The Dragon's Tale: A Jack Lauder Thriller

by Clive Hindle

  “I’ll show you something of the town before we eat, if you want. The storm may come back so make hay while the sun shines, eh? A few things will have changed since you were last here, I reckon. But you are lucky in one sense. This is the month of festivals. Tin Hau, Cheung Chau, the birthday of Buddha and Tam Kung.”

  “Who’s Tam Kung?”

  “The fisher god, the male equivalent of Tin Hau if you like.” She laughed her delightful laugh as the tall Sikh commissionaire bowed to them and held the glass door open. Jack followed her out of the hotel and across into Statue Square; they walked up Pedder Street to Queens Road and then up the hill to Lan Kwai Fong, the L shaped street, which was the home nowadays of Hong Kong’s pricey western bars and the haunt of the young tigers of the financial markets. Amie wasn’t averse to a drink and the pub-crawl gathered hilarity. “Are you hungry? I know a great restaurant up in Tung Lo Wan.”

  “I’ll show you something of the town before we eat, if you want. The storm may come back so make hay while the sun shines, eh? A few things will have changed since you were last here, I reckon. Mind you, today is not the most auspicious day in the Chinese calendar!”

  “Okay by me, and you’re right, the Mandarin is expensive. I can’t really afford those prices indefinitely. I’m going to have to get somewhere cheaper to stay if I don’t take care of the business quickly.”

  “Did you get in touch with Mr Ma?”

  “Oh yeah, I met him. I think he’s solved half the problem for me.”

  “He is a very influential man.” Then she seemed to think a moment. “Why not stay in Gerry’s place?” she added. “It’s empty.”

  “I’m not sure he’d approve of that.”

  “Nonsense, it’s exactly what he would want. He’d hate you spending fortunes at the Mandarin. I‘ve got a key. I‘ll let you have it.” He thought it best not to enquire why she had a key. She was the P.A after all. Besides there was too much going on all round to be side-tracked by thoughts which were none of his business but if what he was thinking was the reason then his old pal was a lucky man.

  They took one of the rattling old trams up Queens Road, through the red light district of Wanchai, until they came to Causeway Bay. The streets bustled with life as they walked down the tram. The only way to negotiate a Hong Kong tram is start walking to the front as soon as you get on at the back, and they did just that, until they disembarked at the rear of the Excelsior in Yee Woo Street, crossing over to the far side, through Jardine's Bazaar, where, jostling with a swarming crowd, they turned left. The steamy heat of Causeway Bay was as physical as a moving, sinewy body, a large almost visible python, uncoiling itself along the street. They crossed over by the Chinese Emporium towards the Central Market off Queens Road. It buzzed with activity: coolies rushed here and there with barrows full of produce to replenish the market stalls; spicy aromas assaulted Jack’s nostrils as he admired the fish tanks outside the restaurants. Live fish swam around aimlessly, the journey to the wok measurable in moments. Eels, shrimps and prawns huddled together at the bottom of tanks to escape the predatory eyes of discerning diners. "My God, is that a tortoise?" Jack pointed at a creature hiding behind a rock in a dry tank.

  "Afraid so. Does it offend your European sensibilities?"

  "I don't know, there's something pretty barbaric about the idea of choosing your food live."

  "Nonsense, that's just hypocrisy,” she admonished him but then she pointed. “There's something you'll have difficulty with.” They stopped at a fish stall and saw an astonishing sight. He worked in a fishing town and had reason to appreciate the skill and expertise of Tyneside fish filleters. They had nothing on the sight before his eyes: Cantonese fish filleters can scale, skin and fillet fish with such surgical precision that they remain alive for anyone wanting proof of the freshness. There in front of him lay the evidence: live fish, laid out on a slab, stripped of cover, expertly filleted, their hearts still beating. Taken in by all this, fascinated by the colour, the smells and the sound, he turned and found his progress blocked by two guys who looked like wharf coolies. They sported stubbled chins and coolie jackets over frayed denim shorts. Their legs and feet were bare except for flip-flops. They wore greasepaint expertly made up into ghoulish masks. Jack laughed momentarily, thinking it all part of the festival, then one of them put a hand on his chest, pushing him backwards. He resisted, trying to stand his ground. Amie, a few metres ahead, hadn’t noticed and the crowd thinned alarmingly; people scurried by, heads down, pretending not to see. The second male, done up like a grinning skull, stood behind the first in an exaggeration of the Kung Fu posture known as Two Tigers at the Ready. The first man held out his other hand in the traditional gesture of the Hong Kong street beggar. Just then Amie turned round to look for Jack and, out of the corner of his eye, he saw her tense like a cat about to spring. Trying to defuse the situation he held up his hands. "Okay!” He took out a one hundred dollar note.

