The Secret

by Harold Robbins

  That is how we spent Sunday. Our driver suggested after lunch that we might like to see something of the New Territories. He drove us through a tunnel to Kowloon and from there out into the country. We went, in fact, within a mile of the border. We were close enough to the border to see the towers of Shenzhen. Though Hong Kong was now part of China, the border remained heavily guarded to prevent unwanted immigration. At one point we encountered a roadblock, and a Chinese soldier courteously but firmly ordered a U-turn.

  When we got home Catherine wanted to know where Grandpa was. We told her he was taking a nap. Where was Miss McAllister? She was taking a nap, too.

  * * *

  On Monday morning Vicky went with the driver to take Catherine to school. Maria took J. J. for a walk and Chinese lesson. As they walked, she would point out things and call them by their Chinese names. My father, and Liz, and I remained in the apartment. We had some E-mail and three faxes to scan and answer.

  About 9:30 a call came up from the reception desk. An Inspector Kung Yuk-kam of the Hong Kong Police wanted to see us. I met him as he stepped off the elevator. My father was just behind me. Knowing that a police inspector had come to see us, he was as anxious as I was to know why.

  “You are, I imagine, Mr. Leonard Cooper,” he said politely. “And this gentleman would be Mr. Jerry Cooper.”

  “Yes. What can we do for you, Inspector?”

  “I’m afraid I have some distressing news for you, Mr. Cooper.”

  I was gripped with cold alarm and nearly fell to the floor. I supposed the news was about Vicky and Catherine, probably about an accident with the car.

  “You had in your employ, I believe, a man named Han Wong, more often called Charlie Han.”

  I stared blankly, not yet comprehending that he had said we’d had in our employ a man named Charlie Han.

  “Am I wrong?”

  “Uh … no. Charlie Han works for our company.”

  Inspector Kung nodded. “The distressing news is that Han Wong is dead. Worse than that, he was murdered.”

  “Murdered…?” I said blandly. I had not yet recovered from the shock of believing, if only for a moment, that something terrible had happened to Vicky and Catherine.

  “Yes. May I come in?” he asked, pointing to the open door of the apartment where I was keeping an office.

  “Certainly,” I said. I began to assemble my wits again. “Yes. Do come in.”

  Now it was my father who was numb and speechless.

  I gestured toward the couch, and Inspector Kung sat down. He was a man in his fifties, as I judged. He was bald, though his hair on the sides of his head was thick and black and his eyebrows were heavy. He had a faintly daunting mien, I thought, with piercing black eyes that stared at the whole world accusingly.

  “How was he killed?” my father muttered.

  “With a knife. His body was found floating in the harbor this morning, just off Wan Chai.”

  Liz winced and covered her mouth with her hand, as if she were going to vomit.

  “Have you any idea who did it or why?” I asked.

  I asked, though I had a pretty good idea who killed Charlie Han. You don’t steal from a man like the billionaire who had entertained us for dinner Saturday night. I remembered how Charlie had been absolutely trembling when we left the mansion. I was sorry now that I had raised the subject of somebody ripping somebody off. It had been Charlie, and he had been killed for it.

  In another sense it would have been difficult to feel sorry for Charlie Han. He had assumed we were too stupid to see what he was doing.

  Inspector Kung began to explain why he had as yet no idea who had killed Charlie or why. “He was engaged in many things. Gambling, smuggling, prostitution … maybe narcotics. Any one of his businesses could have brought him ill fortune.”

  “Charlie was an operator,” my father said sorrowfully.

  “If you knew, or suspected, he was engaged in all these things, why didn’t you deport him?” I asked. “I thought Hong Kong is intolerant of petty criminals.”

  “Deport him? He was a citizen of Hong Kong. He was born here. He carried a Hong Kong passport. He lived in the States for many years, with what I believe you call a green card, but he was a citizen here.”

  “He spoke the language,” my father said.

  “Exactly what was your business relationship with him?” the inspector asked.

  My father looked at me and nodded.

  “Do you know what business we are in?” I asked.

