Shen Deshi nodded. “As you wish.”
“This is good for us,” the superintendent said.
Us, was all Shen heard. “Indeed.”
“Your integrity has never been questioned.”
Shen swallowed dryly. “I thank you, Superintendent.”
“And the evidence?”
“The contents of the duffel remain unreported. I came to you directly, as you advised. Therefore, not filed. Not recorded.”
“We do not want such evidence filed! It’s a fucking mess!” Smoke surrounded him now.
“Precisely so, sir.”
“So it must be decided what to do with this…evidence…no doubt.”
“No doubt.”
The man wanted Shen to propose the alliance. He would not do so himself.
“I could turn the funds over to PAP.”
“One possibility.”
“Or attempt to return it to those who paid it out.”
“Kidnapping ransom? A Western insurance company, no doubt. They will hardly miss it.”
“This had occurred to me also,” Shen said, his heart quickening. “Yes.”
“There must be another solution,” the superintendent said. The moistness of his lips had spread to the butt end of his cigarette, which was now smeared with chocolate. “Hmm?” he said, encouraging his major.
“It had occurred to me how much good such funds could do for schools, for earthquake and flood victims. But of course it could never be seen to come directly from the Ministry.”
“Heaven forbid!”
“But individuals. That’s another matter.”
“Entirely,” the superintendent said.
“If we were to, say…divide the sums…in a percentage that takes into consideration your seniority, of course, Superintendent. My ten years with the Ministry. Your fifteen. Say, sixty, forty.”
“Seventy, thirty.”
“Sixty-five, thirty-five.”
“Agreed.”
“We could oversee the distribution of the sums far more responsibly than any bureaucracy like the Ministry.”
“Your point is well taken. Well said, Major. Yes. I see the clarity of your thought on this matter.” He hesitated. “When can we see to this resolution?”
“At your convenience. Of course.”
“Not here. The park. This evening’s tai chi. A bench in the park.”
“Of course,” Shen Deshi said.
“Do not disappoint me. No second thoughts. Hmm?”
“No, sir.” Shen Deshi could only imagine the hell that would befall a man who crossed Ho Pot.
“Dismissed,” the man said.
Shen Deshi stood, painfully and slowly. The Ministry of State Security was commissioned to combat corruption and corporate environmental abuse. He marveled at the irony.
“Let’s get one thing straight,” the superintendent said. “Technically, this is not blood money.” He was asking, not telling. He didn’t want to hang for the offense.
Shen Deshi thought of the Mongolian’s face as he slipped off the boat. He thought of the butcher-block table inside the tannery where the Mongolian had filleted the cameraman. The buzzing of the flies.
“No, of course not,” he said. “Just lost and found.”
“Lost and found.”
“Yes.”
“Well, then. Let’s get on with it.”
Shen dragged himself to his car with great difficulty. He unlocked it and, deciding to check on his future, opened the back door and leaned inside.
Opening the back seat could be a hassle. The mechanism jammed even when a duffel bag was not packed beneath it. And so it did again. Given his cracked ribs and bad arm, Shen could hardly move, much less heave the hinged seat forward, but he finally gave it one strong pull and the seat came open.
It was said that when one died, his life passed before him, from childhood to the present, that the gates to heaven were more a mirror than a door. Shen’s life flashed before him, and yet, except for some broken bones, he lived.
The back seat was empty.
It took him a moment to process not only the reality of his situation, but its enormity. He moved the seat back and forth, as if a heavy duffel might have slipped out onto the car floor when the seat came open.
He’d hidden the money there himself. Had been in the car with it all but the few minutes…
The whore!
He’d left her in the car while he’d gone to inspect the tannery. She’d pulled the car around following the American’s arrival.
He brooded over what the hell to do about it, while from the back of his mind raised the Greek chorus: Run!
SUNDAY
40
9:20 A.M.
LUWAN DISTRICT
SHANGHAI
Shortly after breakfast the following morning, Grace received a call from Lu Jian. She’d told neither Knox nor Kozlowski about soliciting her former lover’s help. As a civil servant, Lu Jian had access to information it would take even U.S. Intelligence days or weeks to collect and analyze.
“Wei?” she asked.
“It is not a single owner,” Lu Jian began, as if mid-conversation. “The tannery. It was owned and managed by a company with a ten-person board of directors. The company ceased doing business, and the tannery was closed, two years ago.”
“When the environmental laws went into effect,” she said.
“The timing would be right. Are you going to tell me what this is about?”
“Are you able to identify the members of the board of directors?”
“I have done so already.”
“I really do love you. You know that.”
It was the wrong thing to say, and she regretted it immediately. She’d been on a high since arriving safely at the consulate. For a moment she thought he’d hung up on her.
“I can give you the names. Do you have a pen?” he asked. All business.
She wrote down the Chinese characters, slowly and carefully, and read them back to Lu Jian and he listened and did not correct her.
“Is that it, then?” he asked.
Was it? she wondered. “I hope not,” she said.
“I received word from Lu Hao. He is indeed safely out of the country. As his older brother…his family…our debt to you-”
“Please! There is no debt.”
“I wish to express our sincere appreciation,” he said, very formally.
“For a starter, you could visit me in Hong Kong,” she said. Chinese women were expected to be much more guarded than this. She hoped it wouldn’t push him even farther away.
“Yes, of course.”
“That is, if you want to,” she said.
“What one wants and what one accepts are very different.”
“You have my address,” she said. “It has not changed.”
“You are leaving the country then?” he asked somewhat anxiously.
She reveled in hearing that tone from him. She said nothing, allowing it to replay in her head, over and over.
“As soon as possible. Today, tomorrow?”
“I see.”
“It’s a short flight. An easy flight.”
“But for me, a journey.”
“I’ll be expecting you.”
He hung up. Grace placed the phone down and stared at it, again reliving the conversation. Looking for nuance. Re-creating it in ways that revealed hidden meaning.
A knock on her door brought her back.
It was Knox.
12:30 P.M.
Grace passed the board member names on to Kozlowski and rode the next several hours on a roller coaster of emotions. Knox napped for twenty minutes, then worked down two more cups of tea. She spent her time alone by a window of the consulate guesthouse living room, looking out into sunlit gardens. Steam rose from the soil. It was going to be a hot day.
A while later-it seemed liked hours, but it was not-a Marine led them across to the mansion house. They were shown into Kozlowski’s office. It felt to Knox like the last time he’d visited had been six months earlier. It had been a matter of days.
“First,” Kozlowski said. He’d showered and shaved and changed clothes, though had not yet been home to his family. “The U.S. government has no knowledge of the members of the PRC’s Resettlement Committee.”