Red Mandarin Dress

and motioned to her to leave.
    “Thank you, sir. I used to be a model, but it’s a profession of only three or four years.”
    It was then that Green Jade returned, staring at the popcorn girl like an intruding alien, who turned to leave in a hurry.
    “Sorry,” Green Jade said. “Can I have another cup of juice?”
    The drink came, along with another fruit platter. Maybe it was conventional in the house. The waiter didn’t even bother to ask for his approval.
    That concerned him. The small fees were adding up, though he didn’t have to worry about extra service, like “the rain and cloud,” Green Jade had suggested. She started peeling an orange for him.
    He excused himself and went out into the corridor toward a restroom in the corner. Closing the restroom door after him, he counted the money left in his wallet. He still had about nine hundred Yuan. That should do for the night. But he didn’t want to go back immediately. He wanted to straighten out his thoughts, and it was difficult for him to do so with Green Jade and other waitresses coming and going all the time.
    But he noticed a hot towel on a white dish being pushed in through under the door—possibly by the restroom attendant kneeling on the ground. Chen was revolted. Pushing open the door, he put a handful of change on a white bowl on the sink and left.
    When he seated himself on the sofa in the private room, Green Jade leaned over to feed him a fresh tangerine with her slender fingers, the candlelight incessantly flickering from the animal-shaped container.
    “Where are you going to spend the night?” she softly inquired. “It’s so late. The frost thick, the road slippery. Don’t leave. Really, few walk outside.”
    It came almost like an echo from a Song dynasty poem, he recalled, about the rendezvous between the decadent emperor and a delicate courtesan.
    Seeing no response from him, she placed his hand on her bare, smooth thigh.
    “Sorry, I have to leave, Green Jade,” Chen said. “Please give me the bill. It’s been a great night. Thanks.”
    “If you insist,” she said. “You may pay me the tip now.”
    After he paid her three hundred Yuan, she had a waiter send in the bill.
    A glance at the bill showed him the trouble. A cup of fruit juice cost one hundred Yuan. She had two cups. Plus his tea at one hundred twenty. The two fruit platters at two hundred fifty each. The four small dishes of dried fruits on the table came with a price too, with eighty Yuan each. And there was a twenty percent service fee. Altogether, the bill amounted to one thousand, three hundred.
    It was a ripoff. But he was not in a position to protest, not as a chief inspector. As such, he might be able to get away for the night, but the stories about it would cost him much more.
    “What?” she said.
    “I’m so sorry, Green Jade, I don’t have enough cash with me.”
    “Well—how much do you have?”
    “About nine hundred—now six hundred after the tip.”
    “Don’t worry. They won’t kill you if you really don’t have enough money,” she whispered in his ear. “But you have to say you have paid me only one hundred Yuan.”
    That was probably why she had wanted him to pay the tip first. An experienced girl, Chen reflected, seeing a heavy-built man enter the room.
    “He is Manager Zhang,” she introduced.
    “Sorry, it’s the first time for me, Manager Zhang. I don’t have enough money with me.” Chen took out all his money and placed it on the coffee table.
    “How much do you have?” Zhang said without counting the money.
    “About six hundred,” Chen said. “I’ll bring seven hundred next week. I give you my word.”
    “Has he paid you the tip?” Zhang turned to the girl with a frown.
    “Yes, he has. One hundred Yuan.” She added, “He’s been here for about only two or three hours. And I had to be away with Brown Bear for quite a while.”
    “Do you have a card?” Zhang asked.
    “What card?” He wouldn’t give him his business card, whether as cop or as a poet.
    “Credit card.”
    “No, I don’t have one.”
    To Chen’s surprise, Zhang glanced at the money on the table, picked up two twenty Yuan bills, and pushed them back to Chen.
    “It’s the first time for you,” Zhang said. “Those small dishes are on the club tonight. So are the fruit platters. You have to have your taxi money, Big Brother. It’s a cold winter night outside.”
    It was almost anticlimactic. Perhaps it was in the best interest of the