Kowloon Tong (24 page)

"You see, it doesn't agree with us," Bunt said.

Anyway, not eating would make this whole business move more quickly.

Monty said, "Mr. Hung would like to tell you something."

Since when had Monty been in charge? London was still in his manner of speaking, though the man had an Austrian passport now and probably something to answer for. Bunt still felt insulted by the way Monty had persisted in asking him to renounce his citizenship and get a fuzzy-wuzzy passport.

Hung was looking froggy and solemn now that the deal was on the verge of closing. He simply sat there.

"Please eat something," he said, as though he had not heard Betty describe her revulsion for Chinese food.

"They don't fancy it," Monty explained.

At Hung's elbow, Monty seemed more Hung's solicitor than their own. Bunt remembered how Monty had first introduced Hung at the Cricket Club, and later:
I proposed him. You've got to move with the times.
Monty it was who had warned him of Hung's gangster connection, the Chinese army hoodlums, the horrifying story of the dismembered solicitor. Monty knew so much—he was the sort of man who would stay on, who had no allegiances underneath his banter, or if he had, they were certainly not British.

"I am happy with this business," Hung said.

Betty and Bunt were sitting, not eating.
Even their tea isn't tea,
Betty used to say.

"But it is not good business if only I am happy. You must be happy also."

"We're happy," Betty said, and for the first time in the deal, clicking her teeth, did not look happy at all.

Perhaps sensing Betty's impatience, Hung winced, and then he looked at her with flinty eyes. Fixing his lips in a sneer, he said, "I have been kind and generous."

Bunt said, "Hang about. It was all a fluke. If Mr. Chuck hadn't of died, this never would have happened."

Hung liked this. His laughter was a hairy rasping in his nostrils. He said, "Please take a drink."

"Orange squash," Betty said. "No ice."

Hung waited until the orange squash was served to Betty, the glass presented on a white saucer. Betty glanced at it but did not drink.

"Mr. Chuck took his last meal here," Hung said, speaking with deliberate precision, as though each word mattered.

Bunt looked at Monty, to whom this information did not seem to be news. In any case, Monty had not stopped eating.

"He was sitting where you are now," Hung said, nodding at Betty. "He seemed to enjoy his food."

She said, "Rubbish. He was nowhere near here. He died in his flat in Magazine Gap Road."

"He was found dead in his flat," Hung said.

"This is true," Monty said, chewing, not looking up.

Bunt was cross with Monty for not challenging Hung. He faced Hung and said sharply, "Here, did you have something to do with Mr. Chuck?"

"I am merely saying we served him his last meal," Hung said.

"Does 'we' mean you are involved in this restaurant?"

Hung took his time to reply. He had begun to sample bits of the meal, pinching the food with his chopsticks.

"This restaurant belongs to the Chinese army. Many enterprises belong to the army. We own much of Shenzhen. Soon your factory site will be in our hands."

At the mention of the Chinese army, Betty seemed to come awake. She said, "What's this all about then?"

Monty said, "You are dealing with a man of considerable influence. Which is why I had no hesitation proposing him for the Cricket Club."

"I am talking about Mr. Chuck," Betty said. "He was my late husband's partner for years. Never put a foot wrong."

"He was shortsighted," Hung said, and raised his chopsticks to signal to Betty that he had not finished speaking. "Your Mr. Chuck would never have sold his share in Imperial Stitching to a China company."

Bunt was listening with his hands clasped on his lap, leaning forward, wondering vaguely why they were still talking about Mr. Chuck. Mostly he had Mei-ping on his mind.

"I told you," he said. "It was just a fluke."

"But of course you were in his will," Hung said.

"So we found out," Bunt said, and stared, waiting for a reaction from Mr. Hung. Seeing there was none, he went on, "Did you know we were named in Mr. Chuck's will? Because if you did—"

"This is getting us nowhere," Monty said. He was chewing very rapidly, the way hungry animals eat when they know there are other, hungrier animals near them.

Betty said, "I'm confused, Bunt. What are you saying?"

"Maybe Mr. Chuck's death wasn't an accident." His eyes were dancing in anger at Mr. Hung, who seemed amused.

