The Flower Net (12 page)

“Henglai made his own money. Don’t you know that?”

“How?” David asked.

“He didn’t tell us these things.”

“Did he have a girlfriend?”

Bo Yun lit a Marlboro. Ning Ning and Di Di were holding hands now, mimicking the lovers on the screen.

“I used to see him,” Li Nan said. “But that was over a year ago.”

“Anyone else?”

Bo Yun exhaled a great gust of smoke and put a possessive arm around Li Nan’s shoulder. “Actually, we didn’t see him much anymore. He kind of disappeared after he broke up with Li Nan.”

“You mean he wasn’t welcome here?”

“No, nothing like that,” Li Nan said.

“She’s right, you know,” Bo Yun agreed. “We all liked Henglai.”

“And Billy too,” Li Nan added.

“Billy Watson?” David clarified.

“You bet,” Bo Yun said enthusiastically. “He was part of our crowd. It’s good for us to be friendly with the American ambassador’s son.”

“For
guanxi
,” David said.

“You have learned the ways of our country very quickly,” Bo Yun said.

“Guang Mingyun also told us that his son and Billy were friends,” David said.

Bo Yun shook his head. “No, no, more than friends. They were business partners. Pretty soon, they are too busy making deals to spend time with us. Between you and me”—Bo Yun leaned forward confidentially—“none of us like to work too hard.” He fell back on the cushions and laughed. His friends, once again, joined in.

“What kind of deals? What were they into?” Hulan queried.

“You think they’re going to tell us? We might steal their ideas!” Bo Yun chortled. “You know something, Inspector Liu. We are honored by your visit, but you are talking to the wrong people.”

“You were their friends…”

“
Were
, Inspector Liu. We
were
their friends.” Bo Yun addressed the group. “Pour another round. Come on, David—can we call you David in the American way? Come on, David, have a drink with us, maybe sing us a song, and we will tell you who to talk to.”

As Ning Ning and Di Di’s serenade came to a sorrowful close, Hulan gently laid a hand on Bo Yun’s knee. The young man didn’t wince or allow his eyes to be drawn to its delicate presence. Instead, he turned to face Hulan, looked her directly in the eyes, dropped his carefree manner, and spoke in an even voice. “I said you are talking to the wrong people. You need to talk to the
Gaogan Zidi
of your generation, Inspector Liu. They know Billy and Henglai. You know how to find those people just as you knew how to find us.”

“The Black Earth Inn?”

Bo Yun looked over at David and said, “That is why she is an inspector.” Then he brightened again and called out, “Ning Ning, Di Di, another one. Sing us an American song. What’s that one? ‘Tie a Yellow Ribbon ’Round the Old Oak Tree’?”

A few minutes later, David and Hulan said their good-byes and headed for the lobby. “What kind of business could those two boys have been involved in?” David asked.

“I don’t know. It could be anything.”

“Smuggling the immigrants?”

“I don’t see it, David, but whatever it was probably got them killed.”

David thought for a moment, then asked, “What’s the Black Earth Inn and how does it fit in?”

“It’s a Cultural Revolution-nostalgia restaurant, but all kinds of people go there—Japanese tourists, corporate pirates, even triad leaders. It’s a place for people in trouble, people who want to get in trouble, and people who just want to do business. We’ll go there tomorrow.”

They whisked through the revolving doors and out into the brisk night air. Peter jumped to attention, stubbed out his cigarette, and opened the rear door to the Saab. Hulan extended her hand to David, which he shook without thinking. “I think we accomplished a lot today, Attorney Stark,” she said, once again adopting her formal tone. “Investigator Sun will drive you back to your hotel.”

“Can’t we be alone?” he asked, keeping his voice low so Peter wouldn’t hear him. “I want to be with you.”

Hulan ignored the desire in his voice. “Investigator Sun will call you tomorrow morning to say what time he’ll pick you up.” She pulled her lavender coat tight around her, nodded good night, gave a slight wave to Peter, and turned away. David watched the lavender apparition step onto the sidewalk and slowly disappear into the ever-present sea of people.

