The Miko - 02 (62 page)

But now was not a time to think of that. Not yet. This was her time to grieve, as a little girl who missed her daddy, who had always missed him, and who could never now say to him how sorry she was that they had not had their time together as was right and fair.

Life was unfair, and now she knew it to her roots. She could not stop weeping. She did not want to. Her mourning was long in coming, for her father as well as for the confused and vulnerable young girl she had been up until this moment. Her rite of passage was upon her, and at long last she was making her torturous way through the thorns and nettles that separated childhood from adulthood.

Slowly, as she allowed her long pent-up grief to flow through her, as she allowed her entire being to feel it, wracked with a pain that was almost physical, Justine began to grow up.

Nangi lay atop his bed in room 911 at the Mandarin Hotel. He was on the Island. From his sparkling windows he could see Victoria Harbor and just beyond the clock tower of the Star Ferry terminal, the very southern tip of Kowloon and the Asian shore. Somewhere far to the north, ultimately in Peking, no doubt, Liu’s masters lived. They—as well as he—would have to be dealt with judiciously.

The main problem, Nangi thought, was time. He did not have very much of it, and as long as the Communists believed that to be the truth they would sink their teeth into him and never let go.

What they, through Liu, were asking was patently impossible. To give up control of his own
keiretsu
was unthinkable. He had struggled all his adult life, conquered innumerable threats, neutralized many competitors, sent many an enemy to his grave to get to this exalted state.

Yet if there were any other way out for him but to sign that paper he was not aware of it. Either way he would lose the
keiretsu
, for he knew his company could not long weather the set of pyramiding losses and future pledges in which the accursed Anthony Chin had enmeshed the All-Asia Bank.

For all this, Nangi was calm. Life had taught him patience. He had that rare ability known to the Japanese as
nariyuki no matsu
, to wait for the turn of events. He believed in Christ and, He, surely was a miracle. If he were to lose the
keiretsu,
that was
karma
, his penance for his sins in a previous life. For there was nothing Tanzan Nangi held more dear than his company.

And yet he was absolutely certain that he would not lose it. As had Gōtarō on their makeshift raft so long ago, Nangi had faith. His agile mind and his faith would see him through this as they had all the other crises in his life.

Nariyuki no matsu.

A knock on the door. Did he feel the tides turning? Or would they continue to run against him until they pushed him far out to sea?

“Come in,” he said. “It’s open.”

Fortuitous Chiu appeared, closing the door behind him. He wore an oyster gray raw silk suit. In the light of day he appeared trim and hard muscled. He had a handsome, rather narrow face with keen, intelligent eyes. All in all, Nangi thought, Sato had chosen well.

“It’s seven o’clock on the button,” Fortuitous Chiu said. He stood by the door. “I am anxious to make a good impression …after last night.”

“Did you finish the translation?”

Fortuitous Chiu nodded. “Yes, sir. It was only difficult in parts because, as you no doubt already know, inflection is infinitely more important than the word itself in Chinese.”

“You needn’t be so formal,” Nangi said.

Fortuitous Chiu nodded, came across the room, grinning. “There was a great deal on the tape that was wordless. Someday, if the gods permit, I would meet this woman. She must have been born under a lucky star if her manipulation of this foul-smelling Communist son of a diseased dog is any indication.”

“I’ve taken the liberty of ordering breakfast for us both,” Nangi said, swinging his legs off the bed with the aid of one hand. “Sit down and join me, will you.” He began pulling small plates out of the food warmer, piling them on the table.

“Dim sum,” Fortuitous Chiu murmured. Nangi saw that he was impressed, being served a traditional Chinese breakfast by a Japanese. The young man sat down in one of the satin-covered chairs next to the table and took up his chopsticks.

While they ate, Fortuitous Chiu spoke of what the tape had revealed to him. “First, I don’t know how much information you have on our
Comrade
Liu.”

Nangi shrugged. “The basics, I suppose. I’m no newcomer to Hong Kong but I have been unable to call upon the knowledge of my bank president, Allan Su. He is not privy to what we do here. I don’t want him involved until the very last instant.” Nangi paused for a moment, marshaling his thoughts. “Liu’s a member in good standing of the Crown Colony. His varied businesses on the Island and in Kowloon have brought a great deal of money into Hong Kong: shipping, banking, printing…I believe one of his companies owns a majority of the go-downs in Kwun Tong.”

