The Interior (17 page)

“I’ll have Investigator Lo come and get you.”

“No!” Hulan glanced around but still didn’t see anyone. She lowered her voice. “I can’t leave now. They have us locked in the compound.”

“I don’t like this. I know I sound like some dumb male, and I’ll admit it, maybe that’s part of it. But Jesus, I wish you weren’t in there.”

She cut him off. “Have you met the Knights yet? What are they like?”

He sighed. “They didn’t show. They had bad weather in Tokyo. A typhoon, I think. Anyway, we’ll have to try and cram everything in tomorrow.”

“Then how did you spend your day?”

“I came back to the hotel and went for a run down along that creek they call a river. The rest of the day I was either on the phone or on the Internet. What else? Governor Sun just sent over a carton of papers, along with his signed waiver.”

“So what are they?”

“I’m not sure,” he said. “Financials of some sort. I’ll look more closely before I meet with him.” He hesitated. “But you know we shouldn’t talk about them anyway. He’s a client.”

He was right, but Hulan wasn’t so sure she liked it. Still, he had his professional ethics and she had hers, which made answering his next question much easier.

“Hulan, how do you think it will look if you’re caught in there?”

“It’s going to be bad if I find something.”

“But you’re not going to find anything.”

“We’ve already covered this,” Hulan sighed. “This place isn’t what you think.”

“You promised Zai and me—”

“I know.”

“I’ll be at the factory tomorrow at ten. I don’t want to see you there.”

“You won’t,” she said.

They exchanged good nights. Hulan punched the
OFF
button, put the phone back in her pocket, and went around to the entrance to the dormitory. She opened the door and waited for her eyes to adjust to the inky blackness. Suddenly a light flicked on.

“What are you doing out here?” Madame Leung asked.

Hulan looked down at the floor and didn’t answer.

“You know the rules.”

“I’m new, Party Secretary,” Hulan said tremulously. “I got lost.”

“Your name?”

“Liu Hulan, and I promise it won’t happen again.”

Hulan felt Madame Leung’s eyes appraising her.

“Are you the one who was asking those questions today?”

“No, Party Secretary.”

Looking at the ground, Hulan could see Madame Leung’s foot slowly tap on the concrete floor.

“I will look the other way this one time,” the party secretary said at last. “There will be no penalty.”

“Thank you.”

“You may go back to your room. I’ll turn on all the lights so everyone will see you. If they ever see someone up and out again, they will know whom to report. Do you understand?”

“Yes, Party Secretary.”

Madame Leung reached up and threw a series of switches. Without looking up, Hulan scurried past the party secretary. Hurrying back to her room, she felt the eyes of hundreds of women upon her. Moments after she settled onto her bunk, the lights were turned off. Hulan held her hand in front of her face and couldn’t see it. She lay there for a few minutes, listening to the breathing and occasional shifting of the other women in the room. Her thoughts were on Miaoshan. The mattress was only a few inches deep, but from within it Hulan could smell a distinctive scent that she remembered from America. It was White Shoulders perfume. No wonder the women who slept here talked of ghost spirits. The oppressively sweet odor had always reminded Hulan of death. As Hulan drifted off, she wondered how White Shoulders had found its way into a dormitory room deep in the interior of China.

By quarter to seven the next morning Hulan had already had a cold shower, had dressed in her pink smock, had stopped in the company store to buy toilet paper and bottled water at three times Beijing prices, had slurped down a breakfast of
congee
with pickled turnip, and had finagled a spot in line with Siang to enter the Assembly Building. At 6:50 a bell rang and the line began to move. Madame Leung and the guard Jimmy stood in the middle of the lobby. If Jimmy recognized Hulan, this would all be over. When she reached him, he stared directly at her, but she was just another woman in a pink smock with a pink bandana covering her black hair. Madame Leung put an arm out to stop the line. She handed Hulan and Siang passes, looked around, spotted Peanut, and said, “Take them to your post and teach them what to do.” Peanut nodded, and Hulan thought how strange it was that this place seemed to have so much security and the workers were so much under the control of the managers, and yet actual assignments could be as haphazard as who happened to be standing nearby at the time.

