Year of the Dragon (35 page)

That night Orchid wore a floor-length satin robe of imperial yellow embroidered with small pomegranate-red flowers. Into her still jet black hair she had set an exquisite piece of jewelry - a small flower of seed pearls that seemed to grow out of leaves of thin green jade. They sat at dinner a long time. Koy could not take his eyes off her. They talked of their son who had been expected to join them, but had not come home. Koy would have preferred a more neutral subject. There were too many problems in his life, and the only one he cared about tonight was this woman opposite him. Tomorrow would be time enough for the others.

The servants padded about on rope-soled shoes that were noiseless upon the tiles. There were eight courses, eight surprises, eight delicious rest periods in which to savor the preceding dish and to imagine whatever might come next. Orchid’s cook, in the best tradition of Chinese gastronomy, brought to this dinner the excitement of a sporting event. Each dish was a distinct contrast in color, texture and flavor from all the others, and each was cooked differently, for the first was stir-fried and the next braised, the ones after that steamed, lacquered, salt-baked. These were all rare dishes Koy had loved in the past, delicacies whose ingredients, for the most part, could not be found in New York, or could not be found fresh. Orchid was spoiling him, as she always had, and he remembered how, when they were adolescents, she had known how to find and bring to him the small, yellow-fleshed, sweet summer melons that grew on dung heaps in her village. She would search for them under the leaves, tapping them with her finger, for when ripe they sounded as hollow as a drum, and they would break them open and feast on them together.

Tonight the centerpiece dish was explosive fried lobster. The heat under the lobster and the flavored oils in which it cooked had been increased until the shells were almost red hot, whereupon a cup of cold sauce was poured over them. This caused a near explosion of the shells, allowing the flavored oils to penetrate the flesh, and at the same time creating a new and delectable sauce to which a lightly beaten egg was added in a thin stream. The flesh itself, enhanced and augmented by all of these flavors, was exquisite, and to suck the sauce from the shells was considered one of the peak delights of Cantonese cuisine.

But by the time the explosive lobster was served Koy and his wife had fallen silent. Neither was much interested in the food. They were concentrated on each other, and the remaining dishes went back to the kitchen largely uneaten.

When the last had been cleared away they sat in silence sipping tea. They could hear the servants trotting through the house making final preparations for the night.

Orchid went upstairs, there to bathe and perfume her body, taking special care of the seven orifices, as any Chinese woman would. Koy remained in the principal room studying the painted scrolls that hung on the walls: bamboo leaves that were delicately drawn against dark rocks, plum blossoms that mingled with chrysanthemums. The precision and delicacy of these paintings pleased him. They seemed to be related to his own life. A powerful painting, like a powerful man, must be informed and controlled from within. Then only may it be called genius.

When Koy went upstairs, he found his wife sitting in front of a dressing table. He watched as she unwound her long black hair and combed it out using a Chinese wooden comb perfumed with the fragrance of a cassia tree.

An hour later, calm at last, contented, they lay in the dark holding each other close.

“I had forgotten what it was like to have a husband,” Orchid murmured. This was as close as a proper Chinese woman could come to expressing any emotion related to sexual love. In all the Chinese dialects, the word for tradition and good manners was the same, and sex as a subject had always been proscribed. It could not be discussed between men and women, not even between couples who had been married many years.

“And I had forgotten how skilled you are,” said Koy, employing the Chinese euphemism for sexual intercourse, “at the game of clouds and rain.”

Orchid clung to him. “Don’t go away again,” she said. “Stay with me here. There is enough money. You know there is. You need never work again.”

This was true, but Koy did not work for money. Poor people worked for money. Rich people worked for something else, and Koy knew this. They accepted challenges. They challenged themselves. Koy himself worked for power and prestige, the gold and silver currency of the man who had everything. Both were ephemeral. Both, therefore, had to be exploited immediately, ruthlessly. He could not stay here in Hong Kong. In addition, he had another family in New York: a younger wife, three tiny children.

“I must go back to New York,” he told Orchid. “I can’t leave it.”

But he wished he had never got involved with any other woman than this one. If only he had not been so lonely. His conduct could be explained of course; it just couldn’t be explained away. If only he had not met Betty Eng who, being a fourth generation Chinese-American, had seemed to him an exotic creature such as he had never known before. She had caught him, obviously, in the classic middle-age crisis. She had made him remember his lost youth. He had experienced with her emotions and sensations he had thought he would never know again. His passion had become love - or at least it could no longer be distinguished from love. And all this time it had been impossible to bring Orchid to New York to join him, for the Corruption Commission held her passport, and financial holdings in her name had been blocked. In New York the inevitable had happened: marriage. But when he thought of it now, holding in his arms the first and truest love of his life, Koy felt ashamed.

