The Feng Shui Detective Goes South

by Nury Vittachi

  As the lights had changed and the police van had moved further along the road, Wong noticed that Ismail’s head moved to keep the monstrous building in view. Although not a trained feng shui man, Ismail, as a mystic, would surely realise that the ugly thing on the waterfront was the perfect spot in which to conjure bad fortune for Madeleine Tsai. If anything tumultuous were going to happen to a person in Sydney, that was the place in which it would happen.

  And this was the crux of Wong’s dilemma as he sat in the park, trying to decide what to do next. He reckoned there was a better than ninety per cent chance that Amran Ismail, upon being released from the police station, would immediately have taken Madeleine Tsai to that monstrous falling-over structure that had so firmly caught his eye.

  The next question was this: since he, Wong, knew where Ms Tsai would be, was it incumbent upon him to rescue her?

  No. He had no obligation to do so. There was no commission, no contract, and no deposit had been paid.

  So that led to another point: what happened next was his own free decision. What did he stand to lose or gain by staying voluntarily to help her? It appeared likely that if he could find her, and possibly rescue her, or even help her just a little bit, he stood to gain a great deal out of it. Wong visualised a traffic accident about to happen during the approach to the monster building, and him, following a few steps behind, snatching Ms Tsai out of harm’s way. He was anxious to intercept her, if at all possible, before she reached it. The building was a feng shui man’s worst nightmare. There was no way that he would enter it himself or even step within its shadow.

  The crux of the matter was this: The fates had given him a unique chance to help someone very, very rich. And that meant that he would be rewarded, for sure. Her father, he knew, was wealthy beyond imagination. The gift would surely be huge. And Old Man Tsai would surely cover expenses, too. He could send the tycoon an invoice which could cover his and Joyce’s fares to Australia—he’d pretend that they always travelled first class—and then add on a day rate of thousands of dollars a day for each of them. US dollars, perhaps. He could earn a fortune.

  But if they went home now? Things were very different. He would have to pay for new air tickets. Even if Joyce’s father reimbursed him for those, he would still be out of pocket. The invoice for the old tickets would arrive from Susan Leong’s travel agency next week. He would get no payback whatsoever for this whole wild goose chase. And then there was the hotel bill, for which he had paid cash. All in all, he stood to loose everything he had made from Mrs Mirpuri this week. He felt physical pain at the thought of this. He clenched his fists so tightly he almost gave himself stigmata.

  So what was it to be? If they stayed one more night, at least there was a chance that they could earn some money from Tsai Tze-ting. What if they stayed, but failed to find the girl? Even then, there would only be one pair of airline tickets to pay for, which, hopefully, Joyce’s father would be persuaded to cover. Maybe he would pay Wong back for the hotel as well? After all, this whole trip had been his idiot daughter’s idea—a misguided mission to find her friend, which he, Wong, had gone along with only out of the kindness of his heart. If Joyce’s father would cover such charges, most of the money from Mrs Mirpuri could be retained as revenue. And if the dentists paid as much as he hoped they would, this could still turn out to be a good week for him.

  ‘We stay,’ he decided. ‘Finish the job.’

  The next two hours were spent in a blur of frantic activity— which again achieved nothing at all. Joyce, at first, had been upset that Wong had changed his mind about heading straight back to Singapore. And she was even more annoyed when he revealed that financial considerations were his main reasons for doing so.

  ‘For many years I want a reason for Old Man Tsai or someone like that to owe me favor. Now it has come. I cannot let opportunity go,’ he had said.

  ‘So this girl’s a tin-arse,’ Brett had commented. ‘Interesting.’

  Incensed, Joyce had announced that she was going on strike with immediate effect. She had flatly declared that she would refuse to provide him with any further help in any way, or even accompany him on his mission to catch up with Madeleine Tsai and Amran Ismail—much to Wong’s delight.

  ‘I’m going back to the hotel,’ Joyce snapped. ‘Oh—maybe not.’ She recalled that the triads knew the hotel in which they were staying, and knew her name and room number. ‘Maybe I should book into another hotel under a fake name? What should I do? Can you find me a room and pay for it?’

