James clavell

"That's Orlanda?" Casey was looking at him, one eyebrow arched.

"Yes," he replied, trying unsuccessfully to read her. "What do you think?"

"I think she's dynamite."

"Which way?"

Casey laughed. She turned to Gavallan who was trying to concentrate and be polite but whose mind was taken up with Kathy. After Kathy had told him this evening, he had not wanted to leave her but she had insisted, saying that it was important for him to be there. "Do you know her, Andrew?"

"Who?"

"The girl in white."

"Is it good or bad?"

"That, er, depends on your point of view, Casey. She's, she's Portuguese, Eurasian, of course. Orlanda was Gornt's friend for quite a few years."

"You mean his mistress?"

"Yes, I suppose that's the word," he told her politely, disliking Casey's directness intensely. "But it was all very discreet."

"Gornt's got taste. Did you know she was his steady, Linc?"

"She told me this morning. I met her at Gornt's a couple of days ago. He said they were still friends."

"Gornt's not to be trusted," Gavallan said.

Casey said, "He's got heavy backers, in and outside Hong Kong, I was told. Far as I know he's not stretched at the moment, as you are. You must have heard he wants us to deal with him, not you."

"We're not stretched," Gavallan said. He looked at Bartlett. "We do have a deal?"

"We sign Tuesday. If you're ready," Bartlett said.

"We're ready now."

"Ian wants us to keep it quiet till Saturday and that's fine with us," Casey said. "Isn't it, Linc?"

"Sure." Bartlett glanced back at Orlanda. Casey followed his eyes.

She had noticed her the first moment the girl had hesitated in the doorway. "Who's she talking to, Andrew?" The man was interesting-looking, lithe, elegant and in his fifties.

"That's Lando Mata. He's also Portuguese, from Macao." Gavallan wondered achingly if Dunross would manage to persuade Mata to come to their rescue with all his millions. What would I do if I was tai-pan? he asked himself wearily. Would I buy tomorrow, or make a deal with Mata and Tightfist tonight? With their money, the Noble House would be safe for generations, though out of our control. No point in worrying now. Wait till you're tai-pan. Then he saw Mata smiling at Orlanda and then both of them looked over and began to thread their way toward them. His eyes watched her firm breasts, free under the silk. Taut nipples. Good God, he thought, awed, even Venus Poon wouldn't dare do that. When they came up he introduced them and stood back, odd man out, wanting to watch them.

"Hello," Orlanda said warmly to Casey. "Linc told me so much about you and how important you are to him."

"And I've heard about you too," Casey said as warmly. But not enough. You're much more lovely than Linc indicated, she thought. Very much more. So you're Orlanda Ramos. Beautiful and soft-spoken and feminine and a bitch piranha who has set her sights on my Linc. Jesus, what do I do now?

She heard herself making small talk but her mind was still thinking Orlanda Ramos through. On the one hand it would be good for Linc to have an affair, she thought. It would take the heat out of him. Last night was as lousy for him as it was for me. He was right about me moving out. But once this one's magic surrounds him could I extract him? Would she be just another girl like the others that were nothing to me and after a week or so, nothing to him either?

Not this one, Casey decided with finality. I've got two choices. I either stick to thirteen weeks and four days and do battle, or don't and do battle.

She smiled. "Orlanda, your dress is fantastic."

"Thanks. May I call you Casey?"

Both women knew the war had begun.

Bartlett was delighted that Casey obviously liked Orlanda. Gavallan watched, fascinated by the four of them. There was a strange warmth among them all. Particularly between Bartlett and Orlanda, He turned his attention to Mata and Casey. Mata was suave, filled with old world charm, concentrating on Casey, playing her like a fish. I wonder how far he'll get with this one. Curious that Casey doesn't seem to mind Orlanda at all. Surely she's noticed that her boyfriend's smitten? Perhaps she hasn't. Or perhaps she couldn't care less and she and Bartlett are just business partners and nothing else. Perhaps she's a dyke after all. Or maybe she's just frigid like a lot of them. How sad!

