“There is a special recipe for the fish. You stuff ice cubes in the mouth of the live fish, fry it in a large wok keeping its eyes out of the sizzling oil, take it out in less than a minute, and pour special sauce all over it on a platter. Every step has to be precise and quick. Then serve it hot. That’s why the waiter was trotting out of the kitchen.”

So Rong proved her expertise in culinary knowledge, and Peiqin had a recipe that might also go into a story, but that was not what she really wanted to learn.

“Thank you so much, Rong. It is a good story,” Peiqin said, trying to redirect their talk. “But I am still shocked about Qiao. How could a girl like her have come to such a tragic end?”

“You never know what a customer can turn out to be,” Rong said, looking Peiqin in the eye. “We are not talking about Qiao, are we?”

“No. I am just using her as an example.”

“What happened to Qiao is beyond me. Something like that has never happened.”

“Could she have made enemies because of her service?”

“No, not that I know of. In fact, of the three-accompanying girls, an eating girl is the least likely to get into trouble,” Rong said. “Not like in a karaoke club, where the fee for a private room can be a huge ripoff. A lot of things are not listed, and you don’t know the expense until they hand you the bill. Here, all the prices are printed on the menu. You lose no face if you say you don’t like a particular dish. I have suggested a house special called live monkey brain, for instance, to god knows how many customers, but none of them ordered it. No hard feelings against them. It’s too cruel, with a chef sawing off the monkey’s shaven scalp, and ladling out the brains in front of the dinners, and the monkey squealing and struggling in pain all the time-”

“Now back to Qiao,” Peiqin cut in. “Were you with her the night she disappeared?”

“No. She should have come that night, but she didn’t.”

“Could she have gone to another restaurant instead?”

“No, I don’t think so. Competition is fierce everywhere. Among the girls too. Most of them make a point of going to one particular restaurant, and in a more or less organized way. To be frank, that’s how I have helped occasionally. Things can be complicated. A girl has to deal with the restaurant owner and waiters for the profit-sharing; with the local business management bureau for a business license; with the gangsters for so-called protection; and with the cops too, who may make things difficult for her. So if she turned up in a new place all by herself, she could be driven out by the waiters or gangsters, if not by other girls. It’s their territory. She could get into other trouble too.”

“So you don’t think she fell prey to the murderer during the service.”

“No, not in our restaurant.”

“Another question, Rong. Did she have a boyfriend?”

“No, she did not. It’s not easy for a girl here to keep a steady relationship. What would he think-as a man? She has to lie to him about her profession, and the game never lasts long. Once he finds out, everything is finished-because of his wounded male ego.”

“Did she talk to you about her future plans?”

“She said she was saving for a flower shop, she had no plans to be an eating girl forever.” Rong added, “Before she had her flower business, she said she wouldn’t think about other things.”

“So what do you think of the case?”

“A murderer might have met her in the restaurant, got her phone number, and asked her out days later. On the other hand, she might also have met her fate in a way unrelated to her service.”

“That’s true.”

“You are not a cop, are you, Peiqin?”

“No, I am not,” Peiqin said. “I have worked at the Four Seas since my return from Yunnan. Our state-run restaurant has suffered losses and our chef suggests that we should run it like a high-end restaurant with fashionable services. You may be able to give us advice.”

That was a true statement. Rong might help too. Not necessarily in the aspect of three-accompanying girls-an aspect Peiqin didn’t want to envision yet.

“Now that we are talking about it, Peiqin,” Rong said, “there might have been one thing-about Qiao, I mean. Three or four days before that fatal night, a customer came to Ming River, alone. He didn’t look like one who would require a girl, so I didn’t pay any attention to him. He contacted a waiter, requesting a girl’s company. Qiao went over to him. Nothing happened that evening.”

“Can you give a description of that man?”

“If I remember him at all, it’s because he didn’t look like those upstarts. A gentleman, I would say. Medium height. Oh, one more thing, perhaps. He wore a pair of amber-colored glasses. Not exactly sunglasses. Still, it’s rare for people to wear that kind of glasses in the winter.”

“Did Qiao tell you anything afterward?”

“No. She worked late. She had another old customer that night.”

“Did she have a cell phone?”

“No, not that I know of. Nor is there a phone at home. If I had to contact her for something, I called her neighbor on the third floor. Not too many people knew that number,” Rong said, rising with a smile. “I think it’s time for me to start preparing for the evening. I may put on a mandarin dress too. It’s hot.”

EARLY IN THE MORNING, a pile of newspapers was special-delivered from the police bureau to Chen’s home, along with the latest case reports and tapes of Yu’s interviews.

Instead of opening the collection of Song and Ming stories, as he had planned the night before, Chen started looking through the material prepared by Yu, wrapping himself in a robe and reclining against the headboard.

There was a cup of tea on the table, left over from last night, cold, almost black. People are not supposed to drink last night’s tea. But he did.

Shortly afterward, a second package was delivered to him. A package of books from the Shanghai Library, most of them on psychology.

In his college years, Chen had dabbled in the subject-particularly in Freud and Jung-for literary criticism. To his relief, he found himself still responding to those psychological terms. Collective unconscious, for one, jumped out at him. There could have been something like a collective unconscious, he realized, behind the deconstructive turn in those love stories.

Or behind the deconstructive message-if he could so term it-in the red mandarin dress case too?

For many years after 1949, psychological problems had not been acknowledged in socialist China. People were supposed to have no problems, psychological or otherwise, as long as they followed the teachings of Chairman Mao. If they admitted to having trouble, they had to reform their minds through hard labor. Psychology was practically declared a bogus science. Psychoanalysis didn’t exist as a practice. Nor was it sensible for people to go to an analyst-if one was available at all-since talking about their problems could become evidence of serious “political crime.” In recent years, psychology had been gradually reintroduced and somewhat rehabilitated, but most people remained wary of it. Psychological problems still could easily turn into political problems.

As a result, a psychological approach was considered unorthodox in the police bureau. Detective Yu, too, was full of reservations about it, believing that a psychological explanation might be helpful at the conclusion of a case, but not in the middle of the investigation.

Chen started reading Yu’s reports in earnest.

Yu had a hard time with Liao. Apart from the long rivalry between the two squads, Liao didn’t approve of Yu’s focus on Jasmine. Liao declared that the homicide squad had done everything possible in that direction. The killer was a nut, killing at random, and it would be a waste of time to look for a rational explanation.