by Mike Coony
“Not to worry, Paul. I understand.”
“Now, what’s the best number to reach you first thing in the morning?” he asked, as he took out his crocodile skin Smythson notebook. He wrote down my home phone number with his gold and black Montblanc ballpoint pen. “When we get going I’ll call you between seven and seven thirty, before I get to the office. And before you ask, I use an unregistered mobile for these calls. Now, I take it you’re awake at that time?”
“Don’t fret yourself about that now Paul. I’m up and about long before the first sparrow farts, so I am.”
———
The telephone beside my bed buzzed at seven sixteen a.m., it’s Paul Wills. I wrote down the names of the twelve PLCs and a list of buy and sell prices.
“Get the broker on the blower before eight thirty, and tell him you want everything bought before nine twenty. We’ll be buying from nine thirty, so get in before then. Have everything resold between eleven and eleven thirty,” Paul reminded me, before he cut the call.
———
My stockbroker invited me for a ‘quick bite to eat’ at the American Club. The little bollocks is trying to find out where I get my information.
Smiling, I reached across the table, took his shirtsleeved biceps brachii muscle in my hand, and squeezed just hard enough to bring tears to his eyes. “It’s been a very good six weeks for us, hasn’t it? You’re making money aren’t you? So what’s the problem? I hope you’re not putting your other clients on to my run of luck, eh?”
The wee poof is concentrating on my every word, trying to ignore the pain. “No, no….I swear on my dear mother’s life…I…I would never use your information to profit anyone but you Mister Flynn. You have it all wrong….I’m…I’m just curious…that’s all,” he tried to assure me, as he wiped away his tears and rubbed his aching arm.
I turned to gaze out the window; the royal yacht Britannia is gliding up through the harbour. She’s surrounded by fire tenders directing sprays of sea water to form an arch of welcome, and the sunlight is catching the sprays to create a rainbow. Police motor launches and private pleasure crafts are following the yacht. I notice that the Star ferries are moored up on either side of the harbour – a rare concession for Her Britannic Majesty. I suppose this is explained by the owner of the Star Ferry Company, Sir Y.K. Poi, having been recently knighted by Queen Elizabeth II.
I returned my attention to the effeminate man facing me. “I have no problem when you buy on your own personal account. Everyone who works with me is entitled to wet their beaks. But no outside parties, and no more questions. Oh yes…I’ve a cheque here for twenty thousand dollars. Add it to my account.”
We travelled down in the lift, and the troubled stockbroker is still trying to massage away the pain in his biceps brachii. With my arm around his shoulder, and a friendly smile on my face, we parted company. He returned to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and I walked along the waterfront to admire the view.
The roads are lined with gweilos and Chinese waving Union Jacks, and the royal yacht Britannia is now moored in the middle of the harbour. I can see that the colony is in for a spate of royal worship and rounds of Rule, Britannia! I’m reminded of the rumours about the second prince’s fetishes doing the social circuit. Of course the rumours remain rumours – no barmaid would confirm or deny the carry ons of such a noble personage…even if they left her sore and bruised for weeks afterwards.
22
MANILA
As a US citizen travelling on an American passport, Gerry only gets a short-stay visa when he enters Hong Kong. He has to travel farther afield than Macau every ninety days to renew it. So he asked me to go with him for a weekend in the Philippines.
A Mercedes limousine is waiting for us at the foot of the passenger boarding stairs on the tarmac at Manila International Airport. A uniformed chauffeur saluted us, grabbed our cabin luggage, loaded it in the boot of the limo and drove straight out of the airport – no Customs, no Immigration, and no Department of Agriculture inspections.
We checked into the Peninsula Hotel, one time home of General Douglas Mac Arthur of the US Army, and Field Marshal of the Philippine Army. He of ‘I will return’ fame, and fair play to him, he did indeed return.
Once we were showered and dressed, Gerry and I hit Makati…where the girlie bars are fun, not like the seedy joints back in Wan Chai.
