'That's the first scenario, what's the next?'
'It may be that the scaffolding companies are just trying to shake down the Western companies more than usual.'
Ming! Charlie thought. I have dinner with Ming tonight. 'When will you know?'
No answer. A stalling pause. 'It takes a little time, in my experience.'
'That answer is a torpedo, Mr. Anderson. That answer sinks my boat.'
'Okay, yeah, I'd say a week or two. But when the site isn't active, your workers go somewhere else, and it takes a while to get the crews back up. You have to reacquaint everyone with the project. Get the materials moving in sequence again, things like that. The project will slow maybe three or four weeks or more if we don't get this thing resolved fast. Plus, we are moving toward the rainy season, and the plan was to get the site enclosed before then, start in on the gross electrical.'
'So what are you doing?'
'I've shifted about half the crews to another site and I'll park them there for a few days, just to keep them together, but that becomes an extraordinary expense over the contracted bid, so I need to get-'
'Yes,' Charlie interrupted. 'Fine, approved. That's-what? — only a couple of hundred thousand, but that doesn't get us back up and going. We need some answers from the municipal people. What about that guy, the subdeputy mayor for the special economic zone? I just saw him a couple of weeks ago. We got along fine. We had a few drinks, in fact. He could straighten this out.'
'I can't call him, Mr. Ravich. He's too high up,' Anderson explained. 'It would take a couple of weeks to work that out through intermediaries. They know I'm just the construction manager. Pete Conroy is in Shenzhen, can't get away. The principal architects do have that Swiss guy-'
'No, no, he'll just piss them off. He's too abrupt. Too German. They know he hates them.'
'You said it, not me.'
Ming's bank had an office in Shanghai, and Charlie would have to be careful about how he described the factory's progress. If Ming had doubts, he could run someone over to the site in a taxi and have a report in an hour. On the other hand, the problem didn't sound very bad yet. Maybe it was better not to meet the subdeputy mayor.
'What about the guy who runs the scaffolding company?' Charlie asked.
'I can set that up.'
'Do it.'
They would sit down in the Peace Hotel overlooking the Huangpu River, drink some bad Chinese wine, and get the thing worked out. You needed the personal connection in this situation. Someone with gray hair who could make a toast.
'All right,' he told Anderson. 'I'll be there Friday afternoon, your time. I'll be at the Peace Hotel. But I'm going to call you tonight, my time, to go over this.'
'I hate to say it, but this is probably the best thing.'
'Meanwhile, maintain some activity at the construction site.'
'You mean make it look active?'
'I mean make it look fucking busy.'
'So excellent to see you again, Charlie.' Mr. Ming nodded slyly as he slipped his soft fingers into Charlie's bony paw a few hours later. The restaurant was packed. Swell place, twenty-dollar appetizers. In the corner, Barbara Walters, pretending you didn't notice her. Toupee-to-implant ratio almost even. 'You look very healthy after your visit to Hong Kong.'
'I had a good trip.'
'Profitable?'
Did Ming know about his speculation on the death of Sir Henry Lai? What didn't he know? 'Yes.'
Charlie nodded sternly to the maitre d', and he and Ming were conveyed to Charlie's table, past other businessmen being tortured by their moneylenders, past the piles of cheese and vegetables and aging Italian waiters who could discern the relative power of their clientele with the same dispassion they imposed on cuts of steak-and present the check accordingly. Dinner will run five hundred dollars, thought Charlie, as much as Dad made in a month at my age.
Mr. Ming accepted his napkin, then lifted his eyes. Again the fox's smile. After they ordered, he asked, 'How is business?'
'We're on track for the next quarter.'
'How is the plant construction going?'
'Some delays. The usual stuff.'
'How worried are you about Manila Telecom?'
'Worried,' said Charlie. 'Worried enough.'
'Let me show you how worried we are.' Ming slipped his hand into his coat. He handed Charlie the sheet. 'This is a report generated by our investment division. We have started to examine the telecom supply business as a whole.' Teknetrix's market share and supplier relationships have been eroded by Manila Telecom's recent surge, but this trend may be only temporary, as its product development is first-rate and its marketing systems highly developed. Yet Teknetrix remains a viable takeover candidate by a telecom-supplier competitor of equal or greater size because of its superior applications for WAN internetworking interfaces, Internet service provider (ISP) servers, multiplexers, digital access and cross systems, channel banks and cellular base stations. The company is quite an attractive target.
'Your success is your vulnerability,' Ming observed. 'But so, too, is any weakness.'
'We're very aware of Manila Telecom,' said Charlie tightly. 'I mean, I take their sales reports home with me.'
Ming watched him. Don't blink, Charlie thought. He blinked.
'As you know, Charlie, corporate financing in Hong Kong is very dynamic right now.' Ming spoke like a man gazing across a calm expanse of water. 'Our exposure is huge. And we have recently increased our presence in the Philippines.'
'Is the government pressuring you to help Manila Telecom?' asked Charlie. 'I mean, hell, let's lay it out here.'
'I cannot answer that question directly.' Ming slipped a tiny shrimp into his mouth. 'But I can say they do not fully appreciate our American lending portfolio.'
'Great,' answered Charlie. 'I understand you loud and clear. The other thing I've heard is that the MT sales reps are promising their customers- our customers-a much larger product line in a year or two, with order-fills getting much faster. We've been assuming they have a lot of capital coming in, either through a new stock offering or a direct loan, or even both.'
Ming nodded.
'You're not saying?' Charlie asked, watching Barbara Walters get up from her table, hair as soft-looking as a football helmet.
Ming let his fork rest on his plate. He looked away in thought, as if listening to himself tune an obscure and difficult musical instrument. 'I am unable to comment on the financing strategies of the bank's clientele,' he said.
Charlie leaned forward, his back hurting. 'You're telling me that your bank has opened a new office in the same city where my major competitor is located, that your bank has entered into some kind of stock offering or financing deal with them, money that could be used in the very same hostile buyout that is hinted at by the research generated by your very same bank? Is that what you are telling me?'
Ming lifted the fork to his mouth, his expression unchanged.
'You're fucking telling me that!'
The man sat in awkward silence.
'The situation within our bank is very complicated,' Ming said finally. 'Let's discuss the Q4 surface-mount transformer.'
'It's in goddamn development,' Charlie hissed. 'You know that.'
'You've been saying that for six months.'
