by Peter Tonkin
Staying ashore for a man like him was a kind of death in itself; she saw that but a live, occasionally loving, frustrated near-bankrupt grouch was better than a dead legend any day in her book. And so she repeated, ‘You promised.’
‘I remember,’ he said. ‘No matter what.’
‘I love you,’ she said. And for the rest of her life she thanked God that she said it there and then.
‘I love you,’ he said and, looking into the burning depths of those icy eyes, she saw that it was still true. Her own grey eyes flooded and neither of them said another word. He clasped her to him, burying the broken blade of his nose deep in the fragrant cloud of her hair. She held him with a grip which popped her shoulder joints and let his own particular scent overlain by Imperial Leather and Roger & Gallet aftershave fill her nostrils. That passionate embrace was enough to wipe out of her mind every irritation not only of the day so far, but of the last few months. When she broke it, gulped once, sniffed and turned determinedly away, she seemed to have grown five years younger. Every precious instant of this leave-taking seared itself in her memory — and that was just as well, for she was to relive it often enough in the next few weeks.
As the British Airways jumbo lifted off, bang on time at midday, Richard was turning the Jaguar through the main gates at the Kwai Chung container terminal where the man from the Xianggang Port Authority was waiting to see him aboard the Sulu Queen. Richard parked at the foot of his ship’s companionway and climbed out. This was the first time he had been out of air conditioning today and the sudden heat came as a shock. It was thirty-five degrees in the shade, nearly fifty out here in the direct sun, and the humidity was over eighty per cent.
Not even the sterling work of Kiam Sin, Specialists in Lightweight and Tropical Clothing, Gentlemen’s Outfitters of Des Voeux Road, Central, was proof against this. Richard’s beautifully cut, immaculately pressed silk pinstripe two-piece looked a lot like used blue toilet tissue by the time he had attained the main deck. Here two men waited to greet him: So Chin-leung, captain of the vessel Sulu Queen, and Fuk Yuet-tong, an officer of the Port Authority. Captain So was a plump man of middling years and dark aspect. His tropical whites, China Queens Company rig-out, were scarcely in better condition than Richard’s expensive suit. Fuk’s uniform was spick-and-span, seemingly just pressed. The man himself was spare to the point of being skeletal, bantam-weight, and even at rest frenetic. It was as though he was dancing on the spot when he stood, running when he walked, and jumping up and down at all times when he sat. Richard glanced at him and at once suspected drugs. But then, Richard was over-sensitive to drugs. It had been the attempt to smuggle a container full of crack cocaine on the Seram Queen that had been at the root of his troubles in May and June 1997.
‘Captain So,’ he said, sticking out his hand.
‘Welcome aboard, Captain Mariner,’ wheezed So.
The use of his title was poignant to Richard. Just treading the hot steel deck of this battered old container ship made him hunger for the sea. The stench of diesel was more appealing to him than anything except Robin’s Chanel and the baby smell his children had only just, it seemed, stopped giving off while they slept.
‘Mr Fuk.’ Richard once again held out his hand, but the official merely nodded his head once and turned up the deck towards the bridgehouse. Richard’s Western ways may have been offensive; or Fuk may just have had no time for gweilo shipowners whose crew members tried to smuggle.
The smuggler, Wan Wang-fat, was under detention in his cabin. What he had been trying to smuggle lay scattered across the table in Captain So’s day room. It looked like a collection of shrivelled slugs and sausages, a square or two of once-bright carpeting and several nasty-looking black steel hooks. Behind the pile of strange artefacts lay a bag containing more.
‘You recognise this stuff?’ demanded Fuk in arrogant and contemptuous tones. But at least he spoke English. Richard’s Cantonese was not up to the conversation in prospect.
‘No.’
‘Is tiger. Your man Wan bought same in Bangkok. He smuggling to Japan maybe.’
Richard personally thought that tiger was a popular cure-all among the Chinese rather than the Japanese but he was too wise to say so. Various parts of tigers, dried, smoked, preserved, ground to powder, designed to be taken, rubbed on or worn, were among the most treasured of illegal substances. Weight for weight, tiger could be more expensive than opium or cocaine. Tiger would cure everything from leprosy to impotence, it was said. Some people would pay any price. Literally.
