“Why not, Jennings? It’ll be fun to watch. We’ve seen your snatch. Why not let us watch you pee?”
“Well …”
They walked down among the trees and brush a short distance, and she took off her jeans and panties, tipped her hips so her urine would not fall on her feet, and shot her warm stream on the ground, while the boys watched.
After that, it became a now-and-then thing with her. Boys watched her sit on toilets, though they liked it better outdoors. She decided it was fun to let them see her. She would laugh and pee. She let them take Polaroid pictures of her—from the navel down only—as her urine spurted.
One day a boy brought her a pair of his sister’s panties and asked her to put them on, then wet them. She did. That was fun, too. Then one of them brought her a pair of his own blue jeans and asked her to wet them. Two clapped their hands and two took pictures as the stain spread over the crotch of the jeans.
Jenna enjoyed it. She knew it was an odd habit, but she enjoyed it. It was harmless anyway. Some of the boys propositioned her, but they knew the answer would be no. It was always no. Looky, no touchy.
III
OCTOBER, 1995
Alexandra had gained weight in prison, and the black dress she wore when she was taken into New York was a little tight on her. For this trip, she wore handcuffs only, no other restraints, and sat behind a screen in the backseat of a Ford Crown Victoria.
They took her to the office of the United States District Attorney, where a woman assistant district attorney interviewed her in her office. The woman was named Tabatha Morgan. She was probably forty-five years old, and she had oversized, prominent breasts and thick legs.
“Mrs. Shea, what I want to ask you is really very simple. What do you know about CalINet?”
Alexandra shook her head. “What I read in the Times. That’s all.”
“You never heard it mentioned? By your ex-husband?”
Alexandra lifted her hands and wiped her eyes. They had not taken off the cuffs, and she had to raise both hands. “I’ve read there was a fraud on that stock. But that happened this year. I’ve been in prison since 1992. If my former husband had anything to do with it, I wouldn’t know about it. Do you think he comes up to Bedford Hills and talks to me about his business? He’s never even visited me. Not once. And he writes no letters.”
“Mrs. Emily Jennings visits you. She tells you nothing about what Mr. Shea is doing?”
“Nothing much. I very much doubt she knows anything. She’s a wonderful woman. Kind. She’s the only visitor I get.” Alexandra sobbed once, then subdued it. “The only one …”
“Her husband has been in Zurich several times. What does he do over there?”
“I have no idea.”
“And you don’t have an overseas account of your own?”
Alexandra sighed and again wiped her eyes. “How could I have an overseas account? I’m locked up in prison!”
The woman nodded. “We had better not find one. You’ll stay locked up the rest of your life if we do.”
IV
“I don’t like this at all,” Dave said to Janelle.
“Why would they ask her about CalINet? This is getting too close.”
“What the hell made them think she could know anything?”
“I have a suggestion.”
“Which is?”
“Let’s lay low for a while. I don’t know exactly how much you’ve got in those accounts. But plenty. And I have to wonder what we’re going to do with it. I mean, it’s like that money is lost to us. You don’t pay taxes on it—”
“No way.”
“We live on what you and I make from Harcourt-Barnham and my consulting business. I’m sure the IRS watches to see that we don’t live higher on the hog. What good is the money in the European accounts?”
“I’ll tell you,” he said firmly. “I’m a big player now. I can make things happen. That’s what I always wanted. I can move money around … and make things happen.”
“I’ll tell you what I’d like to do. Why don’t you transfer some money to, say, Hong Kong? Then we can go out there for a nice vacation. Never go near Zurich.”
“The Coopers are out there,” he said.
“So?”
V
Dave Shea was incapable of taking a vacation. No sooner had they arrived in Hong Kong than he contacted Len Cooper. He invited him to lunch.
Dave and Janelle were staying at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, the finest and most expensive hotel in Hong Kong. Dave would stay nowhere else. His pride would not let him.
