The Vets (Stephen Leather Thrillers)

by Stephen Leather

  A smiling waitress came over with his brandy and ice. She was pretty, with long wavy hair and large eyes and a good figure which was accentuated by the tight-fitting green and gold cheung sam she wore. Chung watched her hips move under the dress as she walked away. As she went through the double swing doors that opened into the kitchen, Chung saw his guests arrive at the entrance to the restaurant. The man was short and portly, his face pockmarked with old acne scars; straggling hairs grew from a mole on his round chin. His face was virtually circular, his nose a small bump in its centre, the fleshy lips forming a straight line until he smiled. His distinctive features had led to Paul Chau being saddled with the nickname “Pizza Face” at school, but he had had the last laugh on his schoolmates. He’d gone on to become one of Hong Kong’s most successful – and richest – showbiz agents, and he had some of the city’s most glamorous actresses and singers as his clients and companions, a five million dollar house on the Peak and a Canadian passport. The suit he was wearing had clearly cost several thousand dollars and even across the restaurant Chung could see the glint of a gold Rolex on his left wrist.

  The four businessmen sitting at the table next to Chung all turned to get a better look at the new arrivals, but it wasn’t Chau who had attracted their attention. It was his companion they were straining to look at, a truly stunning girl, tall and willowy in a figure-hugging black dress which ended a couple of inches above shapely knees and which was cut to reveal tanned shoulders and an expensive gold necklace. Her hair was up, showing a long neck and small ears and a pair of dangling, gold earrings which swung gently as she moved her head. She was used to being admired. Though Chung hadn’t actually seen any of the four movies she’d appeared in, Chau had told him that Yo-yo Yip was one of Hong Kong’s rising starlets. Ten months ago she’d won a Miss Photogenic award in a beauty competition run by one of the local television stations and Chau had arranged for her to be signed up by a major Hong Kong film studio. Hong Kong film-makers rarely took more than a month to put together a movie and the stars on the payroll of the big studios worked seven days a week, often shooting several films at the same time. The films were shown in local cinemas and then sold on to Taiwan and Singapore, but returns on the movies were nowhere near that of Hollywood blockbusters and the Hong Kong stars were poorly paid by comparison. It often took budding starlets like Yo-yo several years of hard work before they earned serious money, but they usually had expensive tastes and were short on patience. Many were amenable to taking a few short cuts to increase their bank balances.

  Yo-yo walked down the restaurant, following the captain. Behind her Chau kept a hand on her waist like a trainer leading his favourite racehorse out of the paddock. She didn’t look to the right or left as she walked but Chung knew that she was all too well aware of the effect she was having on the men at the tables. Some of them obviously recognised her – Chau had said that her last appearance in a kung-fu comedy had earned good reviews and she’d been featured on several magazine covers as a result – but others were just looking because she was such a stunning beauty: high cheekbones, rosebud mouth and wide eyes which seemed to be half closed.

  Chung got to his feet before she reached the table. He shook hands with Chau who then introduced him to Yo-yo.

  “You look even prettier than you do on screen,” Chung said to her in Cantonese.

  She smiled prettily, showing white, even teeth that could have graced a toothpaste advertisement. “You saw my last movie?” she asked.

  “Of course,” lied Chung. Chau had briefed him on her last two films and the roles she’d played.

  “What did you think?” she asked as the captain helped her into her chair.

  “You were marvellous,” said Chung. “I thought you handled the comedy really well, too. Did you do the action scenes yourself?”

  She nodded enthusiastically. “Yes. And I’ve still got the bruises.” She giggled and raised a hand to cover her mouth.

  Chau took his seat and ordered a Heineken for himself and a Perrier for Yo-yo. “Nice suit, Anthony,” he said approvingly.

  “Armani,” Chung said. He’d worn it because he knew Chau would notice and comment on it, and because it would be a name that Yo-yo would be sure to recognise. Chau had said that he would arrange the introduction, but it would be up to the girl how the evening developed. It was important to make the right impression.

