Jade Woman

31

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EVA left during breakfast. No woman ever finishes breakfast. In fact, most never even start. She left me a blank check, insisting.

“That bowl you told me about, Lovejoy. For the bride and groom.”

“There isn’t one available,” I said with a mouthful. “Can’t you understand? They’re antiques, unbelievably rare.”

Before the horror of the rioting I’d been telling her of a favorite antique. Mazer bowls were drinking vessels. You offered the bridal pair cake soaked in wine in it, then gave it to the local church. Bowls of the 1490 period occasionally come up for auction. They don’t look much, being only ordinary beechwood with a silver-gilt rim, so are often missed or misunderstood, though worth a King’s ransom. You often see a carbachon stone of rock crystal set in the bottom—not mere decoration: it changed color if the wine was poisoned. In a fit of nostalgia I’d waxed lyrical about owning one.

She bussed me, glancing at her Cartier watch. “You find one, Lovejoy doorlink. And now, until tonight.”

Gone, in a waft of umpteen blended perfumes. I finished her breakfast, having cunningly made her order two. It was going to be a long day.

The street folk had also been hard at it. Dust carts were still busy scooping up heaps of glass. A couple of fires still smoldered, but the fire people were slick as ever. The last of the burned-out cars was being removed as I made my way past the police posts. The population was already streaming to work. For the first time I saw British police, four, passing in a Land Rover, by the ferry concourse. Discreet, or vestigially obscure? In Hong Kong you could ask the same question of China herself, or me, or anyone.

By the time I reached the Flower Drummer I was soaked, beat, and raging. I went to a nearby bathhouse to prepare for war. There, resting after the millionth scrub, I saw the news. Mercifully nobody had died, but eighty-five people had been arrested and thirty were hospitalized. The damage was assessed in millions.

One of the folks brought me a video tape of the morning news interview as soon as I was through the bamboo curtain. I was given tea and orders to run it. The Great Fake Accusation was first on, a sensation. Carmen Noriego, the great Andalusian art expert, had been hired to denounce us. I was pleased and settled back to watch. The Triad was using its collective cortex.

“Accusations claim that Hong Kong’s major art find is actually a fake,” the interviewer intoned. “As the world’s leading Impressionist valuer, what is your view?”

“I saw the very painting two years ago in Kwangtung,” the lady said from between frying-pan earrings with much head tossing. “It is undoubtedly a fake. The brushwork, style, the very quintessential nuance of Song Ping originals have a rapport which…” And all that verbal jazz.

I was out of the chair like a flash and yelling in the corridor for Sim, Fatty, Dr. Chao, Ling Ling, anybody, raising Cain. Two seconds later I had five goons scampering. I was promised an audience within minutes. I got Ling Ling and three women attendants who were banished as I entered the third-floor lounge. No screens, I noted, but a mirror wall. Same difference.

“There’s a traitor in the Triad,” I said, seething. I wouldn’t sit down. “The cretins let that woman art critic give Song Ping’s name away.”

“It was my instruction, Lovejoy.” She gestured. Her hand compelled me to sit. “All Hong Kong knows the expert lady has never been to Kwangtung. The entire Orient now realizes we possess a priceless work of art.”

A long cooling think. “So a baselessly false denial by dud expert about a fake means a truth?”

She smiled. “I trust this heung peen is to your liking, Lovejoy.” She poured tea, somehow leaving one jasmine leaf in the Canton porcelain. I’d have given anything for the tiny polychrome cups. Two centuries old, mint as the day they passed through the Canton enameling shops from their pure white birth in the kilns of Ching-te-chen.

“Forgive me if I suggest that our Chinese tactics might be too duplicitous for your romantic soul. I urge you not to attempt any deceptions without our guidance.”

“The riot was a frigging mess.” I’d said it before I’d thought. I was seething. She was surprised.

“But you required it, Lovejoy. Demonstration. Students—”

“I meant a quiet march, a few graffiti. Not a war.”

“Hong Kong does not believe in mere scrawls. And a stroll has no purpose. A riot, however, cannot be ignored, ne?”

“Right. Then I want to be present at the next phase. Okay?”

“Very well.” She poured more tea. How did she manage to stop the damned teapot wobbling on its wicker handle? I had one at home once and got tea all over the floor.

“Soon, I trust?”

“Tonight, please.” She inclined gently. I went on, “The auction’s still some time away, but we must advertise Song Ping’s painting now, in a formal catalog. Have the usual antiques section set up, but I’ll provide a written description of the work for pride of place. Tonight, stage an unsuccessful robbery somewhere peaceful off the main streets.

I want a chance tourist to be handy with his camera. It must look authentic.” I rose and stood over her. “No deviation from the plan. No armored carriers. No riot police. And no ambulances filled with maimed rioters. Agreed?”

“It shall be exactly as you say, Lovejoy.” She gave me her direct smile. I melted, but tried to look ferociously stern. I carefully didn’t wave at the oneway mirror, to show I was still being taken in.

But where was Marilyn? I hadn’t dared ask Ling Ling.

Outside in the heat I paused. My hand closed on Eva’s check in my pocket. I thought a minute, then went in search—not for my luscious missing model, but for a little stumpy leper on roller skates.