"How do you like Hong Kong, Miss Casey?" Mata asked, wondering what she would be like in bed.

"Afraid I haven't seen much of it yet though I did go out to the New Territories on the hotel tour and peek into China."

"Would you like to go? I mean really go into China? Say to Canton? I could arrange for you to be invited."

She was shocked. "But we're forbidden to go into China... our passports aren't valid."

"Oh, you wouldn't have to use your passport. The PRC doesn't bother with passports. So few quai loh go into China there's no problem. They give you a written visa and they stamp that."

"But our State Department... I don't think I'd risk it right now."

Bartlett nodded. "We're not even supposed to go into the Communist store here. The department store."

"Yes, your government really is very strange," Mata said. "As if going into a store is subversive! Did you hear the rumour about the Hilton?"

"What about it?"

"The story is that they bought a marvellous collection of Chinese antiques for the new hotel, of course all locally. " Mata smiled. "It seems that now the U. S. has decided they can't use any of it, even here in Hong Kong. It's all in storage. At least that's the story."

"It figures. If you can't make it in the States, you join the government," Bartlett said sourly.

"Casey, you should decide for yourself," Mata said. "Visit the store. It's called China Arts and Crafts on Queen's Road. The prices are very reasonable and the Communists really don't have horns and barbed tails."

"It's nothing like what I expected," Bartlett said. "Casey, you'd freak out at some of the things."

"You've been?" she asked, surprised.

"Sure."

"I took Mr. Bartlett this morning," Orlanda explained. "We happened to be passing. I'd be glad to go shopping with you if you wish."

"It looked like an ordinary store to me, Casey," Bartlett said. "I didn't see anything except a few posters of Mao. You can't bargain though. All prices're written out. Some of the biggest bargains you ever did see. Pity we can't take them back home." There was a total embargo on all goods of Chinese origin into the States, even antiques that had been in Hong Kong a hundred years.

"That's no problem," Mata said at once, wondering how much he would make as a middleman. "If there's anything you want I'd be happy to purchase it."

"But we still can't get it into the States, Mr. Mata," Casey said.

"Oh that's easy too. I do it for American friends all the time. I just send their purchases to a company I have in Singapore or Manila. For a tiny fee they send it to you in the States with a certificate of origin, Malaya or the Philippines, whichever you'd prefer."

"But that'd be cheating. Smuggling."

Mata, Gavallan and Orlanda laughed outright and Gavallan said, "Trade's the grease of the world. Embargoed goods from the U. S. or Taiwan find their way to the PRC, PRC goods go to Taiwan and the U. S.—if they're sought after. Of course they do!"

"I know," Casey said, "but I don't think that's right."

"Soviet Russia's committed to your destruction but you still trade with her," Gavallan said to Bartlett.

"We don't ourselves," Casey said. "Not Par-Con, though we've been approached to sell computers. Much as we like profits they're a no-no. The government does, but only on very carefully controlled goods. Wheat, things like that."

"Wherever there's a willing buyer of anything, there'll always be a seller," Gavallan said, irritated by her. He glanced out of the windows and wished he was back in Shanghai. "Take Vietnam, your Algiers."

"Sir?" Casey said.

Gavallan glanced back at her. "I mean that Vietnam will bleed your economy to death as it did to France and as Algiers also did to France."

"We'll never go into Vietnam," Bartlett said confidently. "Why should we? Vietnam's nothing to do with us."

"I agree," Mata said, "but nevertheless the States is having a growing involvement there. In fact, Mr. Bartlett, I think you're being sucked into the abyss."

"In what way?" Casey asked.

"I think the Soviets have deliberately enticed you into Vietnam. You'll send in troops but they won't. You'll be fighting Viets and the jungle, and the Soviets will be the winners. Your CIA's already there in strength. They're running an airline. Even now airfields are being constructed with U. S. money, U. S. arms are pouring in. You've soldiers fighting there already."

