The Dragon's Tale: A Jack Lauder Thriller

by Clive Hindle

  PART 4

  CHAPTER 1

  When they did get back they discovered that a letter had been delivered to Gerry’s apartment in Jack’s absence. It was from Amie and he recalled the envelope he had found on her desk. It was short and to the point:

  "Dear Jack,

  I spoke to my cousin Lam in Macao. There is something strange here. Gerry was in Macao recently with a young woman but my cousin says there is a problem. I don't know what it is because he is afraid to speak. It is known that you are causing trouble in Hong Kong. My cousin says I should leave town for a while. I am taking this seriously. I do not know if I will see you tonight as it may be too dangerous so I write this letter to warn you. I tried to telephone and leave a message but you were not in. Nobody wants you to find Gerry. I don't know why but you may find that it is best left alone. If I see you later I will tell you all this. If not I hope this reaches you.

  Love

  Amie."

  Diana read the letter before handing it back to Jack, "Poor girl! It’s dreadful. It’s right that some people don't want Gerry found. He's in trouble, trying to escape from it and others have been diverting us down a false trail.”

  Jack came to a rapid conclusion, “One thing I am going to do is telephone K. K. Chow. I'll find out why he sent me off to the Philippines. That guy knows a lot more than he's saying. If Gerry was in Macao, he'll have known it, but he sent me down there."

  He said it hopefully, hoping she’d offer to call for him but she made a face, "I don't think you'll find much out."

  She was right. He telephoned K.K. Chow to be informed he'd left Hong Kong on business. No one would say when he was due back. The business could take days or weeks. He ran a massive business empire, didn’t Jack know that? Yes, the 14K Triad he thought cynically but he bit his tongue. There was nothing else for it then.

  So, the next day, it was with a sense of journey’s end that he found himself in the Bay of the Goddess of the Sea and saw Macao loom close on the horizon. It was one of the most intriguing settlements in the South China Sea, a city built on a narrow peninsula, shaped like a bunched fist reaching south from the barrier gate, which was its only official means of access to the Peoples’ Republic of China. The Hotel Lisboa stood like an orange polka dot marshmallow at the head of the bay. Macao's central boulevard, the Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro, stretched from the hotel right across to the inner harbour on the west side of the peninsula. Determined not to waste any time they went in search of Mr. Lam at the 24 hour casino. It turned out he wasn't on until the evening shift but they were in luck. The hotel receptionist was his fiancée. She’d arranged to meet him that afternoon in the Camoes Gardens. She promised to tell him Jack was looking for him.

  "That could be counter-productive," Diana mused over a beer. "If this chap gets wind you're the Gwai Lo who's causing all the trouble, he’ll do a runner. We could go to the Camoes Gardens - just happen to be there at lunchtime. How nice to see you again, we could say to that receptionist."

  They started out, approaching the imposing façade of the Church of Sao Paulo from a little square up a wide sweep of steps. It stood high above the nest of streets to the north of the main avenue. It was only on reaching the terrace that it became obvious that it was nothing more than a façade rising in four tiers, chipped and cracked with age and the damage of the elements. Just to the north stood the Square of Luis de Camoes, at the head of which, laid out in memory of the sixteenth century Portuguese poet who wrote an epic work commemorating the voyages of Vasco da Gama, were the Camoes Gardens. They wandered among the panyans, ferns and flowers until Diana took Jack’s arm. "There she is!” The little Chinese girl, dressed in conspicuous pink, entered the garden at the south end and walked towards the museum. She waved suddenly at a young man. He wore a big smile on his full moon-shaped face.

  "Pity we've got to break up all this happiness," Jack said, and he strode purposefully towards them just as they embraced. He tapped Mr. Lam on the shoulder, "Hello Mr Lam."

  The young man turned and looked at Jack in surprise. The girl from the hotel, on the other hand, seemed pleased to see them. Chattering on in Macanese she told the young man who Jack was. A shadow flitted through his eyes. Diana had guessed right. His girlfriend only knew the half of it. "I knew your cousin Amie," Jack added, "she was a very sweet girl. She must be a very great loss to you." The Macanese looked as if he didn’t know where to put himself and mopped his brow. "I think you can help me.” Diana’s presence seemed to relax Lam a little. "You told Amie that I was something of a nuisance?" Lam looked embarrassed so Jack added quickly, "There's no need to apologise, I'm concerned only with why you thought that. All I'm trying to do is find an old friend of mine. Amie was helping me and from the last letter she wrote, apparently you warned her that was dangerous." Lam took out a handkerchief and wiped his brow again. The humidity was high but this young man was affected by more than the elements. "Relax," Jack continued reassuringly, "I don't want anything from you other than information." He held out his hands as if to show he was hiding nothing, a fairly futile gesture, but one which human beings tend to make when they seek to make their good intentions clear. "If you can tell me all you know I'll go away and leave you alone."

