The Interior (11 page)

“No.” The word came out sharply. “I mean, I’d be happy to show you our facility.”

As they walked down the road between the buildings, Sandy once again took up his tour guide role. They stopped to look at the cafeteria, where Sandy showed her the private dining room used by himself, the department managers, and the Knights when they came to visit. Hulan was not allowed to see the area where the factory workers ate because, as Sandy explained, the room was being cleaned and readied for dinner.

Back outside, Sandy led her past the warehouse and several of the other buildings, all of which he said were places that an employee such as the girl who killed herself would never have entered. When Sandy passed the entrance to the dormitory, Hulan reminded him that she wanted to see where Miaoshan had lived. He said that regretfully this area was off limits today. “You can imagine that with nearly one thousand women living together that things can get quite messy. So once a month we send in a crew to do a thorough cleaning using high-strength disinfectants and such. I don’t think you’d find that a particularly pleasant place to be today.”

“But I’d still like to see it,” she said, her eyes roaming over the harsh white exterior.

“Perhaps another time.”

Noticing that the dormitory building had no windows, Hulan slowed and turned her head back the way she’d come. None of the buildings in the Knight complex had windows, at least not on the facades facing the center road.

Hulan followed Sandy up the couple of steps leading to the building marked
ASSEMBLY
. As he pulled open the door, Hulan felt again the rush of cool air. But once inside the lobby, she realized that this building was not nearly as cold as the Administration Building. A guard—a foreigner—sat at a desk.

“Jimmy, could you call Aaron out here? We have a visitor I’d like him to meet.”

“Sure thing, Mr. Newheart,” the guard said in an Australian accent. Hulan watched as his beefy fingers hit the number pads on the phone. Jimmy hung up the receiver and stood. He was at least six feet tall and well over two hundred and fifty pounds. Most of this weight bulked in the muscles of his arms and shoulders. Unlike Sandy Newheart, who seemed to have no inkling of what Hulan was, Jimmy’s deep brown eyes sized her up and seemed to come to the automatic conclusion that she was in law enforcement. At the same time Hulan was coming to conclusions of her own: Jimmy was accustomed to physically settling scores and carrying out other people’s orders. His recognition of her could only point to one thing: He had more than a passing acquaintance with cops. He might have been a policeman at some time in his life, he may have simply passed his working life as a guard of some sort, or he may have been a low-grade criminal himself, doing breaking and entering, maybe even “enforcement” for hire. Although how an Australian of such questionable background would end up working in an American-owned factory in Shanxi Province was a mystery, to say the least.

Behind Jimmy’s desk a door opened, and Aaron Rodgers came through. He wore jeans, a cotton shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and tennis shoes. His smile showed perfectly straight white teeth.

“You’re here for a tour, huh?” His voice was young and enthusiastic. “We don’t get a lot of visitors, so I’d be happy to show you around.”

Jimmy pressed a button under the desk, the door buzzed, and Aaron held it open for Hulan and Sandy. They followed Aaron through an inside foyer, then down several circuitous hallways lined with unmarked doors. Left, right, left again. Hulan felt lost and claustrophobic in here. This was compounded by the lack of air conditioning or windows. Finally Aaron opened one of the doors, and they stepped into a large room, which was obviously well soundproofed because Hulan had heard none of the hundred or so voices of the women who were working here until now. They sat at tables in long rows that ran the length of the room. They wore pink smocks and pink hair nets. Fans overhead kept the air circulating, but otherwise there was no mechanical noise. Everything in this room was done by hand.

Looking around, Hulan thought back to the plans she’d seen at Suchee’s house. Why hadn’t she studied them more closely? Shouldn’t this room be much larger?

“As you may have guessed, this is our assembly area,” Aaron said. “This is where the workers add the final details to Sam & His Friends, where we do inspections for quality, and, finally, where we package the finished products.”

Hulan walked down the center aisle and got her first look at the Sam & His Friends figures. They were dolls, but the bodies were soft like stuffed animals. She stopped to watch a woman bend back the arms to keep the fabric limbs from interfering with her work, then begin to clip human-looking eyes into the plastic face.

“Have you seen Sam before?” Aaron asked.

Hulan shook her head. “We don’t have this in China.”

“You will soon enough. The cartoons will come here one day, and every child in China will want one.”

How many times had Hulan encountered foreigners such as Sandy Newheart and Aaron Rodgers who thought that the China market was wide open to them if only they could break into it somehow? Just because something was manufactured here didn’t mean that the Chinese wanted it. But then, who was she to underestimate the power of television? She had seen what the recent rash of news stories had done to her own life. If Knight—or the studio that made the
Sam & His Friends Show
—could actually get it broadcast in China, then these dolls probably would become a sought-after commodity.