"I don't believe it,!' Casey said.

"You can. They're called Special Forces, sometimes Delta Force. So sorry but Vietnam's going to be a big problem for your government unless it's very smart."

Bartlett said confidently, "Thank God it is. JFK handled Cuba. He'll handle Vietnam too. He made the Big K back off there and he can do it again. We won that time. The Soviets took their missiles out."

Gavallan was grimly amused. "You should talk to Ian about Cuba, old chap, that really gets him going. He says, and I agree, you lost. The Soviets sucked you into another trap. A fool's mate. He believes they built their sites almost openly—wanting you to detect them and you did and then there was a lot of sabre-rattling, the whole world's frightened to death, and in exchange for the Soviet agreement to take the missiles out of Cuba your President tore up your Monroe Doctrine, the cornerstone of your whole security system."

"What?"

Casey looked at Bartlett, shocked. "But surely, Linc, surely that's not right."

Bartlett was as shocked. "I guess... if you think about it, Casey, I guess.... It sure as hell cost them nothing."

"lan's convinced of it," Gavallan said. "Talk to him. As to Vietnam, no one here thinks President Kennedy can handle that either, much as we admire him personally. Asia's not like Europe, or the Americas. They think differently here, act differently and have different values."

There was a sudden silence. Bartlett broke it. "You think there'll be war then?"

Gavallan glanced at him. "Nothing for you to worry about. Par-Con should do very well. You've heavy industry, computers, poly-urethane foam, government contracts into aerospace, petrochemicals, sonics, wireless equipment... With your goods and our expertise if there's a war, well, the sky's the limit."

"I don't think I'd like to profit that way," Casey said, irritated by him. "That's a lousy way to earn a buck."

Gavallan turned on her. "A lot of things on this earth are lousy, and wrong and unfair...." He was going to give her both barrels, infuriated with the way she kept interrupting his conversation with Bartlett but he decided that now was not the time, nor the place, so he said pleasantly, "But of course you're right. No one wants to profit from death. If you'll excuse me I'll be going.... You know everyone has place cards? Dinner'll start any moment. Matter of face."

He walked off.

Casey said, "I don't think he likes me at all."

They laughed at the way she said it. "What you said was right, Casey,"

Orlanda told her. "You were right. War is terrible."

"You were here during it?" Casey asked innocently.

"Yes, but in Macao. I'm Portuguese. My mother told me it wasn't too bad there. The Japanese didn't trouble Macao because Portugal was neutral." Orlanda added sweetly, "Of course I'm only twenty-five now so I hardly remember any of it. I was not quite seven when the war ended. Macao's nice, Casey. So different from Hong Kong. You and Linc might like to go there. It's worth seeing. I'd love to be your guide."

I'll bet, Casey thought, feeling her twenty-six was old against Orlanda who had the skin of a seventeen-year-old. "That'd be great. But Lando, what's with Andrew? Why was he so teed off? Because I'm a woman VP and all that?"

"I doubt that. I'm sure you exaggerate," Mata said. "It's just that he's not very pro-American and it drives him mad that the British Empire's no more, that the U.S. is arbiter of the world's fate and making obvious mistakes, he thinks. Most British people agree with him, I'm afraid! It's part jealousy of course. But you must be patient with Andrew. After all, your government did give away Hong Kong in '45 to Chiang—only the British navy stopped that. America did side with Soviet Russia against them over Suez, did support the Jews against them in Palestine—there are dozens of examples. It's also true lots of us here think your present hostility to China's ill-advised."

"But they're as Communist as Russia. They went to war against us when we were only trying to protect freedom in South Korea. We weren't going to attack them."

"But historically, China's always crossed the Yalu when any foreign invader approached that border. Always. Your MacArthur was supposed to be a historian," Mata said patiently, wondering if she was as naive in bed, "he should have known. He—or your President—forced China into a path it did not want to take. I'm absolutely sure of that."

