Thai Horse

by William Diehl

  ‘And how would we handle that story?’ Holloway asked cautiously.

  ‘Simple. Report that Varney showed up in response to a help call,’ said Cohen. ‘He and his man died heroically trying to defend innocent citizens from being attacked by thieves. You give Varney a hero’s funeral and I forget the whole matter. Or — you can create the big stink. And we can back up our complaint with your own records. Which way do you like it?’

  ‘How dare you threaten me!’ Holloway snapped indignantly.

  ‘Threat, hell,’ replied Cohen. ‘It’s a solution to a very nasty situation.’

  ‘I’ll see you in hell first,’ Holloway said sternly.

  ‘Colonel, you’re bluffing,’ Cohen said with a bored air. ‘You have the perfect out, take it while you can.’

  Holloway sucked his upper lip between his teeth. He didn’t say anything for several seconds.

  ‘Call your man in,’ Cohen said quietly. ‘I’ll give him the proper version of what happened.’

  The mirrors had been replaced in the guest room and Ping had removed the needles and left when Tiana returned home and rushed to Cohen’s side. He put on a good act, wincing with pain, speaking in a trembling voice.

  ‘Ngo jungyi nei,’ she whispered, putting her arms gently around his neck and caressing his face.

  ‘I love you too, darlin’,’ he said, winking across her shoulder at Hatcher, who sat on the edge of the bed.

  ‘Why are you not in the hospital?’ she asked.

  ‘Too tough,’ he said and then started to laugh.

  She sat up sharply. ‘You are making a joke at me!’ she said angrily.

  ‘No, just kidding around.’

  ‘This is not for kidding around!’ she said sternly.

  ‘Tell her, Christian. Was I tough? Did I show some stuff here last night or didn’t I.’

  ‘He is your friend, he would say anything for you,’ she said, staring impudently at Hatcher.

  ‘The Occhi di Sassi does not lie,’ said Cohen. ‘Didn’t think I had it in me, did you, Christian?’ he asked proudly.

  ‘I thought the way you handled the colonel was more impressive.’

  ‘Routine!’ cried Cohen with a wave of his hand. He pulled up his shirt, displaying his bandaged side. ‘And look at that. The Purple Heart, my dear. I’ve been wounded in action. Another inch, and Buddha would have been sitting on the bed instead of you two.

  ‘I must see to the rest of the house,’ Tiana said, excusing herself. After she left the room, Cohen scowled at Hatcher. ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked.

  ‘Five of your people died here last night,’ Hatcher said. ‘Just to protect me. I didn’t come on this job to get people killed. History’s beginning to repeat itself. I should never have come here.’

  Cohen leaned toward his friend and laid his hand on Hatcher’s. ‘Listen to me, Christian,’ he said seriously. ‘You made a few enemies in your time. You can’t evade them. But before you get a bleeding heart, let me tell you, every man here last night had reason to hate the Chiu Chao triads. They all had old scores to settle. Every one of them was here voluntarily and grateful for the chance. And their families will be well taken care of for life. It really had nothing to do with you.’

  ‘Sure. Now you’ll be on Fong’s list, too,’ Hatcher said.

  ‘No,’ Cohen answered. To attack a man’s home is an act of cowardice. Even the triads will be dishonored. Lung hit me without Fong’s approval, I’m sure of it. And now Fong owes me an apology. Lung dishonored him — and botched the job in the bargain. Forg.et it, the old Tsu Fi can take care of himself. You’re the only one who still has to worry about Tollie Fong. Are you still determined to go up to Chin Chin land?’

  ‘More than ever. For the first time I’ve got something positive. A name, China, I’ve got a name. Wol Pot. It’s a starting place. Without Wol Pot, I didn’t have anything.’

  ‘Supposing Cody doesn’t want to be found. Supposing you turn over a rock and something nasty crawls out.’

  ‘I’ll deal with that if it happens.’

  ‘Okay, then there’s only one person you can trust who can take you up there.’

  ‘Who?’ Hatcher asked.

