Kiss Me, Hadley: A Novel

by Nick Macfie

  “What’s on B3? Food outlets. Bars. Fun things. You find out. You don’t go fucking on the other decks, okay?”

  “What about an occasional game of deck quoits?”

  “Ah?”

  “On the top deck. With Muriel and her…”

  “Are you some kind of fucking communist?”

  “No. I’m sorry. I just…”

  “Well don’t just. Have you ears?”

  “Sorry.”

  I SAW SCOUT at the ferry pier before she saw me, sitting on the metal railing, looking about her confidently, brushing her long hair free of her shoulder. I was looking about too, wondering if any of the casino bosses were around, ready to ram chopsticks up my nose. Behind Scout, fishermen and fisherwomen were squatting on the deck of a lone junk mending nets as others washed dishes and hung the laundry out to dry. Two men, cigarettes hanging from their lips, were keeping a close eye on Scout’s bottom. She was wearing a pink jumper which said “Made in Heaven” across the chest.

  Girl meets older boy for a date in the daylight. No velvet curtains, no bar fines, no keg of San Mig to make the whole event go smoothly. I instinctively felt for the hip flask in my jacket pocket. I gave her a hug and a chaste kiss just above the beauty spot, all the while looking around for the surly gangsters.

  “Scout, as you know, I want to become a successful city banker and have no qualms,” I said.

  Straight away I realised I had said something unscripted and mad. I felt my face flush and I looked at Scout blankly. Was this the onset of Alzheimer’s? Scout turned her head to one side and opened her lovely mouth. The lips would taste raw and fresh on the inside under just the slightest pressure from mine.

  “Run that one by me again, Perse?”

  “I have no idea what I just said.”

  “You want to become a banker?”

  “Was that it? No. I don’t think I want to become a banker. This is something that just came out. Subliminal.”

  “Subliminal? Are you all right? Are you taking any medication?”

  I had said something without knowing it and I was stone cold sober. I remembered the dealer on the boat talking about the Conservative Party. And the man in the bowler hat in some kind of a trance being led into a room on one of the lower decks. Pull yourself together, Hadley. Stop being so fanciful. This wasn’t Steed and Emma Peel in an early episode of “The Avengers”. Pay attention to the beautiful Scout, in the real world, who is still talking to you and looking concerned.

  “Sorry, Scout, what were you saying?”

  “For fuck’s sake. I’m asking you. Did you get a job on the boat? What’s the matter with you?”

  “Yes, yes. I’ve got a job. We’ll be working together to defraud young mums out of their savings.”

  “You’re doing it again. Stop scaring me. You’re not normal.”

  “I wasn’t doing it again. Casinos defraud young mums out of their savings whether or not they’re the ones doing the gambling. I’m sure of it.”

  “Well if any casino is going to do that it’s this one. The bosses on the boat are all thugs. They look like killers.”

  “Where’s Eve?”

  “She’s back in London with my mum. The idea is to make tons of money in six months and then go back.”

  We walked through the shops and then inland, past tiny old houses with moss growing on their concrete steps, three-storey blocks of flats with the giant awnings over the roofs. There were restaurants spilling out on to the narrow concrete path and shops selling buckets and spades and beachwear. We walked through thick vegetation to emerge on the beach, sat at an outdoor restaurant in the shade and ordered beers.

  “Tell me Scout, does all this mean anything to you, being half Chinese?”

  “Don’t be a berk. I’ve never been here before.”

  “Do you speak Chinese?”

  “Not a dicky-bird. I told you, my dad’s dead. Soon after I was born. He and my mum ran a bar in Stanley. In the British days, obviously. I don’t know much about it except there were lots of fights among the squaddies. My mum once overheard a soldier saying how he was looking forward to getting back to Northern Ireland, at the height of the troubles, because he hated Hong Kong so much. That really shook her. She tells that story over and over again. Got lots of pictures back at home of them with pretty Chinese girls and handsome blokes, mostly Chinese. That was rare then. I mean, English people having close Chinese friends was rare. Let alone being married to them.”

