"Well, I need some volunteers, then," Twigg demanded. "To enter those brothels that accept Europeans."
"I'll go, sir," Alan piped up. It had been a long time since Calcutta-and Padmini, Draupadi and Apsara!
"Speak fluent French, Mister Lewrie?" Twigg simpered. "Speak Chinese, come to think on it? Would you know what to look for?"
"Would you, sir?" Alan shot back without a pause.
"Most probably I would not, sir," Twigg smiled. "But I would know most of the French Compagnie des Indies officials by sight, and more than a few of the notorious Chinese coastal pirates as well. Tom, we're in your hands now."
"Aye, Zachariah. Look, you an' Percival try the last two on the left. Lewrie an' I'll look into the others. Hope the pimps speak pidgin at the best."
The pimps did, though it didn't do much good. Old Clothes Street was full of European barbarian foreign-devils that night, and to the Chinese, they all pretty much looked alike, so even the offer of some cash didn't get them any useful information.
"Ever'body got a condom?" Wythy asked. "Just in case."
Percival didn't. He was relegated to street lookout on the other side of Thirteen Factory Street. Percival was very put-out.
"We can use yer services again, Cony," Wythy said.
"Aye, sir, though… uhm… I h'ain't got much money, sir."
"I didn't come prepared for sport, either, sir," Alan said, "Not in the financial sense, anyway. Do you think the tariff would be dear?" he asked with an innocent expression.
"Well, damme!" Twigg griped, but dug out his purse and handed over enough golden guineas to pay for their socket-fees, an act which half killed his soul, and made Alan delight in the prospect of getting the leg over at Twigg's expense.
They saw Cony into one of the brothels, assuring the warder at the door that Cony was a minor tai pan, no matter that he was dressed as a sailor.
"Ye want this'un, then?" Wythy asked. "An' I'll take the last but one on the right. Meet us at the Chun Qua Factory whether ye learn anythin' or no. Don't dawdle, Mister Lewrie. Half an hour, shall we say?" Wythy grinned.
"The things I do for King and Country, sir," Alan smiled back.
"An' not a jot on what I've done in the King's name, boy."
"Aye, sir."
The expedition took a lot longer than Wythy's stricture of half an hour. And, Lewrie suspected, if his own experience was anything to go by, none of the others would be getting back to the Chun Qua Factory before he did-might not even get back before dawn!
First, he had to pay the warder to get into the bloody place. It was nice to learn that the bobbing little weasel could speak pidgin, no matter what the mandarins' laws had to say about limiting the number of Chinese exposed to foreign-devil barbarians, their languages and alien ideas. It did, however, cost him six pence, which was not so nice.
He was lit into a small alcove through a semi-circular archway by a giggling little maid-servant. There were several of the alcoves along the main hall, screened off by folding rice-paper screens painted with some truly awe-inspiring Oriental pornography. Try as he would, he could not overhear any French being spoken, nor did he see either Sicard or Choundas in any of the alcoves.
"Wythy must be right," he muttered to himself. "The man's not here, or he's a damn quick worker. On, off and 'Where's my shoes.' "
The maid-servant seated him on pillows before a very low black-lacquered table, and began lighting lamps. Another maid came trotting in with a serving tray, offering steaming-hot towels, steaming-hot tea (an excellent early-spring picking Yu Tsien, he noted) and plates of tiny dumplings called dim sum for an appetizer. The first little maid returned with a straw-wrapped bottle of mao tai brandy and delicate little paper-thin drinking cups.
An older Chinese lady entered, dressed in a black silk robe all figured in gold-and-silver thread birds. She looked hard as flint and twice as old.
"You wan' guhl?" she began. "One guhl? Two guhl? Wan' see? Mak choose?"
"Have you any French customers, Mother Abbess?" Alan asked.
"No got French guhl. China guhl, got."
"No," he reiterated, speaking slowly as possible. "Have any men who are French come here in the last quarter-hour?"
"Ho, you wan' boy!" The madam comprehended. "Eeeh, got China boy. French boy, no got."
"Good Christ, I didn't go to Oxford!" Lewrie shot back. "You misunderstand me. Me want girl! No want boy. I look for friends here. Red-haired man. Man with beard? He come here?"
"Wan' guhl wi' beard?" she gasped. "Aw fo'n debbil… loony!"
"Want girl," Alan sighed, giving it up as a no-go. "You bring girl? Me make choose, right?"
"W'y you no say so? Wan' guhl? Yes, I b'ling," she huffed.
"I fear this is not going to improve my conversational skill," Alan commented to the little fourteen-year-old maid as she poured him a revivifying cup of brandy. She covered her mouth and giggled.
The girls arrived, four of them at once, and they didn't titter or giggle, thank the good Lord. Hair black as ink and elaborately coiffed, stuck through with long decorative pins-hair as lacquered and shiny as polished ebony wood. Faces painted bolder than any English whore's, with pale powdered faces and bright rouge and lip-gloss, their eyes and lashes outlined and brushed so that they loomed enormous, upper lids brushed with powder so they seemed like almonds enameled in blue and black. They talked among themselves, waving the huge sleeves of their intricately designed and figured silk robes.
"I've died and gone to heaven," Lewrie breathed at the sight of them. Choosing could be a hard process, for they were as lovely a quartet as any he'd ever suspected existed. And this was one of the brothels that specialized in Europeans-surely these would be thought of as mundane, with the absolute very best saved for the Chinese as too-precious pearls to be cast before foreign-devil swine!
They enveloped him, one seated to each side, one seated by the doorway to play a stringed instrument for his enjoyment, while the fourth began to sing, lolloping out some horribly off-key (to his Occidental ear) nonsense in a quavery, breathy voice. The one to his right plied chopsticks to feed him bites of dim sum, while the one to his left kept the tea and brandy flowing. And after each song, they would trade places, to introduce him to all their accomplishments.
"Speak English?" he asked each of them as they settled in at his side. "Speak pidgin? French? Bloody Latin?"
Sadly, three of them could not, but Wei Yen could. She was youngest of the four. It was hard for him to judge just how old she really was, but he guessed around sixteen or seventeen. Her skin was clearer, her features more delicate than the others', her mien not as artificially gay and "cherry-merry" as the other three, either.
There was more tea, more dim sum, some more appetizers fetched out, another bottle of mao tai. And then the madam was back, with her hand out for more silver, to pay for the treats supplied so far.
"You mak choose, now," the woman said, making it sound like a demand more than a request. "You wan' one guhl, two silla. Two guhl, fo' silla. Wan' keep aw fo', ten silla."
"One girl. Wei Yen," Alan replied, forking over two shillings for the girl and another six pence for the entertainment. The others bowed their way out and tripped down the main hall, toward the front of the establishment, their services already in demand.
Wei Yen beamed at him with a maidenly little smile, then took him by the hand and led him in the other direction, towards the back.
"Give bath," she promised.
A steaming wood tub sat sunk into the floor of each bath cubicle, some already full by the sounds coming from them. Lewrie took his time dawdling on his way to his, trying to peer into each one or linger long enough to listen to see if he could hear French being spoken. He shrugged, thinking Choundas either not there, or long gone by this time.