The Interior - Страница 45

He looked down at Hulan and felt a deep despair. What if his actions and inactions had cost him everything?

"We're going to sort this out," Hulan soothed. "Too many things are happening here. What's going on in the factory. What Henry Knight may or may not know about all that. What Miaoshan's papers are and what they have to do with the ones that Governor Sun gave you. You're the smartest man I know…" He felt the warmth of her hand as she put it on his chest over his heart. "But you're dumb here. So now all we can do is try to work our way out of it."

"Where do we start?"

"There's only one place to start. With Miaoshan." Hulan rose and sat next to him.

"She got around," he noted dryly. "Tsai Bing, Guy Lin, the American in the factory."

"It's weird, isn't it?" Hulan said. "Our culture is repressed in many ways. Sex out of marriage… well, it's against the law in a lot of instances. But Miaoshan didn't seem to care. She was almost predatory about it. I want to believe it's because she was young or that she had a hard life, but that could apply to millions of women here."

"Maybe her promiscuity goes back to that earthiness you were talking about earlier," David offered. "If you grow up in the countryside everyone-even children-knows about animals mating. They see it with their own eyes; they participate in the breeding."

"Yes, and they joke about sex and go to the herbalist to increase their sexual prowess or fertility, but chastity is considered the highest female virtue. It's a weird double standard, but that's how it is. So at first when Captain Woo and Siang said Miaoshan had a bad reputation, I didn't believe it, because there are always village gossips willing to spread lies. But now how can I not? She was having sex with Tsai Bing recently enough that he thinks he was the father. Poor Guy Lin believes he was the father and maybe he was, but it could also have been Aaron Rodgers."

"That kid? Why him?"

"You should see 'that kid' with the young women in the factory."

"That doesn't mean he was fucking her."

"Believe me, David, he was. I see that now. Today Peanut said something about Tang Siang going off to rendezvous with Aaron in the context of talking about Miaoshan. When she said it was strange, she must have meant that Miaoshan and Tang Siang not only shared Tsai Bing but Aaron Rodgers as well."

"Three men, one woman. There are plenty of motives for murder in that setup."

"Yes, but there's more to Miaoshan than her promiscuity," Hulan said. "I think that in each case she used sex as a means to an end. With Tsai Bing she had to keep up appearances. More than that, she knew that Siang loved him and probably used sex in the most petty way to get back at her rival. I think she saw Guy Lin as a ticket out, but to keep that relationship she had to give him information. That meant seducing Aaron Rodgers, although having watched him in action, I don't think she had to work too hard to do it. But she didn't stop with Aaron. The way that she went about getting other information from the women in the factory fascinates me. Guy said she repeatedly asked the women questions. Even Peanut complained about it, but I didn't know what she was talking about at the time."

"Why does it matter?"

"Because it shows such bad manners in our culture," Hulan responded. "If you ask a question and don't get an answer or you get an evasive one, you're supposed to drop the subject. When Miaoshan didn't, she was going beyond rude. I myself haven't asked many questions about Miaoshan in the factory, but you might expect stories about her to circulate. Apart from ridiculous ghost stories, I don't think there was any grief when she died. Neither Tang Siang nor Peanut liked her. So I've wondered, was it just jealousy or was it something else? I'm beginning to think that she was too foreign to them."

"Because of the way she looked."

"Yes, she was beautiful but in a foreign way. I think she played that up, buying Western-style clothes-"

"Or they were given to her by whomever it was in the factory who was helping her."

"Oh, absolutely. Even now, more than three weeks after her death, I can smell White Shoulders perfume on her bunk." When David frowned, she said, "Oh, you've smelled it before. It's strong and very sweet. I remember it from the States. I always hated that smell."

As David looked at her incredulously, Hulan went on. "And it's not something you can just pick up in the company store, in a dry-goods shop in Da Shui Village, or even here in Taiyuan. Which brings us to the papers Sun gave you."

"I can't show them to you."

"I understand."

