Sin City (31 page)

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Authors: Harold Robbins

BOOK: Sin City
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I always loved street carnivals. A-Ma said this one was called “Feast of the Drunken Dragon,” as we walked along the happy crowds in the wharf area.
“Why did the dragon get drunk?” I asked as a fifty-foot-long paper dragon flowed by. I had to admit that he definitely looked a little cockeyed.
“Because he's happy. The fishing season has been good and the fishermen's and their families' bellies are full.”
“Sounds like an excuse for a bunch of fishermen to take time off work and drink it up.”
“Exactly. It's the only vacation these poor people have.”
We walked around a string of firecrackers going off. “What is it about you people and firecrackers?” I asked.
“Don't you know that we Chinese invented gunpowder? It's one of the paradoxes of China's relationship with the West. We invented gunpowder, but used it mostly for celebrations. The Europeans refined it, stuck it in cannons, and used the cannons to force us to let them sell our people opium.”
“Come again?”
“It happened in the middle of the last century. The British and French were selling opium to the people of China. The emperor tried to put a stop to the evil practice, and the countries sent warships and armies to make China open its door to the trade.” She smiled. “You see, Mr. Riordan, my people learned many bad things from yours.”
“Oh, I'm sure,
Miss
A-Ma, that your buddy Wan is an original number who learned nothing from nobody—he was born crooked.”
We detoured onto the dock that I once ran down with a motorcycle gunman hot on my heels. The old fisherman who had taken me from harm's way was still there. But he had a new boat, a larger sampan with a modern motor and helm.
“I wanted to buy him a big cabin cruiser, but he would not have felt comfortable with it,” A-Ma said. “This was all he would let me do.”
I followed her aboard his boat and we drank wine as we leisurely sailed toward a small island. She told me the fisherman's name, but I found it unpronounceable and ended up calling him Sam.
“I don't understand your life with Wan,” I said. “You're not a naive teenager anymore; you're an international movie star. You can walk out any time you want.”
“Choices, you are always talking about choices, Zack. I told you that I don't have the same choices as you do.”
“Yes, you do. You just don't want to use them.”
“Perhaps you're right. Perhaps my choice is to not make one.”
“I don't blame you if you're afraid of Wan. But if you left behind his money, he'd probably leave you alone.”
She laughed. “You do not know Mr. Wan. He discards people, but no one discards him. You call him a spider. You should know by now that nothing leaves his web. Look what he did to you when you took his money.”
“Did to me? Wan—he had me …?”
“I didn't think you knew; otherwise you would never have come back.”
“How do you know?”
“I heard talk after news came that you had been shot.”
“Jesus. I thought someone else did it. And I came right back into his lair.”
“You have nothing to fear. Mr. Wan saved face by having you shot, even if you did not die. And now you have something he wants—a place to put his money.”
For a moment I faltered, wondering if I could handle what I was getting myself into. Wan's tentacles reached a long way. “I can handle it,” I said, as much to myself as to her. “Our deal will be strictly business. He'll have someplace to stick his money and get a nice return also.”
“Do you see what I mean about choices?” she asked. “You have a choice to leave Macao and return to your already successful casino in downtown Las Vegas. That is the rational choice. But you choose to remain in Macao and make a deal with a dangerous spider who tried to kill you once.”
“You know something, A-Ma, I'm beginning to believe that you're right, that we all walk a path that's been set out for us. What the hell else could explain the dumb things I do? I have shitty karma.”
She found that funny and laughed and spilled her wine. She found that funny too and laughed some more.
“That's the first time I've heard you laugh.”
She wiped the wine off her dress. “You are good for me. The other women in Wan's household say I was born an old woman and am living my life in reverse. Being around you, I am just learning how to laugh.”
“I need a favor from you.”
“I know. A hundred million dollars. I do not have that much in my name, but Mr. Wan will get you the balance from a man in America named Tommy Chow.”
I chuckled. “I should have known.”
“You know Mr. Chow.”
“We're old friends. I'll tell you about it sometime, but that's not the favor I need. In your movie
White Flower
there were scenes of a Chinese palace complex called the Forbidden City—”
“The palaces of the emperors of China in Beijing.”
“And the Great Wall. I want to see them.”
She clapped her hands. “Oh, do you want me to take you to see them?”
“That's what I had in mind. Do you think we can get it by the old spider?” It was a rhetorical question; I already suspected the answer. I was pretty sure that Wan not only knew I was going sailing with A-Ma, but encouraged my personal contact with her. I had read the complete
Art of War
by Sun Tzu before getting on the plane for Hong Kong. One of Sun Tzu's teachings was to use deception and deceit. I intuitively knew that Wan was dangling A-Ma before me and would jerk her back at will once I was hooked. What he didn't know was how helpless I was. A-Ma didn't just steal my heart—and my gonads—she took my soul, too.