  ‘You can’t play silly buggers here,’ interrupted Brett, who was entertaining himself by snapping the plastic forks in the coffee shop. ‘This is Australia. We have rules. You have to show your passport or ID when you book into a hotel. No fake names allowed. You can probably be arrested.’

  Joyce sniffed. ‘Well, I’m still not going to help you get that guy. It’s like totally dangerous. I could get killed. I’m too young to get killed. I don’t like this job any more: triads, police—they’re all horrible. I used to work in a tax office. A tax office is really nice. Nothing happens.’

  ‘I don’t want you to get killed,’ Wong assured her. ‘I will go and search for Ismail myself. No problem. No need for you to come.’

  ‘I know!’ Joyce said, suddenly brightening up. ‘I’ll go to Aunt Susilla’s. If the triads find me there, Brett will protect me, right? Got any guns?’

  Brett looked at her. ‘Maybe. But sorry,’ he said. ‘I’m going with Mr Wong. He needs me. Right, Mr Wong?’

  ‘Er,’ said the geomancer.

  ‘This is a job for men,’ Brett added. ‘Rescuing a young woman from bad guys.’ He snapped a spoon and flung it over his shoulder, where it landed in a passer-by’s double tall cappuccino.

  ‘A damson in distress,’ put in Wong, straining to recall a phrase from How’s Tricks: Colloquial English II.

  ‘But I need protecting,’ pleaded Joyce. ‘That’s a job for men, too. I don’t wanna be left alone in your house or in a hotel or anywhere. I need looking after. You’re supposed to be gentlemen. I’m a female. I’m a minor. You should be fighting over who gets to look after me.’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah. But we can’t waste my sort of skills on being a nursemaid,’ Brett said. ‘I know where I’m needed. For finding these bloody bad guys, you need a man. You need an Australian man. Mr Wong doesn’t know how to get around.

  He doesn’t speak English—not so’s anyone could understand it, anyway. There’s only one alternative for you, Joyce.’

  ‘What?’ she said, crestfallen.

  ‘Go to the police. Tell them you’re in danger. Ask for protection. You’ll be apples.’

  ‘As if. No thanks,’ she said quickly. ‘Oh geez. I’ll come with you. But I wanna guarantee that there’s going to be no danger.

  I don’t wanna get killed. Daddy would be like furious with me.

  Totally.’

  ‘Me too,’ said the geomancer, sighing. ‘Cannot risk my retainer.’

  Brett patted her on the head, to her disgust. ‘That’s my girl. I know you’re a bit stonkered, but it’ll be fun. It’s no good sulking, missing all the fun, being a bloody sook.’

  Stepping out of the coffee shop into the bright afternoon light, Wong noticed a store called Dymocks which had a window full of books. He asked Joyce and Brett to wait until he collected some information about a big ugly building.

  He entered and pointed to a postcard. ‘What is the name?’ he asked the shop staff member.

  ‘Of that? That’s the Opera House,’ she replied.

  ‘Oprah House?’

  ‘Yep.’

  He thought about this for a moment. ‘I saw her on TV. In Singapore. I’m from Singapore. Visitor.’

  ‘Welcome to Sydney. Is there any particular book you are looking for?’

  ‘I want a book on Oprah.’

  ‘Sure thing.’ The woman had then found him an autobiography of an American television talk-show host. He had flicked through it, frustrated to f
ind there were no pictures of her house.

  ‘You have any book with pictures of her house? Or only postcard?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Unless there’s a picture of her house in there.’

  ‘I want floor plans of Oprah’s house. Her house in Sydney.’

  At this comment, the woman had began to look worried and retreated back towards the manager’s office.

  Disappointed, Wong had moved as if to leave the bookshop—but then was delighted to find a book on a table near the front of the shop with the dangerous building on the cover. He had made further inquiries from another staff member and been guided to a shelf with several books featuring the building on the cover. He bought one that had photographs, plus a sketchy sort of floor plan and a detailed history.

  Outside the bookshop, Wong had shared his feelings about the Opera House with the others. Brett had initially been insulted to hear Wong talk about the bad feng shui of the building.

