Noble House by James Clavell
The note said: “Walk to Waterloo Road. Go north toward the army camp, staying on the west side of the road. Beware, we are watching you now.”
A shiver went through him and he looked around. No one seemed to be watching him. Neither friend nor foe. But he could feel eyes. His attaché case became even more leaden.
All gods protect me, he prayed fervently, trying to gather his courage to continue. Where the the devil are Four Finger Wu’s men?
Waterloo Road was nearby, a busy main thoroughfare. He paid the crowds no attention, just plodded north feeling naked, seeing no one in particular. The shops were all open, restaurants bustling, the alleyways more crowded. In the nearby embankment a goods train whistled mournfully, going north, mixing with the blaring horns that all traffic used indiscriminately. The night was bleak, the sky overcast and very humid.
Wearily he walked half a mile, crossing side streets and alleys. In a knot of people he stopped to let a truck pass, then went across the mouth of another narrow alleyway, moving this way and that as oncomers jostled him. Suddenly two young men were in front of him, barring his path, and one hissed, “Tin koon chi fook!”
“Eh?”
Both wore caps pulled down low, both wore dark glasses, their faces similar. “Tin koon chi fook!” Smallpox Kin repeated malevolently. “Dew neh loh moh give me the bag!”
“Oh!” Blankly Phillip Chen handed it to him. Smallpox Kin grabbed it. “Don’t look around, and keep on walking north!”
“All right, but please keep your prom—” Phillip Chen stopped. The two youths were gone. It seemed that they had only been in front of him a split second. Still in shock he forced his feet into motion, trying to etch the little he had seen of their faces on his memory. Then an oncoming woman shoved him rudely and he swore, their faces fading. Then someone grabbed him roughly.
“Where’s the fornicating bag?”
“What?” he gasped, staring down at the evil-looking thug who was Goodweather Poon.
“Your bag—where’s it gone?”
“Two young men …” Helplessly he pointed backward. The man cursed and hurried past, weaving in and out of the crowd, put his fingers to his lips and whistled shrilly. Few people paid any attention to him. Other toughs began to converge, then Goodweather Poon caught sight of the two youths with the attaché case as they turned off the well-lit main road into an alley. He broke into a run, others following him.
Smallpox Kin and his younger brother went into the crowds without hurrying, the alley unlit except for the bare bulbs of the dingy stalls and stores. They grinned, one to another. Completely confident now, they took off their glasses and caps and stuffed them into their pockets. Both were very similar—almost twins—and now they melted even more into the raucous shoppers.
“Dew neh loh moh that old bastard looked frightened to death!” Smallpox Kin chortled. “In one step we have reached heaven!”
“Yes. And next week when we snatch him he’ll pay up as easily as an old dog farts!”
They laughed and stopped a moment in the light of a stall and peeked into the bag. When they both saw the bundle of notes both sighed. “Ayeeyah, truly we’ve reached heaven with one step, Elder Brother. Pity the son is dead and buried.”
Smallpox Kin shrugged as they went on, turning into a smaller alley, then another, surefooted in the darkening maze. “Honorable Father’s right. We have turned ill luck into good. It wasn’t your fault that bastard’s head was soft! Not at all! When we dig him up and leave him on the Sha Tin Road with the note on his fornicating chest….” He stopped a moment and they stepped aside in the bustling, jostling crowds to allow a laden, broken-down truck to squeeze past. As they waited he happened to glance back. At the far end of this alley he saw three men change direction, seeing him, then begin to hurry toward him.
“Dew rieh loh moh we’re betrayed,” he gasped then shoved his way forward and took to his heels, his brother close behind.
The two youths were very fast. Terror lent cunning to their feet as they rushed through the cursing crowd, maneuvering around the inevitable potholes and small stalls, the darkness helping them. Smallpox Kin led the charge. He ducked between some stalls and fled down the narrow unlit passageway, the attaché case clutched tightly. “Go home a different way, Young Brother,” he gasped.
