"Are you going back to the apartment?" he asked Julia anxiously, dumping some of the dry tea into a glass of cold water. Maybe it had opium or cocaine or something in it, but he had to have it now.
"In about an hour, yes, to get her sleeping gown and stuff. The doctor expects her to sleep for about ten or twelve hours. She'll feel more comfortable if she has her usual things."
"Right," he groaned. He looked at the concoction. It had dry bits floating on top. Why did he crave it so much? He jolted the whole glass of thick brown liquid down his throat.
"What?"
"Nothing."
"You sounded funny."
"I was drinking something, sweetie." Julie would prowl through the apartment looking for clues to her mother's mental condition. If Ellie had left the investigator's report out, Julia would find it.
"Daddy?"
"Yes."
"Can you come home right away?"
He'd have to figure out how to accelerate negotiations with Mr. Lo. "I think I can take a plane tomorrow, sweetie."
"How's your back?"
"Amazing."
"I don't understand."
"I got some Chinese medicine. They made it right in front of me. Really quite—"
"Dad?" Julia said suddenly. "I have someone on the other line. I'll expect you home in about forty-eight hours?"
"Yes." He thought of the investigator's papers lying on the kitchen counter or wherever Ellie opened them. "Mom'll be at your place tonight?"
"I think so."
"Maybe she should stay a night or two."
"I can't. Brian is in L.A. until next week, and I'm leaving for London tomorrow."
"So," Charlie asked, his mind flying in front of the conversation, "Mom'll get back into our apartment sometime tomorrow morning or afternoon?"
"Morning. I mean, she's got pills that should calm her."
Not if she reads the investigator's report again, he told himself. "Tell her not to worry about anything and that I'm coming home."
He retrieved Towers's number and then stood in front of the bathroom mirror. He took off his shirt, looked at his stomach. A horror. Like his father's twenty years ago. Melissa Williams must have been out of her mind. He sat down on the toilet thinking that he was starting to smell Chinese to himself. Happened on every trip.
He called Towers. "You sent me a package?"
"You got it? Good."
"I'm in China," Charlie told him bitterly.
"I don't understand," said Towers. "You called me at six o'clock this morning, said send it to me, but not at the office."
"Yeah," said Charlie. "I did."
"I'm terribly sorry, Mr. Ravich."
"Me too. What was in it?"
"Just the usual basic information."
"Yeah?"
"Also, I'm getting some good stuff on that Melissa Williams."
For a moment Charlie considered telling Towers to forget about Melissa Williams. Maybe that would be better. But he was curious about her. "Do me a favor," he finally said.
"Sure."
"Don't write any of it down, goddammit. Nothing, not a report or a fax or anything."
"I'll have my handwritten notes."
"Just read them to me and throw them away."
"When?"
He looked at his watch. His headache was going away. He had the meeting with Lo. "Call me at the end of the day. My day. Five p.m."
"That's 5:00 a.m. here."
"Yes," said Charlie in a cold voice.
"Right," answered Towers. "I'll call. I'm terribly sorry about the mix-up."
The tea was working now, helping him think. He wanted to know what Towers's report said, but even more than that, he wanted to get it out of the apartment before Julia arrived. Ellie sounded as if she'd been pretty addled by the time she got to the doctor's, but Julia wouldn't forget a comma. He called the front desk of their building. "This is Charlie Ravich."
"Evening, Mr. Ravich," came the voice of Kelly, the doorman.
Not where I am, he thought. "Listen, is Lionel on duty yet?"
"Just got on."
"Can you switch me to the phone in the elevator? I need to ask him a small favor."
"Very good, Mr. Ravich."
The phone clicked. "Lionel here."
"Lionel, this is Charlie Ravich."
"Mr. Ravich, sir."
"I need a favor, Lionel."
"Sure thing."
"Take the elevator to my floor, please."
"Right away."
Charlie could hear the far hum of the elevator. The elevator stopped and the static with it. "Sir?"
"Lionel, you see the umbrella stand in the corner?"
"Yes."