“We’ll be watching you today,” Madame Leung said. “Remember, if you do well, you’ll be promoted. We reward good work. If you cannot do the work, do not despair. There are many jobs here at Knight. We will find something for you.”

The line moved forward again. Peanut showed Hulan and Siang how to wave their passes over the bar code reader. Then they entered the door. The women ahead of them automatically divided into two groups, each going down different corridors. Hulan’s line snaked left and right through the halls until she felt completely disoriented. Siang must have felt the same way, because she reached out and grabbed a pinch of Hulan’s smock. Peanut bounced along rapidly, once turning her head back over her shoulder to say, “Everyone feels lost in here when they start, but you’ll get used to it in a few days.” They entered the main workroom, the women moving briskly to their positions before the various machines. At 7:00 the machines clamored to life. Within minutes the clatter and clanking of the machines had created a deafening roar.

Fortunately, Hulan and Tang Siang had been assigned to work with Peanut, who, although young, had a cheerful disposition and a great deal of patience. Peanut explained that they had been given the easy job of punching strands of plastic hair into minuscule holes in the heads of the dolls. Hulan remembered this task from the day before and thought that she’d gotten a lucky break. She was mistaken. Yesterday she’d been seated and she hadn’t yet hurt her hand. Today she stood before a conveyor that sped up as the morning progressed. What had seemed relatively easy the day before as the trainees had moved from station to station soon became impossibly difficult. As the machines continued to churn, the room’s temperature rose until the only respite came in the form of the slight oven-hot breeze that came off the moving parts of the equipment. After three hours Hulan’s hands burned with fatigue, her wound throbbed, her fingers were scratched, and her smock was damp with sweat.

Siang’s hands, however, moved deftly, competently. After the morning break Aaron Rodgers, who circulated between this room and the final assembly area, stopped to compliment Siang on her abilities. “Thank you very much,” she said in heavily accented English.

Aaron’s face broke into a smile. He leaned his head toward Siang’s and spoke into her ear. With the sound of the machines, Hulan couldn’t hear what he said, but she could see Siang blush, return his smile, and reply, “No, I am not a city girl. I am educated here in our local school. My father says English is very important.”

Aaron Rodgers agreed, massaged Siang’s shoulders for a moment, then turned his attention to Hulan. Again there was absolutely no sign of recognition. Aaron looked right into her face and, keeping a proper distance, spoke Mandarin in a tone loud enough to be just barely heard over the din of the machines. “Your fingers are bleeding. We can’t have that on the figures.”

“I’m sorry,” she responded in Mandarin.

Aaron reached into his pocket and pulled out a couple of Band-Aids. “Use these. During the break, come to me. I will try to find you another job.”

“I’ll do better,” Hulan vowed.

“We’ll see,” he said. “For now, just get back to—”

A woman’s high-pitched screams cut him off. Instantly a quiet fell just under the continuing drone of the machines as all of the talking among the women came to an abrupt halt. Once the machines were shut down, the woman’s screams seemed even louder as they reverberated through the echoing vastness of the room. Aaron took off at a trot; then the others left their posts and began crowding around the injured woman. Hulan edged into the throng, using her elbows to push her way to the front.

A woman sat on the floor before the fiber-shredding machine. Her right hand gripped her left elbow, holding that arm up and away from her body as she tried vainly to stanch the flow of blood. The flesh along her forearm was sliced open, and two of her fingers were gone. Aaron knelt beside her, pulled his shirt off, and wrapped it around the arm. Without any hesitancy he picked her up. The crowd parted to create an aisle. As he walked toward the door, the woman began to struggle. “No! No! No!” Her screams now seemed louder, more terrified than before. Instinctively the other girls stepped back even farther. A few turned their eyes away. A minute later Aaron stepped out of the room, the door shut, and the woman’s screams faded. Someone near Hulan muttered, “We won’t see Xiao Yang again.” Then Madame Leung’s voice came over a loudspeaker. “Please return to your places.” The girls obeyed. Levers were pulled and buttons pushed. The machines revved back to speed, and the girls went back to their labors. Hulan held her spot just long enough to see the still bloody claws reach out, grab another fiber brick, and draw it into the machine’s thrashing maw.