"But we weren't invaders. North Korea invaded the South. We just wanted to help a people be free. We'd nothing to gain from South Korea. We spend billions trying to help people stay free. Look what China did to Tibet—to India last year. Seems to me we're always the fall guy and all we want is to protect freedom." She stopped as a murmur of relief went through the room and people began heading for their tables. Waiters bearing silver-domed platters were trooping in. "Thank God! I'm starving!"

"Me too," Bartlett said.

"Shitee's early tonight," Mata said with a laugh. "Orlanda, you should have warned them it's an old custom always to have a snack before any of Shitee's banquets."

Orlanda just smiled her lovely smile and Casey said, "Orlanda warned Linc, who told me, but I figured I could last." She looked at her enemy who was almost half a head shorter, about five foot three. For the first time in her life she felt big and oafish. Be honest, she reminded herself, ever since you walked out of the hotel into the streets and saw all the Chinese girls and women with their tiny hands and feet and bodies and smallness, all dark-eyed and dark-haired, you've felt huge and alien. Yes. Now I can understand why they all gape at us so much. And as for the ordinary tourist, loud, overweight, waddling along...

Even so, Orlanda Ramos, as pretty as you are and as clever as you think you are, you're not the girl for Linc Bartlett. So you can blow it all out of your ass! "Next time, Orlanda," she said so nicely, "I'll remember to be very cautious about what you recommend."

"I recommend we eat, Casey. I'm hungry too."

Mata said, "I do believe we're all at the same table. I must confess I arranged it." Happily he led the way, more than ever excited by the challenge of getting Casey into bed. The moment he had seen her he had decided. Part of it was her beauty and tallness and beautiful breasts, such a welcome contrast to the smallness and sameness of the normal Asian girl. Part was because of the clues Orlanda had given him. But the biggest part had been his sudden thought that by breaking the Bartlett-Casey connection he might wreck Par-Con's probe into Asia. Far better to keep Americans and their hypocritical, impractical morality and meddling out of our area as long as we can, he had told himself. And if Dunross doesn't have the Par-Con deal, then he will have to sell me the control I want. Then, at long last, *I* become the tai-pan of the Noble House, all the Dunrosses and Struans notwithstanding.

Madonna, life is really very good. Curious that this woman could be the key to the best lock in Asia, he thought. Then he added contentedly, Clearly she can be bought. It's only a matter of how much.

Mata and Orlanda helped Casey and Bartlett. Fleur and Peter Marlowe were the only other Europeans at their table. The Chinese presented their visiting cards and received others in exchange. "Oh you can eat with chopsticks!" All the Chinese were openly astonished, then slid comfortably back into Cantonese, the bejewelled women clearly discussing Casey and Bartlett and the Marlowes. Their comments were slightly guarded only because of Lando Mata and Orlanda.

"What're they saying, Orlanda?" Bartlett asked quietly amid the noisy exuberance particularly of the Chinese.

"They're just wondering about you and Miss Casey," she said as cautiously, not translating the lewd remarks about the size of Casey's chest, the wondering where her clothes came from, how much they cost, why she didn't wear any jewellery, and what it must be like to be so tall. They were saying little about Bartlett other than wondering out loud if he was really Mafia as one of the Chinese papers had suggested.

Orlanda was sure he wasn't. But she was sure also that she would have to be very circumspect in front of Casey, neither too forward nor too slow, and never to touch him. And to be sweet to her, to try to throw her off her stride.

Fresh plates for each course were laid with a clatter, the used ones whisked away. Waiters hurried to the dumbwaiters in the central section by the staircase to dispose of the old and grab steaming platters of the new.

The kitchens, three decks below, were an inferno with the huge four-feet-wide iron woks fired with gas that was piped aboard. Some woks for steaming, some for quick frying, some for deep frying, some for stewing, and many for the pure white rice. An open, wood-fired barbecue. An army of helpers for the twenty-eight cooks were preparing the meats and vegetables, plucking chickens, killing fresh fish and lobsters and crabs and cleaning them, doing the thousand tasks that Chinese food requires—as each dish is cooked freshly for each customer.