"There's a key under it."
"You want me to leave my elevator?"
"Yes. Just for a moment."
"I never leave my elevator, sir."
"I realize that. It's a big favor."
"Highly unusual."
"Life is unusual, Lionel. That's why we never know what's going to happen next."
"Yes, sir. But I try to avoid unusual things."
"You need to do this now."
"Mrs. Rosen usually comes down this time."
"Just park the elevator and get the key."
The line was silent. "Okay."
"Here's what I want you to do. Open the front door and look in the dining room and the kitchen for an envelope or a business letter marked with the name of a law firm."
"What do you want me to do with it?"
"Find it first."
Charlie heard the creak of the elevator cage. Then, perhaps, the sound of a door being opened. Then nothing. He was listening to silence being bounced through a satellite. Lionel was probably tiptoeing through the apartment, ogling all of the antique furniture Ellie had bought over the years.
"I'm back."
"Yes?"
"I didn't find anything."
"Please look again. Go into any room. It's probably a few pages and an envelope. Probably opened, too. It was messengered."
"I'll go back."
He heard Lionel walk away.
"I have it," he said. "A letter from a Mr. Towers. Right inside the door."
"Opened?"
"Yes."
"Please read it to me."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. I want you to read it to me and then—"
"Excuse me. Yes?" Lionel was speaking into the elevator's intercom. "She's waiting? I'll get her. I have to go now, Mr. Ravich."
"No, hang on, Lionel, I don't want to break the connection. Leave the phone off the hook."
"It'll be a few minutes."
"I don't care. I'm calling from China. I don't want to risk losing the connection."
"Yes, sir."
Charlie heard the elevator hum upward to the twelfth floor.
"Evening, Mrs. Rosen," came Lionel's echoey voice.
"Lionel, I was waiting almost ten minutes."
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Rosen."
"They said you would be right up."
"I'm sorry, Mrs. Rosen. I—"
"Whatever the reason, surely you could have had them call me and tell me you would be late . . . That's my only bag."
"Yes, ma'am."
"You know my late husband moved us into this building in 1947. That's more than half a century my family's been in this apartment building. We could have gone other places, we had the money. Some of the other buildings even asked us if we wanted to buy in. We could have done that. We talked about it. Three blocks up they wanted us very badly. But we said no. We said we would put up with the bad elevators and the other problems. The quality of the people changed and we stayed very open-minded."
"Yes, Mrs. Rosen."
"The other buildings very much wanted Mort to buy in," she went on. "He was respected by all of them. They knew his money going into a new place would make people feel comfortable. They knew that if Mort Rosen bought in, then it was solid, it was the gold standard."
"Yes
, Mrs. Rosen."
"He was very respected."
"Yes, Mrs. Rosen. Here's the lobby."
The elevator door creaked again.
"Yes, Mr. Ravich. I left the letter upstairs."
"Okay, let's go to it, Lionel."
At the eighth floor, Lionel disappeared from the phone again. "I have it," he said when he came back. "Two pages."
"I want you to read it to me."
"Read it to you?"
"Yes."
"It's not short."
"I'm waiting."
"'Dear Mr. Ravich,'" Lionel began. "Can you hear me okay?"
"Yes."
"'Purse—purse—'"
"Purse?"
"'Pursuant to your wreck, your wreck-est—'"
"My request?"
"Yes. '—we have compiled an . . . an anal—'"
"Anal?"
"'Anal-sis—'"
"Analysis," said Charlie.
"'—of the three women you speck, speck—'"
"Speck?"
"'Speck-fied. Each has strengths and weaknesses. Two, we believe, are supper—superior candies to bear you a child, based on persons—personals, family, educational, and financial histories. Both of these candies—candy-dates report that they are eager to—'"
"Okay," Charlie interrupted. "Stop."
"Stop?" Lionel asked.
"Yes." He'd heard enough. "Please destroy it. Please throw that letter down the garbage chute."
"Are you sure?"
"Yes. Do it now."
"Absolutely."
A pause, a muffled bang. "Did you do it?"
