The Secret (44 page)

60

JERRY

I called Therèse. I can remember when placing a call from one side of Paris to another was dicey, when calling Los Angeles from New York was a matter of calling an operator, giving her the number, and answering a ring half an hour later when she’d gotten the call through. They called that “long distance.” By the mid-nineties, calling Fort Lauderdale from Hong Kong was a matter of punching in the numbers. Within five seconds the phone rang. Therèse answered, and I told her I would be home in a few days.

She told me someone had run over the alligator on the street. It had risked crossing one too many times, and a driver who didn’t give a damn had run over it and killed it. I can’t pretend that I cared, though I had come to think of the creature as something of a neighborhood pet and realized I would miss it, sort of. I had never imagined it would bite me, and since I didn’t have a dog or cat …

“Honey babe, I miss you,” I said. “I wish you were out here, in Hong Kong.”

That was a lie. Liz was with me.

“I not want to travel so far much, anymore,” Therèse said. “Hong Kong long way.”

She told me about a bridge game she had played, then about the herons and their chicken necks. Friends had invited her to go on their boat for a cruise to Miami.

Therèse would be all right. I would, in fact, see her soon. The truth was, we would fuck: we seventy-some-years-old citizens. We would do it, and we would like it. Once. Then again sometime. Not too often. Not nearly as often as I would have liked.

Okay. Liz was a sloppy cocksucker. She left me wet with her spit as she ran to the bathroom to rinse out her mouth.

But, God, I would have missed her if I hadn’t had her! I had become too much involved with her.

Watching her run to the bathroom, fat butt bouncing, was a special small pleasure.

I could keep her. Sure. Yes, I could. But for how long? I had to think about that.

*   *   *

Then there was Len. The boy was—Christ! I should have been proud of him. And I was.

But there was something. He wasn’t what I was. He wasn’t what Buddy was. And maybe he was right, too. He wasn’t reckless. He planned carefully and was not reckless.

Had I been, though? I guess not.

But I wasn’t about to be run out of Hong Kong. By God, I wasn’t going to be! Son of a bitch, I wasn’t
going
to be!

Any more than I’d been run out of Philadelphia.

This girl we’d hired. Lily. She was damned smart. I couldn’t believe what she told us one day within a week after we hired her:

“We’re missing something,” she said. “There’s a marketing ploy that’s not in use. I don’t know how you
can
use it, but I want you two gentlemen to be aware of it. Maybe you can find a way to sell merchandise with it.”

At this point it was no more sweat pants and T-shirts. No more cigarettes dangling out of her mouth. She was wearing a dark blue miniskirted cheongsam. We sat over lunch in Luk Yu Tea Shop, the famous dim sum restaurant. As she wielded chopsticks with confidence and pretended not to notice that Len and I wielded ours more awkwardly, she talked business.

“I don’t know how you advertise this,” she said, “but do you have any idea why many girls wear crotchless panties under tight jeans? Hey! Crotchless panties under tight jeans!”

We shook our heads.

“Tight jeans,” she said. “Bare pussies. Can you guys, being men, imagine how that feels? Rough, tight denim rubbing your private parts, every step you take. Hey! Girls
come!
”

“Why not no panties at all?” Len asked.

“Rear-end hygiene, Lennie. C’mon!”

I understood what she meant. So did Len. But she had asked the right question. How did we advertise it? I couldn’t think of a way, and I doubted Len could, either.

By that day Lily had visited all of our suppliers and was satisfied that no one was ripping us off more than was conscionable. She had rejected one small batch of merchandise. Charlie, she said, had been letting some stuff through that was not up to standards—not much, just a little, presumably in return for a percentage.

“He couldn’t help himself,” she said. “I know the type. He considered that day lost when he didn’t manage to cheat somebody. He must have been an endearing man,” she added slyly.

*   *   *

Len took me to Kowloon Tong that evening, leaving behind a suspicious Vicky and Liz. We sat down in a courtyard open to the sky, where we had what the Kowloon proprietors imagined was a French-style dinner—snails, borscht, sole, and wine—in the company of a shyly beautiful little Chinese girl.

