Mr Nice

by Howard Marks

  Armando Chung, the accountant, saw me at his office in the Wing On building the next morning. I left him some money and instructed him to incorporate a company named Drinkbridge Hong Kong Limited and open up a bank account. I’d be back in the New Year. I spent the rest of the day and the rest of my money buying Christmas presents in the Kowloon arcades.

  I couldn’t sleep on the plane back to London. I kept thinking of tankers full of water, plane-loads of hashish, suitcases of money, and honeymoon suites full of Chinese hookers.

  ‘You’ve been away a long time,’ said Judy as I fell through the door. ‘You said you wouldn’t be long.’

  ‘I’ve been gone only a few days. It’s a long way. And I’ve done a lot. I’ve been busy.’

  ‘You’re always busy, Howard. You don’t change. Another friend of yours from prison has been calling here. Jim Hobbs. I suppose you’ll be seeing him now.’

  She was right on all counts. I promised myself I’d take her and Amber and Francesca to Hong Kong when I next went. They’d love it. Hobbs would be useful. He was a trustworthy and hard-working guy. Maybe he’d like to marry a Chinese hooker and earn his keep.

  We visited my parents’ home in Wales over Christmas. The offices of the Welsh Water Authority were nearby. I had spent about a week reading all there was to know about the bulk transport of water and had made an appointment to see Roy Webborn, the Authority’s Assistant Director of Finance. I told him I represented a syndicate of Far Eastern businessmen who were interested in purchasing giant tanker-loads of water and taking it to Saudi Arabia. Webborn explained that Welsh water wasn’t yet available for bulk export, but there was plenty of it in the hills, and oil tankers were leaving Milford Haven carrying nothing but sea-water ballast. If any business interest was prepared to pay for the installation of bulk fresh-water loading facilities at Milford Haven, the Welsh Water Authority would pay for the pipes to take the water there from the hills and sell it cheaply. I said I’d see what I could do. He gave me a stack of laboratory test reports and impressive multilingual, multicoloured brochures.

  January 1984 was cold. The British public were still listening to last year’s big hits: Karma Chameleon, Red Red Wine, and Uptown Girl. Little was happening, so I was delighted to get a call from Ernie Combs.

  ‘Hi. How you doing? I got good news for you. Frank’s in Frankfurt with the contract. Can you see him right away?’

  ‘Frank’ was our code for money. ‘Frankfurt’ was code for Hong Kong. The contract was the instructions for whatever deal Ernie had decided to go for.

  ‘Sure. Shall I call you when I get there?’

  ‘I have a new number for you. It will answer “LAPD”, but it’s not the Los Angeles Police Department, it’s a friend of mine called Flash. He’s an electronic genius. Ask for me, and he’ll put you through to whichever hotel I’m staying in. I live in hotels these days.’

  This time I flew British Airways, again booking my ticket through Hong Kong International Travel Centre. Arriving in the early morning, I took a cab from Kai Tak airport to the Park Hotel, checked in and walked to Cable and Wireless to phone Ernie. He told me to contact his friend Bill, who was staying in the five-star luxury Mandarin Hotel on Hong Kong Island. I travelled over on the Star Ferry.

  Bill was a heavily set US military type. He had been in the Special Forces in Vietnam and spoke fluent Russian. Ernie knew some strange people.

  ‘There’s exactly $1,250,000 in that suitcase. I counted it myself. My orders are to give it to you.’

  ‘What am I meant to do with it?’ I asked.

  ‘I don’t know. You mean you don’t know? You guys are something else. It ain’t like working for the Government, I can tell you.’

  ‘Ernie give you any instructions for me, Bill?’

  ‘Who is Ernie?’

  ‘The guy who gave you the suitcase of money to give to me.’

  ‘He was no Ernie. He was some gook who works in a bank a couple of blocks away. But you are for sure the guy I gotta give this money to. You’re British, right? And I want you to take it right now. I’m fixing on getting me a couple of Chinese broads tonight, and I don’t want all that cash cramping my style. It’s heavy. I’ll carry it downstairs for you. I’m on my way out anyway. You can get a cab.’

