The Clown Prince of Kowloon

by James Dudley

  “You should see this, Tommy, it’s pretty impressive,” Han said.

  “I guess I’ll just have to catch this film in the theaters,” said Tommy.

  They followed the director’s instructions and arrived at their designated spot in the parade lineup. And then, they waited.

  “What do you see out there?” Tommy asked. “Any sign of those two spotter guys Richard pointed out?”

  Han looked around for a while, scanning his surroundings as much as the dragon head’s limited visibility allowed him to. “I see them. They’re in the crowd along the side. It looks like they managed to blend in with the extras.”

  “Have they seen us?”

  “If they have, they haven’t given any indication of it.”

  The nervous pit in Tommy’s stomach grew as he stared down at his feet. He was anxious to get moving, and while he understood the reasoning behind why he had to remain in place, it seemed to go against all his survival instincts. When the camera and sound equipment were in place, Johnny Chu and the three actors playing his pursuers assumed their positions and prepared for the scene. The director climbed up onto a step ladder to get a better vantage point, holding a megaphone in his hand to help project his voice.

  “Alright, everybody’s looking good. We’re doing the parade, just like we practiced. Ready….and…action!”

  At that moment, the music began to play, and the parade participants proceeded to march along in unison. Even without being able to see anything, Tommy could tell it was an impressive spectacle. With the aplomb of somebody who had done it all before, Han bobbed and weaved his way through the parade route, moving in time with the music. Tommy did his best to keep up with him, making sure the back end of the dragon didn’t stray too far from the front. Amongst it all, Johnny Chu began his frantic run, dipping in and out of the various troupes and formations in a desperate attempt to lose the three men pursuing him.

  “This is where it gets interesting,” Han muttered to Tommy under his breath.

  Moments later, Johnny Chu ran right by their position, only to be stymied by the dragon that had been marching next to Tommy and Han jumping out and blocking his path. The two men underneath the dragon then threw the costume off and assumed fighting stances, giving the other three pursuers enough time to catch up and complete the envelopment. Johnny Chu assumed a fighting stance of his own and looked around to survey the opposition; he was outnumbered five-to-one, and he was going to have his hands full.

  “Cut!” yelled the director. “Great work, now let’s reset for the fight.”

  The five-on-one fight scene was the next item on the agenda, and it was going to require multiple shoots from various angles. As the camera crews shifted around, the actors took the opportunity to catch their breath and sip some water.

  “How far are we to the coastline? Is the police boat there yet?” Tommy asked, growing increasingly impatient with his lack of visibility.

  “It’s there, and it’s a couple hundred feet, give or take,” Han replied.

  “So what do we do now?”

  Han began to shuffle forward, moving the dragon along with the foot traffic of the busily working film crew. “We start walking for the coast, but we have to act like we aren’t walking for the coast.”

  “How do we do that?”

  “I don’t know, walk casually.”

  After a few more feet of casual shuffling, Han came to a sudden stop.

  “What happened?” asked Tommy.

  “Those two spotters have been walking along with us the whole time. They might be onto us.”

  Tommy’s head hurt as he tried to visualize the scene outside. The fact that he was in the middle of an actual chase scene while simultaneously portraying a fictional chase scene was getting to be a little too much to handle.

  Han did his best to give Tommy a play-by-play of what was occurring outside. “Ok, I see Richard and four officers getting off the boat…they’re walking towards us…now they’re splitting up…now two officers went over to our two friends, looks like they’re checking their papers…now our friends are being asked to leave…oh, here comes Richard with the other two officers...ok, I see what they’re doing…get ready.”

  “Get ready for what?” Tommy asked, but before he could finish the thought, a police officer shoved him to the ground, tossing away the costume and throwing a blanket over his head in one fluid motion. Next, the officer pulled Tommy to his feet, restrained him in handcuffs, and started leading him towards the water’s edge.

  “Keep walking, and don’t make any sudden movements. We’re almost home,” Richard muttered in Tommy’s ear.

  After a short distance more, Tommy lost his balance and tumbled over as the hard ground beneath his feet gave way to the rocking buoyancy of a boat’s deck. As the boat pulled away from the shore, the officers removed the hoods and handcuffs rom Tommy and Han, allowing them to stretch out and look around.

  “Very sorry about all that,” one of the officers said.

  “We had to come up with a way to get you out of the dragon costume and into the boat without revealing your faces, and this was all I could think of,” Richard added.

  “Well I’ll hand it to you, it was pretty creative, and it seems to have worked,” Han said as Tommy nodded in agreement.

  The boat picked up speed as it pulled away from the shore, cutting through the traffic of ferries and fishing boats to journey through the bay and around the island back to Aberdeen Harbour. Once there, the police boat pulled up alongside Han’s Antelope and Tommy and Han prepared to hop over.

  “Thanks for the lift,” Han said as he leaped onto the Antelope’s deck.

  Before doing the same, Tommy paused to shake Richard’s hand. “Well I wish I could say I look forward to seeing you again, but given the circumstances I keep meeting you under, I can’t say that I do.”

  Richard laughed, then reached down to pick up a round metal tin. “Oh, I almost forgot. Millie sent you this, for the boat ride.”

