Chapter Two

1

The fat man, sweat beads on his balding head, leaned forward to look out of the window as the “No Smoking” sign flashed up.

“Well, here we are – Hong Kong,” he said over his shoulder. “Looks pretty good. They say there’s no place quite like it on earth. Could be they are right.”

As his big head was cutting off my view, I busied myself with my safety-belt. Finally when he leaned back to fix his own belt, I managed to catch a glimpse of green mountains, the sparkling blue sea and a couple of junks before we were bumping gently along the runway. The fat man who had been my companion from Honolulu, reached up to collect a camera and a Pan-Am overnight bag.

“Are you staying at the Peninsula?” he asked me.

“I’m on the other side.”

His sweating face showed disapproval. “Kowloon’s better: better shops, better hotels, but maybe you’re here on business?”

“That’s right,” I said. The explanation seemed to satisfy him.

The other passengers in the aircraft began to collect their hand luggage. The usual polite pushing and shoving went on for a while before I could squeeze myself out into the hot sunshine.

It had been a good trip, slightly over-long, but I had enjoyed it.

Ten minutes later, I was through the Customs and out into the noisy, bustling approach to the airport. I saw my fat companion being whisked away in a tiny hotel bus. He waved to me and I waved back. Half a dozen or so rickshaw boys converged on me, shouting and waving anxiously. Their old, yellow, dried-up faces were imploring. As I stood hesitating, a broad, squat Chinese, neatly dressed in a city suit, came over to me and gave me a little bow.

“Excuse me, please,” he said. “Perhaps I can help you? You would like a taxi?”

“I want to get to the Celestial Empire Hotel at Wanchai,” I said.

“That will be on the island, sir.” He looked slightly surprised in a polite way. “It would be best to take a taxi to the ferry and cross to Wanchai. The hotel is close to the ferry station on the other side.”

“Thanks a lot,” I said. “Will the driver speak English?”

“Most of them can understand a little English.” He signalled to a taxi at the head of the rank. “If you will permit me…”

He went on ahead. I picked up my bag and went after him. He spoke to the driver in what was probably Cantonese. The driver, a lean dirty-looking Chinese, grunted, glanced at me, then away.

“He will take you to the ferry, sir,” the squat man said. “The fare will be one dollar: not an American dollar, you understand, but a Hong Kong dollar. As you will probably know there are approximately six Hong Kong dollars to the American dollar.” He beamed at me. Every tooth in his head seemed to be capped with gold. “You will have no trouble in finding the hotel on the other side. It is opposite the ferry station.” He hesitated, then added apologetically, “You know this particular hotel is scarcely for American gentlemen? Forgive the interference, but most American gentlemen prefer to stay at the Gloucester or the Peninsula. The Celestial Empire is for Asians.”

“Yeah, but that’s where I’m staying,” I said. “Thanks for your help.”

“You are welcome, sir,” he said, and taking a limp wallet from his pocket, he presented me with his card. “You may need a guide. It is my business to take care of American gentlemen when they visit Hong Kong. You have only to telephone…”

“Thanks. I’ll remember that.” I tucked the card under the strap of my wrist watch, then as he stepped back, bowing, I got into the taxi.

On the flight over I had boned up on Hong Kong, discovering the mainland where the Kai Tak airport is situated is called the Kowloon Peninsula and across the Straits is the island of Hong Kong, reached by fast ferry-boat service in four or five minutes.

Wanchai, where Jefferson had lived, was a waterfront district of Hong Kong.

The drive to the ferry took only a few minutes. The Kowloon waterfront teemed with jog-trotting humanity. There seemed to be about only one European to every hundred Chinese: the scene reminded me of a disturbed ants’ nest. Coolies, carrying fantastic burdens slung on duck bamboo poles, trotted in and out of the traffic, oblivious of the risk of being run down. Big American cars, driven by fat, sleek Chinese businessmen, rickshaw boys dragging crates and odd-looking merchandise in their two-wheeled chariots and heavy trucks crowded the broad street. Gay red signs in Chinese lettering decorated the shop fronts. Small, dirty Chinese children with babies strapped to their backs played in the gutters. Chinese families squatted on the sidewalk outside their shops, shovelling rice into their mouths with chopsticks.

At the ferry, I paid off the taxi, bought a ticket at the turnstile and got on the ferry-boat that was already crowded with Chinese business men, American tourists and a number of pretty Chinese girls wearing Cheongsams, slit either side to show off their shapely legs.

