Jade Woman

12

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YOU bastard, Steerforth. You planned it all along!”

“Look, Lovejoy. Everybody’s for sale.”

Hong Kong isn’t for pavement racers. We moved erratically through the shoppers’

hullabaloo, dodging amongst the curb hawkers. Conversation gets in half a word every yard; probably why the lingo’s monosyllabic and deafening. As we moved, Steerforth’s puce face flicked in and out of vision like in some grainy silent film. If I could have clobbered him without hitting any six Chinese, I’d have given it a try. I was blazing.

“No! You look! It was a setup. Admit it!” I decided against clocking him one, seeing that each police pagoda was inhabited by a vigilant bobby, and a pair of scrapping tourists would stand out somewhat.

“For Chrissakes!” he gave back. He was actually indignant, can you believe. “It’s the best favor I’ve ever done!”

“Another thing, Steerforth.” A horrible suspicion arose. “What were those bloody tickets all about?”

He saw my murderous look and shrugged surrender. “It’s the local rent system. One ticket every ten minutes. Or every second tune.” He misinterpreted my shocked silence and added helpfully, “It’s called chung.”

“Rent? Chung? Who rents what?”

“Prostitutes rent restaurant space. Clients rent a bar girl. Or we rent a table when we’re…”

I clouted him. Because of the crowds I didn’t get a proper swing so it only knocked him sideways. Passing Cantonese laughed, exclaimed, paused. I pushed on and stood glaring unseeing at a pillar covered in Chinese fly-posters, the only static thing in the shambling din. It advertised a surgeon’s skill and price, complete with graphic photographs of a hemorrhoidectomy. Jesus. Rent. Me? How to make fame without really trying.

“Bloody nerve!” I found I’d been pushed by a crowd swirl into a side street. Steerforth grabbed me just as I was about to be swept upwards from the main thoroughfare. And I do mean up, practically vertical. It was the steepest street I had ever seen, steps all the way to God.

“Not that way, Lovejoy.” He yanked me back into the maelstrom, abruptly disturbed.

Curiosity can shelve fury for a while, can’t it? Intrigued, I gazed up the forbidden street.

People were drifting up and down. No vehicles, of course. Tall shorings, balconies with lanterns and greenery, signs, washing on poles stepping aloft into the dark sky. These dim dwellings were older. Curly eaves showed at the top. A temple? And all capped by the looming denser dark spine of the mountain.

“Cramped up there.” I nodded at the laddery street, intrigued by his sudden aversion.

“Come on. Not the Mologai.” Odd. Mologai? Did he have some other scam going among those stacked dwellings? Besides turning destitute antique dealers into gigolos, I mean.

He resumed, “You’re starting to gall me, Lovejoy. It’s bloody hard scraping a living here. Don’t you forget it.”

He was telling me? “Don’t flannel, Steerforth.” We were among an entire pavement of gold and jewelry shops shining bare globes onto the evening shoppers’ parade. I was becoming distracted between righteous anger and my magpie mind. Unsighted by the noisy throng, I nearly fell over a bloke doing acupuncture on an elderly lady before an admiring crowd.

“I picked you from the gutter, Lovejoy. You owe me!” He was even more enraged than I was, and I was close to murder. “I’ve booked you out twice more, you pillock.”

“You’ve what?” I gaped at him. He was a maniac. I’d heard people were driven insane by tropical heat.

“It’s money, you silly bugger. Tonight. We’ve two German ladies at eight, supper. Then two Americans, that sports convention in Mongkok. We have to. Or we don’t eat!”

I’d never even heard of women buying blokes before. It’s usually the other way round.

I was stupefied. I didn’t know whether to clout him or just walk off. But where to? I’d done the starvation hit. “You’re off your frigging head, Steerforth.”

“Lovejoy.” We halted in the press, him grimly serious. “Hong Kong’s pretty. But it’s a fatal attraction.” As he spoke he seemed suddenly haggard. “It’s beauty, exhilaration, all of that. But it feeds on carnage, crime, deals so savage they make playgrounds of other cultures. I’ve seen it happen a thousand times, Lovejoy. You visitors come, Hong Kong’s the loveliest show on earth. Beneath, it’s vicious.”

Understanding drifted into my thick skull. He meant the jade woman. I was suddenly tired by the noise, too many complications. Life’s a battle, yes, but every minute, every single second, to the limit? Time I was off. There was still the Macao ferry. I hauled out Lorna’s money and gave him a rough split. Sundry people saw and exclaimed a long loud “Waaaaiiii!” in delight without breaking step.

“Don’t do it, Lovejoy.” He seemed so sad. “I need a partner with a gimmick. And you need my help.”