Len introduced her as Li, Mrs. Charlie Han. She was delicately lovely, with appealing almond eyes. But she had a dramatic characteristic, too. She had only a spare bristle of hair on her recently shaved head. I was supposed to imagine that I had been brought here to meet Charlie’s widow, but I was not fool enough to buy that. It was obvious to me that Len had had her. It would have been obvious to Vicky, too, and I resolved that the two should never meet.

Well, what was I supposed to expect? I mean, Vicky was as fine a woman as any man was ever married to, but—Okay. So long as this did not get out of hand. Which obviously it had if he thought it necessary to introduce her to me.

“I want to do something for Li,” he said solemnly. “I want you to do something for her. She was
sold
to Charlie. She’d been put on an open-air market and sold!”

“I can imagine.”

“No, you can’t. No. It’s not so simple. Charlie supported her. He left her some money. But she needs a new connection. I am hoping we can provide something.”

“What do you do, Li?” I asked her.

“I am whore,” the little girl said with calming simplicity, obviously not in the slightest embarrassed.

I glanced at Len. “I am not sure we can hire any girls for that,” I said.

“She wants to work for Yasheng Lin,” my son said to me. “I doubt we have enough clout with him to arrange that. I am wondering if Lily could use her as a model.”

“With no hair?” I asked.

“It grow out!” the little girl protested.

“It might make her the most famous model in Hong Kong,” said Len. “She could travel for us. We could show her in China and even in the States.”

I was emphatic. “And you keep hands off. She’s not to be your plaything, my son.”

“I’ll keep hands off. You have my word.”

“Li,” I said to her, “how would you like to be a model and not a whore?”

“No whore?” she whispered.

Len answered her. “You do whore, we won’t want you anymore. You wear the clothes we make, show them to people. And you will have to keep your head shaved.”

She put her fingers to her head. “Embarrass this,” she said quietly. “Many embarrass…”

“But it may make you famous and rich,” I said.

Well … getting ahead of things, it did.

*   *   *

I’d had a lot of experience in my life. Experience taught me that the best way to confront a problem was to
confront
it. So I called Sir Arthur Xu and asked him if the best way to deal with Yasheng Lin was not to meet with Yasheng Lin and openly negotiate.

“Yasheng Lin,” he answered, “likes straightforward dealing. Yes. Straightforward dealing.”

So we went a second time to the imposing compound of the Hong Kong billionaire: Len, Vicky, Liz, and I, with Sir Arthur Xu and Lily Xiang.

We gathered on a stone terrace outside the mansion where we had a view of Hong Kong, the harbor, and Kowloon. We sat on white-painted cast-iron furniture. Torches provided the light. A fountain splashed. Girls in chenogsams served hors d’oeuvres and drinks.

Vicky wore the cheongsam given her by Bai Fuyuan. It was, I thought, a gesture of defiance. Lily’s dark blue brocaded cheongsam was not a gesture, and she was not uncomfortable about the slit in her skirt that sometimes exposed her leg all the way to her hip. She was a Chinese woman, comfortable in Chinese wear. Liz wore a white lace minidress that did not flatter her.

Yasheng Lin greeted us as a gracious host. He was dressed as before in a double-breasted suit, this one black, a white silk shirt, and a regimental necktie.

I meant to avoid the topic of the death of Charlie Han, but he raised it immediately.

“I hear that your Hong Kong agent has been killed,” he said. “Unfortunate.”

He said it as if it were a matter of no consequence that he had heard about as a piece of business news, as if he had read a brief account of it in a newspaper.

“We have been very fortunate,” I said, “in that we have been able to employ Miss Lily Xiang as our new agent.”

“Yes. I know Xiang Yi by reputation. She is an excellent choice.” He nodded at Lily. “My congratulations. I am confident that you will serve the Coopers well.”

“I mean to,” she said evenly.

We talked about the typhoon, then, and the recovery of the Asian economies.

After a while I turned to business. “You know, Mr. Yasheng, our company has committed itself pretty fully to doing business in China and Asia. Companies in this area have become the major suppliers for important elements of our businesses. I am not ready to say we are dependent on Southeast Asia, but we are deeply involved in it. Which I like, frankly. Also, I like the way you do business in this part of the world.”

“Except the fact that Han Wong was stealing from you,” said Yasheng with a faint smile.

