Raymond’s heart pounded in his ears as he finally released the man from his stare. He’d gone out on a limb. What if the man hadn’t had a bypass? What if his wife was still alive?
The man remained expressionless for a few seconds. Then a tiny teardrop trickled out of one eye. He wiped it hastily and took a deep breath.
“How much?” The voice was barely a squeak.
“Three grand,” Raymond said, not sure what felt better: taking the money or bringing the prick to his knees.
THE WAITING AREA was empty at closing time. Raymond rose from his seat, stretching legs stiff from being pinned to the desk all afternoon.
“How do you think it went?” he asked Yau in the next booth.
“I don’t know about you. I’ve been busy,” Yau said, letting out a sigh of exhaustion. “I could use a drink.”
Raymond frowned. “Who’s got time for a drink?” He had more work to do in the back office. From the corner of his eye, he saw the receptionist edge into view. A mousy woman with sharp bangs.
“Sorry to interrupt, but there’s an elderly lady who wants to be served. I told her to come tomorrow, but she won’t listen.”
“It’s fine, I got it.” Yau smiled at the receptionist. She smiled back and lowered her head. Raymond’s eyes darted between the two. Were they fucking?
Yau waved to the customer.
She walked slowly, leaning on a stick. She looked like a skeleton wrapped in a floral shirt and black pants, both of which must have fitted snugly at some point, but right now, she floated in them. Her wig was poorly chosen: black and shiny, curls falling over her forehead and into her sunken eyes.
“Hello, madam. Welcome to Bank of Eternity.” Yau’s greeting was awkward.
She fell into the seat and clutched her head, wincing in pain.
“Madam, are you okay?” Yau asked.
Her voice was barely a whisper. Raymond had to lean in to listen. “I’ve got cancer.”
Yau swallowed. “I’m sorry …”
“Don’t be. Got what I deserved. Was a real bitch to the girls.”
Yau suddenly turned to Raymond. “Just remembered … I’ve got another appointment. Would you mind helping the lady?”
He rose and left hurriedly. Raymond frowned inwardly and shuffled over to Yau’s desk. He sat in the chair and studied the woman. Her eyes were cloudy and unfocused; she looked lost in a planet of pain.
“My grandmother had cancer too,” he said. “Good news is, from what I can see, you don’t have long to go.”
The woman raised her head, her face brightening as if that were the best thing she’d heard all day.
“I can’t wait. Can’t wait,” she whispered.
“You’re going to a better place. There’s no pain in the world of the Jade Emperor. No sickness, no suffering, no old age, no death. Just happiness.”
A smile appeared on her face, a faraway look as if she was picturing this world. It must have been a pretty smile once. She must have been pretty. That was the thing about death. It made you ugly before it killed you.
“Happiness,” she said, as if the mere utterance of the word would turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.
“Yes, that’s where you’re going. A place of eternal happiness. Only three grand.” He could have said three million and she’d have given it to him. But let’s not get too greedy, he thought.
After taking her check, he chaperoned her to the taxi stand, then returned to the branch. The back office was a large windowless area sectioned off into little grey cubicles. The management team had private work spaces at the rear, Yau’s sandwiched between Raymond’s and Lim Wei’s. Yau was at his desk, working on his computer, tie hanging loose around his throat.
Raymond closed the door and stood over Yau, arms folded. For a few seconds, Yau continued to type as if Raymond weren’t in the room, then he stopped.
“I couldn’t do it, okay? Couldn’t,” he said, shaking his head.
“What do you mean, ‘couldn’t’?” Raymond fumed. “It’s your goddamn job.”
“It’s one thing to take money from some rich asshole. But an old lady with cancer? There’s got to be a line somewhere.”
“Line? First of all, that sweet old lady used to be a madam in a brothel. Second, we didn’t just take her money.”
Yau scoffed, “Of course not. We sold her a false promise.”
