Noble House

by James Clavell

  “Me too,” Bartlett said.

  “Shitee’s early tonight,” Mata said with a laugh. “Orlanda, you should have warned them it’s an old custom always to have a snack before any of Shitee’s banquets.”

  Orlanda just smiled her lovely smile and Casey said, “Orlanda warned Linc, who told me, but I figured I could last.” She looked at her enemy who was almost half a head shorter, about five foot three. For the first time in her life she felt big and oafish. Be honest, she reminded herself, ever since you walked out of the hotel into the streets and saw all the Chinese girls and women with their tiny hands and feet and bodies and smallness, all dark-eyed and dark-haired, you’ve felt huge and alien. Yes. Now I can understand why they all gape at us so much. And as for the ordinary tourist, loud, overweight, waddling along …

  Even so, Orlanda Ramos, as pretty as you are and as clever as you think you are, you’re not the girl for Linc Bartlett. So you can blow it all out of your ass! “Next time, Orlanda,” she said so nicely, “I’ll remember to be very cautious about what you recommend.”

  “I recommend we eat, Casey. I’m hungry too.”

  Mata said, “I do believe we’re all at the same table. I must confess I arranged it.” Happily he led the way, more than ever excited by the challenge of getting Casey into bed. The moment he had seen her he had decided. Part of it was her beauty and tallness and beautiful breasts, such a welcome contrast to the smallness and sameness of the normal Asian girl. Part was because of the clues Orlanda had given him. But the biggest part had been his sudden thought that by breaking the Bartlett-Casey connection he might wreck Par-Con’s probe into Asia. Far better to keep Americans and their hypocritical, impractical morality and meddling out of our area as long as we can, he had told himself. And if Dunross doesn’t have the Par-Con deal, then he will have to sell me the control I want. Then, at long last, I become the tai-pan of the Noble House, all the Dunrosses and Struans notwithstanding.

  Madonna, life is really very good. Curious that this woman could be the key to the best lock in Asia, he thought. Then he added contentedly, Clearly she can be bought. It’s only a matter of how much.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  11:01 P.M.:

  Dinner was twelve courses. Braised abalone with green sprouts, chicken livers and sliced partridge sauce, shark’s fin soup, barbecued chicken, Chinese greens and peapods and broccoli and fifty other vegetables with crab meat, the skin of roast Peking duck with plum sauce and sliced spring onions and paper-thin pancakes, double-boiled mushrooms and fish maw, smoked pomfret fish with salad, rice Yangchow style, home sweet home noodles—then happiness dessert, sweetened lotus seeds and lily in rice gruel. And tea continuously.

  Mata and Orlanda helped Casey and Bartlett. Fleur and Peter Marlowe were the only other Europeans at their table. The Chinese presented their visiting cards and received others in exchange. “Oh you can eat with chopsticks!” All the Chinese were openly astonished, then slid comfortably back into Cantonese, the bejeweled women clearly discussing Casey and Bartlett and the Marlowes. Their comments were slightly guarded only because of Lando Mata and Orlanda.

  “What’re they saying, Orlanda?” Bartlett asked quietly amid the noisy exuberance particularly of the Chinese.

  “They’re just wondering about you and Miss Casey,” she said as cautiously, not translating the lewd remarks about the size of Casey’s chest, the wondering where her clothes came from, how much they cost, why she didn’t wear any jewelry, and what it must be like to be so tall. They were saying little about Bartlett other than wondering out loud if he was really Mafia as one of the Chinese papers had suggested.

  Orlanda was sure he wasn’t. But she was sure also that she would have to be very circumspect in front of Casey, neither too forward nor too slow, and never to touch him. And to be sweet to her, to try to throw her off her stride.

  Fresh plates for each course were laid with a clatter, the used ones whisked away. Waiters hurried to the dumbwaiters in the central section by the staircase to dispose of the old and grab steaming platters of the new.

  The kitchens, three decks below, were an inferno with the huge four-feet-wide iron woks fired with gas that was piped aboard. Some woks for steaming, some for quick frying, some for deep frying, some for stewing, and many for the pure white rice. An open, wood-fired barbecue. An army of helpers for the twenty-eight cooks were preparing the meats and vegetables, plucking chickens, killing fresh fish and lobsters and crabs and cleaning them, doing the thousand tasks that Chinese food requires—as each dish is cooked freshly for each customer.

