Jade Woman l-12

by Jonathan Gash

  “That’s her.” I wondered if the Triad knew of this sophisticated street trailer—or if they already had a team of them watching and spying everywhere.

  “I could look about for her, I suppose.”

  “Ta. I’d pay well, if you could find out where she is. But say nothing to anyone else.”

  Pause. “Two hundred dollars?”

  “Three.” As I nodded, he indicated the temple across the road. “Give an offering to Kuan Ti—he’s very strong. He was mortal once. Since his death he has been promoted several times, for doing good to China.”

  “Really works, eh?” I glanced curiously at the temple.

  “Indeed, Lovejoy. He was executed in 220 b.c. A grateful China made him a duke about thirteen centuries later. Then he was made a prince, finally a full emperor in 1594 a.d.

  Help should be rewarded, ne?” He paused, tilting his misshapen head. “You don’t laugh, Lovejoy.”

  “I’m losing the knack. What’s he god of?”

  “War. Money. And antique dealers, as it happens.”

  He left suddenly, skittering away. I rose and dusted myself off.

  “Hey, Titch,” I called. “How much do I offer the god?”

  “That’s the problem, Lovejoy,” the darkness called back. “But guess right.”

  There was a lot to think of on the return to Steerforth’s place. By the time I reached there I’d worked out how to bubble Sim and Fatty at one go.

  As it turned out, it all had to be modified because Ling Ling herself arrived at the studio to model for me.

  33

  « ^ »

  THE advertising campaign has begun, Lovejoy.” Ling Ling made my breathing funny, even seated on phony plastic grass. The faint downward draft from my studio’s ceiling panels showed that the filtered-air system was working. Her ribbons stirred.

  “Successfully?”

  “An amazing response. You are to be congratulated.”

  She had been astonished that the painting still had so far to go. I’d explained about the Impressionists’ techniques, the necessity for building up the scene, Monet’s methods.

  “But didn’t Sisley create alla prima, all in a day?” she suggested innocently. “You might have done better basing on, say, his Bateaux sur la Seine than Monet’s Summer, the Meadow. It would be already finished.”

  Aye, lady, but this way I ruin Sim’s and Fatty’s proud life-style. I grunted in annoyance and she fell silent. Dangerous ground, with her cleverness. I mean she hadn’t seen the canvas before, yet instantly recognized the scene as a Chinese rendering of Monet’s great 1874 work. And how the hell did she know I admired Sisley’s Boats so much? The studio must be bugged stiff. Naturally I could argue reasons: 1874 fitted in with the mythical Song Ping’s movements, Sisley’s Bateaux was 1877, a year too late for the Second Impressionist Exhibition, all that. But I didn’t want her guessing what I was up to.

  As the day wore on I felt calmer. Maybe it was her influence. I started talking about faking methods. I had arranged enough trial canvases round the place to be convincing.

  She chipped in with her bit, even amusing me with little jokes about Renoir’s women and the weird threesome Monet made with that banker’s wife. She had fascinating views on jealousy.

  That night I was relieved—if that’s the word—of my gigolo job, if that’s the word.

  Steerforth seemed glad.

  No Marilyn that day. No news from Titch.

  Nor the next.

  This, incidentally, was the day Algernon, still driving Macao mad with his racing engines, became one of the thousand collectors clamoring for details about the forthcoming auction. He had seen the newspapers, and tried to pass himself off as Lovejoy Antiques, Inc. I was briefly interrogated by Dr. Chao, released after an uncomfortable hour with Fatty. I’d throttle Algernon if ever I met the silly sod again.

  Nor that week. By then I was working like a maniac on the painting. Ten days after Ling Ling became my model we had a showdown. I came off worse as usual, but none of it was my fault.

  It was the day of a Cantonese lantern festival.

  Several times I’d called at the temple in the Mologai district after work, leaving messages galore with the incense lady for Titch. Nil. No Marilyn. No Titch, though twice I could have sworn seeing him among the crowds.

  The painting sickened me. I was worn out, edgy. I’m always like this during finishing stages. I’d left a note at the Flower Drummer asking Ling Ling to present herself for modeling about midday, and had driven myself. It would be the last day. After this it would mostly need leaving alone, apart from the framing.

