefully with the girl nestling against him, he settled on a cup of tea, and she, a cup of fruit juice. Juice wouldn’t be too bad, he thought, having heard stories of how these girls made a huge killing by ordering the most expensive wine.
    “I’m beat tonight,” he said. “Let’s talk.”
    “That’s fine. Whatever topic you like—about the cloud and rain, coming and becoming each other, about the peach blossom giggling at the spring wind, or about boring holes to steal a sight of each other. You must have seen the world. By the way, my name is Green Jade.”
    Cloud and rain again, so much quoted in the classical love stories, and boring holes for a sight of each other was a negative metaphor from the Mencius . She was clever, perhaps like in Liu Guo’s poem, capable of wiping a hero’s tear with a red handkerchief pulled out of her green sleeves.
    Except that her slip was sleeveless, backless. She kicked off her high heels, drew her legs under her, and cuddled up closer on the sofa.
    “Please tell me something about your work here,” he said.
    “If that’s what you’d like, sir,” she said, taking a gulp of her juice. “The job doesn’t bring in easy money as people would like to think. Of course, I earn a tip from a generous client like you, two to three hundred Yuan. On a lucky streak, I may have two customers a night. With so many girls competing, however, it’s possible to go without a client for days. The club doesn’t pay me a single penny. On the contrary, I have to pay the club the ‘table fee.’ ”
    “Why? That doesn’t make sense. You do the work, not the club.”
    “According to the club owner, he has to pay the rent, for the management, and for protection too—both to the gangsters and the police.”
    “What about other services apart from the karaoke part?”
    “Depends what you need, where and when. You have to be specific,” she said. “Let me sing a song for you first.”
    Perhaps his manner of questioning bothered her. She had to sing a song or two for her tip, anyway. Her choice was a surprising one—Su Dongpo’s “Shuidiao Getou,” about the mid-autumn festival. She started singing and dancing, her bare feet floating sensually like lotus flowers on the red carpet, flowing to the second stanza of the poem.
    Moving around the vermilion mansion, /coming through the carved window, / the moon shines on the sleepless./ No cause for it