Seaman Wan was going to pay a considerable price himself, clearly. The only question was what price was likely to be demanded from his employers. Richard held his peace and listened. Fuk lifted the bag behind the smoked and dried skin and body parts. He emptied out a stream of pale ivory razor-edged tiger’s teeth. They danced across the teak-topped table, rattling like dominoes. ‘We will have to search the ship all over again,’ said Fuk. ‘All quarters, all navigating areas. All cargo holds and containers.’
Richard bit back on a retort. That whole process, as well as costing all too precious face to himself and his company, and his clients, was likely to take the better part of a week and put them all behind schedule. He shot a fulminating glance at Captain So who gave a semi-liquid shrug. And, at the look of the man, Richard went cold. The captain was pallid. He was streaming with sweat, even though he kept the air conditioning in his work area turned high. And he had guilt written all over him. Heaven alone knew what else lay hidden about the hull and its contents waiting to be found. Richard felt the disorientating pressure building in his chest, the all too familiar singing in his ears. One day, he thought, he was simply going to explode with the pressure of trying to control himself.
‘If that is what is required, Mr Fuk, then of course that is what must be done. Captain So and his officers will give your men all the help they require, I am sure. If you would like to make a start on the process now, I will be on the bridge until one o’clock. Then I’m afraid I will have to take my leave. I have a meeting at one thirty at the Mandarin Grill for lunch. With my company’s legal representative.’
The parting shot was Parthian, but it made him feel better. Gerry Stephenson was in no way ready to take on the tortuous process of seeking redress under the new Basic Law for the unnecessary detention of a ship caught smuggling pieces of endangered species. It seemed to Richard as he stood on the bridge and gazed down the foredeck over the Rubik’s Cube of the deck cargo that his veiled threat would have done more harm than good, putting Fuk’s back up. Even Edward Thong, Gerry’s other partner, soon to be sole proprietor of the business, would be hard put to it to make any kind of a case here. Especially as it seemed probable that Captain So knew of more guilty secrets hidden away below.
But the scarcely-veiled threat did seem to have some effect after all, for at five to one, just as Richard had brought himself up to date with his ship’s movement books, lading schedules and logs, Fuk came sidling on to the navigation bridge alone. He was carrying a large box. At first glance, Richard had a disconcerting suspicion that it was probably big enough to contain the whole head of a tiger — a great deal more if it was dried or smoked.
Fuk put the box determinedly on the chart table and stood back. Richard crossed to it and took the lid off. Inside lay not parts of a dead animal but a selection of magazines. Surprised, he reached in and lifted the first one out. The magazine was called Bamboo and its cover featured the drawing of a young Oriental girl kneeling on one knee and looking down. Her hair and clothing were dishevelled and a certain amount of her body was revealed because of this. Richard flipped through it. Inside, the dishevelment became more pronounced, and the nudity more explicit. This was a girlie magazine made up of simple black and white drawings. Like many Chinese drawings, they were precise, clear, realistic — like photographs.
Richard looked up at Fuk who was studying his nails. Richard persisted. The next magazine had exactly the same format but this time the gi
rls were much more distressed. In the third their dishevelled helplessness was compounded by bands tied round their wrists and ankles. And so it went on. After the first half-dozen magazines, there was no pretence at dishevelment; all the drawings were graphically nude. After the next few, the manner in which the girls were tied also became more graphic and unusual. There were still quite a few to go when Richard stopped. ‘I have seen quite enough, thank you, Mr Fuk,’ he said. ‘What is the point of this?’
‘These magazines very popular in Japan. Very popular in America,’ said Fuk. ‘They are trans-shipped from Osaka, Yokahama. Is easy trade. Drawings only. No one get hurt. No one get … ’he paused, searching for the right word. ‘No one get screwed. You say this?’
‘I really don’t … ’
Suddenly Fuk was up. He reached into the box and pulled out the magazine from the bottom of the pile and showed it to Richard conspiratorially. ‘Only drawings. You see? Not real. No harm done!’
