“He was head over heels,” Anne said. “My parents and I hadn’t seen him—I mean, we only talked to him on the phone or over the Internet, but you know what I mean—that lovesick since eighth grade when he’d gone gaga over Maryellen Sanders. He was calling me all the time, wanting to know what he should get her. I even bought a few things for her myself. And she must have felt the same way. Meow-meow gave Keith all sorts of things.”
“Like the papers,” David concluded. “Anne, can you fax them to me? You probably don’t have a fax, but you could send them at Kinko’s. Do you have a Kinko’s in Russell?”
“I don’t have to go looking,” Anne said, a tad indignantly. “We may be in Kansas, but I still have a fax machine. Here, hang on. I’ll send it through. Give me your number.”
David gave it to her. Anne said she was going to put down the phone for a second and would be right back. He heard the thump of the phone hitting what he’d imagined was a quaint kitchen counter and realized, given his many misconceptions about Anne and her life, that she was probably in her fully outfitted office. A minute later, Anne picked up the phone.
“It’s not going through. Give me the number again.”
David repeated it, then Anne said, “Yeah, that’s what I dialed. Twice. Check your machine.”
He went over to the fax. Everything looked fine. Miss Quo came away from the window and doubled-checked. It was plugged in; there was paper. Then Miss Quo picked up the line. She paled. “It’s dead,” she said.
“We need that fax!” David exclaimed.
“I’ve got a fax on my you know what,” Henry said, motioning to the walls. “I’ll get you your fax, if you come with me to Taiyuan.”
But Henry didn’t need to resort to this kind of bribery. If Anne really did have a key, then maybe this would all become clear. It was a risk, but at this point everything was a risk.
“Give me the number,” David said.
Henry did, and David in turn recited it to Anne. When he was done, Henry added, “Tell her to wait awhile. I’ve got to get my guys together and the electricity on before we can receive.”
David passed on Henry’s comments, then said, “I don’t want to sound melodramatic, Anne, but if anything happens to us, will you get those papers to Rob Butler? Tell him…Tell him…Anne? Anne?” But the phone had gone dead. The line had been cut.
David set the receiver back in the cradle. He tried to maintain some semblance of calm, knowing that fear would dull their senses. “We really need to go,” he said.
They gathered up their belongings and headed for the door. David looked back. It had been a nice office and a nice attempt at a new life.
Quo Xuesheng still held her post at the window.
“Miss Quo?”
She turned to face him. “You go ahead.”
“Don’t be foolish,” Hulan said harshly. David realized it had been a long time since he’d heard her voice.
Miss Quo straightened her shoulders, crossed the room, and took Hulan’s good hand. “You’re right. I shouldn’t run away. I’ve done nothing wrong. Thank you, Inspector, for giving me courage. I’ll tell my father that you have, as always, been a good friend to our family.”
David wanted to argue with her, but determination had formed as hard as stone just under his assistant’s blotchy and swollen skin.
“Go on,” Miss Quo said, walking back to the window. “I’ll stay here. When they come, I’ll tell them something.”
It was a vain hope for delay. With the phone lines cut and the possible monitoring of the office, their movements were probably already known, which might make this whole venture futile.
“Good luck,” David said, then closed the door behind them.
Henry wanted to take his car, but Hulan overrode him and they piled in with Investigator Lo, because she thought the small insignia on the car might give them some authority. (On the other hand, if the cameras that were set up at the major intersections were already alerted to look for them, then they would be exceptionally easy to follow. But Hulan decided it was a risk worth taking.) As soon as they were in the car, Hulan handed Henry her cell phone. He spoke elliptically, saying that he’d like his crew to get the electricity running, hoping they would interpret that to mean they should get the plane fueled and ready as he’d be leaving town shortly.
Then, as they headed across town, making for the expressway that would take them to the airport, David reported his conversation with Keith’s sister. When he came to the end, Hulan, who’d revived slightly, said, “Suchee—everyone actually—kept saying Miaoshan wanted to go to America. I thought it was a dream for her, an unrealistic dream. Peasants never leave. It’s even hard for them to get away from their villages and go to a big city, so how could she ever think she would get to the U.S.? But obviously she had a plan.”
“Do you think she loved Keith?”
Hulan thought about Miaoshan, then said, “On the surface she seemed a typical peasant girl. But again and again she has shown a deep capacity for deception and manipulation. With Tsai Bing there probably was love, but they’d known each other from birth and grown up together. Theirs was a familiar love. Knowing they were to be married, they’d had sex as comfortably and unemotionally as an old married couple.”
(Now, that was a worldview that under different circumstances David would have pursued with the woman he planned to spend his life with, but now wasn’t the time.)
“Tang Dan?” Hulan continued. “Who can tell? Maybe Miaoshan wanted the experience of an older man. Maybe she feared she’d never get out of the countryside and thought that at least she could marry the richest man in the county. That story is common the world over.”