The Mandarin Club (20 page)

“You look young,” Mickey said.

“I still got my hair.”

“Ouch. Getting me where I live.”

“No. I mean, you look. . .” Alexander searched for the right words. “Wiser. Less hair, but more wisdom. Like the Buddha.”

“Bonner, you never were a good liar. I’m just spreading out. Belly, forehead—it’s all expanding. I’m growing old, far away from home.”

A waiter in a sharply creased tux appeared. Alexander ordered a lite beer to join Mickey.

“So,” Alexander asked, “why don’t you come back home?”

“Home. Sounds so nice. Back in the land of baseball, Springsteen, and the IRS. Did you know, I still gotta pay taxes in both Beijing and New Mexico?”

“Seriously. I mean, what are you, forty-nine?”

“Yep, ’bout to go over the falls.”

“When are you going to make a home you can grow old in? Bring your wife and boys over?”

“Ain’t that easy,” Mickey said.

“Of course it is,” Alexander insisted. “You’ve accomplished all you need to, or want to, in China, haven’t you? I mean, are you going to retire there? Just move. Telstar’s got plenty of work stateside, I’m sure. They owe you.”

“You know, Alexander. I’m afraid I’m about tapped out. Used up all my tricks. I’m like an old racehorse, ripe for a breakdown. But they’ll have to shoot me to get me off the track.”

“Jesus, Mickey.”

“I ain’t gonna win the big prize. Ain’t gonna be chairman of the board. Ain’t ever even gonna break par.”

“You know, my minister says life’s transitions are like little deaths.”

“Deaths?”

“Resignations. You need to find a way to let go of some of your old dreams. So you won’t be president. So you won’t be a Wall Street mogul. Make new dreams. Besides, most rich people I know are miserable.”

“Yeah, but I’d rather be rich and unhappy than poor and unhappy.”

“You just need to focus on what brings you joy, on how you might give something back to the world.”

Mickey regarded him oddly. “The weird thing is, despite all my travels, the one thing I do well these days is parent. At the office, I couldn’t give a damn. Besides, things are getting kind of weird in Beijing.”

“Really? We need to talk some business on that.”

“Some crazy shit going down behind the scenes.”

“Like what?”

“Still fighting over succession, I mean.”

“Most analysts say that’s all over—that the new team is firmly in charge,” Alexander said.

“There’s still lots of maneuvering going on. And there’s more and more saber rattling. They’re playing these elaborate mind games with Taiwan. It’s weird. I always thought the next generation over there would be more pragmatic. Only Fox News even mentions the fact they’re still Commies. Most Americans figure the Chinese these days just lust after new cars and houses in the ’burbs.”

“We thought they’d become like us. Convergence.”

“Well, the joke’s on us. They’ve talked themselves into all this ideological crap. The younger guys in government show very little restraint. So, anyway, my dreams of doing noble deeds in China seem a little empty these days.”

“Hell, Mickey, you’ve been very successful.”

“It just seems irrelevant, sometimes. Mercenary. I just wanna come home.”

“Wouldn’t your boys love that?”

“Sure. Unlimited Internet access and video games. They think the US of A is one big amusement park.”

“The grandparents still in Albuquerque?” Alexander asked. “Still calling every Sunday to make sure you’re behaving?”

“Right.” Mickey swirled his ice. “But their Chinese grandpa in Beijing is still jerking me around every day.”

“No law says he can’t come visit them after you move to the States.”

“Like I said, ain’t that easy.”

“Hey, you’ve done Beijing for nearly thirty years. Doesn’t Mei Mei understand you have your roots, too?”

“Alexander, she won’t even come visit the U.S. any more.”

“Even for Christmas vacation or something?”

“She
hates
Christmas. She hates America. Says we’re vulgar and smelly and materialistic.” Mickey sighed, throwing up his hands. “Or maybe that’s just me she’s talking about.”

