Where Echoes Live (16 page)

“How do you think she feels about having children?”

“I don't know, but I can't imagine Margot as a mother.” Grobe allowed herself a small but malicious smile. “After all, she might lose her size-four figure.”

I was silent for a bit, thinking over her theory about the breakup of the Erickson marriage. They were in their mid-thirties—a now-or-never age for starting a family. If one partner was intent on doing so and the other not (here I felt a twinge about my own lover's intentions), it could cause serious difficulties. But I wondered about Grobe's evaluation of Mick's feelings on that issue; a few pleasant outings to baseball games with an employee's son did not constitute an overwhelming desire for children of his own.

When I probed for more details about the couple, the only thing I really learned was how much Connie Grobe disliked Margot. She didn't know the woman well, had never seen her socially, and had been to the town house only a few times to drop off some papers. Her feelings, I decided, were merely the not uncommon reaction of the employee who works side by side with her boss while his wife stays home and, to the secretary's way of thinking, idly reaps the fruits of their labors.

Grobe expressed considerable surprise that Mick's body had been found at Tufa Lake; she knew of no personal or business connection he might have had in the area, could think of no reason for him to have gone there. She had never heard the Tarbeaux name, and she claimed she knew nothing of Transpacific Corporation's plans to began working the old Promiseville mine. Finally I thanked her and departed with only twenty minutes to spare before my two o'clock appointment at the Sino-American Alliance.

I used a few of them to call Hiroshi Kamada at Sumeri International's local office. He was a good deal less cautious than Connie Grobe about giving out information—a fact I took to mean that borderline paranoia did not permeate the entire Pacific Rim business sector. Kamada said that he'd been asked by Mick Erickson to act as a message taker for him for a few days. Kamada was merely to hold any messages until Erickson called in for them.

Had he called in? I asked.

No, Mr. Kamada said, he hadn't. But there had been no messages to pass on, anyway.

What about the materials for the seminars that Erickson's office had shipped to Sumeri's headquarters in Osaka? I asked. Hadn't their arrival seemed strange to the staff there, seeing as there was no program scheduled?

Oh, no, Mr. Kamada told me. I did not understand. The materials were for
next
month's seminars.

So that was how Mick Erickson had engineered his excuse to drop out of sight: the contract for the Sumeri seminars was legitimate; he'd merely misrepresented the date. I wondered how he'd planned to explain that when the actual date for the presentation arrived.

As I hung up the receiver of the pay phone, I thought about Erickson's motivation. The reason for his trip to Mono County must have been very sensitive and secret in order for him to concoct such an intricate scheme to permit only a few days' unexplained absence. A few days—to do what?

The one thing of which I was certain was that it had to do with Transpacific's plans to reopen that mine. Perhaps Marcy Cheung at the Sino-American Alliance could shed some light on both the company and its CEO, Lionel Ong.

Walking along the easternmost blocks of Jackson Street near the Embarcadero and the U.S. Custom House is like stepping back into old San Francisco. Although they are virtually in the shadow of the Transamerica Pyramid—our prime example of the architectural excesses of the late twentieth century—and only a brief stroll from the noisy steel-and-glass canyons of the central financial district, these few blocks are quiet, narrow, and tree-lined. Their renovated brick buildings, many of which date from before the 1906 earthquake, house small businesses, antique shops, and furniture-and-fabric showrooms. The Sino-American Alliance had the whole ground floor of one, on the corner of an alley with a Parisian-style sidewalk café tucked away at its end.

The tranquil feel of the street permeated the reception area. Its decor was typical Chinese—black lacquered furnishings, melon-jar lamps, scroll paintings—and even the sleek-haired woman who presided over the desk wore jade green watered silk with a mandarin collar. As she buzzed Marcy Cheung's office and announced me, her movements were unhurried, her voice as soft as my footfalls on the apricot-and-blue floral rug.

After I passed the tri-paneled silk screen behind the desk, however, I realized that the calm had broken; on its other side a storm of ringing phones, clacking typewriters, and raised voices raged. And when I entered the room labeled Publicity Department, I was abruptly thrust into the whirling eye of chaos.