  “I’ll need photographers along tomorrow,” I told Ling Ling, who arranged herself perfectly, needless to say. “Transparencies and prints, big as they like. No flashguns.”

  “Very well, Lovejoy. Is it now completed?”

  “Signature tonight, not in Chinese. I’ll romanize it”

  She seemed quiet, reserved almost. “You are glad?”

  “Eh? Oh, yes.” Glad? After a mere handful of deaths, a degrading existence, bought for a handful of groats by any woman fancying a night on Hong Kong’s tiles, serf to murderers, given a virtual life sentence? Glad? I was frigging ecstatic.

  That last painting day I did wonders. The scene was complete, the distant trees showing in the heat haze, the Chinese women on the grass in European garb of the 1870s, a distant picnic, hills faint and bluish, the pure color dragged perfectly, the sky just right. I was knackered. We broke about six. I told her thanks, that she could take a look.

  She didn’t. Instead, I got a gaze like a wash in sleet.

  “Lovejoy. You used Marilyn.”

  “Used? Well, it just happened,” I said. “Stuck in here all day with a lovely woman. It wasn’t her fault.” Even as I spoke I thought, hang on, Lovejoy. No good taking the blame. “It wasn’t mine either.”

  “You did not take the same advantage of me, Lovejoy.”

  “Course not. I’m not daft.”

  “Could you explain? You spoke to Marilyn of love as a duty, a perfection, a transcendental grace.”

  I went red. “Well, love. I lay a finger on you, somebody cuts it off, ne? This place—

  every place—is wired for sound and video. I know I’m followed, bugged, traced, intercepted. Also, you are a million dollars a second to ask over for flower arranging, and I’ve got bugger-all except my share-out from Steerforth.” I fished a handful of crumpled notes from a pocket. “That’s it.”

  She eyed the money. I sat and swigged a glass of water. “Love, I’m scared to death every hour God sends. Sim knifing Del Goodman. Johny Chen. That poor old addict.

  Course I’d give almost anything, love. It’s been murder just working here, with you like a dream…” I swallowed, shrugged. “But the likes of you aren’t for dross like me. You’re perfect, a genius, superb. I’m rubbish. A nerk with a knack.” My grin felt feeble. “Maybe I’ll risk it in another existence, eh?”

  “Yet you loved Marilyn without a moment’s thought. And the gwailo tourist women for a hundred dollars—”

  “Here, nark it,” I said, indignant. “Two hundred.”

  “Apologies,” she said witheringly. There was an awkward hiatus. I tried tact, like a fool.

  “You’ll be going up the hill this evening?” This seemed to me the favorite local pastime on festival days, lanterns and nosh on some peak.

  “To honor my ancestors, Lovejoy?” She rose, removed her ribboned hat with that headshake they do. “You know my reasons for not so doing. Have you learned so little of our Chinese customs that you still haven’t realized?

  Burying a child alive on the whim of the gods is one of our twenty-four filial pieties.”

  “The fact your parents—”

  She rounded savagely on me. “Have you ever been abandoned, Lovejoy? Terrified?

  Alone?” Anything less than perfection was a risk, a return to childhood destitution. I felt pity. Me, the ultimate duck egg, sorry for the most exq
uisite creature on legs. She saw it in my face and turned aside. “You won’t leave alive, Lovejoy. In a matter of days you must reconcile yourself to life servitude here.”

  And that was it. Death or a life sentence for Lovejoy Antiques, for doing the greatest piece of fakery I’d ever clapped eyes on. Perks, of course, but without freedom they’re nothing.

  “One more thing, Lovejoy. Resume your duties with Steerforth as soon as the framing’s completed.” Her tone told me that was about all I was good for. I opened the changing-room door for her.

  Twenty minutes later, the outer door closed with a slam. Fine time to make an enemy of the boss.

  The day Surton’s manuscript-exhibition stuff was finally ready, I went early to take receipt of it in Kowloon. Naturally I codded the old scholar along: of course it would be carefully conserved and such like. He was leaving the colony for London the same day—

  all arranged by some London travel agent I’d never heard of—and eagerly tottered off, whereupon I handed his work over to a group of Dr. Chao’s fokis. They would weather the lot—diaries, manuscripts, printed catalogs, everything.

