The Interior Page 40

  He felt Hulan move. She turned and faced him. Her cheeks were drained of color.

  “Let’s go back to Beijing,” she said.

  She pushed away from the wall and, while David waited, went inside the Tsais’ house to say good-bye to Suchee. She reemerged quickly, headed across the dirt expanse, and stepped into the cornfield. David, Lo, and Henry followed swiftly. When they reached Suchee’s farm, Hulan took one last look around, then ducked into the front seat of the car Lo had commandeered. Once David and Henry settled in the back, Lo started the engine and they pulled out of the little compound.

  Each person seemed lost in his or her thoughts as they bumped across the rutted dirt road leading back to the main highway. Hulan slumped in the front seat, her head resting against the window. She felt hot, sick, exhausted. Next to her, Lo drove with his usual quiet determination, yet his thoughts were very much on the report he would give to his superiors back in Beijing. How would he explain Hulan’s actions at the Tsai farm? In the backseat, Henry stared morosely out the window. David contemplated Henry, thinking.

  When they reached the crossroads, Lo asked Hulan where she wanted to go. “Back to Beijing,” she muttered in Mandarin. When his eyes continued to question her, she expanded. “On the expressway. We can’t take Knight’s jet. The man is a criminal of the worst sort. Once we get in the air, we are with his people. We can’t allow that to happen. Just drive, Investigator. We’ll be back home soon enough.” Lo turned right and began to speed along.

  David sat forward and asked, “How’d you know about Tang Dan?”

  Hulan sighed tiredly. “It always bothered me that the killer didn’t take Miaoshan’s papers. He took Guy’s and those were only copies, which verified that Miaoshan hadn’t been killed for them. She’d been killed for another reason altogether.”

  David leaned back. How had Miaoshan gotten the papers? Guy said an American gave them to her. She didn’t get them from Keith; she gave them to him. Was Aaron Rodgers still a possibility? Or Sandy Newheart? They came to the turnoff to Knight International. The compound was hidden behind a low rise, but David glanced in that direction and saw Henry looking suddenly alert. His dreams and his failures lay just over that rise, and as soon as they passed it Henry drooped down once again, looking more dejected than before.

  “Lo, turn around,” David said.

  “Attorney Stark?”

  “Stop the car and turn around.”

  Lo slowed, and Hulan said, “No, keep going. Let’s get home.”

  The car sped up again.

  “No! We have to turn around!” David put a hand on Lo’s shoulder. “Please!”

  Lo pulled over. Hulan turned in her seat to look at David. Her face was ashen and covered with a thin sheen of sweat.

  “We’ve done what we came to do,” Hulan said, utterly exhausted. “I solved Miaoshan’s murder. You found the person behind the bribes. I suspect that with further questioning at Beijing Municipal Jail Number Five, Mr. Knight will confess to killing or hiring someone to kill your friend.”

  “This isn’t finished,” David said, then turned to Henry. “Is it?”

  “The inspector is right,” Henry said. “We should get back to Beijing.”

  David smiled. Sadly, triumphantly, Hulan wasn’t sure which.

  “Let’s go back to the factory,” David repeated.

  “There’s no reason to do that, Inspector Liu,” Henry said. She stared at him. He was a broken man, but she didn’t feel sorry for him. As if reading her thoughts, he continued. “I’ve made some terrible mistakes in my life. One of the worst was underestimating you and Mr. Stark. As you say, we’re all tired. Let’s go back to Beijing. Once we’re there I’ll explain everything. You’ll have your case, and I suspect you’ll be a hero…” He tipped his head and amended, “A heroine.”

  Hulan passed her good hand over her eyes. They ached and she longed for ice to put on her lids, for a cold drink to refresh her parched throat, for cool sheets to appease her burning skin, and something, anything, to stop the throbbing in her arm.

  David pressed his case. “We should secure the records in the computers. They may have already been erased, but I think we should see if they’re still there.”