Aaron leaned down and spoke softly into the woman’s ear. She smiled prettily and put the doll in his hands. Aaron then held the doll out to Hulan. When she didn’t immediately take it, he began twisting its limbs. “These products are unique in the world market. Sam, the cartoon, is an action figure in the traditional sense, but you would expect to see an action figure to be made of molded plastic and be no taller than four inches. Mr. Knight had a different idea and one that took some persuading when it came to the studio and advertising guys. G.I. Joe, Batman, Ghostbusters—all of them followed the same four-inch model. Hell, more than a few of them were made in the same molds. Mr. Knight took a big risk going soft.”

Aaron squeezed the Sam doll to show Hulan what he meant, then grinned boyishly. “But Sam’s insides are as tough as any hero’s.” Seeing Hulan’s look of bewilderment, he added, “We provide Sam & His Friends with a steel wire skeleton. You can bend him into any shape you want.”

“Don’t all stuffed animals have that?”

“Most just have stuffing and don’t move at all. Some have articulated limbs but, again, no flexibility.”

“I know I’ve seen stuffed animals that can bend like that.”

“Oh sure, cheap things made in Hong Kong. Manufacturers have been running hanger wire through kapok for years. But this is different. Sam can
hold
his position, he can grasp a weapon, he can sit in a jeep. And that skeleton is guaranteed not to poke through. That means no hurt fingers or injured eyes.”

“I see.”

But Aaron wasn’t done. “Traditionally the toy market has been extraordinarily biased by sex. Girls like Barbie; boys want G.I. Joe. But we have something unique here,” he repeated as he continued to twist the figure. “We’re able to appeal to girls because Sam & His Friends are soft like dolls and we make female characters who conform to modern attitudes of girl power while still maintaining their femininity. At the same time, boys want them and all the accoutrements—the weapons and vehicles—for their practical uses in war and other action scenarios. And it’s all because of the steel skeleton. We—I mean Knight International—have patented this technology. It’ll have practical applications for toys well into the next century.”

“That will translate into lots of money, I suppose.”

“Absolutely, Inspector.”

“And you still haven’t shown her the best part,” Sandy interrupted.

Aaron blushed, grinned again, and said, “Sam talks too.”

He pressed something on the yellow figure, and it said in a surprisingly tough voice, “Give me a hand here, Cactus.” This was followed by: “All’s quiet now.” Then: “This is Sam. Until next time.”

“Sam & His Friends come factory-equipped with standard phrases such as these,” Aaron explained. “But this is just the beginning. Our deluxe model comes with a microchip that allows kids to program different conversations. We’re talking about a fully interactive toy. The technology is still in the early stages and rather expensive—about ninety dollars U.S. for the full package. But in a year or so we’ll be able to bring the deluxe models way down in price.”

At last Aaron handed the figure back to the Chinese worker. Again he leaned down and softly spoke into her ear.

“Your Mandarin is very good,” Hulan observed.

“Thank you. I studied it in college. It was my major, actually. That’s how I got the job.”

The trio continued down the aisle. On either side of them women applied different features to the faces of the colorful figures. When they came to the end of the row, they turned the corner and came up another aisle, where women packed the figures in boxes. This involved taking clear plastic straps and winding them around the neck, arms, and legs of the figures and tightening them into place on a cardboard backing. On the next aisle women attached various gizmos to the cardboard. Some got combs, brushes, mirrors, and knives. Others got pistols, machine guns, grenades, and miniature backpacks.

At last Hulan and her guides came to the door leading back to the hallway. “May I see where the other women work?”

“I beg your pardon?” Sandy asked.

“You said you have a thousand women working here. I’m guessing they’re on the other side of the corridor.”

“That’s an empty room,” Sandy answered, irritation spilling from his mouth like oil running from a bottle.

“Then you won’t mind if I see it.”

“Actually, our time is up.”

“What about the other women who work here?”

“I’m sorry. I can’t help you anymore. Aaron and I have a meeting, right, Aaron?”

“Yes, that’s so.” But the young man couldn’t help blushing again.

“Our office will be sorry to hear that you haven’t cooperated,” Hulan said.

With any Chinese citizen this comment would have been understood for the threat that it was, but Sandy Newheart seemed unimpressed.

“Perhaps on another day you can come again and we’ll be properly prepared to receive you.” Sandy opened the door and led the way back through the labyrinth of corridors and doors. As they entered the foyer, Jimmy stood, moved his bulky frame around the desk, planted his feet apart, and crossed his arms.