10

T
WO HOURS AFTER HULAN TOOK HER PLACE ON THE
assembly line for her first full day of work, Investigator Lo dropped David off in front of the Administration Building. As with Hulan’s initial visit, Sandy New heart stood on the steps to greet him. The two men shook hands, then went into the building, making their way down a corridor to a conference room where Henry and Douglas Knight awaited their arrival. There were no other attorneys present.

Henry Knight’s handshake was straightforward and firm. He was of average height and lean. His silvery hair curled just over his collar. “It’s great to have you here,” he said. “Randall Craig and Miles Stout said they’d send us someone who was familiar with China, our company, and was quick on his feet. They say you fit the bill.” He looked over to where his son sat. “That’s my boy, Doug.”

Doug raised a hand and waved. He looked to be about forty-five. Like his father, he was thin. But while Henry seemed spry and full of vigor, Doug came across as gaunt and lethargic.

“Can I get anyone coffee?” Sandy asked. “I can have it brought in.”

“No, thanks,” Henry said. “I don’t want some damn tea girl hovering around. We can break later.” Then, “That okay with you, Stark?”

“Just fine.”

The four men sat at one end of the table, leaving the other dozen seats empty.

“We’re on a tight schedule with Tartan and I want to keep things moving along, so I’ll start with a quick review for your benefit.” Henry opened the file in front of him, waited for the others to follow suit, and said with a grin, “I’ve always liked the Tartan offer. They’re acquiring us outright. Doug retains his position as chief financial officer for five years. I gracefully exit and enjoy my retirement. Tartan asked for and received a non-compete clause, so that if I come up with any new ideas they’ll come straight here as they always have.”

Henry checked the others, then went on. “But I don’t plan to do much in the way of development. I want to enjoy myself—travel a bit, visit my old haunts. Doug, on the other hand, is still young. I built this company and grew it to where it is today. We have these new technologies, and who knows where they’ll end up?” He turned his steel gray eyes on David. “I want my boy to be a part of that excitement.”

“As I see it, everything you’ve asked for is right here,” David assured him. “But I wouldn’t be completely honest if I didn’t tell you that once a conglomerate like Tartan buys a company like this, it gets to do what it wants. Sometimes the people who are left behind are squeezed out. Sometimes they’re uncomfortable with all the changes. Sometimes it’s a perfect fit. There are no guarantees.”

“Is that what Miles told you to say?” Henry asked, grinning at David.

“No,” David answered, “no, he probably wouldn’t have liked that I said that.”

“An honest lawyer,” Henry said. “I guess that’s why they pay you the big bucks.”

The others in the room laughed, as they were supposed to. David did too, realizing that despite Henry’s hard eyes and years of business, he fancied himself as a bit of a cutup.

“All right, then,” David said, trying for a more lawyerly tone. “As I understand it, Miles Stout and Keith Baxter have gone through this about twenty times, so I know they’re satisfied. And I’m assuming that none of you or your lawyers are worried about the substance of the agreement—”

“Yes, we’ve had lawyers look at things, but the buck stops with me,” Henry said. “I’m the one who makes the decisions.”

“Are you sure you don’t want your attorneys here?” David asked. “Only a fool would go into a transaction like this without having representation.”

“I’ve come a long way in business without using too many lawyers,” Henry said. “Mine have vetted everything. It looks good to them. My feeling is, why fly them out here first-class, put them up in a hotel, and hire them companions for the night, when I know my company better than anyone else? Put another way, it’s my money that’s at stake, and I’m satisfied.”

David looked at Sandy and Doug to gauge their reaction to this outburst. Sandy drummed on the papers in front of him with his pen; Doug seemed to be daydreaming. Both were reactions that David had experienced with his own father on occasion. No, Henry Knight wasn’t the first entrepreneur to be a little eccentric. If that’s the way they wanted to play it, it was fine with David.

