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“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 headres
ts from which a vague smell of mothballs wafted. On the walls were a series of landscape scrolls, each showing a different season.
Whereas in the U.S. the cocktail hour was designed for casual mingling, this portion of a Chinese banquet was carefully scripted, with the bigwigs on the north and south walls communicating across the expanse of the room in formulaic sentences. As a result, where people sat was carefully strategized according to rank and importance.
As if nothing had happened, Randall Craig rose from his chair, greeted David warmly, shook hands with Hulan and Miss Quo, and began introducing them to those already seated. Governor Sun, as the highest-ranking official, sat in the middle chair against the northern wall. To his left sat Henry Knight, while on his right was Assistant Secretary Amy Gao. Flanking out from them and lining the walls to Sun’s right and left were officials from several government entities. By the time these introductions were done, Miss Quo had taken a chair far from the middle along one of the side walls, thus showing her very low rank.
Somewhere above the middle of the west wall, Randall began to introduce David and Hulan to Nixon Chen, who was representing one of the government agencies.
“No introduction necessary, Mr. Craig,” Nixon said, jumping up and pumping David’s hand. “We are old, old friends! I have known Liu Hulan my entire life, and David from my years in America.” In answer to Randall’s unasked question, Nixon rattled on. “Like Liu Hulan I was sent to America to study. She was there for many more years than I, but for some of those years we were in the same place.”
“Phillips, MacKenzie had an innovative program,” David explained to Randall. “Almost as soon as Nixon—President Nixon—opened China, the firm started hiring one or two Chinese law students who were studying in the States each year as summer clerks or even as associates. As you can see, the program had long-term benefits. People like Nixon here returned to China and have risen to positions of power.”
“Not anymore,” Nixon said with feigned indignation. “Now that you’ve come, you’ll put the rest of us Chinese attorneys out of business.”
“I doubt that.”
“Really? Look what’s happened to my business for Tartan. You don’t know this, Mr. Craig, but I’ve done a lot of work for your company. Until now Miles always sent me your China matters, but no longer. Now he has a ‘big gun’ in Attorney Stark.”
“Don’t believe everything you hear,” David warned Randall. “Attorney Chen is one of the highest-paid lawyers in all of China.” Then to Nixon he added, “I recall you said that you bill like New York lawyers.”
Nixon patted his ample waist. “Beijing is the third most expensive city in the world. I have to take care of myself and my hundred employees. We want to live the high life! Given that, I should bill even more than I do.”
Randall Craig seemed to lose interest in the small talk and edged back to his chair, which stood directly across the room from Sun. This south wall was home to the Tartan entourage. Since Doug Knight would be staying with Tartan after the sale, he too was on this wall, seated to Randall’s left. To Randall’s right was Miles Stout. David caught his eye. The senior partner gave a subtle nod to the two chairs next to him. Hulan and David crossed the room and sat down. They had been placed on a wall of equal importance to Sun and firmly in the Tartan camp.
It was going to be a long night.
