The Secret

by Harold Robbins

  Liz was one hundred percent at liberty to involve herself with another man, anytime. I had one reservation, which I did not mention to her. She was not to give herself to my son, Len. And I think she had thought about it.

  Her reaction to being given a sheer black teddy, sized for her big body, was endearing. She wore it that night in our hotel room in Beijing and every night after that until I gave her other things. Back in Hong Kong I asked Charlie Han to have panties—including crotchless ones—and bras made up for her. It amused Charlie, I am sure, to have a strip panel made up for Liz.

  What in the world would she do with it? Charlie must have smiled and wondered.

  Len described Liz with the word Rubenesque. I didn’t know what that meant. I even had to ask him how to spell it. He showed me some pictures in an art book, to illustrate. So okay, she was Rubenesque, but I would rather have had her than some stringbean model—or, for that matter, any little Chinese girl I saw. Liz McAllister was a woman, all woman, every pound of her.

  Len used another word. He said her hooters were enormous. I guess they were. I liked her big, shiny-pink nipples. She had an ample tummy with a deep, dark navel, a fleshy butt, and chubby arms and legs. She had a forest of pubic hair. It took some convincing to get her to show all these things. But when she did, and when I praised them, it made her ingenuously happy.

  It was easy to make Liz happy.

  She gave sloppy head, bobbing up and down energetically, with enthusiasm, and slavering, and watching her do it was almost as good as feeling it.

  And she could talk about anything. She had the education I had never had myself but had seen to it that Len had. If Len had told her she was Rubenesque, she would have known exactly what he meant.

  Hell. Liz was a fun girl. I was going to be in Hong Kong another ten days after we returned from Beijing. She was supposed to go back to Houston. I decided to keep her with me. Apart from everything else, she would be company on that long, long flight.

  * * *

  Len pressed Charlie Han on the question of why Bai Fuyuan could not match our colors precisely, and also on the question of why some of the merchandise in the Beijing store did match.

  “I’ve been worrying about that,” Charlie said.

  We were at dinner at Mozart Stub’n, the Viennese restaurant I looked on as a refuge from Chinese cuisine. Vicky and Liz were with us. The place was within walking distance from our apartment building, and we had become known there.

  “If he can make some items with exactly matching colors, why can’t he make others?” I asked.

  “It’s not a matter of some items and other items,” said Vicky. “It was different examples of the same items. I looked very closely. The same panty or teddy was piled up with those slightly nonmatching colors.”

  “Which means…?” I asked.

  “Which means,” she said, “that not all his merchandise comes from his establishments in China. He’s somehow getting his hands on some of our merchandise.”

  “I think he’s not matching the colors because he doesn’t want to match them,” said Len. “He’s got some reason for wanting to be able to distinguish what he makes for the Cheeks label from what is made here and elsewhere.”

  “I wish we could prove that,” I said.

  “Why bother?” Charlie asked. “The line is making a nice profit, so…”

  “I’m going to talk with Henry Wu,” said Len. “I want to know if the dyes he uses for us are unique.”

  “I wouldn’t want Bai to think he can pull a fast one on us,” I said. “He had better understand who he is dealing with.”

  * * *

  The next day we received an invitation to dinner from a man I had never met and Len had never met. His name was Yasheng Lin, and he was identified to us by Charlie Han as a Hong Kong billionaire.

  I should have done more homework on Hong Kong billionaires. I had supposed that the world’s real money men lived in the States chiefly, with a few in the U.K. maybe some in Germany, and a few in France—with, I should add, some in Japan.

  I’d had no idea who lived on the Peak.

  A Mercedes limousine picked us up at our apartments and set off on a climbing route that would take us to the highest elevations of Hong Kong.

  We arrived at a compound. Like everyone else, I suppose, I had seen the Godfather movies and carried in my mind an image of the Coreleone compound. The Yasheng compound was the same, for real.

  A wall surrounded it. We entered through a gate ostensibly guarded by a turbaned Sikh but in fact guarded by ominous little Gurkhas hovering in the shadows.

