Noble House by James Clavell
“Yes sir,” Divisional Sergeant Mok said politely. Ayeeyah, he was thinking as he walked over to the squad car, the poor fool still doesn’t understand that we Chinese are not stupid foreign devils—or devils from the Eastern Sea—who’ll line up patiently for hours. Oh no, we civilized persons understand life and it’s every man for himself. He clicked on the police transmitter. “Divisional Sergeant Mok! The chief inspector wants a riot squad here on the double. Park just behind the fish market but keep in contact!”
“Yes sir.”
Mok sighed and lit a cigarette. More barriers had been erected across the street, outside Blacs and the Victoria Aberdeen branches, and more at the Ching Prosperity Bank around the corner. His khaki uniform was ironed sharp on the creases and there were big sweat rings under his arms. He was very concerned. This crowd was very dangerous and he did not want a repetition of yesterday. If the bank shut its doors before three he was sure the crowd would tear the place apart. He knew that if he still had any money in there, he would be the first to tear the door open to get his money. Ayeeyah, he thought, very thankful for the Snake’s authority that had unlocked all their money this morning to the last penny.
“Piss on all banks!” Mok muttered to no one. “All gods, let the Ho-Pak pay all customers today! Let it fail tomorrow! Tomorrow’s my day off so let it fail tomorrow.” He stubbed out his cigarette.
“Sergeant Major?”
“Yes?”
“Look over there!” the eager young plainclothes detective said, hurrying up to him. He wore spectacles and was in his early twenties. “By the Victoria Bank. The old woman. The old amah.”
“Where? Oh yes, I see her.” Mok watched her for a while but detected nothing untoward. Then he saw her scuttle through the crowd and whisper to a young tough, wearing jeans, who was leaning against a railing. She pointed to an old man who had just come out of the bank. At once the young tough sauntered after him and the old amah squeezed and squirmed and cursed her way back to the head of the barrier where she could see those who entered and those who came out.
“That’s the third time, sir,” the young detective said. “The old amah points out someone who’s just come out of the bank to the tough, then off he goes. In a few minutes he comes back again. That’s the third time. I’m sure I saw him slip her something once. I think it was money.”
“Good! Very good, Spectacles Wu. It’s bound to be a triad shake down. The old hag’s probably his mother. You follow the young bastard and I’ll intercept him the other way. Keep out of sight!”
Divisional Sergeant Mok slipped around the corner, down a busy alley lined with stalls and street hawkers and open shops, moving carefully through the crowds. He turned into another alley just in time to catch a glimpse of some money being passed over by the old man. He waited until Wu had blocked the other end of the alley, then he walked ponderously forward.
“What’s going on here?”
“What? Eh? Nothing, nothing at all,” the old man said nervously, sweat running down his face. “What’s the matter? I’ve done nothing!”
“Why did you give this young man money, heya? I saw you give him money!” The young thug stared back at Mok insolently, unafraid, knowing he was Smallpox Kin, one of the Werewolves who had all Hong Kong petrified. “Is he accosting you? Trying to squeeze you? He looks like a triad!”
“Oh! I … I … I owed him 500 dollars. I’ve just got it out of the bank and I paid him.” The old man was clearly terrified but he blustered on, “He’s my cousin.” A crowd began to collect. Someone hawked and spat.
“Why’re you sweating so much?”
“All gods fornicate all pigs! It’s hot! Everyone’s sweating. Everyone!”
“That’s fornicating right,” someone called out.
Mok turned his attention on the youth who waited truculently. “What’s your name?”
“Sixth Son Wong!”
“Liar! Turn out your pockets!”
“Me, I’ve done nothing! I know the law. You can’t search people without a warran—”
Mok’s iron fist snapped out and twisted the youth’s arm and he squealed. The crowd laughed. They fell silent as Spectacles Wu came out of nowhere to search him. Mok held Smallpox Kin in a vise. Another uneasy undercurrent swept through the onlookers as they saw the rolls of money, and change. “Where’d you get all this?” Mok snarled.
