Eric van lustbader chi.., p.13
Eric van Lustbader - China Maroc 02, page 13
Three Oaths felt better than he had in thirty years. There was not a man present who was not looking or had not looked at Neon Chow. Men far younger than himself. He thought, There are some fires that age cannot diminish. He was so happy that even the prospect of eating loh faan style did not bother him. One night ingesting food that had been chopped, minced, pureed and whipped into consistencies that bore no relation to their natural state would not kill him. He might have indigestion later on, but Neon Chow knew how to cure that. He smiled at the thought and his sacred member began to thicken underneath the table.
“Eeeeya!” Neon Chow cried as the sommelier brought over a bottle of Dom Perignon. “My favorite!” She had developed a taste for fine champagne, from the governmental functions she attended with the governor. Personally, Three Oaths thought all champagne tasted like cat piss. But, he thought, this is her night and she will get what she wants.
He watched her stuff herself with foie gras and caviar, and later, venison flown in from Buddha only knew where, dripping in a reduction of juices and cream so rich that it made him bilious just to inhale the aroma. But what did any of that matter as long as she was happy?
Neon Chow’s pleasure was at this moment very precious to him. When she was happy she made him happy, and considering the monumental business problems confronting him he needed her radiant energy like a fragile plant needed a fiery sun.
The final accountings at Southasia had come in while he was again at Andrew Sawyer’s office. As was their habit, he and Sawyer had been going over the monthly revenue returns on the tanker fleet owned by the inner circle and run by Three Oaths. When the shock had worn off enough for them to regain their senses they had tried to locate Jake. But it was late in the day and Jake had already left the office.
Three Oaths had called his daughter. Bliss had been on her way to Aberdeen, to give the Jian another acupressure treatment aboard Three Oaths’s junk. She had no idea where Jake might have gone but she knew that he was due at the junk that evening, to see his father.
Normally a couple of hours would not have made a difference, but the news the full audit had given them was chilling. Not twenty-five million but closer to fifty-five million dollars American had been embezzled. It was a staggering sum, and a certain death blow to Southasia, as far as Three Oaths and Andrew Sawyer could determine. It was difficult to conceive how such a vast sum of money could be filtered out of an organization without anyone suspecting, Three Oaths had said. But Sawyer had explained the subtly veined network -of international companies that surrounded Southasia. The bank sat at the very heart of them, their nerve center. An accountant and a comprador of sufficient guile and daring could manage to steal that much money over a specific period of time. The trouble was, Sawyer had said, that neither man had seemed to him capable of taking the enormous risk such a deception would entail.
Three Oaths had said, “The fact remains that the yuhn-hyun has lost fifty-five million dollars. We are without sufficient funds to make up what has been embezzled. In effect, we have lost our depositors’ money. If even a hint of that leaks into the Colony, Southasia will be shuttered almost immediately.”
Dessert was a dense chocolate cake layered with praline buttercream. Three Oaths’s stomach screamed for surcease but he ate his piece anyway, hoping that the fragrant oolong tea would calm him.
Of course, they could abandon their fight to retain control of Pak. That would certainly free up enough cash but at what price? It was unthinkable. Pak Han Min was the inner circle’s key into Kam Sang. Three Oaths did not know why Kam Sang was so vital to the yuhn-hyun, though it had been he himself who had created the labyrinth of interlocking companies known as Pak Han Min. He had been under discipline to his elder brother, Zilin, to do so. Why?
All the companies that comprised Pak made an excellent profit due in large part to Three Oaths’s acute business acumen. But that profit was funneled through a complicated and wholly clandestine method directly into Kam Sang. Why?
To his knowledge only the Jian was privy to that secret information. Three Oaths only knew that they must not lose Pak Han Min. Did that mean, then, that they would have to let Southasia Bancorp shrivel and die? What would be left of the yuhn-hyun if that should happen?
“What is the matter, si ji?” Since there was no definite word in Cantonese for “dear” or “darling,” Neon Chow used other nicknames. Si ji meant lion.
“What?” She had broken in on his musings.
“I saw you shudder. Do you have a chill? Is that why you have only been half listening to me all evening? Are you ill?”
“I am not ill, ” Three Oaths said gruffly. He did not like it when she treated him like a child; it reminded him of his age. “And if I have not been as attentive as I should be, I’ve not been aware of it.”
“But that shudder,” Neon Chow persisted, seeming concerned.
“Only the air conditioning,” he lied. “I should have asked them to change the table.”
Seemingly mollified, she said, “I know you’ve had a lot on your mind lately. Since you’ve been spending so much time at the Sawyer Building I see new creases on that beautiful lion’s face. I don’t like that.”
“I am tai pan,” he said, “with a tai pan’s responsibilities. You know that.”
“Somehow things were simpler … I think you were happier before Jake Maroc became Zhuan.”
“You two do not get along.”
“What is he to you?” Neon Chow said. “Just your nephew.”
“He is the Jian’s son,” Three Oaths said.
“And he is Zhuan. Why not one of your sons? Your number one son is more than qualified. Isn’t he deserving of such a signal honor?”
“Perhaps,” Three Oaths said. “But this was not my decision to make.”
