The Interior (31 page)

She began by telling Zai how she’d infiltrated the factory. She spoke of the harsh working conditions and showed him her hands. But Zai, who’d spent many years at hard labor, was not terribly impressed. “Don’t be so naïve,” he said. “You haven’t worked with your hands in more than twenty years. Of course you would have blisters and scratches.”

Then she said that she’d met a man who’d been in love with Miaoshan. Now for the first time Hulan hedged on the facts, taking them out of order and implying something for which she did not yet have concrete proof. “This man mentioned that Miaoshan had papers that were proof of bribery of an important official. I saw those papers, which did indeed show large amounts of money being deposited in various accounts.”

“Who was receiving the money?”

“I believe it is Governor Sun Gan,” Hulan said. It was true she believed this statement, but she didn’t know it to be a fact. As air came out in a tight hiss through Zai’s teeth, she continued, “I came in today to look up his travel record.” She handed the piece of paper with Sun’s data to Zai. He hesitated, not wanting to touch it. Then, with his forehead deeply creased, he took the paper and read.

“When I saw this I came to you,” Hulan went on. “Doesn’t it seem strange that his trips abroad, especially to the U.S., lasted so long?”

When Zai looked up, it seemed to Hulan that he had aged. They both knew how dangerous this was. Sun was a popular politician, and there had been no mandate from above to bring him down.

“I would like to see his
dangan
,” Hulan announced. “How is he able to travel so freely? Where does his money come from? Who protects him? How did he get to where he is today? What is the government’s plan for him? There is so much I need to know, so I can decide whether or not to act. Obviously I will be careful,” she added, taking full responsibility if anything should go awry. “Obviously I may be completely wrong.”

“What does this have to do with the death of your friend’s daughter?”

“I don’t know yet, but the leads in that murder have brought me here.”

Zai looked down at Sun’s exit and entry record again. After a moment he looked up, nodded, handed the paper back to Hulan, and walked away. After a few paces he stopped and looked back at her. “Are you coming?”

Once back in the compound, he told her to wait in his office. A half hour later, he rejoined her. In his hands he held a large manila file. He sat down and wordlessly pushed it across the desk. He watched her open it; then he turned away and went back to work of his own.

Hulan began to read. Sun Gan had been born in 1931 of the Western calendar in a village outside Taiyuan. The Communist Party had already been in existence for ten years, and Sun was blessed with a pure peasant background. He was still just a little boy during the Long March but was old enough to remember the atrocities of the Japanese invasion of 1937. By 1944 Shanxi Province was firmly in Japanese-Occupied China. A few Americans came into the territory either as spies or had parachuted in when their planes were shot down during the occasional bombing mission. After the Japanese surrender American marines made up a new presence in Taiyuan.

At thirteen years old Sun Gan had apparently been a bright boy and very involved in his village’s Communist party. (His third uncle had gone off to join Mao’s troops many years before). He also had an affable personality—a trait he still carried to this day, Hulan noted—and had easily become the mascot for a group of American GIs. Hulan suspected that although this camaraderie had been less than innocent—he’d been sent by local cadres to see what he could make of the foreigners and their intentions—it would probably prove to be nearly devastating during the Cultural Revolution. But that, she supposed, was getting ahead of the story.

This early work came with a reward—a position in the People’s Liberation Army. During the winter of 1948, when Sun was only seventeen years old, he participated in the massive and decisive battle of Huai Hua against the Guomindang in neighboring Anhui Province. It was here that Sun performed several heroic acts, which were detailed over several pages. He could have stayed in the army—which would have meant that today he would have been a very high-up general, rich and powerful—but Premier Zhou Enlai had personally asked the young man to go back to Shanxi.

