Thai Horse (33 page)

Cohen leaned toward his friend a
n
d laid his hand on Hatcher’s. ‘Listen to me, Christian,’ he said seriously. ‘You made a few enemies in your ti
m
e. You can’t evade them. But before you get a bleeding heart, let me tell you, every man here last night had reason to hate the Chiu Chao triads. They all had old scores to settle. Every one of them was here voluntarily and grateful for the chance. And their families will be well taken care of for life. It really had nothing to do with you.’

‘Sure. Now you’ll be on Fong’s list, too,’ Hatcher said.

‘No,’ Cohen answered. To attack a man’s home is an act of cowardice. Even the triads will be dishonored. Lung hit me without Fong’s approval, I’m sure of it. And now Fong owes me an apology. Lung dishonored him
—
and botched the job in the bargain. Forg.et it, the old Tsu Fi can take care of himself. You’re the
o
nly one who still has to worry about Tollie Fong. Are you still determined to go up to Chin Chin land?’

‘More than ever. For the first time I’ve got something positive. A name, China, I’ve got a
na
me. Wol Pot. It’s a starting place. Without Wol Pot, I di
d
n’t have anything.’

‘Supposing Cody doesn’t want to
b
e found. Supposing you turn over a rock and something nasty crawls out.’

‘I’ll deal with that if it happens.’

‘Okay, then there’s only one person you can trust who can take you up there.’

‘Who?’ Hatcher asked.

‘Daphne Chien,’ Cohen answered.

ch’u-tiao

The house was surrounded by flowers and sat on a quiet street in one of the finer residential sections of Macao, forty miles from Hong Kong by hydroplane. Despite its look of
tranquility
, Macao had dark secrets hidden along its cobblestone streets and behind its terraced red and ocher Mediterranean villas. There was still about it a sense of mystery and decadence; it was still a center for the smuggling of illegal Chinese aliens, carried in the dead of night by snakeboat into Hong Kong; a center for gold smuggling; a protectorate for Chinese triad gangsters who freely practiced white slavery, arranged major dope- smuggling deals between Thailand’s Golden Triangle and Amsterdam and other Western ports, and ordered the execution of their enemies from behind the façades of peaceful rococo villas. The banyan trees lining the Praia Grande concealed corruption of every kind.

Wang, the retired
san wong
of the White Palms, who was in his eighties and had been for more than fifty years the leader of the outlaw triad, was feeding his tropical fish.

He had handpicked Tollie Fong as his Red Pole when Fong was still in his early twenties and had never doubted the wisdom of his choice. But he had warned Fong that Joe Lung was a dangerous Number One, a reckless and irascible killer, who, as the old man had put it, ‘thinks with his gonads’ Now Wang had to deal with the aftermath of Lung’s attack on Cohen.

Fong arrived at the house at precisely ten o’clock, having flown in from Bangkok on the early morning flight. The house was a stunning tangerine-colored Mediterranean villa on Avenue Conse
l
heiro, which wound around Guia Hill, and had perhaps the finest view of Macao on the tiny peninsula. It was rumored to have been the hideout of Sun Yat-sen while he plotted the overthrow of the Manchu Dynasty, an apocryphal yarn, b
u
t possible. Above it, on the pinnacle of the hill, stood what was left of St Paul’s Church, a magnificent ruin destroyed by a typhoon in
1835,
while from the rear sun porch of the house, the old man could see far below the oldest lighthouse on the China coast and, beyond it, the South China Sea.

Fong stood at the front door, checking out his reflection in the glass door before ringing the bell. He was an athletic, light-skinned man, a bodybuilder, tall for a Chinese, with gold-flecked black eyes and modishly trim med black hair that flowed back over his ears, outlining a thin, hawkish face. He preferred Western dress and was wearing a dark blue cotton suit and a scarlet silk tie. Fong was a handsome man whose good looks were marred only by an unnerving inscrutability, for he seemed to be a man without any expression, his face a mask with a mouth that moved. He was ushered through the louse by a bodyguard the size of a sumo wrestler.

The old man was in his favorite ro
o
m at the rear of the house, feeding the saltwater fish in three one-hundred- gallon aquariums. The fish were his proudest possession. He knew each by name and by habit and was chatting with them as he sprinkled brine shrimp i
n
to one of the tanks when Fong was ushered into the atrium, Fong stood near the old man and bowed respectfully. Wang nodded his head.

