Shanghai (78 page)

Loa Wei Fen did not speak as accusations flew all around him.

Tu took a single step toward the Assassin and commanded, “Surrender your swalto blade!”

The cobra carved on his back uncoiled and its hood filled with blood. Giving up the swalto was like defanging the serpent. Loa Wei Fen reached for his swalto and the handle of the blade turned in his hand, found purchase, ready to act at his slightest command.

Then Loa Wei Fen flipped the swalto over, catching the blade in his open hand, and extended the handle to Gangster Tu.

Tu took the swalto and in one motion plunged the blade into the Incense Master's heart. He yanked the knife free of the man's chest and shoved the already dead body aside.

Loa Wei Fen accepted the return of his knife and asked, “Why kill him?”

“Because it is important to keep one's friends close but one's enemies closer—isn't it?” Gangster Tu said, staring into Loa Wei Fen's eyes. “And that is that. I must consult the
I Ching
to see what I should do next. Come,” he ordered the Straw Sandal.

Left alone with the body of the Incense Master, Loa Wei Fen carefully cleaned his swalto on the man's elaborate silk robe, then hoisted him on his shoulder—much as he had hoisted the Tusk in the rug less than a week before. He noted that the man was much lighter than the First Emperor's Narwhal Tusk—destiny weighs more heavily on man than life itself.

Then he thought of Gangster Tu's threat about keeping enemies close, and his devotion to the
I Ching
,
and the Straw Sandal who claimed to interpret it. Loa Wei Fen was sure that Tu was not the looked-for Man with a Book in the second window of the Tusk, but Tu was his charge, and he would not betray his obligation to the Ivory Compact. He felt something in his hand and looked down. His swalto blade was ready—ready to defend him.

—

Tu Yueh-sen was a Han Chinese male, and as such was by nature practical. However, the
I Ching
—the ancient book of changes—appeared to offer him a new way of interpreting events. The
I Ching,
one of China's oldest texts, contained a symbol system designed to identify order in what seem like chance events. From randomness it discerned patterns. Its philosophy centred on the ideas of the dynamic balance of opposites, the evolution of events as a process, and acceptance of the inevitability of change. The Chinese people believed in change and the fact that deep within events that seemed chaotic there was often a progression. The
I Ching
taught a system for understanding the hidden patterns. Besides, Tu Yueh-sen liked the air of spiritual authority that citing the old book gave his orders. And on more occasions than one he had changed his plans after consulting the ancient text, and through its insights saw the hidden layer of logic beneath what seemed like whimsical, unrelated events.

It was, in fact, on the advice of the hidden pattern the
I Ching
had revealed to him that he had spared Loa Wei Fen's life, following the instruction to “suppress your first impulse but follow your second promptings even to a death.” Tu also knew that if Loa Wei Fen was
the traitor he would never admit it, let alone tell him where the Tusk was hidden, no matter what form of torture was used on him. Perhaps threatening his boys would do something. But Tu was cautious about crossing that line. So for now he would keep the man close and use him as the most accomplished bodyguard in Shanghai—a role, unbeknownst to Gangster Tu, that Loa Wei Fen's ancient ancestor had played for the First Emperor, Q'in She Huang himself.

And so it was that Loa Wei Fen found himself accompanying Gangster Tu to Jiang's the next evening, where the man, to the Assassin's horror, decided to challenge the ancient Go player, whose bony backside sat upon the new bench inside of which was hidden the First Emperor's prophetic Narwhal Tusk.

Sitting opposite the old man, Tu said, “Throwing my
I Ching
this morning revealed an interesting piece of advice.”

“And that would be?” asked the Go player as he scratched his grizzled chin.

“That ‘beneath a game, truth lies.'”

The old Go player nodded for several excruciating seconds, then said, “You want to play black or white?”

“White, old man, so you go first.”

“A wager could increase the interest in …”

“If you win, I'll buy you the services of any courtesan in the place.”

“For an entire night?”

“For as long as you stay awake.”

The ancient Go player chuckled and rubbed his swollen knuckles, knowing he had enough money to buy a fine strong tortoise. He would have its neck pulled out as far as it could go, then he would bite into it, swallowing as much of the animal's adrenalin-rich
blood as possible, so as to swell his member for the evening's revels.

