CHAPTER TEN
7:43 P.M.:
Dunross finished reading the blue-covered file for the third time. He had read it as soon as it had arrived—as always—then again on the way to the Governor’s Palace. He closed the blue cover and set it onto his lap for a moment, his mind possessed. Now he was in his study on the second floor of the Great House that sat on a knoll on the upper levels of the Peak, the leaded bay windows overlooking floodlit gardens, and then far below, the city and the immensity of the harbor.
The ancient grandfather clock chimed a quarter to eight.
Fifteen minutes to go, he thought. Then our guests arrive and the party begins and we all take part in a new charade. Or perhaps we just continue the same one.
The room had high ceilings and old oak paneling, dark green velvet curtains and Chinese silk rugs. It was a man’s room, comfortable, old, a little worn and very cherished. He heard the muted voices of the servants below. A car came up the hill and passed by.
The phone rang. “Yes? Oh hello, Claudia.”
“I haven’t reached Tsu-yan yet, tai-pan. He wasn’t in his office. Has he called?”
“No. No not yet. You keep trying.”
“Yes. See you in a little while. ’Bye.”
He was sitting in a deep, high-winged chair and wore a dinner jacket, his tie not yet tied. Absently he stared out of the windows, the view ever pleasing. But tonight he was filled with foreboding, thinking about Sevrin and the traitor and all the other evil things the report had foretold.
What to do?
“Laugh,” he said out loud. “And fight.”
He got up and went with his easy stride to the oil painting of Dirk Struan that was on the wall over the mantelpiece. Its frame was heavy and carved gilt and old, the gilt chipped off here and there, and it was secretly hinged on one side. He moved it away from the wall and opened the safe the painting covered. In the safe were many papers, some neatly tied with scarlet ribbons, some ancient, some new, a few small boxes, a neat, well-oiled, loaded Mauser in a clip attached to one of the sides, a box of ammunition, a vast old Bible with the Struan arms etched into the fine old leather and seven blue-covered files similar to the one he had in his hand.
Thoughtfully he slid the file alongside the others in sequence. He stared at them a moment, began to close the safe but changed his mind as his eyes fell on the ancient Bible. His fingers caressed it, then he lifted it out and opened it. Affixed to the thick flyleaf with old sealing wax were halves of two old Chinese bronze coins, crudely broken. Clearly, once upon a time, there had been four such half-coins for there was still the imprint of the missing two and the remains of the same red sealing wax attached to the ancient paper. The handwriting heading the page was beautiful copperplate: “I swear by the Lord God that whomsoever produces the other half of any of these coins, I will grant him whatsoever he asks.” It was signed Dirk Struan, February 23, 1841, and below his signature was Culum Struan’s and all the other tai-pans and the last name was Ian Dunross.
Alongside the first space where once a coin had been was written: “Wu Fang Choi, paid in part, March 29, Year of our Lord 1841,” and signed again by Dirk Struan and cosigned below by Culum Struan and dated 18 June 1845 “paid in full.” Alongside the second: “Sun Chen-yat, paid in full, October 10, 1911,” and signed boldly, Hag Struan.
Ah, Dunross told himself, bemused, what lovely arrogance—to be so secure to be able to sign the book thus and not Tess Struan, for future generations to see.
How many more generations? he asked himself. How many more tai-pans will have to sign blindly and swear the Holy Oath to do the bidding of a man dead almost a century and a half?
Thoughtfully he ran his finger over the jagged edges of the two remaining half-coins. After a moment he closed the Bible firmly, put it into its place again, touched it once for luck and locked the safe. He swung the painting back into its place and stared up at the portrait, standing now with his hands deep in his pockets in front of the mantelpiece, the heavy old oak carved with the Struan arms, chipped and broken here and there, an old Chinese fire screen in front of the huge fireplace.
This oil of Dirk Struan was his favorite and he had taken it out of the long gallery when he became tai-pan and had hung it here in the place of honor—instead of the portrait of Hag Struan that had been over the mantelpiece in the tai-pan’s study ever since there was a Great House. Both had been painted by Aristotle Quance. In this one, Dirk Struan was standing in front of a crimson curtain, broad-shouldered and arrogant, his high-cut coat black and his waistcoat and cravat and ruffled shirt white and high-cut. Heavy eyebrows and strong nose and clean-shaven, with reddish hair and muttonchop sideburns, lips curled and sensual and you could feel the eyes boring into you, their green enhanced by the black and white and crimson.
Dunross half-smiled, not afraid, not envious, more calmed than anything by his ancestor’s gaze—knowing he was possessed, partially possessed by him. He raised his glass of champagne to the painting in half-mocking jest as he had done many times before: “Health!”
The eyes stared back at him.
What would you do, Dirk—Dirk o’ the will o’ the wisp, he thought.
“You’d probably say just find the traitors and kill them,” he mused aloud, “and you’d probably be right.”
The problem of the traitor in the police did not shatter him as much as the information about the Sevrin spy ring, its U.S. connections and the astonishing, secret gains made by the Communists in Britain. Where the hell does Grant get all his info? he asked himself for the hundredth time.
He remembered their first meeting. Alan Medford Grant was a short, elflike, balding man with large eyes and large teeth, in his neat pin-striped suit and bowler hat and he liked him immediately.
“Don’t you worry, Mr. Dunross,” Grant had said when Dunross had hired him in 1960, the moment he became tai-pan. “I assure you there’ll be no conflict of interest with Her Majesty’s Government if I chair your research committee on the nonexclusive basis we’ve discussed. I’ve already cleared it with them in fact. I’ll only give you—confidentially of course, for you personally of course, and absolutely not for publication—I’ll only give you classified material that does not, in my opinion, jeopardize the national interest. After all, our interests are the same there, aren’t they?”
“I think so.”
“May I ask how you heard of me?”
“We have friends in high places, Mr. Grant. In certain circles your name is quite famous. Perhaps even a foreign secretary would recommend you,” he had added delicately.
“Ah yes.”
“Our arrangement is satisfactory?”
“Yes—one year initially, extended to five if everything goes well. After five?”
“Another five,” Dunross said. “If we achieve the results I want, your retainer will be doubled.”
“Ah. That’s very generous. But may I ask why you’re being so generous—perhaps extravagant would be the word—with me and this projected committee?”
“Sun Tzu said: ‘What enables a wise sovereign or good general to strike and to conquer and to achieve things beyond the reach of normal men is foreknowledge. Foreknowledge comes only through spies. Nothing is of more importance to the state than the quality of its spies. It is ten thousand times cheaper to pay the best spies lavishly than even a tiny army poorly.’”
Alan Medford Grant beamed. “Quite right! My 8,500 pounds a year is lavish indeed, Mr. Dunross. Oh yes. Yes indeed.”
“Can you think of a better investment for me?”
“Not if I perform correctly, if I and the ones I choose are the best to be had. Even so, 30-odd thousand pounds a year in salaries—a fund of up to 100,000 pounds to draw on for … for informants and information, all secret monies … well, I hope you will be satisfied with your investment.”
“If you’re the best I’ll recoup a thousandfold. I expect to recoup a thousandfold,” he had said, meaning it.