Sun first served the people as a rural cadre in his home village, working as a team leader, then brigade leader on one of the local communes. In 1964 he was elected to the Taiyuan City People’s Assembly. During the weeklong gathering a wide variety of subjects had been covered, including the imperialism of the West, how to increase wheat production, and the importance of advancing industrialization. Even though discussions sometimes grew heated, Sun had kept quiet. Two years later, Mao unleashed the terrors of the Cultural Revolution. For many months Sun’s reticence at the People’s Assembly protected him; he hadn’t said anything, so his words couldn’t come back to haunt him. But eventually some of his subordinates in his home village, where he had risen to brigade party secretary, saw an opportunity and took advantage of it. They remembered that back during the war Sun had been friendly with American servicemen. He had acquired a taste for their expensive cigarettes, decadent style of dress, and barbaric language. As a result he was made to wear the usual dunce cap, kneel in broken glass, and get castigated in the public square.

But this was nothing! Hulan thought. Given his American connections, this punishment had been extremely lenient. Why? The few village cadres who managed to escape the wrath of the Cultural Revolution were typically the ones who were the most corrupt and wielded the most power. Had Sun been one of these? Had he bought his way out of trouble?

Whoever had written the comments on this page seemed to hear Hulan’s questions many years later and had written the answering characters in a finely trained classical hand: “Brigade Leader Sun Gan has a visceral understanding of the old saying which goes, Once you eat from someone, you will have a soft mouth toward that person; once you take from someone, you will have soft hands toward that person. Because Sun has shown himself to be someone who will not accept or pay bribes in any form, nor has he abused his power during this time of darkness, I believe he is a candidate for advancement.”

Within a month Sun had been promoted from rural cadre to national cadre, where he earned ninety
yuan
a month. The next year he rose to deputy chairman of the City Assembly. In 1978 he was sent to Beijing as a representative for the Third Plenum of the Eleventh Party Congress. In 1979, when China opened up fully to the West again, Sun was on one of the first provincial delegations to travel to the United States. Security was tight, but Sun acquitted himself well, earning the respect of his fellow travelers as well as his hosts. By 1985 Governor Sun—responsible now for his entire province of Shanxi—was flying across the Pacific with some regularity. By 1990 he had an additional office and apartment in the Zhongnanhai compound in Beijing awarded him by the government for his contributions to the country, especially his home province. His continuing travel to the U.S. was not only sanctioned but encouraged. As a bureaucrat in 1995 observed: “Governor Sun Gan has impeccable contacts in the West. With these he has brought prosperity to his home province. We must continue to encourage him, for with his help we will build China into the most powerful country on the planet. By the year 2000 Sun should be permanently in Beijing.” This pronouncement, like the one during the Cultural Revolution, seemed to have two immediate effects.

First was an even more thorough check of his background and personal habits. The
dangan
noted that while Sun had never married, he was not known to be a homosexual, nor had he engaged in any illicit affairs with the opposite sex. He lived in the governor’s house in Taiyuan, where he kept his staff to a minimum. His maids said that his needs were simple, that he did not abuse his authority, and often made his own bed in the military manner. He did not have a history of drinking or gambling, and was known to be very loyal to the Party. These things continued to make him a good candidate for travel, since he could not be compromised through sex, money, or political persuasion. Attached to this addendum was a list of the banks where Sun kept his money, as well as recent balances. Like Hulan and almost everyone she knew, Sun kept some money in American banks. But Sun was not a Red Prince, and the amounts didn’t seem inordinately excessive. This record, dating from 1995, didn’t reflect the large deposits that Miaoshan’s papers showed, but then the Knight factory had opened just that year. Nevertheless, Hulan jotted down the names of the banks and the account numbers, hoping she could eventually connect them to deposit records.

The second effect, and more obvious to Hulan, was that she could trace her knowledge of Sun to 1995, the year the unnamed bureaucrat had written his recommendation for Sun’s future in the file. As if out of nowhere, Sun had appeared one day in the national press. His every move and comment were covered. He posed for photographers, chatted up perky female reporters, and engaged in public discussions about economic policy, the countryside, and the next century with school children, peasants, even members of the Party Congress. That he had surpassed all expectations and on paper looked to be a good guy didn’t alter the fact that people very high in the government had moved him into position. His success was assured, which was why some bureaucrat had unwittingly allowed Sun a free ride.

