The Secret (36 page)

“Will he also want us to shill for him in China?” I asked. “That’s what Zhang wants.”

“He will want you and your father to make one or two well-publicized tours of China, appearing in stores and on television, saying how happy you are that Cheeks merchandise is now available in China.”

“And our way will be smoothed by
guanxi,
” I said sarcastically.

“Well … you will be endorsing merchandise made from Cheeks designs, to Cheeks standards, inspected by Cheeks inspectors. So, what’s the problem?”

“There’s a problem,” I said. “It’s called Jerry Cooper.”

“And you will make a lot of money,” said Charlie Han. For him that was the clinching argument.

*   *   *

Two days later Bai Fuyuan arrived from Shenzhen. He took a suite in the Kimberly Hotel in Kowloon and asked me and Charlie to have lunch with him and let him show us some more merchandise.

Kowloon is not my favorite part of Hong Kong. It is not, of course, on Hong Kong island but is across the harbor on the mainland. American tourists obsessed with the idea that Hong Kong is a shoppers’ paradise go to Kowloon to be ripped off on Nathan Road.

The hotel, even so, was first class. Bai had a spacious suite—unfortunately overlooking, for the time being, an enormous scaffolding made of bamboo, on which workmen swarmed as they erected a twenty-story building. I had observed this before: that the Chinese put up bamboo scaffolding that looked flimsy but was, I was assured, as strong as scaffolding made of steel.

Bai wore again a white double-breasted suit, as he had the first time I met him. He welcomed us effusively and gestured toward a long table where an elaborate buffet luncheon had been spread for us. Three delicately beautiful Chinese girls stood behind the table. They poured and handed us flutes of champagne.

“The little girls speak very little or no English, I am afraid,” Bai said to us. “Just point at anything that pleases you, and they will serve your plates.”

The food was a curious mixture of Chinese and Western. There was caviar and foie gras but also little cups of shark’s-fin soup and egg-white medallions flavored with birds’ nest and crabmeat. I recognized these dishes. Others I did not.

We sat on two couches facing low tables, on which the girls placed our loaded plates.

“Enjoy, enjoy,” said Bai. “While we eat, the girls will model some items for us.”

He gestured, and two of the girls hurried away into a bedroom, leaving one to continue serving us.

After a moment one of the girls came out. She was wearing crotchless panties—it was our bestselling example of that item—and a bra with holes to show her little brown nipples. She was not a professional model, but she knew how to show off her body.

Bai spoke to her in Chinese, and she slipped out of the bra and panties and handed them to me, leaving herself standing quite naked.

“Can you see,” Bai asked, “that these garments have been sewn to the very same standard you habitually use?”

I examined the items perfunctorily, then handed them to Charlie, who examined them critically. The girl stood there patiently, showing not the least sign of discomfort. Charlie handed the things back to her, and she walked to the bedroom.

This was repeated maybe twenty times. A girl would come out and model something, then she would take it off and offer it to be inspected, while she stood naked. We looked at panties, bras, nighties, teddies, G-strings. The girls also demonstrated Bai’s ability to make fetishist items of leather and rubber. Looking at some of those items being modeled, I was actually sorry that every item was a knockoff on something offered in the Cheeks catalog.

“You see?” Bai said finally. “I am prepared to offer exact replicas of the things you sell, made to your standards of quality. But available for a fraction of what you pay.”

Cued, I suppose, one of the girls came from the bedroom wearing an innovative design for a bra, consisting only of satin bands that stretched tightly under the breasts to lift them and thrust them forward—plus a G-string with a wide slit.

This girl’s nipples had been pierced, and she wore little platinum rings in them.

“This you sell for thirty dollars,” said Bai. “I can deliver you this item for four dollars.”

Finally a model came from the bedroom wearing a garment I had never seen before, something we didn’t sell in Cheeks shops. I don’t know what to call it: a teddy, I suppose. Anyway, it was fabricated of small aluminum rings woven together after the fashion of medieval chain mail. Obviously it covered nothing. I supposed, too, it had to be quite uncomfortable; for example, the girl’s butt would be marked with little ring indentations if she sat down. She, too, had pierced nipples, and platinum rings set with green stones hung from them.