Shoveling a shrimp ball into his mouth, Fortuitous Chiu nodded. He munched with the quick, short bites of the Chinese. “Indeed, yes. But did you also know that he is the head of the syndicate that owns the Frantan?”

“The gambling casino in Macao?”

“The same,” Fortuitous Chiu said, consuming a dough-wrapped quail egg. “The Communists find it most convenient to wash money in and out through the Frantan because it allows them to convert bullion into any currency they choose without embarrassing questions being asked. Some of the
ta-pans
here do the same thing, though not at the Frantan.”

Nangi’s mind was working furiously, considering the possibilities. He had begun to get an inkling of the tides turning.

“Comrade Liu and this woman—Succulent Pien—are longtime lovers, that much is clear.” Fortuitous Chiu stuffed a pork roll into his cheek, chewing contentedly while he continued to talk. “The slime-ridden sea slug has thought up so many ornate endearments for her it made my head swim. He is quite ardent.”

“And she?” Nangi inquired.

“Ah, women,” Fortuitous Chiu said as if that covered it all. He stacked the empty plates to one side, brought other laden ones before him. Grabbing the soy sauce, he shook the bottle vigorously over the dumplings before him. Then he reached for the fiery chili paste, red as blood. “It has been my experience that one can never tell about women. They are born with deceit as a deer is with a cloven hoof. They cultivate it like they do a current hairstyle. Is this not your experience as well?”

Nangi said nothing, wondering what the young man was getting at.

“Well, it has been mine,” Fortuitous Chiu said, just as if Nangi had interjected a comment. “And this one is no exception.”

“Does she love the Communist?”

“Oh, yes. I think she does. Though what she could find of sufficient promise in that lice-ridden motherless goat I cannot imagine. But what she feels for him is, I believe, irrelevant.” He cleared another plate, pulled another toward him. On went the soy sauce and the chili paste. “That is because it is clear to me that she loves money much more.”

“Ah,” said Nangi. He sensed the tides rolling back. “And where does she assuage this burning desire? From friend Liu?”

“Yes, indeed.” Fortuitous Chiu nodded. He had worked up quite a sweat eating. “The pox-infested dog enjoys giving her presents. But I fear that he is not as generous as our Succulent Pien would wish.”

“Thus she wanders afield.”

“So I have been told.”

Nangi was quick to anger; he was walking a fine line here. “Who knows what you do?”

“No one but you.” At last Fortuitous Chiu was finished. He pushed the last plate away from him. His face was shiny with grease and sweat. “But something she said to Liu caused me to make enquiries. Succulent Pien lives in the Mid-Levels, on Po Shan Road. That territory belongs to the Green Pang Triad.” He produced a white silk handkerchief and carefully wiped his face. He grinned. “It just so happens that my Number Three Cousin is 438 of the Green Pang.”

“I don’t want to owe anyone in a Triad a favor,” Nangi said.

“No sweat.” Fortuitous Chiu washed away his words. “Number Three Cousin owes his rise in the Green Pang to my father. He’s delighted to help. No strings attached.”

Nangi thought he could go into culture shock talking to this one. “Go on,” he said.

“It seems that someone else is plowing the same fragrant harbor that Comrade Liu is.”

“And who might that be?”

“I’m not a miracle worker. I need some time to find out. They’ve been very careful to cover their tracks.” He leered at Nangi. “Number Three Cousin and I may have to do some on-site inspection during the night.”

“Does the Green Pang have to be involved?”

“I’ve got no choice. It’s their turf. I can’t make a bowel movement over at the Mid-Levels without letting them in on it.”

Nangi nodded. He knew well the power of the Triads in Hong Kong. “What did Succulent Pien say to get you started on this?”

“Redman,” Fortuitous Chiu said. “Charles Percy Redman. She used his name. Know him?”

Nangi thought for a moment. “Shipping
tai-pan
, yes? British fellow. Family goes way back in Hong Kong.”

“That’s Redman,” Fortuitous Chiu acknowledged. “But what almost no one else knows is that he’s an agent for Her Majesty’s Government.”

“Redman a spy? Madonna!” Nangi was genuinely shocked. “But what’s his connection to Succulent Pien? Is she somehow raiding him?”

“Looks that way, doesn’t it?”