Two desks overflowed with heaps of photographs and papers; file drawers gaped open, their contents protruding at odd angles; color slides were scattered on a light table; a sketch hung three-quarters off a drawing board. The walls were a layered mass of posters, fliers, and schedules. One of the latter, headed “December Issue,” had a big red X drawn through it, with a dart stuck in its center. And on the floor, surrounded by more stacks of papers and photographs plus the remains of a lunch, sat a young woman with waist-length hair that was fastened at the nape of her neck with a rubber band. Her blue-jeaned legs were folded Indian-style, her feet were bare, and she hunched forward, reaching for half of a deli sandwich as she spoke into the phone. She didn't bite into the sandwich, merely waved it to punctuate her words.

“You
got problems? Well, so do I. My idiot assistant quit. And I need those proofs today, dammit!”

I stepped around a blown-up plastic dragon that breathed a fiery banner: “The Sino-American Alliance Wishes You a Happy Chinese New Year!”

“I don't
care
how much it'll cost you to messenger them over here—just do it!” She slammed the receiver down just as a slice of tomato fell out of her sandwich and bounced off her knee, leaving a streak of mayo. “Shit,” she said miserably and looked up at me.

Marcy Cheung had a round, slightly pockmarked face and a chipped front tooth. As soon as she smiled at me, she clapped an ink-stained hand over her mouth and mumbled around it, “I busted it white-water rafting two months ago and still can't afford to get it fixed. You'd think I'd have gotten over being self-conscious by now. Are you Sharon?”

“Yes. You're Marcy?”

“Uh-huh. I'd offer you a chair, but …” She motioned around; all of them were stacked with boxes, papers, and magazines.

Fortunately, I was wearing dark-colored slacks. I sat down on the floor near her, avoiding the slice of tomato, which she seemed to have forgotten. “No problem.”

She dumped what was left of the sandwich into a waste-basket. “So,” she said, “Lar tells me you hate health food.”

“Yes. I can't believe you actually tried his recipe for buckwheat groats.”

“I didn't—I lied to him.”

“I never tried his instant protein drink, either.”

She smiled, unconcerned about the chipped tooth this time, and held out her hand. We shook, our rapport firmly established.

The phone beside Cheung buzzed stridently. She glared at it, snatched up the receiver, and said, “I can't talk—I'm busy.” The she depressed the disconnect button and left the receiver off the hook. “It's the only way I can get any peace around here.”

“Your office is …”

As I was searching for a word that wouldn't offend, she finished for me. “A hellhole.”

“And on top of that your assistant quit.”

“Yeah.” She looked around glumly. “He was an absolute idiot; it may have been the only smart move of his life.”

“I feel bad about taking up your time.”

“Don't. If you hadn't come in I'd still be arguing with the printer—another idiot. Lar said you want to know about Transpacific Corporation.”

“And Lionel Ong, if you know anything about him.”

“Why?”

“I'm investigating a homicide in cooperation with the SFPD and the Mono County Sheriff's Department. One of Ong's associates was shot.”

“Do they suspect Lionel?”

It was not the question so much as the matter-of-fact way she asked it that surprised me. “So far, no. I'm after background information.”

“My boss probably wouldn't want me talking about one of the members. But if it's police business, I guess I should. And you asked at the right time.” She stretched out a bare foot and pulled a cardboard file box toward her with her toes. Felt-tip markings on its side said, “Feb. Interviews.”

“These,” she said as she rummaged in the box, “are materials for our February magazine. We send it out to the business community at large, plus politicians, trade associations, anybody else who might be interested. This one's to showcase our Hong Kong members—or it will if I ever get it out. My assistant was supposed to tape the interviews, but he only did two. Somehow I've got to do three more, including Ong.

“Anyway,” she went on, extracting a file and extending it to me, “this is the research I did on him in preparation. You're welcome to look at it, make copies if you like.”

