Her laughter was the same as before—an open, affectionate sound—yet now that he understood, it seemed quite different. He stared at her, at the painted lips, the rouged cheeks, the tight lines about her eyes and mouth, and wondered why he hadn’t clicked before. She was a whore. A bar hustler. And he had thought. . . He let her take his shirt and hang it up, then watched as she went through to the kitchen, no doubt to put the money in a safe place. When she came back he was still standing as she’d left him. “Well?” she said, laughing softly. “Are you going to strip, or do I have to take it all off for you?”
“I. . .” He looked at her and saw how she was watching him, no judgment in those eyes, only a friendliness, the affection of one stranger for another, and shrugged. “If you want.”
She came across. “Sit on the bed. It’ll make things easier.”
He sat, letting her pull off his boots.
“And these,” she said, tugging at his trousers.
He lifted himself up.
“There,” she said, setting them on the chair beside the wall. “That’s better, neh?”
For a moment she knelt there, smiling up at him. Then she moved back slightly and, with a simple little movement, pulled her top up over her head and threw it to one side, leaving her naked from the waist. In the low light her breasts were firm, the nipples prominent. He stared at her, half afraid, half fascinated. Home, he thought, but home was an impossibility. There was nothing at home. He moaned softly. “It’s okay” she said, more gently than before, her eyes reassuring him. “You’re safe here, my love. No wife to come and eat you. Only me.” She moved forward, placing her hands on his thighs, then nuzzled close, against his chest, placing a soft wet kiss against his neck. “You’re in the land of warmth and softness now, Tong Chou, so relax, neh? Just relax.
...”
he woke, wondering where he was. Not my room, he thought, listening to the faint tick of a clock. And the air—the air was different somehow. He remembered. The woman. Shifting slightly he could feel her against his back.
Slowly he turned, until he was facing her. The night light was on in the galley kitchen—the pearled whiteness filtered through the bead curtain in the doorway. In its light he could see the shape of her, the slow rise and fall of her breasts.
He eased himself up, then rested his back against the wall. The woman lay beside him, naked, on her back, her eyes closed, one hand resting on her stomach, the other nestled in her hair. He looked at her, surprised to find himself there, and remembered what had happened between them. The need . . . that had surprised him. The fierceness of his need. That and her warmth. So kind she’d been, so ... gentle with him. Like a lover, he thought, and frowned, because he’d been told you couldn’t buy love, only win it.
Whores . . . They were a staple of his work. He’d seen a thousand of them in his time—in the cells, or in the gaudy rooms of brothels— and never once had he thought what it was like for them: where they lived or what they wanted from their lives.
Comfort probably. And peace of mind. Like anyone. He had seen them dead—murdered or overdosed from drugs— and had never once thought what it must be like for them. Until now. He sighed. And you think you’ve got problems, Kao Chen! But he, at least, had something, whereas she . . . She stirred, then turned and looked up at him, a slow smile forming on her lips.
“Couldn’t sleep, huh?” He smiled back at her. “I was thinking ...” “You shouldn’t. It’s bad for you.”
“Maybe. . . .” He reached down, taking her hand where it nestled in her long, dark hair, and laced his fingers into hers. “It was nice . . .” Her smile deepened. She lifted his hand to her mouth and kissed it. “. . . but I ought to go.”
“At this hour? Where? Home to that wife of yours?” She shook her head. “No, Tong Chou. I’ll make us some ch’a. Then we’ll go again.” “Again?” he laughed softly, but the thought of it was enticing and the way she looked at him inflamed him. “Wait there.”
He watched her get up, enjoying the sight of her nakedness, the simple intimacy of it. This room, themselves . . . He let his head drop back against the wall, a long breath soughing from him, then listened to her pottering about in the kitchen. “You hungry?” He gave a grunt of assent. “Here.” She leaned around the door, holding a plate out to him. He looked up, then leaned forward to take the plate from her. “Oat crackers!” He laughed. “It’s years since I had oat crackers!”
“You don’t like them?”
“No, no ... I love them. It’s just...” He huffed out a breath. How explain it? How explain the strange mixture of sadness and contentment he was feeling at that moment? Or did she already know? Was that, perhaps, how she felt, all of the time?
We’re both whores, he thought. The only difference is that one of us is more honest about it than the other.
She came back, offering him a cup, then squatted on the bed beside him. In the light he could see she was much older than he’d first imagined her—more his own age, in fact. Her face was lined and her flesh had lost the firmness of youth. Even so, she was still an attractive woman. She smiled and leaned toward him. “I like you, long Chou. I’m tempted to let you stay the night. Business is bad, so . . .” “You want more money?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Did I soy that? No ... besides, you paid me well, and treated me nicely too. It’s not often . . .” He saw the wistfulness in her eyes and looked away, sipping at his ch’a.
“You like your work?” he asked.
“You like yours?”
He shook his head.
“So what do you do, Brother Chou? You never said.”
“You don’t want to know.”
“That bad, huh?”
He laughed. Then, more seriously, he nodded. “That bad.”
“Tell me. I’m curious.”
He hesitated, tempted to tell her, then reached out and gently touched her cheek. “You don’t want to know.”
hannah closed the door behind her quietly, then went across to her father’s desk.
Sitting in his chair she looked about her at the stacks of papers and reports that filled the desk, and took a long breath. It was here somewhere. She had seen it only the other day. A black, hand-bound file. But which one? There had to be thirty or forty here that fitted that description. That was, if it was still here. If he hadn’t dealt with it and sent it back.
So ... Where to start?
She removed the gold-bound file that rested on the jotter and placed it on the floor beside her, then began, taking the top file from the stack to her left and placing it facedown on the jotter. It was important to keep it all in the proper order—to put it all back exactly as it had been. She knew her father. All of this seemed chaotic, yet he had his own system and knew precisely where everything was. He knew. . . She stopped, interested by something she had glimpsed. It wasn’t the file she was looking for; even so she read on. Half an hour later she looked up, her face pale, her heart racing. Secrets . . . her father was the custodian of secrets, but this! She whistled softly to herself.
Forget Nantes. Forget what had happened there. It was as nothing beside this.
She went back to the first page, studying the list of names to whom the file had been sent. Nine names in all. Seven of them were Dragons—Heads of the Ministry in their own Cities and brothers to her stepmother. The eighth was her father’s. The ninth. . . She frowned, surprised by it. The ninth name was that of An Sheng, Head of the great Minor Family and liege to Li Yuan, the T’ang of Europe.
“Gods ...” she said softly, remembering what her father had said to her only days before. So this was the important matter he had been working on. This.