The Clown Prince of Kowloon

by James Dudley

  “No pressure,” Tommy whispered to Han.

  “I’ve been talking to head chef. You should see the spread we’re going to put out for you after the show,” Ricardo added.

  That gave both Tommy and Han an extra spring in their step as they walked backstage. Tommy reached his hands into his pockets, felt that his good luck charms of the Saint Thomas medal and the Chuck Klein card were both still there, and then strode out onto the stage. The casino floor was packed with a sold-out crowd, and the lights shone brightly on the stage.

  “Good evening, Macao!” he exclaimed from the microphone. “Is this the insurance sales conference? Oh, am I in the wrong room? I must have taken a wrong turn back in Hong Kong.”

  He paused to let the audience laugh before he continued, “You never know who you’re going to run into in a place like this. Right outside here, I actually just ran into a fellow American. He was a farmer from the Midwest. I asked him what he was doing here and he said, ‘I’m looking for ma’ cow, have you seen it?’”

  The crowd erupted in laughter as Tommy moved onto the next segment. “Well you don’t want to listen to me ramble on all night, so how about some music? Please welcome my old friend, Mr. Tony Vespa!”

  The crowd cheered in anticipation, which turned into nervous laughter when Tony failed to appear. “I said…Mr. Tony Vespa!” Tommy repeated with similar results.

  Unbeknownst to the audience, this was Han’s que to run out onto the stage holding a clipboard, portraying the role of a frazzled assistant. “Mr. Malloy, I’m so sorry, it turns out Mr. Vespa already left to fly back to the States.”

  “Well isn’t that something?” Tommy proclaimed in mock surprise. “Who do we have that can fill in?”

  Han fidgeted nervously, selling the act very well. “Well, Mr. Malloy…you have me.”

  “And who exactly are you?”

  “I’m Han.”

  “Can you sing, Han?”

  “No, I’m afraid not.”

  “What can you do, Han?”

  “I know kung-Fu,” he said as he launched into a kick that just barely grazed by Tommy’s head. Just like a soccer player, Tommy pretended that kick had made contact and flailed on the ground dramatically, which the crowd seemed to love.

  At that point, Tommy and Han launched into a series of sketches, knowing that they had the audience in their pocket and the show would be a success. Now that it seemed as if the Macao mob was safely onboard, the real challenges of their greater goals were only just beginning.

  *****

  Richard swung the Jaguar around the curves of the mountain road, climbing higher up Victoria Peak than he had on his previous trip, this time venturing into the stately mansions that housed Hong Kong’s aristocratic class. Having grown up on a country estate in Wales, the houses had a very familiar feel to him, even if the location and environment were much more exotic.

  “The police tracked our moneyman for us,” Millie told him from the passenger seat. “He was identified as Liang Sun, a known Chinese intelligence operative. After he left the opera house, he took the cash and used it to buy a boat. He then sold the boat for cash at different dealer to add another layer of separation. And from there, he deposited it into an account at the Royal Victoria Bank, which brings us, of course, to my father.”

  “Time to meet the parents,” Richard said as he pulled the Jaguar to stop in front a particular mansion and tossed the keys to a valet. He looked up at the house, and was impressed. There was something almost American about the fact that a Briton with a good job in Hong Kong could attain a lifestyle that was historically reserved for the titled nobility back home.

  Inside the house, Richard and Millie were greeted by an amah, who led them into the drawing room. They took seats on a sofa, which was facing another sofa, where Rupert and Eleanor Covington sat waiting for them. The amah placed a teapot and a tray of biscuits on the coffee table between them, then quietly left the room to allow them to speak freely.

  Millie made the necessary introductions, “Mother, Father, this is my colleague, Major Richard Boothwyn.”

  Richard shook Rupert’s hand, and they exchanged a glace that expressed that they were mutually impressed with the strength of each other’s handshakes.

  “You seem like a fine young man, Major Boothwyn,” Eleanor said. She glanced over towards Millie, as if to give a hint, and Millie glared back at her, rejecting said hint.

