“Without other considerations, twenty-two percent. With, nearly forty.”
“Don’t let’s do it,” the Nordic god said impatiently.
“Your comment is worthy of thought, Mr. Van Demark,” Dr. Chao said with profound calm. “In your sector, of tourist concessions, expenditure of a million dollars brings in one eighty thousand. Antiques are currently engaged in laying out twenty thousand for a return of six million per annum. Compare the ratios of the two sectors. The profitabilities are… ?”
“Point one eight, three hundred.” From Ling Ling without a calculator. “One thousand, six hundred and sixty-six point six recurring times more profitability in the antiques sector.”
Van Demark reddened. The Hindu lady smiled and went on, “Our antiques have had notable successes. Theft recycling continues at a steady thirty percent of gross. The insurance and investment brokers still pay us four percent on all purchased items for market tranquillity. Museum-protection income has risen a quarter…”
I listened, gaping. I thought it was going to be a list of Cologne fake Roman glass, Italian porcelains, and who had enough nerve these days to market English hammered silver coins. Instead, I was hearing how the world was run. Normally I’d have been enthralled, but as the minutes ticked by, I sank further into despond. There was a message here. I’d been allowed to sit in on the Triad’s think tank. I was doomed.
They burbled on—drugs, extortion, shipping, insider share trading. Ling Ling herself did the bars and bar girls; her two women accounted for hotels and, surprisingly, sports concessions in Southeast Asia. My depressed neurons switched off. One thing: No hidey-hole screens were visible, so everybody, good and bad, was here in this room.
As the meeting broke up I tried to reach the Italian woman but was fingered by Ong and conducted to a separate room, in fact an auditorium. A group of Cantonese blokes huddled on the stage broke into smiles and fists— together gestures of jubilation when Ling Ling entered.
“Picture show, Lovejoy,” Ong said. I settled back as the first slide came on. Proving sessions—“proofies” to the trade—always make me nervous. Every good fake, even genuine antiques, undergoes this trial. Think of it as a screen test, where a knowledgeable jury tries to find defects in the pack of lies which the public will be told.
I ogled the projection.
It was beautiful, my Song Ping complete with frame. One of the men described the artistic features “as cataloged,” and was followed by a scientist who snapped us straight into high-pressure liquid chromatographic analyses of God knows what, seasick graphs, scanning electron micrographs of pollen grains found in the paint. An inorganic chemist showed us photometric and emission studies. An entomologist talked of spiders’ webs on the frame. Somebody had analyzed the glues, varnishes, the canvas, hey-noney-no.
It passed superbly, to my pride. Three others took over and dealt with exhibition of artifacts representing poor Song Ping’s hard times in old Canton. I especially enjoyed this bit, the old street photographs, maps of the city, grainy black-and-whites of Song Ping himself outside a shop, tickets, passes, fragments of a Chinese diary. It was lovely, a whole authenticated account of a life in old Canton. The printers had excelled themselves, producing faded catalogs of first twenty, then fifty-eight, then a hundred and sixty, paintings. Some goon read them all out in Cantonese, measurements and all, the maniac. My brain wasn’t up to Ling Ling’s, but producing one every two months would see me free in about forty years. Four decades.
“The Song Ping exhibition will begin tomorrow,” Dr. Chao announced, concluding the proceedings. “It will be a prodigious success. The painting will be on view one week from now.”
My vision misted, self-pity, as the know-alls babbled on. It wasn’t fair. Sentenced to forty years for naught, a caring compassionate bloke like me. I was so sorry for myself.
I’d now never see East Anglia, where even the future is filled with bygones.
But by the time Ling Ling rose with murmured thanks to the experts, I too was smiling and nodding with the best, a picture of elation. Sod imprisonment, and sod the Triad as well. I’d get on with my private holocaust.
Tempting the gods, I even smiled at my victims, Sim and Fatty. The gods thunderbolted me instantly. Ling Ling left to hostess the important visitors, and Dr. Chao summoned me aside.
From midnight on I was to go into exile. Well, even jail can improve living standards.