‘Welcome back, Tollie,’ the old man said without looking up. ‘How was your trip to Bangkok?’

‘Shorter than I planned,’ Fong ans
w
ered. ‘I had to leave before I finished my business, but I can go back tomorrow.’

‘What happened at the house of Tsu Fi?’ the
former
san wong
asked
.

‘Lung went crazy,’ Fong said.

‘That is all you have to say about it?’

‘W
hat else is there to say?’ said Fo
n
g. ‘I never talked to Lung. He found out Hatcher was i
n
Hong Kong from a police informant named Varney.
a
nd he attacked the house. Now they are all dead, including the cop. We’ll never really know what happened.

‘I warned you that one day Lung would compromise you,’ said the
retired
san
w
o
ng.

Fong nodded. He was embarrasse
d
that the
old
san
w
o
ng
was forced to deal with an awkward situation that was basically Fong’s fault.

‘He was fu
l
fi
l
ling a
ch’u-tiao
of many years against the American,’ Fong said somewhat defensively.

Ch’u-tiao
was a blood oath, an oath
o
f honor, and one that by tradition could only be resolved in death.

‘So it is ended. And would you have approved of this action?’ the old man asked, still
playing
with his fish.

‘Of course not,’ said Fong.

‘We do not want war with Tsu Fi,’ the old man said.

Fong decided to face the subje
c
t head-on. ‘Maybe it’s time to get rid of this
mei gwok
Jew,’ he said slowly.

The old man looked up, his eyes mere slits. He stared at Fong for several seconds and the younger man became uneasy, realizing he had said the wrong thing. ‘Let me show you something,’ he said. He reached in one of the other tanks, opened his palm, and a large yellow tang swam leisurely around his hand.

‘Come, Shang, come to your father,’ the old man whispered.

The fish finally swam into his hand, pecking at it, looking for food. Wang grabbed the fish arid quickly dropped it in one of the other tanks. Almost im
m
ediately it was attacked by three of the fish in the new tank, two of them less than half its size. The tang floundered, darted out of the way only to be hit behind the gills by a small black-and-white domino. The tang flipped to its side, wiggling its tail frantically, but it was already moribund. The two men watched while ha
l
f
a dozen fish pecked the tang to death.

‘Next to human beings, fish are the most territorial creatures on earth,’ the old man said. ‘If you inject a stranger into their home, they will kill it. Even the small fish attack it. So the big fish is overwhelmed. Then they break his ballast and he is helpless.’ He looked up at Fong. ‘Do you understand what I am saying?’

Fong nodded.

‘Good. You were the finest Red Pole in the Chiu Chaos,’ Wang said, ‘but to declare war on the house of Tsu Fi and attack him in his own
environment
was suicidal, as Lung discovered.’

‘I would not make the same mista
k
es,’ Fong said.

The old man stared at him for several more moments and nodded again. ‘We do a lot of
business
in Hong Kong,’ he said. ‘Cohen is respected and feared among all the Sun Lee On. He is powerful in the business community. Doing business in Hong Kong means doing business with him.

You must swallow your pride. Joe Lung compromised you. The rules of the Society require that you make an apology and a gesture to satisfy the insu
lt

‘That’s why I flew back from Bangkok this morning.’

‘Hai.
Then call him now. Arrange a meeting for later today. Get this over with. It is an annoyance I do not care to put up with any longer than necessary.’

‘I will do it now,’ said Fong.

‘Mm
goi,’
said the old man, ‘I am also aware that you, too, have a
ch’u-tiao
against the American. If necessary, you must be prepared to put it aside.’

Fong looked surprised.

‘I cannot do that!’ the new
san wong
said, but his predecessor and mentor cut him off before
h
e could go on. ‘You can and will, if it is necessary,’ he said with finality and turned back to his fish,

Fong knew the discussion was ove
r
. He bowed to his master.

‘Jo
sahn,’
he said,

‘Jo sahn,’
the old man answered.