“I’ll do everything in my power of course. Now, specifically what sort of information do you want?”
“Anything and everything, commercial, political, that’d help Struan’s plan ahead, with accent on the Pacific Rim, on Russian, American and Japanese thinking. We’d probably know more about Chinese attitudes ourselves. Please give me more rather than less. Actually anything could be valuable because I want to take Struan’s out of the China trade—more specifically I want the company international and want to diversify out of our present dependence on China trade.”
“Very well. First: I would not like to trust our reports to the mails.”
“I’ll arrange a personal courier.”
“Thank you. Second: I must have free range to select, appoint and remove the other members of the committee—and spend the money as I see fit?”
“Agreed.”
“Five members will be sufficient.”
“How much do you want to pay them?”
“5,000 pounds a year for a nonexclusive retainer each would be excellent. I can get top men for that. Yes. I’ll appoint associate members for special studies as I need them. As, er, as most of our contacts will be abroad, many in Switzerland, could funds be available there?”
“Say I deposit the full amount we’ve agreed quarterly in a numbered Swiss account. You can draw funds as you need them—your signature or mine only. You account to me solely, quarterly in arrears. If you want to erect a code that’s fine with me.”
“Excellent. I won’t be able to name anyone—I can’t account to whom I give money.”
After a pause Dunross had said, “All right.”
“Thank you. We understand one another, I think. Can you give me an example of what you want?”
“For example, I don’t want to get caught like my predecessor was over Suez.”
“Oh! You mean the 1956 fiasco when Eisenhower betrayed us again and caused the failure of the British-French-Israeli attack on Egypt—because Nasser had nationalized the canal?”
“Yes. That cost us a fortune—it wrecked our Middle East interests, almost ruined us. If the previous tai-pan’d known about a possible closure of Suez we could have made a fortune booking cargo space—increasing our fleet … or if we’d had an advanced insight into American thinking, particularly that Eisenhower would side again with Soviet Russia against us, we could certainly have cut our losses.”
The little man had said sadly, “You know he threatened to freeze all British, French and Israeli assets in the States instantly if we did not at once withdraw from Egypt when we were a few hours from victory? I think all our present problems in the Middle East stem from that U.S. decision. Yes. Inadvertently the U.S. approved international piracy for the first time and set a pattern for future piracies. Nationalization. What a joke! Theft is a better word—or piracy. Yes. Eisenhower was ill-advised. And very ill-advised to go along with the fatuous political Yalta agreement of an ailing Roosevelt, the incompetent Attlee to allow Stalin to gorge most of Europe, when it was militarily clear to even the most stupid politician or hidebound general that it was contrary to our absolute national interest, ours and the United States to hold back. I think Roosevelt hated us really, and our British Empire.”
The little man steepled his fingers and beamed. “I’m afraid there’s one big disadvantage in employing me, Mr. Dunross. I’m entirely pro-British, anti-Communist, and particularly anti-KGB, which is the main instrument of Soviet foreign policy, which is openly and forever committed to our destruction, so some of my more peppery forecasts you can discount, if you wish. I’m entirely against a left-wing dominated Labour Party and I will constantly remind anyone who will listen that the anthem of the Labour Party’s ‘The Red Flag.’” Alan Medford Grant smiled in his pixy way. “It’s best you know where you stand in the beginning. I’m royalist, loyalist and believe in the British parliamentary way. I’ll never knowingly give you false information though my evaluations will be slanted. May I ask what your politics are?”
“We have none in Hong Kong, Mr. Grant. We don’t vote; there are no elections—we’re a colony, particularly a free-port colony, not a democracy. The Crown rules—actually the governor rules despotically for the Crown. He has a legislative council but it’s a rubber-stamp council and the historic policy is laissez-faire. Wisely he leaves things alone. He listens to the business community, makes social changes very cautiously and leaves everyone to make money or not make money, to build, expand, go broke, to go or to come, to dream or to stay awake, to live or to die as best you can. And the maximum tax is 15 percent but only on money earned in Hong Kong. We don’t have politics here, don’t want politics here—neither does China want us to have any here. They’re for the status quo too. My personal politics? I’m royalist, I’m for freedom, for freebooting and free trade. I’m a Scotsman, I’m for Struan’s, I’m for laissez-faire in Hong Kong and freedom throughout the world.”
“I think we understand one another. Good. I’ve never worked for an individual before—only the government. This will be a new experience for me. I hope I will satisfy you.” Grant paused and thought a moment. “Like Suez in ’56?” The lines beside the little man’s eyes crinkled. “Very well, plan that the Panama Canal will be lost to America.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“Oh don’t look so shocked, Mr. Dunross! It’s too easy. Give it ten or fifteen years of enemy spadework and lots of liberal talk in America, ably assisted by do-gooders who believe in the benevolence of human nature, add to all this a modest amount of calculated Panamanian agitation, students and so on—preferably, ah, always students—artfully and secretly assisted by a few highly trained, patient, professional agitators and oh so secret KGB expertise, finance and a long-range plan—ergo, in due course the canal could be out of U.S. hands into the enemy’s.”
“They’d never stand for it.”
“You’re right, Mr. Dunross, but they will sit for it. What could be a better garrotte in time of hostilities, or even crisis, against your main, openly stated capitalistic enemy than to be able to inhibit the Panama Canal or rock it a little? One ship sunk in any one of a hundred spots, or a lock wrecked, could dam up the canal for years.”
Dunross remembered how he had poured two more drinks before answering, and then he had said, “You’re seriously suggesting we should make contingency plans against that.”
“Yes,” the little man said with his extraordinary innocence. “I’m very serious about my job, Mr. Dunross. My job, the one I’ve chosen for me, is to seek out, to uncover and evaluate enemy moves. I’m not anti-Russian or anti-Chinese or anti-East German or anti any of that bloc—on the absolute contrary I want desperately to help them. I’m convinced that we’re in a state of war, that the enemy of all the people is the Communist Party member, whether British, Soviet, Chinese, Hungarian, American, Irish … even Martian … and all are linked in one way or another; that the KGB, like it or not, is in the center of their web.” He sipped the drink Dunross had just refilled for him. “This is marvelous whiskey, Mr. Dunross.”
“It’s Loch Vey—it comes from a small distillery near our homelands in Ayr. It’s a Struan company.”
“Marvelous!” Another appreciative sip of the whiskey and Dunross reminded himself to send Alan Medford Grant a case for Christmas—if the initial reports proved interesting.
“I’m not a fanatic, Mr. Dunross, nor a rabble-rouser. Just a sort of reporter and forecaster. Some people collect stamps, I collect secrets….”
The lights of a car rounding the half-hidden curve of the road below distracted Dunross momentarily. He wandered over to the window and watched the car until it had gone, enjoying the sound of the highly tuned engine. Then he sat in a high-winged chair and let his mind drift again. Yes, Mr. Grant, you certainly collect secrets, he thought, staggered as usual by the scope of the little man’s knowledge.
Sevrin—Christ almighty! If that’s true …
How accurate are you this time? How far do I trust you this time—how far do I gamble?