  The robber’s face broke into a twisted, sneering smile. "Mo!" He looked at his friend cockily then inclined his head towards Jack and took his hand from his chest. He reached for the bill. "I'll take this too but you are dead man. I swear it in name of the Ngai.” Jack recognised the name. The Ngai faction of the 14K Triad was infamous for its viciousness. The robber grabbed the hundred dollar bill from his hand and pulled a chopping knife from his baggy shirt. The weapon flashed towards Jack. The only response was to close quickly. The flat of the knife caught Jack obliquely on the forearm. He poked the attacker in the eyes and made him stagger back. Then a flash of movement knocked him aside. Amie's bunched fist came down on the man’s elbow. Jack heard the crack as something broke. A scream rent the air. His accomplice adopted the Bow and Arrow position, slightly crouched, one foot in front of the other with heels aligned, fists pronated. He stalked around Amie who hadn't moved a muscle since dealing with the first attacker. Now her eyes followed the second attacker while his friend collapsed in a heap, howling with pain. The crowd formed a circle some metres from them.

  Whining noises came from the second attacker, then he struck, twisting his body and kicking with his heel. Amie knew exactly what was coming: this was a feint attack; the thug leapt through the air, leading with his shaved head. She deflected the feint; the thug’s head crashed into her fist, delivered a short distance with power. The man's neck snapped back. Reeling he hit the deck. Amie leaned over the first attacker, took the hundred dollar note out of his hand and returned it to Jack. "Welcome to Hong Kong," she said. He was too flustered to reply. "You did the right thing to offer the hundred dollar, because it is red." She guided him by the arm through the amused crowd, laughing now at the attackers beaten by a mere slip of a girl. "Red is a lucky colour. If you don't give it, they will take it. If there is nothing else, they will take blood."

  "Shall we call the Police?"

  "No point. It's just another mugging. They are more and more commonplace nowadays. We are close to civil unrest as the handover approaches. Those two will disappear into Bak Gok before the Police can do anything. Could you identify them again?” She pointed at the crowd.

  “No, not with that mask.”

  “Hmm. The mask was more typical of Yu-lan hui. I wondered about that. The festival of hungry ghosts when all the gates of hell open. It‘s too early in the year but there is so much crossover these days!”

  “Hungry ghosts? That sounds gruesome.”

  “There is a way of getting rid of them.”

  “How?” She just smiled enigmatically. “But I am not sure it was just a mugging. Why should he say I am a dead man?” he asked.

  “Bravado.”

  It was no use making a big issue of it; it wasn’t her fight and, besides, something else was nagging at him. “Was that all in a day’s work for a Hong Kong office girl?”

  She shrugged. “I can look after myself.”

  He laughed because that was the understatement of the century. They turned a corner and found themselves back in the mainstream of Causeway
Bay, Amie acting as if nothing had occurred, this was the Orient. Jack was still shaking his head in bewilderment as he followed her through a shop selling provincial sweets and pastry cakes until, a few doors further on, she stopped outside a crowded restaurant. The queue spilled out on to the street. "Man Fai," Jack said, reading the Romanised sign above the door.

