James clavell

Dunross heard the phone put down. A radio was playing in the background. Indeterminate sounds that might be muffled voices. His heart was racing. The waiting seemed to go on forever. Then the phone was picked up again.

"Sorry, tai-pan. Please send those copies early—would after your morning meeting be convenient?"

"Yes, yes certainly."

"Please give Mr. David MacStruan my best wishes when he arrives."

Dunross almost dropped the phone but recovered in time. "I'm sure he would wish me to return them. How is Mr. Yu?" he asked, stabbing in the dark, wanting to scream down the phone "What about the money?" But he was heavily engaged in a Chinese negotiation. His caution increased.

Another silence. "Fine," Tiptop said but Dunross had heard a different tone. "Oh, that reminds me," Tiptop was saying, "Mr. Yu phoned from Canton this afternoon. He would like to bring the date of your meeting forward, if that's possible. To two weeks tomorrow, Monday."

Dunross thought a moment. That was the week he would be in Japan with Toda Shipping negotiating his whole buy-lease-back scheme that, now that First Central was backing him, would have an enormous chance of success. "That Monday's difficult. The following one would be better for me. Could I confirm to you by Friday?"

"Yes, certainly. Well, I won't keep you anymore, tai-pan."

Dunross's tension became almost unbearable now that the final stage had been reached. He listened intently to the pleasant, friendly voice.

"Thank you for your information. I presume that that poor fellow will be at Lo Wu border by sunset. Oh, by the way, if the necessary bank papers are brought in person by Mr. Havergill, yourself and the governor at 9:00 A.M. tomorrow, a half a billion dollars of cash can be transferred to the Victoria immediately."

Instantly Dunross saw through the ploy. "Thank you," he said easily, avoiding the trap. "Mr. Havergill and I will be there. Unfortunately I understand the governor has been ordered by the prime minister's office to remain at Government House until noon, for consultations. But I will bring his authority and chop, guaranteeing the loan," he added, for of course, it would be impossible for the governor to go personally, cap in hand, like a common debtor and so create an unacceptable precedent. "I presume that will be satisfactory."

Tiptop's voice was almost a purr. "I'm sure the bank would be prepared to delay until noon to accommodate the governor's duty."

"Before and after noon he will be on the streets with the riot police, Mr. Tip, and the army, directing possible procedures against misguided riots stirred up by hegemonists. He is of course commander-in-chief, Hong Kong."

Tiptop's voice sharpened. "Surely even a commander-in-chief can take a few precious moments for what is obviously such an important matter?"

"It would be his pleasure, I'm sure," Dunross said, unafraid, knowing the art of Asian negotiation, prepared for rage, honey and everything in between. "But the protection of the Middle Kingdom's interest as well as that of the Colony would be uppermost in his mind. I'm sure, regretfully, he would have to refuse until the emergency was over."

There was a hostile silence. "Then what would you suggest?"

Again Dunross sidestepped the trap, leaping to the next level. "Oh, by the way, his aide-de-camp asked me to mention that his Excellency is having a party for a few of our most important Chinese citizens at the races next Saturday and he wondered if you would happen to be in the Colony so he could send you an invitation?" He held on to his hope. Putting it that way gave Tiptop the option of accepting or refusing without loss of face—and, at the same time, protected the face of the governor who would thus avoid sending such a politically important invitation that might be refused. Dunross smiled to himself, since the governor knew nothing yet about this important party he would be giving.

Another silence while Tiptop considered the political implications. "Please thank him for his consideration. I believe I will be here. May I confirm it Tuesday?"

"I will be glad to pass your message on." Dunross considered mentioning Brian Kwok but decided to leave that in limbo. "Will you be at the bank at 9:00 A.M., Mr. Tip?"

"Oh no. It is really nothing to do with me. I'm merely an interested bystander." Another silence. "Your representatives should see the chief manager."

