The Interior - Страница 42

"David, this could be dangerous," she insisted. "I look at the Knight factory and think that they're making money by putting people's health and safety in jeopardy, but is it against the law? In China the answer is not really. I look at these papers and figure that Sun is connected somehow. Obviously the Knights wouldn't be able to operate out here without his help. But what do these papers even mean? As I said, Sun is a powerful man. More than that, he's popular, very, very popular. Even I," she said, "have admired him."

"You don't understand my concern," David said with a rueful smile. "Governor Sun is my client. You trained as a lawyer, Hulan. You know what that means. The papers he sent me are now privileged information. Ethically I can't turn them over to you or use them to damage him in any way, because he's my client, as is the Tartan corporation."

"You're a prosecutor," Hulan said after a long pause.

"I was a prosecutor. But even as a prosecutor I always respected the rights of the accused. Confidentiality is a cornerstone of our legal system."

"But you're in China…"

"I'm not saying that Governor Sun's papers are anything like these, but if they were, would I be free to pursue him as though he was a criminal rather than a client?"

"Article 3 of the Provisional Regulations Regarding Lawyers says that in carrying out their activities, lawyers 'shall take facts as the basis and the law as the criterion,'" she recited. "This means that lawyers should never fail to distinguish between right and wrong. They should expose contradictory facts and clarify erroneous errors. A lawyer also has the right to refuse to represent a client if he feels that the defendant has failed to reveal the entire truth."

"What are you leaving out?"

"As a lawyer operating in China, you must safeguard state sovereignty…"

"No problem."

"And the state's economic interests," Hulan continued. "At the same time, the rights and interests of foreign businessmen must be protected."

"Just tell me, do I have to maintain confidentiality here or not?"

"I'm afraid so. The code says that confidentiality of private matters must be maintained. It goes along with protecting state secrets."

"It seems to me there are a lot of contradictions in those rules."

"This is China."

"So what can and can I not do?"

"I didn't train in our system, and I've never practiced law here," Hulan said. "I don't know all of the subtleties or how to play them."

"You do have one thing in your favor," Lo interrupted, although he didn't fully understand David's dilemma. "Lawyers have the right to make investigations and visits pertaining to the cases they're handling."

"In that case," David said, "I'd like to go back to the hotel."

A few minutes later, Suchee walked the trio to the car. With great solemnity she extended the papers to Hulan, who refused them. "Keep them here for now," she said. "Your daughter knew how to keep them safe." Then, "I promise you I'll find out who killed her."

As soon as the car disappeared down the dirt road, Suchee turned toward the shed to restore to their hiding place the papers that might have cost her daughter's life.

13

AN HOUR LATER, AFTER MAKING A PLAN FOR THE NEXT day, Investigator Lo dropped David and Hulan off at the entrance to the Shanxi Grand Hotel, then drove away to park the car. As they passed through the lobby on the way to the elevator, a woman's voice called out, "David Stark!" He looked around and saw a woman he didn't recognize approaching him. She was Chinese, but dressed unlike most women he'd seen here. She wore khaki trousers and a silk blouse. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and large gold earrings hung from her earlobes. She extended her hand. "Mr. Stark, I'm Pearl Jenner. Would you join me for a drink?"

He knew he'd heard the name before but couldn't place it. "I'm sorry," he said. All he wanted to do was get to his room and look at Sun's papers. "We're just on our way up. It's been a long day."

Pearl Jenner studied Hulan, then turned back to David. "I've come a long way," she said. "This isn't the easiest place to get to."

"Yes, well…"

"I would think you'd want to talk to me. I'm from the Times. I've been covering the Tartan acquisition."

Now David realized who this woman was. She'd written the article he'd read on the day of Keith's funeral, saying that the federal investigation into bribery allegations would now be dismissed because of his death. She had gotten her facts wrong and no doubt caused unnecessary pain for the Baxter family.

"I'm not interested in giving an interview at this time," he said, taking Hulan's elbow and leading her away.

