The Interior (Red Princess 2)

The copilot released the door and stairs. The heat and humidity hit the travelers, instantly drenching them in sweat and sticky, polluted moisture from the torpid air. Lo and Hulan got in the front seat, and Henry and David got in the back, of a Wuhan-manufactured Citroën. Lo drove them back through Taiyuan City, across the anemic Fen River, then south on the toll road. Lo pulled off at the exit for Da Shui Village, and they proceeded west until they reached the crossroads. From here Lo turned again and drove the short distance to Suchee’s little farm.

Midday hung heavily on the little compound. The cicadas shrieked with heat, and the roasting air undulated off the fields. Hulan ducked into the house to make sure Suchee wasn’t there, then came back outside and called out across the fields to her friend. Shortly they saw Suchee emerge through a distant cornfield, then trudge across another field of her home vegetables. When she reached them, Hulan introduced Henry. Realizing that this was the man who’d hired her daughter and who in her eyes had corrupted the village, Suchee stared at him with steady, unforgiving eyes, ignoring his passable attempts at polite conversation. Without shifting her gaze, Suchee asked Hulan, “Why have you brought him here?”

“We need to see Miaoshan’s papers again.”

Suchee stood as still as an ox under the beating sun, thinking, weighing. Then she turned and with heavy steps plodded slowly to the little outbuilding where she kept her tools. A few minutes later, she returned and led the way into her house. Lo remained outside to stand guard.

The heat inside was almost unbearable with the temperature hovering at about a hundred and fifteen degrees. Suchee began to unroll the plans, but David said, “Not those. The other papers.” Suchee left the factory plans on the table, and as they waited, Henry smoothed them out, looking at them with sadness. David took this time to check on Hulan. She’d dropped onto one of the overturned crates. Her face was pale, and sweat dripped down her neck. She too stared at the factory plans, but David could see that her eyes were unfocused.

“Here,” Suchee said sharply, putting the papers with the columns and numbers on the table.

Henry set the fax down on the table next to the other papers, then looked expectantly at David, who hesitated. Sun was his client. If he was guilty, David would be exposing him. But if he was i

nnocent, this was the only way to prove it. Reluctantly he reached into his briefcase, pulled out Sun’s papers, and set them on the table with the others. The four of them stared at the papers, trying to decipher them. After a painful moment Suchee turned away. But to the others a pattern began to emerge. Ann’s fax really was the key, providing the various bank names, account numbers, and pathways between the SUN GAN accounts and the dummy corporations.

Each week monies had left the main Knight International account from the Bank of China branch in Taiyuan. From here varying amounts had traveled into other accounts in the same branch, where they never stayed for more than a day. These accounts were the ones that matched Suchee’s list and used the Sam & His Friends characters to spell out SUN GAN. Then these monies were wired abroad to what looked to be Sun’s actual accounts in the U.S. However, Sun’s actual account numbers meant absolutely nothing in the scheme. They had been placed in the columns next to the names of the dummy corporations only to deceive, which they had done quite successfully. This was where Keith’s key provided another list of accounts. These covered an unusual spectrum of primarily West Coast American-and Asian-owned institutions, the first letters of which also spelled out SUN GAN—Sumitomo, Union, National, Glendale Federal, American, and Nippon Kogyo Ginko. The monies had stayed in these accounts sometimes for a day, sometimes for as much as two months, but then they’d been moved again, traveling through another series of accounts in the United States, Switzerland, the Cayman Islands, and, finally, back to China to accounts at the Bank of China, the China Industrial Bank, and the China Agricultural Bank in Taiyuan. By the time the monies reached these institutions, they’d been perfectly laundered, appearing as pristine American dollars deposited directly into the Chinese accounts of Henry Knight. The proof was irrefutable.

At last, and with some embarrassment, Hulan and David turned to Henry. He stared at them with agonized eyes. He didn’t try to deny what they’d found, nor did he try to defend himself, which made the moment all the more awkward. He’d lied to them and lied some more. He’d bluffed and they’d called him on it. But before any of them could speak, a scream rang out in the distance. Then another, and another. Each one came closer. Hulan looked around and saw Suchee with her hands over her ears, trying to block the sound as if it were coming from inside her own head. But it wasn’t, and Hulan watched Suchee’s face change as she realized that the horrible, primitive wail was coming from outside.

