Shanghai (85 page)

The French team (partially bankrolled by the Colombe family) bought all three major brands from their native land—Motobloc, Sizaire, and De Dion Bouton—then began to mix and match the parts, with
varying degrees of success. When beauty is the prime mover in decision making, sometimes things don't move so well.

—

MacMillan was shocked when he heard what Silas wanted done with the Bugatti. “Take off the top, Captain?”

“Yes, with a wrench, I guess.”

A blowtorch, perhaps, or cutting shears, but certainly not a wrench,
MacMillan thought. “Why?” he demanded.

“For speed,” Silas said. Then he added, “And is there a way to affix a bar that goes over the top?”

“For what?”

“Safety,” Silas said, adding then, as casually as he could manage, “should the automobile roll over.”

“Whose safety?” MacMillan demanded.

“Yours.” Silas's voice had dropped to a whisper. “Yours, Mr. MacMillan, should you agree to drive the automobile and should the Bugatti roll over.”

MacMillan was thrilled. “I'd be happy to drive your car, Captain.”

“Good,” Silas said, “but I want that bar installed.” He thought,
I will not have another death on my conscience
. He noticed MacMillan preparing to argue about the roll bar again and quickly said, “Install the bar for me, MacMillan, please, just do it.”

—

It was an interesting day when the representatives of each of the eight race car teams got together in the
meeting house in the Garden to decide upon a route for the race. Gangster Tu had sent a representative who stood silently to one side. The French had sent their driver and a translator—neither spoke much. And Charles Soong stood by himself with an odd smile on his face.

“It needs to be long enough to be a real test for the automobiles,” William Dent said.

Silas noted that the lanky Mr. Dent had a slower but reliable car in the Stanley Steam Automobile, so that made sense from his point of view.

“With lots of curves and turns for excitement,” Heyward Matheson chimed in.

Naturally,
Silas thought,
since you have the smallest and lightest of the cars in the Simplex Racer
. But he responded, “I agree. This is an entertainment for the good citizens of Shanghai, and as such, as many twists and turns as we can manage would be just fine.”

They eventually agreed upon a route that started on the long straightaway of the Bund, ran along the water, and then swung in the sharpest turn on the course inland along Bubbling Spring Road. After that it took a wide, gentle turn eastward and through the Old City along Fang Bang Lu, then back toward the river—and round and round.

“How many times?” Zachariah Oliphant asked.

Silas looked at the route. He had driven and timed approximations of the route himself only the previous night. It took just under ten minutes to complete the circuit. He calculated that he needed at least two hours to be safely out of Shanghai with the “long, curved object,” so he said, “A round number, let's say fifty times.”

A chorus of anguish rose up from the men, as Silas knew it would, but it was finally agreed that thirty laps was a fair and challenging test of both car and driver.

Thirty laps would give Silas three hundred minutes, five hours. It would be enough time—especially if he could figure out how exactly to make his own car roll.

“The Bund's too narrow,” MacMillan announced, only moments after barging into Silas's office.

“Too narrow for what?” Silas demanded.

“For the race, for eight cars to line up for the start of the race—it's too narrow. How're we going to start the race? It's only a week away, and we haven't even figured out how to start the damned thing.”

“I'm afraid I'm not following, MacMillan. The problem with the Bund is what, exactly?”

“Width.”

“The width of the Bund is a problem for the race?”

“Aye! It's twenty-one feet across, and each car averages a width of five feet, and there are eight cars!”

“And the problem with this is what?”

MacMillan stared at Silas. It always amazed him that certain kinds of problems, often those involved with simple mathematics, completely stymied the little heathen. Somehow the man couldn't envision the issue. Yet he ran a vast mercantile empire that produced millions of pounds of profits every year, and his new banking venture was rumoured to be generating more profit than all the rest of his assets combined. MacMillan illustrated the problem on a sheet of paper on Silas's desk.

