The Middle Kingdom (10 page)

Now Whiskers Lu
was a boss in his own right; a big man, here beneath the Net. He
stood there, towering over Kao Jyan, his lipless mouth grinning with
cruel pleasure as he placed his hand on Jyan's shoulder, his single
eye watching Chen warily.

"Kao Jyan.
. . . How are you, my friend?"

"I'm well,"
Jyan answered nervously, shrinking in his seat. "And you, Lu
Ming-Shao?"

Whiskers Lu
laughed gruffly, humorlessly. "I'm fine, Kao Jyan. I killed a
man yesterday. He owed me money."

Jyan swallowed
and met Chen's eyes. "And he couldn't pay you?"

Lu's grip
tightened on Jyan's shoulder. "That's so, Kao Jyan. But that's
not why I killed him. I killed him because he tried to hide from me."

"Then he
was a foolish man, I'd say."

The big man's
laughter was tinged this time with a faint amusement. His eye,
however, was cold, calculating. It stared challengingly at Chen from
within its glasslike mask.

Chen stared back
at it, meeting its challenge, not letting himself be cowed. If it
came to a fight, so be it. Whiskers Lu would be a hard man to kill,
and the odds were that Lu and his two henchmen would get the better
of Jyan and himself. But he would not make it easy for them. They
would know they had fought a
kwai.

Whiskers Lu
broke eye contact, looking down at Jyan, his thin lips smiling again.

"You owe me
money, Kao Jyan."

Jyan was staring
down at his tumbler. "I have a week yet, Lu Ming-Shao. Don't you
remember?"

"Oh, I
remember. But I want my money now. With interest.

Twelve hundred
yuan
I want from you, Kao Jyan. And I want it now."

Almost
unobtrusively Whiskers Lu had slipped the knife from his belt and
raised it to Jyan's neck. The huge wide blade winked in the faint
overhead light. The razor-sharp tip pricked the flesh beneath Jyan's
chin, making him wince.

Chen let his
hand slide slowly down his leg, his fingers closing about the handle
of his knife. The next few moments would be crucial.

"Twelve
hundred?" Jyan said tensely. "Surely, our agreement said—"

Jyan stopped,
catching his breath. Whiskers Lu had increased the pressure of the
knife against his flesh, drawing blood. A single bead trickled slowly
down Jyan's neck and settled in the hollow above his chest. Jyan
swallowed painfully.

"You want
it now?"

"That's
right, Kao Jyan. I've heard you've been borrowing elsewhere. Playing
the field widely. Why's that, Kao Jyan? Were you planning to leave
us?"

Jyan looked up,
meeting Chen's eyes. Then, slowly, carefully, he reached up and moved
the knife aside, turning to look up into Whiskers Lu's face.

"You
mistake me, Lu Ming-Shao. I'm happy here. My friends are here. Good
friends. Why should I want to leave?" Jyan smiled, then swept
his hand over the table, indicating the empty chairs. "Look,
you're a reasonable man, Lu Ming-Shao. Why don't we talk this
through? Why don't you sit with us and share a glass of
Shien
?"

Whiskers Lu
roared, then grabbedjyan's hair, pulling his head back viciously, his
knife held threateningly across Jyan's throat.

"None of
your games, Kao Jyan! I'm an impatient man just now. So tell me and
have done with it. Do you have the money or not?"

Jyan's eyes
bulged. Lu's reaction had startled him. His hand went to his pocket
and scrabbled there, then threw three thick chips out onto the table.
Each was for five hundred
yuan.

Chen forced
himself to relax, loosening his tight grip on the knife's handle. But
he had seen how closely Lu's henchmen had been watching him and knew
that they'd had orders to deal with him if it came to trouble. He
smiled reassuringly at them, then watched as Whiskers Lu let go his
grip on Jyan. The big man sheathed his knife, then leaned forward,
scooping up the three ivorycolored chips.

"Fifteen
hundred, eh?" He grunted and half turned, grinning at his men.
"Well, that'll do, wouldn't you say, Kao Jyan?"

"Twelve
hundred," Jyan said, rubbing at his neck. "You said twelve
hundred."

"Did I,
now?" Lu laughed, almost softly now, then nodded. "Maybe
so, Kao Jyan. But you made me work for my money. So let's call it
quits, eh, and I'll forget that you made me angry."

Chen narrowed
his eyes, watching Jyan, willing him to let it drop. But Jyan was not
through. He turned and looked up at Lu
\
again, meeting his
eyes.