  “I do.”

  “Ten or more years ago we began to import a large part of our merchandise from Saipan, Hong Kong, Singapore, and so on. Seven or eight years ago my father and I visited Saipan and found our goods were being manufactured by slave labor. We took all our business away from there, and most of it was transferred to Hong Kong. We felt we needed an agent here, someone who knew our line of merchandise very well and spoke Cantonese fluently. My father had known Charlie Han for many years, and he seemed the perfect man. We hired him and sent him to Hong Kong. He was to contract with sewing shops, to provide and explain our specifications, and to inspect what they made to be certain it met our standards. He has been doing that … until now.”

  “What did you know of his other enterprises?”

  “Only that he had some other enterprises. He lived too well for what we paid him.”

  “When and where did you see him last?”

  “Saturday night, at the home of Yasheng Lin on the Peak. We had dinner there.”

  “Yasheng Lin invited Han Wong to dinner in his mansion?” the inspector asked incredulously.

  “Yes. Also present was Mr. Bai Fuyuan, from Shenzhen.”

  “You have entered into an arrangement to allow Bai Fuyuan to manufacture goods for you. This begins to make sense. You understand, I suppose, that Bai Fuyuan is the Shenzhen agent for Yasheng. And—unless I am seriously mistaken—there are certain arrangements for goods manufactured in Guangdong Province to be exported to the United States as goods from Hong Kong.”

  “Got us,” my father muttered.

  Inspector Fung laughed. “Don’t worry about that, Mr. Cooper. My concern is homicide. Even if I were worried about misrepresenting the origin of exported merchandise, I wouldn’t touch this one. Yasheng Lin is a multi-billionaire.”

  I grinned. “And the People’s Republic…?”

  “Is very happy to have him invest in Chinese industries.”

  “His guanxi is…?”

  “Limitless.”

  “Then,” said my father glumly, “we probably never will find out who killed Charlie.”

  “I am assuming it is the result of some other of his enterprises,” said Inspector Fung. “A man like Yasheng Lin is rarely so crude. Oh, never that crude. Come, think of it. A dark, foggy night on the waterfront. A knife. A body falling from the quay into the water of Victoria Harbor. It is a dramatic scene from Clavell, is it not? The killer might be Three-Fingers Somebody.”

  “Well, it happened,” my father said.

  Liz stood and sighed. “Would you like a cup of tea, Inspector?” she asked.

  “That is very kind of you, Miss McAllister.”

  She went into the adjoining kitchen to make the tea herself, instead of calling on Maria to do it. She poured water from a two-liter green bottle into the teapot. I guess I haven’t mentioned that in Hong Kong you don’t drink the tap water. You don’t even brush your teeth with it. In one of the world’s most civilized cities, everyone but the bag ladies drinks bottled water.

  “May I ask why you came to see us this morning?” I asked the detective.

  “Routine,” he said. “You are the dead man’s employer.”

  “I understand he left a wife and children,” said my father.

  “Not really,” said Inspector Kung. “He had a string of girls, and sometimes he took his own pleasure with them. I don’t believe there were any children.”

  “Which explains why we never saw any,” I said.

>   The inspector glanced at Liz in the kitchen, as if he were about to say something too indelicate for a woman to hear. “He worked a string of the most attractive young women you could imagine,” he said.

  “Why didn’t you stop him?” my father asked.

  Inspector Kung smiled. “To stop prostitution in Hong Kong would require an army. Wouldn’t it in New York? We discourage open displays of it, but—well … Han Wong did most of his business aboard his boats, which carried his girls beyond our waters.”

  “Boats?” I asked.

  “He did not deal in street hookers. His girls were delightfully beautiful and were offered only to high-paying clients—typically to businessmen wanting to impress and influence other businessmen. He owned three yachts—party boats. He chartered them for very high prices, often for runs to Macau, where his clients gambled before returning to the boat and the delights of the girls.”

  Yes. I knew what he meant.

  “You have never used his services of that nature?” the inspector asked.

  “No,” I said. “I am not sure we could afford it.”