Orchid’s hand lay over his heart. She said: “It is said that contentment is best achieved by not running after it.”

“That’s true.”

“I don’t want to lose you again.”

“Nor I you,” said Koy, and he knew he meant it.

Orchid knew he meant it too, and in her elation sat bolt upright on the bed, her hair hanging to her breasts. “What will we do tomorrow?” she cried, as excited as a child. “What will you buy me tomorrow?”

The young girl he had married used to ask him to buy her the coarse sweets street vendors sold, the red sugar cakes, the sesame toffee, the rice-flour dumplings stuffed with sweet bean paste. They had stood in the dusty street eating the stuff. Orchid had spoken in the same voice then, employed even the same phrases, and beside her in the dark Koy laughed because he was so happy. “Tomorrow I’ll buy you anything that is in my power to buy you,” he said, and pulled her down to him.

OUTSIDE, a short distance up the darkened street, a surveillance truck was parked next to a telephone pole. Wires led from the truck to a junction box high up on the pole. The Chinese detective, who had been smoking a cigarette on the lee side of the truck, cigarette cupped carefully in his hand, ground the butt out underfoot and climbed back into the truck.

At Corruption Commission headquarters, Powers sat across the desk from Sir David.

“I’m told there have been no telephone calls in or out,” said Sir David. “I imagine they are tucked in for the night.”

“You can give your guys a rest. He’s with a wife he hasn’t seen for years. He won’t budge until morning.”

“My detectives are Chinese,” said Sir David. “There is no need to relieve them. The Chinese are very good at waiting.” He rose stretching, and stepped out from behind his desk. He was still wearing the bush jacket and the short pants. “But I agree with you, there’s no point in our staying on here. I think I shall go home to bed, and I suggest you do the same. I’ll have a car brought around to run you back to your hotel.”

WRUNG OUT and cranky, Carol landed at Kai Tak airport and was met by a tall Chinese named Austin Chan, who took her bags and led her out to the street to the bureau car, a green Mercedes, for some reason hurrying her along, briefing her while they walked. Suite at the Mandarin, okay. Sound man, okay. Light man, okay. Camera man, okay. Car, okay. He was like a checkout clerk stuffing groceries into the bag faster than her eye could follow. Was he trying to palm something? If she was smart she would pay attention. It was like too much fine print at the bottom of a contract - suspicious. There was bad news there somewhere. Makeup man, okay, said Chan, beginning tomorrow.

“Tomorrow?” said Carol sharply.

And the network’s resident Southeast Asia correspondent was not here. Most unfortunate, Chan said. Had to go out of town. Had to go to Taiwan on a possible story. She would find the flowers he had left for her at the hotel.

The man’s absence did not surprise Carol. Bureau chiefs were always furious when she - when any New York talent - invaded their territory, because it seemed to prove that New York wanted a story they had overlooked. They felt they were being both criticized and upstaged. They used to make her life a misery, and sometimes blocked her from the story she was after. Now they didn’t dare. Now they usually left flowers, then left town - town in a huff, and flowers out of fear that she might try, once back in New York, to blight their careers.

“What about my interviews?” asked Carol.

Interviews all set up and ready to go, said Chan. But there were problems.

“Problems?”

“It certainly is lucky your plane was on time. The police commissioner can’t see you next week. His schedule is too busy. But I was able to get him to set aside time this afternoon. The crew is already there waiting for you.”

The police commissioner, whose name was Richard Worthington, represented the longest and most important of the interviews she had come for. Today was Friday. She had asked Chan by telephone to arrange it for early next week, giving her time to prepare for it, and time to talk to Powers about it first. The police commissioner had evidently rejected Chan’s request. The bureau chief, had he been here, no doubt could have done better.

“Can’t you call him back and put it off till Monday?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Have you explained how important the network is, the exposure we’ll give him?”

“Yes, but he said that the only time he had was today.”

No American police chief would have posed conditions if offered an interview with Carol Cone. Naturally the one here did not know who she was, and evidently Chan had not managed to get her stature across. And where was that bureau chief?