Hulan closed the file and pushed it back across the desk. Her mentor looked up from his work. She could see him trying to read her expression, but she kept her face impassive.

18

W
HEN HULAN GOT HOME, DAVID WAS SITTING AT THE
kitchen table with several three-by-five cards spread out in two rows before him. As she approached, he put a finger on a card and slowly slid it across the table and up into the top row. Then he repeated the process; only this time he moved a card down from the top row to the bottom row. He didn’t look up, not even when she put her hands on his shoulders and began to massage his tense muscles.

“I learned a lot from Miles,” he said. “None of it good.”

She stopped massaging and sat down next to him. “Tell me,” she said, and he did.

With each piece of information he pointed at a matching card. “I’ve been looking at these since I got back, trying to figure out what happened when. Randall Craig said he knew about conditions at the factory; Henry Knight says they’re a complete fabrication; you tell me they may not even be prosecutable in China. Miles practically admitted that he knew that the Knights’ disclosures were false; Henry says that they’re accurate. When Miaoshan died, she had in her possession documents that suggest that Sun may have accepted bribes; he gave me something that might be related. Then there’s Pearl Jenner. She too is a walking contradiction. She knows some things but seems totally ignorant of others. The pieces have to fit together, but I still don’t see how.”

“Maybe you should try a different approach.” Hulan picked up the stack of cards and wrote on a few new ones. When she was done, she laid them out in two columns, leaving an area in the middle empty. On the left were the various crimes; on the right were the names of people that were suspicious. Then she went back to her scribbling.

A moment later she looked back at the two columns and began setting down the new cards. “I am looking for a match, but I also don’t think we can separate crimes and criminals from jurisdiction, because I think they’re interrelated.”

Once her three columns were completed, Hulan surveyed her handiwork.

Hulan realized how desperate David was when he didn’t automatically strike Sun Gan off the chart and that he’d let down his guard enough to let drop that Miaoshan’s papers and Sun’s papers were similar.

“Why are you so sure about Aaron Rodgers?” David asked. “He was really shaken up when Xiao Yang died.”

“He was the last person to see her alive, and everyone else was in the meeting with you,” Hulan answered. “I’d also like to put Aaron down for Miaoshan’s murder. He was having an affair with her. Maybe she made one too many demands on him. The fact that she had the papers would have meant nothing to him, which explains why he didn’t take them.” Hulan put a finger on the last card and asked, “What do you think Miles meant when he was talking about Keith? Do you think Keith had found what we’ve found and told Miles?”

“Miles made it sound that way, but I’m not sure.”

“Tell me again what he said about you and Keith.”

“Which part?”

“About when Keith died…”

“Miles said that I went out to dinner and ‘a guy’ gets killed in front of me, that he died in my arms in public,” he said.

“Right, and that people would think you’d suffered from post-traumatic stress and had made up all this stuff,” she said, motioning to the cards.

“He made it sound like the firm had done me a big favor, like hiring back some brain-injured person as a way of doing the right thing.”

“But actually he wanted you back in the fold, where he could control you in case you decided to pursue Keith’s death while in the U.S. Attorney’s Office.”

“I think so.”

“So, do you think that the others in the firm know what Miles is up to?”

“I can’t imagine it. They’re good people.”

“Then let me put it this way: How much money will the firm make from the deal?”

“About a million, but a lot of that goes toward overhead…”

“I know it’s not much in a law firm,” she agreed, dismissing the idea. Then, “I want to know if Miles is the only one behind Keith’s murder or if they’re all in on it.”

David looked back down at the chart, then, keeping his voice light, said, “I don’t see that as an alternative here.” He peered over at Hulan and asked, “You’re not serious?” When she didn’t respond, he said, “I worked at the firm for years. You and I met there, for Christ’s sake. Was there anything that
ever
made you think that they were engaged in criminal activities?”

