He looked at her father. The old man was sitting quietly, sipping his tea. Marcel turned to Eli. He too was silent. He sipped at the tea.
After a moment he spoke. It was in Cantonese, a language Marcel did not understand. “Your tea has the fragrance of a thousand flowers, Honorable Tao.”
“It is but a poor attempt to please the palates of my honorable guests,” the old man replied softly.
“I have your permission to speak in French? It is the language of my friend here.”
“Of course.” Tao Minh bowed graciously. He looked over at Marcel. “French is a language of which I am most fond. It has a music very much like our own.”
Marcel could not help his look of surprise but he remembered to be polite. “I thank you for your indulgence of my ignorance.”
The old man nodded graciously. He picked up a small mallet from the table and struck a tiny gong. Before its musical tone had faded his tea had been taken away and a long slim pipe placed next to him. He held the thin bowl over a small candle in a glass in the center of the table. After a moment he inverted the bowl so the flame could lick into it. Then he put the stem delicately into his mouth.
Marcel stared at him in fascination. Neither of the men he had bought the first two girls from was like this one. By contrast they seemed common, even vulgar.
“What you need is a girl of high caste,” Eli had explained to him. “One of good manners and breeding who will act as your hostess, your number-one wife. It is she who will entertain your friends and run your household. It is she who will maintain your ‘face.’”
“Let’s get one then.” Marcel was tired of the delays—first the clothing, now the girls. He was beginning to feel he would never be allowed into the casino.
“It’s not that easy,” Eli said. “There are not many such girls around. Usually the wealthy Chinese want them for themselves.”
“What am I supposed to do then? Wait forever until we find one?”
“Take it easy, my friend, this is the Orient, not France. Things are not done as quickly here as at home. But do not give up hope. There is one girl I have heard of who might fill the requirements but—”
“But what?” Marcel interrupted impatiently. “Let’s get her and have it over with!”
“Not so fast. There must be something wrong with the girl. She is old and not yet chosen. I have asked my agents to investigate.”
“Old?” Marcel had asked. “How old?”
“Past fourteen.”
Marcel stared at him. “You call that old?”
Eli met his eyes. “It is old in a country where the most eligible are married at eight or ten.”
Finally the agents brought back a satisfactory report. Jade Lotus was very beautiful, well educated, and highly trained. She had a lovely singing voice and could play several instruments, including the small lyre of which the Chinese are so fond. It took a great deal of questioning on Eli’s part to find out why she had not yet been married, but at last the flaw was revealed.
Jade Lotus walked like a Western woman. It was as if her feet had never been bound. Her father had called in specialist after specialist but there was nothing they could do. He had all but resigned himself to having her forever in his house.
Now the old man nodded benevolently at Marcel. “The fragrance of the poppy is most relaxing after tea.”
Marcel wondered at a civilization that allowed one quietly to smoke a pipeful of opium after tea and still persisted in binding a girl child’s feet despite all the laws that had been passed against it.
Apparently it was time for the bargaining to commence. “My friend has come here to establish a home.”
The old man nodded. “May the gods of fortune attend him.”
“He is a man of great standing in the Western world.”
“I am honored that he enters my house.”
“He seeks a number-one wife,” Eli continued, “someone with whom he can share his old age and blessings.”
“Many Westerners have so proclaimed,” the old man replied, “but in time they all returned to their own land leaving empty homes and broken hearts behind.”
Marcel felt his heart sink. This old man was on to him. He looked at Eli.
But Eli was ready with an answer. “My friend is willing to take insurance against such a day, though he knows it will never occur.”
Tao drew at his pipe and nodded. “I have come to depend on Jade Lotus,” he said. “She is by far the brightest and most beautiful of all my daughters.”
“She is also the eldest, almost beyond the age of a favorable marriage.”
“Only because I have been most careful in the selection of a husband for her. So fair a flower demands a most particular garden.”
“Over caution has placed many a girl in the gardens on the other side of the hill,” Eli replied.
They all knew what that meant. Older girls were often sold to brothels on the far side of the port. Tao’s expression did not change as he looked at Marcel. “How is one to judge the sincerity of another’s affection?”
“My friend offers one thousand dollars Hong Kong as a token of his sincerity.”
The Chinese made a casual gesture with his pipe. “A mere nothing compared with the esteem in which I hold Jade Lotus.”
Marcel looked up in surprise as Eli got to his feet. “We thank the Honorable Tao for his gracious hospitality and beg a thousand pardons for daring to intrude upon his valuable time.”
Tao was upset at this sudden termination of negotiations. In spite of himself words came from his lips. “Just a moment, just a moment. Why are all Westerners always in such a hurry?”
From behind the large screen Jade Lotus watched and smiled to herself as Eli sat down and the bargaining began again. She had noticed that the one who bought her had not got up when his friend did.
The next day a heavyset Portuguese policeman sat in the chair in front of Eli’s desk. He took out a handkerchief and mopped his face. “It has been brought to our attention that your friend has been buying wives.” He glanced at Marcel. “You are aware that there are laws against such practices?”
