So they walked. And walked some more.
Zero and Khalid did their best to look mean. That was what they did – that was their whole thing – and they glowered with the best of them. But Wilson could tell they were scared. There were lots of AKs on the street, and everywhere you looked, there were people with handguns in the backs of their jeans. Walking a step behind Wilson, Khalid grumbled, “I thought we’d be in Europe now. Hakim said-”
“I thought so, too,” Wilson lied. “But there’s special business.”
Khalid was silent for a while, peering at the signage, and eyeing a gang of nine-year-olds that trailed behind them. “Hakim never said anything about ‘special business.’”
Wilson glanced over his shoulder. “That’s why it’s special.”
Suddenly, Zero let out a bark, and pointed to a sheet-metal sign hanging above a heavily carved wooden door at the end of a narrow alley.
777 EX-IM 777
PING LI ON, PROP.
An Asian man sat on a stool beside the door, a shotgun resting across his knees. The moment Wilson entered the alley, the man got to his feet and waved his forefinger from side to side. Wilson hesitated, and then he understood. He turned to Zero and Khalid. “Wait here.”
Big Ping’s office was cool and dimly lighted, with a couple of small glass cases holding a modest display of cut and uncut diamonds. Overhead, a bank of fluorescent lights buzzed noisily, while a table fan turned left and right atop a painted Chinese chest. A heavily carved ivory screen stood by itself in the far corner of the room.
An elderly Chinaman waited behind one of the counters, his face blank. Nearby, a handsome young Asian in a white linen suit sat on a folding chair with his elbows on his thighs, flipping through a tattered copy of Hustler.
Wilson looked into the old man’s watery eyes. “Mr. Ping?”
The old man’s face twisted into a frown. “No Ping!” He hesitated for a long moment. Eventually, a smile flickered under a tangle of nostril hairs. “You want buy diamond?”
Wilson shook his head.
The smile vanished as the old man snorted in contempt. “So! You sell diamond!”
Wilson gave him an incredulous look. “That’s amazing! You should be a private eye.”
The old man wasn’t laughing, but the guy in the white linen suit cracked a smile. Dropping the magazine, he got to his feet. “I’m Ping.”
Wilson turned to him. Offered his hand. “Frank d’Anconia.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“Yeah. You’re the one who set the kid on fire…” With a gesture of his hand, he led Wilson behind the ivory screen, where a massive iron door was bolted into the wall. Beside the door was a nickel plate with the outline of a hand engraved on its surface. Ping pressed his own hand into the engraving. A diode flared, and the door sprung open on its hinges. “In here…”
The doorway led to a windowless room – a vault, of sorts, where the air was heavy with cigarette smoke. Two men sat at a heavy wooden table that was covered in green baize. The men were drinking tea.
One of them looked like an oversized Buddha with beige teeth. The other man was da Rosa, who glanced over his shoulder with a laugh and said, “What took you so long?”
Wilson frowned. He didn’t like being played.
The fat man chuckled, and lighted a foul-smelling Gitane. As a gesture of goodwill, he made an effort at English: “Good night!”
Da Rosa laughed. “I see you’ve met Little Ping.”
Wilson glanced at the young man in the white suit.
The young man smiled. “My father’s English isn’t very good. But, please, have a seat.” He gestured to a chair. Wilson took it.
The fat man – Big Ping – leaned forward: “American?”
Wilson nodded.
“We don’t see a lot of Americans here,” da Rosa said. “You’re like a celebrity.”
Big Ping’s eyes widened. His great head nodded, as if to confirm some astonishing insight. “You CIA?!”
Wilson shook his head. “No.”
Big Ping looked disappointed. Said something to his son in Chinese.
Little Ping translated. “He says, if you’re CIA, we could do some good business.”
“I’ll bet we could. Only… I’m not.”
“Too bad. You want some tea?” Little Ping asked.
Wilson shook his head.
Big Ping’s brows collapsed into a chevron. Leaning toward Wilson, he demanded, “Qui vous-êtes? Que voulez-vous?”
Wilson turned to Little Ping. “Tell your father that I don’t speak French.”
Little Ping shrugged. “He wants to know who you are, what you want.”
Wilson sat back in his chair. Then he glanced from Big Ping to da Rosa, and back again. The silence began to peal. Somewhere in the room, a clock ticked.
Finally, Big Ping smiled, as if he’d just had another realization. With a look of great contentment, he placed his hands palms-down, fingers spread, on the baize-covered table. Little Ping remained where he was, hands crossed in front of his crotch.
It took Wilson a moment, and then he saw it. All three of them had the same tattoo: a triangle of little blue dots between the thumb and forefinger. Wilson glanced at da Rosa.
The mercenary smiled. “I was born in Macau.”
Big Ping nodded.
Little Ping said, “Mr. da Rosa’s a good friend. We don’t have secrets from him.”
Wilson thought about it some more, and decided he didn’t have much choice. With a sigh, he said, “Okay, I’ve got a couple of diamonds to sell. Quite a few, actually.”
To Wilson’s surprise, da Rosa said something in Chinese. Big Ping replied, and da Rosa laughed. Turning to Wilson, he said, “He says he doesn’t see any diamonds. He wants to know if you’ve stuck them up your ass.”
Wilson acknowledged the bon mot with a weak grimace. “No,” he said. “I decided to use the bank. It seemed more professional, somehow.”
Little Ping laughed as da Rosa translated.
Wilson complimented him. “You speak Chinese. I’m impressed!”
Da Rosa shook his head. “It’s not Chinese. It’s Fuzhou.”
When da Rosa failed to elaborate, Wilson turned to Little Ping.
“My family’s from Fujian,” the younger Ping explained, “so the Fuzhou dialect comes naturally. Most Chinese don’t understand it, so it’s like talking in code. Good for business.”
Big Ping looked uncomprehendingly from Wilson to da Rosa to his son. Then he stubbed his cigarette out, and cut loose with a burst of incomprehensible lingo.
Little Ping nodded, and turned to Wilson. “My father says you should go to the bank, and bring the diamonds here, so he can evaluate them. He’s a good appraiser, and he’ll give you an excellent price.”
Wilson dismissed the idea with a bored nod. “Right! But you know what? I don’t think we’ll do that. Because it occurs to me that maybe – just maybe – something might go wrong, and, well, I could be robbed. So we’ll do something else. But before we do anything, there’s a couple of things I need to know.”
Little Ping translated for his father. Finally, he said, “Yes?”
“If we agree that four million dollars is a fair price, can you handle it?”
Suddenly, Big Ping gave up the pretense of not speaking English. With a wave of his hand, he interrupted his son’s translation, and said, “Of course.”
Wilson turned to him. “Good. And if we do business, you can wire the money to my bank?”
“Oui,” Big Ping replied. “If everything is in order, we can make the transfer through the HongShang Bank.”
“Great! So we’ll do it like this: We’ll go to the Banque Zaïroise, and take a look at the diamonds. They have a private room available for box holders, and you can bring any equipment you need.”