“Help? From you?” I was turning to go when a vast black saloon pulled up at the curb.

It nosed aside hawkers, bicycles, people. A fruit peddler’s packing-case stall went over.

Two men got out, suited, lank-haired, tidy. God, so tidy. The boss, a large iron man with a dumpy little pal, looked at me. My heart sank. These were very, very hard men.

“Lovejoy. In, please.” His consonants were almost elided.

“In?” I said foolishly. I glanced back at Steerforth in mute appeal. He only stood there in the light cast from the blinding jewelry shops, engulfed in sorrow.

“Can’t help you now, Lovejoy,” he said. The big man gave a fractional jerk of his head and Steerforth quickly stepped away. Three paces and he was gone.

“Er, listen, lads,” I began, optimistically relying on patter.

The leader said, “In.”

The car’s interior was icy with air-conditioning. I dragged on cold breath like an addict.

One thing, if this kidnap was a ransom job, they were on a loser.

Cars don’t go fast in Hong Kong. They try—how they try—and make a racket, but it’s useless. Despite the jerky crawl and not knowing where or what, I guessed a great deal about my captors during the journey. They were in the know about me. They belonged to an organization, gulp. And they had strict orders, which they were following to the letter. All this I knew when we passed the Digga Dig’s flashing sign. Under the impulse of a twinge of daft nostalgia I drew breath to speak, but the shorter bloke said a few Cantonese monosyllables to his mate and laughed. I stayed silent.

We drove for about twenty minutes, then crossed on the vehicular ferry to Central District. Nearer to the Macao terminus? For a second or two I peered hopefully about but we stayed in the car. During the entire short crossing, one of the goons simply stared at my face. I understood. I wasn’t to try anything. I tried asking where we were going but was head-shaken to silence. After that I simply watched the evening stir on the pavements, vaguely hoping to spot the way back. The flashing shop neons petered out, and we glided more smoothly in darkness torn here and there by tall lights. Villas, houses, garden walls, even trees, ornamental bushes. No police here, no chance of a quick sprint down the road home.

The gateway was beautiful, walls splayed aside for a huge pair of ornamental gates.

The high walls trailed blossomy fronds. Lanterns glowed. A notice in Chinese and English on burnished brass seemed to be telling the world pretty frankly that this was the residence of one Dr. Chao, MD. I stepped out before a marbled porch, soft lights, and flower perfumes. A fountain played in the walled garden. It looked murderously rich. Instantly the hot night drenched me to a sweaty sag, Hong Kong’s favorite trick.

My guardians pointed to the marble steps.

A small precise lady admitted me into coolth. She wore baggy black trousers and an overlap white tunic and flapped ahead of me to the biggest lounge I’d ever seen.

“You like our view, Lovejoy?”

An elderly man was standing beside the vast window. In fact it was more of a missing wall opening to a veranda. He beckoned me forward. He wore the Chinese man’s long cassocky cheongsam, high neck. Thin, bald, bespectacled, smoking a cigarette.

A smudge of distant midnight hills over a sheen of water, and the city below, reflecting a trillion minute glimmers. We seemed to be hovering in a marble airship over some giant fluorescent shoal. I got his point. Views mean wealth, not beauty.

“Hong Kong’s name is actually fairly recent.” He spoke in a cultured accent a million classes superior to my miserable speech. “It means Fragrant Harbor. A contradiction nowadays, I’m afraid. Harbor, yes. But fragrant…”He smiled, his thin features tautening into a cadaver’s. “Queen Victoria was furious when Captain Elliot took Hong Kong into her empire. She said it would never be a center of trade! The poor hero was punished—

made ambassador to Texas. A cruel joke, ne?”

“It’s exquisite,” I said. His fingers were the sort you sometimes find on ultra-moneyed people, long, slender, and satinskinned, hands that nocturnal slaves beaver to restore.

Watching the lights out in the dark, I suddenly shivered. Such beauty had nearly done for me.

“Cold?” Chao said.

“No. An angel walking on my grave.”

The old man seemed to blanch. “Angel? Grave?”

“A saying. When you tremble for naught. Like ghosts, y’know?” I smiled affably, but Chao stood frozen.

“Ghosts? You see ghosts, Lovejoy?”

“No,” I said, narked. “Just my joke.”

“Joke?” He took a step. I detected a faint quivering of his long robe. “These things are not for joking, Lovejoy. You understand?”

“All right,” I agreed with the old fool.

“Not that one is superstitious, Lovejoy. Ghosts, angels—these are old wives’ tales, ne?

For, as one might say, the birds. Not modern.”