  After some more brief introductory talk, Rupert, a senior executive at the Royal Victoria Bank, began to give Richard and Millie the information they had come for. “As you know, we have long since tracked certain bank accounts that are known or suspected to belong to foreign intelligence services, particularly China and the USSR. To make a long story short, I looked into the accounts that your money man from the opera used, and they were not among the accounts on those lists. In fact, they were new accounts that I have never come across before.”

  “That’s interesting,” said Millie. “What do you make of it?”

  Rupert shrugged and gave a slight chuckle. “If knew how analyze and draw conclusions from that kind of information, then I would be a spook like your lot.”

  “Father, how many times have we been over this? You can’t say what I do out loud,” Millie said with a smile.

  Outside, another car pulled up in front of the house to drop off Sir Alastair Thorncliffe. The old man looked invigorated by the tropical climate as he walked through the front door in a khaki suit and matching safari hat. The sun had added some color to his face, and his joints moved much more freely when away from the arthritic dampness of England.

  “Millicent dear, would you please show Sir Alastair inside?” Rupert asked.

  Richard shot Millie a mischievous grin that she immediately responded to with a sharp glare. “My parents can call me Millicent. That doesn’t mean you can.”

  Millie escorted Alastair into the drawing room, where he took a seat in a wooden chair at the head of the coffee table, retrieved some documents from his attaché case, and spread them out on the table.

  “Sir Alastair, it is an honor, as always, to welcome you to our abode,” Rupert said.

  “I hope you had a good journey here,” added Eleanor.

  “It was fine, just a short hop over from Singapore,” Alastair said.

  As Richard watched the two old men interact and share stories, he couldn’t help but be reminded of the great respect he held for the generations of Britons that had come before him. Alastair and Rupert’s generation had fought in the trenches of the First World War, facing unspeakable horrors. The generations before them had explored far-off lands, spread the greatest empire the world had ever seen, and perhaps most impressively, turned a couple remote and sparsely populated islands into the great commercial centers of Hong Kong and Singapore. He was honored and humbled every day to stand on the shoulders of such giants.

  Once Rupert brought Alastair up to speed on the bank investigation, he was ready to weigh in with some insights. “So Chinese intelligence is both the buyer and the seller? But they aren’t using their regular accounts? Well then, I would presume that the purpose of their transaction is not financial, but simply to gain the loyalty of the triads. As for the new accounts, well that is consistent with a lot of the other intelligence we’ve uncovered. It would appear that this operation is not being run through the normal channels of Chinese intelligence. Which leaves us with two possibilities: either this operation is too secretive to be kept on the regular books, or perhaps General Sheng has gone rogue and decided to run his own operation without interference from Beijing. Sheng always did have an ambitious streak, so the latter would not surprise me in the least.”

  “A rogue Chinese general, hatching sinister plots at the Crown Colony…that sounds like something straight out of Kipling,” Millie observed.

  “There is plenty more to report,” said Alastair. “First, naval units have tracked the merchant ship carrying our stolen weapons. It appears that said weapons were
unloaded on the island of Tung Lung Chau.”

  “Then we’ll have to go there as soon as we can and investigate,” said Richard.

  “What if I take the yacht out tomorrow?” Millie proposed. “It’s the perfect cover. We can get close to the island and scope it out without making it look like we’re scoping it out.”

  “I believe that would be our best option for the time being,” Alastair decided. “We need to get eyes on the island and observe and report what we can, and then we can determine our next course of action once we have a clearer picture of what we’re dealing with. Now, does anyone have anything else to add?”

  Eleanor spoke up. “If you don’t mind the interruption, the sun is expected to be particularly strong tomorrow, so you should all remember to wear a hat and drink plenty of water before you go out on the yacht.”

  “Mother is right, of course. We have to be prepared or anything in this business,” said Millie.

