“That does it, Johny. I’m leaving.”
He was amazed. “Man, Ah calls de hoods iffn yoh done do dis.”
“No way, man.” It was catching. But I remembered my place and sulkily decided to misbehave instead of rebel. “Right. Tour it is. But you’ve to take me to one place I want.”
“Okay, man. Can do! Where?”
“The Mologai.”
He stopped jigging, even clicked his trannie off. I recognized consternation. Perversely I repeated the name. Steerforth had hated the area. My sticky irritation made me perverse. “The Mologai before anything else, Johny. Or call your goons. The Triad bosses’ll execute you, whatever they do to me.” I still wish I’d not said that, seeing what happened, but everything can’t be my fault all the time.
Uneasily he took a halfhearted step, then shrugged. “Okay, man, ten-four. Rap on fast, man, okay?”
“I’ll hurry, promise,” I agreed, and was whisked by our docile taxi to the area where those steep climbing buildings began. There they put me down. Johny said half an hour, and the taxi drove off and left me alone.
As it happened, it was a whole hour or more before I regained the pavement. Johny said nothing but gave me a casual told-you-so glance as I climbed into the car’s chill, chastened and silent. We resumed our hectic journey through the opulent, plush, impossibly tall commercial palaces of Hong Kong. Next time we passed the spot I too turned to look the other way.
“Man,” Johny said, bopping and finger-snapping as we alighted outside the hotel. “Ah really pities yoh.”
“Pity?” I yelped, alarmed.
He did a sympathetic break dance. “Yoh godda study a load o’ crappy antiques now, man. Fo’ hours! Not one’s American. Only foreign crap. See you roun’.”
Marveling, I watched him boppaloo across the concourse to where the trams did their sleepwalker’s turn towards Des Voeux Road. What he saw as servitude I saw as release.
“You’re late, Lovejoy.” The lovely Shiu-Won, aka Marilyn, was being all impatient beside me. “Five minutes. Don’t let it happen again. The American women have arrived. Do the antiques immediately, reassuring them that all the items are genuine, whether fake or not. You shall be overheard, so please ensure accuracy.”
“Raat own, lady,” I said. “Incidentally, Shiu-Won. Does your Yankee assistant ever shut up?”
She paused, eyeing me with that non-smile women do. “Johny has never been to America, never even left Hong Kong. And call me Marilyn. Foreigners pronounce Cantonese wrongly. Inside.” She went to the sliding doors and stood aside to see me in.
I sighed and did as I was told.
“Nice tour of Hong Kong, Marilyn, ’kyou.”
“It was to show that Hong Kong is not a tiny backwater, Lovejoy.” She paused a second. “Here, everything is possible. Seven thousand ships a year. Very big exports.
Without a single resource, Hong Kong makes every world currency shake in its shoes.
We give more for the dollar. Of everything. Anything.” She gave me her frankest stare.
“What you have seen is less than one percent of our business. I was instructed to make sure you understand that.”
One thing still narked. “Why nearly drown me in that sampan? It scared me to frigging death.”
“I’m glad.” And she wasn’t joking.
“I’m glad that junk was one of ours.”
She smiled at that. “One? Lovejoy, Ling Ling could have ordered a hundred junks out, a thousand even. But she knew that one would frighten you sufficiently.”
Did she now? “Okay, I’m affrighted. Any more orders?”
“Yes. You must attend a cocktail party in one hour exactly. The Thousand Diamond City suite.”
“Okay. But—”
Marilyn turned on her heel before I could ask any more. I saw why. Steerforth was mincing up the foyer in his camp mode, with Lorna and Mame. I didn’t know then that I was now about to kill my second murder victim. Like all my other sins, it honestly wasn’t my fault. I advanced at Lorna, hands outstretched and smiling.
15
« ^ »
I don’t know about you, but formal gatherings make me nervous. If anyone’s going to spill his wine or spray gravy, it’s me. Mr. Clumsy. And I’ve no conversational sense.
Where others are graceful, I’m your stupid blurter. Most can let discussions flow, I crash-bang-wallop in. Joe Incongruity. You can imagine the state I was in, heading from visiting the antiques view to a jade-woman’s party, the supreme of all feminine artistry, beauty, training. Not only—only!—that, but some vast antiques scam was brewing and hung on the meeting’s success. As did my own survival. Nearly forgotten that.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan a golden pleasure dome decree okay, but it can’t have been a patch on the Thousand Diamond City, part of HK’s pricey complex. Bellboys milled, super-duper majordomos strutted, pretty waitresses flitted. Plush carpets, gorgeous tapestries, gilded balustrades, fountains—it was a palace of delights. It was costly opulence so clever, it could have looked ordinary. I was ushered into a private room, without having to open my mouth, and given some dry white wine in a glass that wobbled in my hand.
Some thirty people stood about, mostly visitors. The few Chinese included Dr. Chao, Marilyn, one of Leung’s thin unsmiling men, two bonny girls in tight cheongsams who did instant job-lot introductions, Sim with a pudgy jokey shipper everybody seemed to know called Ramone, and a quiet middle-aged smiler with an old-fashioned winged collar called Sun Sen. And Ling Ling.
She was exquisite, a superb butterfly. Of course she was surrounded by blokes, all striving to make an impression. I stood shuffling, desperate to leave, but her eyes transfixed me.
“Good evening, Lovejoy. Marvelous of you to come!” She passed nearby, making me breathless.
“Hi, there!” people said during introductions, but beaming at Ling Ling. Everybody jostled in her wake, one or two tourist women circulating defeated nearby. I mumbled something or other, tried to duck aside and bumped into the smiler they’d introduced as Sun Sen.
“Evening, Lovejoy.” His voice was a mere whisper. “You will observe Ling Ling.”
“Will I?” I was narked. Even incidental nerks were giving me orders now. “Who says so?”
“I do.” He paused, smiling still. I took him in. His smile was a non-smile. The skin had an odd sheen. His fingers were spindled, askew. His ears were knobbly somehow. You got the impression of someone assembled from spare parts, a kit. “I’m Dr. Chao’s deputy.”
My throat constricted. The Triad’s vice king of vice. “Okay, er, sir. Right.”
“You will of course stay for dinner… ?”
Sweating despite the conditioned air, I nipped into the melee surrounding Ling Ling.
He’d said “observe,” and humility’s my strong point. Ramone (“Head shipper for BG, y’know?”) with company logos on his tie, cuff links, buttons, talked incidentals as a way of filling time while Ling Ling talked with the mob mothing about her lovely incandescence. I pretended to listen to his Californian accent but homed in on the jade woman’s words.
She was being attended in double shuffles by Marilyn and Dr. Chao alternatively. She was brilliant, never at a loss. It was a lesson in total knowledge, quintessential skill. I was awed by her brains.