“Right,” I said, relieved we had cleared that up. “Er … ?”

He smiled. We were back on the rails. “You blundered into a sensitive local issue, Lovejoy. Antiques.”

“Great.” I beamed, as ever when antiques loomed.

“It is common knowledge that China, that vast culture, nurtures antiques undreamed of. Superb porcelains, delicate ancient tapestries, carved gold-on-wood screens, terra-cotta figures, jade, precious jewelery of emperors, paintings, manuscripts, calligraphics, the most profound works of man. China currently embargoes their export.” He paused politely.

“Er, sorry.” My moans faded.

“Do not apologize, Lovejoy. I am curious to encounter someone to whom all treasure is not monetary. But your love for these ancient wonders must cause you some uncertainty, ne?”

“A little.” Understatement of the year. “Antiques outweigh money, you see.”

“Outweigh money?” He was amazed. “Can such a madness be?”

“There’s not many of us about,” I admitted. “You smuggle antiques from China into Hong Kong?”

“Of course. Not enough.” He sat, bent in regret, braced himself. “It is dangerous, but our fishing junks do transfers daily.”

“And you thicken them out with fakes?”

“Please, Lovejoy.” He raised hands. “Not fakes. Never that word. No. We merely wish to honor the skills of China’s ancient potters, painters, sculptors. We emulate them.

Naturally, we attempt to dignify our poor efforts by the correct potters’ marks, signatures. You do understand?”

I did. A fake by any other name.

“Imagine, Lovejoy, how many collectors would suffer disappointment, museums remain unsatisfied, the auction houses which would dry up if we didn’t.”

“Imagine,” I said dryly. “So you keep the antiques pipeline flowing with genuine items mixed with fakes—er, replicas.”

“We deplore that word too, Lovejoy. I regard our newly made antiques as testimonial items made in honor of the ancients.”

Oh, aye. “And I exposed some in the viewing as… well, less than ancient?” I felt very uneasy. “Look, er, Doc. I’ll make it up. I didn’t realize there was a scam on, see?”

He was silent so long he made me nervous. I glanced about the room. Modern gunge, quite stylish. And expensive. The rosewood was genuine rosewood, the silk hangings real silk. The air-conditioning hummed gently somewhere—he could afford to run it with the coolth washing away into the night. Still, he hadn’t much taste. I wouldn’t have given a groat for the entire load of furnishings. Don’t misunderstand. It was pleasant enough. Fetching paintings, ornamental chairs, New Zealand jade cutouts in angular ebonized frames. But all in all a decorative lorry-load of modern crud. Nearly.

The amah brought a tea tray and exchanged a few words with him as she set it down.

She grinned, pleased at having a visitor. No lack of eye contact there.

“Amahs are a special entity in Hong Kong, Lovejoy.” He moved so slowly, gesturing me to a chair opposite, that I wondered if he was quite well. He was thin as a lath, an ascetic medieval scholar. “Her plain white tunic indicates a general amah. A tunic with blue piping signifies a baby amah, a nanny. And so on. We Chinese are very systematized.”

He poured, using those overlord’s hands. I’d have sat on mine but remembered in time that I had earlier been hoovered to a bathhouse’s pristine purity. The tea was in miniature bowls, scrolled in reds, yellows, and greens, Cantonese style. Half a toothful.

Elegant, but a waste of time. I sipped politely, pretending that it lasted.

“Your performance with Steerforth was disturbing, Lovejoy,” Dr. Chao said, refilling for us both. “Naturally, your predicament required you to exploit those two American ladies, but—”

“Here. Half a mo.” I was uncomfortable. How much did this bloke know? And which performance? “I was exploited, not them.”

“You?” He seemed astonished and his gaze at last met mine, black-brown irises between ocher folds. They were eyes that had seen everything. Not an ideal opponent for cards. “But you made quite good money, Lovejoy. Above average, I assure you.”

I felt myself go red. “I didn’t realize that I was, er—”

He smiled, his facies parchment on a fidget. “Lovejoy. There are places in the world where prostitution is a thoroughly respectable way of raising money. Morality unfortunately has to swim against the tide of commerce in banks, stock exchanges, or bedrooms. Why be ashamed?”

“Yes, well, er…”

A man entered and stood by the door, my head kidnapper. At a word he crossed the long Tientsin carpet and carelessly folded a wooden screen and propped it on the wall with a bump. A nearby framed piece of silk quivered. I was instantly half out of my chair, spilling my tea.

“What is it, Lovejoy?” Dr. Chao asked as the goon left.

“Silly sod.” I glowered after the unconcerned nerk. “He nearly bashed that silk.”