  Chapter 21

  Almost as quickly as they had left it behind, Tommy and Han were back in Hong Kong. Along with Ricardo Wang and a small group of his bodyguards, they had taken the short journey back from Macao in Han’s Antelope rather than Ricardo’s yacht so that they could keep a lower profile. It seemed counterintuitive to Tommy to be returning so soon to a territory in which he was a marked man, but Ricardo had put the word out through triad channels that Tommy was returning under his protection, and that any interference would bring the full wrath of not only the Macau underground, but also all of Tommy Malloy’s friends and acquaintances from New York’s Five Families. Even if the triads enjoyed the protection of Chinese intelligence, they would not want to get involved in that type of turf war.

  Once the boat arrived, the group took a short walk to a bus stop and then rode a bus to the racetrack, Ricardo’s men forming a protective phalanx around Tommy the whole way. Racing was an important centerpiece of Hong Kong’s social calendar, where a veritable “who’s who” of society were in regular attendance. Tommy had spent his fair share of time at the races; one of his first summer jobs as a thirteen year old involved running numbers at Philadelphia racetracks for a local bookie. Now he found himself continuing to mix organized crime and racing, albeit with much better seats.

  The Happy Valley Racecourse was located in Hong Kong’s Wan Chai District. Its high-rise stands contained a crowd about the size of a baseball stadium, and the freshly manicured grass of the track provided a small island of green in the midst of a crowded urban sprawl. Ricardo led the group as they cut their way through the long line of people queueing up outside and into the track via the VIP entrance. While the outside crowd was a mix of all social classes, the crowd in this line had a preponderance of rich people in funny hats.

  Once they were inside the concourse, an older British man called out Tommy’s name and approached the group. Ricardo’s men stepped forward to block the way, but Tommy waved them off and signaled that it was ok once he recognized who the man was. They stepped into an alcove in front of the restrooms where they could speak more privately.

  “Sir Alastair, is that you? I wasn’t expecting to see you here, but I guess I probably should have the way things are going.”

  “I should be equally surprised to see you, Mr. Malloy. I’m not quite sure why you’d come back to Hong Kong so soon after the efforts we made to extract you, but I suspect that you are likely up to something,” Sir Alastair said.

  Tommy quickly looked around. When he was satisfied that no one would be able to hear him, he gave Alastair a brief recounting of his adventures in Macao and plans going forward.”

  “That it really quite interesting, and I certainly admire your daring,” Alastair said. “But there are some more developments to this situation that you may wish to know about. Naval assets have traced the stolen British weapons to the outlying island of Tung Lung Chau, where it appears General Sheng is running his operation from.”

  Tommy nodded along, more ideas formulating in his head the more he learned.

  “And there’s more, those naval assets I mentioned are the submarines HMS Apollo and the USS Starfish, which I believe your old friend Frank Maldini is the Executive Officer of.”

  “Wow, you really do know everything, Colonel.”

  “Well that is what Her Majesty’s Government pays me for. Now, those two submarines are scheduled to arrive in port today for a few days’ visit. If you would like to pass along a message to Lieutenant Commander Maldini, that could be arranged.” Alastair went on to explain what exactly he had in mind and how it fit into his overall strategy, which left Tommy feeling considerably more confident about his role in the situation and its chances of success. After their talk, Alastair tipped his hat and went off on his way.

  “Who was that?” Ricardo asked when Tommy rejoined the group.

  “Just an old friend,” Tommy said.

  Ricardo nodded, knowing full well that there was more to the story, but not wanting to push things. After a few more stair cases and a couple more checkpoints, they finally arrived in one of the racecourse’s private boxes. While Tommy operating on his own had to jump through Madame Kwan’s hoops to even catch a glimpse of Walter Wong, somebody like Ricardo Wang could simply make a few phone calls and arrange a meeting for the next day.

  Inside the box, there was a long table towards the back with a buffet spread of all sorts of sandwiches and local delicacies, leading up to fully stoked bar and an ice box full of beers. Tommy eyed it all up, regretting that this would have to wait until after the business portion of the day. There were several rows of seats that offered an unimpeded vantage point to watch the races below. Walter Wong was already sitting there, surrounded by a group of associates that included Chao Hung and Henry Ho. Walter rose to embrace Ricardo, the respective leaders of the Hong Kong and Macao underworlds coming together for one of their infrequent consultations.

