Thai Horse (28 page)

The office of the Tsu Fi was on noisy, cluttered Cat Street over the shop of an acupuncturist. The Tsu Fi had operated out of the same two rooms since anyone could remember. The sign on the door, which was in Chinese characters, said simply, ‘Wong,’ and below it, ‘Spices.’

Cohen was nervous, but he knew he couldn’t show it. After climbing the stairs, he stood outside the door, breathing deeply, humming slowly to himself to bring his pulse down before he entered and found himself in a smal
l
anteroom no larger than a

clothes closet. Through the door he could see into the Tsu Fi’s office, which was not much larger. Obviously the old man did not go in for show.

The Tsu Fi sat with his back to the window behind a simple mahogany desk, which was empty except for an abacus on one side and an old-fashioned black cradle phone. A single chair sat in front of the table. Sunlight shimmered around his chair and dust hung heavily in its bright beams. There was a teak strongbox in one corner and a small table with a tea set on it in the opposite side of the room. That was it.

The Tsu Fi looked ancient, although he was erect and his eyes glittered. His skin was totally free of wrinkles and almost transparent, like waxed paper holding together his delicate bones. His hair was pure white and close-cropped and he was clean-shaven. He stared at Cohen for several seconds before raising his hand and motioning him into the room with a single stroke of a forefinger. Cohen approached the table and held out his hand.

‘Jam Robert Cohen,’ he said in perfect mandarin.

The Tsu Fi ignored Cohen’s hand and instead held his own out at a very precise angle in the beams of sunlight that sliced through the dust. He studied the shadow o
n
the floor.

‘At least you are punctual,’ he said in a high-pitched voice and motioned Cohen to the empty chair.

The Tsu Fi
folded his hands on his desk and said, ‘So?’

Cohen cleared his throat. He had practiced what he wanted to say and he leaned back, trying to be comfortable in a chair that defied comfort, and began, ‘I have information I think can be useful to both of us. It has come to me that a man in business here is going to be murdered. His
wife
will pay for the killing.’

The old man stared at him without a flicker of a muscle, his eyes boring straight into Cohen’s.

‘The man is inept and lazy. He drinks too much and cheats on his wife. Her father started the business. He is dead now. The company is in deep trouble. But if this man dies, then she inherits his stock and control of the company. With him out of the way, she will be free to hire new people and reorganize.

Their assets are very strong. As I see it, two things can happen. Either the company will get back on its feet, or a consortium will take it over.’

‘Is there not a third possibility?’ the Tsu Fi asked.

‘You mean bankruptcy? Unlikely. This woman has her own resources. I doubt that she would go to this extreme unless she had a plan for getting the company back together.’

‘What does this mean to me?’ the old man asked.

Cohen, smiling, leaned forward. ‘Us?’ he suggested.

‘I have no interest in this paper
m
arket of yours, American. It is a Westerner’s game I do not pl
a
y.’

‘I understand it,’ Cohen said
a
ssertively. ‘Tsu Fi, if we wait until this stock dips down
—
say, eight points
—
then put, say, half a million in, the stock should
rise
sharply when the reorganization begins.’

‘And how long would that take?’

‘Six months, maybe seven.’

‘And what do you think it will go to?’

‘I estimate it should go up at least twenty points.’

The Tsu Fi’s fingers raced across his abacus.

‘Two, two and a half million in six months,’ Cohen went on, although he realized the Tsu Fi
w
as already ahead of him.

‘I would stay on top of it every day and sell at the perfect moment,’ Cohen continued.

‘And what do you want?’

Cohen leaned forward, eyes aglo
w
. ‘Half the profit,’ he said confidently.

The Tsu Fi glared at him. There was a minute of silence before he slowly shook his head. ‘No_’

‘All right, a third, then,’ Cohen quickly countered. ‘You make two million, I make six hundred thousand. I’ll round it off.
Half a
million.’

‘You give up a hundred thousand dollars very easily,’ the Tsu Fi said.

‘It is easy to give up money one does not yet have,’ Cohen answered.

The Tsu Fi smiled for the first time. The gwai-lo was arrogant, but the Tsu Fi also knew about him. He was very smart. He knew this kind of business. What was more important, this Cohen had proved he knew how to use information. He could deal with the arrogance, although it would be necessary to teach him a lesson. Perhaps this Cohen could open up new doors for him, doors he had avoided in the past. The thought of a new venture stirred his blood.

