“Very logical. So you intend to stay the rest of your life in Hong Kong and become the person to whom everyone comes for information? Your own little kingdom.”
“I didn’t say that. Nothing stays the same. I have a little time to decide.” She watched him throw open the door. “But what is this place? I don’t understand why you brought—”
Rows and rows of bottles and vials on finely crafted wooden shelves. The sun coming through the window fell on the crystal and glass and turned it into glittering rainbows of color. “Another shop? Out here in the middle of the country?”
“Not a shop.” He strode across the room. “My laboratory. It’s where I create all the magnificent medicines and potions that I sell in the city. I have a garden in the back where I grow my herbs. Here I’m free to work without worrying about the interference of scum like Bruce Wong.”
“It’s … different.” His shop in the city had been shabby, with bamboo doors and shelves and only a few bottles on display. Every cabinet, every shelf, every piece of glass in the place looked sparkling clean and beautifully crafted. “But couldn’t you have this place closer to your shop in Hong Kong?”
“Too dangerous. I take orders from my clients and make the remedies here, then take them to the shop in Hong Kong. Some of my potions are very expensive, depending on the depth of the pockets of the client. It’s best that no one knows how expensive or how valued my services are. People do not notice the poor in the city. There are too many. But prosperity casts out a light all around it that attracts the buzzards.”
“And are you prosperous, Hu Chang?”
“Sometimes. When I want to be.” He went to the corner and lifted the lid of a large white refrigerator box. “I have dried meat, powdered milk, and tea. You may prepare me something to eat while I rest from the journey.”
“And why should I do that?”
“Because I am furnishing you sustenance and will offer you shelter.” He moved toward the beaded curtain at the far end of the room. “And because my side is hurting, and I fear I’ve overextended myself by walking this distance from the ferry. You would not want me to collapse and make it necessary that you take care of me.”
“You’re hurting?” Suspiciously, she asked, “Are you lying to me?”
“Possibly. You will have to study me and find out how to tell when I’m doing that. Until then, you’ll have to rely on your feelings. And since I’ve discovered that your feelings can be manipulated by one wise enough to do it, you’d better learn me very quickly.” He pushed aside the beaded curtain. “Call me when it is time for me to eat.”
She stood looking at the rows of amber beads that were still in motion. She had no intention of waiting on Hu Chang. She could leave this place and be back in the city she knew in a few hours. He was clearly safe, far safer than she, and she did not have to be concerned about him.
But she was concerned. He had been moving very slowly when he had left the room, and his lips had been drawn with pain.
She stood there, gazing at the curtains, her fists clenched before she turned on her heel and headed for the white refrigerator box. It would do no harm to let him have his way until she was sure that he had not seriously harmed himself by the long walk from the ferry.
Then she would leave him and go back to her life in the city that had nothing to do with Hu Chang.
* * *
“YOU LET ME SLEEP FOR A LONG TIME.” Hu Chang lifted his cup to his lips and gazed at her over the rim. “I fear your softness is becoming more evident with every passing hour. You will have to be more careful.”
“I took a nap myself.” She nibbled on a rice cake. “And then I got hungry, or I would have been on my way. I thought I might as well share.” She smiled. “Since it was your food after all. Sustenance. That’s a strange word. As strange as you, Hu Chang.”
“Words are like bits of crystal, the more faceted, the more beautiful. Speech should not be boring.” His gaze shifted to his bottles and vials on the shelves. “Any more than those containers should be boring. What I create is magical, their containers should be equally deserving of admiration.”
“You had one or two of those painted bottles in the shop in Hong Kong, but none this fine.”
“I save my rejects for Hong Kong. I keep the best for my own pleasure.”
“You don’t care what your customers think?”
“Do you?”
“No. But nothing about trading information for money is pretty. Your bottles are pretty. I like the one that has the lotus flower on it. How did you get the petals so thin and graceful?”
“Time … and talent.”
She made a rude noise.
“Now, if we’re going to be together, you must not do that disgusting thing again,” he said. “Even if I deserve it. It offends me, and we must not offend each other.”
“But we are not going to be together. I’m going back to Hong Kong tonight.”
He shook his head. “I’ve decided that I will accept your services for the next week or two. Naturally, you won’t be permitted to do anything of real importance. I will teach you how to blend trifling potions like the ones I sell to the prostitutes for birth control. That will repay me for your food and lodging.” He paused. “And keep you out of harm’s way until it becomes safer for you in the city. You may thank me now.”
She put her cup back in the saucer with great precision. “Good-bye, Hu Chang.”
He smiled. “Too arrogant? Forgive me. Sometimes I cannot resist. It is my nature. But this time I meant to amuse you.”
“I was not amused. I don’t need you, Hu Chang.”
“Perhaps. Perhaps not. ‘Need’ is such a cloying word. But though we may not need each other, it might be pleasant to help carry each other’s burdens. Just for a little while. Then we go our own ways.” He leaned back. “And you can never tell when you might need to know how to concoct a fine potion for one of your friends. I might teach you how to create my cure for migraine.”
“That’s crazy. I have no friends who have migraine headaches.”