“And in the unlikely circumstance that you win, Tu Yueh-sen, what forfeit do I owe you?”

“The truth beneath the game—as the
I Ching
foretold.”

The Go player shifted his bony bottom along the top of the new bench and longed for his old chair. “White goes first,” he said, and placed an initial stone in the upper quadrant of the board, already anticipating the joys of his night to come.

Loa Wei Fen caught Jiang's eye as the Go player continued to fidget on his new bench while the game quickly progressed.

“Sit still, old man!” Gangster Tu said as he failed to complete the necessary double eye to keep his white pieces safe from the black encirclement.

“As you wish,” the Go player said, secure in the fact that the whole north-west quadrant of the board was in his control and the south-east quadrant was going to be a draw. All he needed to do was move carefully, one counter of his for each of the gangster's counters, and he would force a draw on the two remaining quadrants, giving him a free, tortoise-adrenalin-assisted night with the courtesan of his choice. Perhaps the very young one—the new one. Or maybe it was time to try a
Fan Kuei
… no, the young, new one, for sure.

He allowed himself to smile about that, although he was not pleased that he felt almost no motion in his jade spear. The pace of the play picked up. Only one quadrant remained. Six moves—seven—and even the fool across the table from him saw that it was useless. The old man had defeated one of the most powerful men
in Shanghai at a game whose outcome was the direct result of skill alone. Luck had nothing to do with determining the winner of a game of Go.

Tu in one swipe knocked the pieces from the board. They tinkled to the floor and bounced about. Then the gangster smiled at the old Go player. “You win.”

“I do,” the Go player said, trying hard to keep the joy out of his voice as he looked at the man he thought of as Elephant-Eared Tu.

* * *

THE REBELLION QUICKLY SPREAD and picked up ferocity. No
Fan Kuei
was safe on the streets of the cities of the Middle Kingdom. During the day police would try to reassert their power despite ever-increasing desertions from their ranks, but as soon as the sun set the rebels were back in full control of the streets.

The Revolutionary's troops had swelled almost a hundredfold. His initial six cadres were now the vanguard of a People's Army. Manchu raiders were in the streets of the city at the Bend in the River looking for Gangster Tu. Gangster Tu's men were under orders to search for the Tusk and kill any
Fan Kuei
who stood in their way, and thousands upon thousands of unaligned Chinese took full advantage of the breakdown in order either to settle old scores or to simply rob and plunder.

Fan Kuei
women, if caught, were gang-raped; men were beheaded. China's first race war was picking up steam. Every major Shanghai building was festooned with red banners proclaiming revolutionary slogans, and most large walls were covered in revolutionary posters that were whitewashed over during the day
only to re-emerge in the morning with slashes of violent colour and statements of open racial hatred.

—

Heyward Matheson, the leader of Jardine Matheson, stood before a full-length portrait of old Hercules MacCallum in the company's offices. The Hercules in the painting had broad shoulders and smouldering eyes, which never betrayed the fact that his gout had spread as he aged. He had finally died in agony, which only his personal bravery allowed him to keep from all but his closest associates.

“They've had their fun,” Matheson said. “Now it's time this nonsense was ended.”

The American trading houses quickly agreed.

Even the French, after Father Pierre's murder, were willing to join the other traders—a first in the history of Shanghai.

Only Silas Hordoon deferred comment as he recalled the Kipling story of how fear had come to the jungle.

“Be thee with us, Mr. Hordoon?” Heyward Matheson asked, his brogue broadening as he spoke.

Silas thought of the “eyes watching” that his father's opium diaries often mentioned. Finally he asked, “What exactly do you propose?”

“To teach these heathens a lesson,” said the head of Oliphant and Company.

“Exactly to which heathens do you refer, Mr. Oliphant?” Silas asked softly.

Recognizing his faux pas, the Oliphant man spluttered, “The murderous ones, naturally.”

“You wouldn't, then, be including me, as a Jew, amongst the heathens you'd teach a lesson, or our Papist French allies, or perhaps my Chinese wife?”