  “Mr. Wang, it is a pleasure, as always, to welcome you to my turf,” Walter said.

  “The pleasure is all mine,” said Ricardo. “This is a nice little city here; I like what you’ve done with the place.”

  Walter broke into a jovial laugh and shared a few more moments of pleasantries with Ricardo before turning the conversation to business. “Now, could we please discuss why you have brought both Tommy Malloy, a marked man, and Han Tong, and indebted smuggler, into my abode?”

  Ricardo turned to Tommy, giving him the signal to speak up. “We have a proposal for you, Mr. Wong. As you know, I was there when Peng Zhou gave you General Sheng’s offer of exclusivity. I know it was a major loss of face for you. I want to give you the opportunity to get that face back.”

  Walter Wong looked straight into Tommy’s eyes. His face was emotionless, but it gave Tommy the feeling that he should keep talking. It also gave Tommy the feeling that he should never play poker with Walter because his reactions were impossible to read.

  “General Sheng is providing you with exclusive supplies for weapons and drugs, but he didn’t say anything about gambling, did he? As you may now, over the course of my career and the clubs I’ve performed in, I’ve developed significant connections to the Five Families of New York, as well as some other shady characters. As such, I know quite a bit about gambling.”

  Walter looked around at his associates to gauge their reactions, and then looked back at Tommy. Now, Tommy was starting to feel like he might be getting some traction.

  “To begin with, let’s look at horse racing. As you all know, the Hong Kong Jockey Club has a monopoly on legal betting on these races. What happens when you have a legal monopoly? Why, it opens the door for less than legal competition. Think of the killing we could make running books on the horses. And that’s just the beginning of it. Thanks to the magic of modern communication, we can bet on any sport, even ones you didn’t know about before. I can wire my friends in New York and Philadelphia and we can take bets on baseball, football, basketball, boxing, the possibilities are endless!”

  Walter turned to his associates once mo
re. “Henry, what do you think?”

  “I am sufficiently intrigued to pursue this idea,” Henry Ho said.

  “What about you, Chao?”

  “This idea intrigues me,” said Chao Hung. “But right now, I more concerned with the presence of Han Tong. Han, I am sure you have not forgotten your debt. How do you plan to repay me?”

  Han reached into his pockets, revealing the stack of cash that MI6 had paid him to transport Tommy to Macao, and quickly adding it up in his head. “I got your money right here. This should be enough to cover everything.”

  Chao Hung got up and counted the money himself. “This is sufficient to cover the original debt, but you have forgotten that I also charge interest. Did you think I was running a charity here?”

  “What if I use that money to place a wager on the race?” Han improvised. “If I pick the right horse, the winnings would more than cover it, and if I pick wrong, well I’ll deal with the consequences.”

  Chao shrugged. “That’s good enough for me.”

  Walter rubbed his chin, sitting in deep contemplation. Finally he spoke, “You have some very good joss, Tommy Malloy. To escape several attempts on your life by highly skilled men, and then to walk right back in here, well that is really something.”

  “They call it ‘The Joss of the Irish’” Tommy quipped.

  Walter continued, “But to break our arrangement with General Sheng and come out of it on top…that will require a new level of joss indeed. So then, allow me to give you a choice. First, you are here under Ricardo Wang’s protection and that will be honored. You may leave right now, go back to Macao or the States, and we can forget this meeting ever happened. The second option is that I could do as you suggest and break my arrangement with General Sheng. If we are going to do that, it will require an unprecedented level of joss. So, Mr. Malloy my proposal is this; we will put your joss to the test. Choose a horse for today’s race. If you correctly choose the winner, then I will join in with whatever you are proposing. If you choose wrongly, then I will turn you over to Sheng as I am obligated to do. Are you willing to risk such a proposal?”