Shanghai (87 page)

Edward oversaw the clearing of the dining room and then, once satisfied that the cleaners knew what they were doing, donned a sweater and stepped out into the morning air. He was a black-skinned man—a true rarity in the city at the Bend in the River, where Africans were seldom seen—tall and broad across the shoulder, with a smile so bright that it lit up the morning. The waves of humanity parted as he approached, then filled in behind him, in his wake, with a loud, gibbering commentary. Fortunately for Edward he could not translate the streams of sarcastic comments, exclamations of horror, and the odd statement of wonder at his size—and his potential jade spear size. Edward just moved on through the crowd with a smile on his face, wondering at the number of people all around him. He eventually slid and cajoled his way through the throngs to a very sharp turn in the race course, where a tall, curved wall—like a wave about to break—had been built. He noticed dozens of children sitting on the very top of the wall. He stepped out into the street, ignored the stares of the crowd and the shouts of a Sikh police officer, then, to the delight of the children, ran up the concave of the wall. He pulled himself to the top and sat between the children there, not one of whom was more delighted with the view than he was.

Silas was surprised that he was not alone. Since Mai Bao had been secretive in every detail of her instructions, he'd simply assumed that Jiang's, which he knew she now owned, would be empty when he arrived to collect the mysterious “large, curved object.” The seven-foot-tall Laughing Buddha stood by the door, its upraised left arm hollow and ready to receive the upper end of the object through the hinged flap cleverly hidden in the folds of its robe. Although the streets were almost deserted, as every ambulatory Shanghainese had many hours ago claimed a viewing place on the route of the race, there were three Han Chinese males waiting for him in the reception room of Jiang's.

One of whom he recognized.

Without speaking a word, the Master Carver shambled over to Silas and put out a hand. Silas tentatively extended his, and the two men shook. The Carver's strong grip impressed Silas. Then the Confucian stepped forward and shook hands also. Silas turned to the third man, who, to Silas's surprise, spoke.

“You'll need help getting the Tusk into the statue?”

“Tusk?” Silas blurted out.

Tension suddenly surged in the room. The man who had spoken rebalanced his weight and his hand slipped toward his swalto blade. Then Mai Bao entered the room and said simply, “Show my husband the relic.”

With a solemnity that surprised Silas, the three men moved aside a table with a Go board on it, opened a velvet-covered box bench, and produced the remarkable object. The instructions he had received from Mai Bao concerning the length and curvature of the object now made sense, as did the answers to his questions about the strength of the object and how to keep it safe. What he did not understand, and knew better than to ask, was why this object needed to be spirited out of Shanghai and hidden. But he didn't need an answer to this question. Mai Bao and these men were clearly not frivolous individuals. They were fine representatives of their race—practical people who were asking a favour of a practical nature. An important favour that evidently only Silas Hordoon could accomplish for them.

A favour that Silas was willing to grant, first because he loved his wife, but on a deeper and more important level because he felt he owed it to Shanghai, his home. As well, in a hidden recess in his heart, he wondered if doing this favour might somehow expiate the sins that he had accrued while doing the Devil's work.

“These are the members of the Ivory Compact, husband. You are the only person not a member of the Compact who has ever—in the over two-thousand-year history of the Compact—met the Chosen Three, and the Carver.”

“I am honoured, Mai Bao.”

“As well you should be,” said the Carver, who then added, “Let's secrete away the Tusk while the entire city is looking the other way.”

The Tusk was removed from the box bench and wrapped in a gossamer silk.

“Is that strong enough?” Silas asked.

“The tears of many women make it extremely strong, husband.”

Loa Wei Fen guided the Tusk into its hiding place in the Laughing Buddha. They carried the statue carefully to the curb.