"I'm
disappointed in you, Lu Ming-Shao. I thought you were a man of your
word. To ask for your money a week early, that I understand. A man
must protect what is his. And the extra two hundred, that, too, I
understand. Money is not a dead thing. It lives and grows and must be
fed. But this extra . . ." He shook his head. "Word will go
out that Lu Ming-Shao is greedy. That he gives his word, then takes
what is not his."

Whiskers Lu
glowered at Jyan, his hand resting on his knife. "You'd dare to
say that, Kao Jyan?"

Jyan shook his
head. "Not I. But there are others in this room whoVe seen what
passed between us. You can't silence them all, Lu Ming-Shao. And you
know how it is. Rumor flies like a bird. Soon the whole Net would
know. And then what, eh? Who would come and borrow money from you
then?"

Lu's chest rose
and fell, his single eye boring angrily into Jyan's face. Then he
turned sharply and barked at one of his henchmen. "Give him
three hundred! Now!"

The man rummaged
in the pouch at his belt then threw three slender chips down in front
of Jyan.

Jyan smiled. "It
was good to do business with you, Lu Ming-Shao. May you have many
sons!"

But Whiskers Lu
had turned away and was already halfway across the room, cursing
beneath his breath.

When he was
gone, Chen leaned forward angrily. "What the fuck are you
playing at, Jyan? You almost had us killed!"

Jyan laughed.
"He was angry, wasn't he?"

"Angry!"
Chen shook his head, astonished. "And what's all this about you
borrowing elsewhere? What have you been up to?"

Jyan didn't
answer. He sat there, silent, watching Chen closely, a faint smile on
his lips.

"What is
it?"

Jyan's smile
broadened. "IVe been thinking."

"Thinking,
eh?" Chen lifted his tumbler and sipped. The calculating gleam
in Jyan's eyes filled him with apprehension.

Jyan leaned
forward, lowering his voice to a whisper. "Yes, thinking. Making
plans. Something that will make us both rich."

Chen drained his
tumbler and set it down, then leaned back in his chair slowly, eyeing
his partner. "I’ve enough now, Jyan. Why should I want
more? I can get out now if I want."

Jyan sat back,
his eyes filled with scorn. "Is that all you want? To get out of
here? Is that as high as your ambitions climb?" Again he leaned
forward, but this time his voice hissed out at Chen. "Well, I
want more than that! I want to be a king down here, in the Net. A big
boss. Understand me, Chen? I don't want safety and order and all that
shit, I want power. Here, where I can exercise it. And that takes
money."

Heads turned at
nearby tables, curious but lethargic. Chen looked back at one of them
with a cold look of loathing, meeting the cold, dispassionate stare
that was the tell-tale symptom of arfidis trance. Then he laughed
softly and looked back at Jyan.

"You're
mad, Jyan. It takes more than money. You can't buy yourself a gang
down here, you have to make one,
earn
one, like Whiskers Lu.
You're not in that league, Jyan. His kind would have you for
breakfast. Besides, you're talking of the kind of sums you and I
couldn't dream of getting hold of."

Jyan shook his
head. "You're wrong."

Chen looked
down, irritated by Jyan's persistence. "Forget it, eh? Best take
what you've got and get out. That is, if you've still got enough
after paying Whiskers Lu back."

Jyan laughed
scornfully. "That was nothing. Small change. But listen to me,
Chen. Do you really think you
can
get out?"

Chen said
nothing, but Jyan was watching him closely again.

"What if
all you’ve saved isn't enough? What if the permits cost more
than you can pay? What if you run into some greedy bastard official
who wants a bit more squeeze than youVe got? What then? What would
you do?"

Chen smiled
tightly. "I'd kill him." But he was thinking of Pan Chao
Street and the quarantine gates. Thinking of the huge,
continent-spanning City of three hundred levels that was there above
the Net. He had hoped to get a foothold on that great social ladder—a
place on the very lowest rung. But he would have to go higher than
he'd planned. Up to Twenty-one, at least. And that would cost more.
Much, much more. Maybe Jyan was right.

"You'd kill
him!" Jyan laughed again and sat back, clearly disgusted with
his partner. "And be back here again! A
kwai.
Just a
kwai
again! A hireling, not the man in charge. Is that really what you
want?"

Chen sniffed,
then shook his head.

Jyan leaned
across the table again. "Don't you understand? We
can
be
kings here! We can!" His voice dropped to a whisper. "You
see, I know who hired us."

Chen met the
other's eyes calmly. "So?"