“It’s mine. I’m … I’m a moneylender and I’m collecting forn—”
“Where’s your place of business?”
“It’s … it’s in Third Alley, off Aberdeen Road.”
“Come on, we’ll go and look.”
Mok released the young man who, unafraid, still stared back angrily. “First give me my money!” He turned to the crowd and appealed to them. “You saw him take it! I’m an honest moneylender! These’re servants of the foreign devils and you all know them! Foreign devil law forbids honest citizens being searched!”
“Give him back his fornicating money!” someone shouted.
“If he’s a moneylender …”
The crowd began to argue back and forth and then Smallpox Kin saw a small opening in the crowd and he darted for it. The crowd let him pass and he fled up the alley, vanishing into the traffic, but when Spectacles Wu charged in pursuit they closed up and jostled him and became a little uglier. Mok called him back. In the momentary melee the old man had disappeared. Wearily Mok said, “Let the motherless turd go! He was just a triad—another triad turd who preys on law-abiding people.”
“What’re you going to do with his fornicating money?” someone called out from the back of the crowd.
“I’m going to give it to an old woman’s rest home,” Mok shouted back equally rudely. “Go defecate in your grandmother’s ear!”
Someone laughed and the crowd began to break up and then they all went about their business. In a moment Mok and Spectacles Wu were standing like stones in a river, the passersby eddying around them. Once back on the main street, Mok wiped his brow. “Dew neh loh moh!”
“Yes. Why’re they like that, Sergeant Major?” the young detective asked. “We’re only trying to help them. Why didn’t the old man just admit that triad bastard was squeezing him?”
“You don’t learn about mobs of people in schoolbooks,” Mok said kindly, knowing the anxiety of the youth to succeed. Spectacles Wu was new, one of the recent university graduates to join the force. He was not one of Mok’s private unit. “Be patient. Neither of them wanted anything to do with us because we’re police and they all still believe we’ll never help them, only ourselves. It’s been the same in China since the first policeman.”
“But this is Hong Kong,” the youth said proudly. “We’re different. We’re British police.”
“Yes.” Mok felt a sudden chill. He did not wish to disillusion the youth. I used to be loyal too, loyal to the Queen and to the quai loh flag. I learned differently. When I needed help and protection and security I got none. Never once. The British used to be rich and powerful but they lost the war to those Eastern Sea Devils. The war took all their face away and humbled them and put the great tai-pans into Stanley Prison like common thieves—even the tai-pans of the Noble House and Great Bank and even the great high governor himself—put them away like common criminals, into Stanley with all their women and all the children and treated them like turds!
And then after the war, even though they had humbled the Eastern Devils, they never regained their power, or their face.
Now in Hong Kong and in all Asia, now it’s not the same and never will be as before. Now every year the British get poorer and poorer and less powerful and how can they protect me and my family from evildoers if they’re not rich and powerful? They pay me nothing and treat me like dogmeat! Now my only protection is money, money in gold so that we can flee if need be—or money in land or houses if we do not need to flee. How can I educate my sons in England or America without money? Will the grateful Government pay? Not a fornicating brass cash, and yet I’m suppose
Mok shivered. The only safety for my family is in my own hands as always. Oh how wise the teachings of our ancestors are! Was the police commissioner loyal to me when I needed money, even steerage money, for my son to go to school in America? No. But the Snake was. He loaned me 10,000 dollars at only 10 percent interest so my son went like a Mandarin by Pan American aircraft, with three years of school money, and now he’s a qualified architect with a Green Card and next month he’ll have an American passport and then he can come back and no one will be able to touch him. He can help protect my generation and will protect his own and his son’s and his son’s sons!
Yes, the Snake gave me the money, long since paid back with full interest out of money he helped me earn. I shall be loyal to the Snake—until he turns. One day he’ll turn, all quai loh do, all snakes do, but now I’m a High Dragon and neither gods nor devils nor the Snake himself can hurt my family or my bank accounts in Switzerland and Canada.