There the men hoisted the large statue into the front seat of the automobile, where they secured it with guide wires while Silas cranked the engine into life. The wonderful thing burbled, then spat, then caught. The engine's spinning settled into a dull roar, and Silas slid behind the wheel. He looked back at the steps of Jiang's. He remembered as a young man walking up those steps, first to see the plays of the History Teller and later to experience women—always Asian women, as his father's Scottish assistant had so charmingly noted. He remembered his brother Milo taking those steps two at a time and the welcoming squeals from the women when he flung open the door. He remembered the drunken American who had told him of an impending civil war in America that would raise the price of cotton. Bringing this information to his father had been one of the few things that had made his father smile. All
from this house! And now Mai Bao, the Carver, the Confucian, and the Assassin were standing on the steps, stock-still, staring at him, as if he were about to take their photograph.

He checked to make sure that the large rug was in the back seat of his car, then released the clutch. But before the gears could engage, Mai Bao ran up to him and kissed him, hard, full on the mouth—then handed him a large package.

“What's this?”

“Your book,” she said, “your father's journals.”

He kept his foot on the clutch and took a long, final look at his wife, then released the clutch, and the gears engaged. The car picked up speed slowly.

As it did, it passed the solitary figure of a young man standing in the shadows. This young man was born in 1893 in the small town of Shao-shan, in Hunan Province. Li Tian, the master fireworks maker, had taken the young man under his wing and made sure that he had read the classics, while on the side teaching him the basics of fireworks making. He had then insisted that the young man work for three years in a library. But those three years were up, and the young man was now in Shanghai. It was the first time he had come to the city, and he was amazed by what he saw. He pencilled a note in a small book with a red cover. The young man's name was something of a joke. You see, Mao means—cat.

Silas was having fun—the last thing he'd thought would happen. As he drove the lead car slowly around the circuit he basked in the applause from the huge crowd. Cheers, howls of delight, screams of pleasure erupted from the people when they saw the Laughing Buddha, arms outstretched, coming toward them. And it was more than just pleasure he sensed. He felt them grateful. Thankful that the race would be blessed by their deity, by one of their own.

Silas turned north, past the great curve in the road, and was surprised to see a large Black man sitting amongst the children on the top of the safety wall. He wanted to stop and tell them to get down from there but there was no way—and no time. The large Buddha strained against the guide wires that held it in place as
he took the sharp curve without gearing down, and for one terrifying moment he thought it might actually fall, or pull the car over. But neither happened, and the Laughing Buddha, with the Sacred Relic secreted inside, continued its strange, stately voyage around the circuit that would eventually shed the name of the Fabulous Shanghai Road Race and become known to history as the slightly more modest Great Shanghai Road Race.

—

MacMillan cursed the roll bar as he smacked his head against it for the twentieth time getting out of the car. The lottery had given the Hordoon car the sixth place in the line of parked cars on the river side of the Bund. But that didn't worry him because he had arranged a new ignition system for the car that allowed him to start the car while it was in reverse. Since the rest of the field had to start in neutral then go into reverse, MacMillan was confident that he would be the first car on the actual course. He'd promised the little heathen that he'd wear his seat harness—God only knew why it was so important. He was confident in the speed of his car, if not the roll bar, which he silently cursed again as he took his position with the other drivers across the road, waiting for the lead car to finish its lap and the race to begin.

—

Silas passed by several raised pavilions. One he knew belonged to Gangster Tu, another to the Americans, Oliphant and Company, and a third to the French entry. The Vrassoons, the Dents, the Jardine Mathesons would
no doubt watch the proceedings from the safety and comfort of the roofs of their headquarters on the Bund itself or from the roofs of their stores on Bubbling Spring Road. Charles Soong had erected a covered scaffolding from which he and his wife, Yin Bao, and their children could view the race from a safe distance. His three daughters had grown up very fast and were far too interested in young men for his taste—and young men were interested in them as well—so Charles usually kept his brood aloof from or, in this case, above, the fray.

Silas made the final turn in the course and headed toward the start/finish line at the far east end of the Bund. He knew that if he wanted he could make a second circuit of the course, but as he turned onto the Bund at its eastern end he decided against it. It was time to put his plan into action, to send the arrow into the air—hoping he knew where it would land.

