Konrad looked miserably at his desk. If he hadn’t started this whole mess with Sofia, he knew, then he wouldn’t even be having this conversation right now.
“What do you need? I can only get you another twenty million RMB unsecured – you’d have to go through investment banking for any more than that.” He didn’t say it, but that was run by Cousin Redflag, a Zheng through-and-through. Mason was hardly likely to want to do that.
“I don’t want any more loans; we’ve more than enough debt to see through the next five years without so much as a hiccup. Add to that the cash we have from the VC fundraise and we’re probably good for another seven or eight.”
Konrad placed his head in his hands. “Then pray, tell me, what do you want from me?”
“Like I said, you’re Chanel’s cousin. Whether you are close or not is none of my concern.”
Konrad sighed, looking into the endless black that was Mason’s stare. It was terrifying, in a kind of abstract sense. “Okay, then. What?”
“I want you to get me something – anything – that can hurt the American whore who took my sister’s place on the sorority. Something that can really do some damage to Milana Railly.”
Just when he thought all was lost, Konrad’s face lit up a little as he remembered what Jasmine had show him last night.
There was the masturbation video. After she had finished telling him the details, Jasmine and Konrad had watched the video of Milana masturbating in all its twenty-two minutes of glorious sexuality, when they fucked for the second – and then the third –time. Milana’s video had turned him on insanely; in fact, just thinking about it now made his cock stiffen upright in his boxers. That one video had made him shoot more ropes of cum all over Jasmine’s clit than he had in all the time they’d been having the illicit sexual relationship together, he figured – more than when they’d raped Sofia even. Watching another white girl had been kinky-hot after all these Eurasian and Asian girls.
As Chanel’s First Lady, Jasmine had been entrusted as the caretaker of the file, which amounted to nothing less than a splenetic expose of voyeuristic, highly explicit teenage porn. Potentially, the files were a time-bomb the likes of which Mason wouldn’t believe he’d been able to obtain …
Konrad knew he wouldn’t be able to get Jasmine to give him the file, of course – there was no chance of that. She was way too loyal to the sorority and anyway, far too worried about how far this had already come – but maybe, he figured quickly, he could swipe the file off Jasmine’s hard drive on the next one of their hotel sessions together. Who knew what Mason wanted with it, and Jasmine would be seething with vitriol if and when she found out. That was the downside.
But that was all a small pittance, in the grander scheme of things, since this was worth too much fucking money to do nothing about. He’d sunk all his money into HaiSoc now, even the bank’s money – that’s what had prompted him to issue the ransom for the Sofia tape, after all. He had to replace the funds he’d sunken into the online company on his own personal behalf with the bank’s credit before the company audit next month. Otherwise, they’d discover a gaping hole in the balance sheet. It was all a fucking mess, but maybe it was a fucking mess that was falling into place now, thought Konrad, a little more cheerily.
“Alright, Mase. Maybe I can do that. Just maybe I can help you there.”
Ω
That same day, Mason went to meet with Easton and Jace in the early afternoon at Three Golden Heavens, a dim sum restaurant overlooking the leafy Zhongshan Park on the side of the quiet Dingxi Road. The Three Golden Heavens served a variety of Har Gau, steaming packets of chive and shrimp rice-cakes, Cheung Feun, the long, slippery shrimp and pork cutlets wrapped in thick white Chinese rice noodles and swimming in black bean sauce and for dessert, the traditional steamed buns of custard with the restaurant’s special touch, a running half-boiled quail egg at its center, all of which they washed down with Chinese tea.
For a while they went back-and-forth in small talk about high-society gossip, when the conversation got around to the new sorority girl Milana. Much to Mason’s disgust, Jace’s verdict was that she was drop-dead-gorgeous, especially for a white girl. At that point, he chose to break Easton and Jace with his ultimatum.
“I wanted to see you boys together because I know that you met Taylor Milliken together recently, too. I wanted to convey some … realities about the situation with Taylor Milliken, realities that affect you.
