“Yes, Supreme Lady,” he said with a trace of melancholy, for he knew that his oath bound him to do anything she ordered. “The gods have terrible ways.”
May-may had marked the sudden change in Gordon Chen and she could not understand why. She hesitated, baffled. Then she got up and walked to the stern windows.
The flagship was gently at anchor in the harbor, sampans surrounding it in a sparkling sea.
China Cloud was beyond at storm anchor, the
White Witch nearby. “The ships are so beautiful,” she said. “Which do you find the most pleasing?”
He came close to the windows. He did not think that it could be Longstaff. There would be no purpose in that, not for her. For Jin-qua perhaps, but not for her. “I think that one,” he said gravely, nodding at
China Cloud.
May-may gasped and dropped her fan. “God’s blood,” she said in English. Ah Sam looked up briefly and May-may was instantly under control. Gordon Chen picked up the fan and bowed low as he returned it to her.
“Thank you,” she continued in Soochow dialect. “But I prefer that ship.” She pointed with her fan at the
White Witch. She was still shaky from the horrified realization that Gordon Chen thought she wanted her adored Tai-Pan dead. “The other is priceless jade. Priceless, you hear? Inviolate, by all the gods. How dare you have the impertinence to think otherwise?”
His relief was palpable. “Forgive me, Supreme Lady. I would kowtow a thousand times to show my abject apology here and now, but your slave might find it curious,” he said in a rushing mixture of deliberately intermingled Soochow and Mandarin words. “For a moment a devil entered my foolish head and I did not understand you clearly. Of course I would never, never consider a balance of such ships, one against another.”
“Yes,” she said. “If one thread of hempen rope, if one sliver of wood, were touched on the other, I would follow him who dared to defile such jade into the bowels of hell, and there I’d claw off his testicles and rip out his eyes and feed him them with his entrails!”
Gordon Chen winced, but kept his voice conversational. “Never fear, Supreme Lady. Never fear. I will kowtow a hundred times as penitence for not understanding the difference between jade and wood. I would never imply—I would never wish you to think that I do not understand.”
“Good.”
“If you will excuse me now, Supreme Lady, I will be about my business.”
“Your business is unfinished,” she said curtly. “And manners suggest that we should have more tea.” She clapped her hands regally to Ah Sam and ordered fresh tea. And hot towels. When Ah Sam returned, May-may talked in Cantonese. “I hear many ships are leaving for Macao very soon,” she said, and Gordon Chen immediately understood that Brock was to be removed underground in Macao and at once.
Ah Sam brightened. “Do you think we’ll be going? Oh, I’d adore to see Macao again.” She smiled coyly at Gordon Chen. “Do you know Macao, honored sir?”
“Of course,” he said. Normally a slave would not have dared to address him. But he knew that Ah Sam was May-may’s personal confidante and private slave, and as such had manifold privileges. Also he found her very pretty—for a Hoklo boat girl. He glanced back at May-may. “Unfortunately I won’t be able to go this year. Though many of my friends ply back and forth.”
May-may nodded. “Have you heard that last night Father’s barbarian son was engaged to be married? Can you imagine it? To the daughter of his enemy. Extraordinary people, these barbarians.”
“Yes,” Gordon Chen said, surprised that May-may thought it necessary to make the removal of Brock any clearer. Surely she doesn’t want the whole family destroyed? “Unbelievable.”
“Not that I mind the father—he’s old, and if the gods are just, his joss will run out soon.” May-may tossed her head and set her jade and silver ornaments ajingling. “As for the girl, well, I suppose she’ll make good sons—though what any man could see in that thick-legged, cow-chested thing I really can’t imagine.”
“Yes,” Gordon said agreeably. So Brock’s not to be killed. Nor the daughter. That leaves the mother and the brother. The mother is most unlikely; therefore it is the brother, Gorth. But why only the brother, why only Gorth Brock? Why not father and brother? For obviously both are a danger to the Tai-Pan. Gordon’s respect for his father increased immensely. How subtle to make it look as though May-may was the instigator of the stratagem! How devious to drop a hint to May-may, who went to Jin-qua, who came to me! How subtle! Of course, he told himself, that means the Tai-Pan knew May-may passed on secret information—he must have deliberately given her the information to put Jin-qua in her debt. But does he therefore know about the Triads? and me? Surely not.
He felt very tired. His mind was surfeited with so much excitement and danger. And he was greatly worried by the increased pressure the mandarins were exerting on the Triads in Kwangtung. And on the Triads in Macao. And even on Tai Ping Shan. The mandarins had many agents among the people on the hill, and though most were known and four already obliterated, the anxiety that their presence brought weighed heavily on him. If it became known that he was the Triad leader of Hong Kong, he could never return to Canton, and his life here would not be worth a sampan owner’s feces.
And, too, his senses were drowned by May-may’s exquisite perfume and by Ah Sam’s blatant sexuality. I’d like to bed the slave, he thought. But that’s unwise, and dangerous. Unless Mother suggests it. Better hurry back to Tai Ping Shan to the arms of the most valuable concubine on the hill. By all the gods, she’s almost worth the thousand taels she cost. We’ll make love ten times tonight in ten different ways. He smiled to himself. Be honest, Gordon, it will be only thrice. And then thrice with joss—but how marvelous!
“I’m sad that I won’t be able to go to Macao,” he said. “I suppose all Father’s relations by marriage will be going? Particularly the son?”
“Yes,” May-may said with a sweet sigh, knowing that her message was now clear, “I suppose so.”
“Huh!” Ah Sam said contemptuously. “There will be great happiness when the son leave Hong Kong.”
“Why?” May-may asked attentively, and Gordon Chen was equally alert, his fatigue vanishing.
Ah Sam had been saving the rare information for such a dramatic time as this. “This son is a real barbarian devil. He goes to one of the barbarian whorehouses two or three times a week.” She stopped and poured some tea.
“Well, go on, Ah Sam,” May-may said impatiently.
“He beats them,” she said importantly.
“Perhaps they displease him,” May-may said. “A good beating could never hurt one of those barbarian whores.”
“Yes. But he flogs them and savages them before he lies with them.”
“You mean every time?” May-may asked incredulously.
“Every time,” Ah Sam said. “He pays for the beating and then pays for the, well, the manipulation—for that’s all the rest appears to be.
Pffff! In and finished”—she snapped her fingers—“just like that!”
“Huh! How do you know all this, eh?” May-may asked. “I think you deserve a good pinching. I think you’re making this all up, you weevil-mouthed slave!”
“I most certainly am not, Mother. That barbarian madam—the old witch, with the impossible name? The one with the glass eyes and the incredible selfmoving teeth?”