At the next corner he rushed left and his brother went directly on. Their three pursuers split up as well, two following him. It was almost impossible to see now in the darkness and the alleys twisted and turned and never a dead end. His chest was heaving but he was well ahead of his pursuers. He fled into a shortcut and at once turned into a bedraggled store that, like all the rest, served as a dwelling. Careless of the family huddled around a screeching television he rushed through them and out the back door, then doubled back to the end of the alley. He peered around the corner with great caution. A few people watched him curiously but continued on their way without stopping, wanting no part of what clearly was trouble.
Then, hoping he was safe, he slid into the crowds and walked away quietly, his head down. His breath was still labored and his head was filled with obscenities and he swore vengeance on Phillip Chen for betraying them. All gods bear witness, he thought furiously, when we kidnap him next week, before we let him go I’ll slice off his nose! How dare he betray us to the police! Hey, wait a moment, were those police?
He thought about that as he wandered along in the stream, cautiously doubling back from time to time, just in case. But now he was sure he was not followed. He let his mind consider the money and he beamed. Let’s see, what will I do with my 50,000! I’ll put 40 down on an apartment and rent it out at once. Ayeeyah, I’m a property owner! I’ll buy a Rolex and a revolver and a new throwing knife. I’ll give my wife a bracelet or two, and a couple to White Rose at the Thousand Pleasure Whorehouse. Tonight we’ll have a feast….
Happily he continued on his way. At a street stall he bought a small cheap suitcase and, in an alley, secretly transferred the money into it. Farther down the street in another side alley he sold Phillip Chen’s good leather attaché case to a hawker for a handsome sum after haggling for five minutes. Now, very pleased with himself, he caught a bus for Kowloon City where his father had rented a small apartment in an assumed name as one of their havens, far away from their real home in Wanchai near Glessing’s Point. He did not notice Goodweather Poon board the bus, nor the other two men, nor the taxi that followed the bus.
Kowloon City was a festering mess of slums and open drains and squalid dwellings. Smallpox Kin knew he was safe here. No police ever came, except in great strength. When China had leased the New Territories for ninety-nine years in 1898 it had maintained suzerainty over Kowloon City in perpetuity. In theory the ten square acres were Chinese territory. The British authorities left the area alone provided it remained quiet. It was a seething mass of opium dens, illegal gambling schools, triad headquarters, and a sanctuary for the criminal. From time to time the police would sweep through. The next day the Kowloon City would become as it had always been.
The stairs to the fifth-floor apartment in the tenement building were rickety and messy, the plaster cracked and mildewed. He was tired now. He knocked on the door, in their secret code. The door opened.
“Hello, Father, hello, Dog-eared Chen,” he said happily. “Here’s the cash!” Then he saw his younger brother. “Oh good, you escaped too?”
“Of course! Dung-eating police in civilian clothes! We ought to kill one or two for their impertinence.” Kin Pak waved a .38. “We ought to have vengeance!”
“Perhaps you’re right, now that we’ve got the first money,” Father Kin said.
“I don’t think we should kill any police, that would send them mad,” Dog-eared Chen said shakily.
“Dew neh loh moh on all police!” young Kin Pak said and pocketed the gun.
Smallpox Kin shrugged. “We’ve got the cash th—”
At that moment the door burst open. Goodweather Poon and three of his men were in th
“Where’s Number One Son Chen?” Goodweather Poon said, a second knife in his hand.
“We don’t know any Num—”
Two of the men fell on Smallpox Kin, slammed his hands outstretched on the table and held them there. Goodweather Poon leaned forward and sliced off his index finger. Smallpox Kin went gray. The other two were paralyzed with fear.
“Where’s Number One Son Chen?”
Smallpox Kin was staring blankly at his severed finger and the blood that was pulsing onto the table. He cried out as Goodweather Poon lunged again. “Don’t don’t,” he begged, “he’s dead … dead and we’ve buried him I swear it!”
“Where?”
“Near the Sha … the Sha Tin Road. Listen,” he screeched desperately, “we’ll split the money with you. We’ll—” He froze as Goodweather Poon put the tip of his knife into his mouth.