  ‘Daphne Chien,’ Cohen answered.

  ch’u-tiao

  The house was surrounded by flowers and sat on a quiet street in one of the finer residential sections of Macao, forty miles from Hong Kong by hydroplane. Despite its look of tranquility, Macao had dark secrets hidden along its cobblestone streets and behind its terraced red and ocher Mediterranean villas. There was still about it a sense of mystery and decadence; it was still a center for the smuggling of illegal Chinese aliens, carried in the dead of night by snakeboat into Hong Kong; a center for gold smuggling; a protectorate for Chinese triad gangsters who freely practiced white slavery, arranged major dope- smuggling deals between Thailand’s Golden Triangle and Amsterdam and other Western ports, and ordered the execution of their enemies from behind the façades of peaceful rococo villas. The banyan trees lining the Praia Grande concealed corruption of every kind.

  Wang, the retired san wong of the White Palms, who was in his eighties and had been for more than fifty years the leader of the outlaw triad, was feeding his tropical fish.

  He had handpicked Tollie Fong as his Red Pole when Fong was still in his early twenties and had never doubted the wisdom of his choice. But he had warned Fong that Joe Lung was a dangerous Number One, a reckless and irascible killer, who, as the old man had put it, ‘thinks with his gonads’ Now Wang had to deal with the aftermath of Lung’s attack on Cohen.

  Fong arrived at the house at precisely ten o’clock, having flown in from Bangkok on the early morning flight. The house was a stunning tangerine-colored Mediterranean villa on Avenue Conselheiro, which wound around Guia Hill, and had perhaps the finest view of Macao on the tiny peninsula. It was rumored to have been the hideout of Sun Yat-sen while he plotted the overthrow of the Manchu Dynasty, an apocryphal yarn, but possible. Above it, on the pinnacle of the hill, stood what was left of St Paul’s Church, a magnificent ruin destroyed by a typhoon in 1835, while from the rear sun porch of the house, the old man could see far below the oldest lighthouse on the China coast and, beyond it, the South China Sea.

  Fong stood at the front door, checking out his reflection in the glass door before ringing the bell. He was an athletic, light-skinned man, a bodybuilder, tall for a Chinese, with gold-flecked black eyes and modishly trim med black hair that flowed back over his ears, outlining a thin, hawkish face. He preferred Western dress and was wearing a dark blue cotton suit and a scarlet silk tie. Fong was a handsome man whose good looks were marred only by an unnerving inscrutability, for he seemed to be a man without any expression, his face a mask with a mouth that moved. He was ushered through the louse by a bodyguard the size of a sumo wrestler.

  The old man was in his favorite room at the rear of the house, feeding the saltwater fish in three one-hundred- gallon aquariums. The fish were his proudest possession. He knew each by name and by habit and was chatting with them as he sprinkled brine shrimp into one of the tanks when Fong was ushered into the atrium, Fong stood near the old man and bowed respectfully. Wang nodded his head.

  ‘Welcome back, Tollie,’ the old man said without looking up. ‘How was your trip to Bangkok?’

  ‘Shorter than I planned,’ Fong answered. ‘I had to leave before I finished my business, but I can go back tomorrow.’

  ‘What happened at the house of Tsu Fi?’ the former san wong asked.

  ‘Lung went crazy,’ Fong said.

  ‘That is all you have to say about it?’

  ‘What else is there to say?’ said Fong. ‘I never talked to Lung. He found out Hatcher was in Hong Kong from a police informant named Varney. and he attacked the house. Now they are all dead, including the cop. We’ll never really know what happened.

  ‘I warned you that one day Lung would compromise you,’ said the retired san wong.

  Fong nodded. He was embarr
assed that the old san wong was forced to deal with an awkward situation that was basically Fong’s fault.

  ‘He was fulfilling a ch’u-tiao of many years against the American,’ Fong said somewhat defensively.

  Ch’u-tiao was a blood oath, an oath of honor, and one that by tradition could only be resolved in death.

  ‘So it is ended. And would you have approved of this action?’ the old man asked, still playing with his fish.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Fong.

  ‘We do not want war with Tsu Fi,’ the old man said.

  Fong decided to face the subject head-on. ‘Maybe it’s time to get rid of this mei gwok Jew,’ he said slowly.

  The old man looked up, his eyes mere slits. He stared at Fong for several seconds and the younger man became uneasy, realizing he had said the wrong thing. ‘Let me show you something,’ he said. He reached in one of the other tanks, opened his palm, and a large yellow tang swam leisurely around his hand.