To his surprise, Len did not appear alone. His father Jerry was with him—Jerry who five years ago had threatened him with all kinds of trouble if he did not keep hands off the Sphere computer deal.
This time Jerry was cordial. He shook hands and told Dave he was glad to see him again. Dave knew why. He was a bigger player than he had been four years ago.
“And this is my wife Janelle.”
Both Coopers smiled appreciatively at her, taking note of the brocaded emerald-green silk cheongsam she had already bought in a hotel shop. The skirt was split almost to her hip. “You’re a damned lucky man, Dave,” Jerry said.
Dave squeezed Janelle’s hand. “Don’t I know it.”
“Forgive my mentioning it,” said Jerry, “but I believe your first wife is—”
“Second wife. She’s in Bedford Hills. She shot me, tried to kill me. And did it with an unlicensed handgun. She’ll be in for several more years, minimum.”
“I met her, of course,” said Len. “You were a lucky man then, too.”
“Until she found out about me,” said Janelle dryly.
“Well … congratulations to you both,” said Len. “What brings you to Hong Kong?”
“It’s supposed to be a vacation,” said Janelle.
“Let us lend you a car and driver,” said Len. “There are lots of things to see in Hong Kong.”
“That’s very kind of you,” said Dave.
“What do you know about us that you didn’t know before?” Jerry asked bluntly.
Dave shrugged. “Nothing much. You married your late wife’s sister.”
Jerry nodded. “Biblically forbidden, I suppose. I don’t give a damn. She’s a good woman. I’m seventy-two years old. We have a home in Florida, on a canal where alligators would come into our swimming pool if it wasn’t fenced, and Therese’s a wonderful, caring wife.”
“Then you’re a lucky man,” said Dave.
“I know it. Anyway … It was you that shot down Charlie Han, didn’t you? I guess you play rough, Dave.”
“Don’t you?”
“Goddamnit, I had to. I was fucked bad when I was young. I make my luck, just like you do, Dave. But … we’ve got a business now.”
“Several businesses,” said Len. “Did you come to Hong Kong looking for business opportunities, Dave?”
“He came here for a vacation; it’s supposed to be,” said Janelle.
“Okay. Let me make you a suggestion, just the same. Put a little money in the Shanghai and Hong Kong Bank. You think the Swiss can keep secrets? You don’t know Hong Kong banking.”
Dave grinned. “I know a little. I transferred some money here before we left the States.”
“This is where it’s at, Dave. The Far East. This is the future. I can introduce you to some guys—But be careful. Wasn’t it Bret Harte who wrote, ‘For ways that are mean and tricks that are vain, the Heathen Chinee is peculiar’? You’ve got to watch them every minute.”
“What about the return of Hong Kong to China?”
“The Beijing Communists may be a lot of things, but they are not stupid. There’s a saying: ‘The horses will run, and the clubs will dance.’ They don’t want to close things down. We are going to stay.”
VI
Two days later Dave and Janelle boarded a yacht owned by a Chinese businessman named Chen Peng. They were to have dinner aboard the boat as it crossed to Macau, where they could visit the ca
sinos.
Chen Peng was a Hong Kong billionaire who lived in an estate on The Peak, the highest spot on the island, where many very wealthy families lived. There, as Len had explained, he maintained a group of armed security guards.
Chen was on the bridge, talking to his captain.
“Triad gangs try to kidnap men like him and hold them for ransom,” said Len. “That’s the big crime in Hong Kong.”
“Triad?” Janelle asked.
“Chinese criminal syndicates. The police try to crack down on them from time to time, but they continue to exist. They have elaborate rituals and even costumes. If the Mafia tried to move in on Hong Kong, the triads would simply wipe them out. They are absolutely ruthless.”
Janelle had noticed, somewhat nervously, four ominous little men on board.
“Gurkhas,” Len explained. “From Tibet. Fierce fighters. They served in the British forces here, but they’re being phased out now as the Handover approaches. Some of them have stayed on.”