  ‘Whoa,’ he said. ‘This is an Aussie icon, mate. Perhaps the number one Aussie icon. You’d better not say anything bad about it to other people. I mean, you better remember that I am an unusually understanding sort of Aussie. Not everyone is as easygoing as I am. Slagging off the Opera House. That’s probably an arrestable offence these days. You’d better not let Officer Gallaher hear you saying anything like that. He’d have your guts for garters. He’d chuck a grand wobbly.’

  The feng shui master understood almost nothing of what Brett said, but had simply nodded and asked to be led to the car. The young man drove them to a parking lot at Circular Quay East Street.

  A few minutes’ brisk walking took them to the site of the Opera House. Wong had gasped as they approached. The huge building, with its massive jutting curves standing into the sky clearly horrified him. ‘Waaah,’ he gasped. ‘So strange.

  So . . . cheutkeih.’

  The feng shui master flatly refused to go past the guard station at the main approach. ‘I wait here,’ he said. ‘You go find her. Bring her to me. If they come this way, I will try to stop her.’ He refused to move any further.

  Joyce and Brett walked around the building. It took them more than forty minutes. They tried to inspect every seat in every café—there were at least five restaurants. They walked through all the public areas. They poked their heads into the performance spaces, several of which were empty. Then the intern proposed doing the entire circuit again.

  Her cousin shook his head. ‘It’s too slow us going together.

  We should split up, search the place and then meet again here in about, say, thirty or forty minutes. I used to work here.

  There are more than 1 000 rooms.’

  ‘I don’t wanna be left alone,’ squealed Joyce. ‘There are men with guns looking for me. I don’t like men with guns. Why didn’t you bring your gun?’

  ‘Didn’t want to. In Australia it’s not recommended.’

  They did another round of the main restaurants. By 4.33 p.m., Joyce was beginning to lose hope. There was no sign of Madeleine. If she was here, she was so well hidden that there would be no way of finding her without a search warrant which would allow them to march into the private offices, rehearsal spaces and dressing rooms. And she knew there was not the slightest hope of the police providing such a document.

  The two of them returned to the guardhouse where Wong was still staring with a considerable degree of fear at the angular structure that disturbed him so deeply.

  ‘You have to come and help us,’ Brett said. ‘She won’t leave me, so we just keep going round and round and we may be missing them. We’ll go one way and you go the other way. That way we should be able to zero in on the buggers.’

  Wong shook his head. ‘No. Cannot. This building very bad. The design is broken rice bowls. Broken rice bowls is the worst symbol. Very bad fortune.’ He backed away from them as he spoke. ‘Cannot,’ he repeated. ‘Cannot.’

  Why was the Malaysian not there? The geomancer wondered if he had got it wrong. Perhaps Ismail had merely been staring at a remarkable sight, and had not specifically decided that this was the spot at which Madeleine should die. But how could he have come to such a conclusion? The Opera House was far more dramatic than the bridge—there was a twisted, moving feeling about the place. The design made it a building in motion—and thus it produced an astonishing concentration of swirling ch’i.

  The position of the building on the waterfront added to its negativity, as the map in his book clearly showed. It was on Bennelong Point, which jutted directly into the sea, causing a dramatic interruption to the natural flow of the waters of Sydney Harbour, the fundamental source of the city’s fortune. The natural interchange of waters between Sydney Cove and Farm Cove was interrupted by the platform on which the monster building stood.

  Brett was still unconvinced. ‘This building is adored, mate. It’s loved more than any other place in the whole bloody country. It can’t be such a stinker as you make out.’

  Wong said he wanted to step further back, see if he could see the structure as a whole and try to get some idea of what the architect had in mind.

  Joyce decided to join him. ‘I’m coming, I’m coming. Every time I see a young Chinese guy I think it must be Jackie Sum.

  How am I supposed to spot him? I don’t even know what he looks like.’

  As Wong marched backwards away from the building, his expression suddenly changed.

  ‘Ah,’ he said, a smile breaking out on his face.

  ‘What, what?’ asked Joyce.

  ‘There! Now I see.’

  ‘You mean you see what the architect meant to do?’

  ‘No,’ said Wong. ‘I see Mr Ismail.’

