“I’ll square it with Lin Ming,” he told the two brothers. “Get your things. Sleep here tonight.”
It was two nights after that, the third Wednesday in June 1937, when Morioka walked into the Royal for the first time.
Du Yuesheng was in the balcony box, along with Song, Lin Ming, and his bodyguards, but none of them noticed when he entered in plain, nondescript clothes, slid into a corner table, and ordered a whiskey. Their first inkling of his presence was a racket of footsteps, followed by Floor Manager Zhou yanking their curtain aside. “He’s here,” he said, panting, “the Admiral.”
“Is it so! Where?” said Du, and followed Zhou’s finger. “Ah! I see. Puffed-up plug!”
They all strained to see the dim figure under the balcony overhang opposite. “Motherless fornicator,” said Fiery.
“Is it true he is going around the city opening field offices?” Flowery asked.
“Yes,” Lin Ming answered. “Like Shanghai is already his.”
They all stared together, hating him, united for once in ill will.
“Damn that scar of his mother’s she calls a cunt,” Du said, to murmured assent. “Damn her crack to all the hells.”
“Let me take him,” Flowery Flag said impulsively. “Tonight.”
“Patience,” Du said abruptly, and Flowery fell silent.
The boss sat for a long time, staring at the Japanese officer below with the reptilian flicker of possibility that passed for engagement in his expression. Then before he spoke, he glanced with favor at the bodyguard, indulging him as one would a favorite pet. “First we find his weakness, his opening. Then we look for the moment when his assassination will most throw them off. Then we kill him-not before. Teacher will see to it.”
Lin’s knees shook as he listened. Morioka’s rapt focus on Thomas Greene was obvious; they could all see it.
His intestines chilled at the scene on the stage below, where Thomas, unaware of what was happening, was signaling a solo. Charles and Ernest took off on their reeds a major third apart, a bit of showmanship that, though well rehearsed, never failed to please the crowd with its sense of spontaneous intimacy and the simple optimism the major third interval always seemed to ignite. He was a good arranger, Little Greene, able to keep the band sounding polished even though he was down to nine, piano included. He was also popular, a moneymaker, and the first real friend Lin had found among his musicians in a long time. So why couldn’t this whore of a Japanese Admiral turn his attention someplace else? The question sounded plaintively in his mind as he watched.
Song, seated in front of Lin Ming, was equally horrified, and she also saw what Lin could not-the look of icy calculation hardening in Du’s eye as his gaze traveled from Morioka to Thomas and back again.
Down in the lobby, after the show, she followed her master’s gliding form through the crush of people toward the door. Ahead, Fiery and Flowery formed a wedge to clear a way through the crowd.
None of them noticed Morioka bearing down from the other side of the lobby. Song did not catch sight of him until she had almost reached the door, where Thomas stood, thanking well-wishers.
Morioka stepped into the crush just a meter or so in front of her, and she jolted back, her entire being on fire. She saw the way the hair grew down in two points on the back of his neck, where his skin was brown from the Japanese sun. She caught his aroma. It was unbearably tense to be so close to him.
And then he started talking to Thomas in English.
“How do you find China?” she heard him say. “Really? But so dirty, so primitive. No? That is why they need us, the Chinese, to keep order. Here-take my card. If you need help. Here.” And he pressed his calling card into Thomas’s hand before bowing and being carried by the crowd out the door.
Song glared after him. Keep order? How dare he? She let the crowd bear her to Thomas, averting her eyes from him while she checked the crowd in all directions, and then, in one quick, low, economical slice through the air that no one could see, she plucked the card from his hand and threw it on the floor. It disappeared beneath the crush of feet.
She kept her eyes straight ahead, but could feel the heat of his awareness as she passed.
Du felt it too, for at that instant, he turned to look back. “Yuhua,” he commanded.
“Wo lai,” she answered, coming, and lowered her gaze once more, fully concealed, the good girl, bu gou yan xiao, no careless word or smile.
“What did he say to you?” Lin Ming asked Thomas the next day.
“That he thinks China is primitive.”
“Fornicator. Piece of turtle dung. And you threw the card on the floor?”
“The second he moved on.” Thomas said nothing about Song being there. He was thrilled to have had her cross his path, even just for that moment. No one had noticed her rip the card from his hand in the packed lobby, but he had been inches from her, and he caught his breath at the burn in her eyes, the glow that came from inside her. He seemed to be able to see straight into her in that loud, pushing crowd of people.
“You did well,” Lin said. “But back to Morioka. If he approaches you again, say as little as possible. Do not ever agree to meet him anywhere.”
“You’ve made that clear already,” Thomas said gently, though he failed to see what a Japanese officer would want with him anyway. He thought it unlikely that he and Morioka would ever have another conversation.
But that little scrim of security evaporated less than a week later, when Morioka returned to the Royal. This time he did not stay long, only one set, but before he left, he ventured up to the stage. Thomas was frozen, only half-risen from the piano bench, watching Floor Manager Zhou and Wing Bean scuttle into position to eavesdrop.
“Very beautiful playing,” Morioka said, somewhat formally, and Thomas answered, “Yassir, thank you, sir,” vamping up the plantation accent for the benefit of Zhou and Wing Bean. Morioka said no more, bowed to him, and left. Zhou and Wing Bean seemed satisfied.
Thomas was shaky, though, and he went directly to Anya’s rooming house and rang her bell. He rang over and over, and she never came down. The window light was on in her room, which usually meant she was out. Where? He checked his new gold watch. It was almost three A.M.
Yet much of Shanghai was still awake. In fact, though only two hours had elapsed since his conversation with Morioka, Du Yuesheng would by now have already parsed every word they said.
The next afternoon, Du summoned Lin Ming to Rue Wagner, and they met in one of the quietly carpeted second-floor studies, with wooden shutters tightly closed against the early summer heat. As usual, Du showed no discomfort, not even a shimmer of perspiration, and his voice was as cool as stone. “Twice in one week he has approached the American,” he told Lin. “We are moving ahead.”
“Moving ahead how?” Lin’s voice strained its fragile film of normalcy. “If I may-”
But Du interrupted him. “Your man will be watched all the time for the right opportunity.”
“Perhaps you don’t need Thomas Greene. Isn’t it excessive? Isn’t it using Mount Tai to crush an egg?” He knew his father was ever vulnerable to a classical idiom.
“You are here because I am showing you the respect of warning you,” Du said sharply. “Do not presume to question.”
Lin said nothing.
“We have to kill the blood-sucking ghost. It will throw them into confusion and put us on top, like overturning the river and pouring out the sea. Naturally we will try to keep your American safe. In the end, though, that is irrelevant.”
The words sliced through Lin. “And who is going to be watching him?”
“I’m bringing in an outside man for this job,” said Du. “His name is Zhao Funian.”