“Come along, we’d better go back, young Spectacles Wu,” he said kindly and when he got back to the barriers he told Chief Inspector Smyth what had happened.
“Put the money in our kitty, ’Major,” Smyth said. “Order a grand banquet for our lads tonight.”
“Yes sir.”
“It was Detective Constable Wu? The one who wants to join SI?”
“Yes sir. Spectacles is very keen.”
Smyth sent for Wu, commended him. “Now, where’s that old amah?”
Wu pointed her out. They saw her looking at the corner the thug had gone around, waiting impatiently. After a minute she squirmed out of the swarm and hobbled away, muttering obscenities.
“Wu,” Smyth ordered, “follow her. Don’t let yourself be seen. She’ll lead you to the rotten little bugger who fled. Be careful, and when she goes to ground, phone the ’major.”
“Yes sir.”
“Do not take any risks—perhaps we can catch the whole gang, there’s bound to be a gang.”
“Yes sir.”
“Off you go.” They watched him following her. “That lad’s going to be good. But not for us, ’Major, eh?”
“No sir.”
“I think I’ll recommend him to SI. Perhaps—”
Suddenly there was an ominous silence, then shouts and an angry roar. The two policemen rushed back around the corner. In their absence the crowd had shoved aside parts of the barricade, overpowering the four policemen, and now were surging into the bank. Manager Sung and his assistant were vainly trying to close the doors against the shouting, cursing throng. The barricades began to buckle.
“Get the riot squad!”
Mok raced for the squad car. Fearlessly Smyth rushed to the head of the line with his bullhorn. The tumult drowned his order to stop fighting. More reinforcements came running from across the street. Quickly and efficiently they charged to Smyth’s support, but the mob was gathering strength. Sung and his tellers slammed the door shut but it was forced open again. Then a brick came out of the crowd and smashed one of the plate-glass windows. There was a roar of approval. The people in front were trying to get out of the way and those at the back were trying to get to the door. More bricks were hurtled at the building, then pieces of wood grabbed from a building site nearby. Another stone went through the glass and it totally shattered. Roaring, the mob surged forward. A girl fell and was crushed.
“Come on,” Smyth shouted, “give me a hand!” He grabbed one of the barriers and, with four other policemen, used it as a shield and shoved it against the front of the mob, forcing them back. Above the uproar he shouted for them to use their shoulders and they fought the frenzied crowd. Other policemen followed his lead. More bricks went into the bank and then the shout went up, “Kill the fornicating bank thieves, kill them, they’ve stolen our money …”
“Kill the fornicators …”
“I want my money …”
“Kill the foreign devils …”
Smyth saw the mood of those near him change and his heart stopped as they took up the shout and forgot the bank and their hands reached out for him. He had seen that look before and knew he was a dead man. That other time was during the riots of ’56 when 200,000 Chinese suddenly went on a senseless rampage in Kowloon. He would have been killed then if he had not had a Sten gun. He had killed four men and blasted a path to safety. Now he had no gun and he was fighting for his life. His hat was ripped away, someone grabbed his Sam Browne belt and a fist went into his groin, another into his face and talons clawed at his eyes. Fearlessly, Mok and others charged into the milling mess to rescue him. Someone hacked at Mok with a brick, another with a piece of wood that tore a great gash in his cheek. Smyth was engulfed, his hands and arms desperately trying to protect his head. Then the riot squad’s Black Maria, siren screaming, skidded around the corner. The ten-man team fell on the crowd roughly and pulled Smyth away. Blood seeped from his mouth, his left arm dangled uselessly.
“You all right, sir?”
“Yes, for chrissake get those sodding barriers up! Get those bastards away from the bank—fire hoses!”
But the fire hoses weren’t necessary. At the first violent charge of the riot squad the front of the mob had wilted and now the rest had retreated to a safe distance and stood there watching sullenly, some of them still shouting obscenities. Smyth grabbed the bull horn. In Cantonese he said, “If anyone comes within twenty yards, he’ll be arrested and deported!” He tried to catch his breath. “If anyone wants to visit the Ho-Pak, line up a hundred yards away.”