“The final deal is slated to be signed in Beijing on July 21, with monies and power transferring on that date,” David continued. “I know Miles and Keith have covered all this. Still, my main area of expertise is litigation, so I always like to double-check potential trouble spots. I don’t mean those places where anyone is trying to slip something clever past the other side. By my reading and from what Miles has told me, all that’s been taken care of to the satisfaction of both parties. I’m talking about places where Tartan might be exposed to future litigation.”

“Are you asking me if I have anything to hide?” Henry asked in a friendly tone.

“You can put it that way if you like,” David replied, also keeping his voice light.

“Well, we don’t. Keith made sure about that.”

“That’s good, because you’ve got a good deal here. Seven hundred million is a lot of money. You don’t want something to come up three years from now and bite Tartan on the ass. Because I can guarantee you that we’ll come back to you full force.”

Henry threw his head back and hooted with laughter. “Miles said you were full of vinegar. I like that.”

David continued evenly, “So, I hope you can answer some questions, if only for my benefit.”

“Fire away.”

“Do you have any outstanding lawsuits or any threats of lawsuits that you know are lurking out there somewhere?”

Henry glanced at his son and Sandy, then said, “None. I’ve always run a clean shop. We’ve paid our bills. We’ve never gotten in trouble with the unions.”

“How about product liability?”

“None,” Henry answered.

“You manufacture toys,” David pressed. “It seems to me I’ve read about cases where some kid swallows a part or gets bitten by a doll or some crazy thing.”

“Hasn’t happened with my products,” the older man answered swiftly.

“You’re sure—”

“I already told you, twice.”

David leaned back in his chair, quietly evaluating the meeting. In the U.S. Attorney’s Office he asked questions and, for the most part, people had to answer them. Now he was back in the private sector, where he had clients. He was here because Tartan had hired him for his expertise and advice. But as everyone kept reminding him, the due diligence was done and so was the deal. His role in these final days was reduced to that of cruise director: keep everyone happy, keep the deal moving along, and watch out for possible diplomatic snafus. The problem was that David didn’t know the Knights and they didn’t know him. They were all working against a deadline, but they still needed to trust each other.

“How long have you been in business?” David asked, changing strategies, hoping to get to know the man behind this enterprise.

Henry thought for a moment, regarding David the whole while. Then he nodded as if to say he understood what the younger man was doing. “My grandparents emigrated from Poland in 1910, when my father was ten,” he began. “He was supposed to go to school. Instead he went to work shining shoes. When he was fifteen, he got a job selling penny banks. By the time he was twenty, he’d started a little company for school supplies. Ironic, isn’t it? Here was a man who didn’t finish school, but he made his living selling pencils, slate boards, notebooks, chalk.”

Henry peered over at David. “Knight International. Such a grandiose name for a one-person operation, but my dad liked it. Obviously our last name wasn’t Knight back then. You’d have thought he would have taken a name that was somehow more American, but he loved the idea of knights—the pageantry, the jousts on horseback, the gallantry. The name and all it implied were about as far from Poland and his childhood as he could get.”

“Did he manufacture chess sets?”

Henry shook his head. “No, only school supplies. We didn’t get into chess sets until much later. We were the first to make the pieces out of plastic, but that’s getting ahead of the story. My dad married the daughter of one of his customers. I came along soon enough. I was five when the Depression hit. Schools stayed open, thank God, but really most people couldn’t afford much in the way of extras. Times were hard, sure. But my dad also let people take advantage of him, because, he said, if someone was that desperate he probably needed that something more than we did. Then there was a lawyer who told my father all of the wrong things. He was nearly ruined.”

“Which is why you don’t like lawyers.”

“I just like to make my own decisions. My father almost lost Knight, this company that was his whole life. I was just a little kid, but I’ll never forget it.”

“Something like that can make you pretty tough,” David observed. “Both of my parents were kids during the Depression. They were both raised in families that struggled. I look at my parents now and think that that period—those ‘formative’ years—defined them for life.” David thought for a moment, then added, “That and the war.”

Henry nodded. “Where was your dad?”

“He was in the army, stationed in London.”

“Not bad duty, if you can get it.”

“In some ways it was the most fun my father ever had,” David said.

“And in others?”

“War is hell. That’s what he always said.”

“Well, sport, he was right on both counts.”