  Tired, Hulan ordered Lo to turn the car around.

  “Please, no!” Henry blurted. “There’s no reason to go back.”

  But whatever sympathy Hulan might have had had been used up in the last hour, and she wordlessly stared out the windshield.

  The car turned onto the side road that led to the factory. As they passed the billboards with the gaily rendered Sam & His Friends, Henry increased his ranting, his confessions, his pleas to go on to Beijing.

  “I was at fault for all of it. I allowed the employees to live and work in bad conditions. This is why I came to China! No one was looking and I thought—I knew—I could get away with it. And that woman? David, remember that woman who jumped off the roof? You were right all along. She was thrown off and I did it. And that reporter and that unionizer? They got what they deserved.”

  “How could you throw Xiao Yang off the roof when you were in a meeting with me? And why try to frame your old friend Sun?” David asked as Lo stopped at the compound’s gate. When the guard came out to see who it was, Lo jerked his thumb toward the backseat. The guard peered in, saw his employer, and quickly retreated inside his kiosk to press the button for the gate. Lo pulled through, drove directly to the Administration Building, and parked between a Lexus and a Mercedes, the drivers of which were nowhere to be seen.

  Lo and Hulan opened their doors and got out. Henry looked desperately about him, but there was no place for him to run. David could see some activity around the warehouse. A forklift loaded a pallet of what David presumed were Sam & His Friends onto the back of a flatbed truck. But otherwise the large, barren courtyard was deserted as usual, while behind the windowless walls hundreds of women labored on the assembly lines.

  “I’m sorry, Henry,” David said quietly.

  Henry’s eyes widened. Then a curtain of utter resignation closed down over his face. “Please,” he begged.

  David weighed the word. In that single syllable was all of Henry’s life. It was an appeal for compassion, forgiveness, and an acceptance of the way things were. “I take full responsibility,” Henry added. “Let me take the blame for everything that’s happened.”

  David hardened himself against these words, then answered Henry by opening the door and getting out.

  24

  DAVID PUSHED OPEN THE BIG GLASS DOOR OF THE ADMINISTRATION Building, and the four of them entered. At the end of the hall they came to the heart of the company, where almost a hundred women dressed in nearly identical business suits sat in their cubicles, staring at computer screens or speaking on phones. David pushed Henry into one of the cubicles. The woman working there looked up startled, then, seeing Henry, stood up in some attempt at attention.

  “Open the files, Henry,” David ordered.

  “I don’t know how.”

  “Then ask her to do it.”

  Henry started to speak, but only a croak came out. He cleared his throat and said, “Please, Miss, can you look up my personal financial records?”

  The young clerk stared at him, perplexed. Then she looked over his shoulder, past the other foreigner to Lo and Hulan. The woman looked sick; the other man, with his thick build and sour expression, was surely a government agent of some sort. The clerk’s eyes came back to the owner of the company. “I don’t have access to those records, sir,” she said softly in English. “I only process our purchase orders from America.”

  Henry turned to David. “As I said before, this can’t be of any help.”

  David signaled the woman to leave, and she edged out of the cubicle. David motioned for Henry to sit. “Type,” David said.

  Henry glared at David. “I told you I don’t know how to use the damn thing.”

  “You’re telling me that you—an inventor, a businessman, and a financial c
riminal—don’t know how to use a computer?” David asked dubiously. When he spoke next, his tone was much harsher. “Look up the files.”

  Henry turned to the screen and put his fingers on the keyboard. He exited the program the young woman had been working in, went to the main menu, typed in his password, then his name, and up came a list of files: bio, company history, phone logs, travel, correspondence, but nothing on financial transactions. “Try Sun Gan,” David said. Henry obeyed. Of course nothing happened, but David wanted further confirmation of Sun’s innocence after having doubted him for so long. For the next ten minutes David ordered Henry to type in a variety of key words—expenses, payments, financials, financial records, bank records, Bank of China, China Industrial Bank, and China Agricultural Bank. Some of these revealed legitimate transactions; others revealed nothing but a blinking cursor or the terse words NOT FOUND. There was nothing that came close to any of the damning financial records that David had in his possession. That didn’t mean they still weren’t in the computer. A forensic accountant would be able to retrieve erased, encrypted, or hidden data.