“Just answer questions, you fornicating whore’s turd, or I’ll slit your tongue. Where’s Number One Son’s things? The things he had on him?”
“We, we sent everything to Noble House Chen, everything except the money he had. I swear it.” He whimpered at the pain. Suddenly the two men put pressure on one of his elbows and he cried out, “All gods bear witness it’s the truth!” He screamed as the joint went, and fainted. Across the room Dog-eared Chen groaned with fear. He started to cry out but one of the men smashed him in the face, his head crashed against the wall and he collapsed, unconscious.
Now all their eyes went to Kin Pak. “It’s true,” Kin Pak gasped in terror at the suddenness of everything. “Everything he told you. It’s true!”
Goodweather Poon cursed him. Then he said, “Did you search Noble House Chen before you buried him?”
“Yes, Lord, at least I didn’t, he …” Shakily he pointed at his father’s body. “He did.”
“You were there?”
The youth hesitated. Instantly Poon darted at him, moving with incredible speed for such an old man. His knife knicked Kin Pak’s cheek a deliberate fraction below his eyes and stayed there. “Liar!”
“I was there,” the youth choked out, “I was going to tell you, Lord, I was, there. I won’t lie to you I swear it!”
“The next time you lie it will be your left eye. You were there, heya?”
“Yes … yes, Lord!”
“Was he there?” he said pointing at Smallpox Kin.
“No, Lord.”
“Him?”
“Yes. Dog-eared was there!”
“Did you search the body?”
“Yes, Lord, yes I helped our father.”
“All his pockets, everything?”
“Yes yes everything.”
“Any papers? Notebook, diary? Jewelry?”
The youth hesitated, frantic, trying to think, the knife never moving away from his face. “Nothing, Lord, that I remember. We sent all his things to Noble House Chen, except, except the money. We kept the money. And his watch—I’d forgotten his watch! It’s, it’s that one!” He pointed at the watch on his father’s outstretched wrist.
Goodweather Poon swore again. Four Finger Wu had told him to recapture John Chen, to get any of his possessions the kidnappers still had, particularly any coins or parts of coins, and then, equally anonymously, to dispose of the kidnappers. I’d better phone him in a moment, he thought. I’d better get further instructions. I don’t want to make a mistake.
“What did you do with the money?”
“We spent it, Lord. There were only a few hundred dollars and some change. It’s gone.”
One of the men said, “I think he’s lying!”
“I’m not, Lord, I swear it!” Kin Pak almost burst into tears. “I’m not. Pl—”
“Shut up! Shall I cut this one’s throat?” the man said genially, motioning at Smallpox Kin who was still unconscious, sprawled across the table, the pool of blood thickening.
“No, no, not yet. Hold him there.” Goodweather Poon scratched his piles while he thought a moment. “We’ll go and dig up Number One Son Chen. Yes that’s what we’ll do. Now, Little Turd, who killed him?”
At once Kin Pak pointed at his father’s body. “He did. It was terrible. He’s our father and he hit him with a shovel … he hit him with a shovel when he tried to escape the night … the night we got him.” The youth shuddered, his face chalky, his fear of the knife under his eye consuming him. “It, it wasn’t my fault, Lord.”
“What’s your name?”
“Soo Tak-gai, Lord,” he said instantly, using their prearranged emergency names.
“Him?” The finger pointed at his brother.
“Soo Tak-tong.”
“Him?”
“Wu-tip Sup.”
“And him?”
The youth looked at his father’s body. “He was Goldtooth Soo, Lord. He was very bad but we … we, we had to obey. We had to obey him, he was our, our father.”
“Where did you take Number One Son Chen before you killed him?”
“To Sha Tin, Lord, but I didn’t kill him. We snatched him Hong Kong side then put him in the back of a car we stole and went to Sha Tin. There’s an old shack our father rented, just outside the village … he planned everything. We had to obey him.”