35
« ^ »
THAT last time with Lorna and Mame was one long riot of spending, parties, dancing, romantic meals on beflagged junks, less a tryst than a tumult. Hong Kong’s famous sights blurred past in sunshine, loving, cheering at the Happy Valley races, flitting from shop to emporium while Lorna and Mame laughed and spent. Lorna even bought an apartment, for God’s sake, above Glenealy on the Peak Road. More hilarity, then a dash back to the liner to change for a candle-lit supper on a yacht moored by Junk Bay, where at last we were still, smiling at each other under tranquil twilight. About tranquil twilight.
It’s great stuff, even without an attractive American millionairess playfully feeding you jasmined lychees from a Queen Anne silver spoon. In fact, I’d go so far as to say that I’d never been so thrilled to see a romantic all-concealing twilight fall. Because two ladies rich enough to have the Tiger Balm Gardens closed to the public for the purpose of serving chilled champagne to their lovers among all those crazy statues is bound to attract attention. As it had, paparazzi and all. And the Rolls ensured an admiring entourage wherever we went. Money being god, every extravagant purchase swelled our crowd more. And by teatime Lorna and Mame were gleefully trying to outspend each other. By then I’d given up trying to look inconspicuous.
If Janie spotted me, the whole game was up.
“So this Egyptian lady who’d mislaid her husband blamed me!” Steerforth was pealing laughter, one of his tales. I laughed along.
Dr. Chao had been unmoved when I told him that a lady I’d known back home was in Hong Kong. “And that nerk in the Macao races,” I added. “If either guesses I’m here, the game’s up.”
“Are you questioning my orders?” Dr. Chao asked gently.
“Me? No, no, Doc. But—”
“That word ‘but’ implies only a conditional acceptance of our orders, Lovejoy.” He went on over my fervent denials, “You will leave at midnight, and remain in exile until after the auction.”
“And the Brookers Gelman women?”
A pleased smile. “Your, ah, clients? It is vital that you… perform as normal, or suspicions will be aroused. Their husbands arrive from Manila tomorrow. Pretend you have to return to East Anglia—an ailing uncle, perhaps.”
“Penny for your thoughts, darling?” Lorna was pouring us more wine. The yacht rocked gently as amahs brought a fresh course. One thing, my prison lacked nothing. But it felt prison.
“No deal,” I said. “They’re worth twopence.”
Lies again. My thoughts were worth me.
Later, when the women made their way to the cabins, I maneuvered one last look at the sequined shore lights and so caught Steerforth. Cautiously I looked about but the amahs were noisily clearing up. “Steerforth. Look. You sober?”
“A little merry, Lovejoy.” He was reeling, sloshed.
“Listen. Do me a favor? You’re the only one I can trust, mate.”
“No, Lovejoy.” He sobered somewhat. “You’re trouble. A favor to you might mean zappo to me.”
“It’s a message, that’s all. To Fatty.”
“What is it?” He was guarded.
“Just this. Tell him it’s ready, same place, but he’s got to let Marilyn go. Got it?”
“It’s ready, same place,” he repeated. “No risk?”
“Honest,” I said. “I obeyed his orders to the letter.”
“It’s ready, same place, and he’s to let Marilyn go? Just that? No need to say where, Lovejoy?”
“Gawd, I’ve only been in one place for weeks. He’ll know where.” I cla
pped him on the shoulder. “Thanks, mate. I owe you. And soon I’ll be able to pay.”
Lorna called me down then. Needless to add, I obeyed.
At midnight a small launch came for me, Leung and Ong in it with a liveried foki to lend legitimacy. I was roused from romantic slumber, and a tearful farewell was had by all—
Lorna, Mame, but especially me.
“Promise to fly back the instant he’s better, Lovejoy.”
“Eh?” Oh, my sick uncle. “Sure, love.”
She stood waving by the starboard light, called, “I’ve a wonderful surprise when you return, darling. Come soon!”
I called, “Good night, doowerlink. Night, Mame.” Then I added, “Good night and good luck, Steerforth, old chap.”
Aye, I thought, settling wearily in the launch. Great stuff, surprise.
36
« ^ »
EXILE’S sometimes not, if you follow. Sometimes it’s sanity. I learned this at Tai O.