Eli grinned. “Is it against the law for a man to hire servants for his house?”
The policeman smiled. “No, of course not.” He looked again at Marcel. “But I thought this might be a good opportunity to meet your friend.”
Eli introduced them. “Detective Lieutenant Goa keeps an eye out for us in case there should be trouble.”
The two men shook hands.
“Once every month he gets an envelope containing ten thousand Hong Kong dollars. No one has yet been able to figure out where it comes from.”
The policeman grinned. “There are always two extra men on duty outside each night.”
Marcel looked at Eli. “Has there ever been trouble?”
Eli shook his head. “Not in the years I’ve been here.”
Marcel turned back to the policeman. “Perhaps one policeman outside would be sufficient,” he said with a smile. “That way your overhead could be cut in half.”
The policeman’s hearty laughter boomed through the room. “I think your friend and I will get along. I hear he hired old Tao’s Jade Lotus as his housekeeper, the lucky dog. I had an eye on that one myself. But I was waiting until the price came down to where I could afford her.”
The fan-tan players at the big table looked up as Marcel and Eli walked through the casino. “The new owner,” one of them said.
Another nodded his head. “One can see he is a man of great wealth and stature from his clothing. He is very British.”
What he really meant was that Marcel was fair and had brown hair, not like Eli, who was dark.
“Only a man of great wealth could open his house by the purchase of four wives in one week!” a third player said.
“Yes,” added the first, “and one of them Tao’s daughter Jade Lotus, as number-one wife. You know old Tao. I’ll bet he made the Westerner pay plenty even though her feet are not right.”
> “Begin the game,” another said impatiently. “Everyone knows that Westerners are stupid about such things.”
93
The smell of the old city was overpowering as Marcel turned into the narrow street. Here there was no chance for it to escape. The buildings kept the street in perpetual shadow and there was barely enough room for a ricksha to squeeze through, much less an automobile.
Marcel turned and looked down the street. At the end were the docks. The faint calls of the fishmongers echoed up the winding street and everywhere was the stench of the unsold catch that lay rotting on the wharfs. The beggars waited hungrily for the fishermen to turn their backs.
A boy pulled at Marcel’s arm. The boy was small, he seemed no more than eight, but his eyes were already old. “Poontang, missuh?”
Marcel shook his head.
“Velly clean. Westin style. Oriental. Young, any way you like.”
Again Marcel shook his head.
The lad was not easily discouraged. “Eight year old? Five?” He paused. “Boys? You like boys? Velly tlicky.”
Marcel didn’t bother to answer. He pushed open the door of the house before which he stood, and entered. The heavy odor of incense, intended to hide the aroma of opium, grabbed at his nostrils. He resisted the impulse to sneeze as the young Chinese came toward him.
Behind the closed outer door Marcel heard the boy’s voice from the street. “Plick!”
The young Chinese made a face. “I don’t know what’s happening to the children nowadays. They have no respect for their elders. I apologize a thousand times.”
Marcel smiled. “It does not matter, Kuo Minh. The tree is no longer responsible for the fruit once it falls upon the ground.”
Kuo Minh bowed. “You are most understanding. My father and my uncles are waiting upstairs.”
They climbed the rickety steps to the top floor of the building. Though he had come this way many times now, Marcel always paused in wonder at the change between this floor and the others. Suddenly the halls were intricately inlaid in fruitwood and teak, and the doors were of richly burnished ebony with ivory trim. Kuo Minh opened one and stood back to allow him to enter.
A lovely young girl in classic silks came forward and knelt at his feet to remove his shoes and put on native slippers. When she disappeared Marcel followed the young man into the next room.
There the four men seated at the small table rose and bowed. He returned their greeting and accepted an invitation from Kuo Minh’s father to be seated. Almost instantly another young girl brought tea.
The four men waited politely until their guest had refreshed himself. Then as usual it was Kuo Minh’s father who did the talking. It wasn’t until after they had exchanged polite small talk about Marcel’s health and the health of his wives that he got down to business.
“You have word for us about the guns?”
“I have heard,” Marcel answered quietly.
The old man glanced at the others, then back at Marcel. “Good. We have a quantity of poppy with which to pay.”
Marcel allowed a look of regret to cross his face. “I am most reluctant to report that it is ships my client is interested in, not poppy.”
Kuo Minh’s father sucked in his breath. “But you have always traded for poppy.”
“I am told the market for poppy has fallen off. At any rate it is ships that my client wants.”
They began to talk rapidly among themselves. Marcel did not even try to follow the conversation. They were speaking much too rapidly for his limited Chinese. Besides, it did not matter whether he understood. He knew what he wanted.
It was more than a year now since he had arrived in Macao. And in that year he had become rich beyond all his dreams. Almost from the very first deal. It was the guns that had done it. That and the opium. All the warlords wanted guns. The only way they could get them into China was by smuggling them on the little fishing craft that plied the open seas between the mainland and Macao. And the only way they could pay was with poppy.
But the Japanese had proved much shrewder than Marcel had anticipated. As much money as he had to make deals with, it was but a pittance compared to what they wanted for their ships. It was just about this time, when he had been casting about frantically for a way to increase his capital, that he had got onto the traffic in guns.