The restaurant opened at 10:00 A.M. and the kitchen closed at 10:45 P.M.—sometimes later when a special party was arranged. There could be dancing and a floor show if the host was rich enough. Tonight, though there was no late shift or floor show or dancing, they all knew that their share of the tip from Shitee T'Chung's banquet would be very good. Shitee T'Chung was an expansive host, though most of them believed that much of the charity money he collected went into his stomach or those of his guests or onto the backs of his lady friends. He also had the reputation of being ruthless to his detractors, a miser to his family, and vengeful to his enemies.

Never mind, the head chef thought. A man needs soft lips and hard teeth in this world and everyone knows which will last the longer. "Hurry up!" he shouted. "Can I wait all manure-infested night? Prawns! Bring the prawns!" A sweating helper in ragged pants and ancient, sweaty undershirt rushed up with a bamboo platter of the freshly caught and freshly peeled prawns. The chef cast them into the vast wok, added a handful of monosodium gluta-mate, whisked them twice and scooped them out, put a handful of steaming peapods on two platters and divided up the pink, glistening succulent prawns on top equally.

"All gods urinate on all prawns!" he said sourly, his stomach ulcer paining him, his feet and calves leaden from his ten-hour shift. "Send those upstairs before they spoil! Dew neh loh moh hurry... that's my last order. It's time to go home!"

Other cooks were shouting last orders and cursing as they cooked. They were all impatient to be gone. "Hurry it up!" Then one young helper carrying a pot of used fat stumbled and the fat sprayed onto one of the gas fires, caught with a whoosh and there was sudden pandemonium. A cook screamed as the fire surrounded him and he beat at it, his face and hair singed. Someone threw a bucket of water on the fire and spread it violently. Flames soared to the rafters, billowing smoke. Shouting, shoving cooks moving out of the fire were causing a bottleneck. The acrid, black, oil smoke began to fill the air.

The man nearest the single narrow staircase to the first deck grabbed one of the two fire extinguishers and slammed the plunger down and pointed the nozzle at the fire. Nothing happened. He did it again then someone else grabbed it from him with a curse, tried unsuccessfully to make it work, and cast it aside. The other extinguisher was also a dud. The staff had never bothered to test them.

"All gods defecate on these motherless foreign devil inventions!" a cook wailed and prepared to flee if the fire approached him. A frightened coolie choking on the smoke at the other end of the kitchen backed away from a shaft of flame into some jars and toppled them. Some contained thousand-year-old eggs and others sesame oil. The oil flooded the floor and caught fire. The coolie vanished in the sudden sheet of flame. Now the fire owned half the kitchen.

It was well past eleven o'clock and most diners had already left. The top deck of the Floating Dragon was still partially filled. Most of the Chinese, Four Finger Wu and Venus Poon among them, were walking out or had already left as the last course had already been served long since and it was polite Chinese custom to leave as soon as the last dish was finished, table by table. Only the Europeans were lingering over Cognac or port, and cigars.

Throughout the boat, tables of mah-jong were being set up by Chinese, and the clitter-clatter of the ivory tiles banging on the tables began to dominate.

"Do you play mah-jong, Mr. Bartlett?" Mata asked.

"No. Please call me Linc."

"You should learn—it's better than bridge. Do you play bridge, Casey?"

Linc Bartlett laughed. "She's a wiz, Lando. Don't play her for money."

"Perhaps we can have a game sometime. You play, don't you, Orlanda?" Mata said, remembering Gornt was an accomplished player. "Yes, a little," Orlanda said softly and Casey thought grimly, I'll bet the bitch's a wiz too. "I'd love a game," Casey said sweetly.

"Good," Mata said. "One day next week... oh, hello, tai-pan!" Dunross greeted them all with his smile. "How did you enjoy the food?"

"It was fantastic!" Casey said, happy to see him and greatly aware of how handsome he looked in his tuxedo. "Would you like to join us?"