“I’ll come back,” Hulan said. “But I doubt I’ll be calling first. You are guests in my country and you must abide by our rules.”

Sandy grimaced as he opened the outside door. “Until our next meeting, then.”

Hulan held his gaze, nodded, then passed through the door to the courtyard. Aware that three sets of eyes were on her, she looked toward the Administration building and held up her arm to get her driver’s attention. Waiting for him to pick her up, she once again took in the vast emptiness of the courtyard complex. Where were the signs of life? She expected to see people walking from building to building either on break or moving merchandise, people sitting together for a late lunch, even people sprawled out asleep for
xiuxi
. How did this company, administered as it was by what appeared to be just three foreign men and a handful of Chinese women, manage to control such a large population of workers? How had Knight ended up out here at all? Most important, what was going on in those other buildings and on the other side of the Assembly wall?

Once the car had turned back onto the expressway, Hulan pulled out her cell phone, punched in David’s number, and waited several seconds for the line to connect. If it was 3:00
P.M.
here, then it was midnight in Los Angeles. David would be up. She was sure of it.

7

W
HEN THE PHONE RANG, DAVID KNEW IT HAD TO BE HULAN
. It had been four days since they’d spoken, longer than any time since he’d left Beijing. “Where are you?” he asked. “I’ve been worried.”

“I’m fine.”

“I have so much to tell you,” he said. She did too, but what he said next made her stories seem unimportant. “I’m coming, Hulan. I’ll be in Beijing…” He paused to calculate the time and the dateline, and said, “Day after tomorrow.”

“How? What for?”

“I have a job. I’m moving to Beijing.”

She heard static on the line; then she asked with deliberation, “Is this the truth?”

He laughed. “Yes! Yes!”

“Oh, David. I can’t believe it.” Then she asked again, “How?”

He started four days back with Keith’s horrible death and what that meant about the triads and the FBI surveillance. He confided in her his concerns about Keith and what he’d read in the paper. Then he told her about going back to his office the day after the funeral….

He’d picked up his voice-mail messages, including one from Keith’s sister. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” she said. “We’re going home today, but I’d like to talk to you about Keith when you have a chance.” She left her home number in Russell, Kansas, then closed with, “I hope you’ll call.”

At the time he’d had no desire to hear more of her recriminations, so he’d written the number down and put it in his briefcase.

A few minutes later he’d walked down the hall to U.S. Attorney Madeleine Prentice’s office. She was blonde, beautiful, smart, and politically astute. Rob Butler, the chief of the Criminal Division, was also there. David had known Rob since law school. They’d played tennis together for years. Like Madeleine, he was a brilliant lawyer. David needed to clear up one aspect of Keith’s death before he made any other decisions and hoped now to confirm what Miles had told him after the funeral.

“What can you tell me about the Keith Baxter investigation?” he asked.

“There isn’t one,” Madeleine responded.

“It was in the paper yesterday,” he said.

“Don’t believe everything you read in the papers,” Rob said. “Haven’t you learned that yet?”

David ignored the barb. “He was accused of doing something in violation of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act.”

“Bribery?” Madeleine asked.

“I assumed so, but I don’t know.”

“Well, it’s not in our office,” Madeleine said. “We haven’t had a single Foreign Corrupt Practices case since the statute was written.”

“Maybe his name has come up in another matter,” Rob suggested.

“But we don’t have
any
bribery cases right now,” Madeleine said.

“What about in the Washington office?” David asked.

“Your friend lived in L.A., right? If he was up to something, don’t you think Washington would tell us?”

David still didn’t know what was bothering Keith, but if Miles said there was nothing to worry about, and Madeleine and Rob verified that, then he could move on—emotionally and perhaps professionally. Except…

“Can I ask something else? Do you think Keith could have been the target the other night and not me? I mean, the Rising Phoenix has had lots of other opportunities. So why now? Could there be some connection between Keith and the triads? He was doing work in China…”

Madeleine sighed. “David, you
know
what happened that night. Accept it, then put it behind you.”

David looked at Rob, who said, “She’s right.”

David considered, then announced, “Miles Stout has asked me to set up an office in Beijing.”

Without hesitation Madeleine asked, “How soon?”

“I’d leave in a couple of days.”

“A week or two’s notice would have been nice, but it wouldn’t be the first time an assistant left on the spur of the moment,” Madeleine said. Then eerily echoing Phil Collingsworth, she added, “When it’s time, it’s time.”

David laughed and shook his head. “What’s this? Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry?”