  ‘Come, Shang, come to your father,’ the old man whispered.

  The fish finally swam into his hand, pecking at it, looking for food. Wang grabbed the fish arid quickly dropped it in one of the other tanks. Almost immediately it was attacked by three of the fish in the new tank, two of them less than half its size. The tang floundered, darted out of the way only to be hit behind the gills by a small black-and-white domino. The tang flipped to its side, wiggling its tail frantically, but it was already moribund. The two men watched while half a dozen fish pecked the tang to death.

  ‘Next to human beings, fish are the most territorial creatures on earth,’ the old man said. ‘If you inject a stranger into their home, they will kill it. Even the small fish attack it. So the big fish is overwhelmed. Then they break his ballast and he is helpless.’ He looked up at Fong. ‘Do you understand what I am saying?’

  Fong nodded.

  ‘Good. You were the finest Red Pole in the Chiu Chaos,’ Wang said, ‘but to declare war on the house of Tsu Fi and attack him in his own environment was suicidal, as Lung discovered.’

  ‘I would not make the same mistakes,’ Fong said.

  The old man stared at him for several more moments and nodded again. ‘We do a lot of business in Hong Kong,’ he said. ‘Cohen is respected and feared among all the Sun Lee On. He is powerful in the business community. Doing business in Hong Kong means doing business with him.

  You must swallow your pride. Joe Lung compromised you. The rules of the Society require that you make an apology and a gesture to satisfy the insult

  ‘That’s why I flew back from Bangkok this morning.’

  ‘Hai. Then call him now. Arrange a meeting for later today. Get this over with. It is an annoyance I do not care to put up with any longer than necessary.’

  ‘I will do it now,’ said Fong.

  ‘Mm goi,’ said the old man, ‘I am also aware that you, too, have a ch’u-tiao against the American. If necessary, you must be prepared to put it aside.’

  Fong looked surprised.

  ‘I cannot do that!’ the new san wong said, but his predecessor and mentor cut him off before he could go on. ‘You can and will, if it is necessary,’ he said with finality and turned back to his fish,

  Fong knew the discussion was over. He bowed to his master.

  ‘Jo sahn,’ he said,

  ‘Jo sahn,’ the old man answered.

  DAFFY

  The smell of cordite still hung in the air of the house as they waited for Daphne to arrive. According to Cohen, Daphne was the only person they could trust who still traveled upriver into that dangerous land and dealt with the brigands, mainly in materials, Thai silk and madras cotton, which she smuggled into the colony duty-free. She had two things going for her: nothing intimidated her, which earned her the respect of the pirates, and she dealt in gold. Even the Ts’e K’am Men Ti did not bite that strong a hand.

  But Hatcher also suspected Cohen’ s motives. Could he possibly be playing Cupid? Hatcher’s first encounter with Daphne had been the result of a rather perverse Cohen joke. The Tsu Fi had been certain that Hatcher would be attracted to her and Just as certain that she would ignore the brash Yankee gwai-lo.

  Cohen, too, was thinking of that night. In a funny way, Daphne Chien brought the friendship between Cohen and Hatcher full circle, for it was Hatcher’s first meeting with her that had strengthened what had been until then a tentative friendship between the two men, a time for sparring and contemplation and even testing. From the beginning, Cohen had seen in his new friend a man of curious and sometimes frightening balance — a man of intense loyalties and an outrageous sense of humor balanced by a dark, deviously clever, dangerous and unpredictable streak. He had seen the dark side of Hatcher’s persona, the human trigger that could kill with the suddenness and impartiality of a sprung mouse-trap. And then there was Hatcher’s charmingly eccentric side. He slept on the floor, preferred to read in Chinese rather than English, sometimes would go two or three days without eating, and had a bizarre memory, which excluded obvious details and retained only what Hatcher considered important. He knew, for instance, that Sam-Sam Sam was left-handed but could not describe a single one of the tattoos that covered the pirate’s body.

  Hatcher survived by keeping these two disparate sides of his personality in careful balance, never letting one overpower the other, like a coin perched on its edge.

  To Cohen, all of these traits made Hatcher a fascinating, often endearing, and potentially trustworthy friend, but it was at Hatcher’s first meeting with Daphne that Cohen had seen a gentle, almost boyish side of Hatcher’s personality, although the balance was still there. On the one hand, he was surprisingly naïve; on the other, outrageously audacious.