“No,” he said softly. “You have no friends at all, do you? Perhaps Lucy Tain might have come close. Neither do I. Life is too difficult to maintain friends when you often have to concentrate on keeping alive.”
“I don’t need friends. I do fine.”
“So do I. But perhaps we can pretend to be friends for these few weeks and see what comes of it. A kind of experiment.”
“I don’t pretend.”
“You are difficult, Catherine. I offer you safety, the opportunity to better your mind and skills under my tutelage, and the chance to explore a relationship with one of the finest and most creative men of any generation.”
“And the most conceited.”
“That doesn’t matter. It’s perfectly natural.” He added softly, “It’s a long way back to Hong Kong. Stay until morning, and we will talk some more. There’s a pallet in the small room next to mine. The room is no larger than that boat you lost today. You can curl up there like a little cat.”
She was silent, looking at him.
“You’re trying to think of every danger that I could hold for you.” He tilted his head. “Let me address them. I will not rob you. You have no money. Nor make a slave of you in my laboratory. You have no skill. I will not rape you. It is against my code, and, besides, that’s not the feelings you stir in me. I’m not sure what those feelings are, but I believe them to be without harmful intent.” He got to his feet. “Now I’m going back to bed. You may wash these dishes, then go to your pallet.”
“No.” She looked him in the eye. “We will do these dishes together. You will not make me a kitchen slave any more than one in your laboratory.”
He hesitated, then shrugged. “Very well. It’s not worth the battle. We will divide labor at a later time.” He began to stack the dishes. “Then we are in agreement?”
She didn’t answer for a moment. “I don’t mind staying for a week or two. But don’t pretend t
hat you won’t be lucky to have me. You said yourself that you had to replace all those potions that were in that shop in Hong Kong. I can help. I can’t believe it will take too much intelligence to just pour those pretty-colored concoctions together.”
“Very well, Catherine.” Hu Chang smiled faintly as he picked up the cups and saucers. “You’re right, I will not pretend that I am not the most fortunate of men to have found you. That would be indeed sacrilege.”
CHAPTER
5
“I’M TIRED OF MAKING THESE herbal drinks,” Catherine said as she carefully corked the glass vial. “It’s boring. Give me something else to do.”
“You’re not ready for anything else.”
“I’ve been doing this for more than two weeks. In that time, you could have taught me to blend up a cure for the common cold.”
“Two weeks? I believe that has been a mystery for centuries. Even I could not teach you to bridge that gulf in two weeks.” He added a tiny mist of powder to the liquid in the wooden cup before him. “Those herbal drinks are very important. They can keep a child alive and perfectly healthy even if they’re deprived of food for many months.”
“Really?” She looked at the drink in the vial before her with new respect. During the last weeks, she had learned that Hu Chang might boast, but he never lied about anything connected with his work. “Some kind of vitamin stuff?”
He grimaced. “To put it without even a hint of elegance.”
“And who do you sell the drinks to?”
“I don’t sell, I donate. There are many parched and starving lands in this world. These will go to some charity organizations in Ethiopia.”
“Donate?”
“That means give without compensation. I can understand how you’d not understand the word.”
“You’re right, I do well to feed myself without worrying about anyone else.” She reached for another herb from the bowl he’d given her. “And how do you manage to do it? You have food here but little else.”
“I have what I need. Even if I didn’t, I would still donate the herb drinks. I regard giving as necessary to right the balance.”
“What balance?”
“You’re very curious today.”
She was curious about him, and that curiosity had been growing every day. “What balance?”
He didn’t look up as he added a minute amount of creamy liquid to the mixture in his cup. “Life and death.”
She stiffened, her gaze narrowing on his face. “And how do you right this balance, Hu Chang?” Her eyes dropped to the wooden cup in front of him. “What’s in that cup?”
“Many things, all very complex and very, very lethal.” His gaze shifted to her face. “There’s a great market out there for poisons of all descriptions. In a world that regards the taking of life as the ultimate victory, a man who can supply the quickest, safest way to do that is in high demand.” He added gravely, “And I am the grand master. I make the poisoners of the Renaissance appear amateurs.” He tapped the side of the bowl. “When this is brewed, it will only take a whiff to make a victim go into cardiac arrest.”
She was staring at the mixture in fascination. “Who do you sell it to?”
“Whoever can afford it.”
“What about your precious balance?”
“Do you mean does my conscience bother me? No, I supply, I do not judge. Occasionally, I refuse a client. But that is rare.” His mouth twisted. “I look upon my poisons as bullets. I do not aim the gun. I merely create the bullet that’s fired by the murderer. It is his decision, not mine.” His gaze was studying her expression. “But that troubles you.”
“It shouldn’t.”
“Because you’ve killed?”
“I have no right. It’s just that poison is so … intimate.”
“Yes, it is. But unless specified by the client, it is very quick and almost painless.”
“How long have you done this?”