The village is straight out of a poem. This thought only came to me on the tenth day of exile, during my morning ritual. It was only a walk in my round coolie hat, to the high-stilted tin shacks, then as far as the ferry, turn round at the coffin maker’s, back past the chemist’s shop. I mean, a huddle of Chinese houses (one mine), a temple with ski-lift corners, a sandy strand, the shallowest cleanest river trickling all silvery into the blue sea, green scrubby hills rising high behind. Quiet. No cot-hopping for Lovejoy in Tai O.
For two days I didn’t even know where I was. Leung and Ong simply dumped me in this little house at night and vanished. Later I asked an English tourist from a bus and he showed me his map. “I came from Silvermine Bay,” he said, “and it took forty-five minutes…” Tai O, on Lantau Island. A big island, maybe twenty miles long. And of course I was at the wrong end. A walk to the northern tip would put me in sight of the New Territories north of Kowloon, but the two-mile swim would be beyond me.
I got in the habit of going to watch the Hong Kong ferry sail, at twenty to one and evening at seven. It frightened me badly by not sticking to schedule and only arriving once, my third day of exile, but I guessed that was Sunday.
Two tourists came that day into the mighty Po Chu Hotel, but I stayed clear, as Leung and Ong had ordered.
No painting, no books. The newspaper man by the ferry only sold Chinese editions.
Each evening I had one good meal, avoiding rice wine. Thinking nervously of sharks, I flopped in the river mouth twice a day. I watched the local ferry—a tiny flat sampan journeying recklessly the twenty yards to a minute island. Two old dears pull the ropes.
I got to know them pretty well, they were cackling and laughing with me each morning.
And one dawn, really wild, I went to and fro a few times on it but the excitement got to me. I returned to waiting for the number 1 bus from Silvermine Bay to haul in. The only antiques around were three salt pans worked by an old bloke and his sons. Several other pans were disused.
After I’d been there a week, a tourist made my day. He came up and asked me the way to the monastery. I didn’t know we had one but pointed inland, logic being what it is.
He may be wandering around yet. But the incident proved I’d lost my city edge. By now I must look like a beach bum, an idler.
With the mornings yawning by, you’d think I’d be notching minutes off on a stick.
Wrong. The less you do, the less you want to do. A couple of mornings I found I’d even forgotten to shave. Occasional thoughts of my hectic existence in Hong Kong flitted by—of my lovely Marilyn, the perfect and all-powerful Ling Ling, the women I’d, er, escorted for a price. But that was all. I drank an ale or two, ambled forlornly from the duck farm to the women making shrimp paste, between the stilt houses and the silted-in sampans. I had a game of mah-jongg with the coffin maker, got beaten all ends up.
Life was one long riot at Tai O, but I was scared how it would end.
Then one day the Hong Kong ferry did its hiccup, doing only one journey. Which set me wondering. Third time. I started calculating, and a hotness came over me. Sixteen days? Seventeen?
The auction had been and gone days ago. And Lovejoy lived! I hunted for a stray newspaper on the waterfront. Sometimes tourists discarded them. I found half of a Post, three days old, saying the usual rubbish. Nothing about me, the Song Ping exhibition, auctions. I felt numb, downcast. What now? I’d obeyed orders—except for one little bit. Surely wasn’t the deal that, now it was all over, I should return to my studio in Hong Kong and turn out more works of art?
That night I wrote a letter. Nothing secret, perfectly ordinary, stamp and everything. I addressed it to Phyllis Surton, told her where I was, asked her to come over on the ferry. I posted it in the public box during a night stroll. I woke next morning to find it pinned inside my doorway.
Which meant that exile can be total, with life running out. From that moment on all peace ended. I began to hate the calm place, with its sand and sea and smiles. For the first time I was really afraid. They had me on ice. Or they’d forgotten me.
For the first time, too, I took stock, sitting terrified on the ground by the old women’s rope ferry for company. The Triad would have recorded my every movement in the studio, probably watched me and Marilyn on camera. Certainly they’d have recorded my techniques. And it was their own printers, publicity people, auctioneers, who must by now have pulled off the sale and established Song Ping as the Chinese wonder. The scam guaranteed them fortunes forever.
So I was superfluous.
And my last message to Steerforth, trying to get somebody in trouble. Pathetic. In despair it seemed they were just holding me until they’d proved that the same worked.