“Perhaps. I would love to go. I've never been a tourist and I've always wanted to see the Forbidden City and Great Wall.”
“But you were there in the movie.”
She laughed. “Movie magic. We never left Hong Kong.”
Sam anchored the boat when we were a hundred yards off the island.
A few minutes later I heard a splash. Sam had jumped in the water and started swimming toward the island.
“Why has he abandoned ship?”
“He knows we want some privacy.”
“Why would he think that?”
“Because I told him.”
 
She led me down to the interior of the boat, which was surprisingly cozy and warm. It was still light out, but the heavy curtains were drawn and white candles that gave off a pleasant rose scent were burning. On the floor was a flowered quilted mattress with several dozen small pillows.
Standing in the center of the snug room, I felt the warmth of her body and smelled her scent next to mine and the heat began to run through my body. I stared into her eyes for a moment, then lifted her head and kissed her on the mouth, softly at first, then with ardent passion. We moved over to the mattress and our clothes came off quickly, neither one of us ashamed of our nakedness.
“I want to give you a massage. Lay on your stomach,” she said.
She spread the warm oil on my back and began kneading my flesh with her hands, then massaging my buttocks and legs. The smooth kneading almost put me to sleep. She made me turn on my back and started again with my feet and worked up to my scrotum, gently massaging my testicles. I felt myself growing hard. After her silken hand stroked my throbbing cock, a voracious hunger consumed me and I lowered her onto my hardened phallus. She moved rhythmically back and forth, up and down, keeping in motion with the rocking swells of the boat. Then she began to move feverishly as the climatic shudders shook her body. The explosion came from my body a moment later. We pressed our bodies together and closed our eyes and let the swaying of the boat rock us to sleep.
A-Ma was instructed to see Mr. Wan in the dining room when she arrived home that evening. Wan was at the table eating a late meal. Laid out before him were rice, noodles, and six different catches from the sea. He wore a large white bib and was sucking noisily on a crab leg as she walked in.
“Did you enjoy your day with our American friend?” he asked.
She took a seat at the table. “You told me to entertain him.”
“Of course, of course, but I didn't tell you to enjoy being with him, which, from the satisfied look on your face, I suspect was the case. Did you think you could get away from my spying by taking him out onto the water? I had your lovemaking filmed.”
She didn't know if he was lying, but would not have put it past him to have spied on her. Wan trusted no one, took nothing for granted. He believed nothing he couldn't see with his own eyes, and doubted much of what he witnessed.
As they talked, she realized Ling was standing against the wall in the shadows. Ling made her skin crawl. She had never met anyone so totally devoid of any human emotions. He reminded her of a windup toy, only active when Wan wanted him to be.
Wan cracked another crab leg with his teeth. Juice dripped down his chin as he talked and sucked on the leg.
“Riordan is going to China to see the Forbidden City and Great Wall,” he said.
“I know. He's looking for ideas for his casino.”
“You are to go with him.”
“Go with him?”
He sucked air through his teeth and used a gold toothpick to loosen a morsel. “You want to please me, don't you, my dear?”
“Of course.” Her personal preference was that he be reborn a worm in hell, but that wish she wisely kept to herself.
“You are to go to China with Riordan. Satisfy him in all aspects. I am sure you have already ascertained his pleasure points. Make sure that you make yourself indispensable to him in all ways.”
She shrugged. “I don't see what good that will do you. He will only be in China a week or two and then will return to America.”
“And you will return with him.”
She gaped at him. “To America?”
“I know how hard it would be for you to leave me.” Wan cackled so hard he started choking. A servant girl brought him a napkin and he used it to smother his cough. The girl was new but looked vaguely familiar to her.
She was always taken in by him, but his coughing spasm gave her mind a chance to catch up with her emotions. Wan gave nothing away. Nothing that he did not expect a much greater return from.
He wiped his mouth and got his breathing under control. She stared at him blank faced, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
“I am giving Mr. Riordan everything he wants,” Wan said. “But it is only a loan. Someday I will take it all back, along with everything else he has.”
So that was it—a trap. And she was part of the cheese.
“I can't accompany him to America, you know that. He's married—”
“My sources in Vegas tell me that the marriage is, as the Americans put it, on the rocks. Besides, his marital status has nothing to do with his relationship with you.”
“What is it you want me to do?”
“Nothing, my child, nothing but enjoy yourself. And obey my instructions. All financial matters will be put into your name; you will be my surrogate. Naturally, your stay in America will be limited by how long I need to have my plan succeed. Then you will return here, to your home, your family. As your benefactor, your guardian, the master of your soul, you will pine until I send for you, but send for you I will.” He slurped noodles and then looked up at her, juice dribbling down his chin again. “I would be greatly disappointed if you failed to follow my instructions while you are away from me. You understand that I expect all my sons and daughters to be absolutely loyal to me. You have such loyalty, don't you?”