23

THEY RAN OUT OF THE HOUSE. LO LOOKED AROUND, GUN drawn. Suchee took off in the direction of the sound, and the rest of them followed. David shoved Henry ahead of him, keeping him within grabbing distance. Running in this heat made Hulan’s entire arm throb, but she pushed on, staying right behind Suchee as she led the way through the fields toward—Hulan suddenly realized—the home of the Tsai family. Without warning, a woman burst through the green wall of corn ahead of them. Her hair was disheveled, her eyes frenzied. “Tsai Bing! Tsai Bing!” She pointed behind her, turned, and retraced her steps to her own little farm.

This place was almost identical to Suchee’s homestead. There was a house made of mud brick, an outbuilding or two, some chickens, a pig. Next to the well lay the sodden form of Tsai Bing, Miaoshan’s betrothed, beloved of Tang Siang, and only child of the Tsai family. Tsai Bing’s father was trying to resuscitate his son. Hulan knelt at his side and gently pushed him away. She felt for a pulse in the boy’s neck, but his milky, unseeing eyes told her he’d been dead for some time. She put her fingers on his eyelids and closed them, triggering a new round of bone-chilling wails from the dead boy’s mother.

“Investigator Lo,” Hulan said, “please go to Da Shui. You will find Captain Woo at the station house in the center of the village. We need his presence here.”

While they waited for Lo’s return, Hulan inspected the body, checking his fingernails, his eyes, his mouth, gently running her hands over his limbs. Under the hot sun Tsai Bing’s clothes dried quickly, making the body seem somehow less pathetic. At last Hulan let the boy’s parents come close. They kneeled on either side of their son, tears streaming down their cheeks. Tsai Bing’s mother held his hand to her chest, imploring him to speak to her.

Hulan retired to the one spot of shade she could find, a foot-wide stretch alongside the mud-brick wall of the Tsais’ home. She sat down on her haunches as any peasant might do, except that she cradled her burning arm between her chest and her raised knees. From this position she took in the scene around her. David was staying with—no, guarding—Henry, who had turned away from the body and was looking out across the fields. Suchee had moved to Tsai Bing’s mother’s side and had an arm around her. The two women—one pale in the shock of tragedy; the other ravaged by loss and bitter acceptance—were now united by the worst pain a mother could experience.

Tsai Bing’s mother’s cries had alerted other neighbors as well, and they stepped through the fields and onto the hard-packed earth, some armed with the tools they’d been working with, others empty-handed but all with a shared look of dread. Hulan recognized only one of them. Tang Dan had been one of the first to arrive, and he circulated among the others, keeping them at a respectful distance from the body and its parents. At one point he ventured toward the quartet near the well, put a reassuring hand on Suchee’s shoulder, and held it there. His strength seemed to travel down through Suchee’s body, and she in turn seemed to tighten her arm around Madame Tsai’s shuddering form.

About twenty-five minutes later, two cars arrived in a swirl of dust. Lo led Captain Woo to the body, while three other officers in green short-sleeve shirts pushed the neighbors farther away. Woo barely glanced at Tsai Bing, then ordered the parents to step aside. Then he began writing in his notebook. Never did he stoop down to look at the body. Never did he attempt to question Tsai Bing’s parents. He did, however, stroll to the well and look into it. He made a few more notes, snapped the notebook shut, and strode to his car while calling for his men to follow.

Hulan stood, felt a wave of dizziness come over her, reached out a hand to steady herself on the wall of the house, then stepped forward.

“You can’t possibly be done,” she said.

Captain Woo’s eyes raked her from head to toe and back again.

“This is none of your business,” he said. “Leave it to the police.”

“What do you think happened here?” she asked.

He stared hard at her, unaccustomed to being questioned. “You ask for trouble, taitai.”

But Hulan didn’t move from her spot. The peasants who’d clustered here gawked openmouthed at her impudence.

Suchee, sensing the danger her friend was in, took a few tentative steps, and warned, “Hulan…”

“I remember you,” the captain said to Hulan. “You came to my office before. We don’t like troublemakers in our county. Now, I will tell you again, this is an official matter, but if you wish to interfere, I will have no recourse except to have my men take you down to our office. I can assure you that you will not find the experience very pleasant.”

All of this had taken place in Mandarin so David didn’t understand what was happening. The others did, however, and not wanting to be associated with any disturbance that might come back to haunt them, began to shuffle off into the surrounding fields.

“Wait!” Hulan commanded. “Please come back, all of you.” As the neighbors hesitated, she reached into her purse and pulled out her Ministry of Public Security identification and held it up for all to see. The effect was immediate. The neighbors stopped in their tracks.

Captain Woo, however, was not so easily cowed. “You have no jurisdiction here.”