  The detective sat and sipped the tea Liz brought him, as did the rest of us. It was an awkward time.

  “May I respectfully suggest to you,” said Inspector Kung, “that you have become involved in a rather complex business, with ramifications you do not understand. Han Wong was not a faithful agent for you. But you can employ honest agents in this city. May I suggest you retain a solicitor? Let him help you. You can navigate these waters. To great profit. But you must avoid the shoals.”

  * * *

  After Inspector Kung left I spoke earnestly to my father.

  “I think we are in waters that are far too deep for us. I think we should pull out of Hong Kong and go home. I don’t want to live here. I want to give up this apartment and go back to Greenwich.”

  My father stood, stared for a minute at Liz, and began to pace the floor.

  “The hell with that,” he said. “The goddamned Chinks are not going to run me out of town. No, sir.”

  “Which of us will wind up floating in the harbor?” I asked.

  “Yasheng Lin. He’s the goddamned key. I wouldn’t be surprised if he also owns Zhang Feng. Multibillionaire! He’s got tentacles everywhere.”

  “He can buy and sell us out of pocket change,” I said.

  “No, he can’t. Us, yes. Sure. But we represent something he hasn’t got. Just like Malloy. We know what the fuck we’re doing. So does Malloy. So does Zhang Feng, maybe. If Yasheng destroys us, he destroys the business, because he can’t run it without us. I’ve spent too many goddamned years in this business not to have learned something. We meet our competitors. We know our business. Could a bunch of Chink amateurs do it? Let ’em try it. Money ain’t everything.”

  * * *

  Then I got a phone call I had never thought I’d get.

  “Is Chang Li. You remember me, Len?” She was the girl on the boat to Macau.

  “Of course I remember you.”

  “Would like to speak with you. No ominous. No mean to blackmail you. Nothing like that. Would like to speak.”

  “Where and when?” I asked curtly.

  “I live now in Miramar Hotel, Kowloon. Could you come? I do you no harm.”

  Late in the afternoon I knocked on her door.

  My God! That beautiful little girl was as bald as a cue ball! Her head was shaved.

  “This,” she said immediately, touching her naked scalp. “This Charlie. When he make a girl his girl, he do this. It supposed to make a girl wrong for any other man. He not want his girl to see other man.”

  She led me into her modest suite. She had a small parlor, a bedroom, a tiny kitchen, and of course a bathroom.

  “Charlie, he do,” she said, meaning that Charlie had provided the suite.

  She poured us two drinks of good Scotch without asking if I wanted one.

  “When you and I…” I said.

  “Not then. When Charlie see I please you, then he decide I please him.”

  “You would please any man, Li,” I said simply. “I can’t imagine a man you would not please. If I were not married—”

  “I live here. You visit me as you wish.”

  “No. It can’t be. My wife is the mother of my children, and she is very smart.”

  “Ah. You lucky man.”

  I sipped the Scotch she had poured for me. “Why did you want to see me?” I asked.

  “Charlie dead. You know why, maybe you can help me, small way.”

  “Why is he dead, Li?”

  “Charlie stealing from you. Didn’t you know?”

  “We trusted him,”

  At last the solemn little girl smiled. “He make whore of me. Didn’t you know?”

  “No.”

  “Yes. Charlie make whore. He buy me from my family and make me whore.” She nodded. “It is done in China, in Hong Kong. I lucky maybe. He didn’t sell me in marriage.”

  “Marriage?”

  “I am from Quinghai Province. Girls sold there. I put on display, wearing sign that says my price. Auction. All kind man bid. Man work for Charlie hear I speak English. He bid me. Sneak me into Hong Kong. No buy me Charlie, I maybe marry to factory worker in Beijing, Shanghai, by now have babies, many.”

  “So you felt some loyalty to Charlie.”

  “Yes. Much better be whore for Charlie than—But they kill him, yes?”

  “Who killed him?”

  “He steal from you. Not much. Just a little, the same he steal from everyone he in business with. He steal a little and send into China to be sell in your shops.”