Dunross sighed, all his senses honed. No mention of the governor's physical presence. Have I won? "I wonder if someone could confirm to Radio Hong Kong, in time for tonight's nine o'clock news, that the Bank of China is extending the Colony an immediate credit of one half a billion dollars of cash."

Another silence. "Oh I'm sure that's not necessary, Mr. Dunross," Tiptop said and now, for the first time, there was a chuckle in his voice. "Surely the word of the tai-pan of the Noble House is sufficient for a simple capitalist radio station. Good night."

Dunross put down the phone. His fingers were trembling. There was an ache in his back and his heart was pounding. "Half a billion dollars!" he muttered, his mind blown. "No paper, no chop, no handshake, a few phone calls, a little negotiation and one half a billion dollars will be available for transfer by truck at 9:00 A.M.! We've won! Murtagh's money and now China's! Yes. But how to use this knowledge to the best advantage? How? he asked himself helplessly. No point in going to Plumm's now. What to do? What to do?

His knees felt weak, his mind was buzzing with plan and counter-plan. Then his pent-up excitement erupted in a huge bellow that ricocheted off his study walls, and he jumped up and down and let out another war cry that melted into a laugh. He went into the bathroom to splash water on his face. He ripped off his soaking shirt, not bothering about the buttons and threw it into a trash can. The study door whirled open. Adryon rushed in, white-faced and anxious. "Father!"

"Good God what s up?" Dunross said, aghast.

"What's up with you? I heard you shout like a mad bull. Are you all right?"

"Oh, oh yes I'm, I, er, I just stubbed my toe!" Dunross's happiness exploded again and he caught her up, lifting her easily. "Thank you, my darling, everything's fine! Oh very fine!"

"Oh, thank God," she said and at once added, "Then I can have my own flat starting next month?"

"Ye—" He caught himself just in time. "Oh no you don't, Miss Smarty Pants. Just because I'm happy th—"

"But Father, do—"

"No. Thank you, Adryon, but no. Off you go!"

She glared at him then burst out laughing. "I almost caught you that time!"

"Yes, yes you did! Don't forget Duncan's in tomorrow on the Qantas noon flight."

"I won't, don't worry. I'll meet him. It'll be fun to have Dune back, haven't had a good game of billiards since he left. Where're you off to now?"

"I was going to Plumm's at Rose Court to celebrate the General Foods takeover but I don't th—"

"Martin thought that was a wonderful coup! If the stock market doesn't crash. I told the silly man you were bound to arrange everything."

All at once Dunross realised that Plumm's party would be the ideal place. Gornt would be there, Phillip Chen and all the others. Gornt! Now I can put that bugger away for all time, he told himself, his heart racing. "Is Murtagh still downstairs?"

"Oh yes. We were just leaving. He's dreamy."

Dunross turned away to hide a smile and grabbed a clean silk shirt. "Could you hang on a second? I've got some rather good news for him."

"All right." She came over to him, big blue eyes. "My own flat for a Christmas present, pretty please?"

"After university, if you qualify, off you go!"

"Christmas. I'll love you forever."

He sighed, remembering how upset and frightened she had been seeing Gornt in the billiards room. Perhaps I can give you a present of his head tomorrow, he thought. "Not this Christmas, next!"

She hurled her arms around his neck. "Oh thank you Daddy darling but this Christmas, please please please."

"No, because yo—"

"Please please please!"

"All right. But don't tell your mother I agreed for God's sake! She'll skin me alive!"

A new clean towel and feeling grand, never before knowing the wonder of a real afterward—her gentle ministrations, tender, loving, unself-conscious, the tiny crucifix around her neck her only adornment. He had noticed it glinting in the half-light. Its implications had begun to seep into his brain but somehow, all at once, she was caressing the alien thoughts away with magic hands and touch and lips until, in time, they had both become one with the gods again and, through their generosity, slid into euphoria—and thence into sleep again.

Idly he watched the curtains that fell from the ceiling waver in the air currents, their surrounding embrace making the bed more intimate, the patterns against the light of the window pleasing, everything pleasing. He lay still, not wishing to move to awaken her, not wanting to break the spell, her breath soft against his chest, her sleep face blemishless.

