Part 24 (2/2)
Jake was not amused. ”Where is Mikio?” he said. ”Is he all right? I need to speak with him.”
The woman watched him with her glittering eyes. Her flat face was all cheekbone and brow. She was not Jake's idea of beautiful but she would certainly be someone's.
”Do you know Tsukiji?” she asked.
”Yes.”
”Be there tomorrow morning just after four-thirty.”
”Will Mikio be there?” The Kenzo suit was already standing. She looked down at him for a moment before walking briskly from the restaurant. She did not look back.
Bluestone in his study, watching the play of indirect light redefine itself as it pa.s.sed through the exquisite translucent skin of the priceless Qing vase. It stood on a black lacquered pedestal, alone along one wall. Its pale, opalescent green was the only slash of a color other than black and Chinese red in the entire room.
The ceiling was painted a rich glossy black, the walls were papered in a pattern made expressly for Bluestone: black-on-black, a gloss-and-matte pattern, with a scattering of tiny red chrysanthemums.
The couch along the wall opposite the Qing masterpiece was of black leather; the matching chairs black. The wall-to-wall carpeting was black overlaid with red pindots. The antique Roman-style desk was carved ebony. Ma.s.sive and intimidating, it was the only other objet d'art in the room besides the vase.
Bluestone sat behind the desk now and watched the Qing's inner power redefine light as he listened to White-Eye Kao's report.
”I have tracked Great Pool of Piddle to the dens of his usual newspaper sources. My sources have confirmed that he has already shot off his mouthfor a suitable amount of h'yeung yau.” He was speaking of the fragrant greasethe bribes one needed to pay.
”Naturally,” Bluestone concurred. ”G.o.d forbid that our unwitting foil should surprise us.”
The Chinese sitting on one oversized chair seemed dwarfed by its proportions. Bluestone liked that. The Chinese turned his head and the light turned his one milky eye opaque.
White-Eye Kao laughed. ”No chance of that.”
”Good,” Bluestone said. ”You have made certain that the Honorable Pok has no inkling that the information about Southasia Bancorp's regrettable fiscal plight was deliberately leaked to him?”
”Absolutely,” White-Eye Kao said with great certainty. ”His sources had to struggle to get every bit of it.”
”Better and better,” Bluestone said, staring intently at the Qing vase. ”I was particularly impressed with the manner in which you disposed of Teck Yau, Sawyer and Sons' comptroller.”
”That was a pleasure,” White-Eye Kao said. ”That pox-infested sea slug was more foreign devil than Chinese.” He laughed. ”My third cousinyou know, the one who works in the butcher shop on Po Yan Streetwas all too happy to play along. He has no love for the loh faan, either.” White-Eye Kao laughed. ”The shop, as you know, sells to all the big hotels catering to the foreign devils. Ha, ha! What a tender meal the stupid gwai-loh must have eaten that night, nek?”
”Watch your tongue,” Bluestone said sharply. ”I am also a foreign devil.”
”No,” White-Eye Kao said with some fervor, ”you are a Communist. You have a plan for all of Asia, for all of the world. I know how you aid those unfortunate peoples oppressed by the loh faan in every country. It is different with you.”
”Yes,” Bluestone said. The light pa.s.sing through the Qing had changed subtly, he couldn't say how. ”It is.”
The buzzer sounded on his desk and he picked up the receiver, listened for a moment. ”Send him in,” he said and replaced the phone on its cradle.
Bluestone, who employed a full-time secretary at home as well as at his officesince he was fond of working out the most complex business problems away from the hubbub of the Five Star Pacificofficesturned at last from his contemplation of man's mastery over nature.
White-Eye Kao, alerted, turned his head as the door opened and Sir Byron Nolin-Kelly came in. He was a portly Scotsman with wide white muttonchop sideburns and an immaculately groomed mustache, waxed and curling upward at its ends. His shock of thick white hair was combed straight back off his wide forehead. His ruddy complexion and his bulbous clown's nose conspired to make him appear to be everyone's kindly uncle.
In fact he was tai pan of Pacific Overland Trading, an influential firm almost as venerable as Mattias, King & Company, the Colony's oldest Western trading company.
Sir Byron was something of a tyrant, controlling Pacific Overland for the past fifty-five years despite attempts by other members of his family to wrest power from him. He was nasty and powerful and Bluestone had spent much time romancing him.
The thing that Sir Byron liked most was a winner. Conversely, he hated to lose a at anything. But especially in matters concerning his company's business. It had been Bluestone's contention that the consortium of tai pan who founded InterAsia Trading were doomed to failure. The problems of capital shortfall at Southasia Bancorp which had been revealed to Sir Byron as well as the other tai pan aboard the Trireme that weekendhad persuaded him.
”Good afternoon, tai pan,” Sir Byron said.
Bluestone returned the greeting, turned to White-Eye Kao. ”This is Ping Po,” he said casually. ”One of my compradors.”
As Bluestone had intended, Sir Byron gave the Chinese a perfunctory nod and forgot about his presence.
”I have just now come from Macao,” he said, waving away Bluestone's invitation to a drink. ”Dark Leong Lau and Six-Toe Ping have arranged their financing.”
”And the buying?” Bluestone said, leaning forward in excitement.
Sir Byron nodded. ”It has begun. Bobby Chan has seen to it. It is being distributed through enough unrelated brokers so that only a specific check would unearth the chain of buying.”
”Then you and I will commence our purchases tomorrow.”
Sir Byron nodded. ”As we agreed.”
Bluestone watched the other tai pan carefully, waiting for a hint as to why he had actually come. This information could have been just as easily communicated via phone.
”Are you sure you won't have a seat?” Bluestone asked, gesturingto the empty chair vacated by White-Eye Kao, who was now discreetly across the room, staring into the lovely depths of the Qing.
”All right,” Sir Byron said, relenting. He sat as stiffly as he stood. A retired colonel whose training would never leave him.
”Before you and I embarked upon our end of this venture, I wished to ask a number of questions.”
Bluestone shrugged. ”You had ample time over the weekend on the yacht.”
Sir Byron's ice-blue eyes studied Bluestone. ”Not in front of the natives, old man. This is just between you and me.”
And White-Eye Kao, Bluestone thought, who you think of as part of the furnis.h.i.+ngs.
”I want a true a.s.sessment of the danger factor.”
”The risk,” Bluestone said without hesitation, ”is great. I cannot deny that.” He also knew that if he did, Sir Byron would get up, walk out the door and that would be the end of his involvement. ”We are up against clever tai pan. But I believe that their power is on the wane. s.h.i.+ Zilin is dead. And his son, well, his son has disappeared.”
”Disappeared?”
”Wherever he is,” Bluestone said, ”he's not in Hong Kong. Who is going to run InterAsia now? Sawyer? The old man's headed for senility. Three Oaths Tsun? His business is the sea, that's where he excels. On land, he relies on others.
”Now they have run out of money. And we have a chance at the Kam Sang project. If we control that, with its revolutionary desalinization plant, we will control all of Hong Kong. I don't have to reiterate that water is Hong Kong's constant, overwhelming need. Kam Sang will allow us to control its flow. We will be able to, in effect, set our own price for water.”
There was silence while Sir Byron digested this. At length, he nodded. ”I'm satisfied,” he said. ”I'll relay my recommendation to the others.”
”Excellent,” Bluestone said, standing. Clearly the interview was at an end. The two tai pan shook hands. When Nolin-Kelly had left, Bluestone turned to White-Eye Kao, said, ”Do you think he believed me?”
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