  The next ten minutes were spent arguing. Amran Ismail had somehow taken Madeleine Tsai up on to one of the huge, parabolically curved roof sections of the Opera House. How he had done it, none of them could work out. There was no walkway visible from the ground to the roof. They could see no railings or paths or ladders intended for people climbing up from the lower levels to the outside of the alcove windows under the overhangs. There were no access doors to the roof. The upper surface of the building was off-limits to everyone. The windows that looked out on to bits of the upper surface areas—which were not contiguous since each was separated from its neighbour—were clearly not designed as doors onto the roof.

  ‘I think there are some steps you can get to somewhere,’ said Brett. ‘I remember meeting some buggers whose job it was to clean the windows. But I wouldn’t know how to get up there. Not legally, anyway.’

  Joyce surmised that Ismail must have told the young woman that it was the safest place to be, while he knew that it was the opposite.

  ‘He must have smashed a window and climbed out onto the surface,’ Brett said. ‘Or perhaps scaled up one of the sides where the curve comes right down to like ground level. Or found some steps which are supposed to be off-limits. Heaven only knows.’

  Wong had spotted the Malaysian just as he approached the zenith of one of the less steep roof sections. As they watched through binoculars hastily retrieved from Brett’s car, they saw that Ismail was dragging his terrified companion along. Maddy may have been calling for help, but her small voice was lost in the winds. They watched as he pushed her down into a sitting position. She kept glancing back the way they had come, but seemed unwilling to leave her companion. She sat still next to him, helpless, and apparently frozen with fear. The big man sat down next to her and waited.

  Neither Joyce nor Brett could think of anything to do to get Madeleine down from her perch. The obvious thing was to call the police—but their experience earlier that day meant that was no longer an option. Nor was there any hope of Brett or herself talking to the bomoh about the bad feng shui of the location and persuading him to come down.

  No, they needed C F Wong to do it. He was the only one who could speak to Amran Ismail in the language of mysticism and negative energy and so on—and persuade him that this was not going to be the last day in the life of Ma
deleine Tsai.

  But the geomancer clung to the guardhouse and flatly refused to move. He appeared to be in mortal terror of the building, visibly quaking at the thought of approaching it.

  After another round of fruitless discussions, Brett took matters into his own hands—literally. He put his arms around the skinny geomancer’s back and grabbed him by the shoulders. He then lifted Wong six inches off the ground and hustled him towards the building.

  ‘Come on, Jo,’ Brett said, walking at speed towards the Opera House. ‘This is the only way we are going to get him over there.’

  Joyce, shocked, put a hand over her mouth.

  ‘Stop!’ Wong barked. ‘Put me down. Stop. Joyce! Tell him. Stop him or you lose your job. Now.’

  Joyce tried not to laugh as she trotted helplessly alongside Brett and his struggling cargo. It was difficult.

  ‘You are sacked!’ shouted Wong. ‘Aiyeeaah.’

  They received puzzled attention from passers-by. When a guard approached them, Joyce smiled innocently and announced: ‘Don’t worry. It’s—uh—just a game sort of thing. We’re doing like street theatre?’

  In less than two minutes, Wong had been heaved up the main staircase at the entrance to the building. By good fortune, a quartet of Chinese musicians was performing in the foyer. The eerie whine of the erhu seemed to comfort Wong. He stopped wriggling and Brett gently lowered him to the ground. ‘Sorry, mate. But we need you here, not at the bloody entrance miles away.’

  Wong, scowling, brushed the sleeves of his jacket where Kilington had held him. But he didn’t run away.

  Brett Kilington had another struggle ahead—a tussle with himself. He was a rock climber. He had been a guide on The Rock. He had won a mention for barehanded climbing. He had some basic gear, including a climbing gun, in the boot of his car. And he had a general level of familiarity with the layout of the Opera House. If anyone could get up on to almost any portion of the roof, he could.

  But was it right to do so? Was it against the rules? Was it, in short, an arrestable offence? It was certainly a good and right thing to go and arrest a large man who was holding a young woman against her will in a highly dangerous place. But at the same time, he had already made one strenuous effort to bring the man to justice and the police had been oddly unappreciative of their efforts—as had the girl. More than that, a senior officer had warned him that if he strayed a toe off the straight and narrow any time in the next fifty years, he would be down on him like the proverbial brick shithouse.