In previous reports Grant had given two projections that, so far, could be proved. A year in advance, Grant had predicted that de Gaulle would veto Britain’s effort to join the EEC, that the French general’s posture would be increasingly anti-British, anti-American and pro-Soviet, and that de Gaulle would, prompted by outside influences and encouraged by one of his closest advisors—an immensely secret, covert KGB mole—mount a long-term attack on the U.S. economy by speculation in gold. Dunross had dismissed this as farfetched and so had lost a potential fortune.
Recently, six months in advance, Grant had forecast the missile crisis in Cuba, that Kennedy would slam down the gauntlet, blockade Cuba and exert the necessary pressure and not buckle under the strain of brinkmanship, that Khrushchev would back off under pressure. Gambling that Grant was correct this time—though a Cuban missile crisis had seemed highly unlikely at the time forecast—Dunross had made Struan’s half a million pounds by buying Hawaiian sugar futures, another 600,000 on the stock market, plus 600,000 for the tai-pan’s secret fund—and cemented a long-range plan to invest in Hawaiian sugar plantations as soon as he could find the financial tool. And you’ve got it now, he told himself gleefully. Par-Con.
“You’ve almost got it,” he muttered, correcting himself.
How far do I trust this report? Thus far AMG’s committee’s been a gigantic investment for all his meanderings, he thought. Yes. But it’s almost like having your own astrologer. A few accurate forecasts don’t mean they’ll all be. Hitler had his own forecaster. So did Julius Caesar. Be wise, be cautious, he reminded himself.
What to do? It’s now or never.
Sevrin. Alan Medford Grant had written: “Documents brought to us and substantiated by the French spy Marie d’Orleans caught by the Sûreté June 16 indicate that the KGB Department V (Disinformation—FAR EAST) have in situ a hitherto unknown, deep-cover espionage network throughout the Far East, code name Sevrin. The purpose of Sevrin is clearly stated in the stolen Head Document:
“Aim: To cripple revisionist China—formally acknowledged by the Central Committee of the USSR as the main enemy, second only to capitalist U.S.A.
“Procedure: The permanent obliteration of Hong Kong as the bastion of capitalism in the Far East and China’s preeminent source of all foreign currency, foreign assistance and all technical and manufactured assistance of every kind.
“Method: Long-term infiltration of the press and media, the government, police, business and education with friendly aliens controlled by Center—but only in accordance with most special procedures throughout Asia.
“Initiation date: Immediate.
“Duration of operation: Provisionally thirty years.
“Target date: 1980–83.
“Classification: Red One.
“Funding: Maximum.
“Approval: L.B. March 14, 1950.
“It’s interesting to note,” Grant had continued, “that the document is signed in 1950 by L.B.—presumed to be Lavrenti Beria—when Soviet Russia was openly allied with Communist China, and that, even in those days, China was secretly considered their Number Two enemy. (Our previous report 3/1962, Russia versus China refers.)
“China, historically, is the great prize that always was—and ever will be—sought by imperialistic and hegemonic Russia. Possession of China, or its mutilation into balkanized subject states, is the perpetual keystone of Russian foreign policy. First is, of course, the obliteration of Western Europe, for then, Russia believes, China can be swallowed at will.
“The documents reveal that the Hong Kong cell of Sevrin consists of a resident controller, code name Arthur, and six agents. We know nothing about Arthur, other than that he has been a KGB agent since recruitment in England in the thirties (it’s not known if he was born in England, or if his parents are English, but he would be in his late forties or early fifties). His mission is, of course, a long-term, deep-cover operation.
“Supporting top-secret intelligence documents stolen from the Czechoslovak STB (State Secret Security) dated April 6, 1959, translate in part, ‘… between 1946 and 1959 six key, deep-cover agents have been recruited through information supplied by the controller, Arthur: one each in the Hong Kong Colonial Office (code name Charles), Treasury (code name Mason), Naval Base (John), the Bank of London and China (Vincent), the Hong Kong Telephone Company (William), and Struan and Company (Frederick). According to normal procedures only the controller knows the true identity of the others. Seven safe houses have been established. Among them are Sinclair Towers on Hong Kong Island and the Nine Dragons Hotel in Kowloon. Sevrin’s New York contact has the code name Guillio. He is very important to us because of his Mafia and CIA connections.’”
Grant had continued, Guillio is believed to be Vincenzo Banastasio, a substantial racketeer and the present don of the Sallapione family. This is being checked through our U.S. sources. We don’t know if the deep-cover enemy agent in the police (covered in detail in another section) is part of Sevrin or not but presume he is.
“In our opinion, China will be forced to seek ever-increasing amounts of trade with the West to counterbalance imperialist Soviet hegemony and to fill the void and chaos created by the sudden withdrawal in 1960 of all Soviet funding and technicians. China’s armed forces badly need modernizing. Harvests have been bad. Therefore all forms of strategic materials and military hardware will find a ready market for many years to come, and food, basic foodstuffs. The long-range purchase of American rice futures is recommended.
“I have the honor to be, sir, your obedient servant, AMG, London, August 15, 1963.”
Jets and tanks and nuts and bolts and rockets and engines and trucks and petrol and tires and electronics and food, Dunross thought, his mind soaring. A limitless spectrum of trade goods, easy to obtain, easy to ship, and nothing on earth like a war for profit if you can trade. But China’s not buying now, whatever they need, whatever Grant says.
Who could Arthur be?
Who in Struan’s? Jesus Christ! John Chen and Tsu-yan and smuggled guns and now a KGB agent within. Who? What about…
There was a gentle knock on the door.
“Come in,” he said, recognizing his wife’s knock.
“Ian, it’s almost eight,” Penelope, his wife, said, “I thought I’d better tell you. You know how you are.”
“Yes.”
“How did it go today? Awful about John Chen, isn’t it? I suppose you read the papers? Are you coming down?”
“Yes. Champagne?”
He poured for her and replenished his glass. “Oh by the way, Penn, I invited a fellow I met this afternoon, an ex-RAF type. He seemed a decent fellow—Peter Marlowe.”
“Fighters?”
“Yes. But Hurricanes—and Spits. Is that a new dress?”
“Yes.”
“You look pretty,” he said.
“Thank you but I’m not. I feel so old, but thank you.” She sat in the other winged chair, her perfume as delicate as her features. “Peter Marlowe, you said?”
“Yes. Poor bugger got caught in Java in ’42. He was a POW for three and a half years.”
“Oh, poor man. He was shot down?”
“No, the Japanese plastered the ’drome before he could scramble. Perhaps he was lucky. The Zeros got two on the ground and the last two just after they were airborne—the pilots flamed in. Seems those four Hurricanes were the last of the Few—the last of the whole air defense of the Far East. What a balls-up that was!”
“Terrible.”
“Yes. Thank God our war was in Europe.” Dunross watched her. “He said he was a year in Java, then the Japanese sent him to Singapore on a work party.”
“To Changi?” she asked, her voice different.
“Yes.”
“Oh!”
“He was there for two and a half years.” Changi in Malay meant “clinging vine,” and Changi was the name of the jail in Singapore that was used by the Japanese in World War II for one of their infamous prisoner-of-war camps.