“Are you not a great tai pan?” Neon Chow insisted.
Three Oaths said, “Why do you harbor these thoughts?”
“Because Jake Shi says nothing. If he were mute he would say as much to me. I do not trust him.”
“You are being foolish. It is part of being Zhuan,” Three Oaths said. “It is not an easy thing to do to cut yourself off from all outside disturbances. He must concentrate all his energies on leading the yuhn-hyun.”
“Toward what end?” Neon Chow asked. “Don’t you think all of us deserve to know that?”
“One China,” Three Oaths said, his eyes shining. “That has been the Jian’s dream for many decades. Mine, as well. A united China, strong, in the forefront of twenty-first-century world trade. A modern China: the remaking of the face of Asia.”
“To do that,” Neon Chow said shrewdly, “Beijing would have to divest itself almost entirely of Communism; it would have to become firm allies with the capitalist West.”
“Yes, that’s quite true.”
When sufficient time had passed, Neon Chow excused herself. She went into the ladies’ room. In a tiny wallpapered antechamber was a pay phone.
She dialed a number and waited while it rang.
“Waaaaay?”
“Peony,” she said, identifying herself. “I need a rendezvous with Mitre as soon as possible.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” the voice said, tonelessly. “Please hold.”
Neon Chow began to sweat in the tiny airless cubicle. Come on, she thought. What could take so long?
“Seventy-two hours.”
And that’s the best these dung-eating bureaucrats can do, she thought. What do they know of the emergencies that arise in the field?
“Dew neh loh moh on that!” she shouted down the line. “This is Peony.”
“All right, all right,” the voice said. “Forty-eight hours. But that’s the limit.”
By all the evil gods in hell, she fumed silently. If I were a man Mitre wouldn’t treat me this way. Damn all men!
She went into the ladies’ room. She tried to calm herself while she urinated. At the mirror she stared at her face as if she had never seen it before. Flaws and the marks of time were becoming more and more manifest. With a sudden wave of disgust she found that she hated her face.
Great Buddha! she thought. Communist China allied with the West! What a monstrous idea!
She knew that she could not return to the table in this agitated state. Three Oaths would pick up her inharmoniousness immediately. Above all, she knew, she must give him no cause for alarm. If she made him even the least bit suspicious, all would be lost.
She called upon her training, breathing deeply and slowly. Thus, she purged herself of all negative emotion. When she was ready she returned to the dinner table. Three Oaths had called for another pot of tea.
“Sit down, please,” he said, filling her cup. “I have something to ask you.”
Fear rushed like a stream through her and for a moment she was so dizzy that she thought her knees would not hold her. Calm yourself, she thought fiercely. Do you want to die so young?
She sat opposite him and because she knew that this was what was called for, she sipped at her tea. All the time she was thinking, I must get us back to the junk as quickly as possible. But how?
“What can it be,” she said when she could trust herself to speak, “that gives you such a serious face? This is my birthday, after all. All serious topics are traditionally banished for the night.”
“I’ve waited as long as I was able,” he said by way of apology. “But certain business, er, problems dictate that the traditions be turned aside this one time.”
“All right, si ji,” she said, in her little girl’s voice. “It will be as you wish.” Gods, what has been going on between the tai pan up at Sawyer’s office?
“Not as I wish. Not at all. Joss dictates this.”
“Then I accept my joss.” She smiled a smile as false as her words.
He nodded. “As I knew you would. I want you to contrive to meet Sir John Bluestone in the course of your job at the governor’s office.”
Neon Chow had ceased to breathe. She was certain that all the color had drained from her face and she thought frenziedly, All gods bear witness! He knows!
“I want you to be as friendly as you can, even flirt with him. I want, in short, for you to present yourself to him.”
Then she thought, He only suspects and is playing with me.
“I want, ultimately, for you to become his confidante. Convince him that you are growing tired of me. I am an old man, after all. Perhaps my sexual prowess isn’t what it once was.”
“But, si—”
“It is a logical tack to take; it is, I think, what Mr. Bluestone would like to believe. I think, further, that it will tickle him to cuckold me. Especially when you tell him that you will spy on me for him.”
“Si ji!”
“Now, now, that is only what I wish him to believe. In reality, you will be spying on him for me.”
“Oh,” she cried, clapping her hands, “you have the most deliciously clever mind!”
“The yuhn-hyun is desperate for inside information on Bluestone’s next moves. Will you do it?”
She was laughing to herself. He doesn’t know after all, he doesn’t even suspect! She wanted to burst into tears of relief. “Of course I’ll do it,” she said, leaning toward him across the table. One hand had disappeared.
In a moment, Three Oaths felt her nimble fingers at the apex of his thighs. Even through his trousers she could do things that aroused him to a fever pitch.
“Come,” she whispered huskily. She encircled his sacred member as it unfurled. “Let us go home as quickly as possible. I want to consummate my birthday … and our new business arrangement!”
*
The snake, when it came out of Jake’s shirt, was already hissing. He had bought it in the shop on Ladder Street. This was the time the hibernating snakes were divested of a fluid said by the Chinese to promote health and sexual prowess. The warmth of being next to Jake’s skin had revived it from its winter torpor and now it was inquisitive about its immediate environment. Jake threw it at the tick.
