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 business to let a customer leave like this. It wasn’t the time for Chen to find an explanation for his luck.
“Thank you so much, Manager Zhang.”
“I have seen many people,” Zhang said. “You are different, I know. If the hill does not turn, the water turns. If the water doesn’t turn, the man turns. Who knows? We may bump into each other one day.”
Zhang walked him out to the elevator. When the elevator door opened, a late customer emerged. A group of girls hurried to offer their services to the new guest with a silver ring of laughter. Chen saw Green Jade among them, running out barefoot.
She didn’t look at him.
“Come again, Big Brother,” Zhang said as the elevator door was closing. “It may be easier for you to get a taxi at the intersection of Henshan and Gaoan Roads.”
Outside, Chen didn’t get into a taxi.
It was almost four o’clock. He thought of a proverb: “Full of joy, the night is short.” He wasn’t sure he had enjoyed himself inside the club, but time had passed quickly there.
It was a cold night, though it was coming to its end. The exciting ideas he had while inside seemed to be somewhat chilled by the wind.
While some of the details in the case fit, others didn’t.
The meeting with the retired neighborhood cop in a couple of hours would be crucial.
Afterward, Chen would check into the background of Mei’s son, starting with the document concerning the sale of the Old Mansion, on which the seller, as the inheritor of the house, had to sign his name and perhaps provide some other information.
It was already Thursday, a day he couldn’t afford to waste in the wrong direction.
But for the moment, he was wandering aimlessly. He had to move. It was cold. With most of the lights off, the street presented a vision he hadn’t seen before. He turned into a side street, made another turn, and to his surprise, he emerged within sight of the Old Mansion again. It looked dark, deserted, desolate. A night bird flashed out of nowhere.
He thought of the poem by Su Shi, “Swallow Pavilion.”
The night advanced, I awake, / no way to renew my walk / along the old garden: / a tired traveler stranded at the end of the world, / gazing homeward, heartbroken. / The Swallow Pavilion is deserted. / Where is the beauty? / Swallows alone are locked inside, for no purpose. / It is nothing but a dream, / in the past, or at present. / Whoever wakes out of the dream? / There is only a never-ending cycle / of old joy, and new grief. / Someday, someone else, / in view of the yellow tower at night, / may sigh deeply for me.
It was a sad poem. The pavilion was renowned because of Guan Pan-pan, a gifted Tang dynasty poet and courtesan who lived there. Guan fell in love with a poet, and after his death, she shut herself up, receiving no visitor or client for the rest of her life. Many years later, Su Shi, a Song dynasty poet, visited the pavilion and wrote the celebrated poem.
Chen imagined Mei standing in the back garden of the mansion, holding the hand of her little boy, shining like a radiant cloud in her red mandarin dress…
Shivering, he made his way to the food market. Several leaves fell in the fading starlight, dropping to the hard ground with a sound like the falling of the bamboo slips used for divination at an ancient temple, darkly portentous.
There was no one visible in the market yet. Near the entrance, he was surprised to see a long line of baskets-plastic, bamboo, rattan, wood, straw-of all shapes and sizes, stretching to a concrete counter under a sign that read “yellow croaker,” a fish very popular in Shanghai. Those baskets evidently stood for the wives who would soon come here, securing their positions in the line, their eyes still dreamy with their families’ satisfaction on the dinner table.
He wondered whether it could be a scene that he had seen before, and he lit himself a cigarette against the wind.
Bang, bang, bang. There came a sudden clatter. He was startled by the sight of a night-shift worker cracking a gigantic frozen bar of fish with a huge hammer. Aware of Chen’s approaching footsteps, the night worker turned around, appearing headless against the upturned collar of his cotton-padded imitation army overcoat. It was a ghastly image in the early morning.
Chen’s nerves were still bad.
Soon, however, several middle-aged women entered the market, heading to the line to replace the baskets and bricks that marked their place. The market began to come alive.