The Money Is Green (7 page)

She giggled on the other line and whispered seductively, “Let’s go straight to a hotel, okay? I have some things I want to do with you and I can’t wait.”

Brian smiled. “I’ll try to envision what you might be up to, but I’m also going to be a good boy. Like we discussed earlier, I want to keep our relationship strictly professional.”

“Of course, Brian,” she cooed sweetly. “I can control myself.”

He set the phone down and stared at it for a moment. I’m not sure I can, he thought. This is not a time to be weak. As much as it would feel great, I can’t fall to her seductive ways now. I’ve got too much
riding on these solar farms to be mixing business with pleasure, especially when the pleasure involves Mei Chen.

S
EVEN

M
ei set the phone on the marble counter in her kitchen and sat at a circular table centered in front of a large window overlooking the backyard. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a small woman in a white smock silently come into the kitchen, move to the two stainless steel Samsung refrigerators, and pull out an armful of fresh vegetables. She moved over to the stove, set out a large silver pot, and set the vegetables on the white granite kitchen counter. She started rapidly cutting the vegetables on a wooden chopping block until Mei raised her head and yelled, “Ming, please do that later. I can’t hear myself think!”

The shouting startled the woman and she dropped the knife. She hurriedly recovered and gathered her things before scurrying out of the room.

Mei watched her in silence and then turned and looked out through the massive windows to the three-acre garden that surrounded the back of the house. The house was built on a side of a hill above the city of Beijing, giving its occupants a breathtaking view when the smog didn’t blanket everything. Today was a bad day and the visibility was only half a mile.

She stood up, moved to the large picture window, and stared down at the large pond outside the window. Large green water lilies floating on the top of the pond as colorful koi swam lazily under the lilies, comfortable with their surrounding and showing no fear of her. The sounds of laughing voices made Mei turn back, and she returned to the kitchen.

The tall double front doors burst open and her daughter came bounding in, wearing a pleated skirt with a white blouse. Following closely behind her was another young woman, probably eight years older, carrying the girl’s backpack. She spotted her mother sitting in the nook area of the kitchen and immediately stood erect.

Mei raised her head, pointed her index finger at the girl, and bent it toward her. “Come in here, Chi,” she said sternly. “Come tell me what you learned.”

Chi stepped forward while the older girl set her backpack on the kitchen counter. Chi stopped about three feet in front of Mei and put her hands behind her back. In a high-pitched voice she said, “We studied algebra, biology, and Cantonese today, Mother. I learned about the Pythagorean theorem.”

Mei’s eyes widened. “Really, Chi? Recite it for me.” The girl did as instructed and Mei patted her cheek softly. Satisfied the day at school had been a success, Mei spoke to the older girl. “Okay, you know what’s next, Pin. Make her spend two hours on the piano and then two hours on the violin. Get going, the time’s wasting.”

The two girls turned and headed out of the kitchen in silence. A few moments later, the soft notes of Edvard Grieg’s “Butterfly” wafted into the room.

Mei listened for a minute, then got up and hurried into the expansive family room where Chi was sitting behind the oak-stained Steinway piano. She slapped her hand on the keyboard, causing the girl to jump. “Play the piece correctly, Chi!” she shouted at her daughter, who stared straight ahead without an expression. “It’s supposed to be light and feathery, not choppy!”

Mei turned and went back to the kitchen, picking up the newspaper sitting on the corner of the counter. She started thinking about David’s hotels in Hong Kong and what she would do with them once she became his partner. She smiled an evil smile as she rubbed her hands together. I’m going to enjoy running those hotels the way I want to and make them even more luxurious than they already are. They’ll be the talk of the world’s richest people! Her thoughts where interrupted as, from the next room, violin notes from Viotti’s Concerto floated across the house. Has she already practiced the piano for two hours? she thought. Mei put her fingertips to her temple in exasperation and stormed into the room. “Keep the vibrato even, Chi. Check your fingering!” She turned to the nanny, Pin, who was sitting quietly in a wicker chair across from Chi. “That sounds horrible, Pin. Make her practice an extra hour until she gets that piece correct!”

