Hawaii (169 page)

But Hoxworth Hale, seeing the effect of this pathetic marriage on his high-strung daughter Noelani, thought: "Unless I can help her, there's going to be another woman sitting upstairs in the late afternoons." But what help he should offer, he did not know.

IN 1951 Nyuk Tsin engineered her last big coup for the Kee hui, and in many ways it was her most typical accomplishment, for it derived from intelligence and was attained through courage. She was a hundred and four years old, sitting in her ugly house up Nuuanu listening to her grandson Harvey read the paper to her, when, in a shaky old voice, she interrupted: "What's that again?" Since Harvey was reading in English and speaking in Hakka, he could not be certain that he himself understood the confusing story, so phrase by phrase he repeated: "In American business today it is possible for a company which is losing money to be more valuable than it was a few years ago when it was making money."

Impetuously the old matriarch forced her grandson to read the strange concept three times, and when she had comprehended it she said in her piping voice, "That's exactly the kind of trick smart haoles think up for themselves and which we stupid Chinese never catch on to until it's too late." Accordingly, she summoned her great-grandson Eddie, Hong Kong's boy, whom she had sent to Harvard Law School, and told him: "I want a complete report on how this works."

At that time not much was known in Hawaii relating to this

THE GOLDEN MEN

851

marriage of losing companies to those that were prosperous, but Eddie Kee applied himself to the task of assembling opinions from mainland tax courts, and within two months he was an expert in the field. Then, with several tax reports airmailed in from New York he reported back to his great-grandmother in her little house, and when he came upon her she was picking lint from a shawl, and he thought: "How can she be so old and yet so interested?" "Can you explain it now?" she asked in a high, cackling voice. "Fundamentally," Eddie began in his best professional style, "it's an old law and a good one."

"I don't care whether it's good or bad," Nyuk Tsin interrupted, her voice suddenly lower. "What I want to know is how it works."

"Take the Janders Brewery. For years it's been losing money. Now suppose next year it makes money. It won't have to pay any taxes because recent years' losses can be used to offset next year's gains."

"Makes sense," Nyuk Tsin nodded.

"But look at what else we can do," Eddie lectured stolidly, as if addressing a class of legal students. "If the Kee hui buys the brewery, we can then add to its assets all of our old pineapple land. Then if the brewery sells the land, the profits will be offset by the past losses of the brewery.'Do you see what that means, Wu Chow's Auntie?"

Little Nyuk Tsin did not reply. She sat in the late afternoon sun like a winsome old lady embroidered on a Chinese silk. She was smiling, and if an outsider had seen her beatific, wrinkled face he might have thought: "She's dreaming of an old love." But he would have been wrong. She was dreaming of the Janders Brewery, and she said, "How heavenly! We can use the Janders' losses to balance the Kee profits!"

"Wu Chow's Auntie!" Eddie cried. "You see exactly what I'm talking about."

"But I'm. afraid you don't see what I've been talking about," Nyuk Tsin replied.

"What do you mean?" Eddie asked.

"Suppose that we do buy the Janders Brewery and do hide our pineapple lands inside it . . ." she began.

"That's what I've been explaining," Eddie said gently. It was the first sign that day that Wu Chow's Auntie was losing her acuity.

"But what I'm explaining," Nyuk Tsin said firmly, "is that after we have done this clever thing we will put some member of our family in charge of the brewery, and he will give it good management and he will turn what has been a loss into a profit."

Now the beatific smile passed over to Eddie's face and he said, "If you could arrange that, Wu Chow's Auntie, we'd make a fortune."

"That's what I had in mind," the old woman replied. "This law seems to have been expressly written for the Kee hui. It is our duty to use it sagaciously."

She summoned Hong Kong, and after discussing the theory of the

law, told him abruptly, "Make us up a list of all the companies in Honolulu that are losing big money. Then write alongside each one the name of someone in our hui who could turn that loss into a profit."

"Where will we get the money to buy the sick companies?" Hong Kong parried.

"We don't have to buy them for cash," Nyuk Tsin replied, "but well need money for down payments. So we have to sell some of our holdings now and pay the taxes on our profits, but if the plan works well more than make up for those taxes in the end."