Richard had seen a few things in his time. It was impossible to have knocked about ships and seaports for the better part of thirty-five years without having seen a wide range of sexual items being bought and sold, shown and demonstrated. But he had never seen anything like these drawings. Works of imagination they might be, with ‘no harm done’ to anyone in their imagination or execution, but he could hardly imagine the effect that looking at such filth was likely to have. What would it do to William if ever he were to see such pictures? How would he ever look at a girl or a woman as a person worthy of respect, affection or love again?
‘Also is not kiddy porn,’ persisted Fuk. ‘Only drawings, not photographs, you see?’
‘Where did this come from?’ Richard asked, his voice shaking with suppressed rage and loathing.
‘I cannot tell you that,’ said Fuk, offended. ‘But I can guarantee regular supply of whole range. You ship into Osaka on regular basis, we forget everything here. Forget tiger. I supply magazines. I give you contact address. You ship on regular basis. We forget this and have what you say? Nice little earner? Yes?’
Richard’s rage nearly exploded and it was lucky for him, and perhaps also for Fuk’s health, that he did not hit the officer. ‘Mr Fuk,’ he grated, ‘I am a legitimate businessman trying to run a legitimate business in this place. I do not sanction smuggling or piracy or pornography. I will not deal in it and I will not ship it. Now if you are still interested in searching my ship, you had better get on with it. As I said, my legal representative is waiting for me at the Mandarin. I will come back this evening to see Captain So and check on your progress. I do not expect to find you aboard then, but remember, whatever else you remove from here, make sure you take this filth with you!’
*
Twelvetoes Ho had never seen a girl so beautiful. Her willowy body was shaped to perfection and moved with such a liquidity that she seemed to be in constant, slightly slow-motion undulation all the time. She had no hair but that simply added to the appeal of her fine-boned features. She had delicately arched black eyebrows above the slightly sloping almonds of her eyes. There was something sophisticated and deeply knowing about those eyes which was at odds with the open village-girl innocence of the rest of her face. Only the generous mouth with those gently tinted, infinitely promising lips once again added an element of interesting tension. The face seemed to promise that its owner would do absolutely anything to please and yet at the same time it suggested that this would be the first and only time that such limitless indulgence would be offered. Only for him. Only for him.
‘This is amazing,’ Twelvetoes said to Chang.
‘Please wait, elder brother,’ said the smuggler quietly. ‘The demonstration has only just begun.’
Such was Twelvetoes’ concentration on the extraordinary girl that he did not at once remark the social solecism which demonstrated the tension Chang was actually under. One did not call the Dragon Head of a major Triad ‘elder brother’ without many years of close acquaintance and express permission.
The girl took two liquid, balletic steps backwards, allowing his eyes to roam down her body, and as they did so she slowly pirouetted for his pleasure. Her neck was long and the throat delicately drawn, sinking to the most fascinating little hollow between her exquisitely arched collarbones. Her breastbone and the ribs which swept away from it were perfectly defined and the outlines of her long, willowy arms were so precisely muscled that it was clear that she worked out. The slender power of her waist and the aching reaches of her thighs and calves also made that plain. But, as with the face, the whole of her lissom form was a thing of exquisite contrasts. On the firm, defined musculature of her chest there sat a pair of breasts at once too big and too pendulous for aesthetic perfection and yet so perky, so temptingly full, so mouth-wateringly rose-nippled as to arouse the interest of a thousand-year corpse. And in the same way, from the tight little waist there flared full, perfectly sculpted hips which flowed into those slim, muscular thighs like running honey. In spite of the svelte muscularity, there was just enough puppy fat to define a perfectly cupped little navel before it slipped like butter down to the frank, forceful arch of her pubic bone. Her fragrant parts were as innocent of hair as her head and with parallel effect. Each delicately tinted fold called to the eye with almost artistic mastery. Each perfectly defined swell and tuck brought a flutter to the heart. Twelvetoes almost cried out when the intimate vision turned away, but the cry became a sigh as the most perfect pear-shaped bottom was revealed. From the pair of dimples at the base of that sinuous spine to the shadowed, rounded W of the cheeks, the bottom completed the simple perfection of the golden girl.