David shrugged. He rarely spoke about his family with strangers, but Henry made it seem easy.

“I was stationed in China,” Henry said. “First in Kunming, then…I got around, especially in those months after the Japanese surrender.”

“What were you doing?”

Henry didn’t answer the question; instead he said, “Like your father, I had the time of my life. You just can’t imagine what Shanghai was like back then. Every night we went out dancing and drinking and womanizing. It was fast. Exotic. That’s a word that gets shit on these days, but I’m telling you, back then Shanghai was exotic.”

“And what were you doing?” David repeated.

But before Henry could answer, his son asked, “Dad, shouldn’t we get to work here?”

It was the first time Doug had spoken, and it took everyone by surprise. Henry checked his watch and said, “Give me another minute, then we’ll take a quick break, grab some of that coffee Sandy’s got brewing somewhere, then come back and get down to it. All right?”

Doug looked away. David wondered if Henry always dismissed his son’s suggestions so casually.

But Henry’s stride had been broken, and he hurriedly finished. “I thought I’d stay out here after the war. I got to know some people and had some pretty good ideas now that I look back on it. But then China closed and that was that. I went back home to New Jersey and started working for my dad. The baby boom came on strong, but the company wasn’t going to feel it until those kids hit kindergarten. I began to think of ways to reach them earlier.”

“Mr. Knight practically invented the preschool market,” Sandy interjected. “That’s why he’s in the Toy Industry Hall of Fame in New York.”

“I can’t take any real credit for that,” Henry said modestly. “Ruth and I wanted children. We wanted them to have something fun and educational to play with. That’s all.”

The phone rang. Sandy picked it up, spoke a few words into the receiver, hung up, and said to the others, “Something’s come up in the Assembly Building that I need to take care of, so let’s go ahead and take that break.”

They left the room and together walked back to what Henry Knight explained to David was the heart of the company. Then the three company men left David to peruse Knight’s brag wall. After about ten minutes, David had seen enough and decided to see if he could find the others. He stepped outside into the heat, looked around, and saw Henry and some other men clustered together next to a pile of something in front of a building to his left. David strolled their way, taking off his jacket and loosening his tie.

“I don’t see how this could happen,” Henry was saying in a quavering voice as David neared. When he reached them, the men stepped aside and David saw the figure of a woman dressed in a pink smock lying crumpled on the hard-packed earth. The smock was stained dark red with blood. The woman’s arm was mangled, but this was nothing compared to the terrible thing that had happened to her head, which had flattened and split against the ground. Her dark eyes stared at the sky. Her injuries and the rag-doll quality of her limbs reminded David of Keith, but the familiarity of that nightmare didn’t make this one any easier to take.

“Come on, Dad,” Doug pleaded. “Step away. Let the others take care of it.”

“No!” Henry jerked his son’s hand off his shoulder. “Sandy, I’m asking again. How could this happen?”

But Sandy didn’t answer. Instead he bolted away, leaned over, and threw up.

“Sir.” This wavering syllable came from one of the men in the group. He was young and his face was as white as alabaster. “Sir,” he tried again. He swallowed a couple of times and turned his eyes away from the bloody mess at his feet. “It’s my fault. I shouldn’t have left her alone.”

“Who are you?”

“Aaron Rodgers, sir. I’m the manager for the assembly area. There was an accident. She…Does anyone know her name?” When no one answered, the young man gulped again and continued. “Her arm got caught in the shredder. It was bad, but not this bad.” Aaron started to sway. David stepped forward, grabbed him, and led him over to the Assembly Building steps.

“Put your head down for a minute,” David said. He looked around. “Can someone get some water, maybe a cold cloth?”

A heavyset Caucasian man whom David had yet to meet nodded with military precision, went into the building, and returned with a couple of paper cups filled with water which he gave to David. Then the man went over to the dead woman, flipped open some fabric, and let it settle on her. From here he walked to Sandy and escorted him to the steps to sit with Aaron Rodgers. “Drink this,” he said in an Australian accent. Then, as Sandy stared over at the body, the other man said, “I’ll get this cleaned up before the women have their lunch break.”