  I stood outside the foyer of the Mandarin Hotel. There wasn’t a cab in sight. Then suddenly an endless snake of red and white Hong Kong cabs came driving past at a snail’s pace. The cab-drivers were yelling out of the windows, and their hands were continuously pressing the horns. It was a taxi strike, and the strikers had decided to block up Hong Kong’s streets as part of their protest. No road traffic was moving. I was stuck. I could hardly lift the suitcase, let alone carry it to the Star Ferry. Luckily a Mass Transit Railway underground station, Central, was just on the corner. Sweating and heaving, I dragged the suitcase down the thronged steps to the lengthy ticket-machine queues. I couldn’t get it over or through the turnstiles. My trousers got ripped in the attempt. A couple of Chinese schoolboys helped me carry it to the densely packed Tube train. I pulled the suitcase out at Tsim Sha Tsui station, and, on the point of collapse, reached the top of the station steps.

  The strike had turned into a riot. Swarms of screaming Chinese were tearing around throwing missiles through shop windows and looting the wares. Piles of electronic machinery and cheap jewellery littered the pavements and disappeared in armfuls. People were robbing whatever they could. The contents of my suitcase were more valuable than the sum total of all the stolen goods I could see. I began panicking. My heart was racing, and I was so weak I simply could not budge the suitcase. I sat on it and watched the riot. Eventually, I found the strength to lift it and stumbled into the Park Hotel.

  ‘I take your bag, Mr Marks,’ said a diminutive Chinese porter, picking up the immense weight, putting it on his shoulders, and running down the corridor to the elevator. I went running after him. He put down the suitcase, smiled broadly as I gave him a 100-Hong-Kong-dollar tip, and ran away.

  I collapsed on the bed, jet-lagged and exhausted. I’d smuggled in a few ready-rolled joints from London. One of them put me to sleep.

  A couple of hours later, I woke surrounded by three room attendants.

  ‘Ah! Mr Marks, you must close door. Maybe robber come. Today crazy day in Hong Kong.’

  This was most irresponsible. I’d gone to sleep leaving a suitcase containing well over a million dollars in the middle of the floor with the door wide open while I fell unconscious puffing away at a large joint. I couldn’t risk leaving the room, not even to go downstairs. I couldn’t telephone Ernie from the hotel room. That would be uncool. It was still morning in London. Hobbs should be at the Soho office. I’d given him some odd jobs to do for Drinkbridge. It would be all right to phone there from the hotel.

  ‘Jim, can you get the next flight to Hong Kong? Ask Balendo at Hong Kong International to give you a ticket on my account.’

  ‘Nothing would give me greater pleasure, Howard.’

  ‘Bring your birth certificate, Jim. You might be getting married.’

  The Park Hotel was not Hong Kong’s best-equipped hotel. There was a black-and-white television and some piped muzak. I had enough hash for only three joints. I put the suitcase in the wardrobe and smoked three joints. I telephoned April.

  ‘Ahh, Marks, you back in Hong Kong. Me and Selena think you never come back. You go Bottoms Up tonight?’

  ‘No, I have to stay in my room to receive telephone calls.’

  ‘You want me and Selena come see you. No problem. Where you stay?’

  ‘Park Hotel.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘It’s on Chatham Road. April, can you bring some …?’

  ‘I bring everything, Marks. See you.’

  ‘Ahh, Marks, why you stay in this hotel, and in Room 526? This number bad luck for you,’ said Selena.

  ‘Fenshui all fucked up,’ agreed April.

  ‘What’s fenshui?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s wh
at gwailu professor call “geometric omen”,’ said April. ‘What you get depend on what you look at.’

  ‘What’s gwailu?’

  ‘You are gwailu, Marks. It mean White devil.’

  ‘So if the view sucks, you say the fenshui is not up to standard.’

  ‘Not just view, Marks, orientation, too. This hotel very bad. Why you don’t stay Shangri-La? It’s very good hotel. My friend works there as assistant manager. I get you good deal. Cost same money as here. I arrange for you.’

  ‘Okay. I just have to wait here until my friend comes from London tomorrow. Then I’ll check into the Shangri-La.’

  ‘Who is your friend, Marks?’ asked Selena.

  ‘He’s called Jim Hobbs. He is coming to Hong Kong to get married.’

  ‘Is he marrying gwailu or banana?’

  ‘What’s a banana?’

  ‘Yellow outside, White inside. Like ABC, American Born Chinese.’