"Are you determined to go ahead on such a wild scheme?" Hong Kong asked. "Getting rid of profitable businesses in order to take a big gamble?"

Nyuk Tsin reflected a moment, then asked Eddie, "Does anyone else in Honolulu understand how this law works?"

"They must know," the Harvard man replied, "but they aren't doing anything about it."

Nyuk Tsin made up her mind. Clapping her hands sharply she said, "We'll go ahead. In six months everyone will know what we're doing, but by then there'll be nothing left to buy." And as Hong Kong and his son departed, old Nyuk Tsin looked at the back of the latter and thought: "I wonder what his education at Harvard cost us? It's been worth rubies and jade."

The next day Hong Kong returned to the weather-beaten old house up Nuuanu with his homework well done. Spreading papers which Nyuk Tsin could not read, he indicated all the businesses that had accumulated large losses: the brewery, a taxicab company, a chain of bakeries, some old office buildings, some stores. But now the perpetual drive of Nyuk Tsin manifested itself with unbroken force, and as each item was listed she asked simply, "How much fee-simple land does it have?" And if Hong Kong said that it owned no fend of its own, she snorted: "Strike it off. Even better than accumulated back losses is land." So the final list that the Kees were going to buy contained only companies with big losses and bigger parcels of land.

But when Nyuk Tsin heard Hong Kong's second list�the Kee holdings that were to be liquidated to cover the new purchases� she perceived with displeasure that the biggest project of all was missing, and she wondered why. Beginning querulously and with a piping voice she said, "This is a good list, Hong Kong."

Hong Kong smiled and observed expansively: "Well, I thought we might as well get rid of the old projects."

"But if I heard your list correctly," Nyuk Tsin continued softly, "there was no suggestion that we sell the knd upon which we are now sitting."

Hong Kong looked with some embarrassment at his son Eddie, but neither spoke, so Nyuk Tsin continued: "Surely, if we need money for new ventures, we ought to sell first of all this old taro patch. And everything on it. Didn't you think of that?"

THE GOLDEN MEN

85?

In a burst of confidence Hong Kong said, "Of course we thought of it, Wu Chow's Auntie. But we considered this land too precious to you. We cannot sell it during your lifetime."

"Thank you, Hong Kong," the old woman replied, bowing her thin gray head. "But one of the reasons why this idea of selling old businesses to go into new is appealing to me is that we will not only make money but we will also be forced into many new operations. We will have to work and will not be allowed to grow lazy and fat." She folded her hands, smiled at her clever men and added, "Have you noticed, Hong Kong, how every Chinese family that tries to hold on to old businesses loses everything in the end?"

"But you always preached to us, 'Hold on to the land!'" Hong Kong protested.

"Ah, yes!" Nyuk Tsin agreed. "But not always the same land." Then she added, "Old land and old ideas must be constantly surrendered."

A new concept had come into the room, a concept of change and going-forwardness, and for some moments Hong Kong and his son contemplated the old woman's vision of a great family always in flux and always working hard to profit from it. The silence was broken by Nyuk Tsin, who said, "So we must sell this precious old knd, Hong Kong, and in our liquidation, let it be the first to go."

"The land we will sell," Hong Kong said quietly, "but we will keep the old house for a little while longer. I could not imagine you living anywhere else."

"Thank you, my dutiful grandson," Nyuk Tsin replied. Then, briskly, she added, "So we must start this day teaching Bill how to run a brewery. Sam must study how to make money from bakeries, and I want Tom to begin reading about new ideas in architecture for old buildings." She proposed ways by which every losing venture they were about to buy could be transformed into a money-maker, and she warned: "Hong Kong, you must study carefully to see that we acquire only the best land. Eddie, organize everything in the best business procedure. I must depend upon you two to keep your eyes on everything."

As the meeting was about to break up, the old matriarch said, "It's very exciting to see a family kunching out into bold new projects. You'll be proud of this day, but remember, Hong Kong, as you buy, be very secret, and do it all at once. And when you buy, always allow yourself to be forced into paying a little more than the seller has a right to hope for. When your plan is understood by all, nobody must feel he's been cheated." She paused, then added, "But don't pay too much more."