‘And you feel no obligation to try to prevent this execution?’ the Tsu Fi asked.

‘It is a family affair.’ Cohen shrugged matter
-
of-factly. ‘Besides, if I went to the police it would cause problems for my friends.’

The Tsu Fi stroked his chin, still staring unflinchingly at Cohen.

‘How soon?’ he asked.

‘I don’t know that, but when Rhodes dies, the stock will dip and we must be ready.’

‘And if this paper does not turn around?’

Cohen smiled and raised his shoulders. ‘Then
I
assume
I
would be in a great deal of trouble. Jam prepared to take that risk.’

The Tsu Fi nodded very slowly. ‘Tell me when you are ready,’ he said. ‘I will give you my answer then.’

‘It will be too late for me to find another investor then,’ Cohen said.

‘You want an immediate decision?’ the old man said with surprise.

‘If you are not interested, Tsu Fi
,
I’ll
have to find someone else.’

The Tsu Fi stared at him again, appraising the arrogant young man.

‘Then my answer is no,’ the old man said.

It threw Cohen off, but he knew the old Chinese was interested in the proposition. If I walk, will he change his mind or just dismiss the idea? he wondered. Cohen was committed. To back off now would be a sign of weakness, and he was more interested in gaining the Tsu Fi’s confidence than he was in the deal itself

‘Well, I am so
rry
I wasted your time, sir,’ Cohen said and stood up to leave. The Tsu Fi held his hand out into the sunbeam again and stared at the floor.

‘Good-bye,’ he said.

Cohen turned and went to the door and suddenly the Tsu Fi called out to him: ‘Mr Cohen, your face is beginning to sag. Stop downstairs. The man’s name is Ping. Tell him I said you require the needles.’

Cohen followed his advice, He sat in an old-fashioned barber’s chair while the acupuncturist inserted the long, delicate needles carefully in all the secret places. Cohen felt himself relaxing. He sat for thirty minutes with his eyes closed. When Ping withdrew the needles, Cohen opened his eyes. The Tsu Fi was standing in front of him.

‘Keep me informed,’ he said, ‘The money will be available.’ And he left the room.

Cohen ran after him. ‘Sir?’ he called out as the Tsu Fi was going back upstairs.

The old man turned and glared down at him. Cohen took a folded paper from his pocket and held it out to the old man.

‘I, uh, took the liberty of preparing a contract —just to define our arrangement,’ he said.

The Tsu Fi snorted and snatched the paper out of his hand, He wheeled around. ‘Come,’ he snapped. Cohen followed him up the stairs.

The old man took out a match and burned the contract without reading it. His eyes glittered in the dusty sunlight. ‘Now you know what paper is worth,’ he said curtly. ‘And never sign anything, your mark will follow you to Heaven.’

N
ine days after Cohen and the Tsu Fi met, Charles Rhodes was killed in an automobile accident. The stock dropped to five before Cohen decided to buy.

After an announced reorganization, it jumped, climbing to twenty-four-plus before it leveled off The Tsu Fi was delighted, having bitten the dragon for a little over two million. Cohen hurried to the Cat Street office to collect his half million.

The Tsu Fi slid ten thousand dollars across the table.

‘What’s this, a down payment?’ Cohen said with a laugh.

‘It is fair paymen
t
for what you did,’ said the Tsu Fi.

Cohen leaped to his f
e
et, enraged. ‘You’re the one who told me paper wasn’t worth a damn. I trusted you!’

‘Another lesson,’ said the old man. ‘Never trust anyone.’ He held his hand out to check the time.

‘Put the hand down,’ Cohen snapped. ‘You owe me
half a
million dollars.’

The Thu Fi looked up at him. ‘Do you want to earn your money or do you want to yell and scream?’ the old man said.

Cohen calmed down. He sat back down, staring at the old con artist.

‘You have much to learn about our ways, American,’ the Tsu Fi said. ‘But you have talent. When you learn, half a million dollars will seem insignificant.’