9

F
EBRUARY
1

The Black Earth Inn

A
t eleven-thirty the next morning, a Saturday, Peter pulled up to the three-story Black Earth Inn. At the entrance, the owner had put up a display of Mao buttons and T-shirts silk-screened with the Black Earth slogan. That slogan was also rendered as a Cultural Revolution-style big-character poster on one of the walls:
IN THOSE YEARS OUR SWEAT WAS SPRINKLED ON THE GREAT NORTHERN WILDERNESS; TODAY WE MEET AGAIN IN THE BLACK EARTH INN
. Unlike the usual Chinese restaurant, where a single hall might accommodate a wedding banquet for four hundred, the inn’s dining rooms were small and decorated to resemble rustic log cabins.

The inn catered primarily to the former Red Guard of the Cultural Revolution—those who had been sent as youths to the countryside for reeducation in the late sixties and early seventies. The patina of time and age had tinged their memories with longing for a past where everyone knew their place and the young felt they were part of something exciting.

David sensed people watching them as he and Hulan followed a hostess to a table for two. Even he could see just how different the people in this restaurant were from the
taizi
of the night before. These patrons were rounder, softer, older—mostly in their forties and early fifties. Their clothes were not showy. The men wore hand-tailored suits, while the women dressed conservatively but expensively. Even on a Saturday, everyone here seemed to be networking, meeting with clients, or making deals.

David suspected that, as she had the previous night, Hulan wanted the two of them to be noticed, and just as they sat down, a man called out, “David Stark! Hello there! Too many years!” The voice sounded vaguely familiar, but David didn’t recognize the chubby man who hurried to their table. “David! It
is
you! And here you are with Liu Hulan! Ah, just like old times, no?”

“David, you remember Nixon Chen,” Hulan said.

David looked at the man again. He remembered Nixon Chen as a skinny, earnest young lawyer who worried a lot. Here he was, ten years later, plump, happy, obviously well-to-do.

“You’re not going to sit here! Come! Come to my table! You’ll see some of the old gang!”

Nixon Chen grabbed both of their arms and guided them through the restaurant to a private dining room. The whole time he kept talking. “I hear you are in Beijing! I am thinking the inspector wants to keep you to herself! I am thinking, Hulan forgets that David Stark has other friends in China, that she should arrange a banquet for old times’ sake! I am thinking, Hulan always keeps her head in the clouds! She’s too busy to think about friends! But no! Here you are! I see you walk past and I think, Ah, that Liu Hulan, she is bringing me our old friend David Stark! Here, you sit next to me. Liu Hulan, you sit there. Everyone, move over, make room for our guests!”

The round table had been set for ten, and now twelve squeezed together. Looking around at the faces, David didn’t think he recognized anyone, but he wasn’t sure. Nixon Chen wasn’t giving him any hints, except that he wasn’t switching from English to Chinese. All the while, the other guests were chattering so fast that David could barely catch what they were saying.

“Liu Hulan, too many years!”

“Liu Hulan, we don’t see you enough.”

“Liu Hulan, come and eat memories.”

“So many old friends here,” Nixon Chen allowed. “Right, Hulan?”

Hulan nodded.

Nixon turned to David. “We know Hulan since we are all of us children. Did you know that when we were at Phillips, MacKenzie? No?” Nixon laughed good-naturedly. “Well, you know it now!”

The first dishes began to arrive. David had been to plenty of Chinese restaurants, but he’d never seen a meal like this. On the table were placed primitively made ceramic bowls filled with pungent sauerkraut, steaming whole yams, beef tendon stew, and sorghum. Instead of rice, the waiter brought out corn bread and flat peasant loaves. The lazy Susan in the middle of the table spun as the group dipped their chopsticks family-style into the communal dishes.