Our first port of call is the Firehouse, so named because the building once housed the local fire station. Within minutes of arriving, girls are sitting on our knees drinking glasses of fizzy water masquerading as Champagne; even these chichi drinks are dirt cheap. The girls are fun, and they deserve their commissions. We happily gave them a good few pesos along with their drinks.
Time flew, and it was nine before we made it to Hobbit House on Mabini Street. Jim Turner, college professor who worked with the US Peace Corps in the Philippines, opened this great bar and restaurant. He’s a real J.R.R. Tolkien nut, and he staffs the place entirely with ‘little people’. The waiters and waitresses aren’t any taller than the tables, but that doesn’t stop them serving trays loaded with beer and plates piled high with food.
A darling little character wearing a cowboy’s ten-gallon hat and a pair of chaps came to our table. “What are you gentlemen drinking this evening?”
“Right my friend…two cold beers please,” I said.
Our waiter produced a pencil from behind his ear, licked it, and opened a new page in his order pad. “Yes sir, and what cold beers would you like?” he asked, while pushing his Stetson hat back on his head like the hero in an old western film.
“What have you got?” I asked.
“Sir, have you got an hour to spare?”
“No! Why? Is it going to take that long to get a beer?”
“No sir, not at all. But it’s going to take me an hour to give you the names of the one hundred fourteen different beers we sell.”
“What about San Miguel Finn, would that be OK with you?” Gerry asked.
“We’ll have two San Miguels then,” I told the waiter.
“Okey-dokey…dos San Miguels, coming right up boss.”
We lost count, but I think Gerry and I tried at least five of the hundred and fourteen beers at Hobbit House. And we stayed until almost everyone else had gone home.
At the end of the night our waiter in the Stetson hat and his pal brought their beers over and sat at our table. They already know Gerry, but they introduced themselves to me; our waiter is called Joel and his colleague is Reynaldo.
Reynaldo took a newspaper cutting out of his waistcoat pocket, flattened out the creases, and asked Gerry to read it out loud. It’s an article from a Melbourne newspaper reporting local objection to a proposed dwarf tossing contest.
Joel and Reynaldo began to talk over each other very excitedly – having had a few end-of-shift beers themselves. They’re anxious to explain that they’re all for the competition. The competition’s promoter, an Australian businessman, has even offered to pay their expenses to Australia if they’ll enter an official team from Hobbit House in his ‘Champion Dwarf Tossing Challenge’.
Joel jumped down from his chair, scurried across to the cloakroom and returned with a painted crash helmet. When he got back to our table Reynaldo grabbed it out of his hands and held it up.
“Look guys…look! We got crash helmets and everything! We’re really excited…we even drew straws to decide who can be on the team. We want to be ‘Team Hobbit House’ in the Dwarf Tossing Challenge!” Reynaldo proudly declared, as he pointed at the ‘Team Hobbit House’ name painted across the front of the helmet.
“We ordered them from America…just our size. And the brother of one of our teammates is an artist who agreed to paint them for us in exchange for beer,” Joel added.
“We really don’t think it’s fair that they’re telling us we can’t do it,” said Reynaldo.
“Well my friends, I definitely see your point. But those grannies in Australia think it’s ‘objectionable�
�� to throw you guys across a field in the name of sport. And I don’t see how you’re gonna get around that…sorry,” said Gerry.
“But we DON’T object…and we’re the little people!” Joel and Reynaldo piped up together.
“We play human pinball on our days off…I’m always good for a split or a strike,” Reynaldo told us.
“So who are these people to tell us we can’t get tossed? Do they think we’ll break?” asked Joel.
It’s hard to argue with them, so I didn’t try. But in spite of what they say, I find the idea objectionable…then, maybe I’m a bit of a granny meself.
Before we returned to our rooms in the Peninsula, we stopped at reception to see the night manager. Gerry asked him to collect a barong shirt for me from the men’s outfitters in the morning, and to have it sent to my room with breakfast.