“In a nutshell, HaiSoc won’t sell the music of any of your record label’s artists if they play in any of Taylor Milliken’s clubs,” he said to Easton. “Neither will it advertise, promote, or even feature anything to do with the Jace’s alcoholic beverages if they’re served any longer in these clubs,” he then told Jace.
Easton was speechless, but that was okay, since Jace made up for his lack of conversation.
“You think that just ’cause you’re some big-shot tech entrepreneur now that you can go round fuckin’ threaten’ people like that?” Jace spat at Mason.
Mason was taken off guard. Clearly he had expected the sort of acquiescence that had befallen Easton.
“Don’t be a fuckin’ douche, Mase – just accept that your sis is no longer a part of her little girl’s gang and stay out of it! Don’t push your business into it. Business and pleasure –” Jace said, putting his hands together in a prayer stance at the center of his huge chest and gradually pulling them apart. “Best kept separate from each other. Especially business and family pleasure. You’ve only been around a little while, otherwise I’d whack you for saying something’ so stupid.”
Mason’s temper began to rise visibly. He slit his eyes and bit the bottom of his lip harder than usual. The cuts on his hands were beginning to heal from when he had smashed the vase in his sister’s room a month ago, but right now, as his blood pressure rose steeply, he could feel the pain return to the frayed nerves.
“This has nothing to do with my sister at all,” he said quietly.
“Oh really,” Jace laughed. “Then what’s it to do with.”
“The Communist Party,” Mason said, which shut everyone up. Quietly, his temper began to abate as Jace and Easton sat silently waiting for him to continue.
Eventually, he continued in Mandarin: “That little tart Zheng Minzhen has upset some of the key party members. By appointing that American girl to the sorority. That’s the first time an American has been made a member of a Chinese political organization, you know. It causes – problems, you can say. Big problems. Now they’re all grumpy about the shit-humping Yankee white devil bitch learning what is essentially Chinese information and one day using it against them. I don’t know why she did it. It’s political suicide, in a sense. At least when Sofia was Dame she had the good sense to appoint a full ethnic Chinese sorority – apart from that pig-fucking mongrel cousin of hers, obviously, who’s now gone and needlessly worried everyone in Beijing.”
Easton and Jace knew that Mason was politically connected – you couldn’t possibly run what was becoming China’s leading upstart technology company and not be. What he was saying might be true; but equally, it might be false, for any number of reasons. He might be lying because secretly he wished to get back at Chanel via punishing Taylor for what she did to his sister – after all, if Mason punished Taylor sufficiently, thought Jace, that could help bring the nightclubs to a premature end, which would involve a great deal of loss of mianzi to her. Or, figured Easton, he could be lying in order to begin an anti-American initiative all on his own, which would then ultimately win much support via the Party members in Beijing if it succeeded – weeding out the bad white-devil blood, so to speak. The story about the Party officials being angry at Chanel appointing an American to what was at its core a Chinese political association wasn’t unbelievable, although, both of them reasoned, it would be strange of Dame Ming-hua to have let such a decision fly without prior approval from a majority show of hands on the committee in Beijing.
“So now they�
��re on my back about making sure that the American influence here isn’t too – widespread,” Mason concluded. “So that means that advertisers who they know are my friends, like you guys, are expected to tow the line with the Chinese-only thing, at least just for a bit, until some of the older ones up there in Beijing calm down about the whole thing, at least.”
Easton considered what Mason was telling him.
“Essentially, the gist of what you’re telling me is that none of artists signed by my record label Toyshop Recordings will be sold on the Haisoc music platform in the event that any one of the artists of the label performs in Mr. Milliken’s nightclubs until it is otherwise cleared by – by, who?”
“By me, until it is cleared by me – since I will tell you when it’s cleared to me by the Party members.”
“Tell ’em to fuck ’themselves. I don’t let politics dictate how I distribute my product,” said Jace. “I let people decide that.”