Silas laughed. “Ah, I see, well, put four cars in the first row and four in the second and the problem is solved.”

“No it's not, Captain. How can we explain to the owners which cars get to go in the first row and which cars are relegated to the second?”

“Ah, I see your point. How do other races handle this problem?”

That momentarily stumped MacMillan. He hadn't thought of using previous races as examples. “Well, most races are over long distances, like Paris to Peking, so it doesn't matter who starts first or second.”

“But we're not racing over a long distance, we're racing round and round a circuit of roads, so who starts first or second does make a difference, am I correct?”

“Aye, Captain, that's the problem.”

Silas shrugged. “Have there been other road-circuit races?”

“Yes.”

“Good. So find out how they handled the problem, and I'll expect you back in this office at this time tomorrow with the answer to the question.”

Silas turned from MacMillan and his mind returned to the problem of moving a “large, curved object” out of
Shanghai without prying eyes seeing it. Moments later he looked back and was surprised to see MacMillan still standing in his office.

“Go. And close the door behind you.”

—

The next morning, an ecstatic MacMillan was waiting for Silas when he arrived at his office.

“Morning, Mr. MacMillan.”

“Aye, it's a very good morning, Captain. That it is,” he said, waving what looked like a large lithographic reproduction of a photograph in Silas's face.

“Is that for me?”

“Aye, it solves our problem, Captain.”

Silas had spent another long night trying to devise a plan to solve his own problem. Just before sunrise he had retreated to his bed, pleased to find Mai Bao there. He'd curled up against her back and slept for two hours before rising and coming to the office—his problem still unresolved. Now he glanced at the photograph in MacMillan's hand and said, “Well, good, come in.”

MacMillan almost ran to Silas's desk and plunked down the large lithograph with the Scottish version of “ta-dah.” Silas removed his coat and moved to the desk. The lithographic reproduction was of a photograph that must have been taken from high above. It showed ten or twelve race cars parked at an angle on one side of a road while several men, who Silas assumed were their drivers, ran across the broad avenue toward their respective cars.

“See?” MacMillan announced proudly. “We park the cars on the river side of the Bund, while we keep the drivers on the far side. On the sound of the starting
pistol they race across the Bund, start their cars, back up, and take off. First to get going is first to start the race. Simple. Aye, simple, Captain.”

Silas nodded, but his eyes were not on the parked race cars or the running drivers in the photograph, but rather on a car, clearly not a racing car, that had a large sculpture of a figure—Silas assumed it was a saint—with its arms outstretched for some reason, standing in the passenger's seat.

“What's that?” he asked.

MacMillan couldn't believe the heathen's question but saw no way of avoiding answering. “It's the Blessed Virgin.”

“Ah,” Silas said, raising his eyebrows to acknowledge that he had asked something foolish. But he pressed on. “Yes, but what is it, or She, doing standing on the front seat of that car?”

“The photograph's from the Rome road race, so it's probably blessing the course from the lead car.”

Silas finally sat, and motioned for MacMillan to do the same. Then he asked, “Do all races have lead cars?”

“No, Captain.”

“But if there is a lead car, explain what it does in a race.”

“It goes around the track once, sometimes twice, just before the race begins.”

“While the Virgin blesses the route?”

“Aye.”

“Are we going to have a lead car, MacMillan?”

“I thought you didn't believe in that sort of thing, Captain.”

Silas heard the nasty edge to MacMillan's query but ignored it. “That's not the point. I think we should follow Rome's example.”

“Aye, that's the stuff. So all eight race cars will be parked at an angle facing the river, and on the sound of the starting gunshot the drivers run to their cars.”

“Yes, MacMillan, but only after the lead car drives the course and the statue blesses the route.”

MacMillan stared at Silas. What was the little man up to? But all he said was, “These Chinks don't believe in saints, Captain.”

“You're right, MacMillan. It won't be a Catholic saint blessing the course.”