“Thanks. But first, would you mind telling me about him in your own words?”

Cheung crossed her outstretched ankles, put her arms back for support, and promptly set one hand down on the forgotten slice of tomato. Her nose wrinkled violently. “Oh.
gross!
I can't believe—”

I reached into my jacket pocket and brought out a reasonably clean tissue.

“Oh, thanks. I'm such a slob. You know, I went to J-school—journalism—at Northwestern, and the whole time I pictured myself all dressed up in a terrific suit shouting terribly penetrating questions at a White House press conference. So instead I end up in jeans on the floor of my crummy office, up to my wrists in slimy tomato pulp.”

“Don't feel bad: I studied sociology at Berkeley and dreamed of doing Important Research that would Help People. Instead I ended up running skip traces. And once getting shot in the ass.”

Cheung stopped scrubbing at her hand and stared at me, clearly fascinated. “Really? That must have hurt like hell.”

“Plus you can imagine how embarrassing it was.”

“Still, there must be a lot of satisfaction in your job. I mean, in a way you
are
doing that important research.”

I shrugged. In my up moments I tend to romanticize what I do—the memory of which is always vaguely humiliating in my down moments. During those, I often bleakly reflect that I'm fighting, and mainly losing, a minor skirmish in a global war.

Cheung said, “Well, to get back to the subject—in order to understand Lionel Ong, you've got to understand the Hong Kong money elite. You know much about them?”

I shook my head.

“First of all, except for a few patriarchs, they're relatively young—forty-five, tops. And they control billions. They're also extremely well educated; the rich Hong Kong families send their sons and daughters to the best U.S. colleges and business schools—Harvard, Wharton, M.I.T., Stanford, Michigan—and then turn over their U.S. operations to them.”

“What kind of operations are we talking about?”

“Real-estate development is the big one; they own about a tenth of the downtown here. They're also into parking garages, hotels, apparel companies. Lately there's been an increase in the number of Chinese-owned banks. Not many restaurants.” Cheung smiled. “Too risky, and you can't move enough money that way. Besides, these people shy away from stereotypes.

“They're the real movers and shakers in San Francisco finance these days,” she went on. “Very well connected politically, with a lot of clout with City Hall and the state legislature. Family ties are important; that's the Chinese way. And they can be tough adversaries.”

“How so?”

“Have you ever heard of Sun Tzu's
The Art of War?”

“No.”

“Well, it's a twenty-five-hundred-year-old classic work on military philosophy. There's an in joke that the Hong Kong business community patterns its strategies on it. But nobody really laughs at that. Let's just say they're people who don't enjoy losing—at
any
game.”

I thought of the bullet holes in Mick Erickson's chest and the armed Chinese guards on the mesa above Stone Valley. “How far would they go to avoid losing?”

“That would depend on the individual.”

“And if the individual were Lionel Ong?”

She considered. “I'd say he'd go very far indeed.”

“Tell me more about him. I know the facts are in the file, but I'm also after subjective impressions.”

“Just as you've got to understand the Hong Kong money elite to understand him, you've also got to understand the Ong family. They're hard-driving and ruthless. A lot of deprivation and tragedy in their past. According to my research”—she motioned at the file—“they came out of Guangdong province in south China in the thirties, during the Japanese occupation. I'm not clear on the details, but a couple of the children died, and the mother—Lionel's grandmother—was shot to death during the border crossing. Once they got to Hong Kong, the grandfather became relentless; in less than a generation the family went from virtually nothing to billions.”

“In what industry?”

“Primarily shipping.”

“Lionel was born in Hong Kong?”

“Yes. Attended Saint Stephen's Prep School—a lot of the elite did. The grandfather chose him over his older brother as the one to guide the family enterprises. Lionel was sent to Stanford and later to Harvard Business School with only two instructions—to earn top marks and become an American citizen. And those were all the instructions he needed.”

“The entire family is in the U.S. now?”

“Just Lionel. The rest will probably remain in Hong Kong until all their assets are moved out of there and the territory reverts.”