Noble House

"What nonsense!" he replied at once. "Of course I asked the old fool to bring her since my wife is here. Why else would she be with him? Is that old fool hung like a bullock? Or even a bantam cock? No. Ayeeyah, not even Venus Poon with all the technique I taught her can get up what has no thread! It's good for his face to pretend otherwise, heya? Of course, and she wanted to see her Old Father and to be seen too!"
"Eeeee, that's clever, Banker Kwang!" the man said, and turned away and whispered it to another, who said caustically, "Huh, you'd swallow a bucket of shit if someone said it was stewed beef with black bean sauce! Don't you know old Four Fingers's Stalk's nurtured by the most expensive salves and ointments and ginseng that money can buy? Why only last month his Number Six Concubine gave birth to a son! Eeeee, don't worry about him. Before he's through tonight, Venus Poon's in for a drubbing that'll make her Golden Gulley cry out for mercy in eight dialects. …"
"Are you staying for dinner, tai-pan?" Brian Kwok asked, intercepting him. "When and if it arrives."
"Yes. Why?"
"Sorry I've got to go back to work. But there'll be someone else to chaperone you home."
"For God's sake, Brian, aren't you overreacting?" Dunross said as quietly.
Brian Kwok kept his voice down. "I don't think so. I've just phoned Crosse to see what happened about those two loiterers outside your house. The moment our fellows arrived they took to their heels."
"Perhaps they were just thugs who don't like police."
Brian Kwok shook his head. "Crosse asked again that you give us the AMG papers right now."
"Friday."
"He told me to tell you there's a Soviet spy ship in port. There's already been one killing—one of their agents, knifed."
Dunross was shocked. "What's that got to do with me?"
"You know that better than we do. You know what's in those reports. Must be quite serious or you wouldn't be so difficult—or careful—yourself. Crosse said . . . Never mind him! Ian, look, we're old friends. I'm really very worried." Brian Kwok switched to Cantonese. "Even the wise can fall into thorns—poisoned thorns."
"In two days the police Mandarin arrives. Two days is not long."
"True. But in two days the spy may hurt us very much. Why tempt the gods? It is my ask."
"No. Sorry."
Brian Kwok hardened. In English he said, "Our American friends have asked us to take you into protective custody."
"What nonsense!"
"Not such nonsense, Ian. It's very well known you've a photographic memory. The sooner you turn the papers over the better. Even afterwards you should be careful. Why not tell me where they are and we'll take care of everything?"
Dunross was equally set-faced. "Everything's taken care of now, Brian. Everything stays as planned."
The tall Chinese signed. Then he shrugged. "Very well. Sorry, but don't say you weren't warned. Are Gavallan and Jacques staying for dinner too?"
"No, I don't think so. I asked them just to put in an appearance. Why?"
"They could've gone home with you. Please don't go anywhere alone for a while, don't try to lose your guard. For the time being, if you have any, er, private dates call me."
"Me, a private date? Here in Hong Kong? Really, what a suggestion!"
"Does the name Jen mean anything?"
Dunross's eyes became stony. "You buggers can be too nosy."
"And you don't seem to realize you're in a very dirty game without Queensberry rules."
"I've got that message, by God."
"'Night, tai-pan."
'"Night, Brian." Dunross went over to the MPs who were in a group in one corner talking with Jacques deVille. There were only four of them now, the rest were resting after their long journey. Jacques deVille introduced him. Sir Charles Pennyworth, Conservative; Hugh Guthrie, Liberal; Julian Broadhurst and Robin Grey, both Labour. "Hello, Robin," he said.
"Hello, Ian. It's been a long time."
"Yes."
"If you'll excuse me, I'll be off," deVille said, his face careworn. "My wife's away and we've a young grandchild staying with us."
"Did you talk to Susanne in France?" Dunross asked.
"Yes, tai-pan. She's . . . she'll be all right. Thank you for calling Deland. See you tomorrow. Good night, gentlemen." He walked off.
Dunross glanced back at Robin Grey. "You haven't changed at all."
"Nor have you," Grey said, then turned to Pennyworth. "Ian and I met in London some years ago, Sir Charles. It was just after the war. I'd just become a shop steward." He was a lean man with thin lips, thin graying hair and sharp features.
"Yes, it was some years ago," Dunross said politely, continuing the pattern that Penelope and her brother had agreed to so many years ago—that neither side was blood kin to the other. "So, Robin, are you staying long?"
"Just a few days," Grey said. His smile was as thin as his lips. "I've never been in this workers' paradise before so I want to visit a few unions, see how the other ninety-nine percent live."
Sir Charles Pennyworth, leader of the delegation, laughed. He was a florid, well-covered man, an ex-colonel of the London Scottish Regiment, D.S.O. and Bar. "Don't think they go much on unions here, Robin. Do they, tai-pan?"
"Our labor force does very well without them," Dunross said.
"Sweated labor, tai-pan," Grey said at once. "According to some of your own statistics, government statistics."
"Not our statistics, Robin, merely your statisticians," Dunross said. "Our people are the highest paid in Asia after the Japanese and this is a free society."
"Free? Come off it!" Grey jeered. "You mean free to exploit the workers. Well, never mind, when Labour gets in at the next election we'll change all that."
"Come now, Robin," Sir Charles said. "Labour hasn't a prayer at the next election."
Grey smiled. "Don't bet on it, Sir Charles. The people of England want change. We didn't all go to war to keep up the rotten old ways. Labour's for social change—and getting the workers a fair share of the profits they create."
Dunross said, "I've always thought it rather unfair that Socialists talk about the 'workers' as though they do all the work and we do none. We're workers too. We work as hard if not harder with longer hours an—"
"Ah, but you're a tai-pan and you live in a great big house that was handed down, along with your power. All that capital came from some poor fellow's sweat, and I won't even mention the opium trade that started it all. It's fair that capital should be spread around, fair that everyone should have the same start. The rich should be taxed more. There should be a capital tax. The sooner the great fortunes are broken up the better for all Englishmen, eh, Julian?"
Julian Broadhurst was a tall, distinguished man in his mid-forties, a strong supporter of the Fabian Society, which was the intellectual brain trust of the socialist movement. "Well, Robin," he said with his lazy, almost diffident voice, "I certainly don't advocate as you do that we take to the barricades but I do think, Mr. Dunross, that here in Hong Kong you could do with a Trades Union Council, a minimum wage scale, elected legislature, proper unions and safeguards, socialized medicine, workman's compensation and all the modern British innovations."
"Totally wrong, Mr. Broadhurst. China would never agree to a change in our colonial status, they would never allow any form of city-state on her border. As to the rest, who pays for them?" Dunross asked. "Our unfettered system here's outperforming Britain twenty times and—"
"You pay for it out of all your profits, Ian," Robin Grey said with a laugh. "You pay a fair tax, not 15 percent. You pay the same as we do in Britain and—"
"God forbid!" Dunross said, hard put to keep his temper. "You're taxing yourself out of business and out of c—"