Alexander flashed back to a rainy Saturday afternoon of watching college football and drinking beers together in front of the TV, Mickey providing a running commentary on the anatomy of the female cheerleaders. Alexander missed his irreverence, the attitude he had that life was a party and they should all just try not to get caught.

“Problem is,” Mickey continued, “she listened to all that crap the Party taught her in school.”

“Like what?”

“You know, about the violent Americans, armed to the teeth in their gas guzzling SUV’s, murdering each other in race riots.”

“Race riots?”

“Well, their textbooks are a bit dated.”

“Whoa.”

“It’s gotten so bad she tries to forbid the boys from speaking English around the house. We’re talking about American citizens here!” Mickey was getting worked up. “All that jealousy comes home to roost. I mean, you can take a Chinese peasant to Paris discos and she’ll lust after Chanel. But eventually, the girl falls back onto the stereotypes Mama fed her. Being modern doesn’t mean they get out from under the weight of their cultural heritage. Truth is, we all revert to form.”

Alexander was taken aback. He had other things to discuss with Mickey, but here was an unexpected stream of profundity. He returned to his earlier point. “So, Mickey, can’t you just propose a trade? Get the boys and her here part-time. Or, if things are so bad, bring them without her.”

“Do you have any idea how screwed up the immigration stuff is?”

“They’re not—”

“The newspapers in Beijing are full of horror stories about how Americans abuse Chinese women—you know, those mail order brides. Guys treat ’em like chattel.” Mickey was sipping his drink again. “Lady comes to the U.S., gets married, has kids. Then her husband decides he doesn’t have the hots for her any more, so he divorces her.
She
gets deported because Pops won’t sponsor her residency application. She never sees her kids again. So, let’s just say Beijing isn’t real sympathetic to American fathers who want their kids to grow up in the States.”

“Things are that bad, huh?”

“No exits.” Mickey looked even more disheveled. “I’m trapped like a fucking hostage. She’ll string me up by the nuts if I try something to—”

“Save your nuts, old man!” The voice startled them both as they spun around.

There stood Barry Lavin, so tan his white teeth almost hurt the eyes. He was impeccable in a banker’s wide-striped suit, sky blue shirt with a starched white collar. His hair was very short, almost a buzz cut, tiny lines of white barely discernible at the temples. He looked like a male fashion model from a Bachrach’s catalogue.

“As I live and breathe,” Mickey said, offering a big right hand that Barry took with a smile. Alexander offered his own hand, disquieted by yet another twist in his peculiar day.

It unsettled him, this awkward intersection of the personal and the professional. He still felt uncomfortable crossing lines, about the clumsy mixture of head and heart. Tipping Booth off on his China missile exclusive. Schmoozing with Smithson. Nailing Dooley’s company—and Rachel’s client—with the story he had just filed. Now came Barry, the absentee husband, whose wife was the object of Alexander’s. . . well, he wasn’t quite sure what to call it, though he had grown determined now, after so many years of wondering, to find out.

Alexander was spared. Sweeping through the door just behind them came the rest of their dinner group—Rachel shimmering in blue, Booth on one arm, and a serious looking Branko on her heels. She passed Alexander with a sly smile, a scent of elegant perfume lingering in her wake.

The seating for the Club’s reunion had been Rachel’s doing, an advance conspiracy with Mr. K’s pliant maitre d’. Alexander’s interest grew as he watched her, Mickey and Booth flanking her, Alexander and Branko on the wings, and a clearly self-conscious Barry opposite at the round table.

Rachel exuded a graceful élan, laughing gaily as she shared an inside joke. She was clever, parrying with her old pals. She provoked them playfully. She appeared entirely comfortable at a gathering that was otherwise stag, a pro who refused to relinquish any of her femininity. She was unrelenting. She had climbed the mountain, been knocked flat, then arisen and marched ahead again. To Alexander, who admired a fellow survivor, she seemed irrepressible. The more he watched her, the more his curiosity mounted, and the more he struggled to contain his long suppressed desire.