  “Still is with most expats.”

  “I went to the bar where my parents worked. The Pirates.”

  “I was there the other night.” Trying to zone out Zeb, I could have added, but it would have needed too much fake and intricate explanation to ensure I didn’t blow my cover.

  “One or two of the old guys remembered them.”

  “What did they say?” I was wincing at the “gone, gone, gone the arm” story. Should have been “gone, gone, gone the fucking prick, Zeb”. Down, down, down a big hole.

  “They said my dad was very good-looking but kind of wild. I think he was some kind of gangster. They said everyone fancied my mum.”

  “You should try to find people who knew him properly.”

  “One day, Blue Nose. Here, I saw a movie about Hong Kong last night. ‘Love is a Many Splendoured Thing’.”

  “Ah, nice.”

  “I thought it was nice. Except they spelt ‘splendoured’ without the ‘u’.”

  “Americans.”

  “Can you really swim across the bay and walk up to people’s houses wearing next to nothing and leave all your stuff behind on the beach?’

  “I doubt it.”

  “And did he give her one? On the beach, I mean? It wasn’t clear. Lots of ambiguities in that movie.”

  “It was a long time ago. I can you tell you something interesting about the theme tune. The first five notes are a complete rip-off of Puccini’s Madame Butterfly. Un Bel di Vedremo.”

  I remembered the sweep over 1950s Central where, amazingly, the tops of the old shop houses gave the city none of the charm the skyscrapers do today. There was also a nice shot of the Repulse Bay Hotel before the studio beach love scene between foreign correspondent William Holden and Eurasian doctor Jennifer Jones.

  “Fuck off,” Scout said.

  “No, it’s true. It’s a deliberate pastiche.”

  “No, I mean fuck off. You can bleach your arse with your Puccini pastiche. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be such a phony. Anyway, I’ve got to tell you something more important. People come and go very fast on this boat. Staff turnover, I mean. They’re there one day and gone the next.”

  She leant forward and whispered. “These guys are real thugs. Nothing would surprise me. We’ve got to watch out.”

  “What do you think happened to them?” I couldn’t help it, but a first paragraph was forming in my head. This was a great story. “I saw the back of some guy with short blond hair. He looked like he could be a thug.”

  “I’ve seen him. Mongolian guy, right?”

  “I only saw the back of his head.”

  “He runs the place, I reckon. Genghis Khan, the dealers call him. When they’re talking, that is. Try not to catch his eye.”

  “I’ll take your advice. So what’s happening to the dealers?”

  “I can’t think. No one would dare to try to cheat the place. Unless they’re in the same position as me. Unless they’ve done a deal and wished they hadn’t.”

  “What kind of a deal? What have you done?”

  “They paid off my London debts. Every last penny. God knows how they found out. But they paid everything back. Gave me a big smile. Now I have to pay them back.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean I have to pay them back. So they control me. As long as I don’t have to sleep with the fucking punters.”

  “Oh Scout, I’m sorry.”

  “It won’t co
me to that. You ever seen those cute girls in Wanchai? If they can do it, I can do it. They look happy enough.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “Why not? You mean they don’t agonise over it? I guess not, or how could any decent man bar-fine them, right? Or isn’t there such a thing as a decent man? But there’s one American bloke giving me a hard time.”

  “In a perfect world, the police would bust them, they’d sail away in the middle of the night with their tails between their legs and you’d be free of them and wouldn’t have to pay them back.”

  “Fuck off, Perse. Don’t make me laugh. You think that sort of crap makes me feel better? You’re a weak toff. Anyway, the place is crawling with coppers. They’re all in on it. British cops too. It’s like the British still run the place. Superintendents, lieutenants. They’re shameless. There are girls on every deck and all sorts of stuff going on. Don’t be fooled by those innocents who welcome you aboard. It’s like Sodom and Gomorrah and ‘The Love Boat’ all in one. That’s pretty biblical.”

  “How come no one has said anything?”