The scowling crowd hesitated, then as Mok and the riot squad came forward fast, they retreated hastily and began to move away, treading on each other.
“I think my bloody shoulder’s dislocated,” Smyth said and cursed obscenely.
“What do we do about those bastards, sir?” Mok asked, in great pain, breathing hard, his cheek raw and bleeding, his uniform ripped.
Smyth held his arm to take the growing pain away and looked across the street at the sullen, gawking crowd. “Keep the riot squad here. Get another from West Aberdeen, inform Central. Where’s my bloody hat? If I catch the bas—”
“Sir!” one of his men called out. He was kneeling beside the girl who had been trampled on. She was a bar girl or a dance hall girl: she had that sad, sweet oh so hard, young-old look. Blood was dribbling from her mouth, her breathing coming in hacking gasps.
“Christ, get an ambulance!”
As Smyth watched helplessly, the girl choked in her own blood and died.
Christian Toxe, editor of the Guardian, was scribbling notes, the phone jammed against his ear. “What was her name, Dan?” he asked over the hubbub of the newsroom.
“I’m not sure. One savings book said Su Tzee-Ian,” Dan Yap the reporter on the other end of the phone at Aberdeen told him. “There was $4,360 in it—the other was in the name … Hang on a second, the ambulance’s just leaving now. Can you hear all right, Chris, the traffic’s heavy here.”
“Yes. Go on. The second savings book?”
“The second book was in the name of Tak H’eung fah. Exactly 3,000 in that one.”
Tak H’eung fah seemed to touch a memory. “Do any of the names mean anything?” Toxe asked. He was a tall rumpled man in his untidy cubbyhole of an office.
“No. Except one means Wisteria Su and the other Fragrant Flower Tak. She was pretty, Chris. Might have been Eurasian….”
Toxe felt a sudden ice shaft in his stomach as he remembered his own three daughters, six and seven and eight, and his lovely Chinese wife. He tried to push that perpetual cross back into the recess of his mind, the secret worry of was it right to mix East and West, and what does the future hold for them, my darlings, in this lousy rotten bigoted world?
With an effort he concentrated again. “That’s quite a lot of money for a dance hall girl, isn’t it?”
“Yes. I’d say she had a patron. One interesting bit in her purs
“English?” Toxe asked surprised, writing swiftly.
“No. Characters. There was something about the writing—could be a quai loh.”
“Did you get a copy?”
“The police wouldn’t le—”
“Get a photocopy. Beg borrow or steal a photocopy in time for the afternoon edition. A week’s bonus if you do it.”
“Cash this afternoon?”
“All right.”
“You have it.”
“Any signature?”
“‘Your only love.’ The love was in English.”
“Mr. Toxe! Mrs. Publisher’s on line two!” The English secretary called out through the open door, her desk just outside the glass partition.
“Oh Christ, I’ll … I’ll call her back. Tell her I’ve got a big story breaking.” Then into the phone again, “Dan, keep on this story—keep close to the police, go with them to the dead girl’s flat—if it’s her flat. Find out who owns it—who her people are, where they live. Call me back!” Toxe hung up and called out to his assistant editor, “Hey, Mac!”
The lean, dour, gray-haired man got up from his desk and wandered in. “Aye?”
“I think we should put out an extra. Headline …” He scrawled on a piece of paper, “Mob Kills Fragrant Flower!”
“How about ‘Mob Murders Fragrant Flower’?”
“Or, ‘First Death at Aberdeen’?”
“‘Mob Murders’ is better.”
“That’s it then. Martin!” Toxe called out. Martin Haply looked up from his desk and came over. Toxe ran his fingers through his hair as he told them both what Dan Yap had related. “Martin, do a follow-up: ‘The beautiful young girl was crushed by the feet of the mob—but who were the real killers? Is it an incompetent government who refuses to regulate our outdated banking system? Are the killers those who started the rumors? Is the run on the Ho-Pak as simple as it sounds …’ etcetera.”