There were plenty of distractions. Alexander could cover his tracks as the jousting one-liners flew and double entendres were batted mercilessly about. Mickey seemed to find some comfort in old friends and whiskey. Occasional flashes of wit aside, he seemed to have grown morose, a caricature of his old self. Branko was reserved, but his observations grew more pithy as the evening wore on, offering biting commentary on the state of Beijing and Beltway politics. Booth played his willing foil. Yet, the more they spoke of China, the more rancorous and adversarial they seemed to become.

Then there was Barry, the duck out of water. He was not really part of their group any longer, eclipsed by Rachel, excluded in the most peculiar way even as he seemed to create his own distance. His obsession with business trends was of little interest to the others this night. He had achieved his career ambitions, yet somehow been marginalized in the process. Barry struggled to work his way into a conversation he and Mickey had seemed to dominate for so many years. Barry was like a spectator in his former life, diminished and out of place.

Appropriately, it was Rachel, the hostess du jour, who was the master of ceremonies now. She was leading the conversation, full of ideas and passions, talking about books she had read, plays she had seen. Her hand was guiding the interplay. Alexander saw it clearly—to his amazement, it had become
her
Club. After the dessert dishes were cleared away, it was Rachel who banged her glass, calling mischievously for a final round of Truth or Dare.

“The first question,” she declared, “goes to. . . Alexander.”

He peered cautiously across at Mickey, seeking safe ground. Alexander searched for something boringly substantive, and threw out a question about what the factional rifts in the PRC government portended for the fate of American investments.

Next, Mickey went after Branko, about his five kids and apparently robust sex life. Something about Irish twins and birth control that brought a warm smile from the gang.

Branko threw a zinger at Booth. It was a loaded question about the next war in Asia. “Cyber attacks,” Booth predicted matter-of-factly. “China will bring her neighbors to their knees by mastering electronic warfare. Targeting data bases. Screwing with air traffic control. Crippling banking systems, locks, and dams. They’d all better surrender now in Taipei lest they forfeit their billions in Mainland investments.” Sobering—with a message. But that was Booth. He was still too serious, smarting from his fiasco on the Senate floor earlier that day.

They worked their way around to Rachel, the hostess going last. She was gazing, too long, across the table at Barry, who seemed to have shrunk, his over-starched collar wilting at party’s end. Alexander saw clearly that they no longer knew Barry, excluded now by his own choice.
When had the superstar begun to fade?
Suddenly, Alexander was anxious for him.
What the hell was she going to ask in front of all the guys?

Rachel paused, so long and so confidently that her power seemed to mirror Barry’s discomfort. There were too many witnesses to this most intimate of moments. Then she smiled tenderly, as a mother would to comfort a troubled child, before she said: “Barry, dear, don’t you find it ironic that China first brought us all together, but it’s this China business, and all it has wrought, that will end up splitting us apart?”

It was four days later—the Chinese Embassy’s diplomatic pouch carrying the intelligence sections’ audiotapes was running slow—before Lee replayed the entire conversation from Mr. K’s.

Sitting in the privacy of his Beijing study, Lee listened with care to the disturbing chatter. Middle age was eroding his old friends’ sense of purpose. They were going soft.

Mickey Dooley had grown sloppy, as Lee himself had observed of late in Beijing. Lee found Barry to be pathetic, the high-flying businessman now the weakest of the lot. With the exception of the ever-doctrinaire Branko, they had become defeatist. Most troubling to Lee, they all sounded resigned to the idea that things would only get worse. Booth’s line about cyber-attacks, Lee found chilling, and yet another echo of Chen’s warning.
Where were they getting this stuff
?

To a troubled Lee, eavesdropping from Beijing, it seemed that the strength of his old American friends was sapped, their convictions eroded.
Maybe the guys in the Defense Ministry are right,
he sighed as he weighed the inescapable conclusion
. When the PLA makes its move across the Taiwan Strait, maybe the Americans
will
just sit and watch.