'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.
