by Ian Slater
Cheng knew from his intelligence sources that La Roche was what even the Americans would call a degenerate — his bizarre sexual behavior had driven away his wife, who was now serving as a Wave, an American naval nurse, at Dutch Harbor in the American Aleutian island chain. But registered on the Shanghai, as well as the Tokyo, London, and Wall Street, exchange, La Roche, who Cheng plainly admitted to his colleagues would “sell his mother for a fen,” was valuable to Beijing. La Roche had assured Cheng, and thus the People’s Liberation Army, of access to anything they required, from bullets to nerve gas, which could be used against either Siberians or Americans— whoever violated Chinese territorial integrity.
Though La Roche always insisted on hard currency, Cheng had conserved brilliantly. While the Americans and Siberians were spending more and more on self-propelled artillery, for example, the PLA relied largely on the older-fashioned towing system. It meant that the crews weren’t as well-protected as they would be in armor-plated, self-propelled howitzers, but Cheng knew that once a self-propelled vehicle broke down — an overheated bearing, a wiring malfunction, whatever — it stayed where it was and became the delight of enemy artillery gunners: a stationary target. With towed weapons, on the other hand, if something happened to the lead vehicle, the gun could be quickly uncoupled, broken down into its component parts, and if necessary moved by sheer muscle power — as had been done over the mountains and through the swamps of the thousand-mile Ho Chi Minh Trail. Cheng much preferred fighting to penny-pinching, the constant battle of refusing requests for more money making him increasingly unpopular among military commanders, and he yearned to show his mettle in combat.
As he signed a memo denying yet another exorbitant request for extra uniforms, General Cheng’s foreign affairs phone began its insistent ring. It was the Foreign Ministry, informing him that the Siberian chargé d’affaires in Harbin, Ilya Latov, had conveyed the wish of General Yesov, commander in chief of the new Siberian forces, to meet tomorrow with his “esteemed” Chinese colleague in the border town of Erhlien. Cheng recognized instantly that there was significance in the Siberians having selected the Chinese town on the border and not Dzamïn Üüd, the town on Siberia’s Mongolian side, where the Trans-Siberian spurline coming down through Ulan Bator reached the Chinese frontier. It was a gesture of respect, that Yesov would be coming to him, not vice versa. Still, Cheng was as suspicious of Yesov as Yesov and Freeman were of each other. What was the Siberian bear up to?
So as to maintain face and not show any sign of haste that might evidence the anxiety he felt, Cheng replied he would be pleased to meet the comrade from Siberia but not till the following evening. This, he knew, would necessitate Yesov taking the Trans-Mongolian express, unless the Siberian commander wanted to come by air and risk the Americans interpreting an overborder flight as a back door violation of the cease-fire. It would be a long journey for Yesov through the mountains south of Lake Baikal, down through the Selenga River valley into Mongolia, all the time enjoying the ceaseless loudspeaker rattle from the train’s PA system.
Unable to stop or even control the PA system, Yesov would be subjected to the relentless, mind-numbing blare all the way down over the endless, brown, icy, treeless expanse. The great marshal of the United Siberian Republic would have to feast on the finest Mongolian cuisine of rancid blood sausage and slimy bowls of floating goats’ ears and yellow mutton. Cheng calculated that by the time Yesov reached Erhlien on the Chinese side, a neat town compared to the Mongolian slum of Dzamïn Üüd, and was given proper food, he would be in a much more conducive mood to listen to the Chinese point of view to whatever proposal he might have. Cheng certainly wasn’t going to cross the border to meet him. Apart from the filth of the Mongolian side, the mobile missile sites around Dzamïn Üüd, as part of the Gobi Desert defense, were all pointed at China. To meet there rather than in Erhlien would be an implicit acceptance of Siberia’s annexation of the Mongolian frontier. It would be noon by the time the Trans-Mongolian reached the border, and over the vast, endless snow that covered the dormant grassland of the southern Gobi, vultures would be high in the hard, cloudless, blue sky, circling, waiting for the slightest mistake of any wayward traveler. Already many refugees from the north were said to have perished.