Twelvetoes looked up and saw with a frisson almost of shock that her unblinking black-eyed gaze was still upon him. Her lips moved, speaking with absolute intimacy. ‘Anything,’ she whispered throatily in Cantonese. The word did not quite fit the movement of her lips. Twelvetoes moved more decisively than he meant and the image of the perfect girl wavered. He reached up and switched the machine to HOLD. ‘So this is virtual reality,’ he said, his voice dry.
‘The headset comes with a full range of software,’ said Chang. ‘This demonstration disk is of course very soft. There are other disks of this nature which are very much more explicit. I am told that there is absolutely no, ah, predilection which cannot be catered for. The gloves allow interaction, so that the wearer can do whatever is wished to the images. Remove clothing, for instance. Guide. Dictate. Overpower … ’
‘I understand,’ said Twelvetoes. ‘But I thought that the use of this machinery was very much wider than mere interactive pornography. I understood that this sort of equipment was used to control unmanned vehicles — disarming terrorist bombs, going inside nuclear reactors at risk. I have heard of machines being controlled with this sort of system in the depths of the ocean. The Mars space probe, I believe, will have a vehicle which will be controlled from a room in the space centre by a man wearing equipment like this.’
‘Even so, elder brother,’ said Chang. ‘And it has uses beyond even that. Allow me.’
Twelvetoes slammed back in his chair; the roadway was coming at him at tremendous speed. Stands full of cheering people flashed by, the roar of the crowd subsumed in the noise of the motor. He raised his hands and saw that they were wearing racing gloves. He glanced down for an instant and saw that he was in the cockpit of a racing car. He grasped the steering wheel with unthinking force. There was no real feeling of control, no sensory feedback from his hands, but the car was suddenly his vehicle. He glanced up again. There was a bend coming up. Automatically, he began to ease into it. He had reached for the gear lever before he knew it and had changed down, his feet dancing across thin air. It was fortunate indeed that the Dragon Head of the Invisible Power Triad was sitting down. As the comer eased past his right shoulder and a bridge flashed overhead, he stamped on the floor and the car took off. He glanced at the speedometer and it read 250 kph.
When the picture went black he slammed forward, and only Chang’s hand on his s
houlder saved him from falling off the chair. He heard a decisive silky whisper of movement in the awesome silence after the cheering crowds. ‘No, Su-zi,’ he gasped. ‘I am well. Please remain seated.’
Su-zi, an apparently frail and self-effacing younger daughter, was the chief of his bodyguards, as lethal as she was innocently beautiful. Twelvetoes would never have come to Guangzhou without Su-zi and her deadly sisters. Would never have come to the offices above Chang’s warehouse without her.
‘A game,’ said Twelvetoes to Chang, breathlessly but dismissively.
‘Not so, with respect, elder brother. Imagine that you wished to leam what it was like to drive a racing car. Would this machine not show you?’
‘Yes, it would.’ Twelvetoes’ voice drew out the words as his mind suddenly became alive to the possibilities.
‘Observe, then,’ said Chang. Such had been the shock of the last demonstration that Twelvetoes tensed himself, expecting violent action. But no. He was surrounded by dials and gauges. Below them was a range of levers and wheels. There was a square-cornered lateral slit in front of him. He looked through this and saw the wall of a house slowly approaching him. In shaky Cantonese characters came the direction RIGHT RED LEVER. He reached for the lever. As soon as his hands closed on it, the writing changed: PUSH FOR LEFT, PULL FOR RIGHT. He pulled it and the wall swung away to the left out of view. A long thoroughfare was revealed with high house fronts on either side. Automatically, he pushed the lever forwards and the picture of the long street firmed up and began to spool past. The screaming roar that the vehicle was making was low, kept in the background, so that when Chang spoke, his words were clear and easy to hear. ‘You are now driving a Russian T-80 main battle tank, elder brother. I could also teach you how to drive and fly a whole range of military hardware from all around the world.’