  ‘Jim’s not marrying a gwailu or a banana. He’s marrying a real Chinese.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Selena.

  ‘You tell me. Maybe you or maybe April.’

  ‘Ah, Marks, you good man; you bring us husbands,’ said April.

  ‘Well, so far, only one, and he hasn’t got here yet. But there’ll be more.’

  ‘Is Hobbs handsome?’ Selena enquired.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is he rich?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is he young?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Is he sexy?’

  ‘I don’t know. He’s gay.’

  ‘I’ll marry him. How much will he cost?’

  The million-odd dollars in the wardrobe had put me in a magnanimous mood.

  ‘Selena, I won’t charge you. And soon, I will bring you a husband, April, and I won’t charge you either. This is to show good faith. I would like the three of us to start a business. You find the wives and charge them. I’ll find the husbands and pay them. We three split the profits between us.’

  ‘This is good business, Marks,’ agreed Selena, ‘but to save face with you, I must pay for Hobbs. What do you want?’

  ‘No money. Just help me when I’m in Hong Kong. Show me around. Take me to places where no other gwailus go. Let me know all the secrets.’

  ‘Are you a spy, Marks?’ asked Selena.

  ‘No. I’m a hashish smuggler.’

  ‘I told you,’ shrieked April. ‘I knew it. Marks, like I say before, we can get you whatever you want, anything under the sun. You want apartment, car, sex, dope, or go to private club, no problem. We can do. But each time you must pay us what it cost and some commission. Same for you. Charge me and Selena for husband. Make commission. This Hong Kong business style. Between friends, too.’

  ‘Okay, then pay me 100,000 Hong Kong dollars for a husband for each of you, but keep the money yourselves, and take out of it your charges for whatever I ask you to do for me. Then I can telephone you from abroad and still ask you for help.’

  ‘Yes, Marks, this is good plan. I’ve made some joints. No tobacco. Cambodian grass. We smoke?’

  A few joints and a few hours went by. Selena and April divulged details of their private lives. Selena was the mistress of a number of Japanese tycoons. April was the mistress of a senior British diplomat. They were high-class hookers who only had sex when paid to do so.

  Dawn came. The girls left. I fell asleep.

  Sometime in the evening, Hobbs arrived. I explained the problem with the money. I told him to whom he was getting married and why. He thought the idea amusing and was convinced he could recruit for the cause some more men of his orientation. I asked him to stay in the room and look after the money while I dashed around to sort things out.

  First I went to Cable and Wireless to telephone the LAPD number.

  ‘LAPD. Can I help you?’

  ‘Is that you, Flash?’

  ‘Sure is, buddy. You want our friend?’

  Flash put me through. Ernie had been worried and was glad I called. There was more money for me to pick up in Hong Kong. Bill was still at the Mandarin. He had $250,000 ready for me. Richard Shurman’s son Steve was in the Peninsula Hotel. He was holding about $150,000. Bruce Aitken was holding about the same amount in his office in Edinburgh Towers. Steve had the full and detailed instructions for the scam, but Ernie, indiscreetly lapsing a bit into a worrying junkie-like slur, made it clear that with the money he was wishing to do two scams: two tons by sea from Bangkok and five tons by air from Karachi. Ernie might be a bit incoherent, but he was still capable of getting it on.

  With no baggage, I checked into the Shangri-La Hotel on the waterfront in Tsim Tsa Shui East. April had done the business. The management were expecting me and had upgraded my room to a penthouse suite. The sights of Hong Kong harbour were spellbinding. I guess the fenshui was up to par.

  The hotel had safe-deposit boxes for the use of clients. None was big enough to accommodate all the money being guarded by Hobbs in the Park Hotel, let alone that to come, but the largest would take about half. I rented it.

  From a phone box I called Bill at the Mandarin and said I’d see him there late the next morning. I called Steve at the Peninsula and arranged to meet him in the lobby at midnight.

  A young, blond-haired, Californian surfer type was waiting for me when I arrived. Next to him was a Panosonic videorecorder cardboard box.

  ‘Hi, man. I guess you must be Howard. The money is in this box. This letter’s for you. By the way, I think we’re hot.’

  ‘What do you mean, Steve?’

  ‘The Customs searched me at Hong Kong airport. They found the money and asked a bunch of dumb questions. I just said the money was mine, all $150,000 of it. All mine. I’ve come to do some big spending. My dad said it was completely legal to bring money into here.’