  “Look, Leung,” I said as he dropped me off at grubby old Chungking Mansions in Nathan Road. “I’m removing Dr. Surton’s notes tonight. To the studio. Security, see.

  You want to examine them?”

  He grinned, shook his head. With Surton gone, so were all risks. I waved him off and bought an artist’s large plastic carrying case.

  Then I zoomed round to number 4 Felix Villas on Mount Davis to put the final touches to the duplicate painting in the Surtons’ roof room. And got caught red-handed.

  “It’s pretty, Lovejoy.”

  Engrossed, I hadn’t heard her come in. I was running with sweat, struggling to finish the duplicate in sync with the studio one. No time to turn the neffie thing. I shrugged, beckoned her to see it closer, trying to pass it off. “Another dud trial, Phyllis.”

  Siesta hour for the rest of the world, two to three. Couldn’t she sleep, for God’s sake?

  “I’m hopeless,” I said. “Incidentally, Stephen get off all right?” He’d be airborne by now, planning his London conferences. They were fronts, arranged with a let’s-pretend firm set up by the Triad, poor bloke.

  “Yes.” She watched me clean a brush. “Lovejoy? You remember saying once that… you, well, wanted …?” She ran out of steamy euphemisms.

  “Yes.” I gave her my sincerely sad smile. Anything to stop her wondering what I was doing.

  She seemed out of breath. “And I said how I’d always…”

  “I remember.”

  “Well, I want to.” She spoke directly, her voice harsh. “Now, Lovejoy. I have the money.”

  “Money?” I was baffled. She tried to take hold of my hand, made it the fourth diffident go. “Look, love…”

  “I have to pay, Lovejoy,” she said fiercely. “Don’t you see?”

  Bewildered, I followed her to the long bedroom with the veranda overlooking the exquisite Lamma Channel. And there Phyllis Surton and I made slow happy love, for twenty percent over base rate. Like I say, women are odd. She could have saved the gelt and bought a new dress. Gray, natch.

  During the owl hours I took the finished canvas and taxied to the studio. There I unscrewed enough ventilation paneling to conceal my duplicate Song Ping, did it up and cracked a bottle in celebration. If the Triad knew I’d done a twindle they’d kill me. Even though, done so slapdash, it had all the faults the meticulous studio version hadn’t. I was so pleased with myself I almost raised my glass to toast the hidden cameras.

  34

  « ^ »

  THE day the sky fell down, the South China Morning Post started by frightening me to death. I rushed back to the stall and shakily got a copy. And there she was, Janie, smiling from the middle of the front page. Mr. Markham, international merchant broker, whose firm co-sponsored entrants in the Macao motor and motorcycle races, was seen here arriving at Kai Tak Airport. Mrs. Markham was expected to do the honors and start a big event in three days’ time. I was so shaken I skulked into a taxi and zoomed out of Central District.

  Go to Little Hong Kong—“Aberdeen” to most—where the harbor road runs between a steepish hillside and the vast motionless fleet of sampans locked in sediment. On the landward pavement open-air barbers work away under canvas awnings. I’d just been finished, hot towels and all, paid the man (watch out—it’s twice the price at festivals) and followed the team of dragon-boaters to see the launching.

  All year the local dragon boat hangs on a wall by the barbers, until the famous races, when the water villages pick their strongest paddlers, most garish team colors, and argue nonstop about which offerings to which gods will bring most luck on race day. I’ll bet you’ve never seen a boat so long and thin. A zillion spectators gathered to exclaim in admiration. I’d a hundred dollars on the nose.

  Dragon boats can’t go without a noisy drummer and exploding firecrackers and gong music encouraging any passing spirit to lend a metaphysical hand. I watched the team’s paddles making splendid flurry as the craft moved off. The crew, two abreast, generated more spray than forward motion but I was optimistic. I’d got three to one after spying on the Wan Chai boat.

  “Don’t back them, Lovejoy. They’re to come in sixth.”

  “Wotcher, Titch. They’ll do it, you see.” He’d positioned himself by a junk builder’s slipway. “No message for me about a certain lady, you idle sod?”

  “She’s not in Hong Kong anymore. She’s gone to USA.”

  A bad day getting worse. I looked away. “She okay?”