She thought a moment, then smiled a little nervously. “Did he know Robin there?” Robin Grey was her brother, her only living relative: her parents had been killed in an air raid in London in 1943, just before she and Dunross were married.
“Marlowe said yes, he seemed to remember him, but clearly he didn’t want to talk about those days so I let it drop.”
“I can imagine. Did you tell him Robin was my brother?”
“No.”
“When’s Robin due back here?”
“I don’t know exactly. In a few days. This afternoon the governor told me the delegation’s in Peking now.” A British Parliamentary Trade Delegation drawn from MPs of the three parties—Conservative, Liberal and Labour—had been invited out from London by Peking to discuss all manner of trade. The delegation had arrived in Hong Kong two weeks ago and had gone directly on to Canton where all trade negotiations were conducted. It was very rare for anyone to get an invitation, let alone a parliamentary delegation—and even rarer to be invited on to Peking. Robin Grey was one of the members—representative of the Labour Party. “Penn darling, don’t you think we should acknowledge Robin, give a reception for him? After all, we haven’t seen him for years, this’s the first time he’s been to Asia—isn’t it time you buried the hatchet and made peace?”
“He’s not invited to my house. Any of my houses.”
“Isn’t it time you relaxed a little, let bygones be bygones?”
“No, I know him, you don’t. Robin has his life and we have ours, that’s what he and I agreed years ago. No, I’ve no wish to see him ever again. He’s awful, dangerous, foul-mouthed and a bloody bore.”
Dunross laughed. “I agree he’s obnoxious and I detest his politics—but he’s only one of a half dozen MPs. This delegation’s important. I should do something to entertain them, Penn.”
“Please do, Ian. But preferably not here—or else tell me in good time so I can have the vapors and see that the children do the same. It’s a matter of face and that’s the end of it.” Penelope tossed her head and shook off her mood. “God! Let’s not let him spoil this evening! What’s this Marlowe doing in Hong Kong?”
“He’s a writer. Wants to do a book on Hong Kong, he said. He lives in America now. His wife’s coming too. Oh, by the way, I also invited the Americans, Linc Bartlett and Casey Tcholok.”
“Oh!” Penelope Dunross laughed. “Oh well, four or forty extra won’t make any difference at all—I won’t know most of them anyway, and Claudia’s organized everything with her usual efficiency.” She arched an eyebrow. “So! A gun-runner amongst the pirates! That won’t even cause a ripple.”
“Is he?”
“Everyone says so. Did you see the piece in this afternoon’s Mirror, Ian? Ah Tat’s convinced the American is bad joss—she informed the whole staff, the children and me—so that makes it official. Ah Tat told Adryon that her astrologer insisted she tell you to watch out for bad influence from the East. Ah Tat’s sure that means the Yanks. Hasn’t she bent your ear yet?”
“Not yet.”
“God, I wish I could chatter Cantonese like you and the children. I’d tell that old harpy to keep her superstitions and opinions to herself—she’s a bad influence.”
“She’d give her life for the children.”
“I know she’s your gan sun and almost brought you up and thinks she’s God’s gift to the Dunross clan. But as far as I’m concerned she’s a cantankerous, loathsome old bitch and I hate her.” Penelope smiled sweetly. “I hear the American girl’s pretty.”
“Attractive—not pretty. She’s giving Andrew a bad time.”
“I can imagine. A lady talking business! What are we coming to in this great world of ours? Is she any good?”
“Too soon to tell. But she’s very smart. She’s—she’ll make things awkward certainly.”
“Have you seen Adryon tonight?”
“No—what’s up?” he asked, instantly recognizing the tone of voice.
“She’s been into my wardrobe again—half my best nylons are gone, the rest are scattered, my scarves are all jumbled up, my new blouse’s missing and my new belt’s disappeared. She’s even whipped my best Hermès … that child’s the end!”
“Nineteen’s hardly a child,” he said wearily.
“She’s the end! The number of times I’ve told her!”
“I’ll talk to her again.”
“That won’t do a bit of good.”
“I know.”
She laughed with him. “She’s such a pill.”
“Here.” He handed her a slim box. “Happy twentieth!”
“Oh thank you, Ian. Yours is downstairs. You’ll…” She stopped and opened the box. It contained a carved jade bracelet, the jade inset into silver filigree, very fine, very old—a collector’s piece. “Oh how lovely, thank you, Ian.” She put it on her wrist over the thin gold chain she was wearing and he heard neither real pleasure nor real disappointment under her voice, his ears tuned to her. “It’s beautiful,” she said and leaned forward and brushed her lips against his cheek. “Thank you, darling. Where did you get it? Taiwan?”
“No, here on Cat Street. At Wong Chun Kit’s, he ga—”
The door flew open and a girl barreled in. She was tall and slim and oh so fair and she said in a breathless rush, “I hope it’s all right I invited a date tonight and I just had the call that he’s coming and he’ll be late but I thought it’d be okay. He’s cool. And very trick.”
“For the love of God, Adryon,” Dunross said mildly, “how many times do I have to ask you to knock before you charge in here and would you kindly talk English? What the hell’s trick?”
“Good, great, cool, trick. Sorry, Father, but you really are rather square because cool and trick are very in, even in Hong Kong. See you soon, have to dash, after the party I’m going out—I’ll be late so don’t—”
“Wait a min—”
“That’s my blouse, my new blouse,” Penelope burst out. “Adryon, you take it off this minute! I’ve told you fifty times to stay the hell out of my wardrobe.”
“Oh, Mother,” Adryon said as sharply, “you don’t need it, can’t I borrow it for this evening?” Her tone changed. “Please? Pretty please? Father, talk to her.” She switched to perfect amah Cantonese, “Honorable Father … please help your Number One Daughter to achieve the unachievable or I shall weep weep weep oh ko …” Then back into English in the same breath, “Mother … you don’t need it and I’ll look after it, truly. Please?”
“No.”
“Come on, pretty please, I’ll look after it, I promise.”
“No.”
“Mother!”
“Well if you pr—”
“Oh thanks.” The girl beamed and turned and rushed out and the door slammed behind her.
“Jesus bloody Christ,” Dunross said sourly, “why the hell does a door always happen to slam behind her!”
“Well at least it’s not deliberate now.” Penelope sighed. “I don’t think I could go through that siege again.”
“Nor me. Thank God Glenna’s reasonable.”
“It’s purely temporary, Ian. She takes after her father, that one, like Adryon.”
“Huh! I don’t have a filthy temper,” he said sharply. “And since we’re on the subject I hope to God Adryon has found someone decent to date instead of the usual shower! Who is this she’s bringing?”
“I don’t know, Ian. This is the first I’ve heard of it too.”
“They’re always bloody awful! Her taste in men’s appalling.… Remember that melon-headed berk with the neolithic arms that she was ‘madly in love with’? Christ Jesus, she was barely fifteen an—”
“She was almost sixteen.”
“What was his name? Ah yes, Byron. Byron for chrissake!”
“You really shouldn’t have threatened to blow his head off, Ian. It was just puppy love.”
