“Hey,” I said, pleased, made to go and say hello, but he gave a quick shove with his short poles and vanished behind the next stall.
I looked at the brush pot. It was a genuine antique, luscious. And I could afford the price. So where was the problem? But the little leper had oh-so-deliberately told me no, don’t buy. I muttered something to the stallholder and thrust my way out, up steep ginnels to the main contour road, having difficulty fending off importuning girls and declining nudged offers of drugs. I knew enough of the little geezer’s disappearing tricks to know I’d never find him. How the hell did he manage to get up and down the stepped alleyways? The sun placed its weight full on me as I made the narrow road where cars ran.
A temple stood across the opposite side of the road. I entered simply to get away from that odd nervy feeling. As I entered, the two blokes following me leaned against the wall opposite and lit cigarettes. I couldn’t see in the temple’s gloom but was conscious of incense, the clack of sandals, a chant, a gong, people. So I stood to one side of the bright entrance letting my vision accommodate.
When it did, the altar was nothing new. Red and brassy gold were everywhere. I watched an old black-garbed lady enter to pray. It seemed the thing to buy some incense sticks, ignite them and place them upright in large brass sand scuttles before the altar. I copied her, bought my sticks, did the fire bit and bowed there a bit. It’s only fair to pay for shelter.
As I stood beside the door steeling myself for a return through the baking heat and that dour threatening area where malign blokes dogged your every move, I could see a skeletal old man sitting across the road, his back to a wall. He lolled somewhat, smoking at an enormously wide bamboo pipe the length at least of a walking stick.
“Opium, I’m afraid,” somebody said. “One of our evils.”
Mistake to have glanced out. My eyes were unable to pick out the speaker, who seemed to be sitting low among the folds of red curtains. “I’ve heard,” I said.
“Hasn’t everyone,” the voice said dryly. “In Hong Kong junkies are classed according to the daily cost of sustaining their addiction. So we have ten-dollar addicts, twenty-dollar addicts, hundred-dollar addicts. They total five percent of the population. We Chinese say, He who carries fire in bucket needs iron hands.”
“Ballocks,” I said. “You made that up.”
“Well spotted.”
I’d met minds like his before—slick as a fish, with morality an irrelevance that would spoil the game. “He looks a thousand-dollar addict.” My vision returned. Not seated but small, meaning low down. Friend.
“Addicts needing more than a hundred dollars a day have to be criminals,” the little leper said. His English was nigh-perfect after all, the sod. “To get the money. They can’t work, doped most of the day.”
“Here, mate,” I asked. “You tipped me against that brush pot. Why?”
He smiled. “You were about to pay the asking price. A stupidity. Haven’t you been told to haggle? Always bargain. It’s Hong Kong’s main entertainment.”
“Ta,” I said. “Which way’re you going? Want a lift?” After all, I had Johny’s taxi.
“No, thanks. I have my own transport, as you see. But be careful out there.” He indicated the bright world. I fell for it, daft as ever, giving the glare a glance and dazzling myself. I heard a soft trundle, then silence. I stepped back, looked round the curtain. Nothing. The gong sounded, the incense sticks glowed, smoke stung. “See you then,” I said lamely in the direction of the temple’s interior, and struck down into the Mologai.
On the way I didn’t bother to look out for glimpses of him. If he wanted to be seen, he’d show. If not, there was no chance.
Nobody followed me on the way out. I was glad. Less chance of being knifed, robbed, kept from any honest pursuits.
17
« ^ »
THIS is the other gentleman, Irwin. Lovejoy, my husband.” Husband? Two men, cheerfully pumping my hand. Lorna was pink in the face over introductions, saying twice over how we’d “quite accidentally” met up in the viewing session.
“So you’re the expert who knows everything, huh?” Irwin had a hotel belly and a way of speaking down to managers. Beside him, giving out assurances, Lorna had the boned look of the dieter, her skin that golden frailty of premature senescence from too many afternoons watching sunlamps.
“Not really, Irwin. Just guesswork.”
“He lies”—from Steerforth.
“Hohoho!” Irwin offered me a cigar, which I declined. George Brookers took one from his partner. In contrast he was a tall stooper with a golfer’s walk and bushy eyebrows, Mame with him tinier than ever. “That’s what you say, Lovejoy!” He mangled my hand.
“Mame’s told us how helpful you were!”
“Not really,” I said into Mame’s novice-nun smile. Her eyes betrayed the daytime agony of the poor sleeper, but she was still up to innuendo. (“Oh, but you were!”) My own expression felt false, a ghastly give-away rictus.
“Now we’d like to buy you guys lunch,” Irwin said. His Episcopalian timbre forbore refusal.
Steerforth nudged me. “Why, thank yoooou!”
“There’s a price, Jim!” Irwin winked openly at George. “We’re going to pump you about these antiques. Right, George?”
“Don’t wear them out totally!” Sweetly from Mame. “They’re going to show us around later!”
“Antiques?” Steerforth’s ignorance made him hesitate.
“Certainly,” I said, relaxing. No harm can come to poor slobs who follow orders. To Steerforth’s relief I encouraged them. “I’ll divvy the whole lot if you like.” Most of them I could do from memory anyway. “In return I want to hear everything about how you two set up your antiques business.” I meant it as a joke, but Steerforth warned me with a glance. George and Irwin went oho and laughed as the lift lofted us to the roof restaurant.
“Lovejoy wants company secrets, George!” Irwin whooped.
George was itching to tell. “Well, I met Irwin in Minneapolis. He was a furniture salesman and I ran a downtown store…”
The meal was a jovial business, George and Irwin reminiscing and pulling each other’s leg, Steerforth playing the campy innocent, me chuckling at their sallies, Lorna and Mame hugging themselves and swapping carefully timed glances.
We seemed in the sky. The restaurant was walled with glass panels so that Hong Kong’s harbor formed a panorama of toy skyscrapers and blue water drawn upon by the wakes of ships. Only too glad to be noshing, I hadn’t taken much notice. Then Lorna exclaimed, “Just look at that!” and we saw the most remarkable sight.
Junks were streaming round all the headlands, but mostly from the western approaches. They came steadily, without sails. Encased in the glass turret, we were unable to hear the engines, but the spectacle made me gape, hundreds converging on the typhoon shelters in Kowloon and closer by in Wan Chai. I asked a waiter what was up.
“Typhoon warning. Number One. Junks come to shelter.”
“A typhoon coming?” I asked Steerforth. I wasn’t sure what one was. The weather looked the same, a hot blue day. I’d seen a film about a cyclone once. The whole world was saved by one palm tree that gamely stuck it out.
“Perhaps,” he said. “They start out in the South China Sea. If we’re in the path, it hits us. If not, it goes on to Japan.”
“When?” Mame was excited.
“Actually they usually don’t arrive. Typhoon One is the first grade of warning. The higher the number, the greater the likelihood of our being hit.”
I’d have liked to hear more, fascinated by the vast fleet slowly cramming into harbor, but antiques called, so I helped to get a move on. It only took us a couple of hours to be down into the thick of the antiques. The women got bored and drifted off to the hotel shops with Steerforth. By four I was checking the last two or three items.