'But the Chinese women are-'
'Everywhere,' Anderson interrupted. 'Westerners are still rich by their standards.'
'Your company doesn't have a policy about Chinese guests in company apartments?'
Anderson waved his hand. 'I rented my own apartment.'
'How many girls do you have in there?'
Anderson hung his head. 'Three.'
'Cooking, cleaning, and everything else,' Charlie said. He remembered some of the American pilots in Thailand. Every few months one of the men would have a problem. Sometimes they thought it was love. Sometimes it was. 'You're tired all the time, you're distracted, you hear the girls talking and you don't know what they're saying, whether they are laughing at you or not, you worry your money is being stolen, you're drinking too much.'
'Yes.' Anderson looked up. 'How do you know?'
Charlie shrugged. 'Doesn't matter. What does matter is that I don't care. I have no sympathy. I can't. I have too many people depending on me. You either deliver or you're gone. You can be living on a sampan and smoking opium for all I care. You're at the corporate level now, Tom. Either you deliver or you're dead.'
They sat in silence.
'Now,' Charlie finally said, 'tell me how to fix it.'
Relieved, Anderson unburdened himself of the site's problems. It was true, he admitted, that he had made some scheduling errors, which had slowed things down a bit, but there was time built into the schedule to catch up, especially since the Chinese were willing to work at night, if you paid them. The problem really did rest with the scaffolding company. As if they liked to cause problems. They wanted to renegotiate their contract because they said their costs were higher than expected. Normally the municipality would handle this, but the municipality was run by the cousin of the man who ran the scaffolding contracts, and he was unwilling to stand firm against the company's request for more money. Anderson had recalculated their bid and compared it to comparable recent jobs he knew about, and as far as he could see, the scaffolding company men were blowing smoke, trying to jack up their price. In effect, then, the scaffolding company was standing with its hand out, waiting to be paid. They would not talk to Anderson; he was not senior enough. In fact, he had accidentally insulted the scaffolding company's president, Mr. Lo, by suggesting that Mr. Lo negotiate with him directly. The last conversation had been tense and unproductive. But now Mr. Lo knew Charlie was coming, and Anderson had taken the liberty of scheduling an appointment with him for the next morning.
'Good,' said Charlie, wondering how he would convince Mr. Lo to resume labor. Foreign companies usually employed a Chinese go-between, an expeditor hired as a consultant, who massaged difficult situations and presented bills that were never itemized. 'Is Lo reasonable?' he asked.
'I don't think so,' Anderson answered, and Charlie thought about this response, how much it might cost, how valuable it was.
The Peace Hotel was famous for its band of old musicians who played American jazz and show tunes each night. The men, most past sixty, had been so terrified by the excesses of the Cultural Revolution that they'd buried their trumpets and cellos and drums underground. Now, redeemed by history, they played 'Moon River,' 'Besame Mucho,' and other mid-century standards from a song sheet each night to adoring American and German tourists in the hotel. Charlie sat and watched them, sipping a drink, reading the International Herald Tribune page by page, and picking at a piece of chocolate cake.
His back felt pretty good, so he didn't mind sitting in a chair and making some calls. He moved to a quieter table in the rear and had the waiter bring him a regular phone. I'm going to have to play a little dirty, he thought. Thank goodness the board of directors goes along with everything I tell them. Retired second-tier executives, handpicked for their sleepy compliance. If Manila Telecom wanted to try to buy Teknetrix, then he was going to make it as expensive as possible. He dialed the company's headquarters and told Karen to hold a line open for him. Then, in sequence, he ordered the investors' relations office to announce that Teknetrix was repurchasing some of its stock-always a good sign for investors-and that the company would soon begin production of the Q4 multiport switch in the new factory in Shanghai. 'Big press release,' he said. 'Tomorrow.' Never mind that the company hadn't yet engineered the Q4's manufacturing sequence or finalized factory management or secured agreements for raw materials. The news would ping into business wire services, Internet investor sites, and Mr. Ming's brain. Next he told the R amp;D people that the Q4 needed to be ready sooner. They'd have to ramp up the manufacturing design to catch up with the product design. They could squeeze out the final manufacturing efficiencies over the next six months, after they'd started gaining market share and cash flow. In fact, he was willing to absorb a narrow profit margin to protect the perception of the company. Manila Telecom would look behind the curve. What next? 'Give me sales, Karen.' He told the sales division to book some third-quarter orders into the second-quarter profits they were about to announce-the auditors could correct the numbers later, more or less within statutory requirements.
'Any calls?' he asked Karen when she came back on the phone.
'None that are important,' she said.
His head was full of Teknetrix details, but there were other things he needed to remember. 'I might get a call from someone named Melissa Williams.'
'No one by that name has called,' said Karen.
'Fine.' As they'd agreed.
'You sound really good, Charlie.'
'I am.'
Next he called Jane in London.
'Charlie!'
'Just caught you.'
'Yes. I haven't spoken to you in weeks.'
'Did you get that car?' he asked.
'No, I can't do that.'
'If you say so.'
'You have another play?'
'No,' he answered. 'I want you to transfer those GT proceeds to my private banker in New York.'
'That's Ted Fullman at Citibank?'
'You got it.'
'All or some?' Jane asked.
'All.'
'It'll be there in an hour. You seem kind of up, Charlie.'
On top here, he told himself, in the game. Eight million after-tax from a dead man's mouth, sex with a twenty-seven-year-old woman, and I'm drinking tea made out of sea horses.
Next he called Fullman, who was excited to hear that sixteen million dollars were arriving in Charlie's account. 'What am I doing with this huge nugget, Charlie?'
'Two things, Ted. First, wire half to my accountant. The capital gains on this are all short-term. Now, with the remaining half I want to buy my wife a house.'
'You want me to handle that?'
Always helpful, the private banker. 'Yes, as a matter of fact. It's a retirement community in Princeton called Vista del Mar. Even though the ocean is nowhere near. Ellie has a deposit down on a property. Please call them up and get the balance and just close on it. It'll be a million or two. You have that power of attorney still.'
'If it's a cash deal, this can go quickly.'
'I'd like to surprise her.'
'That's a hell of a gift, Charlie.'
'Yeah.'
'You must love her to pieces.'
'Daddy?' came Julia's voice early the next morning. He had a headache upon waking and immediately wanted some of the odorous tea. 'There's something wrong with Mom. Somehow she got past the elevator man and tried to hail a cab in her bathrobe.'
