The Interior (Red Princess 2)

“Well,” Doug said conversationally, “she must have climbed up to the roof, then.”

“Christ almighty, you’re a cold-hearted bastard!” Henry stared at his son, his fists in tight balls at his side. “A woman has died here. Our family has been in business for more than seventy years. We’ve never lost an employee.”

“All I’m saying, Dad, is that she killed herself,” Doug went on calmly. “It’s not your fault.”

The older man, reacting to his son’s soothing tones, gradually regained his composure. Then he turned away, walked back to the body, and knelt beside it.

“He’s old,” Doug said to no one in particular. “I hope he’ll be strong enough to deal with this.” Then Doug went over to his father, put an arm on his shoulder, and spoke softly to him.

Hurriedly the body was removed and the blood washed away. Several times Doug pleaded with his father to go back to the conference room, but the old man couldn’t seem to tear himself away. Since he wouldn’t leave, the rest of them couldn’t either. At one, the bell rang and hundreds of women began filing out of the Assembly Building. Soon the courtyard was a sea of women in pink smocks with pink bandanas. Many of them walked arm in arm, chatting and laughing together. A couple of the younger women—perhaps on dares from their compatriots—waved and smiled at the foreigners, then began calling out greetings. David couldn’t understand the words, but he could tell they were friendly from the women’s smiles and infectious giggles. As the women eddied by, David searched for Hulan, but how could he find one face amidst this basically faceless crowd? Once they were past, David glanced over at Aaron Rodgers and was relieved to see that color had come back to his cheeks.

At last Henry turned and headed in the direction of the Administration Building, the others following close behind. Once back in the conference room, Henry still appeared unsteady, but his son moved to sit next to him, which seemed to bring the older man a measure of comfort. David suggested that they break for the day, but Henry dismissed the idea, saying, “There’s nothing more we can do about that poor woman now. Let’s keep this moving.” Then he turned to Sandy and added, “But I want you to find out who she was. Make sure her family has the means for a proper burial. The Chinese set great store in that, you know. Make a payment to the family. Cash is always good. And if she had children—”

“I’ll take care of it,” Sandy said.

“Okay, then.” Henry turned his gray eyes on David. “I guess I spoke too soon about liabilities.”

“A suicide could hardly be Knight International’s fault,” David said.

“What about the injury that happened on the factory floor?”

“We’ll have to look into it,” David replied. “Have there been other accidents?”

“None,” Henry said.

David looked questioningly over at Sandy.

“This is a first,” Sandy said. “Sure, we have some problems, but nothing that a little peroxide and a Band-Aid won’t cure.”

Again, a week ago David could have demanded answers, but he was back in private practice. The finalization of the deal was the most important thing for his client as well as the Knights, so he didn’t have the luxury of grilling these people. Besides, Keith must have covered this material a hundred times over. So David moved on, re-addressing the due diligence issues that he’d brought up earlier in the day. Did Knight have any outstanding lawsuits? Henry answered no.

“Looking ahead, do you foresee any lawsuits?”

“Maybe from that woman’s family,” Henry replied glumly.

David shook his head. “I think you can take care of that. As you’ve said, you’ll provide for the woman’s family even though it’s a suicide. Your generosity will go a long way in a peasant family. But I’m not talking about what happened

today. Right now Tartan is concerned with any possible liabilities it will be facing when it acquires your company. So I want you to think broadly about such things as copyright infringement, manufacturing defects, patents, licensing agreements.”

They spent the next couple of hours going over each issue. Henry let Doug and Sandy do most of the talking, but this made sense. Not long after Henry had decided to move operations to China, he’d had the first of his heart attacks, so the responsibility for building this compound had fallen on Doug and to a lesser extent Sandy. All of which had ultimately worked to the company’s advantage. If Henry hadn’t been home recovering, he never would have stayed put long enough to come up with not only the idea for Sam & His Friends but also the technology. During the months he’d been homebound, he’d brought in all manner of toy and software designers to help him turn his concepts into reality. All of it—even the things that had been invented by others—was owned entirely by Knight International.

Even in a worst-case scenario Knight looked good. They had patents pending on some of the new technologies and materials used in the Sam & His Friends line. The Knights insisted that there were no manufacturing defects, and they reiterated what David already knew: Knight International had a fair record with labor. Still, part of the reason Knight had come to China was to avoid dealing with the American unions.

“Our workers here do have a union of sorts,” Sandy explained. “The elected union leader also serves as on-site party secretary. We’ve found Madame Leung very easy to deal with. Actually, we couldn’t get along without her. She’s like a den mother, troubleshooter, and conflict resolver rolled into one. Our workers go to her when they have problems at work, but also when they have problems at home. Since most of our workers live right here in dormitories, you can imagine how conflicts might come up. But,” he added, “a lot of the women get lonely for their husbands or children. We’ve had a few cases of women having affairs with the men here.”

“I haven’t seen many men,” David noted. “In fact, I haven’t seen many people at all except during the lunch break.”

“We try to keep the men and women separated from each other as much as possible,” Sandy said. “All of the men are locals. They crate the packaged products for shipping, load the trucks, deal with refuse. We’ve trained them how to use forklifts and…” Sandy smiled sheepishly. “Well, you get the idea. The point is, they’re almost always in the warehouse or the shipping building. Their lunch break is at a different time than the women’s. The only time they see each other is at the end of the day when the men go home and the women go to their dorms.”

“All that to discourage fraternizing?”

“Madame Leung thinks it’s best,” Sandy said. “I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about how inhibited the Chinese are about sex. They’re especially puritanical about extracurricular sex. I’m talking about serious penalties for screwing around. Did you know there was a time you could get sent to a labor camp for having an affair with a married woman? Things have always been a bit looser in the countryside, where the government isn’t watching as closely and the attitudes are, shall we say, cruder. Nevertheless, we employ married women and single girls. Most of them are far from home and lonely. While there are still plenty of ways for the men and women to get together—this is a big place and all it takes is a few minutes—we’re trying to do what we can to prevent broken hearts and unwanted pregnancies.”

David moved on to licensing agreements. Like Sam & His Friends, several of the older products had also originated from television or movie characters, but those licenses had been locked into place years ago. In fact, Knight’s relationship with the various studios had only improved with the wild success of Sam & His Friends. David finally had to ask Henry the question that had been gnawing at him since he’d read about the sale on the day of Keith’s funeral. “With so much opportunity out there, plus the way you love your company, why are you selling?”

“Haven’t you heard? I’m a dying man,” Henry said.

David regarded the older man. He still looked shaken from seeing the dead woman, but death seemed very far from him personally. Henry looked strong and fit for a man his age. “Ill or not, how can you give up something you so obviously love?”