  The restaurant opened at 10:00 A.M. and the kitchen closed at 10:45 P.M.—sometimes later when a special party was arranged. There could be dancing and a floor show if the host was rich enough. Tonight, though there was no late shift or floor show or dancing, they all knew that their share of the tip from Shitee T’Chung’s banquet would be very good. Shitee T’Chung was an expansive host, though most of them believed that much of the charity money he collected went into his stomach or those of his guests or onto the backs of his lady friends. He also had the reputation of being ruthless to his detractors, a miser to his family, and vengeful to his enemies.

  Never mind, the head chef thought. A man needs soft lips and hard teeth in this world and everyone knows which will last the longer. “Hurry up!” he shouted. “Can I wait all manure-infested night? Prawns! Bring the prawns!” A sweating helper in ragged pants and ancient, sweaty undershirt rushed up with a bamboo platter of the freshly caught and freshly peeled prawns. The chef cast them into the vast wok, added a handful of monosodium glutamate, whisked them twice and scooped them out, put a handful of steaming peapods on two platters and divided up the pink, glistening succulent prawns on top equally.

  “All gods urinate on all prawns!” he said sourly his stomach ulcer paining him, his feet and calves leaden from his ten-hour shift. “Send those upstairs before they spoil! Dew neh loh moh hurry … that’s my last order. It’s time to go home!”

  Other cooks were shouting last orders and cursing as they cooked. They were all impatient to be gone. “Hurry it up!” Then one young helper carrying a pot of used fat stumbled and the fat sprayed onto one of the gas fires, caught with a whoosh and there was sudden pandemonium. A cook screamed as the fire surrounded him and he beat at it, his face and hair singed. Someone threw a bucket of water on the fire and spread it violently. Flames soared to the rafters, billowing smoke. Shouting, shoving cooks moving out of the fire were causing a bottleneck. The acrid, black, oil smoke began to fill the air.

  The man nearest the single narrow staircase to the first deck grabbed one of the two fire extinguishers and slammed the plunger down and pointed the nozzle at the fire. Nothing happened. He did it again then someone else grabbed it from him with a curse, tried unsuccessfully to make it work, and cast it aside. The other extinguisher was also a dud. The staff had never bothered to test them.

  “All gods defecate on these motherless foreign devil inventions!” a cook wailed and prepared to flee if the fire approached him. A frightened coolie choking on the smoke at the other end of the kitchen backed away from a shaft of flame into some jars and toppled them. Some contained thousand-year-old eggs and others sesame oil. The oil flooded the floor and caught fire. The coolie vanished in the sudden sheet of flame. Now the fire owned half the kitchen.

  It was well past eleven o’clock and most diners had already left. The top deck of the Floating Dragon was still partially filled. Most of the Chinese, Four Finger Wu and Venus Poon among them, were walking out or had already left as the last course had already been served long since and it was polite Chinese custom to leave as soon as the last dish was finished, table by table. Only the Europeans were lingering over Cognac or port, and cigars.

  Throughout the boat, tables of mah-jong were being set up by Chinese, and the clitter-clatter of the ivory tiles banging on the tables began to dominate.

  “Do you play mah-jong, Mr. Bartlett?” Mata asked.

/>   “No. Please call me Linc.”

  “You should learn—it’s better than bridge. Do you play bridge, Casey?”

  Linc Bartlett laughed. “She’s a wiz, Lando. Don’t play her for money.”

  “Perhaps we can have a game sometime. You play, don’t you, Orlanda?” Mata said, remembering Gornt was an accomplished player.

  “Yes, a little,” Orlanda said softly and Casey thought grimly, I’ll bet the bitch’s a wiz too.

  “I’d love a game,” Casey said sweetly.

  “Good,” Mata said. “One day next week … oh, hello, tai-pan!”

  Dunross greeted them all with his smile. “How did you enjoy the food?”

  “It was fantastic!” Casey said, happy to see him and greatly aware of how handsome he looked in his tuxedo. “Would you like to join us?”

  “Thanks bu—”

  “Good night, tai-pan,” Dianne Chen said, coming up to him, her son Kevin—a short, heavyset youth with dark curly hair and full lips—in tow.

  Dunross introduced them. “Where’s Phillip?”

