Then a woman tourist screamed and my heart turned over. I thought oh, Christ, no.
Not now. I saw Sim—not sure, only possibly—duck into the shadows by a pearl shop. A man shouted in English, “Somebody call an ambulance.” Another called for the police.
The tourists were in uproar. The Chinese, in what I eventually learned was a local quirk, were laughingly intrigued. Nervously, I worked my way across trying to look a casual bystander.
A couple of those smart police were already there by the time I’d pushed close enough to see. The tourists, all apparently American, were explaining, pointing. Two women were in tears. One had blood smeared down the front of her dress. She was hysterical.
“He fell out of the audience.” She made a two-handed falling gesture. “He caught hold of my dress.”
Del Goodman, my salvation, lay partly upturned, his face macabre in the patchy light.
There was blood everywhere. A policeman—God, but they’re calm in Hong Kong—
moved away to control the traffic. The other gave serene instructions to his talkie, gently wafting everybody back with a hand. I felt sick, almost spewed up my tasty supper onto the corpse. Del, my savior, knifed. I tried to eel away but another policeman came beside me, gesturing with that languid motion towards the tourists, thinking I was one of them.
“Er, no,” I said, trying a convincing smile, striving for out. The crisp money—
Goodman’s—suddenly burned in my hand, and terror gripped. Once they got down to names and statements they’d pin me as the corpse’s erstwhile con-merchant associate.
They’d find Del’s money on me. Then they’d hear of my feeble attempt with the airport police…
The policeman’s gaze reverted from the middle distance and focused.
“Tourist,” he said. That one word said it all. Either I was a suspect or a tourist.
“Er.” I tried to edge off. His hand indolently chopped the air. Sickened, I halted, trying for that confident grin, knowing I’d had it. Then rescue came, of a kind.
“He’s with me, officer,” a familiar voice said. Yet how could I recognize a strange voice a million miles from home?
He was elegant and ponging of scent, outrageously dressed in a pink suit with matching trilby, his jacket slung over his shoulders. Bishop sleeves, gold rings winking on most digits, he was an apparition. I gaped. It was the Hooray who’d told me to get lost in the street market, who I’d tried to milk over that nephrite jade. The policeman’s attitude instantly changed to a faint disgust and I was free. Everybody found me disgusting.
“This way, wretch,” the oddity said. Warily I moved in his wake through the mob as an ambulance howled its way into the press. I was justifiably apprehensive, because a hundred percent of all my allies had just got himself stabbed to death.
An American lady said to my rescuer, “But Wayne, darling—”
“Not now, dear,” he said with irritation. “In Hong Kong we go home when bodies simply litter the streets.”
“What about tomorrow?” the lady complained. She was attractive and oppulent. A mere killing was incidental.
He paused, working up to repartee. Obediently I also paused. “Tomorrow you can be even naughtier.”
She simpered. “Promise, Wayne?”
“What’s the point?” he said, flagging taxis. “You know my promises are utterly worthless. Seven o’clock precisely. Digga Dig.”
“Good night, lover.”
He pointed her into one taxi, and got into the next. I stood bewildered. He beckoned imperiously.
“In, peasant.”
I clambered after and sat. He lit a cigarette and settled back. A subtle change came over him as the taxi hooted its way into the melee of downtown Kowloon. Though it was knocking on for ten o’clock, the place was a riot. The world was out shopping, the streets afire with commerce. The signs and lights fought skyward for supremacy.
“You’re Lovejoy, I take it?” His voice was lower. The camp exotic had gone. He was businesslike, terse.
“Yes.” Still cautious. With my recent luck he might turn me in. How did he know my name?
He inspected me. His eyes flickered sideways towards the driver, watch what you say.
“That poor bastard said your name as he fell. I heard him.”
I groaned. I could see the clues building up. “Victim Gasps Out Murderer’s Name As Tourists Witness Killing…”
“Did you see who did it?”
“That bloke with him.”
“Sim?” But Sim was Del’s partner. Maybe I’d just better hit the road home and get gunned down by Big John Sheehan, the easy way out. I swallowed and eyed the pink-suited man. He saw my unease and gave a curt smile. “Look, er, Wayne,” I began. “I’m a bit out of my depth—”
He frowned. “What’s this Wayne bit?”
“Eh? Sorry. I thought—”
“Steerforth, James of that ilk. Jim.” He gave the driver directions in Cantonese. “You need a pad for the night, Lovejoy, I take it?”
“Well, I, er, what’s the catch?”
“Don’t worry,” he said, not quite smiling at my hesitation.
Any port in a storm. “Thanks. I really appreciate it. If there’s anything I can do in return—”
“There is, Lovejoy,” he said.
And there was.
8
« ^ »
A jade woman, Lovejoy?” Steerforth brewed coffee. His television was on, rerunning an American soap opera. He had whiskey with his, rotten stuff. “You’ve seen one?” The flat was modest: two rooms, a tiny kitchen, and a loo/shower. To me it was civilization.
“I saw this bird down a street market.” I struggled to remember. “Yesterday, I think.”
“That’ll have been Ling Ling. I heard she was out in Kowloon.” He eyed me. “What d’you reckon?”
“Of her? She was…” Words couldn’t do it.
He smiled that curt smile, crooked and world-wise. “Ever thought of women as women, Lovejoy? What decides the pecking orders they seem to fall into?”
I shrugged. It’s man’s common lot that we think about women all the time. I’d asked a simple question. Who needed a lecture about birds from the likes of him?
“There’s no way to answer except say perfection.” He grew gradually gaunter in the face, indrawn as if watching a scene of an ancient but harrowing play. “There are only about two dozen jade women in Hong Kong. The Triads—secret societies which control gambling, prostitution, drugs, the opium divans—fight tooth and claw over possession of them. They pick girls when they’re little and give them the lot—special schools, jobs for their families, housing, protection, education.”
“Selected how?”
“Tests. Screening. Some aren’t clever enough. Some don’t rise to the beauty. Some fall from grace. Others can’t manage the languages, the mathematics, music.”
“You’re joking. That’s… that’s…”
“Genius in the brain, perfection in all, Lovejoy.”
Curiously I eyed him. He’d got another drink, his eyes haunted, hooked.
I sipped my coffee. “But what do they… ?”
“Do? What the hell do you think they do?”
“Okay.” I accepted the pedestal bit, though I’ve never believed Byron’s dictum that all any woman needed was six sweetmeats and a mirror. Women can only put up with adoration so long. Maybe that’s why gods are all blokes? Golden calves are made to be adored. Sadly, sooner or later they get melted down. “But I mean actually…”
He gave me his upended smile. “Lovejoy. You’ve got to learn. In Hong Kong everything, and I do mean every single thing, must bring in money. Got it so far?”
“Right.” I was narked, him talking as if to a kid.
“Now, think of the most accomplished bird on earth. She understands every language you’ve heard of. Plays all musical instruments. Her poetic skills are fantastic. You’re a visiting economist?—she’ll know the current Dow Jones, today’s Bourse movements.