I got a seat by the rail and as the ferry-boat churned through the blue waters of the Straits towards the island of Hong Kong, I tried to orientate myself to my new surroundings. It seemed a long time since I had left Pasadena City. My journey had been delayed a couple of days because of my murderous visitor. I hadn’t told Retnick the whole story. I had told him I had walked into my apartment, found the punk there and had started a fight. What he was doing there, I lied, I had no idea – probably a sneak-thief. Retnick didn’t like it. Particularly, he didn’t like the silencer on the gun, but I stuck to my story and got away with it. At least, I was able to leave for Hong Kong and that was all I was worrying about.

I was pretty sure the man who had hired the punk to kill me had been the mysterious John Hardwick. I had bought another .38 police special. I told myself I mustn’t move without it in the future: something I promised myself, but quickly forgot.

The ferry-boat bumped against the landing-stage and everyone, including me, crowded off. Wanchai was nearly one hundred per cent Chinese. Apart from two burly American sailors who were chewing gum and staring emptily into space, the waterfront was given up to jog-trotting Chinese, coolies staggering under impossible burdens, vegetable vendors squatting on the kerb, Chinese children minding Chinese babies, a dozen or so young Chinese girls who stared at me with inviting, shrewd black eyes and the inevitable rickshaw boys who sprang into life at the sight of me.

Sandwiched between a shop selling watches and a shop selling cheap toys was the entrance to the Celestial Empire Hotel.

Lugging my bag, I managed to cross the road without getting run down and toiled up the steep, narrow stairs leading to the tiny hotel lobby.

Behind the counter at the head of the stairs sat an elderly Chinese wearing a black skull cap and a black tunic coat. Long straggly white hairs came from his chin. His almond-shaped eyes were as dull and as impersonal as black crêpe.

“I want a room,” I said, setting down my bag.

He eyed me over, taking his time. I wasn’t wearing my best suit and my shirt had suffered during the flight. I didn’t look like a bum, but I didn’t look a great deal better. He produced a dog-eared paperbound book which he offered me together with a ballpoint pen. The book contained nothing but Chinese characters. I wrote my name and nationality in the required spaces and gave him back the book and the pen. He then lifted a key from a rack and handed it to me. “Ten dollars,” he said. “Room Twenty-seven.”

I gave him ten Hong Kong dollars, took the key and as he waved his hand to the right-hand side of the narrow passage, I set off, lugging my bag. Halfway down the passage, a door opened and a thin, white American sailor, his cap set at a jaunty angle, stepped out in front of me. There was no room to pass so I turned sideways and waited. Behind him came a stocky Chinese girl wearing a pink Cheongsam, a bored expression on her flat face. She reminded me of a well-fed Pekinese dog. The sailor brushed past me, winking. The girl went after him. I walked on down the passage until I came to room twenty-seven. I sank the key into the lock, opened up and walked into a ten foot by ten foot room with a double bed, an upright chair, a cupboard, a wash-bowl standing on a set piece of white-painted furniture, a strip of worn carpet and a window giving onto a view of another building that was possibly a laundry, judging by the towels, sheets and odd underwear drying on bamboo poles projecting from the windows.

I put down my bag and sat on the hard bed. I was sweating and feeling grimy. I would have liked to have been at the Gloucester or the Peninsular where I could have had a deluxe shower and an ice-cold beer, but this was business. I hadn’t come this far to indulge in luxury. This was where Herman Jefferson and his Chinese wife had lived. If it had been good enough for them, it would have to be good enough for me.

After a while, I began to sweat less. I poured water into the cracked bowl and had a wash. Then I unpacked and put my stuff away in the cupboard. The hotel was very quiet. I could just hear the murmur of distant traffic, but nothing else. I looked at my strap watch. The time was twenty minutes to six. I saw the card the squat Chinese had given me tucked under the strap and I pulled it out and read the inscription. It said: Wong Hop Ho. English-speaking guide. There was a telephone number. I put the card in my wallet, then opening the door, I stepped into the passage.

A Chinese girl was leaning against the door-post of the room opposite. She was small, compactly and sturdily built: her glistening black hair was done up in a thick bun at the back of her neck. She was wearing a white blouse and a close-fitting bottle-green skirt. She was nice to look at without being sensational. She was looking directly at me as if she had been waiting patiently for some time for me to appear.

“Hello, mister,” she said with a wide, nice smile. “I’m Leila. What is your name?”

I liked her smile and I liked her dazzling strong white teeth.

“Nelson Ryan,” I said, closing my door and turning the key. “Just call me Nelson. Do you live here?”