"I know about Ling Miaoshan," Pearl called out after them.

David and Hulan stopped and turned around.

A triumphant smile played around Pearl 's lips. "Why don't you join me in the bar? There's someone there I think you'll want to meet." She spun on her heel, utterly confident that David and his companion would follow.

The bar was in the basement next to the gift shops. She sat down at a table where a young man nursed a half-empty bottle of orange soda. "I want you to meet Guy Lin. Guy, this is David Stark and… Miss Liu, isn't it?" Hulan didn't acknowledge her. Instead she shook the young man's hand and sat down. Guy was young, twenty-two at most. His complexion was sallow and his eyes miserably sad. His shoulders sagged and his frayed cotton shirt hung loosely on his thin frame. To Hulan, he looked like an Overseas Chinese; to David, he looked like a mainlander. In a way they were both right.

"Guy is from Taiyuan, but like you, Miss Liu, he was educated in America. In fact, he's a graduate of your alma mater."

"You went to USC?" Hulan asked the boy. He nodded.

David kept his eyes on Pearl, reflecting on the fact that she had not been introduced to Hulan and yet knew not only who she was but also where she'd gone to school.

"Yes, he went to USC to study chemistry on a scholarship," Pearl went on. "But things didn't go according to plan. See, he gets there, takes a sociology class to fill an out-of-field science requirement, gets interested, and goes out to do a little community service for extra credit. Guess where he ends up? OSHA."

"I don't see what any of this has to do with us," David said.

"Hear me out." Pearl Jenner was attractive, but her smile was not in the least bit friendly. "First Guy volunteers in the office, assisting people with their claims, answering questions, filing papers. He begins to like it, and the folks there like him too. Pretty soon he's forgotten all about chemistry. All he wants to do is go out and help his new friends in their work. He especially likes going into factories and helping people who're being treated badly. Only one problem. He's in America on a student visa. He gets pulled over for a speeding ticket. No big deal, right? Only his name gets run through the computer and by now he's illegal. His friends at OSHA try to help him. They're government people, but even they can't do anything. Two weeks later he's back in China."

"Ms. Jenner, it's late. If you have something to tell me-"

Pearl raised her voice and spoke right over David. "He's seen the outside world. He's seen the good part of the U.S., but he's also seen the shit. You know what I mean? Put a greedy American and a hundred illegals together and you've got a nice sweatshop operation going. But he knows how it should be. So he's back in China and he starts poking around. He hears about these American companies that have been opening in his home province. He gets hired by one, works a couple of days, and if he were a different kind of person he probably would have stayed there because the pay's good, the dormitories are better than government-assigned housing, and the work's not too hard. But he quits and tries another factory-Knight International. The problem here is he's only a day worker in the warehouse, so he can't see what the place is really like. Then one Saturday he gets an idea. On Saturdays at one the local men and women leave the compound together. He sidles up to the most beautiful girl he can find and strikes up a conversation."

David interrupted, "How long ago was this?"

The young man looked up. "Three months," he said. "But she"-he motioned to Pearl with his elbow-"is making it into something it wasn't. I wanted to know about the factory, but when I first saw Miaoshan, all I wanted to know was her. On that day I walked her home. She didn't want me to come inside, but she said she would meet me the next day." He hesitated, then asked, "Did you know her?"

When David shook his head, Guy said, "She was beautiful, but she had inside of her so much…" He struggled to find the word, then said, "She wanted to know all about America, and I told her. When she found out why I was at the factory, she said she'd help me. She was alive with ideas. She told me what it was like in there: the girls who were too young to work, the way the managers lied about the pay, the way people got injured and how often."

"Did she have proof?" David asked, thinking that if the factory employed child labor, Hulan surely would have told him.

"She told me what she saw."

"But those could have been made-up stories," David suggested. "Just how young are the women? Did she get ID's from them? Was she able to introduce you to anyone who'd been hurt? Did she have medical records?"