  “You’ll find out. The boat moves, they change boats. But it’s always nearby. That’s the attraction for the punters. You don’t have to go to Macau. They do close down every now and then. I haven’t seen it but one of the Mayfair dealers said it’s like out of one of those old gangster movies on the telly - a casino and whorehouse one minute, and when the cops, the good cops, come sniffing around, the alarm goes and within seconds it’s back to being a boring old ship with planks and boxes and lifebuoys and stuff. Don’t ask me how they do it.”

  “So, what are you going to do?” And what was I going to do? Me, the weak toff. I could write a story now and bust the whole place wide open.

  “Dunno yet.”

  “You want to come back to my place?”

  “Are you soft in the head? What’s the matter with you? I’ll have another beer. There’s something I ought to tell you right off.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t think you’ll ever get into my pants.”

  “I hadn’t…”

  “I mean it. This casino stuff is different and I am going to try to make sure I don’t have to do any monkey business. But if I did, that’s what it would be - business.”

  “Scout, I never even thought about it.”

  “Liar, liar, pants on fire. Everyone wants me, they do. I could go out on the street and click my fingers and have them waiting in line.”

  “You think the only reason I am with you is because I want to sleep with you?”

  “Definitely. You just don’t know it. You think you are being kind. But that’s bollocks. Kind is bollocks. The thing is, Blue Nose.”

  “What?”

  “I’ll tell you once and I won’t say it again and you mustn’t ask me questions. Do you agree?”

  “Okay.”

  “Say you promise.”

  “I promise.”

  “The thing is, I don’t like sleeping with men unless they’re real, absolute fucking bastards.”

  “You only like real bastards?”

  “It’s true,” she said. “All my boyfriends up to now have been complete arseholes. Real fuckers. Anyone nice is just bland and colourless and a real turn-off. The idea, right now, of you climbing into my bed makes me retch.” A horn blew from behind the power station. It sounded like a raspberry, someone taking the piss. “I’m just stating a fact. I’m happy with the way I am. Fuck nice men. They need stakes through their hearts. Fuck Madame bloody Butterfly.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Why’s that man staring at us?”

  The spiky-haired Chinese man was standing ankle deep in the waves, holding a rope attached to a small dinghy. He was wearing rolled up trousers a lighter blue than his legs and arms which were covered in tattoos. He also had on a tweed jacket and a flat English workman’s cap. It was a pose for a saucy nineteen-fifties postcard.

  “He looks like that wino from Camden Town,” Scout said. “From the churchyard. Look at those tattoos.”

  “It is the old man from Camden Town. And this is not the first time I’ve seen him here. I bet he’s a gangster.”

  “No shit. Hello!” Scout shouted across. “He told me he lived in Hong Kong.”

  “You’ve spoken to him?”

  “Back in London, of course. He always said hello to me and Eve.”

  “He just threw stones at me. Is he a gangster?”

  “Seems to know how to take care of himself. Doesn’t seem like a complete down and out.”

  I put down my beer, pulled my phone, keys and hip flask from my pockets and laid them on the table. Then I started towards the water, walking at first and then running. The old man saw me, made a mock “I’m so scared” move, raising his hands in the air, turned and jumped in the boat. I slipped on a wet rock and fell in the sand, my hands managing to break the fall.

  “Blue Nose!”

  “I’m okay.”

  “What do you think you’re doing?”

  “I just wanted to talk to him. I want to find out why he’s following us.”

  “Well, you’ve just scared him away. He probably thought you were going to mug him. He doesn’t know it’s us.”

  “Of course he knows it’s us. That’s why he’s here.”

  “Well, he doesn’t mean any harm. I’m sure of that.”

  “You don’t think he’s a complete fucking bastard, then?”

  The old man was fifty yards offshore. He was sitting at the tiller and facing the way he was going. There was none of the business with the fingers and the eyes.