Then I’d be vanished without a ripple. The decision would be taken at the weekly meeting in that superb hotel. It would take half a nod from Ling Ling, a regretful smile from Dr. Chao, and the goons would come… Weary and defeated, I knew the world was ending. I’d now never be able to cash in on the Van Arsdell theory, that Boadicea actually did produce her own coinage (underpriced still—those ancient Brits made staters of 60 percent gold). And would all the second-level London auction pundits complete their secret buy-outs of the provincial firms before their supersecret launch into Europe next April? I’d never know.
They wouldn’t catch the number 1 bus from Silvermine Bay. No. Sea. They’d come in a great yacht or one of those decorated party-goers’ junks.
Dr. Johnson was wrong. Knowing you’re about to die doesn’t concentrate the mind wonderfully. It blanks it out: feel all emotions simultaneously, you feel none; add all colors to make white. I should know.
For several more days I sat there watching the bay at Tai O. I hardly ate. I went unshaven. I even gave up watching for sharks in the ankle-deep river when bathing.
And I thought of nothing, just shuffled about carrying that leaden mass of fear in my belly from dawn to dusk, then lying awake in the darkness. I didn’t try to escape or beg anybody for help.
They came about the twenty-sixth day, in a big white yacht.
37
« ^ »
THE first I knew was my doorway darkening as Leung stepped in. No fans or air-conditioning in my friendly little house, so I always left it open.
“Get your things, Lovejoy,” Ong said somewhere out in the noon glare. He sounded full of ominous grins. I had two towels, one change of clothes, an electric razor with dud batteries, the jacket I’d arrived in. How did one dress to be hanged? Shooting would be it, though.
“The servants’ll bring my trunks,” I said, and walked with them on jelly legs.
Tai O ignored me. The old ferry women didn’t look. The coffin maker bent aside in sudden preoccupation. Yet only a week ago he’d promised to make a set of model Chinese river craft based on Worcester’s book, and I’d age them to sell to antique collectors. If anyone chanced to make inquiries here, I’d never existed. My last wobbly march was down to the waterfront and into a sampan.
The two-masted yacht was a white
monster, oddly flat on the blue water. Sundry sailors did nimble things to the rigging as I climbed the steps. A structure like a dumbwaiter whirred vertically up the yacht’s tall side, stores or something. On deck, nobody looked.
I was already dead.
“Good day, Lovejoy.” Dr. Chao was in a stateroom—that what they’re called? A posh place with windows and a bar and elegant furniture, after miles of sleek carpeted corridors. He seemed happy, like all successful killers. “Tea?”
“Ta.” I sat. Amahs served, withdrew. Jasmine tea.
“You are not curious about the auction, Lovejoy?”
Three attempts later I managed to say, “How’d it go?”
“Very well, thank you. We decided to pay a price equivalent of sixteen thousand two hundred gold ounces.” About seven million, current. “Implication?”
“Brookers Gelman will jump at a merger. And, seeing that the Big Two auction houses get a third of their income from Impressionists these days, you’re in a position maybe to buy one out. Try Christie’s.”
“Would that be wise, Lovejoy?”
Oddly, I felt impatient. He should be getting on with the business of sentencing me to death.
“Well, if you want a cheaper deal, buy out a score of provincial auctioneers —they’re mostly struggling. You’ll put the fear of God into Bonhams, Phillips, and the rest. Maybe they’ll ask a merger too. You dictate the terms.”
He sipped his bowl of tea, cut the cackle with a faint gesture. “One thing troubles me, Lovejoy. Your Song Ping scheme went like a dream. But are you trustworthy?”
Here it came. I wished I’d not been so impatient. “You ordered me—”
“To do one, Lovejoy.” My hand quivered. I put my tea down. It was in a tiny blue-and-white porcelain stem cup, its horizontal stem grooves and spreading foot typical of the Yuan Dynasty, 1300-1350 a.d. or so. Its everted rim and three-clawed dragon decoration moved me almost to tears, except I had me to weep over now. “But you did two.” I said nothing. He put his tea down also. “It was found behind the panels of your studio. No wonder you had to work so hard, at the end.”
Jade Woman l-12 Page 24