Mei heard some noise coming from the living room area, so she left the girls to their practice and went to investigate. As she entered the room, she stopped to see her husband Ho sitting on a large leather couch eating an apple.

“I didn’t expect you home until later,” she said, crossing her arms. Mei didn’t like it when he came home early, as he was too easy on their daughter and often clashed with her regarding the amount of practice she made her put in. He was a slight man, maybe five foot seven, with a medium build. He wore thick dark glasses, and his straight black hair was combed to one side. She eyed his dark suit, an off-the-rack model that was simple but neat. Nothing about Ho was pretentious or splashy.

“Xi is heading to Chongqing, as there was a midsized earthquake there,” he answered evenly. “He needs to show the people there he feels their pain and is concerned. I’ll be leaving to go there in the morning to join him.”

Mei didn’t hide her disgust. She knew Xi was the leader of China and everybody danced to his fiddle, but she thought he was incompetent and did little for their country. She wanted more
openness toward capitalism and more trade with the west, and Xi didn’t. It was not the Communist way, he would always say. But he was going to step down soon—not soon enough for Mei, but soon—and Ho was in line to take over. Once that happened, Mei had big plans for China.

“I hope his train wrecks on the way and he’s crushed by a herd of water buffalo as he tries to get away from it,” she snarled. “The sooner he goes, the better it will be for all of China.”

Ho stood up and grabbed her arm. “Do not speak such blasphemy about our leader,” he hissed. He looked around the room cautiously. “Did you forget there are twelve servants running around this house? If any of them were to tell the authorities of this talk, we could be ruined!”

She wrestled her arm out of his grasp and pulled away, her face contorted in anger. “No one in this house will speak ill of me because they know what will happen to them if I find out. That is the difference between you and me. I command respect from my people because they fear me. They know I will destroy them.” She almost spat out her words in contempt. “You, they walk all over. The only reason you are where you are in the Party is because of me and my family. My grandparents marched with Mao, and my parents toiled at the bottom of the Party during the Cultural Revolution. Do not forget your place!”

Ho’s face grew red and his eyes narrowed. “Do not think, woman, that you are above reproach. There are a lot of people in the Party watching you. They see all the jewelry and the Mercedes Benz limousines. They see the lavish parties you throw and hear about your properties in Hong Kong. They, as am I, are aware of your scandalous affairs.” He waved a finger in her face. “When you find yourself on the outside of the Party, do not look to me to help you!”

Mei stared at him for a long moment, her anger growing. She was about to let him have it when she noticed the music had stopped and the house was silent. She turned and cocked her head and yelled, “Get
to practicing! Pin, why are you letting her slouch off? Add another hour to her practice time.”

She turned back to Ho, who had moved across the room and was standing near the room’s entrance. “Do not concern yourself with my business, husband. Those petty minds in the Party who criticize me are of no concern. There have always been people who are jealous of my success. It hasn’t stopped me in the past, and it won’t stop me now. I see a great future for China and I’m going to be part of it!”

Ho studied her. “You won’t be a part of anything if you’re languishing in jail. You won’t be part of anything if you’re dead.”

E
IGHT

T
he seatbelt sign went off and the lights in the cabin lit up the whole plane as it came to a full stop. Passengers jumped to their feet and reached up to the overhead bins to retrieve their carry-on baggage. Cellphones started ringing and twenty-five conversations started at once. Jason sat patiently and let the majority of passengers debark the plane before he stood up.

As the plane slowly emptied, Jason grabbed his briefcase and followed the few remaining people off the plane. The pilot stood by the cockpit and said goodbye to every passenger.

Jason headed up the ramp to the terminal, studying the emails on his phone. As he exited the ramp, he glanced around to see any familiar faces. He made his way through the terminal and ended up standing in front of the baggage claim. Although he knew Crystal was in school, he had hoped Janine might pull her out to come greet him. He stopped and set his carry-on next to the baggage carousel. When I phoned her a few days ago from Shanghai, everything seemed to be going okay. I wish I had told her when we talked how much I missed her this last weekend and how anxious I am to see her again. Oh well, he thought, I guess I’ll see her outside.