Jyan laughed,
incredulous. "You really don't see it, do you?"

Chen let his
eyes fall. Of course he saw it. Saw at once what Jyan was getting at.
Blackmail. Games of extreme risk. But he was interested, and he
wanted Jyan to spell it out for him. Only when Jyan had finished did
he look up, his face expressionless.

"You're
greedy, Jyan. You know that?"

Jyan sat back,
laughing, then waved a hand dismissively. "You weren't listening
properly, Chen. The tape. It'll be my safeguard. If they try
anything—anything at all—Security will get the tape."

Chen watched him
a moment longer, then looked down, shrugging, knowing that nothing he
said would stop Jyan from doing this.

"Partners,
then?"

Jyan had
extended his left hand. It lay on the table's surface beside the
half-empty bottle; a small, almost effete hand, but clever. An
artisan's hand. Chen looked at it, wondering not for the first time
who Jyan's father might have been, then placed his own on top of it.
"Partners," he said, meeting Jyan's eyes. But already he
was making plans of his own. Safeguards.

"I'll
arrange a meeting, then."

Chen smiled
tightly. "Yes," he said. "You do that."

EDMUND WYATT
stopped beneath the stand of white mulberry trees at the far end of
the meadow and looked back at the pagoda. "I don't trust him,
Soren. I've never trusted him." Berdichev looked sideways at him
and shrugged. "I don't know why. He seems a good enough fellow."

"Seems!"
Wyatt laughed ironically. "DeVore's a seeming fellow, all right.
Part of his Security training, I guess. All clean and smart on the
outside—but at core a pretty dirty sort, don't you think?"

Berdichev was
quiet a moment. He walked on past Wyatt, then turned and leaned
against one of the slender trunks, studying his friend. "I don't
follow you, Edmund. He is what he is. Like all of us."

Wyatt bent down
and picked up one of the broad, heart-shaped leaves, rubbing it
between thumb and finger. "I mean ... He works for them. For the
Seven. However friendly he seems, you've always got to remember that.
They pay him. He does their work. And as the Han say—
Chung
ch'en pu shih erh chu
—You can't serve two masters."

"I don't
know. Do you really think it's that simple?" Wyatt nodded
fiercely, staring away at the distant pagoda. "They own him. Own
him absolutely."

He turned and
saw that Berdichev was smiling. "What is it?"

"Just that
you let it worry you too much, Edmund." Wyatt smiled back at
him. "Maybe. But I don't trust him- I'm sure he's up to
something."

"Up to
what?" Berdichev moved away from the tree and stood beside
Wyatt, looking back across the meadow. "Look, I'll
tell
you
why
he's
here. Lwo Kang was murdered. Last night. Just after
eleventh bell."

Wyatt turned
abruptly, shocked by the news. "Lwo Kang? Gods! Then it's a
wonder we're not all in the cells!"

Berdichev looked
away. "Maybe . . . and maybe not. After all, we're not
unimportant men. It would not do to persecute us without clear proof
of our guilt. It might. . . well, it might make us martyrs, eh?"

Wyatt narrowed
his eyes. "Martyrs? I don't understand."

"Don't
think the T'ang underestimates us. Nor the power of the Above. If he
had all of us Dispersionists arrested, what then? What would the
Above make of that? They'd say he was acting like a tyrant. He and
all the Seven. It would make things very awkward, don't you see?"

"But Lwo
Kang was a minister! One of Li Shai Tung's own appointees!"

"It makes
no difference. The T'ang will act properly, or not at all. It is the
way of the Seven. Their weakness, if you like."

"Weakness?"
Wyatt frowned, then turned back, looking across at the pagoda again.
"No wonder DeVore is here. I'd say he's come to find a
scapegoat. Wouldn't you?"

Berdichev smiled
then reached out, putting his hand on his friend's shoulder. "You
really think so, Edmund?" He shrugged, then squeezed Wyatt's
shoulder gently. "Whatever else you might think about him,
DeVore's Hung Moo, like us. He may work for the Han, but that doesn't
mean he thinks like them. In any case, why should he be interested in
anything but the truth?"

Wyatt stared at
the pagoda intently for a time, as if pondering some mighty problem,
then he shivered and touched his tongue to his teeth in a curiously
innocent, childlike gesture. He turned, looking back at Berdichev.
"Maybe you're right, Soren. Maybe he is what you say. But my
feelings tell me otherwise. I don't trust him. And if he's here, I'd
wager he's up to something." He paused, then turned, looking
back at the pagoda. "In fact, I'd stake my life on it."