“Not at all, David,” Madeleine said. “It’s a practical move for you. More than that, I’d call it wise. You’ve finished the Rising Phoenix trials, so if you have to leave suddenly, this is a good time to do it. For the office, I mean,” she amended. “Obviously we’ll hate to see you go, but there are other things to consider. You’ve got people after you. We can surmise it’s some last vestige of the Rising Phoenix. Can we prove it? Not yet. Is there any evidence that points directly to them so that we could get a wiretap and go roust some folks? No. So what you’re looking at is uncertainty and having those Feebies following you around. You can’t tell me you like that.”

“I don’t, but should I run away to China?”

“You’re not running away,” Madeleine said. “You’re getting out of harm’s way so the FBI can do its job and find those assholes.”

“But China? The Rising Phoenix is a Chinese gang,” David pointed out.

“Based in Los Angeles,” Madeleine added as if David didn’t know. “There may be a few hotheads still hanging around the city, but there can’t be any left in Beijing.”

David knew this was true. The gang members in China had been caught. Those who’d confessed had been treated leniently with hard labor in China’s hinterlands. Those who hadn’t had been tried, sentenced, and executed.

“Even if they aren’t all dead,” Rob added, “the Chinese will be able to protect you in a way that we simply can’t.”

David hesitated. There was one more question he had to ask, but it wasn’t an easy one to ask of friends. “This isn’t some setup, is it? You aren’t trying to get me into something I don’t yet know about? We’ve been down that road before and—”

“David,” Madeleine interrupted wearily, “just get out of here. Be safe…”

The taxi’s windows were open, and hot hair blew across Hulan’s face. She gazed out over the fields, thinking of the time she’d spent in the U.S. Attorney’s Office with Madeleine Prentice and Rob Butler earlier this year, and of the life that David would be giving up to come here.

“You love being a prosecutor,” she said into the phone receiver.

“Yes, but I don’t look at that work the same way anymore.” He was referring to the case that had brought them back together. Both of their governments had played them for fools. She’d expected it; he hadn’t. She’d accepted it; he felt betrayed.

“Have you spoken to Miles again?” In her mind’s eye she conjured up Miles’s handsome face. He’d always been nice to her—he was polite to everyone—but she’d always felt uncomfortable around him, probably because she’d never been able to read behind his smooth Nordic exterior.

Picking up on her tone, David said, “I’m not particularly fond of Miles either, and frankly I sense a certain ambivalence in him about this arrangement too. But the firm is made up of many people. Phil and the others have been great, but you guessed right. My negotiations were with Miles. After my meeting with Madeleine and Rob, I met Miles for lunch to go over the particulars. He said he’d give me free rein. ‘Sink your teeth into it. Run with it. The Knights are good people….’”

“The Knights?”

“Remember the factory you asked me about? The firm wants me to handle the sale of Knight to Tartan, then stay on—”

“David, you don’t know anything about those people or their business. I’ve seen things—”

“Look, they don’t need to be my friends. They sell, we buy. Hell, in twelve days Knight won’t exist anymore except as a division of Tartan. Don’t you see, Hulan? I’ll be going to China
with
business. I won’t just be representing Tartan, but other business the firm has lined up. Marcia, Miles’s secretary, has already set up appointments for next Monday. Don’t ask me where they’re going to be. I don’t have an office yet.”

Hulan had many questions, but David just kept talking….

It was amazing how easily he walked away from one life and into another. After lunch he’d gone back to the firm with Miles. Just as Keith had said on the night of his death, the offices of Phillips, MacKenzie & Stout hadn’t changed. The public areas were dark, plush, and conservative. Each partner was given an allowance to decorate his or her own office, which meant that there was a little of everything—from Louis XV to Early American, from mahogany to bird’s-eye maple, from cheap posters to original Hockneys on the walls. As a partner in the top echelon, David was entitled to a corner office on any of the firm’s five floors, the top of which was the acknowledged power center. But since David was going to China, he was assigned a large office between Miles’s on one corner and Phil Collingsworth’s on the other.

Under ordinary circumstances the partners would have needed to meet to vote on accepting a new partner, but, as Phil had pointed out the day of the funeral, everyone here knew David. A few phone calls to the executive committee resulted in a unanimous decision. Five minutes later Miles asked David for his passport, which he pulled out of his breast pocket. Miles laughed when he saw it and said, “I guess I should have negotiated your points a little harder.” Both men had laughed then, for there was no denying that David had wanted to go back to China from the first moment that Miles mentioned it. The senior partner gave the passport to his secretary and told her to hustle down to the Chinese consulate for a visa. After that Miles and David joined Phil and some of the other partners for an impromptu champagne toast. It had felt like old times…

“Did you ask about Keith?” Hulan interrupted.