  Lam looked at Jack curiously, obviously wondering if he was trustworthy. At length he said, "My cousin said you were good man, she usually good judge of people. Let's get away from here, it too public." He looked around fearfully as if he thought they might be under surveillance. "I know a nice café up near Barrier Gate. Will you come with us?" A bus took them to a restaurant close to the gate. All the way Lam kept on looking back down the road, checking if there were any suspicious vehicles behind, ones which might be following them.

  "No, let me," Jack said, as they went to the counter, "I've interfered with your day. Let me just try and get out of your life as quickly as possible. Just tell me what you know." He followed Lam’s instructions in ordering food for them all. They sat in silence for a few minutes while everyone ate and eventually Lam began his tale.

  "Mr Montro, he big gambler. He been Macao now many years, and if anything habit get worse. He always come to Hotel Lisboa. He spend fortune there. It matter not because he earn big money." He made a gesture with his hands as if encircling the sun. "He win some, lose some, but always he go out to night clubs. He meet woman."

  "What, a local woman?"

  Lam looked at the table, staring into his cup full of orange liquid, "Dangerous woman!”

  "How do you mean, dangerous woman?"

  "I get it!" Diana interjected, “Russian girl, big business here since the break up of the Soviet Union?”

  “Yes,” Lam nodded, "very dangerous. Not good." He made a throat cutting gesture with his right hand.

  Jack sat back in his chair, "What's a Russian girl doing in Macao?"

  "There is a Russian employment agency here," Diana said.

  That rang a lot of bells now. “Isn’t that the trade KK Chow was in?” Jack asked.

  “Over here, yes. Among others of course. He was into everything.”

  “Everything illegal.”

  Lam sniggered, "It’s called the Society of Support to the Enterprises of Macao." He looked over his shoulder in an exaggerated fashion. His girlfriend was clinging on to his arm as he spoke. "It‘s a front," he continued, "the Russians bring in dancing girls for the local clientele."

  "Dancing girls?"

  “Hookers! What else!” Diana acted as if she was astonished by Jack’s naivety.

  Lam nodded, "Beautiful girl, the most beautiful girl anyone ever seen." He looked at Diana, "like you miss. She fair haired girl too. She very beautiful. He broke rule."

  "What rule?" Jack replied.

  "He stop treat her like business. He fall in love.”

  "What's wrong with that?"

  “Jack!” Diana looked at him even more astonished. Lam was also looking at him out of large saucer-like brown eyes as if he couldn‘t believe he’d asked that question. />
  The penny dropped eventually. "Oh, I see, you mean that didn't appeal to the local Triads?"

  Lam shook his head, "Not just them, Big Russian bosses too. He took girl to Coloane.” This was an island, accessible by road bridge, just off the coast of Macao. "They went to Westin resort, golf club place," and he pointed vaguely with his right hand in the direction of the island.

  "Why did you say it was dangerous for Amie to be asking questions?"

  "Because she asked me to make questions, I did, and I get threatened."

  "Who by?"

  "Bad men," he replied vaguely.

  "They must have been serious threats."

  "Yes," he turned over his hand and showed where three cigar butts had been stubbed out on the back. "I told I have no hands left,” Diana looked horrified. Lam’s girlfriend kept her eyes modestly fixed on the ground, as if this kind of talk was not for her ears.

  Jack looked at the burns and shuddered inside, “Did you tell Amie about that?”

  “Yes, I did. I was scared.”

  “I guess it scared her too.”

  “Oh no, not Amie, she never scared.”

  Jack noted that. He remembered that picture in her wardrobe. What was her secret? But it was off the point and he let it pass for now. “Is Gerry still here?”

  Silently Lam shook his head, “I have never seen him since. He had to go back to Hong Kong because of work. Then the girl’s job finished and I think she go home. When he came back she gone. That was last time.”

  “I was told he was last seen on the Macao ferry,” Jack replied.

  Lam shook his head. He didn’t know that. In fact he knew nothing more. They’d got out of him everything he had, or was willing, to tell them.

  Jack got up to go but then he remembered the unanswered question. “Why is it that Amie was never scared? What was she really?”

  “Amie?” He squirmed uncomfortably and then obviously decided it didn’t really matter now, “Amie was undercover cop.”

  They left the two lovers to enjoy the remainder of their time together. After walking for a while in the sunshine, both of them silent, mulling over what Lam had said, they hailed a taxi and headed for the Lisboa. "I don't know what to make of it," Jack said, "it gets more sinister each step we take. It looks obvious now that the same people murdered Amie, probably because Lam told them he was asking questions on her behalf and probably because she was making the same enquiries and she got too close. You know, I never told you that I think I met her before. I think she was over in England and she may have been present at one attempt on my life.”

  “Wow! Why would she be there unless she thought Gerry had left something with you? You had a lucky escape. I think you were getting friendly with her.” She gave him a nudge but he didn‘t respond. “So she must have got a job at Gerry’s place as part of her cover?”

  “Sounds like it.”

  “And Lam was the cause of her death?”

  “Perhaps. Inadvertently of course. He wouldn’t know they’d react like that.”

