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“You hear a lot of negatives about the daers back home,” Stuart yelled over the din “But those fuckers are talking out of their asses What’s the loss of a dolphin compared with the health issues that will be helped once the dam is completed? Pulmonary disease is the number-one cause of death in China Did you know that, Inspector? China’s also the second highest producer of regional acid rain and transglobal greenhouse gases”
Neither of these facts surprised Hulan given the quantity of cigarettes that people sy source for the entire country
“So you see,” Stuart said, pausing for a nificantly reduce China’s reliance on fossil fuels, help the country ive the nation a way to live up to its global obligations to reduce harmful emissions”
Men were such strange creatures, Hulan thought She’d arrived unannounced on Stuart’s doorstep, so to speak, and all he could talk about was the daon On the other hand, as he supposed to talk about? Brian? Lily? The thefts? They were standing at the site of the “ project in the history of the world” Why wouldn’t Stuart brag? And ouldn’t he do it in the technical language he knew best?
She needed to look beyond her preconceived notions She’d luory as David’s father—an international entrepreneur and astute businesshts should have been behind an executive-size desk in the penthouse suite of a skyscraper so At the sa it for creature comforts He had his hydrofoil He had his art collection Here on the site, he had a luxury far more plebeian: a fleet of nine trailers, each with the Miller Enterprises logo emblazoned on the side, lined up in three rows
Stuart took her into his office trailer The interior was outfitted in the su could co had buffered it down to a dull throb, and an air conditioner had cooled the air by at least thirty degrees to a refreshing seventy-five
“I thought you collected guis and ruyis,” Hulan said, tipping her head in the direction of a Ming Dynasty teak étagère filled with exquisite museum-quality porcelains
“They’re my special interest, but I have others” Stuart azed at his collection “Back ho Dynasty bronzes—mostly ritual vessels”
“Bronzes? Like Lily’s tripods?”
“Not Lily’s Da Yu’s It’s said he made them with his own hands If that’s so and if they were bronze, then China’s Bronze Age would have to be pushed back quite a ways” Seeing her incomprehension, he explained, “The introduction of bronze is by definition the beginning of culture”
He turned back to his artifacts “But why limit yourself to dates and medium when there’s so much beauty to be found? I collect widelyDynasty Buddhist figures Those kinds of things are very popular right now I recently let Lily put up one of my Buddhist sculptures for auction I didn’t love the piece, so I sold it and used the hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars to buy sos that I’ll probably keep forever”
She noticed that his voice had dropped to a hoarse whisper It struck her that this must be what he sounded like when he made love These bits of bronze and porcelain and stone had laid claim to his heart
“Do you go to a lot of auctions? Are you going to the one tonight at Cosgrove’s?”
Stuart ignored the question, and she let it pass for now It was i the discussion The more in control he felt, the more he would reveal
“You have to surround yourself with things you love,” he said His hand gently caressed a blue-and-white plate with a stylized white melon pattern “Of course I’ll have to sell these when the da as I have this trailer as et to enjoy them, maybe evenOutside everything is raw and rough and mechanical