  Tommy pried the tin open and found a batch of freshly baked cookies inside. “Richard, do not let this opportunity get away. You know what I’m talking about.”

  Richard rolled his eyes as they shook hands one last time, and then Tommy transferred over to the Antelope. Together, Tommy and Han cast off the mooring lines, unfurled the sails, and prepared to venture into the open sea.

  Chapter 17

  As the sun began to disappear over the Peak, Richard Boothwyn was behind the wheel of a green Jaguar XK150 Roadster convertible, pushing the limits of its speed as he whipped around the tight mountain turns. The roof was open, and the wind rushed around him as he pressed down on the accelerator, pushing the car faster and faster. The experience was so invigorating that it was a bit of a let-down when he pulled the car to a stop in front of the high-rise that housed Millie Covington’s flat.

  The Welshman took one last glance in the rearview mirror to adjust his black bow tie before strolling up to the entrance to wait. The heat of the midday sun was gone, but the air still hung heavy with enough humidity that he could already feel the sweat. A few minutes later, Millie emerged. She was wearing a lavender cheongsam, and her auburn hair was done up with chopsticks.

  “I see you’ve gone native,” Richard said. “Maybe next year, they’ll let you star in the opera.”

  Millie looked up and down to inspect Richard’s black tuxedo. “And I see that they can take the boy out of Eton, but you’re still an insufferable toff.”

  Richard could only laugh at the remark as he walked around the car to open the passenger side door for Millie and then slid back into the driver’s seat. He pulled the roof shut, anticipating her likely request, and then they were on their way.

  “So I hope Tommy and Han made it off alright,” Millie said when they turned their first corner.

  “I saw them off out of onto Han’s boat and out of Aberdeen. They should be nearly in Macao by now.”

  They drove on as the winding mountain roads began to g
ive way to busy city streets. “So the Cantonese opera is a unique cultural tradition going back centuries, but it only really caught on here after the war thanks to all the refugees from Shanghai. Now you may have been to the opera before, but this…well, it’s something different,” Millie explained.

  “Well between this and the martial arts film, I seem to be getting quite the cultural education.”

  “But of course, we’re not going just for the show. As I told you earlier, Henry Ho will be making the first half of his payment for the British weapons tonight, with the second half to follow when the weapons are delivered. Naval forces have been tasked with following the cargo ship you identified, and they may yet discover something, but as far as you and I are concerned, following the money tonight is our only lead.”

  Richard nodded as the city traffic forced him to slow down. One of Hong Kong’s frequent sudden outbursts of rain was beginning to hit, which made him grateful that he had closed the roof. “What’s the seating situation?”

  “Henry Ho is in our row…”

  Richard raised an eyebrow at the unintentional rhyme.

  “Oh, grow up. Anyway, he’s sitting near us but not next to us; don’t want to make things too obvious. He knows where to find us and he knows to be discreet. He’ll give us the details of the transfer when he knows them, and from there it’s a simple matter of surveillance.”

  Richard pulled the car up in front of the theater and tossed the keys to the valet parking attendant as they prepared to step inside. “Alright, it’s show time.”

  Doing their best to pose as a respectable British society couple, Richard and Millie presented their tickets and strolled into the lobby, where the crowd was beginning to gather. It was a full crowd, predominantly made up of the upper crust Chinese members of Hong Kong society, with a handful of Britons mixed in. The majority of the small talk and mingling in the lobby was happening in Cantonese, which Millie did her best to translate.

  After a few exchanges of pleasantries with various local acquaintances, Millie noticed Henry Ho standing against the wall. He was casually smoking a cigarette as he chatted with his date for the evening, an up-and-coming soap opera actress. Millie hopped from one conversation circle to the next until she made it over to where he was standing. Without making eye contact, they exchanged a few brief words in Cantonese before she continued on her way.

  When Richard caught up, she brought him up to speed. “Henry doesn’t know who he’s supposed to give the money to. Peng and Schumacher told him to leave his seat to use the toilet forty-five minutes into the show and leave the money in the third stall from the right.”

  Richard laughed out loud. “I go from chasing rebel guerillas through the jungle to watching toilets at the opera. This job never gets old.”

  The lights in the lobby dimmed and flickered, signaling that the show was about to begin. When they reached their seats, the curtains opened up, revealing the actors in exquisitely colorful costumes on the elaborate set. The program gave a brief English synopsis of what the story was about, but the show remained hard to follow, albeit visually and musically stunning.

  “What are they saying?” Richard whispered, only to be silenced by Millie giving him the kind of glare that had long been practiced by school librarians everywhere.

  As the show went on, Richard fidgeted in his seat, glancing back and forth between his watch and the action on the stage. About thirty minutes into the opera, he stepped out of his seat and quietly walked out the back of the room, and through the lobby to the men’s room. He gave a silent nod to a man who was walking out as he walked in, then was pleased to discover that the room inside was empty. He performed a quick check to ensure there were no surveillance devices or hidden intruders, then staked out a position in the stall adjacent to where Henry Ho was supposed to leave the money.