Hulan shrugged. “Times change. Maybe they got greedy.”

“But murder! Come on! I don’t think Phil or Ralph or Marjorie would go out and kill one of their own partners.”

“What about Miles?”

“He’s an asshole. But a murderer? The man lives in Brentwood. He’s got a couple of kids. He’s well respected.” Seeing Hulan’s smirk, David stopped. He had to smile himself. “All right, so that matches the description of another Brentwood resident, but really! Miles is purely whitecollar. I don’t see him getting blood on his hands.”

“And the other stuff?” she asked, pointing at the card that corresponded to the filing of the paperwork to the FTC. “Could the others be involved in the fraud?”

When David shook his head no, Hulan picked up that card, crossed out Phillips, MacKenzie & Stout, and wrote in its place David, Miles, and Keith.

“
That
makes me feel so much better!” David said.

A strand of Hulan’s hair came loose and fell across her cheek. David smoothed it behind her ear.

“You haven’t told me what you found out,” he said.

She quickly summarized her morning’s activities and showed him the travel records. At the end she said, “So like you I’m looking at contradictions. Sun had contact with Americans and yet wasn’t punished for that during the Cultural Revolution. Or I should say that his punishment was mild. Kneeling in glass, a few struggle meetings, are nothing. I would have expected ten years of reform through labor.”

“Maybe he was lucky…”

“His file also says that he hasn’t accepted bribes, but we have circumstantial evidence that he has, which is why his name’s on the chart,” she said, pointing at the card. “But does someone’s essential nature change?”

“Everyone says that Sun is good. His power is based on the premise that he’s honest.”

“Power may be the key word. Power corrupts, and my government is by definition corrupt,” Hulan admitted.

“You said it, not me. But, yes, China does have a little problem now and then with corruption.”

“Is that what happened to Miles?” Hulan asked.

“Power, money, for him I think they’re synonymous.”

“And Henry Knight and Randall Craig?”

“My country was built by corporate and industrial bandits. We glorify people who’ve pulled themselves up by their boot straps by any means possible.”

They sat silent for a few minutes, then Hulan asked, “What are you going to do now?”

“I’m going to go for a run, take a shower, put on a suit, and go to the banquet.”

“What about Miles?”

“What about him? He said I could quit. I won’t.” David hesitated, then repeated himself, this time with more conviction. “We’re going to that banquet. We’re going to put smiles on our faces, act charming, and hope one of the players slips. When and if one does, I want to see it.”

“Then I suppose I’d better figure out what I’m going to wear.” She stood and smiled. This was the closest she’d felt to him since they’d looked at Miaoshan’s papers together, for he was finally speaking to her as a trusted lover again rather than an inspector. She smoothed her hands over her slightly swelling belly. “I hope I have something that fits.”

It was an intimate thing to say, and as David grabbed her hand, brought her close, and looked into her eyes, she thought he might respond in kind. But he had something else on his mind. “Did you tell me everything?”

She felt the professional wall come back down between them. She met his gaze squarely. “Did you?”

“Yes,” he said, though he’d left out the way Miles had implied much more clearly than Hulan surmised that he might have had something to do with Keith’s death. But David couldn’t bring himself to believe it. David knew Miles, played tennis with him, was his law partner. The idea that Miles was a murderer was inconceivable. But if on some chance it was true, then David would have to deal with it in his own way. He couldn’t allow Miles to become a victim of the Chinese legal system.

“I told you everything too,” Hulan said, though she’d withheld the names of Sun’s banks in China and abroad. That information would be useless to David. In America he’d need a court order to gain access to Sun’s accounts. But David was in China, and besides, he would never use a court order against his own client. To Hulan, however, Sun was nothing but a suspect. If she had to, she’d use, to quote David, any means possible to bring Sun to justice, even if that ultimately meant betraying David’s trust, because…Because it was in her nature to put duty first—whether on the Red Soil Farm or here in Beijing—before matters of her own heart. She couldn’t allow herself to forget that again.