“It was gorilla bloody love, by God,” Dunross said even more sourly. “He was a bloody gorilla.… You remember that other one, the one before bloody Byron—the psychiatric bastard … what was his name?”
“Victor. Yes, Victor Hopper. He was the one … oh yes, I remember, he was the one who asked if it was all right if he slept with Adryon.”
“He what?”
“Oh yes.” She smiled up at him so innocently. “I didn’t tell you at the time … thought I’d better not.”
“He what?”
“Don’t get yourself all worked up, Ian. That’s at least four years ago. I told him no, not at the moment, Adryon’s only fourteen, but yes, certainly, when she was twenty-one. That was another that died on the vine.”
“Jesus Christ! He asked you if he co—”
“At least he asked, Ian! That was something. It’s all so very ordinary.” She got up and poured more champagne into his glass, and some for herself. “You’ve only got another ten years or so of purgatory, then there’ll be the grandchildren. Happy anniversary and the best of British to you!” She laughed and touched his glass and drank and smiled at him.
“You’re right again,” he said and smiled back, liking her very much. So many years, good years. I’ve been lucky, he thought. Yes. I was blessed that first day. It was at his RAF station at Biggin Hill, a warm, sunny August morning in 1940 during the Battle of Britain and she was a WAAF and newly posted there. It was his eighth day at war, his third mission that day and first kill. His Spitfire was latticed with bullet holes, parts of his wing gone, his tail section tattooed. By all the rules of joss, he should be dead but he wasn’t and the Messerschmitt was and her pilot was and he was home and safe and blood raging, drunk with fear and shame and relief that he had come back and the youth he had seen in the other cockpit, the enemy, had burned screaming as he spiraled.
“Hello, sir,” Penelope Grey had said. “Welcome home sir. Here.” She had given him a cup of hot sweet tea and she had said nothing else though she should have begun debriefing him at once—she was in Signals. She said nothing but smiled and gave him time to come out of the skies of death into life again. He had not thanked her, just drank the tea and it was the best he had ever had.
“I got a Messerschmitt,” he had said when he could talk, his voice trembling like his knees. He could not remember unsnapping his harness or getting out of his cockpit or climbing into the truck with the other survivors. “It was a 109.”
“Yes sir, Squadron Leader Miller has already confirmed the kill and he says to please get ready, you’re to scramble any minute again. You’re to take Poppa Mike Kilo this time. Thank you for the kill, sir, that’s one less of those devils … oh how I wish I could go up with you to help you all kill those monsters….”
But they weren’t monsters, he thought, at least the first pilot and first plane that he had killed had not been—just a youth like himself, perhaps the same age, who had burned screaming, died screaming, a flaming falling leaf, and this afternoon or tomorrow or soon it would be his turn—too many of them, the enemy, too few of us.
“Did Tommy get back, Tom Lane?”
“No sir, sorry sir. He … the squadron leader said Flight Lieutenant Lane was jumped over Dover.”
“I’m petrified of burning, going down,” he had said.
“Oh you won’t, sir, not you. They won’t shoot you down. I know. You won’t, sir, no, not you. They’ll never get you, never never never,” she had said, pale blue eyes, fair hair and fair of face, not quite eighteen but strong, very strong and very confident.
He had believed her and her faith had carried him through four more months of missions—sometimes five missions each day—and more kills and though she was wrong and later he was blown out of the sky, he lived and burned only a little. And then, when he came out of the hospital, grounded forever, they had married.
“Doesn’t seem like twenty years,” he said, holding in his happiness.
“Plus two before,” she said, holding in her happiness.
“Plus two be—”
The door opened. Penelope sighed as Ah Tat stalked into the room, talking Cantonese fifty to the dozen, “Ayeeyah, my Son, but aren’t you ready yet, our honored guests will be here any moment and your tie’s not tied and that motherless foreigner from North Kwantung brought unnecessarily into our house to cook tonight … that smelly offspring of a one-dollar strumpet from North Kwantung where all the best thieves and worst whores come from who fancies himself a cook … ha! … This man and his equally despicable foreign staff is befouling our kitchen and stealing our peace. Oh ko,” the tiny wizened old woman continued without a breath as her clawlike fingers reached up automatically and deftly tied his tie, “and that’s not all! Number Two Daughter … Number Two Daughter just won’t put on the dress that Honorable First Wife has chosen for her and her rage is flying to Java! Eeeee, this family! Here, my Son,” she took the telex envelope out of her pocket and handed it to Dunross, “here’s another barbarian message bringing more congratulations for this happy day that your poor old Mother had to carry up the stairs herself on her poor old legs because the other good-for-nothing servants are good for nothing and bone idle….” She paused momentarily for breath.
“Thank you, Mother,” he said politely.
“In your Honorable Father’s day, the servants worked and knew what to do and your old Mother didn’t have to endure dirty strangers in our Great House!” She walked out muttering more curses on the caterers. “Now don’t you be late, my Son, otherwise …” She was still talking after she’d closed the door.
“What’s up with her?” Penelope asked wearily.
“She’s rattling on about the caterers, doesn’t like strangers—you know what she’s like.” He opened the envelope. In it was the folded telex.
“What was she saying about Glenna?” his wife asked, having recognized yee-chat, Second Daughter, though her Cantonese was minimal.
“Just that she was having a fit about the dress you picked for her.”
“Ah Tat didn’t say. Look, Penn, perhaps Glenna should just go to bed—it’s almost past her bedtime now and sh—”
“Dreamer! No chance till hell freezes over. Even Hag Struan wouldn’t keep Glenna from her first grown-up as she calls it! You did agree Ian, you agreed, I didn’t, you did!”
“Yes, but don’t you th—”
“No. She’s quite old enough. After all she’s thirteen going on thirty.” Penelope calmly finished her champagne. “Even so I shall now deal with that young lady never mind.” She got up. Then she saw his face. He was staring at the telex.
“What’s the matter?”
“One of our people’s been killed. In London. Grant. Alan Medford Grant.”
“Oh. I don’t know him, do I?”
“I think you met him once in Ayrshire. He was a small, pixyish man. He was at one of our parties at Castle Avisyard—it was on our last leave.”
She frowned. “Don’t remember.” She took the offered telex. It read: “Regret to inform you A. M. Grant was killed in motorcycle accident this morning. Details will follow when I have them. Sorry. Regards, Kiernan.”
“Who’s Kiernan?”
“His assistant.”
“Grant’s … he was a friend?”
“In a way.”
“He’s important to you?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, sorry.”
Dunross forced himself to shrug and keep his voice level. But in his mind he was cursing obscenely. “Just one of those things. Joss.”
She wanted to commiserate with him, recognizing at once the depth of his shock. She knew he was greatly perturbed, trying to hide it—and she wanted to know immediately the who and the why of this unknown man. But she held her peace.
That’s my job, she reminded herself. Not to ask questions, to be calm and to be there—to pick up the pieces, but only when I’m allowed to. “Are you coming down?”
“In a moment.”
“Don’t be long, Ian.”
“Yes.”