I asked Gerry why I need a barong shirt, and he’s informed me that we’re attending a formal wedding reception in the hotel tomorrow. President Marcos has declared a barong shirt – the national costume of the Philippines – acceptable formal wear for state occasions and high society events. And President Marcos’s wife is expected to attend the reception, so that makes it a high society event.
———
When we arrived at the wedding reception they were already making speeches from the top table. We slipped into the Peninsula’s ballroom and took our seats at a table close to the kitchen – where you sit old family retainers or those relations you can’t quite put names to. Those already seated at the table nodded their welcomes while tucking into lobster tails.
I only had breakfast half an hour ago, so I turned away the waitress with my smoked salmon starter. It brought back memories of my Commie waiter days at weddings in Brighton hotels. If salmon wasn’t on the menu, but the kitchen started serving it, that signalled that they’d run out of lobster tails. Or, far more likely, the commis chef had them stashed in his hidey hole…ready to take home once the coast was clear. I offered my main course of red snapper broiled in ginger to the man sitting on my left. He grabbed it, gave me a toothless grin and tucked in.
Between dessert and coffee a commotion erupted at the entrance to the ballroom. I have to crane my neck around a pillar to see what’s happening.
Imelda Marcos has swept into the room, accompanied by an evil-looking midget only a little taller than the folks we’d met at Hobbit House. There the comparison ends – this fellah with Mrs. Marcos looks pure evil.
People are abandoning their desserts, laying down cups of coffee and standing up from their seats to applaud the arrival of the president’s wife. But not everyone is standing up, and the evil-looking midget is glaring at the tables where people are still seated. Then, reluctantly, they also got up, but they didn’t applaud – they just stood with their eyes cast down to the floor.
Imelda Marcos flounced through the room to the top table and offered her gloved hand to the bride, but not the groom. She turned and grinned at the waiters and waitresses standing to attention in a line to the kitchen. Then, ushering her dwarf ahead of her, she left as spectacularly as she’d arrived.
The waiters and waitresses scattered and reappeared with more coffee and trays of chocolates and liqueurs. The sound of Tagalog chatter filled the room, but gradually the chatter subsided, replaced by whispered remarks between adjacent tables. The guests on our table appear to be struck dumb, so I said nothing. But I think the sight of Marcos in her little girl’s lacy frock, and white patent leather Chanel flats with rosettes, was a picture of mutton dressed as lamb.
Suddenly, there’s another commotion. I can’t make out what’s happening, but women are getting out of their seats and kneeling down on the floor.
Cardinal Sin has entered the room…like an ancient Roman emperor. He’s offering his gem-encrusted hand to the kneeling women, while sweeping his all-seeing eyes across this gathering of Manila’s aristocracy. Following in Imelda’s footsteps, he made his way to the top table, extended his hand to the blushing bride, and pointedly ignored her groom. From the top of the room, the Cardinal turned to face the assembled guests; he mumbled a blessing and performed a ridiculously exaggerated sign of the cross with his bejewelled hand. Then he swept out of the room with his gold-embroidered silken costume trailing behind him.
The sight of a man dressed in medieval costume bestowing blessings upon kneeling women makes me feel sick. And, as it always does, it forces me to question the need for all the pomp and ceremony that is so much a part of the Roman Catholic Church. Is it formulaic opiate of the masses, or cliché-ridden theatre for the timid? Whatever it is, it has nothing to do with a godly, sandal-wearing carpenter’s son.
It seems the Cardinal’s exit is the signal for the reception to break up. People are abandoning their tables and departing in flurries of air kisses.
The groom, a handsome and urbane young man, came to our table and sat beside Gerry. “Did you notice how the first lady and the Cardinal ignored me?”
“I’m afraid we did,” said Gerry. “That’s bad manners.”