  Their drinks arrived and the waitress smiled at Chung again. “Do you have any preferences?” he asked Yo-yo.

  “I love shark’s fin soup,” she said. “And seafood. All seafood.”

  “Seafood is a great aphrodisiac,” said Chau. “Especially oysters.”

  Yo-yo smiled coyly. “I love oysters,” she said. She saw Chung smiling and averted her eyes. Chung had the distinct impression that she was playing out a scene from one of her movies.

  The captain returned to take their order: a large steamed grouper, prawns in hot and spicy sauce, shark’s fin soup with chicken, roast duck and plum sauce, baked aubergine in garlic, and their special white rice. Yo-yo asked if they had bat choi tsari, a vegetable she was especially fond of, but the captain apologised, saying that they had only bat choi, a larger variety. She pouted, her eyes magically became moist, and the captain stammered that he’d go and have a word with the chef and see what could be arranged; she wasn’t to worry, if they didn’t have any in the restaurant he would personally go out and get some. She smiled bravely and thanked him. She was, Chung had to admit, drop dead gorgeous.

  They talked of passports while they waited for the food to arrive. She expressed envy at Chung’s possession of a French passport and said that she hoped to obtain Australian citizenship within the next year. Chau asked why she hadn’t considered getting Canadian citizenship and she shuddered prettily and said it was too cold. “Besides,” she said, “most of my friends are going to Australia. I want to be somewhere where I have friends.”

  “But you don’t have to stay for ever,” said Chung. “Three years is all you need to get your residency, then you can come back and live in Hong Kong.”

  “Ha!” she snorted. “No one wants to live here after the Chinese take over. After 1997 there will be no one left. No one that matters, anyway. Almost all the big stars have Australian or Canadian passports already. Isn’t that true, Paul?”

  “All my clients who can afford it have bought their way in, yes,” agreed Chau.

  “And those who can’t are doing everything they can to earn enough before 1997,” said Yo-yo. “That’s my plan, anyway. To work as hard as I can and to earn enough money to emigrate.”

  “Did you apply for a British passport?” asked Chung. The British government had offered passports to up to 50,000 heads of households and their families based on a points system.

  “I asked for an application form, but you should have seen it,” laughed Yo-yo. “You needed a university degree to understand the explanatory book that came with it. They made it as difficult as they could. Besides, who wants to live in Britain? The climate’s lousy and the people hate us, you know that. They took what they could from Hong Kong and now they want to throw us back to the Chinese. They don’t want us in their country.”

  “I didn’t know you were so political,” said Chung as waitresses arrived bearing their food.

  “It’s not politics, it’s common sense,” said Yo-yo. “It’s every man for himself.” She breathed in the fragrance of the fish and nodded approvingly. The captain himself came over to lift the silver lid off the plate of bat choi tsai and was rewarded with a stunning smile and a murmur of thanks.

  “Hong Kong is finished,” she continued. “Some of the big studios have already moved to Singapore and I think the rest will follow soon. The record industry here has pretty much gone. Everybody I know has either got a passport or is planning to get one, either by earning enough to buy one or by marrying someone.”

  “You’d do that?” asked Chung, surprised. “You’d marry someone for their passport?”


  “But of course, if I had to,” she said, spooning hot prawns into her bowl. She reached over and took Chung’s bowl and filled it with prawns, too. He nodded his thanks. “I have offers, many, many offers,” she said.

  “I can believe it,” said Chung, popping a prawn into his mouth with a deft movement of his chopsticks.

  “But I don’t want to be owned by anyone,” she said. “I want to depend only on myself. It would be a last resort, that is all.” She looked at Chung earnestly. “But I would do it, if I had to. There’s no way I’ll be sitting here waiting for the communists to take over. There’s no way I’d trust them. Anyone who puts their faith in the communists deserves whatever they get.”