“Yes.” Her friendly black eyes ran over me. “Few American gentlemen ever stay here. Are you staying here?”

“That’s the idea. Have you been here long?”

“Eighteen months.” She had a peculiar accent. I had to concentrate to understand what she said. She stared at me with that stare that meant what she meant. “When you want to make love, will you come and see me?”

I was fazzed for a moment, then I managed a smile. “I’ll remember, but don’t depend on it.”

A door farther up the passage opened and a fat little man who could be either Italian or French came out. He hurried by me, not looking at me. He was followed by a very young Chinese girl. I didn’t think she could have been more than sixteen, but it is hard to judge with these people. She gave me a hard, interested stare as she passed me. I was now under no illusion about the kind of hotel I had landed myself in.

Leila put her beautifully shaped hands under her tiny breasts and lifted them. “Would you like to come to me now?” she asked politely.

“Not right now,” I said. “I’m busy. Some other time perhaps.”

“American gentlemen are always busy,” she said. “Tonight perhaps?”

“I’ll let you know.”

She pouted.

“That really doesn’t mean anything. You will either come or you won’t.”

“That’s the idea,” I said. “Right now I have things to do,” and I went off down the passage to the lobby where the old Chinese reception clerk sat as stolid and as inevitable as Buddha. I went down the stairs and out into the crowded, heat-ridden street. A rickshaw boy came running over to me. “Police headquarters,” I told him as I climbed into the chair.

He set off at a jog-trot. After we had travelled two or three hundred yards, I realised the mistake of taking such a vehicle. The big, glossy cars and the trucks had no respect for rickshaws. Any second I felt I was going to be squashed either by a truck or by an over-large American car. I was relieved when we finally pulled up outside the Hong Kong Central Police Station, surprised to find I was still in one piece.

After stating my business to the desk sergeant, I finally got shown into a small, neat office where a Chief Inspector with grey hair and a military moustache regarded me with impersonal eyes as he waved me to a chair.

I told him who I was and he then told me who he was. His name was MacCarthy and he spoke with a strong Scottish accent.

“Jefferson?” He tilted back his chair and picked up a much-used, much-battered Dunhill pipe. As he began to fill it, he went on, “What’s all the excitement about? I’ve already dealt with an inquiry from Pasadena City about this man. What’s he to you?”

I told him I was acting for J. Wilbur Jefferson.

“I want to get as much information about his son and his Chinese wife as I can,” I said. “Anything you can tell me could be helpful.”

“The American Consul could be more helpful,” he said, lighting his pipe. He blew a cloud of expensive-smelling tobacco smoke towards me. “I don’t know much about him. He was killed in a car crash. You’ve heard about that?”

“How did it happen?”

He shrugged. “Driving too fast on a wet road. There wasn’t much to pick up when we found him. He was wedged in the car which had gone up in smoke.”

“No one with him?”

“No.”

“Where was he going?”

MacCarthy looked quizzingly at me.

“I don’t know. The accident took place about five miles outside Kowloon in the New Territories. He could be going anywhere.”

“Who identified him?”

He moved slightly, showing a degree of controlled patience. “His wife.”

“Can you fill me in on his background? How did he earn his living?”

“I don’t think I can.” He took the pipe out of his mouth and stared at the smoking bowl. “He wasn’t my headache fortunately. He kept clear of us. Out here we don’t interfere with people unless they make a nuisance of themselves and Jefferson was careful not to do that. Every so often we got word about him. He wasn’t a desirable citizen. There isn’t much doubt that he lived on the immoral earnings of his wife, but here again, we don’t interfere with an American citizen if we can help it.”

“Any angles on the girl?”

He puffed smoke and looked bored.

“She was a prostitute, of course. That is a problem we’re trying to cope with, but it isn’t easy. These refugee girls have great difficulty in earning a living: prostitution is the easiest way out for them. We are gradually cleaning up the city, but it is uphill work.”

“I’m trying to find out why she was murdered.”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“I can’t help you there.” He looked hopefully at a pile of papers on his desk. “I’ve given all the information I have about these two to Lieutenant Retnick. There’s nothing more I can add.”

I can take a hint as well as the next man. I stood up.

“Well, thanks. I’ll nose around. Maybe I’ll turn up something.”

“I doubt it.” He pulled the papers towards him. “If there’s anything I can do…”

I shook hands with him and went out onto the busy Queen’s Road. The time was now half past six. The American Consulate would be closed: not that I had much hope of getting any useful information about Jefferson or his wife from them. If I was going to get the information I wanted I would have to rely on myself to do the digging, but where to begin for the moment foxed me.