“I’m to get you to police headquarters on Arsenal Street as fast as I can,” said Chan.

This was impossible. “If you think,” snapped Carol, “that I’m going to jeopardize my career by going on camera looking hung over, you have another think coming.” But her jeopardy was double. To miss interviewing the police commissioner was to jeopardize the story she had come here for. Her very professionalism was pulling her in two directions at once. And she still wanted to talk to Powers first.

Her bags had been passed to the chauffeur who locked them into the trunk. She slid into the back seat, and was not surprised when Austin Chan took his place up front, where he soon began to converse glumly in Chinese with the chauffeur. Carol was sorry she had snapped at him, and was at the same time convinced she had read his rank correctly. He was the bureau chief’s lackey, and the police commissioner, knowing this, had been able to push him around with impunity. Carol began to grow extremely angry at the missing bureau chief.

The Mercedes moved away from the airport, and entered the tunnel underneath the harbor. She was thinking it out, and by the time they drew up in front of the Mandarin had made her decision.

“I’d like you to come upstairs with me,” she said to Chan.

As they waited for the elevator she looked about the lobby for Powers, but did not see him. It was just as well; she did not have time really to talk to him, and two minutes in his arms might simply undo her, break the string that held the package together. She was so tired and upset she might start crying again, and the only result of that would be new ravages on her face.

Once in her suite, ignoring the bureau chief’s massive bouquet, she marched through into the bathroom and took a good look at herself, tilting her head at various angles. With her hands she moved her hair about. She studied her appearance as critically as she could.

Her eyes were nice eyes, she decided, and they were hardly puffy at all. She did not look all that bad. Given an hour or so in which to bathe, change her clothes and put on makeup, she concluded, she could get through this interview.

Returning to the sitting room, she instructed Chan to telephone Commissioner Worthington, and inform him that her plane had just landed. She would be along in about an hour. He was to wait for her. “Be extremely forceful,” she advised Chan. “Don’t forget you have the network behind you.” Closing the door on him, she set the bath water pounding and began to get undressed.

She used up every bit of the hour she had allotted herself. For twenty minutes she lay in the bath, wallowing in hot, hot water. This was followed by twenty minutes on her hair, manipulating like a woman with three hands the blow dryer, the comb, and the hair spray can. The result was like crusty meringue, but every hair was in place and the unnatural stiffness would not show on film.

The final twenty minutes went into work on her face. The foundation went on in layers. It was like repainting a used car. She painted, then buffed, then painted again and buffed again. There was no other way to achieve the gloss she was after. She wanted to look like the newest model in the showroom, as if she had never been used, not once, and she very nearly succeeded. There, not a dent showed. Very lightly she brushed rouge onto her cheekbones - just a hint of it, the barest suggestion, as light as a dusting of sugar on top of a cake. Then the mascara. Then the eyebrow pencil, and the pencil outline of her lips, lines as definite as curbs along a street. She was ready.

In the car she had her notebook on her lap, preparing the interview she meant to conduct. The key line of questioning concerned Koy. She wished she could have talked this out with Powers. At what point did she introduce Koy’s name into the interview? Early? Late? She was still trying to decide as the chauffeur steered them in past the sentry post and across the courtyard, and drew up in front of the headquarters building. A Chinese police constable in a green uniform opened the car door.

Upstairs in an interview room that had been prepared for them, Chan introduced her to the members of her waiting crew, all of them Chinese, and about five minutes after that two deputy commissioners walked in, followed almost immediately by Commissioner Worthington himself.

A tall skinny Englishman. About fifty years old. Bald. Not friendly. In fact, downright hostile. Kept referring in the conversation that followed to “you pressmen.” Evidently neither liked nor trusted “pressmen.” Was hostile to Carol for three reasons, she judged: because she was press, because she was a foreigner, and because she was a woman. A woman’s place, to this man, was elsewhere, and the police could do their job much better if civilians, male or female, would mind their own business. Civilians were meddlers.

In major American cities, according to Carol’s experience, police chiefs who dared talk this way no longer existed. Modern police chiefs had become as affable one and all as candidates for public office - which was virtually what they now were. They accepted civilian control totally, having no choice. They had learned to stand firm with the public even against their own men. Any other stand, they knew, would get them fired.

Carol was trying to appraise her man so as to judge how this interview should proceed. The camera was not yet rolling, and she was feeling him out. What were his responses likely to be? But he bristled at nearly every question. Triads? The Royal Hong Kong Police Force had them well in hand and any evidence to the contrary was an invention of irresponsible pressmen.