  Chung was surprised by her vehemence and changed the subject, not wanting to upset her. They talked of the heads of the various studios, their forthcoming films and their mistresses. There were no secrets in Hong Kong. She was soon laughing and giggling, and occasionally she reached over and tweaked Chung’s arm. Once her foot touched his beneath the table and she smiled when she caught his eye. When the plates and bowls lay empty before them and waitresses began to clear the table and serve small cups of fragrant tea, Yo-yo asked to be excused and picked up her small black handbag. Both men watched her walk to the Ladies room. A dozen other men in the restaurant turned to watch her go and at least one got his hand smacked by a jealous girlfriend.

  “She’s lovely, isn’t she?” asked Chau.

  “No doubt about that,” agreed Chung. “I was surprised how anti-communist she is. She really seems to hate them.”

  “One of her cousins was killed in Tiananmen Square,” explained Chau. “At least the family assumes he was. He was with the demonstrators when the troops opened fire. They never found his body, but that’s hardly surprising because as soon as they’d cleared the square they used bulldozers to pile them up and then they poured petrol over them and burned them.” His mouth suddenly dropped. “What am I saying?” he said, embarrassed. “You were there, of course. Anthony, I’m sorry, I don’t know why I forgot. Your father, how is your father?”

  Chung shrugged. “He’s as well as can be expected, under the circumstances,” said Chung, looking down at the tablecloth.

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  Chung shook his head. “Everything that can be done, is being done. You know how these things work.”

  “I understand, but if there is anything I can do, let me know. I mean it.”

  “I know you do, Paul, and I appreciate it.” The subject of his father still pained him so he changed the subject. “Will Yo-yo get a passport, do you think?”

  “She earns good money.” He laughed. “I should know, I get to keep twenty per cent of it.” He wiped his fleshy lips with his napkin. It came away smeared with thick, orange-coloured sauce. “Seriously, though, she’s cutting it close. She earns about 100,000 Hong Kong a film, which means she’s not in the big league yet, and time’s running out. She spends like there’s no tomorrow, as well. You should see her closets, they’re full of clothes, most of them with designer labels. She has friends, though, and I think if she really has a problem they’ll help her. She’s the occasional girlfriend of the chairman of one of the big hongs here. He’ll take care of her if she needs it, I’m sure.”

  “Who is it?” asked Chung.

  “Anthony, Anthony, surely you don’t expect me to betray a confidence, do you? Let’s just say my friend is one of the ten richest men in Hong Kong and that he reckons that Yo-yo is one of the best lays he’s ever had.”

  “You bastard, tell me,” grinned Chung.

  “Okay, you’ve twisted my arm,” laughed Chau. He gave Chung the name and Chung raised his eyebrows in surprise. The man was a pillar of the Chinese community and had been tipped as the man who would run Hong Kong once the Chinese took over. Chau had been modest when he said the man was one of the ten richest in Hong Kong. Chung knew of only one or two who could possibly be richer.

  “You’re joking!” exclaimed Chung.

  “No, it’s the truth,” said Chau. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

  “You have no heart,” said Chung. “And he said that Yo-yo was the best lay he’d ever had?”

  “The absolute best.”

  “This isn’t just a sales pitch, is it?” asked Chung. “You’re not trying to raise the price?”

  “The price is as we discussed,” said Chau. “Ten thousand Hong Kong.”

  “For the night?”

  “For as much of the night as you want her for,” said Chau. “But remember she has to be on the set at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

  “That’s fine by me,” said Chung.

  “And Anthony?”

  “What?”

  “Don’t mark her, okay?”

  Chung looked suitably offended. “Paul, what are you suggesting?”

  “Just remember what I said, that’s all.”

  The door to the Ladies opened and Yo-yo came out, pausing for dramatic effect before beginning the walk back to the table. Both men got to their feet. Chau placed his napkin on the table as Yo-yo and Chung sat down.