“How can you do business in a place where—?”
“The triads have not moved in on business the way the Mafia has. They kidnap, sometimes kill, smuggle, handle the drug trade; but we’ve never had to resist them or pay them off. And when Beijing takes over, it’s going to be much tougher for them.”
Chen came down from the bridge. He was a short, chubby man with shiny skin, wearing a yachting cap.
He clapped his hands, and two Chinese girls came out to take orders for drinks. They did not understand English, and he translated for them. Neither was more than seventeen years old, as Janelle judged. They wore tiny bikini bottoms, nothing over their breasts, and their heads were shaved.
Chen smiled and explained, “So they won’t jump ship. Nobody wants a bald girl, except for a whore; and these girls don’t want to be whores. So we shave them every week or so. They’ll be leaving me one day, and we’ll let their hair grow the last few months.”
Janelle glanced at Dave and knew what he was thinking: that when he first saw her she was younger than these girls and was stark naked.
“Where do they come from?” Dave asked.
“Back-country China,” said Chen. “There’s a regular market for them in the western part of the country. They are displayed and auctioned, actually. Most of them wind up as wives of industrial workers in Shanghai and cities like that. They can’t run off and go home, because they don’t know where they come from. An agent of mine bought these two from their parents. They’re sisters. Another two or three years, I’ll arrange marriages for them. They’re very happy, believe it or not. They eat as they never dreamed of eating and live in what for them is unimaginable luxury.”
“They do sex?” Janelle asked bluntly.
“No. They’re virgins. And will be when they marry—which is important to some men.”
Dave muttered to Janelle, “‘The heathen Chinee are peculiar.’”
Chen grinned. “I know the quote, Mr. Shea. We find some of your practices peculiar. Which should not prevent our being friends.”
Dave smiled. “It does not, Mr. Chen.”
“I understand you are looking for investment opportunities,” said Chen.
“Yes.”
“What would you think of putting some funds in a new bank?”
“Here?”
“No. In San Francisco.”
“Mr. Chen, I am given to understand you could buy me out of pocket change. Why would you want me to invest in your bank?”
“I have a colorable reputation,” said Chen. “I would have difficulty getting the necessary government approvals. You could put in money from your European accounts, which I would have enriched hugely. You could put in a modest amount of your own money and become the CEO of the new bank.”
“And then?”
“We would become major lenders. We would take control of corporations. We would become big players in America. I understand from our friends the Coopers that you want to be a big player.”
Dave nodded.
VII
That night in their cabin on the yacht, Janelle whispered in Dave’s ear. “I have a suspicion that everything we do is being taped by a hidden camera. And everything we say is being recorded. So let’s let them think we are just a loving couple. Let’s give them a show, baby. A show they’ll remember but which won’t do them a bit of good.”
He nodded. They lay on the bed, and she put her tongue against his penis. And began bobbing her head up and down, licking and nibbling and sucking.
They had visited Macau, visited two casinos, and Dave had won two thousand Hong Kong dollars—less than three hundred American. They retired to their cabin about two in the morning, to sleep while the yacht returned to its dock in Hong Kong.
Janelle nibbled on his foreskin and murmured again, “I can’t tell you how glad I am you’re not circumcised.”
“I’ve always been grateful to my father, who wouldn’t allow it.”
She ran her tongue around his tip, slipping the skin back just a little to let her lick his glans, which already glistened with pre-orgasmic seepage.
She whispered in his ear again. “Tomorrow night you’re going to do me, lover. Right now, let’s let them think I’m just a horny slut you married to get what you’re getting now.”
VIII
She was right about the hidden camera. In another cabin, Chen Peng and Len Cooper sat sipping brandy and watching a big color television screen.
“I’m happily married,” said Len, “but, God, look at that!”
“He is a fortunate man,” said Chen. “I am sorry I didn’t bring with us any woman I could offer you. My two little girls are virgins, as I said. Maybe … maybe they could do you by hand. I can’t ask of them anything more than that.”