This is all very interesting, Nangi thought. But how does any of it help me with the Communists? My time is running out. If I don’t give Liu an affirmative by phone by six tonight, the deal’s off. I’ve got no capital, the All-Asia will fail and, eventually, so will the
keiretsu.

“Is there more?” he asked.

“Not until I climb into bed with Succulent Pien and see what she’s got between her thighs.”

“It’s a pillow like all the rest,” Nangi observed tartly. “I need something before six.”

“This evening?” Fortuitous Chiu’s eyes opened wide. “No way, José. She’s home and not going anywhere. She had her amah go shopping for her. I think she’s whipping up a midnight snack for a friend. Early tomorrow morning’s the best I can do. I’m sorry.”

Nangi signed deeply. “Not nearly as much, I’m afraid, as I am.

Night. The drip-drop of rain pattering all around them. The sky was black and impenetrable save for a tiny patch, a nacreous gray behind which the full moon rode as ghostly as the face of a former lover. The warm water moved in minute wavelets up to their bare flesh, reflections of the swinging yellow lanterns in the trees behind them in a white spangle, diffused and softened to a rich glow by the stream rising all about them.

A double strand of manmade lights, curved like a string of lustrous pearls around the neck of an exotic African princess, showed the way toward a black humpbacked shadow rising out of the undulating land. And behind its bulk must be the sea, for Nicholas could already scent the salt tang.

Sato stirred beside Nicholas, sending soft ripples away from them both. “Out there,” he said softly, “tell me that sight is not one of the most beautiful in the world, a sight that makes Japan unique.”

Nicholas followed the direction, saw the steep falloff of the cliffs down to the Pacific and on its heaving bosom the rhythmic bobbing of tiny orange lanterns hung from the prows and the sterns of the squid boats as their masters and crews bent to their task.

“They seem as small and fleeting as fireflies,” Nicholas said. His eyes were somnolent. It had been a long, hard day full of anxiety and fear for his friend’s life. And now the hot water was working its magic on his tensed body, loosening his knotted muscles, the cords in his neck and shoulders relaxing, the day’s accumulated tension leeching away from him.

It was not that his anxiety about allowing Sato to come had disappeared entirely. But with him here and Koten guarding the front of the
rotenburo
, he felt more confident than he had at the outset.

Sato luxuriated in feeling good. He stretched his long legs outward into the gently swirling water, sighing deeply with the sense of well-being this spa engendered in him.

It was then he felt something against his left calf, soft and warm, bumping, bumping, bumping with an odd kind of insistence.

Languidly, he leaned forward, imagining himself a crane gliding through the currents of a narrow inlet to the sea. His searching fingers grasped what felt at first like a bed of seaweed. Curious, Sato drew it upward slowly. It had great weight.

The rain let up. Racing clouds became visible as the lanterns’ glow illuminated their billowing undersides. Now they slid apart and the cool, opalescent light of the pocked moon crowned the silhouette of what he dragged upward from the steaming water.

Sato’s muscles bulged with the effort and he was obliged to use his hands even with Nicholas helping him, struggling with the monstrously heavy thing that now fell across his legs beneath the water.

Slowly it rose like a specter out of the deep, and Nicholas made a sharp movement beside him, grunting.

“Oh, Buddha!” Sato whispered. His hands shook so much that droplets flew from the thing like rain, off the great tiger curving around one shoulder, flung down the muscular back, the extended talons of the rear paws indented along the buckled ridge of the spine. Movement as if the colored tattoo had come alive. “Oh, what have they done to you, Phoenix?” Sato cried softly.

Those eyes, milky and unseeing in death, fixed him as the bloated face rose, glittering in the moonlight, the teeth clamped together in pain and determination.

Akiko was thinking about the promise she had made to Saigō. Or, more precisely, to Saigō’s
kami.

She rolled over on her
futon
, passing an arm across her eyes. Red light blotted out the darkness.
Giri.
It bound her like steel manacles. Not for the first time, she found herself wishing that she had not been born Japanese. How free it must be to be American or English, and not feel
giri.
Because Akiko knew that if she did not feel
giri
she would not be bound by it. But she was Japanese.
Samurai
blood flowed through her veins. Oh, not the blood of the famed Ofuda. She had chosen that name upon her majority for much the same reason that Justine had chosen to call herself Tobin instead of Tomkin; she wished to conceal her past.