  "The best Chiu Chau food in Hong Kong. Try the bo bo.” Out of respect for her, he feigned enthusiasm, although he’d lost his appetite. A man in the restaurant recognised her and came out and they exchanged words in another dialect. She introduced him and he shook hands with the man, who beamed with pleasure then led them through the queue to two seats at a long trestle table. Any doubts he’d entertained about eating disappeared as dish after dish of Chiu Chau cuisine appeared: squid with noodles; cuttlefish balls; octopus heads; all washed down with Chinese tea. He cemented the discussion about Gerry’s flat and, short of hers, which wasn’t on offer, it seemed to fit the bill. Eventually, full to the gills, they called for the bill. Hand in hand, a gesture which he interpreted as intended to provide him with reassurance for the recent past rather than hope for the future, they struggled past the mass of humanity until they found themselves on the streets looking for a taxi. "Are you Chiu Chau then?" he asked.

  "I'm a mixture of Szechuan, Chiu Chau, Shanghainese, and no doubt a good sprinkling of other things thrown in."

  "Pretty gorgeous mix," Jack said and his heart skipped a beat because the look she threw him didn’t speak immediately of disgust.

  A taxi arrived. Amie gave directions to Western district. She obviously had something in mind. They alighted on the waterfront and wandered through crowds of people dressed like dragons. There were lions and tigers in there too, all carrying Chinese lanterns. She led him down the gangplank of a junk. Two Chinese sailors dressed in traditional Chairman Mao type jackets and wearing kuei ghost masks helped them aboard. "We're heading to the Da Miao at Joss House Bay. Forgive me, I wanted it to be a surprise.” He felt privileged standing there. All that time he’d spent in Hong Kong in his earlier years he’d never got inside Chinese society. No Gwai lo truly does. The Chinese are xenophobic. They may let foreigners partially under the skin, to preserve working relations, but that’s about as far as it goes.

  Meanwhile, the cumbersome vessel’s prehistoric sail was setting in the darkness and Jack felt the cooling wind from the South China Sea. It brought a wide grin to his face. At Joss House Bay, the festival was in full swing: armadas of junks, sampans, ferries, lighters and private launches, crossed the harbour, heading for the foreshore beneath the temple; the beating of tom toms filled the air; fire crackers exploded; a thousand gongs clanged; a dragon and a lion pranced on the shore. Floats of paper altars laden with all the offerings of the Orient wound their way towards the temple, followed by worshippers carrying joss sticks as thick as an elephant's trunk. Offerings of roasted piglet, rice, fruit and "hell" money floated by as the cavalcades of people streamed ashore from the junks and made their way up through the temple grounds. They crammed themselves into the prayer halls. The thin, yellow smoke of the joss sticks swirled above them, turning the air acrid and murky.

  “You know, I was thinking something odd about Gerry,” Jack said as they stepped ashore in a throng of party-goers.

  “What’s that?”

  “How come nobody has any idea what’s happened to him? It‘s like a conspiracy of silence.”

  “You think people know?”

  “It’s crossed my mind. Plum told me he's gone off to the Philippines, then someone else told me the same. But no detail. It’s all very vague as if everyone is feeding off the same rumour.”

  “You’re right. Gerry always used to talk to me," Amie replied. "It's not like him just to disappear. If he was going off somewhere, he would almost certainly tell me, even if it was to be a secret between us.”

  “Everyone remarks on how he’s changed too.”

  "No, it's not as bad as that but he did become withdrawn. That's not like him. You know he's always cheerful. He always had a good word for everyone."

  "I've heard it said that's what he is. Two minutes of good cheer for everyone. Nothing else."

  “Diana Lundy changed him. He went to the slaughter like a lamb.”

  “You know her?”

  “Oh sure. Gerry fell head over heels for her. You know how he liked blondes!”

  "And Diana was a blonde," Jack said with emphasis, “root and branch.”

  Amie was too engrossed in her own thoughts to notice his observation. "The other thing is he's been spending a lot of time in Macao at the casinos. I can't say if he went haywire but something about Macao attracted him."

  "Speculate," he suggested.

  "I don't need to. There was a woman over there. I know – from my cousin who works at a casino in Macao. If you want, I’ll ask him if he can throw any more light on the situation.”