Carol was beginning to enjoy herself. This would not be an easy interview, but she thought it would be a good one. Blinking her eyes, flashing Worthington her warmest smile, she tried flattery: “You certainly are a man of strong opinions. I like that.”

But he only stared at her, as if he found her distasteful. Carol was not offended. She was working. Nothing he might do or say could affect her personally.

“Have the Triads been exported to New York?” she asked.

“Rubbish.”

“Would you care to elaborate on that?”

“No.”

Beside him the two deputy commissioners sat stock still. They had not yet budged in their chairs or spoken one word.

“In New York,” said Carol, “it is said that the Chinatown street gangs are made up almost entirely of youths from Hong Kong.”

“It is said. Who said? Explain yourself.”

“Well, our police department intelligence division thinks so.”

“They told you that?”

“Yes.”

“What you are seeing there is young hoodlums from China. They may have passed through Hong Kong - illegally, I might add - on their way to New York. But they are not from Hong Kong, they are from China.”

“I see,” said Carol. She turned toward her crew. “Are you ready to start filming?” she asked. Because the police commissioner seemed to be growing more and more testy. He seemed to be trying to prove to her that she was wasting his time. At any moment he might decide to break the interview off. Carol had made her decision. It was best to get something – anything - on film before it was too late.

“What else do you intend to ask me?” demanded Worthington.

“I thought we might just chat on film for about ten minutes, if that’s all right with you.”

“I warn you, if you ask any question about points we haven’t gone over I shan’t answer them.”

It was a threat Carol would have to consider. To give herself time, she beamed him another warm, fond smile. There were several questions about Koy she must ask, and the best thing would be to surprise Worthington with them toward the end of the on-camera interview. She mulled this over. His reactions should prove interesting. But suppose, instead of answering, instead of reacting, he just got up and stalked out? Would this cripple her story, or kill it? Could she afford to take such a chance?

“Well, as a matter of fact, there is one other line of questioning I would like to pursue,” she said. “Does the name Jimmy Koy mean anything to you?”

Worthington simply stared at her. She set her mouth into a thin hard line and stared back. If this was a contest of wills, she was determined to win it. The man was rude, she thought, as nearly all policemen everywhere used to be in the days when each one was a law unto himself. Except perhaps in outposts like Hong Kong, such cops had proven, like certain species of wildlife, unable to withstand the stresses of modern civilization - the pressures of racial minorities, the Supreme Court decisions, the television scrutiny. They were like those types of organisms that could function only in near-total darkness. They were not complex enough. Without darkness it was impossible for them to reproduce themselves.

Unable to stare Carol down, Worthington spoke. “What do you want to know for?”

“Because he appears to have set himself up as the overlord of organized crime in Chinatown.”

“More rumor,” snorted Worthington.

“I did my homework, Commissioner,” said Carol. “I went to the New York Police Department, to the FBI, to Drug Enforcement. It’s more than rumor. It’s what the police agencies there believe and are operating on.” An exaggeration that Carol covered at once. “Which doesn’t make it fact. Fact is what I’m trying to ascertain. I’ve come thirteen thousand miles to ask you what the facts are as you see them. Now can I have those facts, or not?”

About a minute passed during which they again matched cold stares. Then Worthington, with an elaborate sigh, sent one of his deputies out to get Koy’s dossier. When the man had gone, there was silence, and this silence endured. Carol buried her face in her notes, as if studying them. She did not want to stare, or be stared at, any further, and she did not wish to risk damaging the mood of conciliation that had evidently come over Worthington.

She did not know where the deputy commissioner would go, nor what he would do, and did not consider such details important. In fact the man returned to his own office and told his secretary, a Chinese constable, to phone down to personnel for Koy’s dossier. At personnel, a second constable received the request, and a third retrieved the actual folder, and hand-carried it back to the deputy commissioner’s office.

The entire transaction took less than ten minutes, and was accomplished at no cost at all, except that three Chinese constables now asked themselves why this sudden interest in Koy. Two of them had worked in the Wanchai district when Koy was station sergeant there, and the third had once worked for Sergeant Hung. They would arrange to meet in the hall later, when they would ask each other: what does it mean? An investigation into Koy’s activities must be under way, that much was clear. Was he perhaps back in Hong Kong? They would find out. Perhaps they should warn him.