  “Who bought what he sold?”

  “Bai Fuyuan. He dead too, you know.”

  “I didn’t know.”

  “Yes. Why kill Charlie and not Bai? No percentage in that.”

  “What do you want me to do for you?” I asked.

  “Tell Yasheng Lin I am good girl, no help Charlie steal. Tell Yasheng Lin I like be his girl.”

  “You mean…?”

  “Be whore for Yasheng Lin. Was good whore for Charlie. You know. Be good whore for Yasheng Lin.”

  “Do you need money?” I asked. “I mean, right now.”

  “Charlie leave me good,” she said. “I live in hotel. I can live till hair grow out.” The little girl ran her hand over her naked scalp. “Is much embarrass, yes?” she asked quietly.

  59

  Bai Fuyuan was dead. I do not conceal the fact that I was scared. Scared? Hell, I was terrified.

  Given my choice, I would have done exactly what I’d said to my father I would do: abandon the apartments in Hong Kong, pull out of the Far East, and go home. We were deep in things we didn’t know how to handle. I was a stranger, and afraid in a world I never made.

  Not the old man. So far as he was concerned the world anywhere was not much different from what he’d learned on the mean streets, where you fought dirty, took your lumps, and gave lumps in return. He had made his bones, Vicky had told me. If I had heard that from anyone but Vicky I wouldn’t have believed it.

  My father was not about to be run out of Hong Kong. The first thing he did was to call and ask Hugh Scheck to identify a solicitor to represent us. Hugh E-mailed back in a few hours with the name of Sir Arthur Xu. I telephoned to make an appointment with him, and the next day we sat in his office.

  Sir Arthur was not intimidated by the name Yasheng Lin. What was more, he was not in the least surprised by the brutal murder of Charlie Han.

  The solicitor was a lifelong resident of Hong Kong, a graduate of a Jesuit school in Kowloon and of Columbia University, and received his law training at Gray’s Inn, London. His office was much like the one occupied by Charles Laughton in Witness for the Prosecution. He dressed like Laughton in that film—in somber black with a heavy gold watch chain drooped across his waistcoat. He was, nevertheless, absolutely Chinese, with straight black hair showing a touch of gray only above his ears, slanted eyes, and a dusty-gold complexion.

&
nbsp; “Yasheng Lin will not hurt you,” he said. “If he meant to do that, he would have done it by now. What good would it do him, anyway? I can’t imagine you were surprised to learn that Charlie Han was stealing from you.”

  “What about Bai Fuyuan?” my father asked. “Why in the world was he killed?”

  “Yasheng had a clever thing going. He leased the space and bought the appointments for the Cheeks shops in China. He bought the merchandise—allowing Bai a percentage. Bai was his … traveling salesman, as you might say. But Bai and Han were greedy men. Han stole merchandise from you. It cost him nothing, except maybe some small bribes to men on the loading platforms. Bai bought it from him for a small amount—small, but profitable for Han because he’d paid nothing for it. Then Bai put it in the shops and charged Yasheng the same price as he got for other merchandise. Bai was making more than Han.”

  “How can you know so much about this?” I asked.

  Sir Arthur shrugged. “You called me yesterday, did you not? I made a few inquiries.”

  I had noticed this about the Hong Kong Chinese. When in New York you asked for legal advice, asked for a bid, asked for information, you could expect, perhaps, to receive a response in ten days or two weeks. In Hong Kong you expected it before the end of the day, and usually got it.

  “How did Bai Fuyuan die?” my father asked.

  “When he learned of the death of Han, he took poison. Unnecessarily, I think.”

  “What should we do about this business?” I asked. “Frankly, I am thinking of pulling out.”

  “I suppose you could do that,” said Sir Arthur. “Are you making any money?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you have a good deal invested in a presence in Hong Kong. Two expensive apartments … You have made a commitment to doing business in this part of the world. You know the potential here. You know the future lies here.”

  “I guess we’re not accustomed to the idea that our business associates will be stabbed and dumped in the harbor,” I said.