  Inside the compound we faced an Edwardian mansion. But the compound also contained at least half a dozen homes on a private street inside the walls. Just inside the gate was a garage that housed three Rolls cars and three more Mercedes. To its left was a broad swimming pool faced by cabanas.

  “I wanted you to see,” Charlie Han said before we left the car, “how Hong Kong billionaires live.” Then he added ominously, “The Honorable Yasheng Lin could buy Gazelle, Incorporated out of pocket change.”

  I glanced at Len. He stared at me. What had led Charlie Han to make that statement?

  As we entered the mansion, the word taipan came to mind. This, surely, had been the home of some rich and powerful British trader. I wondered how long it had been owned by a Chinese.

  Inside the ponderous iron-bound oak front door we waited in a cavernous foyer. Lighted glass showcases covered all the stone walls, displaying a varied collection of things someone thought worth collecting and displaying. Some of the items were Western in origin, and others were Chinese.

  Charlie pointed out a set of cups. “Wine cups,” he said. “Solid gold.” He explained why each cup had in the center a stem capped with a gold ball. “The ball would hit your nose if you tried to tip the cup all the way back and drink all the wine at once. You would have to sip the wine. It was a way of keeping people from getting drunk.”

  Another case displayed a set of trophies won in yacht races. This confirmed my suspicion that the house had been British.

  Still another case contained antique knives and pistols, also an apparently genuine steel chastity belt.

  Most fascinating was an enameled crown, turquoise-colored, set with precious and semiprecious jewels, topped with a gold fringe of dragons. Ropes of pearls hung from the heads of the outermost dragons and would have fallen over the wearer’s shoulders.

  “Yasheng Lin,” Charlie said under his breath as a door opened and a small Chinese gentleman came toward us.

  “Good evening, Mr. and Mrs. Cooper, Mr. Cooper Senior, and Miss McAllister. Welcome. It is good to see you again, Charlie. Come with me.”

  Yasheng Lin was, I suppose, sixty to sixty-five years old. His face was what I would call Oriental, with slanting dark eyes and a shiny, faintly yellow complexion. He wore a dark blue double-breasted suit and a white silk shirt.

  By gesture he directed us to an adjoining room where we found a bar and a buffet of hors d’oeuvres.

  When I was in Paris, Giselle had taken me out to see the Palace of Versailles. This room was like the rooms in that palace: gleaming parquet floors, walls covered in pale yellow silk, graceful antique French furniture …

  Two little Chinese girls served us. They might have been twins. Each wore a form-fitting knee-length cheongsam with skirts slit to their hips, showing and then concealing their sleek legs as they walked. These were made of silk, one green and one red, and they were embroidered with gold and silver thread. One girl brought us little plates and offered hors d’oeuvres from a tray. The other took our orders for drinks. I asked for a Scotch and soda.

  “Well … Misters Cooper. You have learned to like Hong Kong, have you not?”

  “I have,” I said. “Very much. I’m impressed just now with the dresses your young women are wearing. I was thinking that maybe we should sell dresses like those in our shops in the States.”

  “Cheongsams,” said Yasheng. “Yes. I have visit
ed your shops. You could perhaps have them made up in sheer fabrics.”

  “I think they would sell made just as they are. They are very attractive.”

  “Well … perhaps they would be a—how shall I say?—a little pricey for the retail trade.”

  “You can’t buy those in stores,” said Charlie. “Mr. Yasheng has them made. If I had one made up like that—that quality silk, that embroidery—I’d have to charge you … say, two thousand dollars for it. I mean American dollars.”

  “You saw the one given to me in Shenzhen,” said Vicky. “How much is it worth?”

  Charlie Han turned down the corners of his mouth. “More than that,” he said quietly.

  Vicky frowned. “I suppose it’s rude of me to ask the price of a gift,” she said.

  “Anyway, they are pretty, are they not?” Yasheng asked.

  “Beautiful,” said Vicky.

  A servant—another little girl in a cheongsam—came into the room and spoke to Yasheng.

  He rose. “A friend of ours has come. I will welcome him.” He went out to the foyer and in a moment returned with a smiling and bowing Bai Fuyuan.