  “They say so.”

  “Thanks, Titch.” I pulled out money to pay him. “Any further news, let me know, eh?” I stared back at the scudding dragon boat, the jerky files of paddles. “It isn’t that I miss her, Titch. I mean, a bird’s only a bird, but…”

  He trundled off among the pedestrians. A street market began a few yards away, his natural habitat. I shrugged about Marilyn. Good luck, love, glad you’re out of it. Here’s likely to worsen. I’d make sure of that.

  A taxi driver fetched an urgent message long before my team had rowed the distance.

  Steerforth, seven-thirty, cruise liner at the Ocean Terminal. “Clients BG,” he’d scribbled.

  I was so anxious trying to pump the driver for information about odds on the New Territories’ dragon boats that we’d reached Kennedy Town before the penny dropped.

  Brookers Gelman. Lulu back in town?

  Leung and Ong were waiting for me when I emerged from the Treble Gold Bathorama.

  I hurt Leung’s feelings by spurning his proffered sunflower seeds. The venue was a building I’d never seen before. “Major Money Hotel,” Ong translated the neon entrance sign. I wondered if these blokes ever got tired. I couldn’t imagine them resting, doing anything other than marshaling cars, signaling their hoodlums to go there, do that, phone ahead. I admired them.

  Inside was plush, shady cool. I was conducted to a conference room by a pretty hostess. Chairs were arranged in an oval, oddly no table or papers. A conference was already in progress. Dr. Chao in his traditional garb, Ling Ling blinding me in yellow with heart-stealing pale jade earrings older than the world, two of her women fashioneers, Sim, Fatty wheezing away, Ramone, Sun Sen, and about a dozen others, Chinese men in dark suits arranged like a jury. Another score or so, diverse nationalities, sat facing them. All were new to me. Leung, Ong, and sundry fokis stood by doors. Amahs fetched drinks to tiny individual stands by each chair. My chirpiness left the instant I sat because they were speaking in English and nobody stopped talking. Previously, they’d used Cantonese. I felt my knees tremble. The Triad was in session.

  “We’ve the emerald problem solved,” a dapper South American titch was saying.

  From Ling Ling: “Does any official Colombian government contractor obtain more than thirty percent of the excavated emeralds? It would be troublesome to buy them out.”

  “Not for two years, Little Siste
r. In diamonds, which lost four-fifths of their value in a five-year downturn, we’ve seen a strong recovery sustained since 1987.”

  “Excellent,” Dr. Chao said. “Now, aeroplane components?”

  A surprisingly matronly European lady, Italian my guess, quickly summarizing the state of play in holding airlines and air forces to ransom over spare parts. She spoke with determination, a schoolmarm threatening detention.

  “A seven percent increment,” she said, adding quickly as the listeners stirred unhappily,

  “but we predict an annual nineteen points next year. National labor difficulties—”

  “Thank you.” Dr. Chao wanted no details. “Medical?”

  An Oxford-accented Cantonese told us precisely how new outbreaks of meningitis in the Middle East had helped enormously in cornering markets in certain antibiotics, how fake chemotherapeutics and vaccines had improved cash flow from Southeast Asia and the USA… I switched off.

  Most of the taipans were Cantonese, Chinese at least. The rest were assorted. One looked Filipino, two were Mediterranean, one bloke a Nordic giant the size of Leung, an Indian woman, a couple were Latin Americans. Why no Negroes? I jolted back, all ears.

  “Antiques?” Dr. Chao had just said.

  “Brokerage continues our main problem,” the Hindu lady said. “But our lawyers report that they can now bypass all national laws that restrict export. Asset-stripping of major national collections is now routine.” There rose a murmur of appreciation. “However, attempts to levy our charge on the auction houses’ intakes failed in USA and UK. It works well in the Continent and Australasia, but costs are high, forty percent of the gross.”

  Feet shuffled. Dr. Chao murmured at Ling Ling, who did not hesitate. “Mix purchase takeover with new-start auction businesses in the difficult countries, Tai Tai. Then buy out the easier places.”

  “Immediately, Little Sister?” The Hindu lady was disturbed.

  “Yes.”

  The matronly Italian cut in. “Little Sister. What percentage of outlay would be recovered in the first year?”