“I suggest you stock this item,” said Bai. “I can offer them to you for twelve dollars apiece.”

“Very interesting,” I said noncommittally.

Bai dismissed the model with a curt gesture. “So,” he said. “Do you think we can do business?”

“On the basis of the quality of your merchandise, I see no reason why not,” I said. “On the basis of your prices, that looks doable, too. The only element of the thing that troubles me is the … irregular ways we will have to operate to disguise the origin of the goods. Also, I am not sure I can persuade my father to visit China to promote them.”

“Let us, then, set to work to resolve these minor problems,” said Bai.

And that was where we left it.

*   *   *

Zhang Feng liked to take people for boat rides. It was a way to get his business associates isolated with him. This time—it was on a Sunday—he took Charlie and me aboard a chartered yacht much bigger than the one that had taken us to Lamma Island. Our destination was Lantau Island, an island larger than Hong Kong Island and even more mountainous.

The trip out took about an hour, from Hong Kong Central to Silver Mine Bay. The yacht was luxurious and carried for the day a buffet lunch comparable to the one Bai Fuyuan had spread for us in the Kimberley Hotel. Three girls in colorful microskirted, skintight dresses poured champagne for us.

The trip across the water was pleasant. A bracing wind blew, and the yacht plowed through three-foot seas. One of the girls began to show signs of motion sickness, and I went to her and explained to her how to avoid it.

“Stand up. Don’t sit. Now flex your knees a little, opposite to the movement of the boat. When you’re sitting, your whole body moves with every motion of the boat. When you stand and use your knees, you will move less than half as much, if at all.”

She tried it and found it relieved her queasiness. From that moment she attached herself to me. Her name was Chang Li, and she was a diminutive, perfectly formed Chinese girl who spoke a bit of English. Her little dress was silk, emerald green, and fit like her skin. It was obvious she wore nothing under it. My eyes could trace the dent of her navel and the cleft of her behind.

We docked at Silver Mine Bay and went ashore to find a Mercedes limousine with driver waiting for us. Li sat close beside me.

Zhang wanted us to see the Po Lin monastery, high on a mountain on Lantau Island. It featured the world’s largest outdoor sitting statue of Buddha, cast in bronze and one hundred ten feet tall. The statue was visible for miles. We could have left the car and climbed the stairs to its base, but we elected to view it from the limo.

We returned to the yacht, which eased out and began a leisurely circuit of the island, in generally smooth waters. Hong Kong’s immense new airport was under construction on the north side of Lantau Island.

We sat on couches in the aft cabin. Li sat close to me.

Zhang wanted to talk business.

“I am confident,” I told him, “that we are going to acquire control of Sphere. We are going to have the problem you anticipated.”

“Malloy,” said Zhang.

“He wants to continue to build the Sphere computer. That is to say, he wants to
resume
building it: a new version.”

“That could be useful, if you are willing to invest the money.”

“How so?”

“It will be Sphere Corporation’s
signature
product, its
façade,
as we might say. If Sphere is once more known as the maker of a superior computer, that should facilitate sales of the Sphere microprocessors. And … the use of GMT components will enable you to manufacture the new computer at a price that will attract the market.”

I smiled. “So we will need more GMT components. To incorporate in the computers.”

Zhang returned my smile and nodded.

“Quality is the key,” I said.

He nodded again. “Quality is the key.”

The crew of the yacht laid out a dinner on a big table that was lifted from the floor in the main cabin. We sat down to a meal of Chinese delicacies—Li beside me as always.

“Would you like,” Zhang asked, “to see Macau? It is an hour or so from here. The activity there will just be beginning. I can introduce you to the finest casinos.”

“I love the casinos,” said Charlie Han. This was something I had observed in the Chinese. They loved to gamble—from mah jong, on which some of them risked huge sums, to horse races, to cockroaches placed in a circle, the bet being on which one would leave the circle first.

“We can sleep on the boat. And have breakfast. It has accommodations.”

