"Mo Ai-li, Interpreter," he read, strolling past her.
"I’m so sorry, my employer is not in right now." And Lin and Kong were still out at the Bureau of Cultural Relics. She’d have to talk to this guy alone.
She left the door open, pointed to a chair, and poured tea. "It’s put you to too much trouble to come over here. I thought you might telephone."
He smiled a car-salesman smile, which dragged his sharp extruding cheekbones almost up to his eyebrows. Pomade glimmered on his sculpted head. "Ah, no, it wouldn’t do. One must call on a new friend in person. Don’t you think? Tell me, Miss Mo. How do you find Yinchuan?"
"Interesting."
He looked disconcerted. "Interesting? Well…"
"I like history."
"Ah, yes, history. Have you been to the Xi Xia tombs?"
"Not yet. We’re working. We’ve been busy." She had heard about the tombs, of course. For a few improbable centuries Yinchuan had actually been the capital of northwest China under the Xi Xia, or western Xia, dynasty, until Genghis Khan had roared in and toppled everything. Now the tombs of the last Xi Xia emperors still layout in the desert, eroding in the wind, and Yinchuan had slid into obscurity.
"I’ll take you," he proposed. "Whenever you have time. What about this evening, if you’re not working? Or maybe tomorrow."
"Mr. Guo, I wouldn’t want to trouble you-"
"No trouble."
"No, really, Mr. Guo. Please. Listen to me. I want to ask you about the building your office is in-"
He raised a nicotine-stained finger. "Not one more word about business, until you read this! It’s all prepared." He whipped out a four-page document densely printed with Chinese characters.
She read the title. "Contract for Consulting Services." Oh, damn, she thought, and started plowing through it. Reading Chinese was never effortless, even after all this time. She still went character by character. There were always ideograms she couldn’t recognize.
The client therefore and in confident mind agrees to pay aretainer of 5,000 yuan for services rendered in the first three months… She put it down. "Mr. Guo. Among friends, one should put one’s heart in one’s mouth and say what one thinks. Tell me. Have you ever had an outside person for a client before?"
"No, but I have many important clients. I know someone whose second cousin is fourth Party vice-chair for Ningxia Province, and I have connections within the police. So, you can see"-he leaned back in his chair and smiled his chatty smile-"I know where all the back doors are."
"I understand. Well. We outside people don’t use contracts. They are unnecessary between real friends." She handed it back disdainfully.
"I quite agree." He stuffed it in his pocket.
"Good. As the words go, the actions will follow. I require one service, a simple one. It concerns the building your office is in."
"Ah, the building-I can arrange for you to buy it! You know it was the Number One Jesus Church at one time, architecture very distinctive. First class. Total price two point three million yuan. That’s just a trifle, you know, when one talks of such a fine building."
"Mr. Guo-"
"I know, it’s not legal for outside people to have more than a forty-nine percent ownership in real estate, but that can be handled, I can set up a false proxy company for the other fifty-one points, I would be the director, maybe a cousin as trustee, everything in the family, but it would all be controlled by you, of course-"
I’ll bet. "Mr. Guo, duibuqi, it is entirely my fault, but you misunderstand."
"If you are worried about recovering your U.S. dollars upon resale, put your heart at rest, we can put the funds through a textile mill and then give you quality cotton, the best, good resale value, and you’ll pay only a third of the price, do you see? I can get the quota fixed, special for you. Export’s no problem. Guaranteed. I have contacts in the Textile Ministry in Beijing."
"No."
"No? But Miss Mo."
"I don’t want to buy the building. I want information. That’s all."
"Information?" His smile evaporated, eyes narrowed, calculating.
Alice weighed her options rapidly. She didn’t know enough about this Guo Wenxiang to reveal everything to him, but she could probably start him off with research on Abel Oort, the Dutch missionary. If he proved resourceful, they could all decide what to do with him and how much to tell him. "Mr. Guo." She cleared her throat. "In the nineteen twenties that church was operated by a Dutchman. Abel Oort. I want to know what happened to him, if he died in Yinchuan where he is buried, if he left anything, any letters, any diaries -especially, I want to know if there is anyone still alive who remembers him."
Guo sat silent for a moment before he spoke. "You are his relative?"
She sighed. Stretch it. "My employer is a friend of the family."
"Ah, a family matter." His smile returned.
"Yes."
"Eh, well, since we are good friends and this is a family matter, I will see what I can do. But I remind you, many years have flown."
"I know."
"You’re sure you’re not interested in getting into the Shanghai stock market? I can arrange-"
"No. But you must name your fee for the service I require."
He looked crestfallen. "So sorry, Miss Mo, between good friends like ourselves, how can I face you when I mention the price? Expenses are very high these days. Inflation’s a river, out of control."
"Yes, I know." She kept her face patient and polite. God, she hated this. "What would be fair?"
"I will need at least a thousand yuan, up front."
Outrageous! Three months’ salary for the average Chinese. "Mr. Guo," she said, touching her forehead as if she had just remembered something, "in fact I do have another small problem. I brought U.S. dollars with me on this trip, and stupidly forgot to exchange them in Beijing. I’m afraid I don’t have such a large amount of renminbi." This was disingenuous, as they both knew, for any local bank-to say nothing of black market currency privateers, a few of whom still lurked in every city-would gladly convert U.S. dollars.
His eyes gleamed with delight. "I believe I could help you with that problem."
"Tai hao," Wonderful.
"Shall we say, eighty U.S. dollars for the whole job?"
"Thirty."
"Forty."
"Hao-le, " Done. She counted out the American bills.
"Thank you. I’ll return in a few days with the information. May I say, Miss Mo-oh, no, no, don’t see me out, I’m quite all right-may I say with what exquisite subtlety and scholarship you speak. Since you’re an outside person, it’s most unexpected."
With effort she said, "Nali," nonsense, and shut the door.
Lin Shiyang was walking behind Alice on the way to the dining hall that night, and he stared down at her striding along the tiled courtyard path in front of him. He was taken by her dark red hair, its gloss, the alive way it moved around her head. And she had a way of pushing back a strand of hair that was bothering her, a way of twirling it around her finger and then tossing it aside. Meiyan used to do that, exactly the same way. Yet how different this woman was from Meiyan! He had never seen hair like Ai-li’s, except in pictures. And he had never seen a woman smile the way she did. He forgot all that was strange about her face when she smiled. Because then, pleasure just burst out from somewhere inside her. He liked that. It was uncontrolled, it was un-Chinese, but he liked it.
At the public phone hall Alice called her father’s office on Capitol Hill. He wasn’t there, of course-she hadn’t expected him to be. But Roger was, and a secretary went to pull him from a meeting. Alice waited.
A thousand miles away in Beijing, Supervisor Ling saw a light on her board; she pressed a button and activated the preset wiretap authorized by the PLA. She pushed another button; this would inform Commander Gao’s office.