  “I have to be going,” he said, holding out his hand to Chung. Chung shook it firmly. Yo-yo looked up and Chau gave her a small, almost imperceptible, nod, letting her know that the fee had been agreed. Pimping was an ugly word, but, whichever way you cut it, that was what Chau did for Yo-yo, and for a handful of other top starlets. She relaxed and Chung felt her small foot press against the back of his calf.

  Chau left and Chung and Yo-yo made small talk while they waited for the bill to arrive. He paid with his gold American Express card and she linked her arm through his as they walked together to his car. Chung was conscious of the number of heads she turned and the way her hip touched his as she held his arm.

  She squealed when she saw his car and squeezed his arm so tightly that she practically cut off his circulation. “It’s a Ferrari!” she said. She unlinked her arm and ran a hand along the side of the car. The red paintwork gleamed under the fluorescent lights, giving it a cold, hard look.

  “Oh, it’s lovely,” she cooed. “It’s fabulous. How much did it cost?”

  Chung wasn’t surprised at her directness. Like most Hong Kongers, Yo-yo had no qualms about asking the price of anything she saw. “Sticker price is about 400,000 US dollars, but dealers can get more than 700,000 US dollars for them. But you want to buy one in Hong Kong, you’ve got to pay one hundred per cent car tax.”

  She looked at him with wide eyes which were full of admiration. “One and a half million US dollars?” she said.

  “Give or take a few,” said Chung laconically. In fact the car was leased and he didn’t expect to have it for more than a few months.

  She put her arms around his neck and kissed him full on the lips. He felt her small breasts against his chest and her warm tongue forced its way gently between his teeth. Yo-yo Yip was clearly turned on by money in a big way, he decided, but then so was almost everybody in Hong Kong. He broke away and opened the passenger door for her. She slid into the spartan interior and smoothed the grey flannel which covered the dashboard.

  “It’s just like a racing car,” she said as he buckled himself into his bucket seat.

  “It is a racing car,” he corrected, helping her fasten the six-point racing harness.

  “How fast does it go?” she asked.

  “It’ll do 197 mph, but there’s nowhere in Hong Kong where you can get it up to that speed,” he said. “But it’ll do nought to sixty in 4.2 seconds.”

  “Wah!” she said. She rubbed her thighs together and Chung heard the whisper of silk.

  He edged the car out of the car park, gunning the accelerator to keep the revs above 4,500 so that the plugs wouldn’t foul. He drove away from the harbour towards his apartment in Kowloon Tong. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her face fall when she saw where they were going. Kowloon Tong was a high-class residential district, home to some of the richest families in Hong Kong, but it also had
hundreds of love motels, short-time hotels which were perfect for afternoon assignations and where many businessmen took their mistresses if they were too tight-fisted to buy them their own apartments.

  She had obviously assumed that Chung was taking her to a love-motel, judging by the way she pouted and looked moodily out of the passenger window. Her face brightened when Chung guided the Ferrari through the wrought-iron gates which led to the residential block where he lived. He parked the car in the underground car park between a Rolls-Royce and a convertible BMW. The pout evaporated and she ran her fingernails down the back of his jacket as they walked to the lift. The doorman in the lobby looked up from the racing paper he was reading and nodded at Chung. The walls and floor of the lobby were finished in green-veined marble and the elevator doors were made of a dark, highly polished wood. There was a tall palm in a gilt urn towering in a corner and two large leather sofas where guests could wait. Yo-yo nodded approvingly.

  The doors hissed open and Chung stepped to the side to let her in first, her high heels clicking on the hard marble floor. Chung pressed the button for the penthouse, the doors closed respectfully, and the elevator whisked them twelve floors. Kowloon Tong was under the flight path to Kai Tak Airport and there were rigid height restrictions on all buildings, another reason for the apartments being so expensive. The elevator doors opened to reveal a small marble-lined lobby and a single mahogany door. Chung took his keys and opened the two high-security locks and showed Yo-yo inside.