"Old history," Mr. Hung said.

"Please," Monty was saying, using his chopsticks like a baton. "Mr. Hung has something to tell you."

"You mean that's not it?" Bunt said.

Hung turned to Monty and said, "Perhaps they will understand better if you explain."

"You're leaving today," Monty said to Bunt. "The money's being wired."

Change of plans,
his mother had said that morning, and it had thrown him, confused him and left him breathless. And that was only a meal that she meant, a dinner moved forward to lunch. This was something else, the departure from Hong Kong, and it was the same message, a change of plans. It gave Bunt chest pains and a sensation of vertigo. He wondered a moment whether he might be dying, and if so, it was murder.

He said, "No, no."

"But it's Sunday," Betty said, being practical.

"It's Saturday in Grand Cayman," Monty said. "That's where Full Moon is registered. They're still transacting business. We've already had news of the transfer."

"The rice is cooked," Mr. Hung said.

Betty's jaw stuck out at Mr. Hung. It was a challenge made more dramatic by her having adjusted her bite. Slipping her dentures slightly gave her a look of wolfish defiance.

"It's a dog's dinner," she said. "There are no arrangements. No bookings, no tickets."

"You're on the one-twenty Cathay Pacific flight to London. Confirmed seats. I've put you in First."

"We've no tickets," Bunt said.

"Here we are," Monty said, digging into his briefcase. He produced a plastic wallet thick with itineraries and tickets, which he handed over. He said, "Next question."

In a trapped and fretful voice—he was breathing hard—Bunt said, "We're not going anywhere. The deal's off. Mum?"

She was staring at Hung. She said, "I don't think they're giving us much of a choice."

"There is a choice," Hung said. He was truculent, his English blunter and less elegant, even less fluent as he had become sulkier. "You can leave now or you can wait and follow Mr. Chuck. As for your factory—we own it now. In a sense we have always owned it."

Bunt said, "We'd like some assurances about the welfare of the employees."

Hung was enigmatic when he sulked, but had an alarming smile. It was this smile that he turned towards Bunt, and then he calmly selected a toothpick, and not changing his expression, began working it between his teeth.

"Mum," Bunt said again. He looked pitiable. He was reaching for his cellular phone. "We can't." And once more, "Mum?"

Betty's expression, fixed on Hung, was one of fear and resignation, and yet she seemed in silence to be holding a conversation with him.

"I have to make a phone call," Bunt said.

He dragged himself from the table. In the hubbub of the crowded restaurant, almost overwhelmed by the rising tide of chattering voices—the Chinese army owned this place?—he dialed his office at Imperial Stitching.

It rang and rang, and then the answering machine clicked on.
This is the executive office of Imperial Stitching...

"It's me," he said urgently. "Please pick up the phone ... May, please pick it up ... Pick it up ... Pick it up ... May, are you there?"

He was still pleading into the phone when he turned to see his mother approaching him. "Come along, Bunt."

She was at his elbow, and there was a Chinese man on either side of her. They were as tall and as solid as Hung, with flat bony faces and military haircuts.

Bunt said, "She won't pick up the phone."

"Oh?" his mother said, and seemed unconcerned. Then, "I shouldn't worry."

"If she's not there, where could she possibly be?"

"How should I know?" his mother said peevishly.

"Mum, we can't leave her," Bunt said in a pleading voice.

But his mother had gripped his arm and she was tugging him to the door.

"Why isn't she answering?"

Now the two Chinese men were just behind them and hurrying them forward to the entrance of the restaurant, the gold-painted moongate.

"I told her I'd pick her up," Bunt said. "She said she'd be waiting." One of the Chinese men jabbed him in the small of his back. "Pardon!"

Many times at Imperial Stitching employees had been recommended by Cheung for dismissal, and Bunt had authorized each one. Now and then the person, usually the men, returned and made a fuss—stood on the street and yelled obscenities at the windows or crept into the building and grappled with Mr. Woo. But it was Bunt they wanted to see, so that they could insult him. A few had reached the eighth floor and it had always been horrible, the raging indignant man causing a commotion.