Chastised, the head of the House of Zion said, “Not them,” although it was evident that he'd love to include “those heathens” too.

After an hour more of contemplation, and a stern warning from William Dent that no company was to gain financially from the coming military action, the traders returned to their offices under tight security and contacted their political masters in their respective countries of origin. They had little doubt they would be successful in their request for military support, since taxes on the imports of their goods from China made up as much as a quarter of all government revenues. In fact, most European countries would have gone bankrupt without the tax revenue generated by the import of Chinese goods.

Only Silas didn't make such contact. Instead he sent a message to Charles Soong, his brother-in-law: “This madness must stop.”

—

Charles knew that Silas was right, but he felt powerless to stop the carnage. He couldn't even control the men he employed, some of whom he suspected of being part of the rebellion. His papers all preached against the Boxers, although Charles noticed a definite softening of the stance from many of his younger writers—and one of his older ones.

Charles put aside Silas's note and reviewed his meeting of the previous night with Dr. Sun Yat-sen and the man he was now referring to as his “Generalissimo,”
Chiang Kai Shek. He remembered their heated argument as to whether the Boxer Rebellion furthered their cause of dethroning the Manchus or not. “Our revolution must be in two parts,” he had argued. “First, dethrone the Q'ing Dynasty, and then displace the
Fan Kuei
gradually. If the
Fan Kuei
leave suddenly, businesses everywhere in the Middle Kingdom will fail. People will starve, and that will allow the Manchus to reassert control. Their regime will just continue on as if nothing has changed.”

Chiang Kai Shek had retorted, “Any action is good action. Stir the pot,” he'd said. “It can't be worse than now.” Then he had added, in what Charles thought of as typical to his way of thinking, “They're fucking our women. Look at your sister-in-law.”

Charles tried to remember the last comment from Chiang Kai Shek that hadn't included some reference to “his” women. He looked to Dr. Sun Yat-sen and couldn't get over the feeling that the good doctor hadn't been able to follow the basic arguments being put forward.

“And that thing with the children! Disgusting!” the Generalissimo added.

Charles sighed. Despite himself, he liked the Persian Jew, even though it had hurt his Flower Contests when Silas closed down the Shanghai Race Course, then encircled it with high walls within which he built vast gardens and many homes. Silas's and Mai Bao's taking in of twenty street children and raising them as their own—ten Chinese and ten of mixed race—had made the front page of every paper. Charles himself wrote the lead articles that were picked up and run in newspapers as far away as San Francisco. Later he had tried to establish exactly who the fortunate ten Chinese street children were but had come up against considerable resistance.
One tantalizing lead suggested that two of the girls were actually Mai Bao's children that she had given birth to a few years back when she had suddenly disappeared from the Bend in the River. He had cornered his wife, Mai Bao's younger sister, about this, but she had remained evasive. Then she had laughed it off. “My sister is a virgin courtesan, husband. She couldn't have given birth to children, unless the neck of her arhu accidentally impregnated her.” Then she laughed again, a sound he found irresistible, and added slyly, “Her silk curtain is still drawn across her jade gate.”

Charles nodded. He loved his wife, but the jealousy that she exhibited toward her sister made her opinions on that subject unreliable. He was enticed by the rumour that Mai Bao had had a child with the head police officer who died in the Warrens, and that that child was one of the ten Chinese children taken to grow up in what was quickly becoming known in Shanghai simply as “the Garden.”

“Why adopt children? Why not just have children of your own?” he said aloud to Silas's note. Then the answer occurred to him—she wouldn't have it—Mai Bao would not bear mixed-blood children. But why?

The sound of shouting from the streets drew his attention. The Boxers were at it again. He closed his window, then his eyes, and was tempted to pray for the violence to stop.

* * *

WITHIN A MONTH any action that Silas or Charles might have taken was rendered academic. American Marines landed on the Chinese coast just south of Beijing, and within three weeks had ransacked the
Dowager Empress's summer residence, packed up and sent back to America for sale all of its furnishings, paintings, and even the Empress's bed, and charged her a personal indemnity of several million dollars. Never had a Chinese ruler been so humbled.