Red Mandarin Dress

said. “I’ve heard of it.”
    “Let’s go there. Oh, stop by a bank on the way. I need to get some cash.”
    “Yes, it could be obscenely expensive,” Little Zhou said, starting the car without looking over his shoulder.
    Chen could see the bureau driver glancing at him in the rearview mirror. A morning trip to a bathhouse was unusual, not to mention his unexplained disappearance for the past week.
    The traffic was terrible. It took them about forty-five minutes before the car arrived at the bathhouse, which looked like a splendid imperial palace. There were already a large number of cars in the parking lot.
    “I may need the car for the day, Little Zhou. Can you wait here for me?”
    “Of course,” Little Zhou said readily. “It’s important, I know.”
    At the bathhouse entrance, Chen made inquiries about Xia.
    “Yes, Xia’s here,” a young girl said, looking at her watch. “In the restaurant on the third floor.”
    As White Cloud had thought, Xia turned out to be a partner in the bathhouse. She was responsible for public relations and entertainment, including the fashion shows during lunch and dinner.
    Chen was asked to purchase an entrance ticket and to change into bathhouse pajamas and plastic slippers before going up. He complied rather than reveal his identity as a cop.
    As the elevator door opened out on the third floor, he glimpsed Xia sitting at a table in front of a stage near one end of the restaurant, wearing the identical house pajamas as Chen. She was sitting in the midst of several other girls and giving orders with the air of a prosperous entrepreneur.
    Naturally, not all the girls would end up being as lucky as Xia, as in a line from a Tang dynasty poem, “A successful general comes walking out of the skeletons of ten thousand soldiers.” Chen thought of the victims in the serial murder case.
    Instead of moving to the table, he asked a girl to send his business card to Xia, who rose at once and came over.
    “I saw you coming in, like a white crane standing out among the roosters, even before I recognized you,” she said amiably. She took his hand and led him to another table. “I’ve seen your picture in the newspapers, Chief Inspector Chen. So you have to be our special guest today.”
    “I’ve seen more of yours, and on TV too,” he said. “Sorry for having come to you like this, but I need to talk to you.”
    “You want to talk to me, Chief Inspector Chen?” she looked surprised.
    “Yes. Now.”
    “But now isn’t a good time. I have to take care of the fashion show for our anniversary party. It starts soon.”
    The fashion show might have less to do with fashionable clothes than with bodies barely covered in clothes. For the anniversary party, however, Xia had to take care of special guests.
    “Are you going to walk on the stage yourself?”
    “No, not necessarily.”
    “If it wasn’t important, I wouldn’t have come here without calling you first,” he said, glancing toward the stage. “Maybe we can talk during the show.”
    She looked hesitant. The girls were standing at a respectful distance, waiting for her instruction. The band had already started to tune up a light melody. It was perhaps not a good place to talk.
    “You aren’t here for the show, I guess,” Xia said. “How about you take a break in a VIP room, and I’ll join you the minute the show gets under way.”
    “Fine, I’ll wait for you there.”
    A young girl led him down to the second floor into a dimly lit room with an attached bathroom. There were two couches covered with white towels and a coffee table between them. A clothes tree stood with a couple of white terrycloth robes on it. Simple, yet cozy. Leaving, the girl closed the door behind her.
    The room was warm and, sitting on the couch, he felt drowsy. A shower might help, he thought, so he took off his pajamas and stepped under the showerhead.
    But the shower didn’t help. Stepping out, he felt weak and light-headed. He left a message for Yu, asking him to come over to Gilded Age after he was finished at the steel mill.
    Chen lay down on the couch. Some light music floated over, faint, vague, like the chant from the temple in his childhood. In spite of himself, he fell asleep.
    He woke up, aware of another person moving in the room. It was Xia, wearing a white terry robe, walking barefoot on the soft carpet, her hair still wet from a shower. She perched herself on the edge of his couch, putting her hand on his