  ‘Money is legal enough here, but for sure the Hong Kong Customs will let the DEA know about it. And it’s kind of dumb bringing videorecorders from the US to here. Did the Customs find this letter?’

  ‘No. They didn’t search my pockets. And I bought this videorecorder here this morning.’

  ‘You left the money in the room unattended?’

  ‘Yeah. I kinda hid it. And I put the “Do Not Disturb” notice on the door.’

  ‘From where did you make the booking for this hotel, Steve?’

  ‘From Los Angeles.’

  ‘So we can assume that your telephone is now tapped, there’s a bug in your room, and at least one of the guys watching us in this lobby is a DEA agent. Thanks, Steve.’

  ‘Hey, I’m sorry, man. What else could I do?’

  ‘Don’t worry. It’s not your fault. When you finish your drink, take the box back up to your room. Empty the money into a suitcase. Put the videorecorder back into its box. Stay in your room. Sometime tomorrow morning, a girl called Suzy Wong will come to your room.’

  ‘Great!’

  ‘What make is your suitcase, Steve?’

  ‘It’s a Louis Vuitton. It’s real neat.’

  ‘Suzy Wong will bring you a new one and take away yours with all the money. A few minutes after that, I’ll call you from the lobby here. Then bring the videorecorder in its box, and give it to me. You won’t see it again.’

  ‘Hey, man, that cost me $400.’

  ‘I’ll give you $500 tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Sounds good to me.’

  Steve went back up to his room. There were now just three people in the lobby: an expensive hooker, an Indian, and a crew-cutted occidental, who to my mind was clearly a DEA agent. I stared at the heavily waxed floor. A huge cockroach ran out from under a seat.

  ‘My goodness. Would you believe it? A cockroach in the Peninsula! This would never have happened a few years ago. We’ll see more of this sort of thing when Hong Kong goes back to China. May I join you? I am Sam Tailor.’

  I stood up and shook his hand. I had heard of this man. He was Hong Kong’s best-known tailor. His clients included Dennis Thatcher and David Bowie.

  We
talked. Sam explained how his family had lived in Hong Kong for several generations. They were brought over by the British. The Empire’s divide-and-rule strategy had not worked: Chinese wouldn’t bust other Chinese, so Indians were imported to police the unruly Hong Kong natives. They had stayed on. Those who weren’t police or security guards tended to have thriving businesses. He was worried about 1997. Communist China would not be too kind to the Indians. He gave me his business card. I said I’d visit him next day and order some clothes.

  It was almost 2 a.m. I left the Peninsula. I didn’t appear to be followed, but I ducked through some alleyways just in case, and I went to Bottoms Up.

  Selena and April were both still on duty. We made arrangements for Hobbs and Selena to meet tomorrow afternoon at the Hong Kong Registry Office and for April (using the name Suzy Wong) to pick up the money from Steve at 11 a.m. and take it to her apartment in Tai Koo Shing on Hong Kong Island.

  After a few drinks, I called in the Park Hotel, explained the arrangement to Hobbs, picked up everything of mine except the huge suitcase of money, and returned to the Shangri-La.

  I read the letter from Ernie. The instructions for Pakistan were to get five tons of the finest commercial hashish and air-freight it to John F. Kennedy Airport, New York. The consignment must be labelled as ‘telephone components’, the consignor’s name must be KAA, the Japanese national telephone company, and the consignee’s name must be AT&T, the huge American telephone company. The air waybill must show the origin to be Tokyo.

  The instructions for Thailand were to get two tons of the finest commercial marijuana and send it by container sea-freight to Long Beach, California. The consignment must be labelled ‘oil exploration gear’ and addressed to ‘Long Beach Petroil’. Any sensible Indonesian consignor could be used. The origin had to be Jakarta.

  More money was coming, another $450,000. I had to keep the Pakistani up-front costs down to $1.5 million, the Thai up-front costs down to $500,000. I had to ensure that at the end of the day Ernie was due 60% of the gross returns. If I could do all this, then $250,000 of the $2,250,000 Ernie was now sending could be regarded as an advance against the scams’ successes. Should the scams both fail, I should regard the $250,000 as my overdue coming-out-of-prison, thanks-for-not-snitching money.