  CHAPTER SIX

  IT WAS TIME TO TAKE the initiative on the casino story. I knew it and Baxter knew it. What would be the point in busting one, rusting casino ship when I had the chance of getting “Mr Big”? I could save Scout, maybe, but there were dozens, maybe hundreds, of other girls out there in just the same position, on boats all around Asia. Maybe worse than boats. Maybe in jungle camps in Thailand, where snakes come at you at night in pairs. In damp cellars in Manila, where cockroaches are as fat as casino chips and fly in your face. In air-conditioned shopping malls in Singapore, where they play Air Supply in the lifts. As for Scout, boy oh boy. She had issues she would have to sort out for herself.

  “At some point, Hadley, you have to do some intelligent investigation,” Baxter said. “You need to do some leg work, not just stand behind a roulette table flashing your eyes at the girls. Not just leg-over work.”

  A little joke. There was hope left. Baxter had his back to me and was staring out of his window, again distracted. Heavy, dark clouds hung over Lion Rock across the harbour.

  “How’s Zeb?” I asked.

  “What’s this you said about dealers going missing?”

  “Nothing firm. There’s just a very fast turnover.”

  “Well keep at it. As for Zeb, he’s upsetting everyone. He’s very strange, I’m afraid. I mean look at him now. Actually, don’t look. He’ll know we’re talking about him. But he’s walking around the room with that thing stuck in his ear like he’s supervising a lunar landing. Don’t know from which planet though.”

  “Who’s he talking to?”

  “Haven’t a bloody clue. Maybe some Japanese soothsayer. Maybe a member of his family. No one dares give him any story to sub, he’s so bad. But he thinks he’s a natural. I’ll send him out on an assignment. But if I do that, he might write another story.”

  “Then you’ve got to give it to someone to sub.”

  “Yes. All such a waste of time.”

  “A small waste of time for man. A giant waste of time for mankind.”

  “Anyway, about the casinos. You have to ask more questions,” Baxter said. “You can’t write just about this one place. On the other hand, you can’t just do your shifts at the tables and not give us anything.”

  “We have the boat.”

  “What do you have on the boat? Who’s funding it? Is it one person, a gang, a
company, a government? Where does the money go? How many other places like this are there around Hong Kong? Around Asia? Around the world? How do they get a licence to moor off Hong Kong? One of our equities people sent an email all round about a specific Macau bank. Did you see it?”

  “Equities?”

  “Yes, equities. Did you get it?”

  The last thing I wanted was the equities people, the people who knew about banks and telecoms and, it has to be said, Macau casinos, getting their hands on the story. There was also another question bothering me as I looked across the harbour: Why did they build the Hong Kong Cultural Centre, next to the surviving clock tower of the long-gone Kowloon Station and with the best view in the world, without windows?

  “Let me look.”

  I checked my BlackBerry and got the name of the bank. There was also some information about its “leverage” and “profit warnings” and “PE ratio” (something to do with how many times you fall off the parallel bars?) and a couple of quotes, one from a telecoms analyst, about the bank’s poor earnings outlook. Enough.

  The trick was to be ahead of the curve, to get something out on the wire before you read it in the newspapers and you had to play catch-up for the next week. Playing catch-up is the worst feeling in the business. The real beauty of a story was to keep the bosses off your back. To pre-empt them. I would take a ferry to Macau armed with the name of the bank through which North Koreans were supposedly laundering money.

  “One last thing, Hadley,” Baxter said. “I’m attending a meeting on economic indicators now. It would be good if you came along. It’s always good to have a general news input.”

  “I thought I’d go straight to Macau.”

  “It won’t take long. You pop along first and I’ll follow.”

  “But, economic indicators. I mean.”

  “They are our bread and butter. The better we present them, the more money we make. Does that sound so evil?”

  Well, yes, actually. Economic indicators are incredibly boring things like housing starts, producer prices, foreign direct investment and trade balances which come out at a certain time every month or quarter, depending on the country. They either compare themselves to the previous month, or the previous quarter, or to the same month or quarter a year earlier. The pressure was on to get these figures first, beating the opposition perhaps by seconds, and to analyse them quickly. Our winning the timings on this stuff made our bosses very happy. I was collared as I left Baxter’s office by someone on the Treasuries desk whose name I didn’t know. He was carrying a clipboard and hugely excited.