“You want Peking duck, you go to Sick Duck, Big Duck, or Super Duck Restaurants! You want a meal like what we ate in the countryside during the Cultural Revolution, you come to the Black Earth Inn. They give you all the food of those days. Do you remember, Hulan? How we used to talk all day, all night in the countryside about the special meals we would eat if we ever got home?”

“I remember you always talked about food.”

“And look at me today!” Nixon Chen laughed, patting his stomach. “Ten years ago, you never see someone fat like me in China. Today, I am a fat cat, no?” He beamed, pleased that his comment had different yet similar meanings in English and Chinese. “Today we eat our simple meal to bring back old memories. Tomorrow, we go to Laosanjie and order the Educated Youths Reunion Platter. You’ll like it, Hulan! It has all those delicacies we craved—shrimp, sea slug, squid, pineapple, bitter melon.”

“I’m sorry, Nixon, we are too busy,” Hulan said.

“On Sunday?” Nixon shook his head. “You should be taking David to the Great Wall or the Summer Palace, not making him work!” Nixon addressed David. “Liu Hulan never changes, no? I remember when she is a girl. She was always serious. Then we are sent to the countryside. Well, we didn’t all go. Some of us here were too young,” Nixon said, motioning to some of the others at the table. “But those who were old enough went to the countryside. Not to the same place! Some of us are sent to different provinces, some of us together. Some of us”—he gestured around the table—“we are crying. We are missing our families. We are missing school. We are even missing our teachers!”

“And we are thinking about all the bad things we said in those dark days,” interjected one woman. “The things we said against our own parents…”

David saw a shadow cross Hulan’s face.

Another man positioned his mouth over his plate, spit out a piece of gristle, then asked the group, “Remember when we denounced our teachers as old farts?” He turned to Hulan. “Do you remember that day?” When she didn’t respond, he went on. “Mr. Stark, Hulan was only ten years old, but she was the bravest and most eloquent among us. She called Teacher Zho a pig ass. She said that his family was not red. She said he had come from the landlord class and that he lived in a honey jar. She said that to listen to him lecture was to betray our great Chairman. Her words were so strong.”

“I remember,” said another, “when we went to the commune. Was that two years later?”

“How can you forget?” asked Nixon. “It was 1970. We are sent to the Red Soil Farm. We thought the peasants were making a political statement with that name, but no. The earth was red and dry. For centuries they tried to make that earth yield a crop with no luck. Then they sent a bunch of city kids to ‘learn from the peasants.’”

The first woman shook her head at the memory. “We were only twelve years old then. We had struggle meetings every day. Always Liu Hulan stands tall. Always she is firm. She did not allow leniency. She did not forgive even the most minor transgression. You remember that?” the woman asked the table at large. A couple of people nodded appreciatively.

“Our Hulan is named for a famous revolutionary martyr,” said Nixon Chen. “But she never speaks of that Liu Hulan. No, she is the one who studies Lei Feng, a bigger hero. She memorizes all of his slogans and can quote his sayings to suit any situation.”

“
Eeee
, remember that time? We are all still together at the farm. In the last struggle meeting against our group leader, Liu Hulan stands up and speaks the words of Lei Feng. She holds up her arm just so.” The speaker raised his arm as if declaiming and continued in a voice filled with conviction. “‘Treat individualism as the cold autumn wind sweeps the fallen leaves.’ That put an end to our group leader’s capitalist-roader activities!”

Everyone except Hulan and David laughed at the recollection. Nixon Chen wiped tears from his eyes and said, “We also remember the day Mr. Zai comes to the collective. It is 1972 and your President Nixon has come to China, but we didn’t hear about things like that on the farm. We are fourteen years old and we have been away from our families for two years already. We have been working so hard—up before dawn, working in the fields all day, struggle meetings at night. We are brown from too much sun. We are dirty and tired and homesick. One day we are digging up stones from a field and we see a cloud of red dust coming toward us. Finally a big black car comes bumping across the dirt. It is Mr. Zai. We know him. He is from one of the old families. He takes Liu Hulan away. He says she is going to America to study. We are thinking…”

“We are thinking, Hulan, the reddest of us all, is going to America?” said a woman, whose hair, streaked with gray, was pinned into a severe knot at the back of her head. “We are thinking—and remember we are so lonely for home—Liu Hulan has the best
guanxi
of us all. Then we think, The Chairman must have some great plan. Hey, Mr. Chen, did you think we too would go to America a few years later?” The woman picked up a toothpick, then, in the traditional Chinese style, covered her mouth with one hand and went at her teeth with the other.