Thus Cohen became the protégé of the Tsu Fi. He opened his own office, a single room on the edge of the Wanchai district with three telephones and a computer. He did all his business himself, another of the Tsu Fi’s lessons (‘Never share your secrets with anyone.’) The Tsu Fi’s advice became Cohen’s bible. Then one day his mentor summoned him to the Cat Street office.

‘It is time for you to go up the Macao Runs,’ the Tsu Fi said. Cohen was shaken by the news. It never occurred to him the Tsu Fi would send him upriver into Chin Chin land.

‘Why?’ he asked.

‘If it is necessa
r
y to ask, perhaps I am sending the wrong person,’ the Tsu Fi said. ‘You are my new negotiator. You must win these China pirates with bravado, show no fear. This is business. The price of goods. You have a taste for money, American. You are getting rich, but it will require some discomfort.’

The Tsu Fi gave him a Queen Victoria twenty-dollar gold piece.

‘This says you speak for me,’ he said. ‘In the past my men have not done well in their negotiations. They do not trust their own thoughts and they agree too quickly. You are the nobleman of negotiators,
gwai-lo,
you must make new deals that are better.’

‘Then we need to sweeten the pot,’ Cohen suggested.

Sweeten the pot? What pot?’

‘Offer them something better than the others who are doing business on the river.’

‘And what would that be?’ asked the Tsu Fi.

‘I’m
thinking,’ Cohen said.

‘Think
quickly,’ said the Tsu Fi. ‘You go tonight.’

And that was the night Cohen first met Hatcher.

Cohen became the white Tsu Fi.
H
e had his own men on the river. He was respected by the Ts’e K’am Men Ti and feared by the Hong Kong taipans. His contacts upriver in Red China were impeccable. But mostly he traded in information. Cohen was a clearinghouse for every personal and business rumor in the colony.

If there was a major problem, the taipans turned to him.

They called him China Cohen.

He loved every minute of it,

When Hatcher got to the top of the mountain, he strolled around the side of the peak to Albany Road, near the Botanical Gardens. Cohen’s house stood near the edge of the peak.

He was deep in thought, but not too deep to miss the car parked far above him at the entrance to the Botanical Gardens, or the driver watching him through binoculars.

OLD TIMES, NEW TIMES

Hatcher stood in front of the large iron gates that led to Cohen’s mountaintop estate. The wall that surrounded it was eight feet high. The iron grille gates had once guarded the entrance to the castle of a Chinese warlord in Shanghai. Electric eyes and an electrified wire added a modern touch to the wall, although they were not visible from the ground.

He pressed the button in the wall beside the gate, and a moment later a guard appeared, staring at him through the grille.

‘Hai?’
the guard said.

‘Ngo hai gli Occhi di Sassi,’
Hatcher answered, using the nickname, ‘the Man With Stone Eyes,’ by which h
e
was known on the river.

‘Deui mju,’
the guard said. He vanished for a few moments, then returned.
‘Ho,’
he said, bowing as the gates swung soundlessly open.
‘Cheng nei.’

The gates closed behind Hatcher, and he followed the guard down the winding road toward the house, which was hidden behind banyan and pine trees.

China Cohen had fashioned his sanctuary with taste and passion, a strange amalgam of Oriental cultures and religions, some from China, others from Thailand, Malaysia and Japan. The single-story white house sprawled at the edge of a precipice with a truly spectacular view of the harbor. The curved yellow Chinese tiles that covered the roof glittered like gold; two ferocious-looking marble temple dogs guarded the white façade of the house. On one side of the front walk was a Japanese stone garden, which had been raked with infinite care. On the other side was a garden ablaze with azaleas, roses and orchids. A six-foot long
naga,
the Thai serpent of good luck, jutted its green and yellow head from among the blossoms, flashing an evil grin that revealed rows of ivory teeth. Delicate, slender-leaved palm trees shaded the garden.

Wind chimes sang gently on either side of the gold and black lacquered doors, and delicately carved teak horns, called
ham yon,
the ‘sacred testicles,’ were placed over the doorway to the main room of the house because the virility of the master was believed to be stored there.

A large bronze lion’s head knocker announced his arrival. The door was opened by a small, wizened woman who looked a hundred years old and more Thai than Chinese. She was dressed simply, and she peered intently into Hatcher’s eyes for a moment and then smiled and bowed. ‘Welcome, Occhi di Sassi,’ she said.