She threw her arms up as the snake got tangled in the huge cowl neck of her sweater. -The gun went clattering down the alley. Jake watched, fascinated, as she struggled with it. In this, he made a mistake.
She struck him two lightning kites, partially missing with the first but connecting fully with the second. All the breath rushed from Jake’s lungs and he began to double over.
The snake was on the ground, coiled, its scales gleaming dully. It hissed. The woman’s left knee came up, catching Jake’s cheek. His vision blurred and he fell to the pavement.
Then she was bending, ripping off one high-heel. He turned his head and saw her gripping the top of the boot. The heel was turned toward him and he could see the streetlight catch along the tip. It was steel-sheathed.
The weapon swung downward and Jake rolled at the last possible instant. Heard the sharp report of the steel striking stone, sparks shooting up, and the arm already pulling back for the next strike.
Jake in sumi otoshi, his fingers sliding around the woman’s forearm and immediately he twisted to the left, pulling her with him, sucking her into the circular path of his own momentum.
She stumbled, went down on one knee, scraping it hard against the rough pavement. Jake used a kite at her wrist and the boot went skittering away into the permanent shadows of the alleyway.
He could hear the panting of her breath and he knew that he had a chance now, regaining his feet as she did, facing each other as she threw her other shoe into the darkness, equal terms reestablished; it was as if the last frantic few moments had never existed.
Until she came at him in a circular pattern and used the double palm change, and disrupted his strategy, he not fully prepared and cursing himself as he went down in great pain, having failed to follow Fo Saan and, ultimately, Lao Tzu, who counseled: in combat listen not with your ears which hear only ordinary things, listen not with your heart, which records only information of the rational world. Rather, listen with the breath so that one may await extraordinary events in a noncommittal fashion.
He had heard with his heart, had reacted to the woman, the rational,
despite what his new-found experience told him: that she could not be as deadly as a male opponent. Had not been noncommittal but had anticipated and in so doing had sealed his defeat.
Went down in a blinding welter of pain that made his ears ring, leached strength from his arms and shoulders. She had used a strike from Pa-kua, one of China’s oldest martial arts, one of the original war arts or wu-shu that stressed circular movements in attack and defense much like aikido, which was Jake’s mainstay.
Caught thus off-guard, he was defenseless. Her eyes followed the path her palms were taking. She moved first through her waist, low center of gravity, then, summoning the energy from that reserve, transferred it into her arms. Moved with blurring speed, got in four or five serious blows before Jake could recover enough to block the next two.
That surprised her and gave him a bit of breathing room. But again he anticipated, sure that she would continue the attack with Pa-kua. Instead, she ripped the gold chain from around her throat, flicked it outward in a kasumi throw just as if the gold links were the steel manrikigusari, the Japanese weighted chain.
Struck him in the eye and immediately she had wrapped the chain around his neck. Pulling from both ends, her knee pressed into his chest.
Threw up both his hands, slamming the wrists against the inside of her arm, making her twist to her right, grasping her right wrist as she did so with his right hand, pulling it sharply down to his right while jamming his heel of his left hand against her right elbow.
Heard a crack, then a brief cry of surprise and pain from her as he pulled her hard forward, throwing her completely off-balance.
She was against him and his intention was to use an atemi, a hard percussion blow, wanting only to stun her. But saw the point of the knife just in time, divining her intent and knowing there was no time at all because of how close they were.
Had no choice then but to use the jut-hara, one of the lethal atemi, the one that broke the tips of the fifth and sixth ribs, using them as internal weapons, the concussion of the blow jamming them up into the heart.
Within six minutes he had boarded a red double-decker bus heading east. He went immediately to the upper level so that he had a better vantage point of the environment. The bus pulled out and he watched the street behind them until he was absolutely certain he was not being followed.
At the next stop, he got off, walked four blocks, using natural cover as an added precaution. Took another bus back west into Central.
The busy nightlife engulfed him. It turned the red bus phosphorescent. Faces of the passengers were blue with reflected neon. The tick had possessed no I.D. Jake would have been surprised if there had been any. Pockets contained some money, no keys. Nothing at all save a tiny, hastily wrapped parcel wedged into the seam of the lining. Felt the shape of it in the palm of his hand. He unwrapped it and took a look. An uncut opal with exceptional fire.
At the stop he needed, Jake descended at the last possible instant. He was about to make his final run to his rendezvous and he was understandably cautious. If there was one tick, there might be others.
At last he felt safe enough to return to his parked Jaguar. With a squeal of burnt rubber, he took off, heading up, over the Peak, toward Aberdeen and the Jian.
Bliss was reading the Jian a story. It was one of his favorites, the one about the hare and the sister stars who return to the Middle Kingdom in the form of human beings.
The stories the Jian liked the best, she had found, were the ones involving transmogrification. She suspected that was because he believed this is what had happened to him.
It gave Bliss immense pleasure to read to him, though in point of fact much of their quiet time together was spent with him telling her stories about her great-grandfather, the first Jian, and the legendary garden where Zilin’s own philosophical nature had been formed.
