The man in the blue suit was still standing. “I’ll be succinct,” I said, “because I know you all must be very busy.” That seemed sufficient abasement on my part, because the man sat down and the others shifted happily in their chairs. “The Macau trip went very well. The authorities were completely cooperative. All records and files were opened for my inspection. We believe that the work can be wrapped up in a week or so, at most. We did encounter some procedural delays, which I noted to you, but those are behind us. I’m only waiting for a final report and for the inter-governmental agreement to be signed in order to wrap things up.”
There was the deadly silence that comes when self-important people are at a sudden loss for words. Finally, a man sitting on the edge of his chair spoke up. “Did you just say something about an inter-governmental agreement?”
“Yes,” I said. “Of course, you knew that my government has no agreement covering the transfer between police authorities of information pertaining to political, economic, or capital crimes. Simply a formality, naturally.”
A wave of relief made its way around the semicircle.
“Once the papers are submitted for the agreement,” I waved airily, “it only takes around eight months, a year at most, for the legal documents to be drawn up, signed, and ratified.”
A deep silence ensued, very deep, deep enough to swallow a lot of careers.
“Well,” I said. “I hope that answers all your questions.” A couple of men looked up numbly, as if trying to remember how to swim.
5
“I should skin you alive for what you did this morning.” Kim slammed his door so hard a map fell off the wall. “What treaty? You never mentioned a treaty to me.”
“That’s because I didn’t know about it before. We have treaties with everyone, all sorts of treaties. The Foreign Ministry has a bureau that does nothing but treaties. When Macau became part of China, we had to redo all of our liaison agreements. You’re going to have to deal with them, replace them, renegotiate them, or something. You can’t just trash them.”
“Says who?”
“They’re legal. They’re on paper. That makes them sacred, isn’t that right?”
“I have news for you, Inspector. When your government goes out of business, everything it ever signed goes in the toilet.”
“You wish. What happens is, everyone goes to court and things are tied in knots for years. Meanwhile, though, my government is still in business, and its treaties remain in force. That’s the law, comrade.”
“Since when are you an international lawyer?”
“I’m not, and neither, obviously, are you. The fact is we don’t have any exchange agreement with the Macau police on this particular issue. I checked.”
“We keep circling around on this, O. How is that? I don’t need any documents from Macau. I need you to fix a problem.”
“ ‘A little problem’ is what you said. Only it isn’t little. If it were little, Mr. Blue Suit wouldn’t have been up here. If it were a little problem, we might be able to wiggle between the words. But it’s big, a very big problem, and big problems fall under the heading of Treaties, Agreements, Memoranda of Understanding, and So Forth.”
“Can you or can you not fix this problem? The man in the blue suit wasn’t kidding. He’ll get someone else to do the job, and he won’t want people hanging around who are leftovers with a lot of information they shouldn’t have.”
“Tough guy.”
“Not tough, thorough. He doesn’t leave loose ends. He wasn’t happy with what he heard today. He made that clear after you left.” Kim picked up the map and put it back on the wall. “Funny how territory can be moved around, yet it always goes back to where it belongs. See what I mean?”
“It’s crooked,” I said. “Tilted to the right.”
“You haven’t told me, Inspector. I’ve been waiting patiently. But I’m not waiting anymore. Are you with me or against me? Your performance this morning was ambiguous. It raises questions. There can’t be questions about loyalty. It’s not possible.”
Loyalty? Did the man actually think I was loyal to him? Or might ever be? “Is that how things are in your world, Major? Do you imagine that people here are going to line up, once you’ve raised your flag and sounded the trumpets to announce a new dynasty has swept aside the old? What are you going to do, have everyone sign oaths of allegiance? You don’t have enough pens.”
“They’ll come along, as long as there aren’t troublemakers stirring things up. The point is, it will be even smoother if they have someone at the top whom they can cheer and weep for, someone on the reviewing stand, waving as they march by. The lead on every newscast, the picture on the front page every day, the name that follows them around from the moment they wake up in the morning.”
“If that’s your idea of order, good luck.” That was the problem I was supposed to fix. That was why Kim’s assembled group was so anxious. They needed a shepherd for the sheep. It didn’t matter what he had done or not done. The past was irrelevant when the future was about to blow down the walls.
Chapter Four
In the line standing at the front desk was a man whose wig was not straight. This was the sort of thing I used to focus on right away. These days, I might not have paid attention if not for the young woman on his arm. She was golden brown all over from what I could see, and I could see plenty. The fish on the carpet were goggle-eyed.
The bellboy was standing next to me. “My lucky day,” he said. “Brazilians! Hot! Hot! Hot!” He wiggled his hips. The people in line turned to watch him. The golden one put out her arms and made a noise with her tongue. Then she laughed. The man in the crooked wig laughed. The desk clerk-busy collecting passports and giving out room keys-frowned in concentration, but the group laughed as it did the samba up the stairs.
“You want a list of their rooms?” The bellboy had loaded the luggage onto his cart and was pushing it toward the elevator. “You never know when one of them will get lonely. Beautiful people. Very hot.”
“You fool around with tourists and you’ll get a one-way ticket to a coal mine.”
“These days? My, oh my, Inspector. You are a relic. We interact; that’s the word. We interact globally. Boy, I’d like to interact with the Golden One. Why don’t you have a drink with her friend later? Give us an hour or three.” He winked at me as the elevator door closed.
I walked twelve floors up to my room and was sitting on the bed catching my breath, thinking about what Kim had told me, when an envelope came under my door. The note was on the hotel’s stationery. “Drinks at 4:30?” No signature. At 4:15, I went down to the bar and made my way to the darkest corner, farthest from the door.