Raymond clenched his jaw. “That false promise is going to help her sleep better tonight. Not only that. Tomorrow, it’ll make the pain much more bearable, because she thinks she’s going to a better place. And when the end comes, she’ll have a smile on her face. The little sugar pill we gave her will help her cope with this ordeal better than any goddamn medicine. And what did we take in return? Three thousand dollars. Pfft. Three grand that would have otherwise gone to some fucker who couldn’t even be bothered to look after her when she’s in this terrible state. There’s only one truth in life, Yau. There’s no afterlife. We’re born. We die. Money, career, love, friendship, shopping, movies, sport, dogma. These are just illusions we’ve created so we don’t have to think about this depressing fact on a daily basis. And the day you’re forced to think about it, you’ll need the mother of all illusions to cope. What we’re selling here is no more false than anything anyone else is selling out there. We just happen to be at the end of the supply chain. Do you understand?”
Yau turned away.
Raymond placed his fists on the desk and leaned toward him.
“Do you understand? Yes or no?”
“Yes. Damn it. Yes.” Yau crushed an empty Coke can in his fist and flung it into the bin.
Raymond leaned away, bemused by the theatrics. “The conversation with that lady gave me an idea,” he said. “Hospices, nursing homes. We’ve got a captive audience right there. I want you to recruit a mobile sales team.”
14.
JULY ARRIVED FASTER THAN EXPECTED. INSIDE his prison-cell-sized office, Raymond shut the door and closed the blinds. He sat in his chair, fingers laced together under his chin, his stomach a tight ball as he stared at the sealed manila envelope on his desk. It had been sitting there for a while now, but he was dreading opening it. The last time he’d felt like this was when he got the results of his HIV test a few years earlier. That too had come in a yellow envelope.
He did now what he did back then: hold the letter opener in his fist as if it were a dagger and steel himself with a deep breath. Then he sliced open the envelope and emptied its contents. A single sheet of paper:
“FINANCIAL STATEMENT APRIL–JULY 2002”
Not an AIDS test report, but a document with life-and-death implications nonetheless. He scanned the columns of the spreadsheet, heart thudding in his ears. His face fell when he saw the net profit figure.
How’s it possible?
You set the bar low, toned down expectations, told yourself not to get your hopes up, yet somehow disappointment found a way to get to you. He looked at the number again, and this time the computer in his brain performed some quick calculations.
One hundred and sixty-one years. That’s how long it was going to take to pay back the money he owed Wu.
One hundred and sixty-one years!
Raymond trembled. Suddenly, the door burst open. Yau entered the room, face lit by a broad grin, eyes wide with excitement.
“He’s alive! He’s alive!” he cried.
Raymond drew himself erect. “Who’s alive?”
“Franky. Franky Soo.”
Raymond gave him a blank look.
“Haven’t you seen the news?” Yau said. “Franky’s plane crashed this morning. We thought he was dead. But they just found him floating in the sea near Ninepin Island. He survived the crash. Thank God!”
“Fuck Franky Soo. Fuck his Cantopop. Look at this.” Raymond flung the financial results on the desk.
Yau tilted his head sideways and looked at the spreadsheet.
“Ah, the first-quarter results. What’s the problem? I think it’s goo
d.” He beamed.
“Good? You call this good?”
“It’s black. Businesses take years to break even. We’ve actually turned a profit in three months. You know, you really ought to chill out. Go on a holiday or something. All this stress is going to kill you.”
Raymond pounded his fist on the desk. “Chill out? Don’t tell me to fucking chill out. Not when I’m holding this place together while you’re sneaking off to a love hotel to fuck the receptionist.”
“My personal life is none of your business,” Yau hissed. “I work just as hard as you. I work like a fucking dog. If that’s not good enough for you, find a new sales director.” His face was clenched with the look of a man who’d been pushed to the edge.
Raymond sighed and sat down. He couldn’t afford to lose Yau. Not just yet.