  I began to wonder if this evening was not for some purpose other than to show us how a Hong Kong billionaire lived.

  Bai greeted us all with great—I thought exaggerated—cordiality. He accepted champagne and sat down. He was wearing the white suit that seemed to be his trademark.

  The conversation quickly turned to business. “You understand, I believe,” said Bai Fuyuan, “that the honorable Mr. Yasheng is an investor in our enterprise.”

  “We didn’t know that,” Len told him curtly.

  “Yes. To manufacture such a variety of goods in such quantities and to open the kind of stores you have seen requires a substantial injection of capital. Mr. Yasheng has provided.”

  “That would not be a loan, I imagine,” my son said. “Mr. Yasheng owns your company.”

  “Quite so,” said Yasheng. “I should say, however that the relationship is more subtle than that.”

  “Then we are dealing with you, sir,” I said to Yasheng. “And not with Mr. Bai.”

  “No. You continue to deal with him. He will represent me in everything.”

  “I suppose the merchandise goes to Shanghai in your ships,” said Len.

  “And sometimes is flown to the States in my airplanes,” said Yasheng. “Yasheng companies have invested in many enterprises.”

  So. The man was a taipan. I tried to remember what I had read about them. They exercised enormous economic power. With complete autonomy. This one might be one of the few left. Powerful though they were, there was little room in the world for their kind anymore.

  “Then in a sense, at least,” said Len, “we are partners.” He was speaking to Yasheng. “Do you know the meaning of the term ‘ripped off,’ Mr. Yasheng?”

  “I do indeed.”

  “In some sense we are being ripped off, probably in a minor way. Mr. Bai manufactures Cheeks merchandise to Cheeks specifications. He does it very well. It would be difficult to distinguish a garment made in China from one made in Hong Kong or in the States. Except for one thing. The colors don’t exactly match. Now—”

  “This is true?” Yasheng asked Bai.

  “It is true. The differences are subtle, but we have had difficulty matching the dyes. Black is black, of course, but—”

  “The dyes are standard,” Len interrupted. “The colors vary, not by chance, but for some reason. We are not complaining about that, not yet anyway, but there is something else.”

  “And what is that, Mr. Cooper?” Yasheng asked grimly.

  “When we went to the store in Beijing we noticed that some of the merchandise in the showcases was Mr. Bai’s colors and some was ours. In other words, not everything being sold in Beijing originated in China. Some of it came from somewhere else—Hong Kong, I imagine. Someone is selling—”

  “Stolen goods,” Yasheng interjected ominously.

  “That thought had occurred to us,” said Len, though it had occurred to him alone, not to me.

  “Why do the colors vary?” Yasheng asked Bai.

  Bai hesitated for a moment, then said, “So the inspectors can see that what we are selling in China is in fact made in China. That makes a great difference—”

  “In the payoffs,” said Yasheng.

  Bai nodded.

  I was surprised that they did not lapse into Chinese and leave us out of the conversation. Charlie glanced back and forth between Yasheng and Bai, looking apprehensive—in fact, miserable.

  “Very well,” said Yasheng. “Then what is the origin of the merchandise not made in China?”

  “I don’t know,” said Bai. “The merchandise is examined well before it reaches the stores. The inspectors are satisfied, adjustments are made, and we stock the stores.”

  “Somebody is paying for the non-Chinese merchandise,” said Yasheng. “Who is buying it?”

  “I will make it my business to find out,” said Bai. “I have no doubt I can do so.”

  “Do that.”

  We went in to dinner shortly. I cannot tell you what I ate. I didn’t know. I didn’t want to know. I have been told that birds’-nest soup has nothing to do with twigs and straw but comes from birds’ saliva. I don’t know. I don’t want to know. Nothing we were fed was nauseating. The flavors were subtle. Bai and Charlie oohed and aahed over some of the dishes and pronounced them exquisite. I ate whatever it was that was exquisite. I complimented Yasheng and said the meal was wonderful.