  David put a hand on Henry’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, Henry. I know it would have been easier this way.” Even in the air conditioning, Henry’s shirt had turned damp with nervous sweat. David leaned down and said gently, “Let’s finish this.”

  Without turning, Henry said softly, “I can’t.”

  “You can. You have to.”

  Henry looked up at David, his face tormented. “Why?” The way the word ripped the air, David knew Henry was asking a fundamentally deeper question than simply responding to David’s request.

  “That’s what we’re going to find out. Let’s go.”

  Sensing that something was amiss, the women had stopped working, had stood, and now silently gaped at the group as they threaded their way to one of the other corridors that led from the heart. They passed Sandy Newheart’s office, but he wasn’t there. They passed the posters of Sam & His Friends, each character colorful, harmless, innocent. At last they came to the conference room. The door was closed, but they could hear raised voices inside. Henry glanced at David again, a final plea. But David reached out, turned the knob, and entered the room, where Douglas Knight and Miles Stout sat across from each other at the long rosewood table. The Knight-Tartan contracts lay in sloppy disarray between them. Amy Gao, Governor Sun’s assistant, stood against the far wall, looking decorative in chartreuse.

  Doug stood. “Dad, thank God. I’ve been hoping you’d show up. I’ve got good news. I’ve told Tartan I’m not selling. We’re keeping the company. They can try their hostile takeover, but I’ve told Miles that I think we can fight them off.”

  Henry brought his hands to his face and held them there.

  “Dad? Are you all right? Here, come sit down.”

  Doug took a step forward, but Henry’s hand shot out. “No!”

  Doug frowned, then shrugged as if to say, you simply couldn’t predict the old man.

  “It’s over, Doug,” Henry said at last.

  “That’s what I’m trying to tell you, Dad. It’s over. I’ve shown Tartan the door.”

  “It’s not as easy as he’s making it sound,” Miles said, his voice gritty. “Knight’s gone too far to pull out now.”

  Doug’s gaunt face turned crimson. “Don’t listen to him, Dad. I’ve got things under control. I’ve made mistakes, and I hope you’ll forgive me for them. But last night I saw what a fool I’ve been. Amy helped me. She made me realize this is our company. You and Grandpa built it. We can’t let it go. I understand that now.”

  Henry, his wiry body looking so frail now, stared uncomprehendingly at his son, then suddenly walked past him and sat down at the table. The others, following his cue, also took seats. Henry shook his head, then said to David, “I can’t do this.”

  “David, what’s all this about?” Miles asked, slipping easily into his professional mode. “We had a deal on the table. It was accepted. We went forward. Then everything went to hell. Why? Fuck if I know. But I’m here because Randall’s willing to put yesterday’s rigmarole behind him. I’m guessing you’re here because you’ve talked some sense into Mr. Knight. So, let’s finish this up and go home.”

  “You forget,” David said. “I don’t work for you anymore.”

  “I was out of line,” Miles admitted. “As you pointed out, I can’t fire you without a vote of the full partnership.”

  “Semantics,” David said. “I quit. Does that satisfy you?”

  Miles’s forehead creased as he processed this information. Then he said, “I apologize. Now, let’s let bygones be bygones and get on with this.” He reached out to the middle of the table and pushed the stack of contracts toward Henry.

  The older man fingered the edges of the papers. “If I sign, this will all be over,” he said. Again he turned toward David, waiting for an answer.

