Part 12 (1/2)

He lifted a hand and stretched it out to her, as if he would draw her to him. 'Tell me, Lydia, what lies so heavy on your heart?'

She stood up straight in the water, letting go of the edge of her dress so that it floated around her legs like a fisherman's net. He saw a decision form in her eyes.

'Chang An Lo,' she said, 'I need your help.'

A breeze swept in off the Peiho River. It carried with it the stench of rotting fish guts. It came from the hundreds of sampans that crowded around the flimsy jetties and pontoons that clogged the banks, but Chang was used to it. It was the stink of boiled cowhide from the tannery behind the G.o.downs around the harbour.

He moved quickly. Shut his mind to the knives in his foot and slipped silently past the noisy, shouting, clattering world of the riverside, where tribes of beggars and boatmen made their homes. The sampans bobbed and jostled each other with their rattan shelters and swaying walkways, while cormorants perched, tethered and starved, on the prows of the fishermen's boats. Chang knew not to linger. Not here. A blade between ribs, and a body to add to the filth thrown daily into the Peiho, was not unheard of for no more than a pair of shoes.

Out where the great Peiho flowed wider than forty fields, British and French gunboats rode at anchor, their white and red and blue flags fluttering a warning. At the sight of them Chang spat on the ground and trampled it into the dirt. He could see that half a dozen big steamers had docked in the harbour, and near-naked coolies bent double as they struggled up and down the gangplanks under loads that would break the back of an ox. He kept clear of the overseer who strutted with a heavy black stick in his hand and a curse on his tongue, but everywhere men shouted, bells rang, engines roared, camels screamed, and all the time in and out of the chaos wove the rickshaws, as numerous as the black flies that settled over everything.

Chang kept moving. Skirted the quayside. Ducked down an alleyway where a severed hand lay in the dust. On to the G.o.downs. These were huge warehouses that were well guarded by more blue devils, but behind them a row of lean-to shacks had sprung up. Not shacks so much as pig houses, no higher than a man's waist and built of rotting sc.r.a.ps of driftwood. They looked as if a moth's wings could blow them away. He approached the third one. Its door was a flap of oilcloth. He pulled it aside.

'Greetings to you, Tan Wah,' he murmured softly.

'May the river snakes seize your miserable tongue,' came the sharp reply. 'You have stolen away my soft maidens, skin as sweet as honey on my lips. Whoever you are, I curse you.'

'Open your eyes, Tan Wah, leave your dreams. Join me in the world where the taste of honey is a rich man's pleasure and a maiden's smile a million li li away from this dung heap.' away from this dung heap.'

'Chang An Lo, you young son of a wolf. My friend, forgive the poison of my words. I ask the G.o.ds to lift my curse and I invite you to enter my fine palace.'

Chang crouched down, slipped inside the foul-smelling hovel, and sat cross-legged on a bamboo mat that looked as if it had been chewed by rats. In the dim interior he could make out a figure wrapped in layers of newspaper lying on the damp earth floor, his head propped on an old car seat cus.h.i.+on as a pillow.

'My humble apologies for disturbing your dreams, Tan Wah, but I need some information from you.'

The man in the coc.o.o.n of newspaper struggled to sit up. Chang could see he was little more than a handful of bones, his skin the telltale yellow of the opium addict. Beside him lay a long-stemmed clay pipe, which was the source of the sickly smell that choked the airless hut.

'Information costs money, my friend,' he said, his eyes barely open. 'I am sorry but it is so.'

'Who has money these days?' Chang demanded. 'Here, I bring you this instead.' He placed a large salmon on the ground between them, its scales bright as a rainbow in the dingy kennel. 'It swam from the creek straight into my arms this morning when it knew I was coming to see you.'

Tan Wah did not touch it. But the narrow slits of his eyes were already calculating its weight in the black paste that would bring the moon and the stars into his home. 'Ask what you will, Chang An Lo, and I will kick my worthless brain until it finds what you wish to know.'

'You have a cousin who works at the fanqui fanqui's big club.'

'At the Ulysses?'

'That is the one.'

'Yes, my stupid cousin, Yuen Dun, a cub still with his milk teeth, yet he is growing fat on the foreigners' dollars while I . . .' He closed his mouth and his eyes.

'My friend, if you would eat the fish instead of trading it for dreams, you might also grow fat.'

The man said nothing but lay back on the floor, picked up the pipe, and cradled it on his chest like a child.

'Tell me, Tan Wah, where does this stupid cousin of yours live?'

There was a silence, filled only by the sound of fingers stroking the clay stem. Chang waited patiently.

'In the Street of the Five Frogs.' It was a faint murmur. 'Next to the rope maker.'

'A thousand thanks for your words. I wish you good health, Tan Wah.' In one swift movement he was crouching on his feet ready to leave. 'A thousand deaths,' he said with a smile.

'A thousand deaths,' came the response.

'To the p.i.s.s-drinking general from Nanking.'

A chuckle, more like a rattle, issued from the newspapers. 'And to the donkey-f.u.c.king Foreign Devils on our sh.o.r.e.'

'Stay alive, friend. China needs its people.'

But as Chang pushed away the cloth flap, Tan Wah whispered urgently, 'They are hunting you, Chang An Lo. Do not turn your back.'

'I know.'

'It is not good to cross the Black Snake brotherhood. You look as if they have already fed your face to their chow-chows to chew on. I hear that you stole a girl from them and crushed the life out of one of their guardians.'

'I bruised his ribs. No more.'

A sigh drifted through the heavy air. 'Foolish one. Why risk so much for a miserable slug of a white girl?'

Chang let the cloth fall back in place behind him and slipped away.

He let his knife do the talking. It pressed hard against the young boy's throat.

'Your badge?' Chang demanded.

'It's . . . in . . . in my belt.'

The boy's face was grey with fear. Already he had p.i.s.sed himself when dragged into the dark doorway. Chang could feel the thick flesh on his bones as he removed the ident.i.ty badge and see the sleek sheen on his skin like a well-fed concubine.

'What part of the club do you work in?'

'The kitchens.'

'Ah. So you steal food for your family?'

'No, no. Never.'

The knife tightened and a trickle of blood mingled with the boy's sweat.