Noble House

"And the Thin One's going to hit him with the plank! Eeeeee."
They both laughed at the routine they had seen a hundred times in a hundred re-re-reruns of the old black-and-white movies. Then the film ended and Venus Poon reappeared to announce the next program and he sighed. She was looking directly at him from the box and he—along with every other male viewer—was certain that her smile was for him alone, and though he did not understand her English, he understood her very well. His eyes were glued to her breasts that had fascinated him for hours, examining them closely, never seeing or feeling a sign of the surgical interference that all Hong Kong whispered about.
"I attest your tits are blemishless, certainly the biggest and best I've ever touched," he had volunteered importantly, still mounted, the night before last.
"You're just saying that to please your poor impoverished Daughter oh oh oh!"
"Impoverished? Ha! Didn't Banker Kwang give you that miserable fur yesterday and I hear he added an extra 1,000 to his monthly check! And me, didn't I supply the winner of the first, third and the runner-up in the fifth? 30,000 those brought you minus 15 percent for my informant—for less effort than it takes me to fart!"
"P'shaw! That 25,800 HK's not worth talking about, I have to buy my own wardrobe, a new costume every day! My public demands it, I have my public to think of."
They had argued back and forth until, feeling the moment of truth approaching, he had asked her to move her buttocks more vigorously. She had obliged with such enthusiasm that he was left a husk. When at length he had miraculously recovered his spirit from the Void he choked out, "Ayeeyah, Little Strumpet, if you can do that one more time I'll give you a diamond ring the—no, no, not now by all the gods! Am I a god? Not now, Little Mealy Mouth, no, not now and not tomorrow but the next day. …"
And now it was the next day. Elated and filled with anticipation he watched her on television, all smiles and dimples as she said good night and the new program began. Tonight was her early night and in his mind he could almost see her hurry out of the TV station to his waiting Rolls, sure that she would be just as anxious. He had sent Paul Choy with the Rolls to escort her to the station tonight, to talk English with her, to ensure she arrived safely and returned quickly. And then, after their new bout, the Rolls would take them to the barbarian eating palace in the barbarian hotel with its foul barbarian food and foul smells but one of the places where all the tai-pans go, and all important, civilized persons go with their wives —and, when their wives were busy, with their whores—so he could show off his mistress and how rich he was to all Hong Kong, and she could show off the diamond.
"Ayeeyah, " he chortled out loud.
"Eh, Honored Lord?" the amah asked suspiciously. "What's amiss?"
"Nothing, nothing. Please give me some brandy."
"My mistress doesn't like the brandy smell!"
"Huh, old woman, give me brandy. Am I a fool? Am I a barbarian from the Outer Provinces? Of course I have fragrant tea leaves to chew before our bout. Brandy!"
She went off grumbling but he paid her no attention—she was just trying to protect her mistress's interests and that was perfectly correct.
His fingers touched the small box in his pocket. He had purchased the ring this morning, wholesale, from a first cousin who owed him a favor. The stone was worth 48,000 at least though the real cost was barely half that amount, the quality blue-white and excellent, the carats substantial.
Another bout like the last one will be well worth it, he thought ecstatically, though a little uneasily. Oh yes. Eeee, that last time I thought my spirit was truly gone forever into the Void, taken by the gods at the height of all life! Eeee, how lucky I would be to go thence, at that exact moment! Yes, but more wonderful to come back to storm the Jade Gate again and again and once more!
He laughed out loud, daring the gods, very content. Today had been excellent for him. He had met secretly with Smuggler Yuen and White Powder Lee and they had elected him chief of their new Brotherhood, which was only right, he thought. Hadn't he supplied the link to the marketplace through the foreign devil Ban—whatever his name was—because he had lent money to Number One Son Chen who, in return for such favors, had proposed the gun into opium scheme to him but had had the stupidity to be kidnapped and now murdered? Oh yes. And wasn't he meeting with the same foreign devil in Macao next week to arrange finances, payments, to set into motion the whole vast operation? Of course he should be High Tiger, of course he should have the most profit! With their combined expertise—and Profitable Choy's modern techniques—he could revolutionize the smuggling of the opium into Hong Kong, and once here, revolutionize the conversion of the raw narcotic into the immensely profitable White Powders, and finally, the means of export to the markets of the world. Now that Paul Choy was already in the shipping and air freighting department of Second Big Company and two grandsons of Yuen, also American trained, in their customs broking operation—and another four English university-trained relations of White Powder Lee placed within Noble House's Kai Tak go-down operations and All Asia Air's loading and unloading division, imports and exports would be ever safer, easier and ever more profitable.
They had discussed whom they would co-opt in the police, particularly Marine.
"None of the barbarians, never one of those fornicators," White Powder Lee had said hotly. "They won't support us, never. Not in drugs. We must use only the Dragons."
"Agreed. All the Dragons have all been approached and all will cooperate. All except Tang-po of Kowloon."
"We must have Kowloon, he's senior and Marine operates from there. Is he holding out for a better deal personally? Or is he against us?"
"I don't know. At the moment." Four Fingers had shrugged. "Tang-po is up to the High Dragon to solve. The High Dragon has agreed, so it is agreed."
Yes, Four Fingers thought, I outsmarted them to make me High Tiger and I outsmarted Profitable Choy on my money. I didn't give the young fornicator control of my fortune to gamble with as he thought I would. Oh no! I'm not that much of a fool! I only let him have 2 million and promised him 17 percent of all profit—let's see what he can do with that. Yes. Let's see what he can do with that!
The old man's heart picked up and he scratched himself. I'll bet the cunning young man'll triple it within the week, he told himself gleefully, not a little awed—the diamond paid for by his son's wits from the first profit on the stock sale, and a year of Venus Poon already allocated from the same source and not a copper cash of his own capital to lay out! Eeeee! And the cunning schemes Profitable comes up with! Like the one to deal with the tai-pan tomorrow when we meet.
Anxiously his fingers reached up and touched the half-coin that was on the heavy thong around his neck under his shirt, a coin like that his illustrious ancestor, Wu Fang Choi, had called upon to claim a clipper ship to rival the finest in Dirk Struan's fleet. But Wu Fang Choi, he thought grimly, had been the fool—he had never demanded safe passage for the ship as part of his favor and so had been outsmarted by the Green-Eyed Devil, the tai-pan.
Yes, by all the gods, it was Wu Fang Choi's own fault he lost. But he didn't lose everything. He hunted down that hunchback called Stride Orlov who ruled the ships of the Noble House for Culum the Weak. His men caught Orlov ashore in Singapore and brought him in chains to Taiwan where his headquarters were. There he tied him to a post, just at high-water mark, and drowned him very slowly.
I won't be foolish like Wu Fang Choi. No. I will make sure my ask from this tai-pan is watertight.
Tomorrow, the tai-pan will agree to open his ships to my cargoes —secretly of course; will agree to open some of the Noble House accounts for me to hide in—secretly of course, though to his great profit; will agree, equally secretly, to finance with me the vast new pharmaceutical plant that, oh ko, Profitable Choy says will be the perfect, legitimate undetectable narcotic smoke screen for me and mine forever; and last, the tai-pan will intercede with the half-person, Lando Mata, and choose my name and my suggested syndicate to replace the existing Macao gold and gambling syndicate of Tightfist Tung and the Chin, and he, the tai-pan, he will promise to be part of it.