DAFFY

The smell of cordite still hung in the air of the house as they waited for Daphne to arrive. Accordin
g
to Cohen, Daphne was the only person they could trust who still traveled upriver into that dangerous land and dealt with the brigands, mainly in materials, Thai silk and madras cotton, which she smuggled into the colony d
u
ty-free. She had two things going for her: nothing intimidated her, which earned her the respect of the pirates, and she dealt in gold. Even the Ts’e K’am Men Ti did not bite that str
o
ng a hand.

But Hatcher also suspected Cohen’ s motives. Could he possibly be playing Cupid? Hatcher’s first encounter with Daphne had been the result of a rather
p
erverse Cohen joke. The Tsu Fi had been certain that Hatcher would be attracted to her and Just as certain that she would ignore the brash Yankee
gwai-lo.

Cohen, too, was thinking of that night. In a funny way, Daphne Chien brought the friendship between Cohen and Hatcher full circle, for it was Hatcher’s first meeting with her that had strengthened what had been until then a tentative friendship between th
e
two men, a time for sparring and contemplation and even testing. From the beginning, Cohen had seen in
h
is new friend a man of curious and sometimes frightening balance
—
a man of intense loyalties and an outrageous sense of humor balanced by a dark, deviously clever, dangerous and unpredictable streak. He had seen the dark side of Hatcher’s persona, the human trigger that could kill with the suddenness and impartiality of a sprung mouse-trap. And then there was Hatcher’s charmingly eccentric side. He slept on the floor, preferred to read in Chinese rather than English, sometimes would go two or three days without eating, and had a bizarre memory, which excluded obvious details and retained only
w
hat Hatcher considered important. He knew, for instance, that Sam-Sam Sam was left-handed but could not describe a single one of the tattoos that covered the pirate’s body.

Hatcher survived by keeping these two disparate sides of his personality in careful balance, never letting one overpower the other, like a coin perched on its edge.

To Cohen, all of these traits ma
d
e Hatcher a fascinating, often endearing, and potentially trustworthy friend, but it was at Hatcher’s first meeting with Daphne that Cohen had seen a gentle, almost boyish side of Hatcher’s personality, although the balance w
a
s still there. On the one hand, he was surprisingly naïve; on the other, outrageously audacious.

They had just arrived at the G
o
vernor’s Ball, the annual mob scene at the Chinese Palace, to which Cohen, as a joke, had conned Hatcher into going, knowing the mysterious riverman hated crowds,
cocktail par
t
ies, dances and snobs
—
all the reasons why everyone else went
.
Hatcher spotted Daphne the moment they arrived at the party. She was standing on the
other side of the main ballroom, a stunning, unattainable statue, observing the shoulder-to-shoulder cocktail crowd with an air of icy indifference. Cohen sense
d
Hatcher’s immediate infatuation.

‘Forget it,’ said China. ‘Your eyes are the wrong shape.’

‘Who is she?’

‘Daphne Chien. Her mother’s Malaysian, her father’s half Chinese, ha if French.’

‘Amazing collaboration,’ Hatcher said half aloud, staring through the crowd at her.

‘Every
gwai-lo
in the colony has tried,’ Cohen whispered. ‘She won’t have anything to do with Westerners.’

‘Neither would the Tsu Fi and that didn’t stop you,’ Hatcher answered. ‘You know her?’

‘Yeah, I know her,’ Cohen ans
w
ered with an air of apprehension. Social confrontations, particularly in an event of this importance, made him
uncomfortable
, so he added, ‘And I’m telling you, she particularly hates Americans.’

‘How come?’

‘Her father was a very successful tailor here, built up a very nice business with a few quality stores in the States. Along comes a big American combine, decides his little company has big potential, makes him a lot of promises, then screws him to the wall, edges him out, and starts mass-producing blue jeans using his name and reputation. They g
ot
big, big, big, but the old man never saw a dime of it.’

‘What was the company?’

‘Blue Max, you’ve probably heard of them.’

‘Everybody’s heard of it.’

‘The old man was so humiliated he tried to kill himself. She saved his life.
. .

Hatcher was already off and runni
n
g. Cohen rushed after him.

‘Introduce me,’ said Hatcher as he threaded his way through the black-tie crowd toward her. Cohen followed, trying to talk as he made his way through the jabberi
n
g guests.