Before leaving for Erhlien, General Cheng, unsettled by the new Siberian republic flexing its muscle in Mongolia, decided it would be prudent to have the frontier units in Beijing, Lanzhou, and Shenyang military regions in the far north of China, bordering on Siberia and Mongolia, on first-stage alert. The haunting fear of a sudden Mongol invasion sweeping down from the north across the plains of Inner Mongolia to Beijing was always a constant in the psyche of the Chinese, and foremost in the mind of whoever was head of the PLA. Indeed, the fear had been the reason for the construction of the Great Wall, the only man-made construct visible from outer space. Cheng, ever vigilant, would sometimes walk through the vast underground network of tunnels beneath Beijing, which had been constructed in the 1960s when the ferocity of the Chinese-Soviet battles over the disputed northern border areas around the Amur River had convinced the Chinese that a Soviet invasion was imminent.
As a final precaution prior to leaving the Beijing railway station for Erhlien, Cheng suddenly ordered carriages in his train to be switched. You could never be too careful. It would take only one Democracy Movement fanatic to kill you. He also ordered a fax be readied for one of La Roche’s Shanghai companies, requesting replacement parts for civilian air transport. Indeed, Cheng, though he could never admit it officially, avoided air travel in China if at all possible. He had lost more people on the People’s airline in the last year than he had on military maneuvers. In fact, the fax, which might or might not be sent, depending on his meeting with Yesov, had nothing to do with aircraft parts. But its invoice number code would tell La Roche’s company that what the PLA needed was a delivery of ten thousand 203mm, 102-kilogram HE — high explosive— heavy artillery rounds with variable bag charges. The 203mm had a range of plus or minus eighteen miles and could do tremendous damage in either a creeping barrage or direct target fire. Cheng also ordered that, pending the meeting with Yesov, a requisition be made and held for four thousand AIF, or anti-infrared smoke rounds. These latter were normal smoke rounds infused with denser particles which prevented enemy infrared scopes from picking up body and engine heat signature, which they could do through normal smoke. These AIF rounds, Cheng knew, might be a little more difficult for La Roche to procure. He knew that La Roche might not be able to get them directly from Belgian or French factories because of the ridiculous U.S. human-rights-prompted embargo on such sales to China. But then, La Roche would do what he had done so often in the past — have the AIF shells stolen from his own country’s army, either from the convoys resupplying Freeman’s Vladivostok base out of Japan, or from the stockpiles in Vladivostok itself. He would then send them down on junks through the Tsushima Strait between South Korea and Japan into the Yellow Sea, where the junks, ostensibly bound for Taiwan, could be officially intercepted by the PLA navy’s fast-attack coastal defense boats and unloaded on the China coast.
CHAPTER SEVEN
New York
In the opulent, dimly lit cocktail bar of the Il Trovatore on the fiftieth floor of La Roche Tower, Jay La Roche, who owned the tower and everything in it, looked out at the gilded blackness that was Manhattan — and part his. La Roche’s empire, begun in perfume and pharmaceuticals, had expanded in a dozen different directions; and before the cease-fire, the war had catapulted him to the top ten of Fortune’s 500.
The waitress, who delivered his third Manhattan in the fifteen-karat-gold-lipped glass with gold-filigree leaf design, bent lower as she placed the silk coaster before him, lingering to wipe the table. The table was as clean “as a choirboy,” as La Roche was fond of saying, but Francine, a long, lithe blonde with a starlet’s body to match, knew that if she was to keep her job and the big tips that came with working at the Il Trovatore, she’d better linger a
s long and as frequently as possible. And as Jimmy, working bar, told her, low-cut dresses with “no visible panty line” were “de rigueur.” Jimmy also informed Francine there was a “bonus” for “noninventoried services.” She asked him what he meant. Jimmy told her she’d find out.
Jay was alone this evening, but Jimmy could read the signs and knew it wouldn’t be long before La Roche wanted company. Dressed smartly in a tuxedo, La Roche had what Jimmy called “the look”—enigmatic, cold — like one of those long, deep-feeding fish Jimmy had heard about. Creatures who lived their entire lives in the dark, covered in poisonous antennae, who would lie in wait for hours, then suddenly dart, stun their prey, swallow their victim and move on, their only satisfaction the kill.