  * * *

  No one said anything in the car as we descended from the Peak to Arbuthnot Street. We sat down in the living room of the first apartment—Len and I, Vicky and Liz. From the windows we could see the lighted tower of the Bank of China Building, lights that were so bright through our windows that we needed not switch on night lights to go to the bathrooms. We poured nightcaps and sat sipping them. We turned on the TV and without sound glanced from time to time at the Chinese television programs coming in from Guangzhou. Oddly, perhaps, the new government had not squelched the broadcasting from the BCC or CNN, but we did not want to watch or hear the news just then.

  “I have an odd feeling,” said Len. He was leaning back so far on his sofa that his head touched the wall. “Tonight.… Tonight the shit hit the fan.”

  I nodded. “There’s been something wrong all the time.”

  “Someplace in all this there’s larceny,” Len said. “There has to be.”

  “We knew that and risked it,” I said.

  “I’m not sure we’re the victims,” Len said.

  “We weren’t invited up to the Peak just to see how a Hong Kong billionaire lives,” I said. “Charlie was told to deliver us up there. And Christ, Jesus, when Meyer Lansky said his crowd was bigger than United States Steel, he couldn’t have imagined—Yasheng has got to be enormously wealthy.”

  “I was appraising,” said Liz. “I don’t know the value of things, much, but I’ll tell you, the wealth up there is tremendous.”

  “Be a hell of a town to do business in,” said Vicky.

  “Under the Brits,” Len said, “the maximum income-tax rate was sixteen percent. And it’s not in Beijing’s interest to raise it.”

  “So what do we do?” I asked.

  “Sleep on it,” said Liz.

  So we did. Only I didn’t sleep much.

  That night Liz did not wear her teddy but stripped to the crotchless panties, nipple-baring bra, black garter belt, and dark stockings she had been wearing all evening. She knew that was more erotic than nudity. If she had been a smaller, more handsome girl, she could have been a showgirl. She had the instincts for it.

  She also knew I was distressed and knew how to relieve.

  Afterward we felt a want for one final brandy, and she put on a robe and went to get the bottle and snifters. Returning, she threw aside the robe and poured small drinks. We fluffed up the pillows and sat with our backs to the head of the bed, sipping placidly. I fondled
her gently, and she fondled me.

  “Forgive me,” she said, “if I venture to meddle in something that’s really none of my business; but I can’t help but believe I know who’s ripping off whom.”

  “Your opinion will be as good as mine,” I said.

  “Okay. It’s Charlie Han.”

  “Charlie has been a damned good friend of mine since … well, since before you were born, Liz.”

  “I’m sorry, Jerry. But think about it. He rips off some of the merchandise he’s having made for you here. Instead of sending it to the States, he sends it to China. He sells it there, probably for not much after he makes what were this evening called ‘adjustments,’ and pockets a profit. He’s a hustler. I think I know the type.”

  “So am I. I ought to know the type.”

  “So you think he’s not?”

  “No, he is. You’re right. But it’s really hard for me to believe that Charlie Han is stealing from me.”

  “He’s your agent. He counts the merchandise.”

  “Liz, really … don’t ask me to believe this. Or … don’t ask me to believe it until I see the proof.”

  “Well. Okay, I’ve said too much already.”

  She reached behind her back and unhooked the bra and then the garter belt. She was going to sleep nude. We always did.

  As she slipped her stockings down, she whispered to me. “I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you’ve brought me out here. It’s the experience of a lifetime.”

  “I need hardly say that the pleasure has been mine.”

  “I dread going home. I won’t see you anymore.”

  “We’ll arrange it so we see each other,” I told her. “We’ll arrange it.”

  58

  LEN

  We breakfasted together the next morning. It was a Sunday, so Catherine did not have to be driven to school, and Maria had the day off, as all Filipino maids did that one day of each week. We decided that this would be a good day to take Catherine and J. J. for a drive to the south side of the island, where we would see Repulse Bay and have lunch in a restaurant in Stanley. Because the Toyota could not carry all of us, someone had to do something different. Liz volunteered for that. She said she wanted to see the famous shopping street Nathan Road in Kowloon. My father said he would go with Liz.