‘Next to human beings, fish are the most territorial creatures on earth,’ the old man said. ‘If you inject a stranger into their home, they will kill it. Even the small fish attack it. So the big fish is overwhelmed. Then they break his ballast and he is helpless.’ He looked up at Fong. ‘Do you understand what I am saying?’
Fong nodded.
‘Good. You were the finest Red Pole in the Chiu Chaos,’ Wang said, ‘but to declare war on the house of Tsu Fi and attack him in his own environment was suicidal, as Lung discovered.’
‘I would not make the same mistakes,’ Fong said.
The old man stared at him for several more moments and nodded again. ‘We do a lot of business in Hong Kong,’ he said. ‘Cohen is respected and feared among all the Sun Lee On. He is powerful in the business community. Doing business in Hong Kong means doing business with him.
You must swallow your pride. Joe Lung compromised you. The rules of the Society require that you make an apology and a gesture to satisfy the insult
‘That’s why I flew back from Bangkok this morning.’
‘Hai. Then call him now. Arrange a meeting for later today. Get this over with. It is an annoyance I do not care to put up with any longer than necessary.’
‘I will do it now,’ said Fong.
‘Mm goi,’ said the old man, ‘I am also aware that you, too, have a ch’u-tiao against the American. If necessary, you must be prepared to put it aside.’
Fong looked surprised.
‘I cannot do that!’ the new san wong said, but his predecessor and mentor cut him off before he could go on. ‘You can and will, if it is necessary,’ he said with finality and turned back to his fish,
Fong knew the discussion was over. He bowed to his master.
‘Jo sahn,’ he said,
‘Jo sahn,’ the old man answered.
DAFFY
The smell of cordite still hung in the air of the house as they waited for Daphne to arrive. According to Cohen, Daphne was the only person they could trust who still traveled upriver into that dangerous land and dealt with the brigands, mainly in materials, Thai silk and madras cotton, which she smuggled into the colony duty-free. She had two things going for her: nothing intimidated her, which earned her the respect of the pirates, and she dealt in gold. Even the Ts’e K’am Men Ti did not bite that strong a hand.
But Hatcher also suspected Cohen’ s motives. Could he possibly be playing Cupid? Hatcher’s first encounter with Daphne had been the result of a rather perverse Cohen joke. The Tsu Fi had been certain that Hatcher would be attracted to her and Just as certain that she would ignore the brash Yankee gwai-lo.
Cohen, too, was thinking of that night. In a funny way, Daphne Chien brought the friendship between Cohen and Hatcher full circle, for it was Hatcher’s first meeting with her that had strengthened what had been until then a tentative friendship between the two men, a time for sparring and contemplation and even testing. From the beginning, Cohen had seen in his new friend a man of curious and sometimes frightening balance — a man of intense loyalties and an outrageous sense of humor balanced by a dark, deviously clever, dangerous and unpredictable streak. He had seen the dark side of Hatcher’s persona, the human trigger that could kill with the suddenness and impartiality of a sprung mouse-trap. And then there was Hatcher’s charmingly eccentric side. He slept on the floor, preferred to read in Chinese rather than English, sometimes would go two or three days without eating, and had a bizarre memory, which excluded obvious details and retained only what Hatcher considered important. He knew, for instance, that Sam-Sam Sam was left-handed but could not describe a single one of the tattoos that covered the pirate’s body.
Hatcher survived by keeping these two disparate sides of his personality in careful balance, never letting one overpower the other, like a coin perched on its edge.
To Cohen, all of these traits made Hatcher a fascinating, often endearing, and potentially trustworthy friend, but it was at Hatcher’s first meeting with Daphne that Cohen had seen a gentle, almost boyish side of Hatcher’s personality, although the balance was still there. On the one hand, he was surprisingly naïve; on the other, outrageously audacious.
They had just arrived at the Governor’s Ball, the annual mob scene at the Chinese Palace, to which Cohen, as a joke, had conned Hatcher into going, knowing the mysterious riverman hated crowds, cocktail parties, dances and snobs — all the reasons why everyone else went. Hatcher spotted Daphne the moment they arrived at the party. She was standing on the other side of the main ballroom, a stunning, unattainable statue, observing the shoulder-to-shoulder cocktail crowd with an air of icy indifference. Cohen sensed Hatcher’s immediate infatuation.
‘Forget it,’ said China. ‘Your eyes are the wrong shape.’
‘Who is she?’
‘Daphne Chien. Her mother’s Malaysian, her father’s half Chinese, ha if French.’
‘Amazing collaboration,’ Hatcher said half aloud, staring through the crowd at her.
‘Every gwai-lo in the colony has tried,’ Cohen whispered. ‘She won’t have anything to do with Westerners.’
‘Neither would the Tsu Fi and that didn’t stop you,’ Hatcher answered. ‘You know her?’
‘Yeah, I know her,’ Cohen answered with an air of apprehension. Social confrontations, particularly in an event of this importance, made him uncomfortable, so he added, ‘And I’m telling you, she particularly hates Americans.’
‘How come?’
‘Her father was a very successful tailor here, built up a very nice business with a few quality stores in the States. Along comes a big American combine, decides his little company has big potential, makes him a lot of promises, then screws him to the wall, edges him out, and starts mass-producing blue jeans using his name and reputation. They got big, big, big, but the old man never saw a dime of it.’
‘What was the company?’
‘Blue Max, you’ve probably heard of them.’
‘Everybody’s heard of it.’
‘The old man was so humiliated he tried to kill himself. She saved his life. . .
Hatcher was already off and running. Cohen rushed after him.
‘Introduce me,’ said Hatcher as he threaded his way through the black-tie crowd toward her. Cohen followed, trying to talk as he made his way through the jabbering guests.
‘You haven’t heard the rest of it,’ Cohen said, shouting above the cocktail din.
‘So what’s the rest of it?’
‘She started a new business. Knockoffs.’
Hatcher stopped and looked back at him with a wide grin. ‘She counterfeits American blue jeans?’ he said.
Cohen nodded. ‘She counterfeits Blue Max American- brand blue jeans — at about half their price.’
‘Fantastic.’
Cohen nodded. ‘Ripped them off for enough to start her own label, became their biggest competitor, then merged with them. And ended up in control. And ended’ up firing the whole greedy bunch.’