"See him out," Bunt would say, and the man would be propelled like a bundle down the stairs and into the street. That was how Bunt felt now, like a sacked employee. Almost without moving his legs he was being whisked out of the restaurant. He could not understand why his mother had not objected.

"This car is yours," Monty was saying. Somehow he had materialized outside the restaurant.

Bunt said, "There is something you have to know. Wait!"

He had seen those humiliated employees shoehorned into taxis and sent off in just this way. He was standing next to the car with his mother, and then a man was pressing his head and the next instant they were inside, jammed between the two Chinese guards. Bunt saw Hung standing on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant, working a toothpick around his mouth, his hand cupped for delicacy. Still the man darted the thing at his teeth as the car started up. He followed it with his eyes for a few seconds, no more, and then turned away and conferred with a man next to him. Bunt understood that as far as Hung was concerned, he did not exist.

Monty was in the front seat, sitting sideways, his elbow propped on the backrest.

"We have nothing," Bunt said. "No baggage—nothing."

"You're not short of a bob or two," Monty said with undisguised contempt.

He meant the million pounds, but Bunt was thinking only of Mei-ping. Why had she not answered the phone?

"Mum, I'm worried," Bunt said.

Betty took hold of his hot hand and said, "Oh, she'll be along." She seemed so sure. She gripped his hand harder. "If we don't leave now, there's no deal. There won't be any money. And that's not the half of it. You heard him."

Bunt screamed, "Take a left!"

The command came with such conviction that the driver reacted instantly and they were traveling down Waterloo Road at great speed.

Monty tapped the driver's shoulder and said, "Kai Tak is the other way, Alex."

"Boss?" the driver said.

"Alex is confused," Monty said to Bunt.

"I have to get something at the factory. It won't take a minute."

Bunt leaned forward and spoke so urgently that the driver listened and responded. Imperial Stitching wasn't far—the roof sign was already in sight. Bunt gave the driver directions, and the Sunday traffic was so light that they arrived at the front door while Monty was still protesting.

Even before the car came to a complete stop, Bunt was out on the street, struggling with the lock on the factory door. There was something in the look of the building, a blankness in the windows reflecting the sky, that told him it was empty. He pushed inside and, too impatient to wait for the elevator, he hurried up the stairs, his feet clattering, all the while shouting, "Mei-ping!" Hoisting himself upward using the handrail, he went from landing to landing, floor to floor, Shipping, Labels, Storage, Packing, Stitching, Cutting, the old underwear floor—now closed—and finally the executive offices, calling, "Mei-ping!"

There was no sign that Mei-ping was there, that she had ever been there, only emptiness and immobility and motionless dust, stilled machines and silenced activity, that made the factory seem haunted by the ghosts of departed workers, a place of bones. That, and residue. A faint vibration lingered in the air, like the echo after a tremendous sound has been struck from a simple instrument, as though he were hearing the last audible whimper from the thunder of a gong.

Feeling that the small sound was slipping away, Bunt screamed Mei-ping's name and became terrified when it, too, diminished to a faint echo among all the indifferent machines. And then, slowly, he descended the stairs.

"Mum," Bunt said in the car. He wanted to weep.

"Pull yourself together, Neville," Monty said.

They were at the Kai Tak entrance, gliding up the ramp. Monty was chatting confidently about the future, the new airport on the western side of Kowloon, the new road and flyover, the reclaimed land, the massive investment.
Next year, next year,
he said.
Next year.

"I'll take care of everything," he said.

Bunt had gone weak. At the check-in counter he had his cellular phone open and he was pleading into it, still imploring it, calling her apartment, calling the factory; and again at the security check, and on the jetway; and after they boarded, in his seat, still pleading,
Pick up the phone, May!

"I expect something came up," Betty said. She had a gin and tonic in one hand and the fingers of the other scratched in her dish of warmed mixed nuts. "I've got no more bally almonds."

They were in the air. Side by side in the sharply accelerating plane they felt themselves swaying this way and that over the city and were soon being thumped by clouds.

"Maybe she changed her mind," Betty said.

Why was she so sure, why no sentiment or hesitation, why had she not questioned that sinister detail of Mr. Chuck's demise? Nothing, it seemed, had really surprised her.