“And from you, too, sir, if you don’t mind my mentioning it,” said Len.

Yasheng nodded. His smile widened. “I wonder if Charlie didn’t learn that way of doing business in the States.”

I don’t know what Len meant to say, but I spoke before he could. “I suppose that’s possible,” I said. “Charlie Han lived in the States for many years.”

“Bai Fuyuan was stealing, too,” said Yasheng.

“Our other chief associate in this area is Zhang Feng, of Guangzhou. What can you tell us about him, if anything? Would you suspect he is stealing?”

“Zhang Feng is one of a new breed of billionaires made possible by the policies of the late Deng Xiaoping. If he is delivering goods to specification at acceptable prices, what do you care if he has small deals going on the side? Han Wong was crudely stealing from your shipments. That is another matter entirely.”

“And in so doing was also stealing from you,” I said.

Yasheng closed his eyes and nodded again.

Sir Arthur Xu’s face was rigid. He was not accustomed to doing business this way. Straightforward, he had said. This was more than straightforward. I had in effect suggested that Yasheng Lin bore some responsibility for the death of Charlie Han.

But it didn’t appear to bother Yasheng.

I went on. “Mr. Yasheng, you are one of the wealthiest men in Hong Kong, perhaps one of the wealthiest men in the world.”

Yasheng shook his head, simulating modesty.

“I has occurred to me,” I said, “that you might want to
acquire
my businesses. You seem to acquire most of the businesses you—”

This was too much for Sir Arthur. “Oh, no,” he interjected. “Mr. Yasheng is involved in real estate, chiefly, and—”

“And shipping,” Yasheng interrupted. “Involving my group of companies in merchandising, as Bai Fuyuan recommended, was something of a departure for us. It did seem like a good investment. And I think it will be.”

“Let us work together to
see
that it will be,” I suggested.

“Nothing would please me more.”

“I have no doubt, Mr. Yasheng, that you are a shrewd and careful investor. I’d like to offer some ideas as to why it would not be a good idea for you to acquire my company.”

Yasheng raised a peremptory finger and ordered my drink refreshed. A girl rushed to my side with a new Scotch and soda. Others of the little girls hurried to the rest of the guests.

“In the first place,” I said, “our stock is closely held, and we have no great outstanding debt. We are not interested in selling.”

Yasheng nodded.

“Even so, a man with your resources could probably find a way to drive us out of business.”

“If I wanted to. But why would I
want
to do that?”

“Which is my point entirely,” I said. “I am sure you have much valuable knowledge and expertise in many subjects, but I also doubt you have much in the fields of ladies’ intimate wear or the technology of computer chips.”

Again, Yasheng nodded and did not speak.

I went on. “You just said that you thought selling Cheeks goods in China would be a good investment for you. You had a knowledgeable man working for you: Bai Fuyuan. Unfortunately, Charlie Han was stealing from us, and Bai knew it and was helping him. What is more, their defalcations were increasing and would have increased still more.”

“That is true,” said Yasheng Lin.

“I have a suggestion. I suggest we work in partnership, directly, and not through a man like Bai. We need to be represented by an honest manager. I suggest Lily Xiang. The work she will be doing for Gazelle in Hong Kong will not require her services full-time, any more than they required Charlie’s. I suggest we make her our joint representative, with power to hire the help she will need.”

“That is an interesting proposition, which I will take into consideration,” said Yasheng.

I sipped my Scotch and waited to see if Yasheng wanted to say anything more. Then I went on: “Also, in our subsidiary Sphere Corporation we have acquired expertise in advanced technology. I acknowledge that I know next to nothing about it. In the beginning I knew nothing about the manufacture and sale of intimate underwear. In almost forty years I have learned a great deal about it. Learning a new line of business takes
time,
Mr. Yasheng. If you are interested in advanced technology, I’d like to suggest we consider a relationship between your companies and mine in that field also.”

“That, too, we can discuss,” he said.

61

LEN

We returned to the apartments on Arbuthnot Road and shortly went to bed. Around two in the morning we were awakened by Liz’s hysterical shrieks. An emergency squad hurried my father to Matilda Hospital, a private hospital on the Peak, and perhaps the finest in Hong Kong. The doctors there decided he had suffered a stroke.