“Thanks again for my bracelet,” she said, liking it very much and he said, “It’s nothing,” but she knew he had not really heard her. He was already at the phone asking for long distance. She walked out and closed the door quietly and stood miserably in the long corridor that led to the east and west wings, her heart thumping. Curse all telexes and all telephones and curse Struan’s and curse Hong Kong and curse all parties and all hangers-on and oh how I wish we could leave forever and forget Hong Kong and forget work and the Noble House and Big Business and the Pacific Rim and the stock market and all curs—
“Motherrrrr!”
She heard Glenna’s voice screeching from the depths of her room around the far corner in the east wing and at once all her senses concentrated. There was frustrated rage in Glenna’s voice, but no danger, so she did not hurry, just called back, “I’m coming … what is it, Glenna?”
“Where are youuuuu?”
“I’m coming, darling,” she called out, her mind now on important things. Glenna will look pretty in that dress, she thought. Oh I know, she told herself happily, I’ll lend her my little rope of pearls. That’ll make it perfect.
Her pace quickened.
Across the harbor in Kowloon, Divisional Staff Sergeant Tang-po, CID, the High Dragon, climbed the rickety stairs and went into the room. The inner core of his secret triad was already there. “Get this through that bone some of you carry between your ears: the Dragons want Noble House Chen found and these pox-dripping, dung-eating Werewolves caught so fast even gods will blink!”
“Yes, Lord,” his underlings chorused, shocked at the quality of his voice.
They were in Tang-po’s safe house, a small, drab three-room apartment behind a drab front door on the fifth floor of an equally drab apartment building over very modest shops in a dirty alley just three blocks from their police headquarters of Tsim Sha Tsui District that faced the harbor and the Peak on the tip of Kowloon Peninsula. There were nine of them: one sergeant, two corporals, the rest constables—all plainclothes detectives of the CID, all Cantonese, all handpicked and sworn with blood oaths to loyalty and secrecy. They were Tang-po’s secret tong or Brotherhood, which protected all street gambling in Tsim Sha Tsui District.
“Look everywhere, talk to everyone. We have three days,” Tang-po said. He was a strongly built man of fifty-five with slightly graying hair and heavy eyebrows and his rank was the highest he could have and not be an officer. “This is the order of me—all my Brother Dragons—and the High One himself. Apart from that,” he added sourly, “Big Mountain of Dung has promised to demote and post us to the border or other places, all of us, if we fail, and that’s the first time he’s ever threatened that. All gods piss from a great height on all foreign devils, particularly those motherless fornicators who won’t accept their rightful squeeze and behave like civilized persons!”
“Amen!” Sergeant Lee said with great fervor. He was a sometimes Catholic because in his youth he had gone to a Catholic school.
“Big Mountain of Dung made it quite clear this afternoon: results, or off to the border where there’s not a pot to piss in and no squeeze within twenty miles. Ayeeyah, all gods protect us from failure!”
“Yes,” Corporal Ho said for all of them, making a note in his book. He was a sharp-featured man who was studying at night school to become an accountant, and it was he who kept the Brotherhood’s books and minutes of their meetings.
“Elder Brother,” Sergeant Lee began politely, “is there a fixed reward we can offer our informers? Is there a minimum or a maximum?”
“Yes,” Tang-po told them, then added carefully, “The High Dragon has said 100,000 HK if within three days …” The room was suddenly silent at the vastness of the reward. “… half for finding Noble House Chen, half for finding the kidnappers. And a bonus of 10,000 to the Brother whose informer produces either—and promotion.”
“One 10,000 for Chen and one ten for the kidnappers?” the corporal asked. O gods grant me the prize, he prayed, as they all were praying. “Is that right, Elder Brother?”
“Dew neh loh moh that’s what I said,” Tang-po replied sharply, puffing his cigarette. “Are your ears filled with pus?”
“Oh no, sorry Honorable Sir. Please excuse me.”
All their minds were on the prize. Sergeant Lee was thinking, Eeee, 10,000 and—and promotion if in three days! Ah, if within three days then it will be in time for Race Day and then … O all gods great and small bless me this once and a second time on Saturday’s double quinella.
Tang-po was referring to his notes. “Now to other business. Through the cooperation of Daytime Chang and the Honorable Song, the Brotherhood can use their showers daily at the V and A between 8:00 A.M. and 9:00 A.M., not 7:00 A.M. to 8:00 A.M. as before. Wives and concubines on a roster basis. Corporal Ho, you rearrange the roster.”
“Hey, Honored Lord,” one of the young detectives called out, “did you hear about Golden Pubics?”
“Eh?”
The youth related what Daytime Chang had told him this morning when he went to the hotel kitchens for breakfast. They all guffawed.
“Ayeeyah, imagine that! Like gold, heya?”
“Have you ever pillowed a foreign devil, Honorable Lord?”
“No never. No. Ayeeyah, the very thought … ugh!”
“I’d like one,” Lee said with a laugh, “just to see what was what!”
They laughed with him and one called out, “A Jade Gate’s a Jade Gate but they say some foreign devils are lopsided!”
“I heard they were cleft sideways!”
“Honored Sir, there was another thing,” the young detective said when the laughter had died down. “Daytime Chang told me to tell you Golden Pubics has a miniature transmitter-receiver—best he’d ever seen, better than anything we’ve got, even in Special Branch. She carries it around with her.”
Tang-po stared at him. “That’s curious. Now why should a foreign devil woman want a thing like that?”
Lee said, “Something to do with the guns?”
“I don’t know, Younger Brother. Women with transceivers? Interesting. It wasn’t in her luggage when our people went through it last night, so it must’ve been in her handbag. Good, very good. Corporal Ho, after our meeting leave a gift for Daytime Chang—a couple of reds.” A red note was 100 HK. “I’d certainly like to know who those guns were for,” he added thoughtfully. “Make sure all our informers know I’m very interested in that too.”
“Is Noble House Chen tied into the guns and these two foreign devils?” Lee asked.
“I think so, Younger Brother. I think so. Yes. Another curiosity—to send an ear is not civilized—not so soon. Not civilized at all.”
“Ah, then you think the Werewolves’re foreign devils? Or fornicating half-persons? Or Portuguese?”
“I don’t know,” Tang-po said sourly. “But it happened in our district, so it’s a matter of face for all of us. Big Mountain of Dung is very enraged. His face is in the mangle too.”
“Eeee,” Lee said, “that fornicator has such a very filthy temper.”
“Yes. Perhaps the information about the transceiver will appease him. I think I’ll ask all my Brothers to put surveillance on Golden Pubics and her gun-running friend just in case. Now, there was something else …” Again Tang-po referred to his notes. “Ah yes, why is our contribution from the Happy Hostess Night Club down 30 percent?”
“A new ownership’s just taken over, Honored Sir,” Sergeant Lee, in whose area the dance hall was, said. “One Eye Pok sold out to a Shanghainese fornicator called Wang—Happy Wang. Happy Wang says the Fragrant Grease’s too high, business is bad, very bad.”
“Dew neh loh moh on all Shanghainese. Is it?”
“It’s down, but not much.”
