Shanghai (20 page)

“Is there an immediate demand for payment?”

“What do you think, Maxi! They want to drive us out of business. Naturally they're demanding payment.”

It was then that Maxi threw himself on the Vrassoon messenger and smashed him to the floor.

“Let him go, Maxi. He's just a stupid messenger,” Richard said.

“Thanks, Guv,” said the man, who dusted himself off, and then in one quick move lunged at Maxi.

Richard let out a sigh.
When would they finally learn about Maxi?
he wondered as he looked away.

It took less than a minute for Maxi to rearrange the features on the man's face so that even his own mother would not recognize him.

Richard leaned over the prone, gasping man and said, “Tell your master that we received his message and you, my friend, your present condition is our response. Tell him that.” Maxi yanked the bleeding man to his feet and then turned him to face Richard. “Do you understand me?”

The man nodded, and Maxi ran him out into the filthy alley. When he returned he saw Richard sitting on a wooden stool in the corner staring at nothing. Then he reached for his opium pipe.

Maxi caught Richard's hand and held it tightly. “No, brother mine, not now.”

* * *

THE NEXT MORNING Richard was awakened by a loud knocking. Maxi was already on his feet, pulling on his britches, as Richard pushed aside the mosquito netting
over his bed. He felt a heavy weight on his chest and pushed it off. The old Bible in which he was researching the origins of Rachel Oliphant's name fell from his chest to the plank floor with a thud. Richard took God and His Son's name in vain several times, each a slightly different, and often more colourful, variation on the basic theme.

The knocking got louder. Richard reached for the Bible and found his balance awry. More and harder knocking from the front door. “What's the time, damn it?” he called.

“At least a couple of hours before sunrise, brother mine. Maybe close to four,” Maxi called back as he headed toward the barred front door of their temporary living quarters.

“Who is it, Maxi?”

Maxi withdrew the bayonet he kept hidden between the joists above the door and lit an oil lamp. The flame came up quickly, casting a sallow glow. Maxi slid open a panel and held the lamp up to it. The mirror at the end of the panel reflected the light to another mirror that brought back the image of Chen, wrapped against the morning cold, standing at their unmarked door.

“It's Chen,” Maxi called back.

Richard was suddenly fully awake. Chen wouldn't venture deep into the Concession, especially at this hour of the night, unless there was an emergency.

Shanghai was a no man's land between eleven bells and sunrise. Most of the sedan-carried courtesans were safely ensconced for the night, having decided either to reward their patrons with their sexual favours or not, by that hour. With the exception of the hot-water shops almost every merchant had closed their doors. Those too poor to find housing for the night often bought the required two cups of tea in the hot-water shop and slept at their tables. It was worth the price to avoid the
violence on the street, where cheap liquor was consumed by sailors, opium inhaled by the hard-muscled Chinese labourers, and the hands and mouths of lowly street whores were much in demand.

“Let him in, Maxi,” said Richard, as he struggled into his clothing.

By the time Richard was dressed he found Chen and Maxi in the cookhouse, the brazier throwing heat into the dank room, the smell of brewing tea no doubt about to enter the air.

“So?” Richard demanded, looking at Maxi.

“I don't know, brother mine. It's something technical. I have marketplace Mandarin, and he has, well, about the same in English.”

“After all these years, Maxi …” Richard shook his head.

Chen held up his teacup and said in Mandarin, “
Ni de cha do hao, hao cha
—Your tea is very well brewed, very good.”

“What's very good?” Maxi asked.

Richard sighed. “He says your tea is well brewed, very good. Say thank you.”

“Thanks,” Maxi said to Chen, who gave him a quizzical look.

“Jesus!
Shieh sheh.
”

“I know that.
Shieh sheh,
” Maxi said.

Chen stared at him, stone-faced.

“Fine, now we've got that out of the way, what are you doing here, Chen?”

The smaller man straightened his back. Richard could clearly see he wanted to say, “This is China, I am Chinese, I can go anywhere here!” But the moment passed and Chen said, “You should be prepared.”