"Yes. Done."
"Forgotten?"
"Forever, Mr. Ravich."
"Thank you, Lionel."
"Goodbye, Mr. Ravich!"
"HELLO, MR. RAVICH!" exclaimed Mr. Lo, waving for Charlie to sit in a deep chair with doilies on the arms, the traditional Chinese meeting chair. He and Tom Anderson had arrived at the scaffolding company's offices—new but so poorly constructed as to already seem decades old—and been greeted in the lobby by a trio of Mr. Lo's sons, three skinny men with bad teeth who spoke almost no English.
Charlie sat next to Mr. Lo and accepted a cup of green tea. He looked around in disgust. The chairs were old and soiled, the room barely ventilated. Had Conroy been in the city, this never would have happened. The fact that he was even having the meeting at all testified to Tom Anderson's youth and incompetence. This was a small company that had somehow ended up being the scaffolding subcontractor for the Teknetrix factory. For all he knew, they were in over their heads. Clearly they'd underestimated his status and he had overestimated theirs. Mr. Lo wore a suit, but also had rough hands; he was still out there on the job, his interaction with Western businessmen limited. I'm dealing with a low-level guy here, Charlie thought, the equivalent of a subcontractor from Queens. They've reverted to the traditional Chinese meeting because they don't know how to do it any other way.
A terrified young woman was introduced as the translator, and she sat next to Mr. Lo, who spoke in lengthy pronouncements at the far wall of the meeting room, where his three sons sat studying Charlie's expression. Suddenly he was hearing more about the bamboo scaffolding business than he thought possible. How the bamboo was planted and grown and harvested, selected for its width and cut to ten-foot lengths and tied with thousands of little ribbons, the knots of which were secrets of the trade, passed from master to student. This won't work, he thought to himself, it's too decorous. I need a situation in which I can negotiate. They were feeling him out as much as he was them. The sons had prepared a slide-show presentation, and now Mr. Lo produced a laser-pointer from his pocket and made what were no doubt very interesting observations as the red pin light of the laser jerked across crisp color shots of Mr. Lo's men erecting capacious scaffolding projects, Mr. Lo supervising same, Mr. Lo at the top of a twenty-story scaffold structure, Mr. Lo's sons in hard hats conferring solemnly, the original Lo patriarch, bamboo wise man, a wizened figure in a traditional conical hat, Mr. Lo's sons cutting lengths of plastic knotting twine . . .
It was enough to make Charlie want to plunge Mr. Lo's pointer into his eye. Tom Anderson squirmed unhappily, sensing Charlie's irritation. He needed the expeditious solution, the move across the board, the air strike. I'll be rude, Charlie thought. He looked at his watch. They didn't notice. He bent his head, looked at his watch, and counted to fifteen slowly.
Mr. Lo said something sharply. The slide show stopped.
Charlie looked up. Mr. Lo smiled. The sons smiled. The tea-girl smiled.
"Mr. Lo's description," Charlie announced authoritatively, filling the room with his voice, "of his family's very distinguished . . . bamboo scaffolding company . . . has been most informative." He nodded gravely at the translator. "Please tell him . . . I understand . . . what he is saying."
When Mr. Lo heard his name, his eyes creased with pleasure.
"Please tell him . . . that I feel that my company . . . has not shown enough appreciation . . ." Charlie watched Mr. Lo blink. "For the history and importance . . . of his very distinguished company . . . and for the excellent management he provides."
The translator relayed the statement. Mr. Lo beamed.
"Please tell Mr. Lo . . . that I would take it as a great and important honor . . . if he would be my private guest . . . for dinner tonight . . . at the Phoenix-Dragon restaurant . . . in the Peace Hotel."
The translator said, "Mr. Lo please to meet you. He say perhaps six o'clock is very good."
Charlie stood and shook hands.
The translator added, "Mr. Lo asks if you are needing me to translate your dinner talking."
Charlie looked at Mr. Lo. "No," he said softly, keeping his eyes on Lo. "Just the two of us."