“Is a piece of cloth worth a display of temper?”

“It’s worth the rest of your furniture, dad.” People are pathetic. The framed fragment was a piece of silk damask, the sort Western collectors call turfans, got from the Sinkiang graves. You get up to eight colors. This one had five. “Fourteen centuries ago some unknown genius worked those trees in that design,” I grumbled. “That nerk should look after it, not shake it to pieces.”

The old man was gazing at me. “So,” he murmured. “It is true.”

“Here.” I gave him the bent eye. “Was that deliberate? Did you bring in that goon just to see if—?”

“Yes. Leung was ordered.” He spoke quietly but in a way that shut me up. “Lovejoy.

You will now return to Kowloon and tonight fulfill your, ah, assignments with Steerforth.”

“I’ll what?”

“Tomorrow you will present yourself at the entrance of the Flower Drummer Emporium at ten precisely. Later you will provide a complete authentification of all the antiques at the viewing. That list you will then give to Mrs. Gelman during your, ah, encounter with her.”

My think took about an hour. I’m not sure. “What if I don’t like being a hired, er… ?”

This time he managed not to smile, to him easy. “Then your friend Algernon’s racing team in Macao will suffer tragic accidents in practice laps on the Avenida da Amizade.

You will simultaneously be implicated in a scandalous drugs theft. The police in East Anglia will receive you back in chains. They are most irritated at your absence—”

“Only wondered,” I said, narked. “No need to keep on.”

“Leung and Ong are your, ah, protectors until further notice.”

On the way back across the ferry in the limo, I began to feel even more uneasy. Was I the most naive person alive? Hong Kong seemed to think so. Innocence is like purity, an absolute human condition. It’s experience that has grades of difference. Like sin, crime, sex, and other essentials of life.

Later on, in a fairly average hell of a mess and at death’s door, I was to remember that tranquil little thought and wished it had warned me enough. Had I been astute it might have saved lives, antiques, and a fortune. But I’m thick, so I ignored the fact that innocence is okay in its way, but it’s dispensable. Experience is something life cannot do without, even if it takes the form of brutality and utter greed.

Ten minutes to eight I entered the Digga Dig and strolled over to Steerforth sitting at a table. He gaped.

“Guten Abend, Jim lad.” I sat. “Ladies not here yet?”

“Lovejoy.” He poured me a glass of wine. “Thank Christ you’ve come. I’ve been trying to hire a substitute but there’s not a spare prick around tonight—”

“No details, Steerforth.” I sipped the wine, watching the entrance. “Laurel and Hardy, the blokes who nabbed me, knew exactly where you’d be.”

“No details, Lovejoy.”

“That’s just what I said.”

“You’re learning,” he said sardonically.

“Hang on a sec.” I’d caught that hopeful brightening of countenance and the sudden lift of a head. Phyllis, gray lady, fellow failure. I collected a lighter from a waiter and stopped beside her, the ultimate smoothie. “Wotcher, missus. Light?”

“What?” She stared up, panic flitting across her features.

“Can I offer you a light?” I tried clicking the lighter, only there didn’t seem to be any proper switch. It was a super-modern slim-line job, slippy as hell. I’m pathetic. Clumsily I dropped the bloody thing and had to rummage for it on my hands and knees. I rose, red-faced. Teach me to be pleased with myself.

Phyllis gazed frantically up at me. “No, no. I don’t smoke. No, no.” She was so flustered, shaking her gray hair. Even her dress was grayish. Her drink was grapefruit color, well-nigh gray too.

“Oh. Sorry, love.” As I turned away she seemed to find resolve and made a desperate bleat. I paused. Aghast, she shook her head. I took a tentative step. She uttered a fraction of sound. I said, “Yes?” She said, “No, no,” buried her head over her drink. I tottered off, gave the waiter his crappy lighter back. I was worn out.

Steerforth was amused by my smoothie escapade. “Two things, Lovejoy. One: you squeeze that new emerald lighter; it does everything itself. Two: Phyllis Surton is famous in the Digga Dig for being always here, daring herself to taste forbidden fruits.

She never will, of course. She’s dyed-in-the-wool propriety, a true-blue expat. Her husband’s big in Chinese manuscripts at the university. Dressing gray’s her disguise. As camouflaged as a candle in a mine.”

“They lead to explosions.” I felt for her. She was hastily gathering her things. So much for my advances.

Steerforth suddenly rose in effulgent greeting. Two women were approaching.

“Darlings-darlings-dar-lings! What paradise—you’rehereandsogorgeous-too… !”

I screwed a grin of delight on my face. Duty called.