“Have a seat. Please.” He flashed a placatory smile.
Yau exhaled softly and lowered himself into the chair. Raymond waited a few seconds for the air in the room to cool down.
“I’m under pressure from investors,” he said quietly. It wasn’t far from the truth. Of course, Yau had no idea who these “investors” were. Neither did Lim Wei. No one knew. No one could know.
“They aren’t happy with the results. They want us to make money faster. How do we do it?”
“Our advertising isn’t working. We need a sales promotion,” Yau replied in a hushed tone. Like Raymond, he was treading water. The air-conditioning hummed over their subdued voices.
“Like what?”
“Funeral vouchers?” Yau suggested.
Raymond nodded. It wasn’t a bad idea. Funerals were expensive in Hong Kong.
“Or premium grave plots,” Yau continued, encouraged by the response, “like the one in Aberdeen. An afterlife with ocean views.”
“That’s good. But I want something everyone can get. Something that can be produced cheaply: T-shirts, caps, mugs, that sort of thing.”
“Many of our customers are old ladies. Why don’t we give out stuffed toys?”
At once, Raymond’s eyes glazed over. The room blurred in his vision as a memory rose to the surface. The time, eight years earlier, when he took his mother to the shopping mall.
“You can have anything,” he’d said, hand tapping the wallet in his pocket. It contained a freshly minted gold card. His first.
She scanned the brightly lit shop from the entrance, eyes gleaming as if she were looking at a cave full of treasures. A first for her too, this department store.
“Anything?” she asked in a tiny, birdlike voice.
“Yes, anything.”
She was off, pushing and elbowing her way through the scrum of Chinese New Year shoppers, touching handbags, feeling the fabrics of dresses against her cheeks, giggling when salesgirls squirted perfume on her wrist.
Finally, she stopped in front of a bin full of stuffed toys. She scooped up a teddy bear and hugged it to her breast. Then she put it down and picked up another one and did the same, laughing like her body was possessed by the spirit of a five-year-old. Raymond stood beside her with a tight smile, aware of bemused looks from other shoppers.
“I want them,” she said.
“Which ones?”
“All of them.”
“All?”
“Yes, all.”
Her eyes shone with greed while his glowered with a mixture of anger and sadness. Life didn’t give you what you deserved. It gave what you demanded. And all she could ask for was some stupid fluffy animals. Could you blame life for treating her like shit?
He bought her the entire lot like she’d asked, and paid to have them delivered to an address he remembered despite his best efforts to forget. He hadn’t seen her since.
Of course, he’d ring her from time to time, but even then, he didn’t say a word. He’d just listen to her breathe or cry softly, like he used to all those years earlier when she’d come to his room, covered in bruises. He’d escaped from that hell, but he hadn’t managed to get her out. God knew, he tried. He did everything he could to break the chains shackling her to the monster. But he didn’t succeed. That was the tragedy of life when the people you loved, people who loved you, were weak: you had to cut them off because they made you weak.
“Raymond. What do you think?” Yau repeated his question, bringing Raymond back to the room. “Free Jade Emperor stuffed toy?”
Raymond pursed his lips, rolling the suggestion in his head. Suddenly, it became clear to him.
“We don’t need a promotion. We need a whole new image,” he said. “As you pointed out a little while ago, our customers are old people. By going for low-hanging fruit, we’ve ended up with a granddad image. If we have to grow the market, we need to attract a younger audience.”
“That’s going to be tough. Young people don’t think about death.”
“You’re wrong. This isn’t about death.” Raymond smiled.
“Then what’s it about?”
“Planning for the future. We tell them that they need to save for their afterlives just as they’re saving for retirement. In fact …” Raymond bounced in his seat as an idea struck him. “How about we introduce a new product? Afterlife Provident Fund, where people make monthly contributions, a setand-forget option that comes straight out of their salary. From our perspective, it’s guaranteed cash flow.