Three weeks kter, at a meeting of The Fort, bluff Hewlett Janders kughed and said, "If we didn't follow the old missionary kw about no alcohol here, I'd send out and buy drinks all around."

"Good news?" John Whipple Hoxworth asked.

"The best. Just managed to unload the brewery. What a millstone

HAWAII

it's been. My sainted grandmother told me once, if she told me a hundred times, 'No good will come of a Hale going into the brewery business.' And she was so right." "Get a good price for it?" Hoxworth Hale asked. "I got thirty-five thousand more than I ever hoped to," Janders replied. "I've been wanting to stick Hong Kong Kee ever since he pulled that fast one in buying the Gregory's leases." "Did you say Hong Kong?" Hoxworth asked. "Yes. He slipped this time. Nobody can make money from that brewery."

"That's odd," Hale said. "I fust sold Hong Kong the old Bromley Block. It's been losing money for years."

At this point one of the Hewletts arrived with the good news that he had unloaded the taxicab company. "To Hong Kong Kee?" a chorus asked.

"Yes, and at a good price," young Hewlett replied. A gray silence fell over the board room while Hale looked at Janders and Janders at Hewlett. "Have we been made fools of?" Hoxworth asked slowly.

Finally dour John, Whipple Hoxworth said, glumly, "I guess it's my turn to confess. I just sold Hong Kong that chain of bakeries we started before the war. Big losers."

"What's he up to?" Hewlett Janders cried. "What's that tricky Chinaman up to?"

"It must be real estate. He's buying property just to get real estate."

"No," one of the young Hewletts interrupted. "Because he just sold the old Kee taro patch. For a million five."

"My Godl" Janders choked. "He's selling, he's buying. What's that wily sonofabitch up to?" The men looked at one another in exasperation, not so much because they were angry at Hong Kong, as because they suspected that he had some clever deal cooking, one which they ought to have anticipated for themselves.

The deal was clever; in truth it was, but only the first half. Anyone, if he had had the advice of a hard-working lawyer like Eddie Kee, could have bought losing firms and sold prosperous ones, making a nice profit on the transaction. That was clever. But what really counted was the fact that Bill Kee, backstopped by his father Hong Kong and his smart brother Eddie, was learning how to brew fairly good beer.

It wasn't easy, and some of the first batches, introduced by a florid advertising hullabaloo featuring the slogan "Kee Beer, Your Key to Happiness," was dreadful stuff which the local population christened "Chinese arsenic." But soon, with the aid of a Swiss-German whom the hui flew in from St. Louis, the beer began to taste reasonably palatable, and since it sold for a nickel a can less than others, workingmen began acquiring a taste for it. So without even considering the $1,800,000 worth of real estate on, which the old

THE GOLDEN MEN 855

Janders Brewery had sat, the Kee hui made a very strong profit out of that particular tax purchase.

But the big money-maker, to everyone's surprise, turned out to be the bakeries. Each store brought with it enough real estate so that of itself the deal was favorable, but Sam Kee, at the age of sixty-four, discovered a real affinity for selling cakes, and he showed substantial profits on each unit in the chain.

Not all the projects turned out so well. For example, the taxicab company resisted every attempt to make it pay, and finally Hong Kong reported to his grandmother: "This one is no good."

"Give it away," Nyuk Tsin replied.

"I hate to surrender so easily," Hong Kong protested. "There ought to be some way to make money out of taxicabs."

"Somebody else probably can," Nyuk Tsin agreed. "But not the Kees. Anyway, I don't like taxis. They seem to aim at me whenever I go out. By the way, I saw what Tom is doing to the old Bromley Block, and he's making it into quite a handsome building. If we had traded even, giving away the taro patch for the Bromley Block, we'd still have been ahead. I like to see the family working," she said.

And as the year ended, her hundred and fourth, she sat in her little house at midnight, and with a flickering oil lamp she undressed, until she stood completely naked, a tremendously frail old woman made up mostly of bones, and with the lamp moving cautiously near her body she inspected herself for leprosy. There were no spots on her hands, none on her torso, none on her legs. Now she sat down and lifted in turn each of her ungainly big feet. There were no spots on the toes, none on the heel, none at the ankles. At peace for another night, she slipped into a flannel nightgown, blew out the lamp, and went to sleep.