Jimmy knew the ritual by heart. After the third Manhattan, which La Roche was now sipping, he’d ring room service for a fourth drink to be taken up to his penthouse.
Soon La Roche was down to the cherry. Jimmy pulled over the next order chit and scooped ice into the daiquiri shaker. “Think you’re about to be drafted, Francine. You been a good girl?” The question wasn’t idle chatter — if she hadn’t been, they’d all get it in the neck.
“ ‘Course,” she said.
“Don’t shit me, Francine. You been having it off with the fleet or what?”
“Screw you,” she said. “When are those daiquiris going to be ready?”
He gave the flask a few extra shakes, the condensation catching the rosy glow of the bar, his voice using the chipped ice as cover. “Nothing personal, Francine, but Mr. La Roche wants the best. Have to understand that. You had a blood test?”
“You had yours?”
“Yeah,” said Jimmy, unabashed. “But I’m careful, Francine. I don’t go screwing about with anyone — after hours — know what I mean?”
“I haven’t—”
“Hey — don’t dance with me, honey. One of the juice-heads said she saw you down at Melville’s with a fly-boy. If you two tore one off, sweetie, I hope you used a letter.”
“I’m clean,” she said. He topped up the daiquiris. “Listen, Francine, you’ve got it all wrong. It’s for your own good, too, babe.” He lowered his voice, careful that a group of American and Japanese businessmen two tables closer in than La Roche couldn’t overhear — the Japanese being told through the booze and haze of blue smoke that with the Mideast wells aflame again, this time by Muslim fundamentalists in support of Siberia against America, North Slope oil was going to cost them a lot more than yen. “If you’re dirty,” Jimmy explained to Francine, “he’ll get mad. He likes S and M, anyway. And that’d just give him an excuse — if you’re dirty.” Jimmy lifted his eyes. “Know what I mean?” He could tell she wasn’t quite sure, though she was getting the drift — sort of. “You hear about his wife?”
Francine shrugged. “I heard a lot of yap.”
“In Shanghai.” said the barman. “Beat the crap out of her. She’s lucky she got out in one piece. Just warnin’ you, babe.”
“I can handle it, Jack,” she said, picking up the tray. “I think you’re jealous. Maybe you didn’t perform well enough for him.”
“I’m still here, bitch. And don’t call me Jack.”
“My my, I think he is jealous,” said Francine, balancing the tray. “Just a teensy-weensy bit.”
La Roche snapped his fingers. She went over and came back without having delivered the daiquiris. “Mr. La Roche would like another drink, Jack,” she said. “In his room.”
“You’re on, babe. You clean?”
She snatched up several coasters. “I suppose all your boyfriends are virgins, Jack?”
“Yes,” he said, unequivocally. “How about yours?”
Francine didn’t give a damn about Jimmy. Did he think that because she was just seventeen she hadn’t been round the block or something, that she didn’t know La Roche had you followed, that if you had made it with anyone else and hadn’t passed the company medical, you were out on your ass?
She knew she was clean. The only thing she couldn’t figure out was that if La Roche was so fussy — he probably knew she’d been to Melville’s — if he was so damned uptight about prick poisons, why didn’t he just keep a stable of girls on tap? How come he had to come down to the bar—his bar, for Chrissakes — and pretend that he’d somehow managed to pick you up? As if somehow he’d seduced you. Well, she didn’t care — had a guy once who had to do it with a parrot in the room. He was rich, too, and anyway, Jay La Roche was one helluva lot richer than him. Made it kind of exciting, though, she thought, like in the movies.
* * *
When she entered the penthouse, the first thing Francine was aware of was its smell: strangely antiseptic, creating an ambience of cold detachment — an empty feeling. So much so that she half expected to see cover sheets on the furniture.
The apartment was spacious, yet not as big as she’d supposed. Everything in it seemed extraordinarily organized— nothing spontaneous about it. Even the paintings — mod art— seemed chosen to match the angular Scandinavian chaise longue. For all the art deco colors, and a stunning view of Central Park and beyond, it had an inhospitable air, and she felt a chill, despite the fact that the gold-braced thermostat was registering over seventy degrees. When he came out from the kitchenette to meet her, he was in a rich oxblood robe with yellow dragons, rampant, front and back, embroidered in gold thread. It clashed violently with the decor.