“Young people are more interested in shopping and enjoying life,” he continued. “So we tweak our story. Less mythology, more consumerism. We should also introduce online banking. But first, we need to find a way to connect with the masses. A celebrity endorsement. That’s what we need,” Raymond said, thumping the desk. “Someone who appeals to young and old alike.”
Yau opened his mouth to say something, but next moment checked himself.
“What?” Raymond asked.
“I was going to suggest a name. But you’re going to kill me.”
“Who?”
“Franky Soo,” Yau said after a beat. “I know what you think of his music, but the rest of Hong Kong loves him. You should’ve seen the scenes in the coffee shop when news of the plane crash broke. Even men were in tears.”
“You know what? I think that’s a great idea.”
Yau jerked with surprise. “You do?”
“I do. In fact, I think it’s the best idea you’ve ever had,” Raymond said. He left the room, leaving Yau nursing the backhanded compliment.
THE RECORDING STUDIO was on the tenth floor of a building in Causeway Bay. Lim Wei was in the foyer, whispering into his mobile. Raymond stood at the glass wall, hands laced behind his back, admiring the view. It was a clear day, bright enough to see the jagged ridgeline of Lion Rock skimming over the Kowloon skyline.
In the foreground, sailboat masts clinked in the typhoon shelter. A trick of perspective made it appear as if a green-and-white Star Ferry was going to collide with a sampan, but next second the vessels passed each other harmlessly. Each day, the harbor seemed to get narrower, choked in the neck by a flotilla of red-and-green reclamation barges dredging up land for apartments, as if there weren’t enough of them already. Where would they find the people to fill these apartments? he wondered. Was there a machine that produced them? There was a machine. It was called mainland China.
“Franky will see you now,” a sultry voice announced behind him. It was the receptionist, a woman in her mid-thirties who sounded better than she looked. “Studio number three. Left at the end of the hall.”
Lim Wei finished his call promptly and joined Raymond. They walked down a long corridor with orange walls on one side, blue on the other. Framed compact discs gleamed in the low light.
“Who else is going to be there?” Raymond asked.
“Just Franky.”
“No manager?”
“He died in the crash.”
“Don’t you think it’s strange that one week after the crash, he’s in the studio?”
“Maybe it’s his way of coping,” Lim Wei replied.
Raymond snorted. “You and your a
mateur psychology. Can’t you see he’s cashing in on a marketing opportunity? Good for him.”
“Did you listen to the CD I gave you?” Lim Wei asked.
“Are you crazy? I’d rather listen to a bunch of schoolkids scratch their nails on a chalkboard.”
“That attitude isn’t going to get us anywhere.” Lim Wei frowned. “Franky has a big ego.”
“So do I.”
“Yeah, but he’s a rock star.”
“Pop star. There’s a difference. And Cantopop. That’s like the lowest of lows. The amoeba of music. And are you saying I’m not good enough to have an ego? I’m a player, a risk taker.”
Lim Wei cleared his throat.
Raymond looked at him. “What?”
“Nothing.” Lim Wei opened a heavy black door and gestured for Raymond to go in.
It was their first time inside a recording studio. A track of spotlights shone on a large mixing console that looked like something out of a spaceship. A window at the far end showed an empty recording booth. On the black sofa by the door sat one of the most well-known faces in Hong Kong: lean and angular, crowned by a sculpted pompadour. Franky Soo appeared to be practicing, bobbing his head and humming quietly while reading from a lyric sheet. He was dressed in a smart black T-shirt and jeans, looking more like a businessman on his day off than the goofy Romeo of his music videos. His eyes were deep brown and exuded a certain brooding intensity. Raymond was liking the person in front of him more than the one in the poster that hung in teenage girls’ bedrooms.
After the introductions, everyone settled down. Lim Wei and Franky shared the sofa. Raymond dragged over an office chair and sat down, arms folded across his chest.
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