“That’s right, Honored Sir,” Corporal Ho said. “I was there at midnight to collect the fornicating week’s advance—the stink fornicating place was about half full.”
“Any foreign devils there?”
“Two or three, Honored Lord. No one of importance.”
“Give Honorable Happy Wang a message from me: He has three weeks to improve his business. Then we’ll reconsider. Corporal Ho, tell some of the girls at the Great New Oriental to recommend the Happy Hostess for a month or so—they’ve plenty of foreign devil customers … and tell Wang that there’s a nuclear aircraft—the Corregidor—coming in the day after tomorrow for R and R …” He used the English letters, everyone understanding rest and recreation from the Korean War days. “I’ll ask my Brother Dragon in Wanchai and the dock area if Happy Wang can send some visiting cards over there. A thousand or so Golden Country barbarians will certainly be a help! They’re here for eight days.”
“Honored Sir, I’ll do that tonight,” Corporal Ho promised.
“My friend in marine police told me that there are going to be lots of visiting warships soon—the American Seventh Fleet is being increased.” Tang-po frowned. “Doubled, so he says. The talk from the Mainland is that American soldiers are going to go into Vietnam in strength—they already run an airline there—at least,” he added, “their triad CIA does.”
“Eeee, that’s good for business! We’ll have to repair their ships. And entertain their men. Good! Very good for us.”
“Yes. Very good. But very stupid for them. Honorable Chou En-lai’s sent them warnings, politely, for months that China doesn’t want them there! Why won’t they listen? Vietnam’s our outer barbarian sphere! Stupid to pick that foul jungle and those detestable barbarians to fight against. If China couldn’t subdue those outer barbarians for centuries, how can they?” Tang-po laughed and lit another cigarette. “Where’s old One Eye Pok gone?”
“That old fox’s permanent visa came through and he was off on the next airplane to San Francisco—him, his wife and eight kids.”
Tang-po turned to his accountant. “Did he owe us any money?”
“Oh no Honored Sir. He was fully paid up-to-date, Sergeant Lee saw to that.”
“How much did it cost that old fornicator? To get the visa?”
“His exit was smoothed by a gift of 3,000 HK to Corporal Sek Pun So in Immigration on our recommendation—our percentage was paid—we also assisted him to find the right diamond merchant to convert his wealth into the best blue whites available.” Ho referred to his books. “Our 2 percent commission came to 8,960 HK.”
“Good old One Eye!” Tang-po said, pleased for him. “He’s done very well for himself. What was his ‘unique services’ job for his visa?”
Sergeant Lee said, “A cook in a restaurant in Chinatown—the Good Eating Place it’s called. Oh ko, I’ve tasted his home cooking and old One Eye is very bad indeed.”
“He’ll hire another to take his place while he goes into real estate, or gambling and a nightclub,” someone said. “Eeee, what joss!”
“But what did his U.S. visa cost him?”
“Ah, the golden gift to Paradise!” Ho sighed. “I heard he paid 5,000 U.S. to jump to the head of the list.”
“Ayeeyah, that’s more than usual! Why?”
“It seems there’s also a promise of a U.S. passport as soon as the five years are up and not too much harassment about his English—old One Eye doesn’t talk English as you know …”
“Those fornicators from the Golden Country—they squeeze but they aren’t organized. They’ve no style, none at all,” Tang-po said scornfully. “One or two visas here and there—when everyone here knows you can buy one if you’re at the right time with the right squeeze. So why don’t they do it properly in a civilized way? Twenty visas a week—even forty—they’re all mad these foreign devils!”
“Dew rieh loh moh but you’re right,” Sergeant Lee said, his mind boggled at the potential amount of squeeze he could make if he were a vice-consul in the U.S. Consulate of Hong Kong in the Visa Department. “Eeeeee!”
“We should have a civilized person in that position, then we’d soon be set up like Mandarins and policing San Francisco!” Tang-po said, and they all guffawed with him. Then he added disgustedly, “At least they should have a man there, not one who likes a Steaming Stalk in his Ghastly Gulley, or his in another’s!”
They laughed even more. “Hey,” one of them called out, “I heard his partner’s young Foreign Devil Stinknose Pork Belly in the Public Works—you know, the one who’s selling building permits that shouldn’t be!”
“That’s old news, Chan, very old. They’ve both moved on to unwiser pastures. The latest rumor is our vice-consul devil’s connected with a youth …” Tang-po added delicately, “Son of a prominent accountant who’s also a prominent Communist.”
“Eeeee, that’s not good,” Sergeant Lee said, knowing at once who the man was.
“No,” Tang-po agreed. “Particularly as I heard yesterday the youth has a secret flat around the corner. In my district! And my district has the least crime of any.”
“That’s right,” they all said proudly.
“Should he be spoken to, Elder Brother?” Lee asked.
“No, just put under special surveillance. I want to know all about these two. Everything. Even if they belch.” Tang-po sighed. He gave Sergeant Lee the address and made the work assignments. “Since you’re all here, I’ve decided to bring payday forward from tomorrow.” He opened the large bag that contained bank notes. Each man received the equivalent of his police pay plus authorized expenses.
300 HK a month salary with no expenses was not enough for a constable to feed even a small family and have a small flat, not even a two-room apartment with one tap and no sanitation, and to send one child to school; or enough to be able to send a little back to the home village in the Kwantung to needy fathers and grandmothers and mothers and uncles and grandfathers, many of whom, years upon years ago, had given their life’s saving to help launch him on the broken road to Hong Kong.
Tang-po had been one of these. He was very proud that he had survived the journey as a six-year-old, alone, and had found his relations and then, when he was eighteen, had joined the police—thirty-six years ago. He had served the Queen well, the police force impeccably, the Japanese enemy during their occupation not at all and now was in charge of a key division in the Colony of Hong Kong. Respected, rich, with one son in college in San Francisco, another owning half a restaurant in Vancouver, Canada, his family in Kwantung supported—and, most important, his Division of Tsim Sha Tsui with less unsolved robberies, less unsolved woundings and maimings and triad wars than any other district—and only three murders in four years and all solved and the culprits caught and sentenced, and one of those a foreign devil seaman who’d killed another over a dance-hall girl. And almost no petty theft and never a tourist foreign devil harassed by beggars or sneak thieves and this the largest tourist area with upward of also 300,000 civilized persons to police and protect from evildoers and from themselves.
Ayeeyah, yes, Tang-po told himself. If it wasn’t for us those bone-headed fornicating peasants’d be at each other’s throats, raging, looting, killing, and then the inevitable mob cry would go up: Kill the foreign devils! And they would try and then we would be back in the riots again. Fornicate disgustingly all wrongdoers and unpeaceful persons!
“Now,” he said affably, “we’ll meet in three days. I’ve ordered a ten-course feast from Great Food Chang’s. Until then, let everyone put an eye to the orifice of the gods and get me the answers. I want the Werewolves—and I want John Chen back. Sergeant Lee, you stay a moment. Corporal Ho, write up the minutes and let me have the accounts tomorrow at five.”
“Yes, Honored Lord.”
They all trooped out. Tang-po lit another cigarette. So did Sergeant Lee. Tang-po coughed.