  “He was going to come but he phoned to say he was delayed. Well, good night…” Dianne smiled and so did Kevin and they headed for the door, Casey and Orlanda wide-eyed at Dianne’s jewelry.

  “Well, I must be off too,” Dunross said.

  “How was your table?”

  “Rather trying,” Dunross said with his infectious laugh. He had eaten with the MPs—with Gornt, Shi-teh and his wife at the Number One table—and there had been sporadic angry outbursts above the clatter of plates. “Robin Grey’s rather outspoken, and ill-informed, and some of us were having at him. For once Gornt and I were on the same side. I must confess our table got served first so poor old Shi-teh and his wife could flee. He took off like a dose of salts fifteen minutes ago.”

  They all laughed with him. Dunross was watching Marlowe. He wondered if Marlowe knew that Grey was his brother-in-law. “Grey seems to know you quite well, Mr. Marlowe.”

  “He has a good memory, tai-pan, though his manners are off.”

  “I don’t know about that, but if he has his way in Parliament God help Hong Kong. Well, I just wanted to say hello to all of you.” He smiled at Bartlett and Casey. “How about lunch tomorrow?”

  “Fine,” Casey said. “How about coming to the V and A?” She noticed Gornt get up to leave on the opposite side of the room and she wondered again who would win. “Just before dinner Andrew was say—”

  Then, with all of them, she heard faint screams. There was a sudden hush, everyone listening.

  “Fire!”

  “Christ, look!” They all stared at the dumbwaiter. Smoke was pouring out. Then a small tongue of flame.

  A split second of disbelief, then everyone jumped up. Those nearest the main staircase rushed for the doorway, crowding it, as others took up the shout. Bartlett leapt to his feet and dragged Casey with him. Mata and some of the guests began to run for the bottleneck.

  “Hold it!” Dunross roared above the noise. Everyone stopped. “There’s plenty of time. Don’t hurry!” he ordered. “There’s no need to run, take your time! There’s no danger yet!” His admonition helped those who were overly frightened. They started easing out of the crammed doorway. But below, on the staircases, the shouts and hysteria had increased.

  Not everyone had run at the first cry of danger. Gornt hadn’t moved. He puffed his cigar, all his senses concentrated. Havergill and his wife had walked over to the windows to look out. Others joined them. They could see crowds milling around the main entrance two decks below. “I don’t think we need to worry, my dear,” Havergill said. “Once the main lot are out we can follow at leisure.”

  Lady Joanna, beside them, said, “Did you see Biltzmann rush off? What a berk!” She looked around and saw Bartlett and Casey across the room, waiting beside Dunross. “Oh, I’d’ve thought they’d’ve fled too.”

  Havergill said, “Oh come on, Joanna, not all Yankees are cowards!”

  A sudden shaft of flame and thick black smoke poured out of the dumbwaiter. The shouting to hurry up began again.

  On the far side of the room nearer the fire, Bartlett said hastily, “Ian, is there another exit?”

  “I don’t know,” Dunross said. “Take a look outside. I’ll hold the fort here.” Bartlett took off quickly for the exit door to the half deck and Dunross turned to the rest of them. “Nothing to worry about,” he said, calming them and gauging them quickly. Fleur Marlowe was white but in control, Casey stared in shock at the people jamming the doorway, Orlanda petrified, near breaking. “Orlanda! It’s all right,” he said, “there’s no danger…”

  On the other side of the room Gornt got up and went nearer to the door. He could see the crush and knew that the stairs below would be jammed. Shrieks and some screams added to the fear here but Sir Charles Pennyworth was beside the doorway trying to get an orderly withdrawal down the stairs. More smoke billowed out and Gornt thought, Christ almighty, a bloody fire, half a hundred people and one exit. Then he noticed the unattended bar. He went to it and, outwardly calm, poured himself a whiskey and soda, but the sweat was running down his back.