“Well, as it stands, a significantly lower number of people are choosing to go to Taylor Milliken’s clubs anyway. And yet an increasingly larger proportion of that it crowd that you’re looking to attract seem to be hanging out for longer and longer periods at Haisoc. I don’t think it’s a very hard decision to make, nor a very big one. After all, you are Chinese, eh? If the party winks at you, giving her a hard slap in the face rarely makes things easier.”
“Can we get this in writing from the officials you’re talking to?” asked Easton, pensive and withdrawn. He had been strange ever since Sofia had left to Dubai, Jace thought. It was obviously hitting his friend harder than he’s imagined at first that it would.
‘Sure, you can.”
Easton could feel a headache building as they sat there, talking among them. While Taylor was a good friend, this was a no-brainer from a commercial standpoint: Easton had to comply. There was no way that Toyshop would be able to survive even one financial quarter without the non-stop, all-day promotion of its latest artists and releases on HaiSoc. Either way, the bulk of the trouble was headed a little in their direction, and certainly it seemed to be headed in Taylor’s direction.
“Mase – look at yourself,” Jace said. “You too Goldbug. This is not the way that you do business.”
“Wrong. It’s not the way that you do business in Hong Kong, or even Macau. It’s not the way that you do business in the western world, that’s true,” said Mason. “But it’s absolutely the way that we do business here in China.”
At that, without uttering another word, Jace stood up, coughed, and left the restaurant. Easton wanted to go with him, but he didn’t have the guts. He couldn’t afford to lose that many sales, all-of-a-sudden. Both he and Mason knew that. So he just nodded his head and changed the subject until Mason paid the check and the two of them went their separate ways.
Ω
Easton had to get out of Shanghai. He’d been here for over six weeks now, ever since Sofia had left, and it was starting to drive him crazy. He had felt like he never had room to breathe over the past few weeks in the mad, bad sprawling metropolis; he needed to get himself together and work out what the fuck was going on – in his head, in his business; with his friendships. He was dazed as fuck.
That evening, he caught a flight to Macau. He had a house there. It was a small, unpretentious place, with its back to the mountains, facing the ocean: the perfection of Feng Shui. It always sorted him out in times like these. It was only a short drive from the gaming Mecca that was fast-becoming one of the PRC’s principle growth engines, but you wouldn’t know it, high up there, the salty air licking you tongue and stinging your eyes in a long, whistling howl.
Over the weekend, Easton stayed in, watching TV, writing music, making a couple phone calls into the studios, but for the most part just watching the boats tug past the island on up to the mainland with their cargos of coal and steel and iron-ore. Then on Monday, feeling a little cooped up, he took a long walk in the afternoon. He watched the sun set over the ocean, and its mixed, mongrel orange-white beauty, glaring and yet constantly moving in waves of an increasing tide, reminded him abstractly of Sofia’s face just after she had orgasmed, when she used to lie in his arms, her eyes rolling into the top of her head as she dropped into a disturbed sleep of occasional restlessness: kicking and hitting and mumbling and turning over constantly in his arms.
It was at that moment, somewhere on this long walk, contemplating her cousin, that Chanel called.
“I need to get out of here, Easton,” she said. “It’s driving me crazy. All the problems, the stress. I’m meant to be hosting a sorority thing tonight, but I’m not up to it.”
“D’you wanna come down here instead?” he asked her, knowing that she wouldn’t invite herself, being Chinese. Not like a westerner would, even though they’d known each other all their lives.
“I suppose – I suppose I could ask Jasmine to hold it instead –”
Easton remembered his meeting with Mason, and thought about the prospect of having to pull his biggest acts from her boyfriend’s nightclubs. Maybe it would be easier to break the news to her here in Macau, he figured. He could also find out what had happened to Sofia, for real this time. He told her the bit about wanting to talk about Sofia, but not the bit about his meeting with Mason the other day.
“My God – I’m so sorry I haven’t called you. How insensitive of me! I’ve – I’ve just been so busy with everything. It must be hard.”
“It’s okay, really.”