“You should quit smoking, Elder Brother.”
“So should you!” Tang-po shrugged. “Joss! If I’m to go, I’m to go. Joss. Even so, for peace I’ve told my Chief Wife I’ve stopped. She nags and nags and nags.”
“Show me one that doesn’t and she’ll turn out to be a he with a ghastly gulley.”
They laughed together.
“That’s the truth. Heya, last week she insisted I see a doctor and you know what that motherless fornicator said? He said, you’d better give up smoking, old friend, or you’ll be nothing but a few cinders in a burial jar before you’re twenty moons older and then I guarantee your Chief Wife’ll be spending all your money on loose boys and your concubine’ll be tasting another’s fruits!”
“The swine! Oh the swine!”
“Yes. He really frightened me—I felt his words right down in my secret sack! But maybe he was speaking the truth.”
He took out a handkerchief, blew his nose, his breath wheezing, cleared his throat noisily and spat into the spittoon. “Listen, Younger Brother, our High Dragon says the time has come to organize Smuggler Yuen, White Powder Lee, and his cousin Four Finger Wu.”
Sergeant Lee stared at him in shock. These three men were believed to be the High Tigers of the opium trade in Hong Kong. Importers and exporters. For local use and also, rumor had it, for export to the Golden Country where the great money was. Opium brought in secretly and converted into morphine and then into heroin. “Bad, very bad. We’ve never touched that trade before.”
“Yes,” Tang-po said delicately.
“That’d be very dangerous. Narcotics Branch are very serious against it. Big Mountain of Dung himself is very seriously interested in catching those three—very fornicating serious.”
Tang-po stared at the ceiling. Then he said, “The High Dragon explained it this way: A ton of opium in the Golden Triangle costs 67,000 U.S. Changed into fornicating morphine and then into fornicating heroin and the pure heroin diluted to 5 percent, the usual strength on the streets of the Golden Country, delivered there you have almost 680 million worth in American dollars. From one ton of opium.” Tang-po coughed and lit another cigarette.
The sweat began on Lee’s back. “How many tons could go through those three fornicators?”
“We don’t know. But he’s been told about 380 tons a year are grown in the whole Golden Triangle—Yunnan, Burma, Laos and Thailand. Much of it comes here. They’d handle 50 tons, he said. He’s certain of 50 tons.”
“Oh ko!”
“Yes.” Tang-po was sweating too. “Our High Dragon says we should invest in the trade now. It’s going to grow and grow. He has a plan to get Marine with us….”
“Dew neh loh moh, you can’t trust those seagoing bastards.”
“That’s what I said, but he said we need the seagoing bastards and we can trust a selected few, who else can snatch and intercept a token 20 percent—even 50 percent to appease Mountain of Dung himself at prearranged moments?” Tang-po spat deftly again. “If we could get Marine, Narcotics Branch, and the Gang of Three, our present h’eung yau would be like an infant’s piddle in the harbor.”
There was a serious silence in the room.
“We would have to recruit new members and that’s always dangerous.”
“Yes.”
Lee helped himself to the teapot and poured some jasmine tea, sweat running down his back now, the smoke-ladened air sultry and overbearing. He waited.
“What do you think, Younger Brother?”
These two men were not related but used the Chinese politeness between themselves because they had trusted each other for more than fifteen years. Lee had saved his superior’s life in the riots of 1956. He was thirty-five now and his heroism in the riots had earned him a police medal. He was married and had three children. He had served sixteen years in the force and his whole pay was 843 HK a month. He took the tram to work. Without supplementing his income through the Brotherhood, like all of them, he would have had to walk or bicycle, most days. The tram took two hours.
“I think the idea is very bad,” he said. “Drugs, any drugs, that’s fornicating bad—yes, very bad. Opium, that’s bad though it’s good for old people—the white powder, cocaine, that’s bad, but not as bad as the death squirts. It’d be bad joss to deal in the death squirts.”
“I told him the same.”
“Are you going to obey him?”
“What’s good for one Brother should be good for all,” Tang-po said thoughtfully, avoiding an answer.
Again Lee waited. He did not know how a Dragon was elected, or exactly how many there were, or who the High Dragon was. He only knew that his Dragon was Tang-po who was a wise and cautious man who had their interests at heart.
“He also said one or two of our foreign devil superiors are getting itchy piles about their fornicating slice of the gambling money.”
Lee spat disgustedly. “What do those fornicators do for their share? Nothing. Just close their fornicating eyes. Except the Snake.” This was the nickname of Chief Inspector Donald C. C. Smyth who openly organized his district of East Aberdeen and sold favors and protection on all levels, in front of his Chinese underlings.
“Ah him! He should be stuffed down the sewer, that fornicator. Soon those who he pays off above him won’t be able to hide his stink anymore. And his stench’ll spread over all of us.”
“He’s due to retire in a couple of years,” Lee said darkly. “Perhaps he’ll finger his rear to all those high-ups until he leaves and there won’t be a thing they can do. His friends are very high, so they say.”
“Meanwhile?” Tang-po asked.
Lee sighed. “My advice, Elder Brother, is to be cautious, not to do it if you can avoid it. If you can’t…” he shrugged. “Joss. Is it decided?”
“No, not yet. It was mentioned at our weekly meeting. For consideration.”
“Has an approach been made to the Gang of Three?”
“I understand White Powder Lee made the approach, Younger Brother. It seems the three are going to join together.”
Lee gasped. “With blood oaths?”
“It seems so.”
“They’re going to work together? Those devils?”
“So they said. I’ll bet old Four Finger Wu will be the Highest Tiger.”
“Ayeeyah, that one? They say he’s murdered fifty men himself,” Lee said darkly. He shivered at the danger. “They must have three hundred fighters in their pay. It’d be better for all of us if those three were dead—or behind bars.”
“Yes. But meanwhile White Powder Lee says they’re ready to expand, and for a little cooperation from us they can guarantee a giant return.” Tang-po mopped his brow and coughed and lit another cigarette. “Listen, Little Brother,” he said softly. “He swears they’ve been offered a very large source of American money, cash money and bank money, and a very large retail outlet for their goods there, based in this place called Manhattan.”
Lee felt the sweat on his forehead. “A retail outlet there … ayeeyah, that means millions. They will guarantee?”
“Yes. With very little for us to do. Except close our eyes and make sure Marine and Narcotics Branch seize only the correct shipments and close their eyes when they’re supposed to. Isn’t it written in the Ancient Books: If you don’t squeeze, lightning will strike you?”
Again a silence. “When does the decision … when’s it going to be decided?”
“Next week. If it’s decided yes, well, the flow of trade will take months to organize, perhaps a year.” Tang-po glanced at the clock and got up. “Time for our shower. Nighttime Song has arranged dinner for us afterwards.”
“Eeeee, very good.” Uneasily Lee turned out the single overhead light. “And if the decision is no?”
Tang-po stubbed out his cigarette and coughed. “If no…” He shrugged. “We only have one life, gods notwithstanding, so it is our duty to think of our families. One of my relations is a captain with Four Finger Wu….”