He pressed a button somewhere and the air began pulsating with a heavy rock bet.
“You like the Razors?” he asked.
“Yes, Mr. La Roche, but how did you know—”
“I know what music you like — if you call that shit music.” He paused, but she knew it wasn’t for want of anything to say, his eyes sweeping over her, taking in every detail, as if he could see right through her, knew all about her past and her future.
“I know what you eat,” he said. “Come here.” As she walked toward him, he reached over to the window wall and, without taking his eyes off her, pressed another button, and she saw the drapes moving toward one another, wiping out the view.
“My wife’s boyfriend is back with her,” he said. “Up in Alaska.”
She was nonplussed, but quickly something told her, perhaps the obsessive neatness of the apartment, that if she showed any puzzlement, it would be dangerous. She said nothing.
“You know why?” La Roche went on, one hand extracting a small gold snuff box from the robe’s right-hand pocket, his other hand holding the gold leaf which gave the cocaine a light saffron color. “You know why?” he repeated.
“No.”
“Because,” said La Roche, his lips in a thin smile, “he had to bail out over Ratmanov.”
Francine was racing to keep up. All Ratmanov meant to her was that it was some hunk of rock off Alaska the Americans and Siberians had been fighting over before the cease-fire. A lot of men were killed.
“Yeah,” said La Roche, “some Siberian nearly took Romeo’s eye out.” La Roche was still smiling, swirling the ice cubes in the glass.
“ ‘Course, he’ll want to get back to flying soon as he can. Right?”
“Sure,” agreed Francine. “I mean — it’s only natural isn’t it?”
“Yeah — well, I want him out of there — away from her.” He took a gulp of the Manhattan. “That natural?”
“Yeah — sure, Mr. La Roche—”
“You know all it’ll take to get him out of there?”
Francine shook her head. He handed her a thousand-dollar bill rolled tightly into a tube. Holding her hair back with one hand, she leaned forward.
“One phone call, sweetie. One fucking phone call. That’s all.” He held his hand out for the snuff box after she’d finished, and she watched his fingers covering it like an octopus. He laughed. “And a little campaign contribution.”
She smiled, figuring it was the right thing to do. It was, but then, suddenly, his mood changed. He sat down in the plush leather swivel chair and turned away from
her. For a moment Francine thought he was staring at the drapes, but then noticed he was holding a Christmas-card-sized photograph he must have taken from his robe pocket.
“She wants me back,” he said. “I know it. Deep down I know it.” He swung around to face Francine again. “But I was bad to her, Francine. You know what I mean?”
“I–I think so, Mr. La Roche.” He was looking away from her again, back at the photo of his wife. “I have to pay for it, Francine.” He was speaking softly, his head back hard against the rest, but Francine didn’t hear him and didn’t care — already feeling the rush. He got up, walked over toward her, and, taking her hand, led her into the kitchenette, opened a drawer and took out a small, glistening paring knife.
She froze.
“Don’t worry,” he said contemptuously. “I’m not going to hurt you. Come here.” She hesitated. “Come here, you bitch.”
Her heart thumping, she glanced at the door.
“Go — if you want,” he said. “Think I’m going to cut you?”
“No…” she began uncertainly. He put down the knife, walked toward her, took her arms, pulled her hard up against him, staring at her, then released his grip. Her relief was audible as she stumbled back, rubbing her wrist. He held out his hand to her, and this time she came to him willingly, albeit hesitantly.
“Now watch,” he said. “I told you I’m not going to hurt you.” Deftly, quickly, he took the knife and, pulling the bodice of her dress toward him, sliced it open, then, hooking his left forefinger in the middle of her bra, cut the strap and dropped the knife into the sink, gazing at her breasts. Then, wordlessly, he led her into the bedroom and shut the door. He turned on a small bedside lamp, sat on the bedspread of pale blue silk and told her to take off his robe. He was getting big, she saw, but not fully aroused. He flung back the bed sheets and, from under the pillow, pulled out a strap — its buckle missing. He doubled it up and gave it to her. “Until I tell you to stop, Francine. You understand?”
