The Inscrutable Charlie Muffin cm-3
Page 17
‘It’s been an interesting experience, Mr Muffin.’
‘For both of us,’ agreed Charlie.
Johnson had wanted to send someone with him, but Charlie had refused the protection.
The shack was actually against the Kowloon waterfront, part of the tin-drum and cardboard shanty town to the east of the city.
Charlie felt the attention as soon as he entered, stopping just inside the door to adjust to the darkness. And not just attention, he realised. Hostility, too.
The mutter of conversation began again, but everyone was still watching him, he knew. Everyone except Jenny. She was at the bar, head bent in apparent interest in something before her.
He picked his way through the trestles at which the Chinese sat, careful not to come into contact. It would need little excuse for an argument to erupt.
As he got near to the girl, he saw that the hair of which she had once been so proud was greased with dirt and matted in disorder.
‘Jenny,’ he said quietly.
Her glass was almost empty. She was staring down into it, but her eyes were fogged and unseeing.
‘Jenny,’ he tried again.
The barman positioned himself in front of him.
‘Beer,’ said Charlie.
The man looked at the girl and Charlie nodded. There was still no reaction when her glass was refilled.
He reached out, touching her arm. She was very cold, despite the oven-like heat of the place. She responded at last to his touch, squinting sideways. There was no immediate recognition.
‘Twenty dollars,’ she said distantly. ‘Very good for twenty dollars.’
‘Jenny,’ he said again, trying to reach her.
‘Hong Kong, not American,’ she recited. ‘Fuck all night. Just twenty dollars.’
There were no puncture marks on her arms. He looked down and saw the needle bruises around her ankles, near the big vein.
‘Know you,’ she said thickly.
The cheongsam was the one she had worn the night she had come to his room. It was very stained and the thigh split had been torn, so that it gaped almost to her groin.
‘Came to fire Robert.’
She smiled with the pride of a child remembering a difficult multiplication table.
‘Lu lost,’ said Charlie. ‘Too many other people did, as well. But Lu lost.’
There was no comprehension.
‘Robert came here,’ she said, mouthing the words slowly. ‘That night. He came here.’
He reached out again, trying physically to squeeze some reaction from her.
‘Lu has been arrested,’ he said.
‘Very brave, coming here by himself. Round-eyes aren’t allowed… now they’ve made me come here… work here… punishment…’
Charlie lodged against the barstool, looking at her sadly. The heroin had almost completely blanketed her mind. She would take months to cure. Months of patient, constant care. He looked at his watch. The flights bringing in the American investigation teams to supplement those already in the colony would be arriving within three hours.
It would have to be someone else.
She blinked her eyes, as if remembering something.
‘All night,’ she said. ‘Only twenty dollars. Anything you want.’
She snatched out, suddenly desperate when she saw him move.
‘Fifteen then. Anything you want for fifteen.’
He shrugged her hand away, threading between the unsteady tables again. It didn’t matter if he collided with anybody, he realised. They had wanted him to find her and see what had happened.
‘Bastard,’ she screamed, behind him. ‘Fired Robert.’
Yes, thought Charlie, stepping unsteadily out into the street. He was a bastard. Literally. And in every other way. Usually he wasn’t as ashamed of it as he was now. She wouldn’t have understood had he tried to explain he wasn’t abandoning her.
22
Willoughby needed movement to let off his excitement, striding without direction about the room. For the first time he was holding himself upright, Charlie saw. He was remarkably tall.
‘Unbelievable,’ said the underwriter, groping for words sufficient to express himself. ‘A miracle, nothing short of a miracle…’
The grandfather clock in the corner of Willoughby’s office chimed the half-hour and Charlie looked across to it. Still another hour before the appointment. The chiropodist would probably insist upon the supports being put into his shoes. Mean another new pair, he supposed. Wonder how difficult it would be, adjusting to an artificial lump beneath each foot?
‘People got hurt,’ Charlie reminded him, puncturing the other man’s euphoria. ‘Too many people.’
Willoughby stopped the pacing, looking seriously at Charlie.
‘And not just in Hong Kong,’ said the underwriter, obscurely.
‘I don’t understand,’ said Charlie. Despite the chiropodist, he could still get to Guildford before the rush-hour. He hoped Edith’s grave hadn’t become too neglected.
Willoughby shook himself, like a dog throwing off water:
‘It’s not important. Incidentally, there was quite a lot of money due to Robert Nelson. I sent it to our new broker…’
‘There was a woman,’ said Charlie hopefully. ‘It’s important to arrange something for her…’
‘Jenny Lin Lee?’ interrupted Willoughby.
Charlie nodded.
‘She’s dead.’
‘Oh.’
‘Massive drug overdose, apparently,’ said the underwriter. ‘The police have decided it was self-administered, so there’s no question of any crime.’
Already stencilled ‘closed’ and filed in one of Johnson’s neat little cabinets by one of his neat little clerks, thought Charlie. Again he’d been too late.
‘She knew Lu would win some sort of victory,’ said Charlie softly.
‘What?’
‘Nothing,’ said Charlie.
‘I’ll always be indebted to you,’ declared the underwriter, sitting at last at his desk.
‘It took me a long time to realise how long I’d been away,’ said Charlie. ‘Almost too long.’
He would never know about the Peking ambassador, he thought. Not until it was too late, anyway.
‘I wouldn’t like it to end,’ said Willoughby. ‘In fact, Clarissa wants to meet you.’
‘Clarissa?’
‘My wife. Let’s meet socially, very soon.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I’m sorry for the way all this began, Charlie. It was wrong to treat you as I did.’
‘Forget it.’
‘I’d like the association to continue.’
Charlie shifted, uncertainly. How soon would it be before the fear diminished and the boredom began eating away at him again?
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I made a lot of mistakes.’
‘But won in the end.’
‘Only just.’
Which was all he could ever hope for, decided Charlie. To win. By a small margin.
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