Flower Net (Red Princess 1)

“My God, Hulan, Henglai was loaded,” he said, amazed at her nonchalance.

“Yes, he was, but remember who his father is. I would expect to see these. If we didn’t find them, I’d be concerned.”

“But they were just lying around…”

“This is China. Stealing from a Red Prince would likely be grounds for execution.”

David shook his head. She thought, Different culture, different values, different punishments.

“Let’s look around,” she said.

The kitchen was a spotless panorama of chrome, granite, and modern appliances. She opened the refrigerator, but it had been emptied. She guessed that the Guang family had sent someone over to remove perishables after Henglai’s disappearance. The bedroom was another story. His clothes—expensive Zegna suits, Gap jeans, and a nice collection of leather jackets—were stuffed into the closet. The den—again, more leather furniture, this time in sumptuous beige—was messy. Henglai had probably employed a maid, but his personal belongings had been off limits. A few bills, a personal letter or two, and some notes scattered across a mahogany desk.

Above the desk were pinned several photographs. Hulan leaned in to take a closer look. She saw Henglai—painfully young to her eyes—seated at a banquet. His straight black hair flew out rakishly from his head; his arm looped casually over the shoulder of a friend. In another photograph, Henglai posed with Mickey Mouse along Main Street in one of the Disneylands. Several other photos had been taken at a nightclub. Some showed people dancing. In others, Henglai held a microphone and appeared to be singing.

She pulled these photos off the wall and shuffled through them again. Guang Mingyun had been right. She did know Henglai’s friends and she knew exactly where to find them.

When they left the apartment, Hulan insisted that Peter drive them back to David’s hotel. “You must be tired,” she said. “You need to rest for tonight.” David objected strenuously. He wanted to go back to interview the ambassador. “We’ve got to clear up the differences in their stories.”

Hulan disagreed. “Ambassador Watson and Guang Mingyun aren’t going anywhere. We can see them another time. We need to understand those two boys—who they were, what they did, who they associated with—before we can begin to know their killer.”

At ten that evening, Peter picked David up and drove him to the Palace Hotel near the Forbidden City. Unlike most modern edifices in the capital, the hotel’s architecture was rich, even excessive, in its use of Chinese motifs. The eaves of the red-tiled roof swept upward. Bright green, gold, and red paint, gilt, and enamel decorated the ceremonial gate before the circular driveway. The owners of this establishment, the general staff of the People’s Army, had spared no expense.

When David pushed through the revolving doors and into the lobby, Hulan was waiting for him. He was dressed in the same suit he’d put on that morning. She, however, had gone home to change.

She wore a dress of fuchsia silk cut in the traditional Chinese style. The cheongsam had a high mandarin collar. Frog buttons above Hulan’s right breast and under her right armpit held the fabric tight against her body. Her lavender coat draped over her arm.

He followed her as she swayed through the lobby, down a corridor, and into Rumours Disco. They passed several closed doors as they walked down another hallway and into the disco itself. A mirrored ball slowly rotated in the center of the ceiling, casting specks of light on dancing couples. The music was loud, the lyrics in English. Hulan took David’s hand and pulled him onto the dance floor. She kept her distance and began to rock slowly from foot to foot. She showed a clumsiness very much at odds with his memories of her. But as David looked around, he noticed that all the dancers had this same awkwardness. The women, he saw, were dressed in miniskirts or tight jeans. The men wore collarless shirts, jeans, and leather jackets. Everyone kept a safe distance from their partners. Their movements were jerky and not necessarily in time to the music.

The song came to an end. In the bored applause that followed, Hulan inclined her head to David and spoke just loudly enough for him to hear. “These are the taizi—princelings. You see that man over there?” David followed her gaze. “He was in one of the pictures in Henglai’s apartment. See that girl over there?” David looked across the room to a young woman sitting at a table with a tall, icy glass filled with a green drink. “We have her photograph as well.”

“Do you know who they are?”

She nodded as a new song blared through the speakers. Strobe lights pulsed to the beat. She began to dance again. An Australian disc jockey began shouting over the loudspeaker as a fog machine sent cool white mist billowing across the floor. They danced for another minute or so with Hulan moving slowly back the way they’d come. David was relieved when they stepped off the dance floor and back onto carpet. He was even more relieved when Hulan sat down at one of the small tables that bordered the dance floor. Just as the thought that Hulan looked stunning tonight floated through his brain, he realized that they were here to be seen. She had dressed not for him but to call attention to her arrival. She had chosen this table because it was prominent.

Hulan’s strategy had the desired effect. A hostess came to the table and asked them to follow her. They retraced their steps back down the corridor toward the entrance, stopping at one of the closed doors. The hostess hesitated. Hulan didn’t speak. Finally the girl opened the door and the three of them stepped into the room. Cigarette smoke clogged the air, but the smell of American tobacco was clouded by the pungent aromas of perfume and hard liquor. Someone who had been singing stopped abruptly, and the conversation died.

The hostess backed out of the room, closing the door behind her. Even in the tenebrous light, David could see that everyone was looking at them. Still, Hulan waited, saying nothing. Finally, a man dressed from head to toe in leather stood, crossed the room, and said in English, “Inspector Liu, I see you brought with you the American lawyer. We wondered how long it would be before you came to see us.”

“There are no secrets in Beijing,” she said. “We have no such thing as a windproof wall.”

The young man laughed and the others joined in.

“I am Bo Yun,” the young man boomed out, bringing a fist to his chest.

“Yes, you are,” Hulan said.

Bo Yun and his friends laughed appreciatively. “No secrets, right, Inspector? You know us. We know you. We are all friends.”

“We are here to talk…”

“Good, good. Come, join us. Sit down. Here, here.” Bo Yun took David’s arm and led him to the red banquette that ran along the room’s perimeter. “What would you like to drink? We have orange juice. We have Rémy Martin. A hundred and fifty dollars U.S. a bottle.”

Now that Hulan’s eyes had adjusted to the light, she could see perhaps two dozen people in their early twenties lounging on the banquettes. Ashtrays overflowed with cigarette butts. Numerous bottles of brandy and cognac, pitchers of freshly squeezed orange juice, and glasses filled with these drinks littered low lacquer tables.

The taizi smiled a lot. They laughed boisterously when their leader made a joke. They wore Rolexes, carried beepers, and at least two were talking on cellular phones. These were the youngest of the Red Princes and Princesses. They were corrupt yet forward thinking. Surveying the room, Hulan began to recall who they were and what they did. Some, of course, didn’t work at all. Others had been handed cushy jobs—chairman of a factory, manager of an international hotel, deputy governor of a bank, director of an arts organization.

Once again, Hulan wondered if David understood what he was looking at. He probably saw innocent faces, harmless kids out on the town spending their allowance. He couldn’t possibly know the power they wielded or the money they received just through the luck of their birth. The young man who was associated with the hotel was known to charge American businessmen up to $100,000 U.S. for audiences with his father. The young woman seated to David’s right was wearing a bracelet worth more than what an entire peasant village might earn in a lifetime.