“I’ll come tonight, baby,” purred Chanel. That had come out real sexy, the way Sofia used to talk to him. Almost exactly the same way, in fact. “I’m really sorry, again – about Sofia, I mean.”
“It’s okay,” he said again, watching the dazzling orange sun sink into the blue horizon and the flashes of light that spewed sideways, bursting at its seams as it plunged into a hazy purple after-glow, like the deeply bruised heart of a widowed lover. “The beautiful bird always gets caged in the end.”
For the next forty minutes he walked back to the house in complete silence, and by the last fifteen he was surrounded by almost total darkness, guided only by the strong sea wind that swept above the island like an ominous eruption of destiny paths being born.
Ω
“I’m totally fine with you being here. Stay for as long as you like,” said Easton, throwing Chanel his key. “I warn you though: I’m hung-over as fuck. All the same, I’m pleased you made it down to Macau.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Chanel. “Taylor said you ingested more coke the other day than the Colombian cartel has on delivery right now. Anyway, I don’t need long: I just need a day to clear my head. I need space. Just … to clear my head over something,” she said, repeating herself. “That’s all it is.”
“Clear your head over what?”
“Nothing that’s relevant to you. At least, for the time being it’s not relevant to you. It’s –”
“Taylor?”
“I found something out recently. Something that doesn’t look good. I need to think it over, and I need to be away from my mother to do that. I love her, but she drives me insane at times like this, busying me with all her various errands and chores.” Chanel exhaled in a long, dramatic sigh.
“But what is it? It’s to do with Taylor?”
“Yes, and no. It’s more than that.”
“What then?” asked Easton, pressing her. He was starting to beat himself up for being so passive with Mason the other day. That was his boy Taylor he should’ve been defending …
“Can you just leave me to think, please? We can talk about it later … but after I’ve had time to think it through properly.”
“Sure,” said Easton. “But there’s something I gotta talk to you too about at some point. Something to do with Taylor.”
Chanel rolled her eyes. “Oh, God – please. What now? I’ve barely spoken to him at all in the last month. It feels kind of like we’re –” But she let the rest of her sentence hang in the air.
Easton lef
t her in peace and went to cook dinner. He was a good cook, when it came to Cantonese cuisine at least. Not so much Shanghainese, which was infinitely more complex.
Easton thought to himself how he should have realized when he agreed to let Chanel hang at his place that she wasn’t just any friend – she was a Zheng. And giving an inch to any one of the Zhengs – in particular the Zheng women – was the same as laying out the friggin’ landing strip for a stealth bomber. You had to be absolutely precise in your movements or you were bound to end up completely fucked. Just as he had been with Sofia.
It was a beautiful clear Macau evening, and the air was cooling now after a viciously hot and humid day.
Easton was reminded on nights like this how little he envied kids like Chanel, Sofia and Taylor – even Mason. They had to answer to a higher power: their parents, or a bank, or worst of all, the government. They may have more money than him, but they had no freedom. No independence.
As a music producer and the owner of a debt-free record label, Easton’s schedule was pretty open, which meant he could still enjoy moments like this without any alternate obligations. Unlike the other kids in the Shanghai international community with whom he had grown up, who relied on their parents’ checkbooks and bank loans and higher-up favors, only to live in the confines of their family homes, with their parents and brothers and sisters like small children, he actually had his own place, his own money and a business – an income source, which was all his own, and to which he owed nobody a single piece of Chinese silver. That often meant that friends such as Chanel, who had to answer to their parents all the time, would come to crash when they needed to get away from it all.
So he didn’t have the kind of money that Taylor or Mason had. He couldn’t pick up the tab for everyone at Milk or Prima Donna or wherever more than a couple times a month. But he didn’t need to, nor did he want to. Jace was the only other guy in that position who he could think of. Except Jace was a reckless motherfucker, like the other day. You had to know where your business came from, he thought. Sometimes it just wasn’t worth creating the fight, and yet to Jace, none of that ever seemed to register. It always seemed as if Jace just didn’t care if it all went up in smoke tomorrow.
The Millennial Reincarnations: A Novel Page 16