  “That would be good. I need all the help I can get, even if it is a long shot.”

  Their attention was suddenly drawn to a commotion. In stark contrast to the pageantry, an army of youths, chanting loudly, their fists in the air, occupied the arena in front of the temple. Two factions confronted each other. Amie nudged Jack. "Their T shirts!" she said quietly.

  "What about them?"

  "Those are Wo Shing Wo,” she pointed at one group, "and the others are 14K."

  It is a criminal offence in Hong Kong to proclaim yourself a member of the Triads yet these youths were doing it brazenly. Their features were hidden from prying cameras by face paint but their actions otherwise were not covert. Jack was fascinated until one of the youths in the 14K faction looked directly at him, then at Amie. The youth walked towards them. He pointed at Jack. “You!” he shouted.

  Caught in that momentary indecision of wanting to stand up to the thug, yet knowing it was better not to, foolishly he returned the challenge. “Me?” he replied pointing at his chest. “Had your eyeful?” They squared up to each other. The Triad started to curse him in Cantonese. A number of his comrades joined in, all of one mind, pointing aggressively, chanting their weird war cries.

  Amie was full of good advice. “Run!" she said as the Triad grabbed Jack’s coat. Instead of resisting he went with the flow, following through with his head. It smashed into the Triad’s face like a bullet. Athletically he turned a backwards somersault, landing ten feet away. Amie grabbed Jack’s arm and dragged him away. The unevenly eroded steps up to the Temple of Ten Thousand Buddhas presented a daunting means of escape but the mob’s pursuit was hampered by the Wo Shing Wo faction as the two rival groups hacked at each other. The 14K struggled to get to the steps; then a vanguard broke through in hot pursuit. Amie hurried Jack on, "Don't stop! Don't look back!" They got to the top of the steps. The mob was at least twenty strong. God only knew what the carnage was like down in the square.

  Cresting the rise, they reached the road down to the harbour, descending at a fast trot. As they rounded the first bend a pursuer detached himself from the top of the steps and, with a blood-curdling yell, signalled to his friends. With no cover on the steep-sided, stone-banked road, he looked back from the next hairpin: the mob was gaining; things looked bleak. Then a Public Light Bus came hurtling round the bend. Amie waved it down. The gangsters were only fifty yards behind; they speeded up as the fugitives boarded the bus. The driver started off laconically, belying the breakneck speed of his approach until grinning effigies of ghosts surrounded the bus, their meat choppers beating its sides. The driver braked only for Amie to shout out, "Don't stop!" Others on board took up her cry. One of the ghosts slashed at a tyre; the bus flung another to one side as its engine revved. It hurtled down to the next hairpin bend, the mob shouting in fury; the driver had got the message.

  “It’s just like back home,” Jack joked as they arrived back at his hotel without further mishap, “typical Friday down the Bigg Market.”

  Amie looked grim, “You don’t think that was coincidence, do you?”

&nb
sp; Surprised by that, he said, “You’ve changed your tune. Don’t you?”

  “No, of course not. Two attacks in a night! Someone doesn’t want you here.”

  “You mean someone’s sending me a message?” Wasn’t Ma supposed to be taking care of this business? But he had said it would take a couple of days; he had probably intended that Jack should stay indoors until then, get over the jet lag perhaps. In any event they didn’t have time for more because the Indian doorman flagged down a taxi for her and stood now with the door open. Jack leaned forward to peck her cheek. He was momentarily undone by her perfume, the type that goes directly for the groin.

  “I don’t have to go quite yet,” she whispered to him. “Don’t you want to know how we get rid of the ghosts?”

  He didn’t know how he’d got so lucky and she wasn’t going through the motions either. He had seen ample evidence of her physicality and now the violence was replaced by passion. Her body wasn’t just firm, it was hard. She was either totally transported or an actress fit for any stage and, whichever of the two was true, the reward for Jack was immense. Eventually it came to an end when she told him she had to go home and climbed off him wetly.