“They only came for Sylvia…her family is the next best thing to royal blood around here. I’m just a peasant in comparison, but I’m from the same province as Imelda, and she doesn’t like to be reminded of that. But I’m so happy you could make it to this special day Gerry. And so, this is the famous Finn Flynn I’ve heard so much about? A well travelled man I understand?” said the groom, with hardly a trace of a Filipino accent, as he reached across to shake my hand.
I shook his hand, smiled and said nothing; I prefer to hear what’s going on. I’m sure Gerry hasn’t dragged me all the way to Manila for a few drinks and a boring wedding reception.
The groom slipped an envelope from the inside pocket of his jacket and discreetly handed it to Gerry. “That’s the print quality. There’ll be a batch ready by the time I get back from my honeymoon…two weeks from today.” Then he stood up, excused himself and returned to his new bride.
Gerry suggested that we leave, as our business is concluded. I’m happy to hear we’ve done some business…not that I’ve a clue what it is.
23
HONG KONG
We’re in a Kowloon taxi, heading through the cross-harbour tunnel back to Hong Kong Island. Gerry slipped the white Peninsula Hotel envelope from the groom out of his pocket and extracted a one hundred US dollar American Express traveller’s cheque.
“Finn, what do you think of that? Almost goddamn perfect, eh?” He didn’t give me a chance to answer. “Buddy, here’s why I put you through that boring wedding reception. There’ll be tens of thousands more where this came from…and we’ve been asked to cash the whole lot.”
“I get the picture Gerry. You’ll recall what your granny told you about walls and ears? Let’s go to my place and discuss it there,” I replied, while trying not to catch the driver’s eye in the rear-view mirror. Thankfully, the driver seems happy enough for us to avoid each other’s scrutiny.
The taxi dropped us at Citizen Tower, and we went up to the penthouse. I found a genuine US hundred dollar American Express traveller’s cheque in my desk drawer, and I put a crease in it. I don’t want to mix it up with Gerry’s.
We grabbed a few beers and went up to the roof-garden. I put on a pair of the gardener’s gloves for the inspection and compared Gerry’s traveller’s cheque with mine; they look identical. I can’t feel the paper through the thick gloves, but it certainly looks genuine, and the watermark is a perfect reproduction.
“Roel, the groom we met in Manila, is a math and computer sciences whizz at the American University there. He’s figured out the algorithm that generates the American Express traveller’s cheque serial numbers. I swear Finn, he can predict the sequence months into the future. Just think about it….He’s know, in advance, the serial numbers of cheques that haven’t been printed yet, cheques sitting in secure vaults ready to be distributed, and tens of thousands of US hundred dollar traveller’s cheques already sitting somewhere in the banking system just waiting to
be cashed. Roel has a source for security paper and inks, and a printer prepared to produce forgeries. What you have in your gloved hand there is a sample from the first print run.
“We can pass forged traveller’s cheques with real serial numbers in a busy bank or a bureau de change. As long as a series of cheques doesn’t show up as having been cashed already, the tellers have no way of knowing where they are. So they can’t tell that a particular series is still sittin’ in the secure warehouse in New Jersey, or whatever.” Warming to the subject, Gerry went on. “Time is the only real problem. The forged cheques have to be cashed before the real ones with the same numbers start getting cashed and sent back to Amex redemption centres. As soon as that starts, Amex will realise they’ve been screwed.”
“So Gerry, mo chara buan, what do they do about it…when they realise they’ve been screwed?”
“There’s not a whole lot they can do about it without frightening the merda outa the banks, bureau de changes, hotels, ships’ pursers, and the millions of other folks makin’ a crust outa cashin’ traveller’s cheques,” he declared, with a Cheshire cat’s grin on his face.
Gerry took a big sip from his beer before continuing. “What we need is someplace where they treat Amex traveller’s cheques as the next best thing to gold. Somewhere in the world where their own currency is a bit shady, a bit unreliable. A place where they believe Amex cheques give them something safe to invest their savings in. Guys like these can take months, even years, to send the cheques back to Amex.”