Poon grunted and nodded at his men. “We’ll search here first.” At once they released Smallpox Kin, the unconscious youth who slumped to the floor, leaving a trail of blood. “You, bind up his finger!” Hastily Kin Pak grabbed an old dishcloth and, near vomiting, began to tie a rough tourniquet around the stump.
Poon sighed, not knowing what to do first. After a moment he opened the suitcase. All their eyes went to the mountain of notes. They all felt the greed. Poon shifted the knife into his other hand and closed the suitcase. He left it in the center of the table and started to search the dingy apartment. There was just a table, a few chairs and an old iron bedstead with a soiled mattress. Paper was peeling off the walls, the windows mostly boarded up and glassless. He turned the mattress over, then searched it but it concealed nothing. He went into the filthy, almost empty kitchen and switched on the light. Then into the foul-smelling toilet. Smallpox Kin whimpered, coming around.
In a drawer Goodweather Poon found some papers, ink and writing brushes. “What’s this for?” he asked, holding up one of the papers. On it was written in bold characters: “This Number One Son Chen had the stupidity to try to escape us. No one can escape the Werewolves! Let all Hong Kong beware. Our eyes are everywhere!”
“What’s this for, heya?”
Kin Pak looked up from the floor, desperate to please. “We couldn’t return him alive to Noble House Chen so our father ordered that … that tonight we were to dig Number One Son up and put that on his chest and put him beside the Sha Tin Road.”
Goodweather Poon looked at him. “When you start to dig you’d better find him quickly, the first time,” he said malevolently. “Yes. Or your eyes, Little Turd, won’t be anywhere.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
9:30 P.M.:
Orlanda Ramos came up the wide staircase of the vast Floating Dragon restaurant at Aberdeen and moved through the noisy, chattering guests at Sir Shi-teh T’Chung’s banquet looking for Linc Bartlett—and Casey.
The two hours that she had spent with Linc this morning for the newspaper interview had been revealing, particularly about Casey. Her instincts had told her the sooner she brought the enemy to battle the better. It had been easy to have them both invited tonight—Shi-teh was an old associate of Gornt and an old friend. Gornt had been pleased with her idea.
They were on the top deck. There was a nice smell of the sea coming through the large windows, the night good though hu
The room they were in, scarlet and gold and green, stretched half the length and the whole breadth of the boat, off the central staircase. Ornate wood and plaster gargoyles and unicorns and dragons were everywhere throughout the three soaring decks of the restaurant ablaze with lights and packed with diners. Belowdecks, the cramped kitchens held twenty-eight cooks, an army of helpers, a dozen huge cauldrons—steam, sweat and smoke. Eighty-two waiters serviced the Floating Dragon. There were seats for four hundred on each of the first two decks and two hundred on the third. Sir Shi-teh had taken over the whole top deck and now it was well filled with his guests, standing in impatient groups amid the round tables that seated twelve.
Orlanda felt fine tonight and very confident. She had again dressed meticulously for Bartlett. This morning when she had had the interview with him she had worn casual American clothes and little makeup, and the loose, silk blouse that she had selected so carefully did not flaunt her bralessness, merely suggested it. This daring new fashion pleased her greatly, making her even more aware of her femininity. Tonight she wore delicate white silk. She knew her figure was perfect, that she was envied for her open, unconscious sensuality.
That’s what Quillan did for me, she thought, her lovely head high and the curious half-smile lighting her face—one of the many things. He made me understand sensuality.
Havergill and his wife were in front of her and she saw their eyes on her breasts. She laughed to herself, well aware that, even discreetly, she would be the only woman in the room who had dared to be so modern, to emulate the fashion that had begun the year before in Swinging London.
“Evening, Mr. Havergill, Mrs. Havergill,” she said politely, moving around them in the crush. She knew him well. Many times he had been invited onto Gornt’s yacht. Sometimes Gornt’s yacht would steam out from the Yacht Club, Hong Kong side, with just her and Quillan and his men friends aboard and go over to Kowloon, to the sea-washed steps beside the Golden Ferry where the girls would be waiting, dressed in sun clothes or boating clothes.