AT FIVE O'CLOCK he was sitting on his hotel bed watching CNN's football commentators hype the coming Sunday NFL games. How many touchdowns can a man watch? wondered Charlie. The phone rang. "Okay," Towers began in a tired voice, "I've done what can be done in a day. No more, but certainly no less."
"Tell me."
"Melissa Williams is twenty-seven years old," he began. "She lives on East Fourth Street. She works at SharkByteMediaNet, Inc. That's what it's called. This is a very successful design firm specializing in Internet Web sites. They have offices at Broadway and Prince. She has no criminal record, no outstanding liens or traffic tickets. Her New York driver's license indicates that she wears corrective lenses. She has a perfect credit record." Towers paused, presumably to consult his notes. "I estimate her income at thirty-eight thousand dollars a year, based on her credit record. People of her age and education tend to carry predictable percentages of income as consumer debt. Her social security number was issued in the State of Washington, and a national directory search for a name match suggests she once lived in Seattle. We ran an Internet search and found out that she graduated summa cum laude from Carleton College in Minnesota. That's a good school."
"What else?" he asked. None of Tower's information seemed very specific.
"She's never been married—in New York State, at least. She has an inactive bank account in Seattle, and an old car loan there co-signed by a John J. Williams. A professional directory search of the Seattle area reveals that there's a fifty-two-year-old corporate lawyer named John J. Williams, who is probably her father. He's locally prominent, owns a house on Bainbridge Island he bought three years ago for eight hundred and twenty thousand dollars. A family member, John Jr., probably a younger brother, has a record of minor drug and traffic offenses." Towers took a breath. This is more like it, Charlie thought. "We have a confidential source in the Red Cross who says that Melissa Williams successfully donated blood earlier this year, which means she passed all of their screening tests for HIV, hepatitis, and so on. Our contact in the medical insurance information company that we consult with says she's had routine medical check-ups and care for the last few years in New York. That's what we've been able to find today."
"Pretty damn good,
" Charlie said, standing to test his back. It felt warm, loose. "Reading between the lines?"
"A good kid, I'd say. Clean-living, works, pays her bills, gets regular check-ups, comes from a stable family in a good part of the country. The younger brother is the screw-up, not her. That's my gut on this."
THE FUCKERS always spoke more English than they let on. Mr. Lo's blink at the word appreciation. He and Mr. Lo drank and ate silently, the sweat creeping down Charlie's back as he considered how to do this. Not in the room, not in the restaurant, not next to the river walking along the Bund, where they could be followed or observed.
"Let's go outside," Charlie suggested after he had signed the check. He checked his watch. Seven p.m., which meant Ellie was just waking up in Julia's apartment.
They took the elevator down without speaking, then passed through the revolving door. Charlie turned to Lo. "A taxi?"
"No, no," answered Lo. "You see."
They walked a block away from the hotel through the carbon-choked dusk. Motorcycle rickshaws puttered by. Lo looked at Charlie and he nodded. Lo signaled one of the rickshaws and said something to the driver. Then they got in, Charlie first, his greater weight sinking the three-wheeled vehicle on his side. The rickshaw clattered forward through the bicycles and other traffic; exhaust fumes filled Charlie's lungs. But, amazingly enough, sitting in the noisy, cramped space didn't hurt his back. Mr. Lo pulled the curtain shut, and so it was just the two of them.
"Okay," Charlie said. "How much?"
Lo pulled out a calculator. No one could overhear, no one could see. Nothing was on paper. Lo punched in the number 70,000.
"Dollars?" Charlie said.
Lo nodded.
Charlie took the calculator and punched in 30,000.
"No, no, no." Lo waved his hand. "Much appreciation, okay?" He punched in 55,000.
Charlie took the calculator, stared at the sum. Against what was being leveraged here—Teknetrix's market capitalization, Ming's $52 million, Ellie's mental condition—the amount was infinitesimal. Gumball money. The rickshaw lurched back and forth. Lo's face watched impassively. "I want the job done fast," Charlie said finally. "You understand?"
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