“You do me a great honor, Yang Cheng.” Grace hung her head, wondering if this was indeed the point of her invitation, or was he seeking to explore the possibility of negotiation by erecting the pretense of an employment deal between them? “I am deeply humbled. You will forgive me if I must take time to consider your generous offer.”
“Time is sometimes a blessing, sometimes a curse. Use yours well. I am not the one in a hurry. You…on the other hand.” He paused, tellingly. She thought the implication had to be connected to the ransom situation, but then became confused as he continued. “The Xuan Tower nears completion. Mark my words: it will not bear the name of Berthold Group at the time of its ribbon ceremony. It was never to be.”
“In defense of my current employer,” she said, letting it hang there, “certainly dozens, maybe hundreds of buildings in Shanghai have been financed and built with foreign money, whether in part or in whole. So many Western architects have made our skyline all the more interesting. The French. The Germans. The Arabs. Shanghai is truly metropolitan.”
“Of this there is no doubt. Americans, too. Yes. But Xuan is to be the tallest building in world. A point of great Chinese pride. Chinese pride, not American pride.”
“Yes, of course.”
“There will be no confusion on this point. Do not fool yourself. Allan Marquardt’s reach will stop here in Shanghai, and before the Xuan is open.” His face grew red. The whiskey? She doubted it. Perhaps he’d had a promise from the government from the start. Lu Hao’s kidnapping might be but a single mahjong tile pushed to send others falling. Financial conspiracy was an art form in Asia, practiced by all-from the street sweeper to people like Yang Cheng. He said, “Chinese profits are reinvested. Foreign profits travel across the oceans and never return. Enough is enough.”
…will stop here in Shanghai. The Berthold Group had construction projects in cities all over China. Yang Cheng had slipped up. Was there a bidding war underway for a Shanghai project that Yang Cheng was determined to win? Was confident he’d win? If he knew about Berthold’s secret payments to inspectors and subcontractors he could instigate an investigation and immediately disqualify Berthold from any future bids, ensuring his own success. Lu Hao’s off-record books would play a critical link in any such attempt to paint Berthold as corrupt.
“Please,” he said, signaling a passing waitress. He snatched a glass of Champagne for her and lifted his glass. She took a small sip.
“I await your decision,” he said. “Before the dismissal for the National Holiday, if you please.” He’d named the same deadline as the ransom. Was she to make that connection? Was she supposed to acknowledge it? “Will you be joining your family on Chongming Island for the holiday?”
Every muscle tensed. His knowledge went well past her CV.
“If time permits,” she said, lying. She had no intention of seeing her father.
“Family is everything.”
A threat? Or a simple reminder of her Chinese roots and where her loyalty belonged?
“Country, ideology, family,” she said, reciting priorities established in her early schooling.
Yang Cheng’s eyes went beady as he forced a smile. “Yes. And of all these: family.”
8:00 P.M.
Knox took issue with a person wearing a Bluetooth headset in public. Alone behind the wheel, fine. Around the house, maybe. But it struck him as pretentious, insular and ridiculous looking. If God had intended for man to have a plastic horn protruding from one ear, he’d have put one there.
Katherine Wu kept touching her ear and going off into conversations that didn’t include him. She looked and sounded like a robot while her body sent much different signals.
Knox forced a word in. “I understand The Berthold Group has encountered workforce slowdowns this week.” A stab in the dark, but an educated one. Dulwich had told him as much. “Problems with materials delivery. Some trucking issues.”
She flushed. “I manage Mr. Yang’s schedule, Mr. Knox. You overestimate my position, I am afraid.”
There was that word again; he wished she would stop that.
“Oh, I doubt that,” he said. “It’s all over Shanghai.”
“Is it? And I am the last to hear. So typical. I wouldn’t believe every rumor you hear.”
“I thought that was you!” A Chinese woman’s accented voice from behind Knox. A voice he knew. A voice he’d heard in many incantations, from joy to ecstasy.
Amy Xue, a petite beauty, wore a loose-fitting raw silk off-the-shoulder top and a pair of jeans that threatened her circulation. Her hair was done in an asymmetrical cut, with bangs slanting high to low, right to left. She wore no visible makeup, a gorgeous pair of black pearl earrings and a matching necklace. Her face was girlish-ageless-with long narrow hooded eyes that had first won his attention three years earlier.
Knox kissed her on both cheeks. “Help,” he whispered. They held arms tightly as he introduced her.
“Amy Xue, this is Mr. Yang’s assistant, Katherine Wu. She is showing me the view.” He faced Ms. Wu. “Amy is one of my original trading partners,” Knox said, “and a close friend. She has the finest pearls in all of Shanghai. But often, too expensive.”
“Americans always want cheap, cheap, cheap,” Amy said. “Like sound of bird.”
“Sounds as if you two have been trading together for a long time,” Katherine Wu said, intentionally impolite.
“As I said: old friends,” Knox said, having not taken his eyes off Amy. Glad she’d confirmed his occupation without prompting.
“You may be old, John Knox, but not me. You come to my city, not tell me in advance?” Amy said. “How am I to hold best pearls for my best customer?”
“If you don’t mind,” he said to Wu, taking Amy by the elbow and leading her away.
Katherine Wu allowed them a fifteen-foot lead and then followed on a leash. Knox steered Amy toward the bar and finally caught sight of Yang and Grace at a table in the far corner of the cocktail lounge to the right. He felt an enormous sense of relief.
Amy didn’t miss much. “Friend of yours?”
“My accountant.”
“I’ve always thought spreadsheet a dirty word.”
“Not like that, Amy. You know better than that.”
“I know my favorite customer when I see him. I know you did not send e-mail telling me you were coming.”
“It was a last-minute decision, this trip.”
“Tell that to your accountant.”
He ordered drinks for them both. A kir for her. Beer for him. The smoking at the bar bothered her, so they moved closer to a marble slab holding satay, egg rolls, pot stickers, bao and fruit. Knox ate the pot stickers and satay. Amy stuck to the fruit.
He thought about Danner. What he was eating, where he was sleeping. He felt shitty about his own present surroundings in the lap of luxury. The GPS burned a hole in his coat pocket. He’d slipped it from Grace’s purse as they’d boarded the elevator. He hoped she wouldn’t discover it missing before they separated for the night.
“Did you like last shipment?” she asked. What he liked was the way she slipped the chocolate-dipped strawberry between her lips and sucked on it.