I understood from that moment that “accommodations” was going to include Li in my bed. I had cheated on Vicky only once and very briefly, with Susan. But maybe this small, affectionate Chinese girl … whom I’d never see again.

I remember little about Macau. The casinos just didn’t appeal to me. And, in anticipation of what was going to happen, my attention was fixed on Li. I decided I wanted her. I wanted her very much.

While the others were gambling, I quietly suggested to Li that we return to the boat. We were holding hands, and she squeezed my hand and nodded.

Our cabin was small but lavish. It had a bed and one upholstered chair, a telephone, television, and its own head, with shower. I suggested to Li that we shower together. She undressed immediately, and I held her and felt her smooth skin. She unzipped me and pulled out my cock, then pushed down my pants. We couldn’t undress fast enough. My socks were still on my feet when I led her into the shower.

Under the stream of hot water, I knelt and introduced my tongue into her. It quickly found her tiny clit. She gasped, and I felt it harden. She urged me to stand, and when I did she seized my cock and pushed it into herself.

She was exquisite. I mean she was exquisite in her little body as well as in her ardor. She made love with me as though we were two kids just learning.

“Word in Chinese is
dew,
” she said, “which means fuck. We fuck good, Len. We fuck very good.”

I had to realize she had fucked many times before. Innocent as she looked and acted, she was a hooker.

I was glad, when I reflected on that. She was being paid for what she was doing. I would give her some more money. And we were establishing no relationship whatever. I would remember her. Maybe she would remember me for a while. For the money, I imagine, and for the fact that I had not been abusive. I was racist enough to wonder what Chinese men did to her.

When we left the boat, I hugged and kissed her. I hoped I would never see her again, but I was not going to be that lucky.

54

JERRY

Our neighbors had been right in telling us that alligators would climb the bank from the canal, nose up to our fence, and then slip back down to the water. Our neighbors to one side had no fence, and an occasional ’gator would reach the street and even enter our driveway. I was tempted to run one over with the car, but I was also told that wildlife fanatics would demand my prosecution.

On the other hand, Therèse had cultivated the friendship of two or three great white herons. She bought chicken necks for them and tossed those out for the herons to feed on. They made no mess. They found the chicken necks on the grass by the pool and gulped them in one swallow. They flew away, did their business somewhere else, and returned—as if they knew better than to dirty the lawns of their benefactors. On the other hand, when they did not find their chicken necks when they thought they should have them they would peck on our glass doors and make a hell of a noise.

This is the kind of thing that held my attention in my retirement in Florida. Do I have to say I was bored? Well, I was, and no amount of fishing or bridge playing—which Therèse had gotten me into with a few neighbors—made me less bored.

Len came home from his latest trip to Hong Kong and flew down to meet with me. We sat on the lanai and watched Therèse’s herons—whom she had named Jake, Pierre, and Lizzie, God knew why—while we talked.

“The problem is, as I see it,” I told him, “we are venturing into two situations where we don’t know much and where we can take one hell of a beating.”

“In the one,” he said, “we are expanding into a field, technology, where we don’t know much; and in the other we are expanding in a field where we know everything, but we will be doing it by joining a partner who wants to lie, cheat, and steal.”

“In an area of the world where we are even more ignorant than we are in the area of technology,” I said.

“We can repair our ignorance of technology,” he said. “And of China, too.”

“This Liz you’ve hired and that professor who is consulting can help us with that,” I said. “Charlie Han knows something of the ways of China. But does he know enough?”

“‘In ways that are mean and tricks that are vain, the heathen Chinee are peculiar,’” Len recited from Bret Harte.

“Whatever that means,” I said. I didn’t know the quotation. I never did get much education.

“The Chinese will play by their own rules, some of which they will make up as they go along,” said Len. “We have to count on that, whether we’re dealing with Zhang or Bai.”

“Well…”

“On the other hand,” he said, “we can import computer chips with Chinese prices, inspect them thoroughly, test them, and install them on Sphere microprocessor boards, which Sphere can then sell at a price reflecting what we paid for the chips. It makes us highly competitive.”