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“That Doug’s a good soldier,” Randall observed. “He’s just stupid enough to obey without question.” He looked around. “Let’s get out of here. I’m bushed.”
Making a point to ignore David, Randall, Miles, and the Tartan entourage left together.
David stayed in his chair, deep in thought. Miles Stout and Randall Craig had prepared for this evening in exactly the way it played out. They’d been at least one step ahead of David all along. More important, this only confirmed that they didn’t care about the factory’s problems. They’d been aware of them—as Randall had said—and were going ahead full bore. For David, the question was, what happened next? In one sense the hostile takeover solved some problems, because David wouldn’t have to worry about illegally filed SEC or Foreign Corrupt Practices papers. As for what had happened in the factory, Henry Knight would be off the hook and David could get clear of this mess with a clean, if slightly tarnished, conscience. This still left the bribery and the deaths of Miaoshan, Keith Baxter and Xiao Yang. But it wasn’t David’s job to prove Sun’s guilt, and there wasn’t a scrap of proof of murder, only theory. If in fact those had been murders, whoever had committed them could walk away and there was nothing that David could do about it.
He went downstairs and found Hulan leaning against a pillar, staring into the bar. When she saw him, she took his hand and pulled him behind her. “Look,” she whispered and gestured with a slight tip of her head into the bar’s darkness.
Whatever relief he’d felt moments before evaporated when he saw sitting at a back table against the wall Pearl Jenner and Guy Lin, who looked as miserable as ever in a loose suit that hung baggily on his thin shoulders. They were talking to another man.
Hulan said, “While I was waiting, I took a walk. I thought I’d take a peek at the weddings. Just curious, you know. But, David…”
“They followed us to Beijing,” David said, stating the obvious.
“It’s much worse than that,” Hulan said. “They’re talking to a reporter from the People’s Daily.”
“How do you know?”
“Bi Peng has written the worst articles about me and my family. Whatever he writes, the others follow.”
David groaned, then asked, “Do you know what they’re talking about?”
“I didn’t go in there, if that’s what you mean.”
“Have they seen you?”
Hulan gave him a look which conveyed something along the lines of: Have you forgotten what my job is, you idiot?
Inside the bar the three rose. Bi Peng threw some money on the table. When he turned, David and Hulan could see his big smiling teeth. The trio came forward; David and Hulan edged around the pillar, staying out of sight. As Pearl passed, she said, “We’re staying at the Holiday Inn on Beilishi Lu. If you need more information, just call. I’ll be happy to answer any other questions.”
David and Hulan spoke little on the way back to the hutong. Hulan was pale with fatigue, and David felt wrung out, exhausted from travel, mind-numbing puzzles, and the stress of not knowing what would happen to his life. Once they reached Hulan’s home, they stopped for a moment to look at the three-by-five cards that she’d written earlier today. There was nothing to add or change. They went to the bed
room, peeled off their clothes, and slipped under the sheet.
Hulan curled into David’s shoulder as he filled in what had happened after she and the others left the room. He understood that parts of this story, because of the way she’d exposed her father’s criminal actions, would be especially painful to Hulan, but there was no point in trying to protect her. She was in this with him, and maybe her own experience would provide insight into what had happened. When he came to the part about Doug selling his father down the proverbial river, David felt Hulan press herself even closer into his chest. He tightened his arms around her in response.
“What would make Doug do that?” she asked. “What does he get out of it?”
“Money, I suppose.”
“But to do that to your own father? It’s too cruel. There must be more about them that we don’t know, something in their past that would make Doug want to disgrace his father.”
“I don’t think so. They’re just Americans from New Jersey. There’s nothing life-threatening in that, and I don’t take Henry for one of those secretly abusive fathers.”
“What do you think he’ll do?”
“About the sale?”
“That, and about his son. If his son wants the sale that much, will Henry let it go through?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’re going to be a father,” she said. He could feel her body tense against his. “What would you do if our child tried to ruin you?”
“That won’t happen,” he said, trying reassurance.
“But if it did,” Hulan insisted, “what would you do?”
He nudged her away so he could look at her face. Even in the darkness of the bedroom, he could see it was taut and anxious. He put his hands on her cheeks and kissed her. “Our child will never do anything to harm us. I’m not saying he won’t torture us with worry or drive us crazy when he’s a teenager. But he’ll have two parents who’ll love him, and nothing will ever change that.”