  David weighed these words. Could he let what he knew had happened go by unpunished for the sake of this old man? A year ago it wouldn’t have been a question. His duty would have been clear. Punishment to the full extent of the law. No mitigating circumstances. No mercy. But since he’d found Hulan again, he’d changed. Sometimes the greater good meant looking the other way. What did Hulan call it? The one-eye-open, one-eye-closed policy? Henry’s statement had also implied a question, and as David surveyed the faces in the room, he saw the myriad crimes and secrets that wouldn’t be solved by a series of signatures.

  “No, Henry, it won’t be over,” David said.

  “Dad,” Doug interrupted impatiently. “I’ve already told you. We can keep the company. I want us to keep it. I know I can build it for my sons—”

  “Shut up, Doug,” Henry rapped out, then, “David?”

  They were all staring at him now. David understood that at this moment he held in his hands the power to destroy lives as easily and perhaps more brutally than if he’d held a gun. But so many lives had been lost already. It had to stop now. He looked around. This place seemed so civilized with its pretty pictures on the walls, the air-conditioning, the expensive rosewood table, but violence had occurred here in many forms. He didn’t have a weapon, but he knew Lo did and assumed Hulan did as well. If anything happened, they’d be ready. He thought of how he’d seen Hulan at the Tsais’ farm. Her method was so Chinese, but she had laid out the facts as any prosecutor would. That’s what he had to do now.

  “Three weeks ago a girl was killed not far from here,” David began. “It looked like a suicide. It turned out to be a murder. We know now that her death had nothing to do with Knight International, but for a while there seemed to be a link. Back then, after I found out about the girl’s death, I had dinner with a friend, Keith Baxter. When he was murdered, I blamed myself for reasons that don’t matter.”

  “Do we have to hear all this?” Miles asked, pushing his chair away from the table.

  “Stay where you are, Miles,” David ordered. Lo, on unspoken command, stood, crossed the room, took a position with his back against the door, and unbuttoned his jacket so everyone could see his weapon. “You see,” David resumed in an even tone, “there are so many layers here, so many betrayals, I think you’ll all want to hear me out. Especially you, Miles. This next part particularly concerns you.”

  Miles didn’t move. The air in the room, despite the air conditioning, suddenly felt heavy.

  “At Keith’s funeral,” David continued, “I listened, but I didn’t understand the words. Miles, you’re a smart man, and you played us all so well simply by speaking the truth. Remember what you said about the last time you’d seen Keith? It was something along the lines of ‘Keith showed me some papers. He saw the problems. He saw the mistakes.’ You flaunted that in front of Keith’s family, his friends, and his partners. And not one person understood what they were hearing, isn’t that right?”

  Miles didn’t answer, but the coldness in his blue eyes told everyone in the room that there was truth in David’s words.

  “Keith conf
ronted you with the lies and omissions in the financials, and you didn’t do anything about them. You knew the kind of shop these people ran, and you didn’t do anything about that either. You were willing for this deal to go forward at any cost. This has meant,” David said, now including the others in the room, “that he was willing to forgo any professional ethics he ever had by lying to the government, by lying to his client, by lying to his partners. In our profession we consider these to be the worst possible breaches, but these are nothing compared to taking a human life. Remember at your house when I said that Keith’s sister blamed me for her brother’s death? You said something like, ‘How could she? She wasn’t there.’ But you were! You killed Keith Baxter and you hired me, guessing accurately that since I blamed myself, I wouldn’t see the truth.”

  “I didn’t kill Keith,” Miles said. “I couldn’t possibly—”

  “It’s not my job to prove it,” David said. “But I’m sure the LAPD will be interested in looking at your car—if you still have it. The rest, it’s true, is circumstantial. But remember years ago how you taught me to explain circumstantial evidence to a jury? You don’t need to see the actual bunny to know it’s been in the snow. All you need to see are the bunny’s tracks. Well, you’ve left plenty of tracks, and I think there’s enough of them to get a conviction, especially when you add in the motive.”