David got up, sorted through some piles on the desk, then spread out

Sun's papers while shielding them from Hulan's view. Although they looked superficially the same as Miaoshan's, these weren't copies. Where the names of the action figures had been, now were the names of various companies-Toy World, Plush Supply, Mega Soft, and the like. To their right were account numbers and deposit dates. How did this material fit into the big picture? Had Sun sent these over knowing this moment was imminent, that as David's client he'd be protected, because instead of evidence these documents would fall under the rubric of privileged information?

What was very clear was that David and Hulan were now on different sides. She loved him and knew how to read him, so as much as he tried to cover his emotions, the look on his face as he read through the papers said much about Sun's guilt. So now her job was to garner information from David; his was to protect his client. Her job was to pin down the crime; his was to point suspicion elsewhere. He was fully aware that cooperation was a cornerstone of the legal system in any country. (Smart criminals hired attorneys with good relationships with investigators and prosecutors. Was this part of Sun's plan for David with Hulan?) David could speak to Hulan, of course, but only in hypotheticals, while she would try to pry as much information out of him as possible without him shutting her out completely.

"What are Miaoshan's papers actually proof of?" David asked. "What's the crime? I see so many levels, but which is the right one?" He paused, then said, "You didn't tell me before about the child labor."

"I didn't think it mattered. It's not really a prosecutable offense." She shook her head, then clarified, "What I mean is, child labor is against the law. The official labor age is eighteen for government factory work, but private companies can hire younger people."

"How young are we talking, Hulan?"

"At Knight I'd say the youngest I've seen is about twelve, but, David, you have to understand that if this was reported, Knight might be fined and those girls let go. I think the only way an owner might go to jail was if there was an international scandal, a story in the press…" Her breath came out in a disgusted rush. "Pearl Jenner."

"But Guy Lin said Miaoshan's papers were 'proof.' They may be proof of something, but it isn't child-labor violations. And despite the SUN CAN code, I see nothing that would tie my client to child labor. Neither are the papers proof of the factory's conditions. You and I and Guy Lin may think they're deplorable, but they're still within Knight's rights, which means, I hate to say it, they're also within Tartan's rights. Then there's the dangerous machinery and the possibility of improper chemical use. But again, I didn't see anything in Miaoshan's papers that pointed to that or to my client."

Very aware that Sun's papers were just a few feet away from her, Hulan ventured, "Maybe the products themselves are somehow dangerous and the papers have to do with shipments or something."

"I don't think so. If there was a defect in Sam amp; His Friends, it would have been all over the American press. That's something they really can't cover up."

"The next level of crime would have to be the bribery," Hulan said. "Except we know that Pearl made that up."

David didn't respond.

"I'm going to lay out a scenario for you," she said. "Let's suppose Pearl was right but didn't know it. Could Sun have taken a bribe?" She held up a hand. "You needn't answer, but consider this: Would your client not take one? This is China and Sun's a smooth operator. If that's the case, then how did Knight hide it in their financials?"

David thought he knew the answer: Knight disguised the bribes as payments to dummy corporations. Hulan was close to the truth. Where would she go next?

"I'm guessing they did it with the skim," Hulan said suddenly. "We were told we'd be paid five hundred yuan. We actually get two hundred, which leaves three hundred yuan a month extra." She reached over and grabbed a notepad off the nightstand. "Let's figure some people do get paid more, because Knight has to promote sometimes, don't you think?" She didn't wait for an answer. "So let's take an average of two hundred yuan off the salaries. With a thousand workers…" She scribbled furiously, then announced, "That would be a little over twenty-four thousand U.S. dollars a month, or almost three hundred thousand dollars a year."

She put the notepad down. "Would your client have killed Miaoshan if he thought she had papers that implicated him in a scheme that netted him hundreds of thousands of dollars a year?" Hulan asked, then answered the question herself. "Yes."

"You're jumping to huge conclusions," David countered. "Let's remember that we still don't know what Miaoshan's papers actually mean. They don't give a complete picture."