“For what?”

“The Mandarin's newest proclamation.” Chen took a rice-paper scroll from his sleeve and handed it to Richard, who unfurled it and tried his best to make out the meaning of the characters. For a second he wondered at his own genius with spoken language but his almost complete inability to decipher character writing. He did recognize the characters for “all men” and “immediately” and “new,” although he understood that the “new” was attached to another character that he couldn't decipher. “Would you read it to me, please, Chen?”

“Surely,” Chen said, and reached for the scroll. “‘The following proclamation comes into effect immediately and concerns all men in the Concession territories. New tariff rates on all goods are published below …'”

“What?” Richard's voice bounced off the walls, “The Treaty of Nanking explicitly states that tariff rates on traded goods can only be changed after full consultation with the—”

“They consulted with the Vrassoons' representative, who agreed,” Chen said, and then he went on to explain that the Vrassoons' representative had also suggested an upfront payment scheme.

Richard swore softly, and Chen saw in the flickering oil lamp light something he had never seen on the face of the
Fan Kuei
he thought of as Lee Char Or'oon—fear.

Maxi saw it too. “What? What's he saying?”

Richard explained. Maxi swore too, but not softly.

Chen watched the red-haired maniac and resisted the impulse to run. Not only was the man's violent nature clear, but he was also the ugliest thing that Chen had ever seen. Red hair, fish-belly skin, blue eyes—a devil if ever there was one.

“And the Vrassoons agreed to an upfront payment,” Richard repeated.

“Explain,” Maxi demanded.

“Rather than paying as items come and go from the warehouse, the Vrassoons agreed that every trading house will put up one hundred thousand silver pieces as credit from which the Hong merchant will keep accounts. When the trading company has used fifty percent, another hundred thousand is due.”

“That's crazy, what kind of business deal is that?”

“The kind designed to drive us out of business, Maxi—that kind of business deal. It makes sense. The Vrassoons are the only firm in Shanghai that has enough money on hand, and they can afford to piss it away.”

“But why? Why piss away money just to hurt us?”

“Because they hate us, Maxi.”

“I know that, brother mine, but why? Why do they hate us?”

Richard had no answer to that, but he took the dual threats seriously. He grabbed his hat and headed toward the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To see the Vrassoons. Maxi, it took us fifteen years to get here. Fifteen years, and now it can all be taken from us. All of it, Maxi. All of it.”

“Don't beg, brother mine. We've never begged. Never.”

“I won't. I'll see if the Vrassoons will take our remaining clipper as partial payment of the debt.”

“But what will we use to ship our goods?”

“What goods, Maxi? We have no Chinese willing to load or unload our ships. So what goods do we have? Think Maxi. Now's the time to think. Not beg. Not fight, either. We're in a box, and we need to find a way out. The
Vrassoons think they have us …” He didn't speak the end of the thought, which was
… and they just might.

Richard hurried toward the Bend in the River, where the wealthy trading houses had their ostentatious head offices. From across the road he eyed the head offices of Dent and Company. Its large Union Jack flapped in the early summer breeze while its two stone lions stood guard on either side of the large bronze doors. Richard looked to one side of the stone lions and saw Dent's real guards—men seemingly doing nothing more than lounging a few yards down the alley, smoking pre-packed cardboard Russian cigarettes and outwardly uninterested in the traffic along the river. But when a rickshaw pulled up and disgorged a portly man in a top hat, the lounging men were quickly on their guard, one with a hand inside his shirt, perhaps with the butt of a pistol in his palm.

Richard smiled at them; they didn't smile back.

Beside Dent's was a construction site whose foundation hole was only partially dug. The river water had seeped through the boarded barrier and was quickly refilling with the mud that had, no doubt, been laboriously removed. After the hole in the ground the path bent quickly to the right, so that a traveller was suddenly confronted with the imposing facade of the head offices of the Scottish trading giant, Jardine Matheson. The heavy oak doors looked as though they'd never been opened.
No doubt their major business goes through the back door,
Richard thought.
Nothing new in that.