I wandered around the town for an hour, looking at the shops and absorbing the atmosphere of the place and liking it a lot. I finally decided I could do with a drink and I made my way along the waterfront towards Wanchai. Here I found a number of small bars, each with a Chinese boy squatting outside who called to me, inviting me in with a leer and a wink. I entered one of the larger establishments and sat down at a table away from the noisy juke-box. Half a dozen American sailors lounged up at the bar, drinking beer. Two Chinese business men sat near me, talking earnestly, a file of papers between them. Several Chinese girls sat on a bench at the back of the room, giggling and talking to one another softly with the twittering sound of birds.

A waiter came over and I asked for a Scotch and Coke. When he had served me, a middle-aged Chinese woman, wearing a fawn and green Cheongsam, appeared from nowhere and took the vacant chair opposite me.

“Good evening,” she said, her hard black eyes running over me. “Is this your first visit to Hong Kong?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“Do you mind if I keep you company?”

“Why no. Can I buy you a drink?”

She smiled: her teeth were gold-capped. “I would like a glass of milk.”

I waved to the waiter who seemed to know what to get for he nodded, went away and came back with a pint glass full of milk.

“The food here is good,” she told me, “if you feel like eating.”

“A little early for me. Don’t you go for anything stronger than milk?”

“No. Are you staying at the Gloucester? It is the best hotel.”

“So I’ve heard.”

She eyed me speculatively.

“Would you like a nice girl? I have a number of very young and pretty girls. I have only to telephone and they will come here. You don’t have to have any of them if you don’t care for them. I will send for them, but they won’t worry you. You have only to tell me if one of them pleases you and I will arrange everything.”

“Thanks, but not right now. Do you have trouble in finding girls?”

She laughed.

“I have trouble in not finding them. There are too many girls in Hong Kong. What else can they do except entertain gentlemen? Hong Kong is full of pretty girls eager to make a little money.”

The Celestial Empire Hotel was only two or three hundred yards from this bar. It seemed reasonable enough that if this woman controlled the local prostitutes, she might have known Jo-An.

“A pal of mine when he was here last year met a girl he liked very much,” I said. “Her name was Jo-An Wing Cheung. I’d like to meet her. Do you know her?”

For a brief moment, her black eyes showed surprise. If I hadn’t been watching closely I would have missed the quick change of expression. Then she was smiling, her thin amber-coloured fingers playing a tattoo on the table.

“Yes, of course I know her,” she said. “She is a fine girl… very beautiful. You will like her very much. I could telephone her now if you like.”

It was my turn to hide my surprise. “Well, why not?”

“She is my best girl,” the woman went on. “You wouldn’t mind going to a hotel with her? She is living with her parents and she can’t take gentlemen to her apartment. It would be thirty Hong Kong dollars for her and ten dollars for the room.” She showed her gold-capped teeth in a smile. “And three dollars for me.”

I wondered what old man Jefferson would say if I itemised these charges on my expense sheet.

“That’s okay,” I said, and it was my turn to smile at her. “But how do I know this girl is Jo-An? She could be someone else, couldn’t she?”

“You make a joke?” she asked, looking intently at me. “She is Jo-An. Who else could she be?”

“That’s right. I make a joke.”

She got to her feet. “I will telephone.”

I watched her cross the room to where the telephone stood on the bar. While she was telephoning, one of the American sailors moved over to her and put his arm around her shoulders. She waved him to silence and he looked across at me and winked. I winked back. The atmosphere in the bar was friendly and easy. There was nothing furtive about this transaction. By the time the woman had replaced the receiver, everyone, including the waiters, knew I had ordered a girl and she was on her way. They all seemed genuinely happy about the event.

The woman talked to the sailor and then picked up the telephone receiver again. Business seemed to be getting brisk.

I finished my drink, lit a cigarette, then signalled to the waiter for a refill.

Two Americans in violent beach shirts, came and sat at a table away from mine. When the Chinese woman had finished telephoning she came over to me.

“She will be only ten minutes,” she said. “I will let you know when she comes,” and nodding she went over to the two Americans and sat with them. After a five-minute conversation she got up and went to the telephone again.

A little over a quarter of an hour later, the bar door pushed open and a Chinese girl came in. She was tall and well built. She was wearing a black and white tight-fitting European dress. A black and white plastic handbag dangled from a strap she had wound around her wrist. She was attractive, sensual and interesting. She looked at the, Chinese woman who nodded towards me. The girl looked at me and smiled, then she crossed the bar, moving with languid grace while some of the American sailors whistled to her, grinning in a friendly way at me. She sat down beside me.