“No, Madame Yee, I think we are going to die in those fields…”

“Madame Yee?” David asked.

The woman in question laughed, pulling the toothpick from her mouth and wiped a morsel of food on the edge of her plate. “I didn’t think you recognized me. It’s been a long time.”

Nixon Chen looked at David with feigned surprise. “You don’t know who we are? Everyone here was an associate at Phillips, MacKenzie & Stout.”

David searched the faces and suddenly began to recognize old friends, but many of them were still strangers—people who must have come to the law firm after he left.

“There are more of us in Beijing, you know,” said Nixon. “Whoever can come for lunch comes. Some Saturdays we have as many as thirty attorneys.”

“You were in the countryside together
and
at the law firm?” David asked incredulously.

“China, despite our millions, is a small world. It is an even smaller world for the privileged, right, Hulan?”

She didn’t answer.

“Madame Yee, Song Wenhui, Hulan, and I were at the Red Soil Farm,” Nixon continued. “The others, as I said, were either too young or somewhere else. But yes, we are all from the law firm. Chou Bingan over there only came back from Los Angeles last year. We like to meet and make connections. But”—Nixon’s face crinkled in mock disappointment—“we never see our Liu Hulan.”

“I never imagined…” David said.

“That those scared students Phillips, MacKenzie took a chance on would amount to anything?”

“No, that there were so many of you.”

“Today, in Beijing, we look back and think with great fondness on Phillips, MacKenzie. Every year since 1973 they’ve taken one or two law students as summer associates or full associates. When did you start, Hulan?”

“I started working as a summer clerk my first year in law school.”

“In 1980,” David said.

“Yes, that’s right, because when I came three years later, Hulan was already working full-time as an associate,” Nixon said. “She had already been in America for eleven years. She was absolutely fluent in English. She had no accent. She was no longer Liu Hulan, model revolutionary. She was Liu Hulan, almost American! She looked at us like we were fresh off the boat—and we were! Madame Yee came the year after me. Oh, do you remember how she missed her children? It was terrible!”

“Your children,” David said, remembering. “How are they?”

“They’re all married and working. I’m a grandmother already. One grandson.”

“I tell you this”—Nixon reflected—“Phillips, MacKenzie was very smart. The partners thought ahead to changing times and changing business. We came home, and some of us kept our American names and our American ways. Whenever we can, we send work back to them.”

“And what do you all do now?” David asked.

Madame Yee was general counsel for a beer company that sold its products worldwide. Mr. Ing worked for Armani’s Beijing branch. Two other attorneys were employed by American law firms with branches in Beijing. But none was as successful as Nixon Chen.

“I have sixty lawyers in my office,” he announced. “You know what we charge? Three hundred and fifty dollars U.S. an hour. But enough about us. How can we help our old friend?”

“We are looking into the murders of two boys,” Hulan said.

“Yes, yes, yes. We know that. They come in here all the time, isn’t that so?” he asked the table. His friends nodded. “We are always thinking—no, everyone in this restaurant is thinking—these are young boys. What do they want with a lot of old farts like us? But do we care? Billy has good connections to America. Guang Henglai…” Nixon shrugged. “We all need to keep up our fee schedules. We all need to pay salaries. So we are all friendly.”

“Did any of you actually do business with them?” When no one answered, Hulan asked, “Do you know what they were into?”

“No,” Madame Yee responded.

“Hulan tells me that people from the triads often come here,” David said. “Did the boys meet with them?”