At the end of a series of lower buildings was, naturally enough, the tallest building in Shanghai—the British East India Company—the Vrassoons' private fiefdom.

Security was not hidden here. Four Sikhs in full regimental uniform flanked the doors and scowled as only
Sikhs can. Richard walked up the steps and immediately the men stepped forward to bar his way.

“I have an appointment,” Richard said in English.

They did not move.

“I have an appointment,” Richard repeated, in Hindi this time.

The Sikhs didn't move, although their scowls intensified.

“Fine,” Richard said in Punjabi. “I have an appointment.”

Something in the smile family, perhaps the second cousin of a smirk, crossed the leader's face, and he replied in rapid-fire Punjabi, “With whom do you have this appointment?”

Richard breathed a sigh of relief. The Punjabi word for
appointment
was close to the Hindi word so he got the gist of the question. “With the chief,” he said in Punjabi, knowing that
chief
wasn't the right word.

“Man in charge,” the Sikh soldier corrected him.

“Thank you, the man in charge is whom I wish to see.” The Sikhs didn't seem to realize that Richard had moved from having an appointment to “wishing to see” in all of thirty seconds.

The leader shouted an order to one of the others, who disappeared through the tall mahogany doors. Then the Sikh folded his arms and turned to the street. So did the other soldiers. So, eventually, did Richard.

And they waited as the day got hotter—and the Hordoon brothers, by the minute, fell further and further into debt. Finally the door opened and Richard was ushered into an office that was a perfect replica of a London men's club—unnecessarily stuffy, with the windows closed and draped. The leather of the chair
stuck to his shirt the moment he sat. “God damn it!” Richard muttered.

“It is inadvisable to take the Lord's name in vain in these premises. At least swear in Yiddish if you insist on cussing.”

The older man stood in the doorway, his woollen suit clinging to his skinny body, sweat visible on his pockmarked face.

“The guards say you claim you had an appointment with me. You don't, but I've been expecting you.”

“Ah, you got my message?” Richard smiled.

“Our badly beaten man, that message?”

“The very one. I see he held his wits together long enough to …” Richard suddenly stopped speaking. He found himself momentarily wobbly on his feet. “He was rude to my brother—an inadvisable thing to do.”

“Really?” the Vrassoon man said, “Well, Mr. Hordoon, I've been expecting you because my employer has prepared an offer for you and your miscreant brother.”

“And that would be?”

“Mr. Vrassoon is graciously prepared to cancel the debt of yours he bought from Barclays Bank in return for you and your brother handing over the paltry assets you presently hold in Shanghai and agreeing not to return to this country, either in person or in proxy, for a period of fifty years.”

“Have you got a name, old man? You're not a Vrassoon, you don't have the swagger for it. And besides, you have something that no Vrassoon has ever had.”

“And that would be?”

“A sense of humour. Surely you know that offer is a joke. So what's your name, friend?”

“I am not your friend, and my name is my business, not yours.” His foot reached for a button on the floor. “Now you claimed to have an appointment with me. So what exactly is your business here?”

Richard noticed the silhouettes of the Sikhs behind the elderly man. Even in shadow Richard could sense their scowls.

“Perhaps a street rat like yourself has no business in the offices of the British East India Company,” the elderly man suggested, with a wry smile on his face.

Richard began to nod. “Perhaps, old man, you're right. No business with the likes of you or your master. Would you tell him something for me?”

“Perhaps you'd like to write down your message for Mr. Vrassoon. If you know how to write, that is.”

“Ah, a slander … very good. No need to write it down. It's short, and I think even a dotard like yourself could remember it. So, you ready? Good, here it is. Tell Mr. Vrassoon that Richard Hordoon tells him to fuck himself up the arse with a crowbar.”

The older man's face fell.

“Ah, perhaps you didn't understand my English. How's this?” Then Richard repeated his charming message in Farsi, in Hindi, in Punjabi, in Mandarin, and finally in Yiddish. By then he was face down in the dusty street, having been lifted and then thrown some fifteen feet by the Sikh guards.