  But he was thinking hard. None of this explained why she attacked him in England. But maybe she didn’t. He saw two people that day. The first one attacked him then someone intervened. The second person was the one he drove at. That might have been Amie. Maybe she wasn’t attacking him at all. Maybe she was helping him. He shared none of this with Diana.

  They headed over to Coloane island to take a look at the Westin resort where Gerry had apparently stayed and they sipped gin and tonics on the veranda looking out over the bay. The sea was a slate grey colour, the legacy of the silt from the Pearl estuary. Coloane was famous for its black sand resorts. "So Gerry broke some unspoken rule by falling in love with a night club hostess," Diana summed up, "and Mr Lam has been told not to talk about it, and his cousin may well have been killed because of it." She shook her head. “No, that doesn't sound too good. It looks as if we've blundered into a lethal situation and we‘re not safe in it. We really ought to think about this, Jack. This isn’t England."

  "And whoever's running the show over here, they've got a lot of clout in Hong Kong as well. I'm shunted off to the Philippines while they look for Gerry? Does that make sense?”

  They headed back over to the city and a few moments after they had got into their room there was a knock on the door. Diana opened it and the young receptionist stood outside. She wrung her hands anxiously. Diana ushered her in and told her not to look so worried. The girl began to blurt out a story. She hadn't wanted to say anything when Mr. Lam was talking, but she knew more of the later part of the story. She'd spoken to Gerry often when he stayed at the hotel. His tale was the source of gossip in the town. He'd taken up with a Russian girl who was the most popular hostess in Macao. Not only westerners liked her. Gerry had broken the rules, but even more so the girl had. She'd started neglecting the clientele, not turning in for work, spending all her time with this Australian. They’d decamped to Coloane island, taking the mickey out of her employers. They weren’t even discreet! They went to every fashionable nightclub and they frolicked in the pool in the daytime. Everyone commented on how in love they were. But the two lovebirds didn't realise the power her employers wielded. Every so often Gerry had to go back to Hong Kong to earn more money and whenever he did the girl was left alone - she wasn't allowed into Hong Kong, Immigration was too strict. When Gerry was taking care of business, the girl’s employers acted. They didn't do anything nasty to her; they just revoked her visa. They didn't have to do more than that. Girls like her were ten a penny. She just didn't have a job any more; she was in breach of her visa conditions. When Gerry came back at the weekend, she was back in Russia.”

  “Do you know where?”

  “Vladivostok. That’s where she came from.”

  Best of all and as if with a final flourish, the receptionist took from her handbag a photograph of the girl for whom Gerry had fallen so extravagantly. It was the face of a beautiful young woman. She had a milky-white complexion. Her hair was like flax, luxuriously piled above her head and yet still flowing down her back to her waist. Her mouth was lipstick red, slightly overdone, but even the ruby colour couldn't disguise the large sensual mouth and the almost porcelain fragility of her face. Her smile was enigmatic, the eyes wistful, as if she were lost somewhere in the vast plains of her homeland, but it was her hair which gave both the most immediate and the longest-lasting impression: long golden tresses, like a Niagara of light, seemingly fluid, as dense and voluptuous as a cornfield under wind, said: come to me, come and rescue me!

  The girl seemed happier now she'd told them all she knew, as if a burden had been removed from her shoulders. Jack stood on the balcony, staring out across the bay of the sea goddess. Suddenly, in that luxurious hotel room, after travelling many miles on an odyssey which even he had never totally understood, everything had fallen into place with an almost mathematical precision. He finally knew everything. He remembered once when, in his cynical, Australian way, Gerry had called him the last of the great romantics. "Not me, mate," he said to himself. But he knew there was only one place to go now.

  Diana left Jack to his own thoughts. When he came back into the apartment he could hear the sound of her splashing around in the jacuzzi. She’d left the door open but politeness made him knock anyway. When he entered, she smiled and said, “Got your head sorted?" He gave a half smile in reply. "The water's warm," she added, "come in and relax?"

  Finally he emerged and towelled himself down. Entering the bedroom he saw her lying there asleep, still totally naked, the window wide open, the warm evening sun flooding in. She was lying on her tummy, pointed towards the foot of the bed, facing the mirror. He climbed on to the bed behind her and snuggled up to her, hearing only a murmur of delight. Sleep came eventually, dark and rich and velvety, like drowning in chocolate, but before he drifted off he proposed and heard the whispered "Yes”.

  CHAPTER 2

  There was only one place left on the itinerary now and that was Vladivostok. It
was about an hour‘s ride into the city from the airport and they were booked into a hotel near the station which Diana had arranged, although she claimed she‘d never been there before. He didn‘t quite know whether to believe her; she seemed to know the place well and he couldn’t help but have that nagging doubt that this was the way he always was with her, unsure whether he could trust absolutely anything she told him. Maybe that was just the result of their having grown up with totally different lives; maybe it was what happened if you didn’t marry your childhood sweetheart with whom you’d rubbed along for long enough to knock off all the rough edges together. It didn’t happen like that when you got together in later life; you had to adjust to the other person and it wasn’t a seamless process.