Jade Woman

8

« ^ »

A jade woman, Lovejoy?” Steerforth brewed coffee. His television was on, rerunning an American soap opera. He had whiskey with his, rotten stuff. “You’ve seen one?” The flat was modest: two rooms, a tiny kitchen, and a loo/shower. To me it was civilization.

“I saw this bird down a street market.” I struggled to remember. “Yesterday, I think.”

“That’ll have been Ling Ling. I heard she was out in Kowloon.” He eyed me. “What d’you reckon?”

“Of her? She was…” Words couldn’t do it.

He smiled that curt smile, crooked and world-wise. “Ever thought of women as women, Lovejoy? What decides the pecking orders they seem to fall into?”

I shrugged. It’s man’s common lot that we think about women all the time. I’d asked a simple question. Who needed a lecture about birds from the likes of him?

“There’s no way to answer except say perfection.” He grew gradually gaunter in the face, indrawn as if watching a scene of an ancient but harrowing play. “There are only about two dozen jade women in Hong Kong. The Triads—secret societies which control gambling, prostitution, drugs, the opium divans—fight tooth and claw over possession of them. They pick girls when they’re little and give them the lot—special schools, jobs for their families, housing, protection, education.”

“Selected how?”

“Tests. Screening. Some aren’t clever enough. Some don’t rise to the beauty. Some fall from grace. Others can’t manage the languages, the mathematics, music.”

“You’re joking. That’s… that’s…”

“Genius in the brain, perfection in all, Lovejoy.”

Curiously I eyed him. He’d got another drink, his eyes haunted, hooked.

I sipped my coffee. “But what do they… ?”

“Do? What the hell do you think they do?”

“Okay.” I accepted the pedestal bit, though I’ve never believed Byron’s dictum that all any woman needed was six sweetmeats and a mirror. Women can only put up with adoration so long. Maybe that’s why gods are all blokes? Golden calves are made to be adored. Sadly, sooner or later they get melted down. “But I mean actually…”

He gave me his upended smile. “Lovejoy. You’ve got to learn. In Hong Kong everything, and I do mean every single thing, must bring in money. Got it so far?”

“Right.” I was narked, him talking as if to a kid.

“Now, think of the most accomplished bird on earth. She understands every language you’ve heard of. Plays all musical instruments. Her poetic skills are fantastic. You’re a visiting economist?—she’ll know the current Dow Jones, today’s Bourse movements.

You’re with a medical conference?— she’ll discuss the latest drug therapies in your special disease. She’ll arrange a flawless banquet for touring World Master Chefs. She’ll do and be anything, from fashion parades to coping with visiting royalty. She is never, ever wrong. She is priceless.”

No wonder there were only a couple of dozen. “But?”

“But she’ll cost you a fortune by the hour plus a lump fee.”

“A Japanese geisha?” I’d vaguely heard of those.

“Twice removed, Lovejoy.” He chucked back his drink. The bottle was on the table now.

“Once because of money; a jade woman is a millionairess by her eighteenth birthday.

And once because of the crime.”

“Whose crime?”

“You must understand.” He wasn’t sad, not really. Just being thoughtful. “When I say anything, I do mean any thing. Sex, extortion, prostitution, kidnapping, drugs, it’s a way of life. Here you can’t tell where normal life ends and crime begins. They’re interlinked.”

“She controls all those goings-on?”

“Not herself. She’s a Triad’s primary asset. Think of a Mafia clan, only more powerful.

The Triads own businesses, fleets, airlines, investment companies, do anything they bloody well want.”

Not the time to ask why Sim had stabbed poor old Del and left me to face the music.

“Do they control jobs in Hong Kong?”

“And protection rackets, smuggling. The police are supposedly the best in the world, but they have their own corruption.”

He took another swig. The maudlin stage. Was this the time? Lead in slowly.

“Didn’t you have to get the, er, Triad’s approval when you promised me a job?”

He snuffled a laugh. The glass clinked and the bottle glugged empty. “Me? You know how people describe Hong Kong? As a wart on the Pearl River’s arse. And me? I’m not even a flea on that wart, Lovejoy. You’re less. We are dispensable. I’m tolerated because I’m the littlest flea. I’ll never make a takeover bid of anything. I’m safe, causing no ripples on my particular puddle. Remember that, Lovejoy, and you’ll stay alive.”

“You’ve a nice place here,” I said, straight out of a 1940s tec movie. “Why do you need me?”

“Fighters go in pairs in flak,” he said, rousing himself with difficulty. “I need an oppo who can sus antiques while that fucking great liner’s in. Like you did with that bloody-awful jade thing you spotted in the market. Twenty percent do you?”

“Thirty,” I said, reflexly thinking, of what? Indeed, for what?

“Greedy rotten bastard,” he said. His eyes were closing in slumber. “But I’m boss for each couple, got that?”

“All right.” Couple? I shrugged mentally.

He waved an arm. “Doss on the settee. Out tennish tomorrow. To the bathhouse.”

“Can’t I shower here?” Maybe the water was off or something.

He struggled up and blundered towards his bedroom. “Course you can.”

The door slammed on his muttering. I took my coffee and went to the window. I watched the crowds below, the galaxy of lights, for an hour or more. Leaning out I could just see a patch of the harbor’s slinky blackness, with small riding lights crystallized about the fleet of junks half a mile off.

Liner? Antiques on a cruise ship? Or something to do with Goodman’s looming sale?

This possible chance of antiques altered things. Tomorrow to Macao to sponge off Algernon, as I’d planned? Or phone Janie to cable me money to get the hell out to somewhere else? Or stay and hide here with the obscure James Steerforth? When in doubt go to earth, even if it’s with a wino. I was sure I’d heard that name somewhere before…

I creaked to the sofa, where I slept like a log.