“Hello,” she said. “What is your name?”

“Nelson,” I said. “What’s yours?”

“Jo-An.”

“Jo-An – what?”

She reached out and helped herself to one of my cigarettes from the pack lying on the table. “Just Jo-An.”

“Not Wing Cheung?”

She gave me a quick stare and then smiled. She had very beautiful white teeth. “That is my name. How did you know?”

“A pal of mine was here last year,” I said, knowing she was lying to me. “He told me to look you up.”

“I’m glad.” She put the cigarette between her painted lips and I lit it for her. “Do you like me?”

“Of course.”

“Shall we go then?”

“Okay.”

“Will you give me three dollars for Madame?”

I gave her three dollars. The middle-aged Chinese woman came over, showing all her gold-capped teeth. “You are pleased with her?”

“Who wouldn’t be?”

She collected the three dollars. “Come and see me again,” she said. “I’m always here.”

The girl who called herself Jo-An got up and sidled towards the exit. I went after her, nodding to the sailors. One of them made the letter “O” with his finger and thumb and then pretended to swoon into the arms of his pals. I left them horsing around and moved out into the hot bustling night where the girl was waiting for me.

“I know a clean cheap hotel,” she said.

“So do I,” I told her. “I’m staying at the Celestial Empire. We’ll go there.”

“It would be better to go to my hotel.” She gave me a sidelong look.

“We go to my hotel,” I said, and taking her elbow in my hand, I steered her through the crowds towards the hotel.

She moved along beside me. She was wearing an expensive perfume. I couldn’t place it, but it was nice. There was a thoughtful, faraway expression on her face. We didn’t say anything to each other during the short walk. She mounted the sharp flight of stairs. She had an interesting back and nice long legs. She waved her hips professionally as she moved from stair to stair. I found myself watching the movement with more interest than the situation required.

The old reception clerk was dozing behind his barricade. He opened one eye and stared at the girl, then at me, then shut the eye again.

I steered her down the passage. Leila was standing in her open doorway, polishing her nails on a buffer. She looked the girl over and then sneered at me. I sneered back at her, opened my door and eased my girl through into the hot, stuffy little room. I closed the door and pushed home the flimsy bolt.

She said to me, “Could you give me more than thirty dollars? I could be very nice to you for fifty.”

She pulled a zipper on the side of her dress to show goodwill. She was half out of the dress before I could stop her.

“Relax a moment,” I said, taking out my wallet. “We don’t have to rush at this.”

She stared at me. I took out Jo-An’s morgue photograph and offered it to her. Her flat, interesting face showed suspicious bewilderment. She peered at the photograph, then she peered at me. “What is this?” she asked.

“A photograph of Jo-An Wing Cheung,” I said, sitting on the bed.

Slowly she zipped up her dress. There was now a bored expression in her black eyes.

“How was I to know you had a photograph of her?” she said. “Madame said you wouldn’t know what she looked like.”

“Did you know her?”

She leaned her hip against the bedrail. “Is she all that important? I am prettier than she is. Don’t you want to make love to me?”

“I asked if you knew her.”

“No. I didn’t know her.” She moved impatiently. “May I have my present?”

I counted out five ten-dollar bills, folded them and held them so she could feast her eyes on them.

“She married an American. His name was Herman Jefferson,” I said. “Did you know him?”

She grimaced.

“I met him.” She looked at Jo-Ann’s photograph again. “Why does she look like this… she looks as if she’s dead.”

“That’s what she is.”

She dropped the photograph as if it had bitten her.

“It is bad luck to look at dead people,” she said. “Give me my present. I want to go.”

I took out Herman Jefferson’s photograph and showed it to her. “Is this her husband?”

She scarcely glanced at the photograph. “I am mistaken. I have never met her husband. May I have my present?”

“You just said you had met him.”

“I was mistaken.”

We stared at each other. I could see by the expression on her I was wasting time. She didn’t intend to tell me anything. I gave her the bills which she slipped into her handbag.

“There’s more where that came from if you can give me any information about Jefferson,” I said without any hope.

She started towards the door. “I know nothing about him. Thank you for your present.”

She slid back the bolt and with a jeering wave of her hips, she was gone.

I knew I had been taken for a ride, but as I was spending Jefferson’s money, I was a lot less depressed than I would have been if it had been my own money.