The silence lingered between them, then David said, “That’s good. We don’t want any secrets between us.”

Hulan pulled away. “I’d better get ready.”

The Beijing Hotel was the oldest of the grand hotels in the city. It sat at the end of Wangfujing Street where it intersected with Chang An, the imperial boulevard of Eternal Peace. The Beijing was a venerable dowager that had seen it all. Today she was comprised of three wings, each representing a different incarnation. The oldest dated back to the days when she was the Hôtel de Pekin, a French-owned establishment originally designed to appeal to decadent and cosmopolitan foreign guests. The west wing had been built in the fifties for the more severe requirements of Soviet visitors. The newest wing, the “Distinguished Guests Building,” attempted to serve the needs of today’s most demanding guests—foreign and Chinese. Although not as popular with Americans as some of the new hotels that had sprung up around the city, the Beijing’s location—within walking distance of Tiananmen Square, the huge governmental edifices that bordered it, and the ancient Forbidden City—made it a preferred venue for business meetings and banquets for officials and dignitaries.

The banquet was scheduled to start at six. Although Tartan and Knight were American companies, Chinese custom would prevail since Governor Sun and a few low-level ministry officials would be in attendance. This meant that the banquet would start
promptly
at six and end
precisely
at eight. However, this was not the only event taking place at the Beijing Hotel on this particular evening, as Hulan and David discovered when Investigator Lo attempted to drop them off. Several limousines and Town Cars clogged the entrance, depositing parties of young people, men in business suits, and entire families. As Lo edged forward in the line, he suggested that these people might be here for wedding banquets. This assessment was verified as they reached the entrance and saw a couple of men with video cameras capturing the arrivals for wedding tapes.

David and Hulan edged past the video crews, who jostled to get shots of everyone entering the building. Once inside, they looked around the bustling lobby until they found Miss Quo, who’d been invited as part of the permanent staff of the Beijing office of Phillips, MacKenzie & Stout. Unlike the typical law firm underling who adhered to modestly priced, conservative styles, she was dressed this evening in an elegant black slip dress bought off a couture runway in Paris. Yet it was Miss Quo who gushed over Hulan’s outfit—a summer dress made from silk the color of a ripe persimmon. Over this Hulan wore a handmade short-sleeve jacket woven from the thinnest strands of rice straw. These clothes, like so many of Hulan’s, had come from her mother’s trunks and dated back many decades to a period in China when wealth meant time and luxury, refinement and grace, no matter what the temperature.

David and the two women walked up the sweeping staircase to the second-floor banquet rooms. Knight had followed Chinese tradition by booking two connected rooms—one for sitting, one for eating. Outside the door, Henry was speaking intensely to his son. As David and Hulan approached, they heard Doug’s reply.

“Dad, I’ve said it a hundred times today,” he said impatiently. “If you want to cancel the sale entirely, fine. We fix everything and move forward, but…” When he noticed that the others had arrived, his voice changed. “David, good to see you. You have a nice flight up?”

Henry stared from his son to David and back again. Just as he was about to say something, Miles poked his head through the door and said, “I wondered where you two had gone. Oh, and here’s David and Hulan.” Miles gave Hulan a hug and kiss, then said, “It’s been a long time. You’re more beautiful today than when I last saw you. No wonder David’s turned his world upside down to get back to you.”

During this exchange David watched as Doug took his father’s elbow and led him back into the room, but not before Henry looked back over his shoulder at David, a worried look on his face. Then David’s attention was drawn back to Miles, who was shaking his hand, smiling warmly, and saying sotto voce, “I knew you’d come around.”

Together they entered the sitting room, which was lined with thirty overstuffed easy chairs upholstered in heavy gray wool with tatted antimacassars on the arms and headrests from which a vague smell of mothballs wafted. On the walls were a series of landscape scrolls, each showing a different season.