As he stepped up and grabbed his baggage, his cellphone rang. He recognized the number of Debbie, his ex-wife. He immediately felt anxious and scolded himself. Why do you do this to yourself? Get over her. She’s not calling to beg you to take her back. Nor do you want her to.

“Hello?” Jason answered in a croaky voice. His throat had gone unusually dry.

“Hi, Jason, it’s Debbie. We need to talk.”

He cleared his throat and kept walking. “Okay, go ahead, I’m listening.”

She immediately started screaming and he had to hold the phone away from his ear. “Crystal has called me nearly in tears every day since you’ve been gone. She’s so miserable she can barely stand it. You left her with that slut girlfriend of yours. That was your first bad idea.”

Jason spoke calmly into the phone. “Whoa, whoa, wait a moment. You don’t know a thing about Janine or what kind of a person she is. I had no choice but to ask Janine to watch her because I had to leave on short notice and she was kind enough to help me out. I’m sure I’ll hear that this wasn’t a great vacation for her either.”

“I don’t need to meet the woman to know her kind,” Debbie said, sniffing indignantly. “Why didn’t you call my mother or the Johnsons? They could have taken Crystal. She’s a fifteen-year-old, for god’s sake, she doesn’t need a babysitter. And she doesn’t need your girlfriend, whom she loathes, to be her babysitter.”

“Look, Debbie, I’m doing the best I can. It doesn’t help when you tell Crystal that Janine was the reason our marriage fell apart. I’ve spared her the real reason for the breakup. I wasn’t the one who had an affair and decided to pack up and move three thousand miles away to live with the man. Don’t try to use Crystal to ease your guilty conscience.”

“Don’t give me that BS, Jason. You were seeing that bitch the whole time we were married. You and I both know it!”

Oh no, here we go again, he thought. The fact that I hadn’t even met Janine until Debbie was in North Dakota won’t matter because she’d just justify her actions with fantasies. “Is there anything else, Debbie?” he sighed as if he had just lost a seven-round boxing match.

“As a matter of fact, there is,” she answered. “I need you to send me more money. I think five thousand will do for now.”

Jason raised his hands in frustration. “Five thousand? What is that for? I’ve sent you your three-thousand-a-month alimony religiously even though I’m raising Crystal and pay all her expenses. Why should I send you five thousand more? I thought Dave was killing it in the oil business there. What happened?”

“Dave’s business is none of yours. If you don’t send the money, I’ll take you back to court. I know you’re making more money than when we split up, and either way you’ll have to hire an attorney and it will cost you more than five thousand dollars to fight me.”

Jason pulled the retractable handle out of his suitcase and headed toward the exit. “We’ve already settled everything in our divorce, and at this point, going back to court would be a waste of time and money, but if that’s what you’re determined to do, I’m warning you, I won’t roll over.”

She snarled at him through the phone. “We’ll just see about that!”

“Debbie, while we’re on the phone, I need to know what you’ve decided for this summer,” he said in a determined voice. “Crystal gets out of school in six weeks and wants to come stay with you. Are you going to let her?”

Her whole tone changed and she lowered her voice, speaking in a condescending manner. “I’ve discussed that with Dave and he doesn’t feel comfortable around children, so no, she won’t be coming to stay with me. I’ll fly out there in a couple of months and visit with her.”

Jason stopped and adjusted his grip on his suitcase, shifting it to his left hand. “Oh, that’s really big of you to find the time to visit your daughter. And since when is a fifteen-year-old a child?”

“Quit trying to guilt me out, Jason. I do everything for Crystal. Good try changing the subject. You better send me the money or you’ll hear from my lawyer.”

Click
.

Pulling his suitcase, Jason stuck the phone in his pocket and continued heading for the airport exit. Why do I let her keep pushing my buttons? If she keeps demanding this, I’m going to tell her to go stick that five grand where the sun doesn’t shine. I’m tired of her trying to play the victim and extorting money from me.

As he exited the San Jose Airport into the bright sunlight, Janine pulled up to the curb in her white BMW sports coup. She popped open the trunk and pushed opened the passenger door.

Throwing the suitcase into the trunk, Jason got in the car, leaned over, and gave Janine a long kiss. “Thank you for picking me up. I appreciate it.”