It seemed to me he was taking an unnecessarily conspiratorial tone, skulking in the shadows like a daylight robber.

“When?”

“Last night. Meredith got a call from her father. I don’t know what they talked about but it was a long conversation. I tried to ask Meredith afterwards. I didn’t want to push it.” But clearly he had tried. I waited for the response. “She told me it wasn’t any of my concern.”

“Who did Jeanette contact — her mother or the old man?”

“It sounded like her grandfather got the call,” he said. “She is going up to the family house tonight.”

“Jeanette is?” I asked, both elated at her potential return but wary of that same return.

“No, Meredith.”

The family circle was tightening as Meredith and Valenti closed the ranks. It didn’t sound like Jeff made the cut. Fathering Jeanette apparently didn’t qualify for full membership benefits. Jeff would be strung along like the stray following the wagon train to California. He’d never get a seat in the carriage but I think he was content with that arrangement. It was a better situation than the one for interlopers like me and hangers-on like Sami who were shut out completely, left off at some depot in Topeka.

Sami wasn’t taking it very well. He lingered among the prickly palm fronds as if afraid any movement would slice open his bare skin. He had foolishly led himself to believe he’d earned his way in. All the free booze and morning romps and promises of financial support had lulled him into believing it was real. He looked at me with plaintive eyes as if my sensible car was his last ticket out and last chance to catch up to the train.

“If I learn anything, I’ll call you,” I said, which sounded very much like an empty promise. I subconsciously glanced up at the bank of windows above him. This sent him reeling.

“Did she see me?” he stammered.

Before I could reply he retreated into the cut of drought-tolerant plants and out of sight altogether.

THE FINAL DAYS OF THE GAO LI EMPIRE

The dismantling of the empire that Gao built was executed with methodical precision. This was not a job for pyrotechnic experts and their molar-rattling blasts. This one called for precision, like an army of ants tasked with the dismemberment of the unfortunate cricket who had wandered into its path. While one piece was cut away and carried off, six more were loosened for their eventual removal. It was clean, tidy, and cold-hearted.

The opening move was, on the surface, nothing more than a random event. But in isolation they would all feel that way, until you strung a few together and started to get the feeling that there was some grander force behind them choreographing each move.

Overnight, Proposition 57 emerged from the bowels of the Times local section. Polls dedicated to the issue bubbled up. Interviews on local radio with both proponents and opponents spanned the dial. There was big money behind the blitz and although the slant was fairly even with a slight tilt in favor of the NO supporters, it felt bigger than anything Gao and his cohorts could muster.

I texted Claire: “PR machine in full swing. Yours?”

Her response spoke volumes: “We’re on lockdown.”

When the PR plan is underway you don’t want any interference from your own ranks. The word had gone out to the troops. This was clearly coming from Valenti’s side.

Gao himself was featured in several debates and interviews for both TV and radio. At once he was both anywhere and everywhere and consistently with the same headshot. I realized later, as he must have after it was too late, that he walked right into the trap. The free publicity was a boon for his cause, which he greedily took advantage of at every turn. But he did not realize that his visibility was the goal all along. He needed to be recognized before he could be cut down.

The breaking story came just in time for the evening news. Helicopter footage showed the dilapidated roof of the Victorian in Alhambra with a long line of police streaming into the front door of the house. The street was cordoned off to allow a string of ambulances to come and take the “residents” of the house to a properly-sanctioned medical facility. The news outlets alternated between three sets of footage on continuous loop: the overhead shot of chaos and traffic jams, the image of a hysterical Chinese mother wheeled out on a stretcher while a female EMT carried a swaddled baby in her arms, and the arrest photo of the impassive-faced woman at the helm. She looked dour in person and downright grim in a mug shot. It wasn’t long before someone conjured up the name, “The Baby Mill.”

It was a compelling package of heartache — crying mothers, crying babies, crying relatives — and of outrage — traffic jams, baby tourism, and longer traffic jams. It was all building to that one moment when two images juxtaposed against each other would serve as coup de grace. It happened early the next day, right in time for the morning news, when that now-familiar headshot of Gao Li was placed next to the truly unflattering mug shot of the mastermind behind The Baby Mill. That image alone sealed his fate.

It was a masterstroke of manipulation. Gao was a minority partner with a meaningless stake of less than five percent in a company with a series of properties across the Inland Empire. But despite this tenuous connection to these illegal activities, he was effectively implicated in a grander scheme. It made great fodder. Here was the scion of a respected Chinese-American family, the self-proclaimed standard bearer of the cultural heritage of a proud people, exploiting the weak souls longing for the opportunity to pursue a dream, the very dream his family lived. There were interviews with the victims who spoke from hospital beds about the conditions of the house and the price they had to pay so their poor child could have a chance at the American Dream. Gao followed up one grand blunder with more missteps as he made a foolish attempt at damage control. Proclamations that clarified his limited involvement in the operation went unheeded. Vitriol and attacks on Valenti cast him in a bitter light. The hole may have been dug by Valenti, but Gao jumped in and shoveled the dirt on top.

Jeff waited for the upstart to be slain and dragged through the streets before entering the fray to now stand over the body and proclaim his indignation.

“I am disappointed and upset regarding the revelations surrounding Mr. Li,” the prepared statement read. “As a citizen of the great multi-cultural city of Los Angeles, a long-time admirer and supporter of Chinese art and culture, and as a parent myself, I can no longer in good faith support Proposition 57.”

No one seemed to question how pulling his support from the Proposition was in any way connected to activities associated with the birthing clinic. In the end it didn’t matter. Jeff had successfully maneuvered his way back into the winner’s circle.

The gnawing thought I couldn’t get to go away was a feeling that this was the plan all along, and that I was an unwitting participant in helping it come to fruition.

***

I had a meeting with Gao Li the following day but it wasn’t planned and it didn’t contain two willing participants. I caught him coming out of his “office” at the sign-less storefront in Arcadia. The noodle shop was continuing its brisk business and the brassiere shop its drawn-out decline.

“You got some balls, man,” he said as I approached him in the parking lot. Three of his buddies were with him and were waiting for the thinnest of pretenses to start trouble. “Don’t worry, I’ll get him back.”