Amelia Wong laughed. “You are surrounded by forces you hardly dare acknowledge. Now you wish to ask me questions. I will answer because you have strong chi.”
“Chi is the life force, isn’t it?”
Wong nodded. “I sense you have been in danger often, but rarely harmed. I could use such a force near me now.”
“The Fontana brothers?”
“They are beyond chi! They are their own life force. And so good-looking too. I like to believe that forces for good are also
attractive. A failing for one of my calling, but a pleasant fantasy nonetheless.”
Temple blinked. This was beginning to feel like girl talk.
“I imagine that,” Temple said, “in your position it’s hard to let your hair down.”
Wong idly ran her fingers through a Lhasa apso’s silky long waves. “One can be beautiful and dangerous,” she commented. “A successful woman is expected to be both in this culture. In my own culture, successful women are not suffered gladly.”
“You’re Chinese-American.”
“And expected to excel to justify my femaleness.”
“I’ve been expected to not excel.”
“Still,” Wong said shrewdly, “your parents did not move heaven and earth to ensure only male progeny.”
“No.” Temple realized this startling fact for the first time in her life. “They had sons until they had me. And then they stopped.”
Was it possible that she was a most-wanted child? That her noisy, bossy older brothers had not been enough?
Amelia Wong bowed her head, almost in tribute. “You are a last daughter? I honor your parents. In China, a first daughter is an abomination.”
“I don’t get it,” Temple said. “In your culture, women are both unwanted and yet expected to succeed?”
“To justify our unfortunate existence. This is not China, yet still the media stands in for parents, and views me with shame and anger.”
“Successful women scare men in every culture.”
“You?”
Temple glanced at the collapsed Lhasa apsos, like so many stuffed pillows.
“I’m too small and cute to scare anyone.”
“You should. You have big bite.” Wong smiled. “I am not a Dragon Lady, but that is the only incarnation the world
respects. So … I breathe fire.”
“Okay, Amelia. Then forget the protective image. Tell me what’s really going down with you, your enterprises, Maylords, the death threats. My Stealthy Protector. I desperately want to know who you have in mind there, girlfriend.”
Wong laughed.
“I was going to order green tea for us, but I think … a well-chilled greenapple martini would do better.”
“Yep. It’s been stressful and my piranha bite could stand to chill out.”
“Spelling bees,” Amelia Wong intoned contemplatively over the first martini, which had been delivered with panache by the Fontana brother. He probably had supervised the blending process for poison.
Temple was sure now that there would be a second. She nodded sagaciously. “Your people win them.”
“This is an interesting culture. Winners are both idolized and abhorred. One day an ‘American Idol,’ the next … the nexus of scandal.”
Temple nodded sagely. Greenapple martinis did that to one. “The conflict between our Puritan past and entrepreneur future. Henry Ford authoritarianism versus Enron greed. All yang, if you ask me.”
“I embody that conflict, I know that.”
“And that’s why someone wants to murder you.”
“No. Someone wants to ‘stop’ me. Murder is merely a means of expressing a political agenda. A racial and gender agenda.
Do you believe me?”
“I do,” Temple said solemnly. Odd, this felt like a marriage of true minds. Must be the vodka. “High achievers engender
antagonism. But that isn’t exclusive to American culture. It’s universal, isn’t it?”
“Yes. The more international I go, the more true I find that premise.” Amelia refilled their glasses from the pitcher, then poured some of her vivid drink into a shallow bowl, smiling as the Lhasa apsos gathered around, tasted, then shook their sagacious beards and ears. They reminded Temple of very short mandarin emperors. “I am impressed,” Amelia said, “by the diversity of your allies.”
When Temple, stunned, remained silent, Amelia went on.
“You know the police. And the police know you. You know both Danny Dove and the talented Janice Flanders in Maylords’s Art Department. You know the Fontana brothers, all of the many Fontana brothers, apparently. And chauffeurs and talk show producers … and even more obvious hired muscle.”
“Well … how do you know all this?”
“I am smarter,” the petite-chic Amelia Wong said, “than people like to think a media fad is. And tougher than I look,” she added.
“How tough?”
“The Tongs and the Triads have been trying to infiltrate my retail empire for years. My bodyguards aren’t just for death threats from fanatical feng shui adherents.”
Temple raised her eyebrows, trying to think on an international scale. “Smuggling?”
“Of course. I am an international entity. I import and export to and from both East and West. I am therefore good press. That gives me entree and privileges that the ordinary citizen of Hong Kong or Shanghai wouldn’t have. I am the perfect ‘front woman,’ except that I am my own woman.”
“And that’s why your life is in danger?”
“Maybe.” Amelia sank back into the cushy sofa, her dogs heaping around her like so many hairy designer pillows. “Maybe,” Temple said. “Or not.”
Amelia lifted a delicately arched eyebrow. But said nothing.
“Why are you doing this Maylords gig?” Temple asked next. “You don’t need to expose yourself to the public this way. You could do the weekly TV show and your national magazine and stay far away from imminent danger.”
Amelia sipped her martini, sighed. Regarded Temple. “Benny Maylord helped me early in my career. I did weekend
specialty presentations at his launch store. It is the least I can do to reciprocate.”
“You mean Kenny.”
“I mean Benny. The other brother. He was CEO then.”
“The brothers trade off running the business?”
“They did once,” she said. Her lips puckered before they sipped the deliciously tart martini again.
“There has to be a story there.”
“I don’t know it. I offered Benny a chance to fill me in, but he was as tight-lipped as we’ll be after finishing these greenapple martinis.”
“So it’s a family matter. Understandable that you feel you owe the family, but still-”
“My stints at Maylords got me media attention. It began the entire buildup. I owe Benny Maylord. We started out together.
I’m less impressed by the brother, but family is family.”
“Tell me about the fanatic fans.”
“That is a redundancy.”
“I know. The word ‘fan’ came from ‘fanatic.’ So the mania is built in. So, I suppose, is a possibility of violence. I thought feng shui instills order and harmony.”
“Properly used, yes. And it is merely a method of ordering the world around you to enhance your own needs and ambitions. We all systematize our environments, even the most untidy. Feng shui is a conscious commitment to installing order instead of disorder.”
“So why would feng shui practitioners go berserk?”
“Some use it as a guaranteed system for good luck. When their luck doesn’t visibly change, they blame the method, not their own manias.”
“The word ‘maniac’ comes from ‘mania,’ ” Temple noted.
“Anything that encourages people to search their inner souls and assuage their deepest needs can bring on obsession. Religion. Dieting. Gambling. The number of my demented former fans is small, but they can be vocal. Some have blamed me for bankruptcy, even the death of a spouse or a child.”