‘You haven’t heard the rest of it,’ Cohen said, shouting above the cocktail din.

‘So what’s the rest of it?’

‘She started a new business. Knockoffs.’

Hatcher stopped and looked back at him with a wide grin. ‘She counterfeits American blue jeans?’ he said.

Cohen nodded. ‘She counterfeits Blue Max American- brand blue jeans
—
at about half their price.’

‘Fantastic.’

Cohen nodded. ‘Ripped them off for enough to start her own label, became their biggest competitor, then merged with them. And ended up in control. And ended’ up firing the whole greedy bunch.’

‘Beautiful,’ said Hatcher.

‘It sure was, but it left her with a very bad taste in her mouth for
mei gwok.’

‘So how come you know her?’

Cohen smiled, ‘I set up the merger deal that put her in the driver’s seat. I’m one Yankee she likes,’ he said.

Hatcher was more determined than ever to meet her. He started back across the room with Co
h
en at his side.

‘Give me some names,’ he said.

‘Names of who?’

‘The guys who ripped her off,’
H
atcher said impatiently as they approached her, ‘One or two na
m
es, c’mon, hurry.’

‘Uh
. . .
Howard Sylvester,
.
Allen Mitchell. uh...’

‘That’s good enough. Introduce me as
Chris London.’

She got even more beautiful as they got closer, her tall, lithe body encased in a dark green silk sheath that etched each perfect line of her body and seemed to add luster to her almond, almost cocoa-colored, skin, and glitter to deeply hooded eyes that were as green as the dress. Her jet-black hair was tied in a long ponytail that curled over one broad shoulder and fell between her breasts. She wore no
rin
gs, her only jewelry being a pair of pear-shaped diamond earrings and a diamond necklace with an emerald and ruby pendant that lay in the hollow of a throat as delicate as a swan’s. She smiled brightly when she saw Cohen.

‘China!’ she cried, ‘at last, someo
n
e to talk to
.

Cohen kissed her on the cheek, then t
u
rned to Hatcher. ‘Miss Chien, Daphne, I’d like to introduce a friend of mine, Chris, uh
‘
he faltered, forgetting the second name.,

‘London,’ Hatcher said quickly.

The smile vanished. She nodded curtly. ‘Monsieur,’ she said in a French accent and a low voice that made one strain to hear her and turned away. Hatcher pressed o,.

‘I’m a lawyer,’ Hatcher went on. ‘In fact, I represent some old associates of
yours.’

She turned back toward him, her chin pulled down, staring coldly at him from under ebony eyebrows.

‘Oh?’

‘Yes, Howard Sylvester and Allen Mitchell.’

Nothing changed in her face, but Cohen almost swallowed his tongue. He could see his friendship with Daphne Chien vanishing with
every
word Hatcher spoke. Hatcher stepped close to her, took her elbow very gently and steered her toward the terrace.

‘You see, they’ve put together quite a dossier on your knock-off business, prior to the merge
r
? They feel that they have a fairly strong case against the
new
Blue Max.
. .

Their voices died out in the crowd as Cohen stood watching them. Her eyes were the eyes of a killer, and then suddenly they both stopped and faced each other. Hatcher leaned over to her and spoke very quickly. Her mouth dr
o
pped open, she seemed to lose her composure for just a second, then there was an exchange, back and forth, and when it was over, Hatcher bowed, kissed her hand and left. He strolled back to Cohen, smiling.

‘Lunch tomorrow,’ he said. ‘Just th
e
two of us. Wait here, I’ll bring you a drink. Scotch, a dash
o
f
water, no ice, right?’ And he was gone again.

Daphne followed a few seconds later, glaring at him as she drew to within inches of him.

‘Why didn’t you tell me he was Hat
c
her?’ she said.

‘I have no excuse whatsoever,’ Cohen stammered.

She stared after Hatcher as he edged through the crowd.

‘Are you really having lunch with him?’ Cohen asked.

‘Yes,’ she said.

‘What did he say to you out there?’ Cohen asked.

She smiled vaguely, stared at him for a second and said, ‘Ask him.’ And then she too was gone.

‘What did you say to her?’ Cohen asked when he returned with the drinks.

Hatcher shook his head. ‘I’ll never tell,’ he said.