What to do, what to do, what to do?

Nothing, for the moment, he answered himself. The airplane's free, you're free, she's unbelievable and no woman's ever pleased you more. Never. But can it last, could it last—and then there's Casey.

Bartlett sighed. Orlanda moved again in her sleep. He waited but she did not awaken.

His eyes were mesmerised by the patterns, his spirit at rest. It was neither hot nor cold in the room; everything was perfect, her weight imperceptible. What is it about her? he asked himself. What causes the spell, because sure as death and taxes you're under a spell, enchanted. We've pillowed, that's all, I've made no promises and yet... You're enchanted, old buddy.

Yes. And it's wonderful.

He closed his eyes and drifted into sleep.

When Orlanda awoke she was careful not to move. She did not want to awaken him, both for his pleasure and for hers. And she wanted time to think. Sometimes she would do that in Gornt's arms but she knew it was not the same, would never be the same. Always she had been afraid of Quillan, on guard, desperately wanting to please, wondering if she had forgotten anything. No, she thought in ecstasy, this pillowing was better than I ever remember it with Quillan, oh so much better. Linc's so clean and no smoke taste, just clean and wonderful and I promise by the Madonna I will make him a perfect wife, I'll be the best that ever was. I will use my mind and hands and lips and body to please and to satisfy and there will be nothing he needs that I will not do. Nothing. Everything that Quillan taught me I will do for Linc, even the things I did not enjoy, I will enjoy now with Linc. My body and soul will be an instrument for his pleasure, and for mine, when he's learned.

She smiled to herself, curled up in his arms. Linc's technique is nothing in comparison with Quillan's but what my darling lacks in skill he more than makes up with strength and vigour. And tenderness. He has magic hands and lips for me. Never never never before was it ever like this.

"Pillowing's just the beginning of sex, Orlanda," Gornt had said. "You can become an enchantress. You can fill a man with such an unquenchable longing that, through you, he will understand all life." But to reach ecstasy you have to seek it and work for it.

Oh I will seek it for Linc. By the Madonna I will put my mind and my heart and my soul to his life. When he's angry I will turn it into calm. Didn't I stop Quillan's anger a thousand times by being gentle? Isn't it wonderful to have so much power, and oh so easy once I had learned, so very easy and perfect and satisfying.

I will read all the best papers and train my mind, and after the Clouds and the Rain I will not speak, just caress, not to arouse but just for pleasure and I'll never say, "Tell me you love me!" but say only, "Linc I love you." And long before the bloom is off my skin I will have sons to excite him and daughters to delight him and then, long before I'm no longer exciting to him, I will very carefully arrange another for his pleasure, a dullard with beautiful breasts and tight rump and I will be suitably amused and benign—and compassionate when he fails, for, by then he will be much older and less virile and my hands will control the money and I will be ever more essential. And when he tires of the first I will find another, and we will live out our lives, yang and yin, the yin ever dominating the yang!

And one day he will ask to go to Portugal to see my daughter and I will refuse the first time and the second and the third and then we will go—if I have our son in my arms. Then he will see her and love her too, and that spectre will be laid to rest forever.

Orlanda sighed, feeling wonderful, weightless, with his head resting comfortably against her chest. Pillowing without precautions is so much more glorious, she thought. Ecstasy. Oh so wonderful to feel the surge, knowing you're young and fertile and ready, giving yourself totally, deliberately, praying to create a new life—his life and yours joined forever. Oh yes.

Yes but have you been wise? Have you? Say he leaves you? The only other time in your life you deliberately left yourself free was that single month with Quillan. But that was with permission. This time you have none.

Say Linc leaves you. Perhaps he'll be furious and tell you to stop the child!

He won't, she told herself with complete confidence. Linc's not Quillan. There's nothing to worry about. Nothing. Madonna, please help me! All gods help me! Let his seed grow, oh please please please, I beg you with all my heart.