“Since I was a boy in Siberia. My father was Chinese, my mother Turkish and Russian, and they ran the only apothecary shop in over a hundred miles. There were several Masters of Chinese Medicine, but no one had the skill that my father possessed. We were very poor, barely eking out the sparsest living. It was natural that my father decided to branch out into more lucrative sidelines. Suddenly, we were no longer poor. I learned the art of creating poisons from my father. He was very good.”
She smiled. “But not as good as you?”
“No, I am not good. I am magnificent.”
“And he taught you that it was good to sell these poisons?”
“He taught me that money is good and poverty terrible and let me learn everything else for myself. By the time I had learned enough to realize that my soul was probably doomed by many people’s standards, I had already been involved in over a hundred deaths. It was a little late to try to redeem myself. Not that I would have done it anyway.”
“Is your father still making his poisons?”
“No, one of his clients in Moscow, Peter Rudov, decided that he had to erase all of his tracks after he gave one of my father’s potions to a political rival. Rudov was very important in the government and wanted to make sure there were no leaks. One night, my father and mother were shot by a hired killer, Boris Zartak, as they drove from our home to the shop. I was already at the shop and managed to escape when he came after me. I was shot in the leg, but I pried out the bullet and put on one of my salves to heal it.”
“And then left Siberia and came here?”
“Eventually.” He took out a plastic bag and began carefully to pour the poison into the container. “But I was only a boy of fifteen and I had no patience or philosophy of life. I decided I had to revenge my parents.” He sealed the bag. “So I did.”
She waited.
His brows rose. “How? First, I tracked Boris Zartak, waited for an opportunity, then did what I’d been trained to do. He liked a straight shot of vodka before he went to bed every night. It helped him to sleep. So I poured a few drops of one of my favorite remedies into the bottle.” He smiled. “He did not sleep well that night. Nor for several nights after that. Have you heard of Ebola? The symptoms were reminiscent of that terrible disease. The poison ate into his organs and caused him excruciating pain. It gradually devoured his liver like a hungry parasite. The doctors couldn’t help him. They thought he’d been bitten by some rare African mosquito.”
“You can do that?” she whispered.
“Yes, does it frighten you?”
She thought about it. “No, but it makes me wary.”
“Everyone should be wary. It’s healthy.”
“What about Rudov, that man who hired him?”
“I waited a year before I killed him. He developed a strain of pneumonia that was completely incurable. He lived a month fighting for air before he died.” He smiled. “And then I decided to travel the world and increase my knowledge and competence. I didn’t settle here in Hong Kong until many years later.”
“Why Hong Kong?”
“It’s a city that has many interesting facets and is the center of wickedness as well as beauty. Balance. It pleased me.”
“Until Wong decided to try to beat you to death.”
“I would not allow that episode to affect my attitude. Though I admit he did catch me off guard. I was glad to have you step in until I could get my breath.”
“What? I believe I did more than give you breathing room. He might have killed you.”
“No, as I told you, I was about to make my move.” He held up his right fist. “Is this not a fine ring?” The gold ring on his index finger had a lapis star in the center that glittered in the candlelight. “You notice the prongs holding the lapis?”
“And?”
“Any pressure on the prongs releases a poison that will kill in ten seconds. All I would have had to do was strike Wong once, and it would have been over.”
“Then why didn’t you do it before? He was breaking you into pieces.”
&n
bsp; “I had to decide if I wished to take drastic action. It’s a responsibility to kill a man. One has to decide whether it’s required.” He smiled. “But when he cracked my rib, I decided that it was definitely called for.”
She was gazing at the ring. Death. Just a slight pressure and death.
Hu Chang followed her gaze. “During the Renaissance, poison rings were very popular, particularly among the Borgia family. But they had containers of poison that had to be emptied into wine. This is much more efficient.”
“I can see it would be. If you aren’t clumsy and could be sure to control the pressure.”
“Oh, I have great control. You don’t have to worry that I would strike and kill you by accident.”
“Only by intent,” she said dryly.
“Exactly.” He got to his feet in one fluid motion. “And now it’s time to sleep. You might make a mistake and damage my reputation if you grow too tired.”
“I think that your reputation would be more damaged if you made a mistake. I’m not dealing in deadly poisons.” She had a sudden thought. “Or am I?”
“You doubt me?”
“I don’t know anything about these herbs. They may not be what you say they are.”
“But you do know more about me now, don’t you?” He reached down and lifted her to her feet. “What do you think? Did I tell you the truth?”
It was a challenge.
She reached down and took one of the herbs and put it on her tongue. It tasted faintly bitter. “If it’s poison, you’d better have a remedy, Hu Chang.”
“Don’t swallow it.”
She quickly spit it out.
“It wouldn’t have killed you.” He chuckled. “But it would have given you a stomachache when not balanced by the other herbs.”
“Balance, again.” She rubbed her tongue on the top of her mouth to get rid of the taste. “You wanted to make me nervous.”
“It was an opportunity I couldn’t resist. You have such formidable composure for a woman of your young years.” He turned toward the beaded curtains that hid his pallet from view. “And it could have given you more than a bellyache if you’d chosen the herb right next to it. That was belladonna. I use it sometimes in my milder poisons.”
What Doesn't Kill You Page 7