“Christ, look at her! She loves it!”
“She is beautiful and skilled. She uses her tongue like an artist.”
“My wife likes it, too, and is good at it. But—”
“Will he accept my proposition?” Chen asked.
“He’ll take care of himself,” said Len. “That man is no fool.”
Chen pointed at the screen. “She can make a fool of him.”
TWENTY-THREE
I
JANUARY, 1996
Established in San Francisco, the bank was named Enterprise Bank. Chen, as he had promised, put a billion dollars in Dave’s European accounts and others. The money was funneled into Enterprise Bank. The state of California and the federal government examined thoroughly. The money was there, in federal bonds and blue-chip investments. Enterprise Bank was sound. Examiners found no fault in it.
It was an investment bank, not just a depository. Shortly it owned controlling interests in corporations that borrowed money from it.
Dave found himself a minor player in Enterprise Bank. His investment was not great. He was a front man. Not even that. He knew how to identify people who could act as fronts. He didn’t use Cole Jennings. He did use Ben Haye, who left his firm to become CEO of Enterprise Bank.
“One serious problem,” said Axel Schnyder. “Your country, my country, and others are asking where all this money came from.”
“From the Far East,” Dave told him.
“Yes. The transfers came from banks in Hong Kong, China, Japan, and Singapore. It is an international scandal.”
“If the bank operates legally and ethically—”
“Still, people wonder who is really behind it.”
“Do you want to know?”
“I believe I don’t.”
“Well … I have to tell you. There is money in Hong Kong that you and I never dreamed of. God knows how much of it is legal. You should go out there. There is shipping that makes the port of Rotterdam look small. I sat on a terrace one day and had lunch overlooking a ship channel. The ships coming in and going out were a stream. Container ships. Tankers …”
“You have put a lot of your own assets in this bank.”
“My accounts—?”
“A
re sound. But much depleted. You have taken a huge risk.”
“Nothing risked, nothing gained.”
Schnyder nodded. “Frau Hess is at home tonight, if you want her. She tells me you whipped her. I did promise you an interesting woman. She said to tell you that you can whip her again, if you want.”
II
To her very great surprise, Janelle received a call from Chen Peng while Dave was in Switzerland. He was in a suite at the Waldorf, and he invited her to join him for lunch.
She expected to be one of a party, but she found when she arrived that she was the only guest. Chen Peng was cordial. He was dressed in a tailored dark blue suit, white shirt, rep tie, and Gucci loafers. She was wearing one of her favorite minidresses, this one white.
“You are an exquisitely beautiful woman, Mrs. Shea. I should like for us to become better acquainted.”
“In what sense,” she asked bluntly.
“After we drink some champagne I would like to show you a videotape.”
“I think I know what that videotape is.”
He frowned. “You mean you know? You guessed?”
“I am not a bashful woman, Mr. Chen.”
“Yes. I know your history with Mr. Leeman.”
“I imagine you know everything, about everybody.”
“Who said knowledge is power? I forget the origin of the quote, but it is quite famous, isn’t it? Yes. Knowledge is more important than money.”
“I agree.”
After they had emptied their champagne flutes, he switched on a big television set and its VCR. The tape was what she expected.
“That is a remarkable performance,” he said. “Would you like to repeat it?”
“With you?”
“Yes. With me.”
Janelle sighed. “I don’t think so, Mr. Peng. I am faithful to my husband.”
“I trust you will not dislike me for asking.”
“I trust you will not dislike me for saying no.”
Chen nodded and smiled. “Then let’s talk business. Your husband’s European accounts enabled me to transfer funds to The Bank. I will want to transfer more, through him, to various businesses in the States. I can’t have a presence here. I would be resisted. Your government would move to block me. But Mr. Shea, through his European accounts—and maybe he should establish more—can facilitate my moving as I wish to move. I will see to it that he receives generous shares. But … I detect some hesitancy on his part. Why is that?”
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