  Below on the crowded second-deck landing Lando Mata stumbled and brought a whole group down, Dianne Chen and Kevin with them, creating a blockage in this, the only escape route. Men and women shrieked impotently, crushed against the floor as others fell or stumbled over them in a headlong dash for safety. Above on the staircase, Pugmire held on to the bannister and just managed to keep his feet, using his great strength to shove his back against the people and prevent more from falling. Julian Broadhurst was beside him, frightened too but equally controlled, using his height and weight with Pugmire. Together they held the breach momentarily, but gradually the weight of those behind overcame them. Pugmire felt his grip slipping. Ten steps below, Mata fought to his feet, trampled on a few people in his haste, then shoved on downstairs, his coat half torn from him. Dianne Chen clawed her way to her feet, dragging Kevin with her. In the shoving, milling mass of humanity she did not notice a woman grab her diamond pendant neatly and pocket it, then jostle away down the stairs. Smoke billowing up from the lower deck added to the horror. Pugmire’s hold was broken. He was half-shoved into the wall by the human flood and Broadhurst missed his footing. Another small avalanche of people began. Now the stairs on both levels were clogged.

  Four Finger Wu with Venus Poon had been on the first landing when the shout had gone up and he had darted down the last staircase and shoved his way out onto the drawbridge that led to the wharf, Venus Poon a few terrorized steps behind him. Safe on the wharf, he turned and looked back, his heart pounding, his breathing heavy. Men and women were stumbling out of the huge ornate doorway onto the jetty, some flames coming out of portholes near the waterline. A policeman who had been patrolling nearby ran up, watched aghast for a moment, then took to his heels for the nearest telephone. Wu was still trying to catch his breath when he saw Richard Kwang and his wife rush out pell-mell. He began to laugh and felt much better. Venus Poon thought the people looked very funny too. Onlookers were collecting in safety, no one doing anything to help, just gawking—which is only right, Wu thought in passing. One must never interfere with the decisions of the gods. The gods have their own rules and they decide a human’s joss. It’s my joss to escape and to enjoy this whore tonight. All gods help me to maintain my Imperial Iron until she screams for mercy.

  “Come along, Little Mealy Mouth,” Four Fingers said with a cackle, “we can safely leave them to their joss. Time’s wasting.”

  “No, Father,” she said quickly. “Any moment the TV cameras and press will arrive—we must think of our image, heya?”

  “Image? It’s the pillow and the Gorgeous G—”

  “Later!” she said imperiously and he bit back the curse he was going to add. “Don’t you want to be hailed as a hero?” she said sharply. “Perhaps even a knighthood like Shitee, heya?” Quickly she dirtied her hands and her face and carefully ripped one of the straps
above her breast and went near to the gangway where she could see and be seen. Four Fingers watched her blankly. A quai loh honor like Shitee? he thought astounded. Eeeeee, why not! He followed her warily, taking great care not to get too close to any danger.

  They saw a tongue of flame sweep out of the chimney on the top deck and frightened people looking down from the three decks of windows. People were collecting on the wharf. Others were stumbling out to safety in hysterics, many coughing from the smoke that was beginning to possess the whole restaurant. There was another shouting crush in the doorway, a few went down and some scuttled from under the milling feet, those behind shrieking at those in front to hurry, and again Four Fingers and other onlookers laughed.

  On the top deck Bartlett leaned over the railings and looked down at the hull and the jetty below. He could see crowds on the wharf and milling, hysterical people fighting out of the entrance. There was no other staircase, ladder or escape possibility on either side. His heart was hammering but he was not afraid. There’s no real danger, yet, he thought. We can jump into the water below. Easy. It’s what, thirty, forty feet—no sweat if you don’t belly flop. He ran back along the deck that used up half the length of the boat. Black smoke, sparks and a little flame surged out of the funnels.

  He opened the top-deck door and closed it quickly in order not to create any added draft. The smoke was much worse and the flames coming out of the dumbwaiter were continuous now. The smoke smell on the air was acrid and carried the stench of burning meat. Almost everyone was crowded around the far doorway. Gornt was standing apart by himself watching them, sipping a drink. Bartlett thought, Jesus, there’s one cold-blooded bastard! He skirted the dumbwaiter carefully, his eyes smarting from the smoke, and almost knocked over Christian Toxe who was hunched over the telephone shouting into it above the noise, “… I don’t give a shit, get a photographer out here right now, and then phone the fire department!” Angrily Toxe slammed down the phone and muttering, “Stupid bastards,” went back to his wife, a matronly Chinese woman who stared at him blankly. Bartlett hurried toward Dunross. The tai-pan stood motionless beside Peter and Fleur Marlowe, Orlanda and Casey, whistling tonelessly.