'So where's Ko meanwhile?'
'In Bangkok. Trading.'
'Well let's bloody well hope he stays there.'
'Amen, sir. Amen.'
With a shriek of new hinges unoiled, the door at his ear was yanked open and a slim young American in a dinner-jacket stepped into the corridor, stopped dead, and stared at Jerry and the orchids. He had blue, steady eyes and he carried a briefcase.
'You looking for me with those things?' he enquired, with a Boston society drawl. He looked rich and assured. Jerry guessed diplomacy or Ivy League banking.
'Well I don't think so actually,' Jerry confessed, playing the English bloody fool. 'Cavendish,'- he said. Over the American's shoulder Jerry saw the door quietly close on a packed bookshelf. 'Friend of mine asked me to give these to a Miss Cavendish at 9D. Waltzed off to Manila, left me holding the orchids, sort of thing.'
'Wrong floor,' said the American strolling toward the lift. 'You want one up. Wrong corridor too. D's over the other side. Thattaway.'
Jerry stood beside him, pretending to wait for an up lift. The down lift came first, the young American stepped easily into it and Jerry resumed his post. The door marked C opened, he saw her come out, and turn to double-lock it. Her clothes were everyday. Her hair was long and ashblonde but she had tied it in a pony tail at the nape. She wore a plain halter-neck dress and sandals, and though he couldn't see her face he knew already she was beautiful. She walked to the lift, still not seeing him and Jerry had the illusion of looking in on her through a window from the street.
There were women in Jerry's world who carried their bodies as if they were citadels to be stormed only by the bravest, and Jerry had married several; or perhaps they grew that way under his influence. There were women who seemed determined to hate themselves, hunching their backs and locking up their hips. And there were women who had only to walk toward him to bring him a gift. They were the rare ones and for Jerry at that moment she led the pack. She had stopped at the gold doors and was watching the lighted numbers. He reached her side as the lift arrived and she still hadn't noticed him. It was jammed full, as he had hoped it would be. He entered crabwise, intent on the orchids, apologising, grinning and making a show of holding them high. She had her back to him, and he was standing at her shoulder. It was a strong shoulder, and bare either side of the halter, and Jerry could see small freckles and a down of tiny gold hairs disappearing down her spine. Her face was in profile below him. He peered down at it.
'Lizzie?' he said, uncertainly. 'Hey, Lizzie, it's me; Jerry.'
She turned sharply and stared up at him. He wished he could have backed away from her because he knew her first response would be physical fear of his size, and he was right. He saw it momentarily in her grey eyes, which flickered before holding him in their stare.
'Lizzie Worthington!' he declared more confidently. 'How's the whisky, remember me? One of your proud investors. Jerry. Chum of Tiny Ricardo's. One fifty-gallon keg with my name on the label. All paid and above board.'
He had kept it quiet on the assumption that he might be raking up a past she was keen to disown. He had kept it so quiet that their fellow passengers heard either 'Raindrops keep fallin' on my head' over the Muzak, or the grumbling of an elderly Greek who thought he was boxed in.
'Why of course,' she said, and gave a bright, air-hostess smile. 'Jerry!' Her voice faded as she pretended to have it on the tip of her tongue.
'Jerry — er -' She frowned and looked upward like a repertory actress doing Forgetfulness. The lift stopped at the sixth floor.
'Westerby,' he said promptly, getting her off the hook. 'Newshound. You put the bite on me in the Constellation bar. I wanted a spot of loving comfort and all I got was a keg of whisky.'
Somebody next to him laughed.
'Of course! Jerry darling! How could I possibly... So I mean what are you doing in Hong Kong? My God!'
'Usual beat. Fire and pestilence, famine. How about you? Retired I should think, with your sales methods. Never had my arm twisted so thoroughly in my life.'
She laughed delightedly. The doors had opened at the third floor. An old woman shuffled in on two walking sticks.
Lizzie Worthington sold in all a cool fifty-five kegs of the blushful Hippocrene, your Grace, old Craw had said. Every one of them to a male buyer and a fair number of them, according to my advisers, with service thrown in. Gives a new meaning to the term 'good measure', I venture to suggest.
They had reached the ground floor. She got out first and he walked beside her. Through the main doors he saw her red sports car with its roof up waiting in the bay, jammed among the glistening limousines. She must have phoned down and ordered them to have it ready, he thought: if Ko owns the building he'll make damn sure she gets the treatment. She was heading for the porter's window. As they crossed the hall she went on chattering, pivoting to talk to him, one arm held wide of her body, palm upward like a fashion model. He must have asked her how she liked Hong Kong, though he couldn't remember doing so:
'I adore it, Jerry, I simply adore it. Vientiane seems — oh, centuries away. You know Ric died?' She threw this in heroically, as if she and death weren't strangers to each other. 'After Ric, I thought I'd never care for anywhere again. I was completely wrong, Jerry. Hong Kong has to be the most fun city in the world. Lawrence darling, I'm sailing my red submarine. It's hen night at the club.'
Lawrence was the porter, and the key to her car dangled from a large silver horseshoe which reminded Jerry of Happy Valley races.
'Thank you, Lawrence,' she said sweetly and gave him a smile that would last him all night. 'The people here are so marvellous, Jerry,' she confided to him in a stage whisper as they moved toward the main entrance. 'To think what we used to say about the Chinese in Laos! Yet here, they're just the most marvellous and outgoing and inventive people ever.' She had slipped into a stateless foreign accent, he noticed. Must have picked it up from Ricardo and stuck to it for chic. 'People think to themselves: Hong Kong — fabulous shopping - tax-free cameras — restaurants — but honestly, Jerry, when you get under the surface, and meet the true Hong Kong, and the people — it's got everything you could possibly want from life. Don't you adore my new car?'
'So that's how you spend the whisky profits.'
He held out his open palm and she dropped the keys into it so that he could unlock the door for her. Still in dumb show he gave her the orchids to hold. Behind the black Peak a full moon, not yet risen, glowed like a forest fire. She climbed in, he handed her the keys and this time he felt the contact of her hand and remembered Happy Valley again, and Ko's kiss as they drove away. 'Mind if I ride on the back?' he asked.
She laughed and pushed open the passenger door for him. 'Where are you going with those gorgeous orchids anyway?'
She started the engine, but Jerry gently switched it off again. She stared at him in surprise.
'Sport,' he said quietly. 'I cannot tell a lie. I'm a viper in your nest, and before you drive me anywhere, you'd better fasten your seat belt and hear the grisly truth.'
He had chosen this moment carefully because he didn't want her to feel threatened. She was in the driving seat of her own car, under the lighted awning of her own apartment block, within sixty feet of Lawrence the porter, and he was playing the humble sinner in order to increase her sense of security.
'Our chance reunion was not entire chance. That's point one. Point two, not to put too fine an edge on it, my paper told me to run you to earth and besiege you with many searching questions regarding your late chum Ricardo.'