“Then what?”

“A Buddha, naturally. A great big laughing Buddha should do the trick, don't you think?”

Silas stared at the old man in front of him. Mai Bao had introduced the man as a master carver—and a reliable man who could keep a secret. Silas couldn't get over the feeling that he had seen this man before.

“Have we met, sir?” he asked, proffering a cup of the finest oolong tea.

The man took the delicate porcelain cup in his hands and smiled. “I think not, Mr. Hordoon.”

But Silas couldn't shake the feeling that they had some sort of connection. “But you know my wife?”

“Yes, sir, through her deceased mother.”

Silas nodded but was still troubled. What or when or how was he connected to this man? He shook his head.

“Sir?” the old Carver asked.

“Nothing, just a foolish feeling.” But Silas had lived in the Middle Kingdom long enough to know that such feelings were not foolish. They were indications of insights yet to be understood. Impulses awaiting words. The Carver knew that too. The old man knew the connection that was trying to burble up into Silas's consciousness. The Carver was well acquainted with the story of this man's uncle requesting a carving, not so different from the one that he knew Silas was going to ask for. Back then the hidden object had been a red-haired man, rather than the Sacred Relic.

“How can I be of service, sir?” the Carver pressed.

Isn't that something,
Silas said to himself. Then he put aside the strange feelings and explained in great detail what he wanted the man to produce.

To keep up the illusion of innocence, the Carver asked for details about the “large, curved” object that was to be secreted inside the Laughing Buddha. Silas promptly told him the little that he knew.

The Carver nodded, then asked, “And this Laughing Buddha is to be in an automobile?”

For an instant the Carver held his breath. Would Silas notice that he'd mentioned this detail, despite the fact that Silas had not mentioned anything about the statue riding in a car?

“Yes,” Silas said, “I'd almost forgotten that.”

The Carver allowed his breath to return to normal as Silas showed him the lithograph of the Rome road race's lead car.

The Carver asked, “May I see the automobile that will carry the Laughing Buddha?”

“Surely.”

Silas walked the Carver down to where an older-model car sat, with a number-one licence plate on its front
bumper. He put down the folding roof and indicated the front passenger seat.

“And you will drive?” the Carver asked.

“Yes.”

“Good.”

“Anything else you need, sir?”

“No.” The Carver smiled and said, “I have all I need. The Laughing Buddha will be ready the day before your race. Will that suffice?”

“Yes.” Again Silas stared at the elderly man.

“What is it, sir?”

“Just this feeling that I have been here before.”

The Carver smiled, knowing full well that China's history was folding in on itself yet again. What this man's Uncle Maxi had done all those years ago was about to be repeated, but this time with a different kind of hiding place, and a very different hidden treasure.

It was the moment of pause in the great city—when it held its breath and allowed its head to loll forward on its chest … and rest. It was just past three in the morning. The night-soil collectors would begin their morning visitations in about ninety minutes. But now, silence reigned at the Bend in the River. And Silas was counting. Counting steps from the Bund, along the alley, and down to the wharf. He had previously measured the width of the alley and been grateful to find that at least some of it was wide enough for clearance. But now it was the length of the alley after it narrowed that worried him. So he walked slowly and counted his steps. Every five steps he turned back toward the Bund. “So once I am twenty yards into the alley, no one can see me from the Bund,” he said aloud.

At the end of the alley he drew another deep breath and began to count his steps again as he made his way toward the large iron cleat screwed into the heavy timbers of the wharf. He walked backward, facing the city. Sixteen paces away from the mouth of the alley he would be clearly visible to anyone looking from the turn in the Bund where it intersected with Bubbling Spring Road. He turned toward the wharf and continued to count his paces. And his anxiety rose. It was almost two hundred yards to the iron cleat on the wharf. And during all that time he would be in clear view of whoever happened to glance back over their shoulder from the intersection of the Bund and Bubbling Spring Road.