At the next table, an inmate cradled his son. Fa assumed it was a boy; he had trouble judging the sex of white babies, but Americans liked to color-code their children, and this one was swaddled in blue.
It was an interesting country. Some of his colleagues held a romantic fascination for its culture, but Fa kept it at an objective distance. China and the United States were rivals, not sweethearts, and it didn’t pay to become enamored of these laowai. Despite their protestations to the contrary—their delusional American exceptionalism—there was nothing special about them. For sixty short years they’d mattered as a country. Perhaps in another five thousand they might have a case. Until then, they should remember that they were little more than children. Pompous children, at that.
The rear door of the visitation room opened, and Merrick came through. The devil himself. Fa had built this moment up in his mind for years, but all he could think was that Merrick was shorter than he’d expected. Yet every bit as grand as his portraits suggested. A guard pointed him to Fa’s table, and Merrick’s chin, tilted imperiously upward, turned in his direction. Fa saw Merrick hesitate, wondering at the identity of his visitor, then make his way over between the tables like royalty among lepers.
“Henry Susman, I presume.” Merrick brushed off the seat of the chair before sitting opposite Fa. The Susman line seemed a private joke of some kind, so Fa smiled politely. Merrick smirked at his own cleverness.
Fa waited until Merrick was settled. It seemed an elaborate pantomime until everything was just so. Merrick looked up expectantly.
“Well?”
“Do you know the recidivism rate in this country, Mr. Merrick?”
If the question caught Merrick off guard, he didn’t show it. “I’ve no idea.”
“Sixty percent.”
“That high?”
“Within the first year. Do you know why that is?”
“Why is that?” Merrick asked, leaning forward to read Fa’s name tag. “Mr. Lee Wulff . . .”
“A felon such as yourself must declare his criminal record on job applications. And since it is not illegal to discriminate against convicted felons, few will hire them. What option does the criminal have but to resume a life of crime?”
“A tragic cycle,” Merrick agreed.
“Certainly you will never be permitted to take the Series 7 exam, never be a stockbroker again.”
For a moment, Fa saw regret in Merrick’s face, but the man blinked hard, and when he opened his eyes again, the arrogance had returned. Still, it satisfied Fa to know that Merrick could be ruffled.
“I wonder to myself: What will become of Charles Merrick after he leaves this place?”
“What is it you want?”
“To help you through this difficult transition.”
“To help me? And how would you do that?”
“Money, of course. A great deal of it.”
“How much money?”
“Something in the seven figures, certainly.”
“Hmm.” Merrick studied his cuticles. “That’s very generous of you.”
An interesting reaction, to say the least. A starving man would dance for a dollar. For a million, a starving man would do almost anything. Even a man with a million dollars would sit up at the chance to double his money. But Merrick wasn’t dancing, hadn’t even asked what the money was for. The offer of a million dollars had barely registered, which meant two things, only one of which pleased Fa. First, it meant that Merrick wasn’t a starving man at all. He had money. Enough that a million dollars hadn’t tempted him, not even for a moment. That was problematic, because what did a man like Charles Merrick care about besides money? Second, it meant that if Merrick had money, then the American government had not seized all his assets as they had claimed. Why? And why had they lied about it? Fa thought he knew the answer to that but knew with certainty that he would learn nothing more from Merrick today.
He stood and thanked a stunned Merrick for his time.
“That’s it?” Merrick asked. “What about this seven figures? Aren’t you going to stay and tell me what that’s about?”
“As if that would do any good.”
“Well, you’re the oddest visitor I’ve had, I’ll hand you that.”
“I’ll see you again. Good luck upon your release.”
Fa left Merrick at the table and went through the exit procedures. It was raining lightly when he left the prison, but he hardly noticed. The rain felt good, and he smiled at what he’d learned from Merrick’s behavior. Without question, Merrick had traded something valuable to his government, and in exchange the Americans had permitted him to plead out to a lighter sentence and keep some of his assets.
It had to be Poisonfeather.
What else could that valuable “something” be? Fa could imagine how it had played out. Looking at twenty years in prison, Merrick had sold out his source in China’s government to the CIA. And the CIA had made Merrick’s mole their own. It would have been a simple matter for the CIA to flip Merrick’s source, turning him into Poisonfeather. Selling strategic investment secrets to Merrick Capital would have earned the traitor a date with a firing squad. The very threat of such exposure would have ensured Poisonfeather’s loyalty to the CIA ever since.
This was Fa’s way back. If he learned the identity of Poisonfeather, not even Zhi could prevent Fa’s return to grace.
Merrick would give him Poisonfeather’s name. Not now, of course. First, Fa had to guide Merrick into a more agreeable frame of mind. Once Merrick was starving, he would dance. He would dance for Fa and sing him a pretty song in the bargain.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Charles Merrick’s impromptu sit-down with Agent Ogden hadn’t rattled him until the visit from Lee Wulff. The man calling himself Wulff spoke with no discernible accent, but Merrick recognized him as a Chinese national. And that scared him. Suddenly Ogden’s paranoia didn’t seem quite so paranoid. Merrick had considered notifying Ogden directly but didn’t trust the CIA agent not to overreact. If Ogden had any reason to believe that the Chinese were onto him, mightn’t he make good on his threat to rendition Merrick? Why take the risk? No, better to handle this himself. Once he was free, he’d have more than enough money to protect himself.
All this fuss over one magazine interview. It boggled the mind. Still, Merrick allowed that perhaps the interview hadn’t been the best idea. Although, it would have been fine if that witch from Finance hadn’t goaded him. There ought to be a law, he thought sourly. But the situation was salvageable . . . if only he could make a phone call.