  They had just arrived at the Governor’s Ball, the annual mob scene at the Chinese Palace, to which Cohen, as a joke, had conned Hatcher into going, knowing the mysterious riverman hated crowds, cocktail parties, dances and snobs — all the reasons why everyone else went. Hatcher spotted Daphne the moment they arrived at the party. She was standing on the other side of the main ballroom, a stunning, unattainable statue, observing the shoulder-to-shoulder cocktail crowd with an air of icy indifference. Cohen sensed Hatcher’s immediate infatuation.

  ‘Forget it,’ said China. ‘Your eyes are the wrong shape.’

  ‘Who is she?’

  ‘Daphne Chien. Her mother’s Malaysian, her father’s half Chinese, ha if French.’

  ‘Amazing collaboration,’ Hatcher said half aloud, staring through the crowd at her.

  ‘Every gwai-lo in the colony has tried,’ Cohen whispered. ‘She won’t have anything to do with Westerners.’

  ‘Neither would the Tsu Fi and that didn’t stop you,’ Hatcher answered. ‘You know her?’

  ‘Yeah, I know her,’ Cohen answered with an air of apprehension. Social confrontations, particularly in an event of this importance, made him uncomfortable, so he added, ‘And I’m telling you, she particularly hates Americans.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘Her father was a very successful tailor here, built up a very nice business with a few quality stores in the States. Along comes a big American combine, decides his little company has big potential, makes him a lot of promises, then screws him to the wall, edges him out, and starts mass-producing blue jeans using his name and reputation. They got big, big, big, but the old man never saw a dime of it.’

  ‘What was the company?’

  ‘Blue Max, you’ve probably heard of them.’

  ‘Everybody’s heard of it.’

  ‘The old man was so humiliated he tried to kill himself. She saved his life. . .

  Hatcher was already off and running. Cohen rushed after him.

  ‘Introduce me,’ said Hatcher as he threaded his way through the black-tie crowd toward her. Cohen followed, trying to talk as he made his way through the jabbering guests.

  ‘You haven’t heard the rest of it,’ Cohen said, shouting above the cocktail din.

  ‘So what’s the rest of it?’


  ‘She started a new business. Knockoffs.’

  Hatcher stopped and looked back at him with a wide grin. ‘She counterfeits American blue jeans?’ he said.

  Cohen nodded. ‘She counterfeits Blue Max American- brand blue jeans — at about half their price.’

  ‘Fantastic.’

  Cohen nodded. ‘Ripped them off for enough to start her own label, became their biggest competitor, then merged with them. And ended up in control. And ended’ up firing the whole greedy bunch.’

  ‘Beautiful,’ said Hatcher.

  ‘It sure was, but it left her with a very bad taste in her mouth for mei gwok.’

  ‘So how come you know her?’

  Cohen smiled, ‘I set up the merger deal that put her in the driver’s seat. I’m one Yankee she likes,’ he said.

  Hatcher was more determined than ever to meet her. He started back across the room with Cohen at his side.

  ‘Give me some names,’ he said.

  ‘Names of who?’

  ‘The guys who ripped her off,’ Hatcher said impatiently as they approached her, ‘One or two names, c’mon, hurry.’

  ‘Uh . . . Howard Sylvester, . Allen Mitchell. uh...’

  ‘That’s good enough. Introduce me as Chris London.’

  She got even more beautiful as they got closer, her tall, lithe body encased in a dark green silk sheath that etched each perfect line of her body and seemed to add luster to her almond, almost cocoa-colored, skin, and glitter to deeply hooded eyes that were as green as the dress. Her jet-black hair was tied in a long ponytail that curled over one broad shoulder and fell between her breasts. She wore no rings, her only jewelry being a pair of pear-shaped diamond earrings and a diamond necklace with an emerald and ruby pendant that lay in the hollow of a throat as delicate as a swan’s. She smiled brightly when she saw Cohen.

  ‘China!’ she cried, ‘at last, someone to talk to.

  Cohen kissed her on the cheek, then turned to Hatcher. ‘Miss Chien, Daphne, I’d like to introduce a friend of mine, Chris, uh ‘ he faltered, forgetting the second name.,