‘Tell her, Christian. Was I tough? Did I show some stuff here last night or didn’t I.’
‘He is your friend, he would say anything for you,’ she said, staring impudently at Hatcher.
‘The Occhi di Sassi does not lie,’ said Cohen. ‘Didn’t think I had it in me, did you, Christian?’ he asked proudly.
‘I thought the way you handled the colonel was more impressive.’
‘Routine!’ cried Cohen with a wave of his hand. He pulled up his shirt, displaying his bandaged side. ‘And look at that. The Purple Heart, my dear. I’ve been wounded in action. Another inch, and Buddha would have been sitting on the bed instead of you two.
‘I must see to the rest of the house,’ Tiana said, excusing herself. After she left the room, Cohen scowled at Hatcher. ‘What’s the problem?’ he asked.
‘Five of your people died here last night,’ Hatcher said. ‘Just to protect me. I didn’t come on this job to get people killed. History’s beginning to repeat itself. I should never have come here.’
Cohen leaned toward his friend and laid his hand on Hatcher’s. ‘Listen to me, Christian,’ he said seriously. ‘You made a few enemies in your time. You can’t evade them. But before you get a bleeding heart, let me tell you, every man here last night had reason to hate the Chiu Chao triads. They all had old scores to settle. Every one of them was here voluntarily and grateful for the chance. And their families will be well taken care of for life. It really had nothing to do with you.’
‘Sure. Now you’ll be on Fong’s list, too,’ Hatcher said.
‘No,’ Cohen answered. To attack a man’s home is an act of cowardice. Even the triads will be dishonored. Lung hit me without Fong’s approval, I’m sure of it. And now Fong owes me an apology. Lung dishonored him — and botched the job in the bargain. Forg.et it, the old Tsu Fi can take care of himself. You’re the only one who still has to worry about Tollie Fong. Are you still determined to go up to Chin Chin land?’
‘More than ever. For the first time I’ve got something positive. A name, China, I’ve got a name. Wol Pot. It’s a starting place. Without Wol Pot, I didn’t have anything.’
‘Supposing Cody doesn’t want to be found. Supposing you turn over a rock and something nasty crawls out.’
‘I’ll deal with that if it happens.’
‘Okay, then there’s only one person you can trust who can take you up there.’
‘Who?’ Hatcher asked.
‘Daphne Chien,’ Cohen answered.
ch’u-tiao
The house was surrounded by flowers and sat on a quiet street in one of the finer residential sections of Macao, forty miles from Hong Kong by hydroplane. Despite its look of tranquility, Macao had dark secrets hidden along its cobblestone streets and behind its terraced red and ocher Mediterranean villas. There was still about it a sense of mystery and decadence; it was still a center for the smuggling of illegal Chinese aliens, carried in the dead of night by snakeboat into Hong Kong; a center for gold smuggling; a protectorate for Chinese triad gangsters who freely practiced white slavery, arranged major dope- smuggling deals between Thailand’s Golden Triangle and Amsterdam and other Western ports, and ordered the execution of their enemies from behind the façades of peaceful rococo villas. The banyan trees lining the Praia Grande concealed corruption of every kind.
Wang, the retired san wong of the White Palms, who was in his eighties and had been for more than fifty years the leader of the outlaw triad, was feeding his tropical fish.
He had handpicked Tollie Fong as his Red Pole when Fong was still in his early twenties and had never doubted the wisdom of his choice. But he had warned Fong that Joe Lung was a dangerous Number One, a reckless and irascible killer, who, as the old man had put it, ‘thinks with his gonads’ Now Wang had to deal with the aftermath of Lung’s attack on Cohen.
Fong arrived at the house at precisely ten o’clock, having flown in from Bangkok on the early morning flight. The house was a stunning tangerine-colored Mediterranean villa on Avenue Conselheiro, which wound around Guia Hill, and had perhaps the finest view of Macao on the tiny peninsula. It was rumored to have been the hideout of Sun Yat-sen while he plotted the overthrow of the Manchu Dynasty, an apocryphal yarn, but possible. Above it, on the pinnacle of the hill, stood what was left of St Paul’s Church, a magnificent ruin destroyed by a typhoon in 1835, while from the rear sun porch of the house, the old man could see far below the oldest lighthouse on the China coast and, beyond it, the South China Sea.
Fong stood at the front door, checking out his reflection in the glass door before ringing the bell. He was an athletic, light-skinned man, a bodybuilder, tall for a Chinese, with gold-flecked black eyes and modishly trim med black hair that flowed back over his ears, outlining a thin, hawkish face. He preferred Western dress and was wearing a dark blue cotton suit and a scarlet silk tie. Fong was a handsome man whose good looks were marred only by an unnerving inscrutability, for he seemed to be a man without any expression, his face a mask with a mouth that moved. He was ushered through the louse by a bodyguard the size of a sumo wrestler.
The old man was in his favorite room at the rear of the house, feeding the saltwater fish in three one-hundred- gallon aquariums. The fish were his proudest possession. He knew each by name and by habit and was chatting with them as he sprinkled brine shrimp into one of the tanks when Fong was ushered into the atrium, Fong stood near the old man and bowed respectfully. Wang nodded his head.
‘Welcome back, Tollie,’ the old man said without looking up. ‘How was your trip to Bangkok?’
‘Shorter than I planned,’ Fong answered. ‘I had to leave before I finished my business, but I can go back tomorrow.’
‘What happened at the house of Tsu Fi?’ the former san wong asked.
‘Lung went crazy,’ Fong said.
‘That is all you have to say about it?’
‘What else is there to say?’ said Fong. ‘I never talked to Lung. He found out Hatcher was in Hong Kong from a police informant named Varney. and he attacked the house. Now they are all dead, including the cop. We’ll never really know what happened.
‘I warned you that one day Lung would compromise you,’ said the retired san wong.
Fong nodded. He was embarrassed that the old san wong was forced to deal with an awkward situation that was basically Fong’s fault.
‘He was fulfilling a ch’u-tiao of many years against the American,’ Fong said somewhat defensively.
Ch’u-tiao was a blood oath, an oath of honor, and one that by tradition could only be resolved in death.
‘So it is ended. And would you have approved of this action?’ the old man asked, still playing with his fish.
‘Of course not,’ said Fong.
‘We do not want war with Tsu Fi,’ the old man said.
Fong decided to face the subject head-on. ‘Maybe it’s time to get rid of this mei gwok Jew,’ he said slowly.
The old man looked up, his eyes mere slits. He stared at Fong for several seconds and the younger man became uneasy, realizing he had said the wrong thing. ‘Let me show you something,’ he said. He reached in one of the other tanks, opened his palm, and a large yellow tang swam leisurely around his hand.
‘Come, Shang, come to your father,’ the old man whispered.
The fish finally swam into his hand, pecking at it, looking for food. Wang grabbed the fish arid quickly dropped it in one of the other tanks. Almost immediately it was attacked by three of the fish in the new tank, two of them less than half its size. The tang floundered, darted out of the way only to be hit behind the gills by a small black-and-white domino. The tang flipped to its side, wiggling its tail frantically, but it was already moribund. The two men watched while half a dozen fish pecked the tang to death.