Red Mandarin Dress

that.
    Jia was already turning and making a weak gesture at Chen.
    Chen stood up, taking off his glasses. He produced his badge to the court security officers who were rushing over to his side.
    A reporter in the room recognized him, exclaiming, “Chief Inspector Chen Cao!”
    Chen strode over and leaned down toward the fallen man. People were stunned, transfixed. The judge stepped down, hesitating for a moment before retreating into the judge’s room, and the two court clerks followed suit, as if fleeing hastily from a crime scene. No one else moved. Jia started speaking with a voice audible only to the chief inspector.
    “The end is coming more quickly than I expected, but it does not matter whether I finish my closing statement or not. What cannot be said has to pass over in silence,” Jia said, taking an envelope out of his suit pocket. “Here are checks for those families. I have endorsed them. You have to do me the favor of giving them away.”
    “To their families?” Chen said, taking over the envelope.
    “I have kept my word—the best I can, Chief Inspector Chen. So will you, I know.”
    “Yes, I will. But—”
    “Thank you,” Jia said with a waxy smile. “I really appreciate what you have been doing for me, believe me.”
    Chen believed him, who must have been sick and tired of his struggling all these years, in vain, in loneliness. Chen gave him an opportunity finally to put an end to it.
    “She loves me. I know. She does all that for me,” Jia said with a strange glow in his face. “You’ve brought back the world to me. Thank you, Chen.”
    Chen grasped his hand that was getting cold.
    “You like poetry,” Jia said again. “There’s a poem in the envelope too. You may keep it as a token of my gratitude.”
    Closing his eyes, Jia spoke no more. After all, what else could he say?
    Chen produced his cell phone to call for an ambulance. Perhaps already too late. It was nothing but a pose he had to strike, for the sake of the audience.
    Like the trial, also a pose, though necessary on the part of the government.
    There was something wrong with the phone. No signal. It might be just as well. Chen almost felt relieved.
    But others must have called. The medical people rushed in, pushing him off the man lying on the floor.
    “I have kept my word—” Chen stood up, thinking of Jia’s last words as the medical people started carrying Jia out on a stretcher.
    Chen didn’t have to open the envelope. The checks should be more than enough as evidence, with Jia’s signature, along with the fact that the checks were given to him in the presence of so many people in the courtroom.
    Yu was moving over to his side, with a phone in his hand. He must have spoken to the other cops, holding them back. It was a bizarre ending. Not only to the trial of the housing development case, but for the red mandarin dress case too.
    The courtroom was now like a pot of boiling water spilling all over.
    Chen handed the envelope to Yu, who opened it and started examining the checks with utter disbelief on his face.
    “The families of the red mandarin dress victims, including Hong’s,” Yu said in an awe-stricken voice. “He must have kept a record of them. With the checks signed, it’s like a full confession. We will now be able to close the case.”
    Chen didn’t speak up at once. As for how to conclude the case, he still had no idea.
    “His own signature,” Yu said emphatically. “It should be conclusive.”
    “Yes, I think so.”
    “Any comment, Comrade Chief Inspector Chen?” the reporter who had recognized Chen shouted at him across the crowd, trying to elbow his way through the restraining line kept by the courtroom security officers.
    “Are you in charge of the case?” Another reporter joined in, pushing forward with several others.
    The courtroom was now in total confusion, as if the pot of boiling water was not merely spilling all over, but the pot itself toppled upside down.
    Some of the reporters followed the stretcher out. Chen and Yu were left standing alone where Jia had fallen several minutes ago. Other reporters were shifting their attention to the two cops, their cameras flashing.
    Chen dragged Yu into the judge’s room, which was empty, closing the door after them. Almost immediately there came loud knocking on the door, presumably by the reporters who had broken through the restraining line, but then the knocking stopped. Whoever was there at the door must have been dragged away by