Bartlett stirred and half awoke. "Orlanda?"

"Yes, my darling, I'm here. Oh how wonderful you are!" She cradled him happily, so glad that she had given her amah the day and the night away. "Go back to sleep, we've all the time in the world, sleep."

"Yes but..."

"Sleep. In a little while I'm going to fetch some Chinese food an—"

"Maybe you'd like t—"

"Sleep, my darling. Everything's arranged."

"Eeeeee, the Fat One's going to catch his fornicating foot in the scaffolding," he chortled, "and the—"

"And the Thin One's going to hit him with the plank! Eeeeee."

They both laughed at the routine they had seen a hundred times in a hundred re-re-reruns of the old black-and-white movies. Then the film ended and Venus Poon reappeared to announce the next program and he sighed. She was looking directly at him from the box and he—along with every other male viewer—was certain that her smile was for him alone, and though he did not understand her English, he understood her very well. His eyes were glued to her breasts that had fascinated him for hours, examining them closely, never seeing or feeling a sign of the surgical interference that all Hong Kong whispered about.

"I attest your tits are blemishless, certainly the biggest and best I've ever touched," he had volunteered importantly, still mounted, the night before last.

"You're just saying that to please your poor impoverished Daughter oh oh oh!"

"Impoverished? Ha! Didn't Banker Kwang give you that miserable fur yesterday and I hear he added an extra 1,000 to his monthly check! And me, didn't I supply the winner of the first, third and the runner-up in the fifth? 30,000 those brought you minus 15 percent for my informant—for less effort than it takes me to fart!"

"P'shaw! That 25,800 HK's not worth talking about, I have to buy my own wardrobe, a new costume every day! My public demands it, I have my public to think of."

They had argued back and forth until, feeling the moment of truth approaching, he had asked her to move her buttocks more vigorously. She had obliged with such enthusiasm that he was left a husk. When at length he had miraculously recovered his spirit from the Void he choked out, "Ayeeyah, Little Strumpet, if you can do that one more time I'll give you a diamond ring the—no, no, not now by all the gods! Am I a god? Not now, Little Mealy Mouth, no, not now and not tomorrow but the next day...."

And now it was the next day. Elated and filled with anticipation he watched her on television, all smiles and dimples as she said good night and the new program began. Tonight was her early night and in his mind he could almost see her hurry out of the TV station to his waiting Rolls, sure that she would be just as anxious. He had sent Paul Choy with the Rolls to escort her to the station tonight, to talk English with her, to ensure she arrived safely and returned quickly. And then, after their new bout, the Rolls would take them to the barbarian eating palace in the barbarian hotel with its foul barbarian food and foul smells but one of the places where all the tai-pans go, and all important, civilised persons go with their wives—and, when their wives were busy, with their whores—so he could show off his mistress and how rich he was to all Hong Kong, and she could show off the diamond.

"Ayeeyah, " he chortled out loud.

"Eh, Honoured Lord?" the amah asked suspiciously. "What's amiss?"

"Nothing, nothing. Please give me some brandy."

"My mistress doesn't like the brandy smell!"

"Huh, old woman, give me brandy. Am I a fool? Am I a barbarian from the Outer Provinces? Of course I have fragrant tea leaves to chew before our bout. Brandy!"

She went off grumbling but he paid her no attention—she was just trying to protect her mistress's interests and that was perfectly correct.

His fingers touched the small box in his pocket. He had purchased the ring this morning, wholesale, from a first cousin who owed him a favour. The stone was worth 48,000 at least though the real cost was barely half that amount, the quality blue-white and excellent, the carats substantial.

Another bout like the last one will be well worth it, he thought ecstatically, though a little uneasily. Oh yes. Eeee, that last time I thought my spirit was truly gone forever into the Void, taken by the gods at the height of all life! Eeee, how lucky I would be to go thence, at that exact moment! Yes, but more wonderful to come back to storm the Jade Gate again and again and once more!