It had begun when a man’s body had been found floating around the docks. Lieutenant Goa was sitting in Marcel’s office at the casino when the word was brought to him. He got to his feet, shaking his head. “We’ll never solve this one. He was one of Vorilov’s agents.”
“Sir Peter Vorilov?”
The policeman nodded. “He does a big business here.”
Even as he asked the question Marcel knew it was stupid. “I thought selling munitions here was against the law?”
The policeman looked at him peculiarly. “Isn’t almost everything?”
Almost before the policeman left the office Marcel was on his way to catch the afternoon steamer for Hong Kong. He did not dare to send a cable from here. He was certain the police got a copy of every one he sent.
The one he sent to Sir Peter Vorilov in Monte Carlo read: YOUR AGENT MACAO DEAD. MY SERVICES OFFERED SUBJECT APPROVAL CHRISTOPOULO. WAIT YOUR REPLY HONG KONG, PENINSULA HOTEL, KOWLOON, TWENTY FOUR HOURS.
The answer was in his hands less than twelve hours later. SERVICES ACCEPTED. It was signed VORILOV.
Less than two days later Kuo Minh had appeared in his office. Others came and it was always the same. Guns for poppy. In less than a week he found out that the guns Vorilov sold were ancient and had no market anywhere else in the world, and that the price he received abroad for the poppy was more than five times what it cost him. He was actually profiting from both sides of each deal. A year later when the statement came from the bank in Switzerland even he had been surprised. He had over three million dollars in gold to his credit.
It was then that Marcel made up his mind to return to his original purpose. To acquire ships. But if he approached the Japanese they would realize how badly he wanted the ships. The only way was to have the Chinese get them for him.
Now the old man turned and spoke rapidly to his son. After a moment Kuo Minh turned to Marcel. “They say they haven’t the money for ships. All they have is poppy. The monkey men won’t take poppy.”
Marcel pretended to think over what they had said. “Do they know of any ships they can get?”
The men spoke rapidly among themselves. This time the old man spoke directly to Marcel. “There are at least ten old ships we can buy but they are expensive. Perhaps they would cost even more.”
Marcel kept his face impassive. “How expensive?”
“It doesn’t matter,” the old man said, “we do not have the money.”
Again Marcel pretended to be lost in thought. “Would it help if I found another market for your poppy?”
The old man nodded. “It would be a great help.”
“I will make inquiries. But I doubt I can get you as high prices.”
“We will be forever in your debt.”
“Bon.” Marcel got up. “I will be in touch with you soon to let you know what success I have had.”
They rose and bowed ceremoniously. After Marcel’s footsteps had faded they spoke among themselves. “They are all the same,” one said, “sooner or later their greed overcomes them.”
“Yes,” replied another, “you would think he would be satisfied stealing from both us and the Russian. But no, that is not enough. Now he plans to take even more from us to purchase his accursed ships.”
“I think it is time we sent him to join his predecessor in the harbor,” said a third.
Kuo Minh came back into the room just as his father held up his hand. “No, good brothers, it is not yet time. We cannot afford to be idle until the Russian finds a replacement for him.”
“You are willing to let him rob us even more?”
“He will not rob us,” Kuo Minh’s father said calmly. “
As soon as we find out how much less he will pay us for the poppy, we will double the sum and add it to the cost of the vessels he seeks.”
“He has become rich,” Christopoulos ranted. “In less than a year he has amassed three millions in Swiss banks. Now we find that he owns the twenty ships he was supposed to buy for us. And he has the nerve to tell us that he can arrange for us to lease them.”
Sir Peter looked at him steadily. “What do you want me to do?”
“Surely the money came from somewhere. Since the books of the casino are in order, he has to be stealing from you.”
Sir Peter smiled. “Not from me. His accounts are meticulous. He has collected the full amount for me on every transaction.”
“Then he must be overcharging your customers.”
“That’s their tough luck.” Sir Peter shrugged. “My prices are high enough to satisfy me. If they wish to pay more I cannot stop them.”
“Then there’s nothing you can do to stop him?”
“I have no reason to stop him,” Sir Peter corrected. “Only you have, only you can.”
“How?”
“Don’t lease the ships from him. What is he going to do with twenty ships and no cargoes? He will break himself in a month.”
“Then the Japanese will repossess them and we’ll be just as bad off as before.”
“That’s your tough luck.” Sir Peter looked at his watch. “I must be going now. It is nearly bedtime for my son. I try to be there as often as I can. At my age I can’t look forward to being there for too many more.”
He walked the tailleur to the door. “You know, Christopoulos, you shouldn’t be so greedy. A long time ago I learned to stick to my own business. You should do what you do best—dealing cards.”
Eli looked up as his uncle got into the car. “What did the old man say?”
Christopoulos cursed.
“He won’t do anything?”
“No, he says his books are in order, too.” His voice went slightly bitter. “I have the feeling he was laughing at me.”
They rode in silence for a few minutes. “What are you going to do?”
Harold Robbins Thriller Collection Page 113