“What do you mean?”

“About the bribery?”

David’s voice was lost in static, and she asked him to repeat his answer.

“I asked Miles, and I talked to Madeleine and Rob about it too. They all said something along the lines of you can’t believe everything you read in the papers. After what you and I have been through, I have to agree. I can’t remember the last time I was quoted correctly.”

“I don’t like it,” she said.

Even over this great distance she heard him sigh.

“What part?” he asked, the pain in his voice palpable. “Is it that you don’t want me in China?”

“That’s not it at all,” she said quickly. “I love you. I want you to come, but I don’t like what I’ve seen at the Knight factory and—I don’t know—this is happening so fast. Miles never does anything without deliberation.”

“But that’s what I’ve been trying to tell you. Miles isn’t the only voice here. Everyone at Phillips, MacKenzie has been thinking about this for a long time.” His voice faltered, and she understood how deeply she’d hurt him. “It’s sudden,” he said, “but it’s an opportunity. It’s
our
opportunity.” His words got lost in another wave of static, then: “No more bad connections, just the two of us together.”

“When does your flight get in?”

“Seven-fifteen on the tenth,” he said, then clarified, “your Thursday.”

“You may beat me back to Beijing,” she said. Hulan had yet to tell David about the peculiar circumstances of Miaoshan’s death, the strangeness of the Knight compound, or her now postponed plan to go into the factory, but she would when they met in Beijing. “I don’t know how easy it will be for me to get back to the city, but I’ll try to return in time to meet your plane. If I’m not there, I’ll send my new driver. Don’t worry, he’ll find you.”

They spoke for a few more minutes, then David said, “Soon we’ll have all the time in the world to talk, but I should go. I have to be at Phillips, MacKenzie in the morning. I have a lot to do tomorrow to close up this life. We’re going to be together, Hulan. We’re going to be happy.”

Suddenly that old caution crept back into Hulan’s voice. “I hope so, David, I really hope so.”

They hung up, both knowing that a lot had gone unasked and unanswered.

The next day David spent his first hour back in the luxurious fold of the firm with Miles’s secretary. Marcia explained that she would handle David’s time sheets and billings from here. She’d manage his workload when he was in town and take care of personal things like forwarding his mail to China. She’d also make sure that he received all interoffice memos in Beijing—or wherever in the world he happened to be—and that any phone calls that did come in for him were routed to his as-yet unknown number in China. She told him that the firm had just hired a Miss Quo Xuesheng as a secretary and interpreter in China. Miss Quo was already scouting out office space and setting up appointments for him upon his arrival.

Then Marcia left him alone with several files, which would bring him up-to-date on the firm’s overall business and strategic plan. At noon, David swung back down to the U.S. Attorney’s Office, where Rob and Madeleine held a farewell gathering. Then he went back to Miles’s office for a final briefing on the Knight matter.

“I’ve handled business for Tartan and Randall Craig for twenty years,” Miles said. “The Knight deal is a great opportunity. There’s a lot of money involved—seven hundred million—but not much can happen now to sour the deal. We’re at that point where the sale has its own momentum and we’re just along for the ride.”

“Are there any problems I should know about?”

Miles shook his head. “Smooth sailing. Henry Knight is a widower and has one grown son. Henry’s an ethical guy, a lot like you actually. He’s run his business cleanly even when he could have made shortcuts here and there. Top profit has never been his main motivator.”

But the factory was in China, David pointed out. That had to cut costs.

“Sure,” Miles said, “but that’s just a side benefit. He sees himself as a philanthropist. He’s given money to hospitals, children’s organizations, various shelters. For Henry, China’s just another cause. He’s always loved the place. I don’t know. It goes back to the war, I think. Anyway, he thinks he’s helping the people he hires. Having come from a farm myself, I know what a shit life that can be.” Miles shrugged as if to shake away the memories. “When you get over there, you’ll meet Governor Sun and his assistant, Amy Gao. They’re with the local government.”

“You’ve met them?”

“I met Sun on my first trip to China, but otherwise I’ve just dealt with his assistant. She has a Chinese name, but like so many of them she goes with an American version of her first name and puts her family name second. Amy Gao is a smart woman, ambitious. She’s come over here, been up at the firm. You’ll like her. If you have any problems, talk to her. I’ll come over for the final signing.” He paused, then said, “Now, don’t get worried that I’ll be butting in. This is your matter now. I mean it when I say go with it. Although I can’t say there’ll be much to
go
with. The work is done. All we need now are the John Hancocks. And as far as
that
goes, I couldn’t miss the final signing. Randall Craig and Tartan have been a big part of my career.”