He laughed out loud, daring the gods, very content. Today had been excellent for him. He had met secretly with Smuggler Yuen and White Powder Lee and they had elected him chief of their new Brotherhood, which was only right, he thought. Hadn't he supplied the link to the marketplace through the foreign devil Ban—whatever his name was—because he had lent money to Number One Son Chen who, in return for such favours, had proposed the gun into opium scheme to him but had had the stupidity to be kidnapped and now murdered? Oh yes. And wasn't he meeting with the same foreign devil in Macao next week to arrange finances, payments, to set into motion the whole vast operation? Of course he should be High Tiger, of course he should have the most profit! With their combined expertise—and Profitable Choy's modern techniques—he could revolutionise the smuggling of the opium into Hong Kong, and once here, revolutionise the conversion of the raw narcotic into the immensely profitable White Powders, and finally, the means of export to the markets of the world. Now that Paul Choy was already in the shipping and air freighting department of Second Big Company and two grandsons of Yuen, also American trained, in their customs broking operation—and another four English university-trained relations of White Powder Lee placed within Noble House's Kai Tak go-down operations and All Asia Air's loading and unloading division, imports and exports would be ever safer, easier and ever more profitable.

They had discussed whom they would co-opt in the police, particularly Marine.

"None of the barbarians, never one of those fornicators," White Powder Lee had said hotly. "They won't support us, never. Not in drugs. We must use only the Dragons."

"Agreed. All the Dragons have all been approached and all will cooperate. All except Tang-po of Kowloon."

"We must have Kowloon, he's senior and Marine operates from there. Is he holding out for a better deal personally? Or is he against us?"

"I don't know. At the moment." Four Fingers had shrugged. "Tang-po is up to the High Dragon to solve. The High Dragon has agreed, so it is agreed."

Yes, Four Fingers thought, I outsmarted them to make me High Tiger and I outsmarted Profitable Choy on my money. I didn't give the young fornicator control of my fortune to gamble with as he thought I would. Oh no! I'm not that much of a fool! I only let him have 2 million and promised him 17 percent of all profit—let's see what he can do with that. Yes. Let's see what he can do with that!

The old man's heart picked up and he scratched himself. I'll bet the cunning young man'll triple it within the week, he told himself gleefully, not a little awed—the diamond paid for by his son's wits from the first profit on the stock sale, and a year of Venus Poon already allocated from the same source and not a copper cash of his own capital to lay out! Eeeee! And the cunning schemes Profitable comes up with! Like the one to deal with the tai-pan tomorrow when we meet.

Anxiously his fingers reached up and touched the half-coin that was on the heavy thong around his neck under his shirt, a coin like that his illustrious ancestor, Wu Fang Choi, had called upon to claim a clipper ship to rival the finest in Dirk Struan's fleet. But Wu Fang Choi, he thought grimly, had been the fool—he had never demanded safe passage for the ship as part of his favour and so had been outsmarted by the Green-Eyed Devil, the tai-pan.

Yes, by all the gods, it was Wu Fang Choi's own fault he lost. But he didn't lose everything. He hunted down that hunchback called Stride Orlov who ruled the ships of the Noble House for Culum the Weak. His men caught Orlov ashore in Singapore and brought him in chains to Taiwan where his headquarters were. There he tied him to a post, just at high-water mark, and drowned him very slowly.

I won't be foolish like Wu Fang Choi. No. I will make sure my ask from this tai-pan is watertight.

Tomorrow, the tai-pan will agree to open his ships to my cargoes—secretly of course; will agree to open some of the Noble House accounts for me to hide in—secretly of course, though to his great profit; will agree, equally secretly, to finance with me the vast new pharmaceutical plant that, oh ko, Profitable Choy says will be the perfect, legitimate undetectable narcotic smoke screen for me and mine forever; and last, the tai-pan will intercede with the half-person, Lando Mata, and choose my name and my suggested syndicate to replace the existing Macao gold and gambling syndicate of Tightfist Tung and the Chin, and he, the tai-pan, he will promise to be part of it.