So as the cheers swelled he pulled the lead car with its Laughing Buddha over to the north side of the road and parked just behind the eight parked race cars. He stood and waved. The crowd cheered. And although Silas smiled broadly, he was not really waving to the crowd. He was straining to see if the two-man junk was tied at the wharf, awaiting him and his “baggage.”

A man with a large red paper megaphone stepped into the centre of the road and hollered. The crowd went silent. Completely silent.
Such an odd thing,
Silas thought.
Silence at the Bend in the River.
He was not sure he had ever heard that before. The man shouted, “Take your marks! Set!” Then he fired his pistol into the air, and the eight drivers sprinted across the road and leaped into their cars.

—

MacMillan got to the Bugatti quickly, avoided the roll bar, ignored the seat harness, hit the ignition and backed out quickly. As he had predicted, he was the first one on the course itself, and he used the Bund straightaway to gain speed, although he wasn't moving fast enough to need to gear down at the sharp left turn onto Bubbling Spring Road. He took the turn with a wave to the crowd that drew cheers and hollers that could be heard well into the incantatory interior of the Pudong. He was quickly followed by Jardine Matheson's Simplex Racing Car and the Vrassoons' Rolls Royce Silver Ghost.

—

Silas watched carefully as every eye followed the progress of the cars. When he was sure that no one was watching, he drove his car, with the Laughing Buddha, forward, then down the narrow alley leading to the wharf.

—

On the second lap the cars slowed and carefully took the sharp turn with the large safety wall. As Silas had predicted, the first few times past the Bubbling Spring Road turn the drivers would be careful and not take the curve at speed. As long as they did so, the steering wheel of MacMillan's car would not spin quickly enough to engage the knife that would cut his front tire and cause the car to roll.

The Stanley Steam Car belonging to Dent's was the first casualty of the race. Something happened and the thing suddenly just stopped. Then it rumbled, and steam shot from its hood as a large, hot puddle formed
beneath the car's rear wheels. The driver cursed as the other cars swerved to get past the stationary vehicle.

—

Silas drove as far along the narrowing alley toward the wharf as he dared. Then he dismounted and stared at the alley behind him. Empty. Almost silent. Only the cheers and shouts from the course itself filled the void. He unrolled the carpet from the back seat and set it on the ground in front of the car, then released the relic from its hiding place, put it on the carpet, and rolled it up carefully.

When he went to hoist it to his shoulder he had a shock. It was much heavier than he had thought. And he had thirty yards more of the alley and then almost two hundred yards to cover on the open wharf with the thing on his shoulder. He took a deep breath, bent his knees deeply, and managed to settle the relic on his shoulder. Then he stagger-walked to the very end of the alley. Sweat poured from his forehead and momentarily blinded him. He swiped it away with his free forearm. He stopped and waited. For almost two hundred yards he would be in plain view of anyone who cared to look away from the race as he moved along the wharf to the two-man junk. It was the most dangerous part of his exit from Shanghai—and the reason he had gone to all the trouble to get his own car to roll over, with MacMillan hopefully safe inside, strapped into his seat harness.

—

MacMillan was having as much fun as he had ever managed. Silas's car was swift and handled beautifully.
He could see the Rolls Royce Silver Ghost belonging to the Vrassoons and the Simplex Racing Car belonging to Jardine Matheson in his rear-view mirror, and they were coming on fast but having trouble finding a place to pass him. He took the turn onto the Bund to complete his second lap, and a large placard with a huge number two was placed over the start/finish line. With the width of the Bund, the other cars slid to the outside trying to pass, but MacMillan slammed his foot down on the gas and managed to keep their challenge at bay as he sped past the great trading houses on the Bund and headed toward the one sharp turn in the course—a logical place to try to pass another car, something that MacMillan was not going to let happen.