  The room had been cleaned recently, so it was at least free of the stench and grime that usually plagued such facilities, but it was still not the ideal place to have to sit and wait. But waiting was always part of the job, and he rarely got to choose where. A short while later, a man arrived and took up residence in the adjacent stall. Richard watched the man’s feet from underneath the divider, then came to the sudden realization that the shoes he was wearing were not the ones he noticed Henry wearing earlier. A sudden assailment of sounds and smells confirmed that the man next door had arrived for more traditional purposes rather than money transfers. He glanced back at his watch once more; it was now only two minutes until Henry’s planned drop-off. In his many years as an intelligence officer, Richard had needed to change his best laid plans to adapt to changing situations many times, but he had never encountered anything quite like this. If he didn’t have to maintain his cover, he would have started laughing out loud.

  While Richard looked on through the crack in the stall’s door, Henry Ho walked into the room. Upon discovering that his assigned stall was occupied, he awkwardly paced around the room for a while before ultimately walking over to the sink and washing his hands for an abnormally long period of time. In the middle of his third wash and rinse cycle, another man, presumably the one assigned to pick up the money, entered the room and did a double-take when he saw Henry out of place. The two men exchanged awkward glances, unsure of how to handle the situation. Before they could decide on a course of action, a loud flushing noise came from the stall and the man who had been occupying it finally stepped out. As he walked over to the sink to wash his hands, Henry Ho and the money collector both took a step back, now even more uncertain of what to do. All the while, the man form the stall whistled a tune while he washed his hands, oblivious to the subterfuge going on around him.

  When he finally finished up and departed the room, Henry reached a for a paper towel, wrapped it around an envelope stuffed with high-denomination bills he produced from inside his dinner jacket, and left it sitting on the sink before silently walking out. The appointed collector discreetly picked it up before making his own exit. Finally, Richard emerged from his stall, completing the final steps of the bizarre bathroom ballet.

  After a suitable pause, Richard walked back out outside. By now, the opera had reached its intermission, and much of the audience, Millie included, was beginning to file out into the lobby. Catching Millie’s eye, Richard paused and lit a cigarette. Acknowledging the signal, she turned her head and caught sight of the money man making his way towards the door. She lit a cigarette of her own, sending a signal to a police officer standing watch by the doorway. The officer acknowledged the signal, indicating that the suspect had now been identified and placed under surveillance.

  Richard slowly made his way back over to Millie, wondering if he would now be expected to watch the rest of the opera. “So that’s it for now?”

  Millie nodded. “I had to get the police involved since we needed the manpower. Now they have him under surveillance and we just have to wait and see what they turn up.”

  “Are you confident that they won’t lose him?”

  “Yes, why?”

  “It just seems difficult to surveil an individual in such a crowded city,” Richard said.

  “But London is almost as crowded and MI5 and Scotland Yard are always surveilling people there,” Millie reminded him.

  “Well yes, but…”

  Millie rolled her eyes. “Were you really about to say that everybody looks the same here? Honestly Richard, what are we going to do with you?”

  Before Richard could come up with a suitable response, the lights began to flicker on and off again. There was much work left to be done, but first, they needed to watch the rest of the show.

  Chapter 18

  Clear of the crowded constraints of the harbor, the Antelope picked up speed as it cruised through the open water. The distance from Hong Kong to Macao was a mere forty miles, and even a vessel as small as Han’s could cover it in a reasonably short time. The small island was a Portuguese colony, another small sphere of European influence in China’s backyard, but with a
pace of life much slower than Hong Kong’s frenetic activity, reflecting the appropriate cultural attitudes.

  The boat caught favorable winds, allowing Han to relax at the helm. Tommy brought him a bottle of water and they opened up the tin and began to snack on the cookies Millie had made. The wind was at their back, the sun was reflecting off the clear blue water, and a sense of serenity came over them after their hectic escapes.

  “So it doesn’t really matter, and I get paid the same either way, but do you think you could tell me what’s actually going on?” Han finally asked.

  Seeing no more reason to keep the charade up, Tommy proceeded to reveal as much of the real story as he comfortably could, up to and including the results of his encounter with Walter Wong.

  “Thank you, that explains a lot,” Han said. The wheels were turning in his head as he gently steered the helm, trying to process everything he had just learned.

  “So Chinese intelligence now controls the triads. Whatever they’re planning, it can’t be good,” Tommy said.

  “Actually, there might be an opportunity there,” said Han. “It sounds like General Sheng stole Walter Wong’s organization out from under him, thereby forcing his hand into accepting his terms. But what this means is that Walter Wong has lost face in a big way. He may have accepted the deal because he felt like he had to, but he certainly isn’t going to be happy about it. If there is a feasible way that he can strike back and regain face, he would probably take it.”

  “That’s really interesting, but is there anything we can do about it?” Tommy asked.

  Han mulled it over for a minute. “Yes, I think there is. Sheng may have gained control of the Hong Kong underworld, but as far as we know, he hasn’t touched Macao. I happen to have some powerful connections in Macao, and we might be able to work something out. Depending on what they’re willing to do, we might just be able to offer Walter Wong the assurances he needs to make his move. He needs a powerful ally, and we might be able to get him one. So, what do you say? Are you in?”