“Of course.”
“Good, good.” He wiped his chin. “Ah, yes, Ming, please give me another napkin.”
A-Ma recognized the name. The young woman nicknamed “Ming” was a dealer at Mr. Wan's casino. A-Ma gasped as Ming used her left hand to hand Wan a napkin. Her right hand was missing. The stump was nearly covered by her long sleeves, but A-Ma could see that it was still bandaged.
Wan padded his lips with the napkin and locked eyes with A-Ma.
“As you can see, Ming can no longer deal cards at the casino. I have taken pity on her and permit her to serve me in the household. Is that not the case, Ming?”
Ming lowered her eyes. “Yes.”
“It's unfortunate,” Wan said, “some of my money had found its way into her hand while she worked in the casino. The hand that offended is now gone.”
A brain syndrome developed when someone took too many drugs. During her time in L.A., Janelle had gotten down and dirty with users and saw the effect of long-term use on them. After years of use, more and more brain connections ceased to work. People didn't just stop thinking straight, they developed a skewed view of the world. The drugs did a frontal lobotomy on their emotions. People who normally wouldn't harm the proverbial flea stared blank-faced at convenience store clerks as they fired .38 rounds into them for the price of a fix. She called the syndrome “fried brains.”
Bic Halliday wasn't down to the 7-Eleven till-tap mentality, but he definitely was experiencing fried brains. Having an in-house drug supplier had sped up the deterioration. Janelle had taken Bic out of the mainstream, keeping him coddled in her arms with bigger and purer doses of heroin.
“Know where heroin comes from?” she asked Diego, when he arrived at the ranch with a preacher and a supply of the drug.
“Yeah, I got a contact—”
“No, not how you sneak it into the country, how they grow the stuff.”
“They grow heroin? No shit?”
“No shit. It comes from the poppy flower. They make morphine from the flower and make heroin from morphine. I read it in the encyclopedia. I've been stuck out on this goddamn godforsaken ranch for so long, I got desperate enough to read something.”
“You'll be out of here soon, babe. I brought preacher man here to do his thing with you and Bic. He can notarize documents, too.”
Bic was in the bedroom asleep. He spent much of his time sleeping now. She no longer gave him cocaine or crank—he was now strictly a heroin addict, the big leagues. Bic was isolated now at the ranch, and she kept him drugged and under her control. Life for him had now come down to long periods of sleep with short periods of ecstatic moments
awake. After he would come out of a deep sleep, she would give him an intravenous injection of heroin that spread a warm, glowing sensation over his body. He'd grin like the Cheshire cat when the rush hit him. Then he'd go into a drowsy state of relaxation before falling into a deep sleep.
His tolerance for the drug quickly built up and she had to give him more and more injections to keep him in the revolving state of quiet ecstasy and sleep. Heroin was usually diluted from two to five percent purity and she had avoided increasing the purity of the drug, preferring to give him more injections. She had her own reasons for not building up his tolerance for higher purity.
She was using more and more drugs herself. Having a big supply available and preparing the drugs for Bic helped feed her own habit. Down deep she knew that the drugs were affecting her judgment, but all that mattered was the glorious kick she got when she took a hit.
“Did you get the papers signed?” Diego asked.
“Right here.” Janelle handed him a marriage form and a will. “We need to finish off the will with witnesses and a notary.”
“Preacher here is a notary. He can also witness the will. I'll witness it, too.”
“Preacher” was a typical Hollywood Boulevard scumbag, Janelle decided. He had a soiled look—not physical dirt, but the type of veneer people get when they've spent most of their adult lives as trash hanging out with trash. She didn't doubt he had some sort of real credential as a preacher man; Diego was a smart businessman—he wouldn't screw up by using a phony, not with so much at stake.
Preacher stood at the door to the bedroom and stared at Bic. Bic was sleeping soundly.
“This is highly unusual,” Preacher said.
“That's why you're getting paid plenty,” Diego said.
“Well, I've thought about that. I agreed to perform the marriage and apply my notary stamp. Now you want me to witness the will. I'm going to need another ten thousand dollars.”
“Fuck you,” Janelle said.
“Now, let's not get excited,” Diego said. “Preacher's performing some real deep shit here and there's plenty to go around. I don't see anything wrong with kicking it up a notch. I agreed on ten and now we'll make it twenty. It's as simple as that.”
Diego pulled Janelle aside as she started cussing again.
“You're going to let that pig take us—”
“Quiet, babe. You think I'd trust that turd with millions of dollars at stake? There's a couple hundred miles of desert back to L.A. He's going to disappear somewhere along the way. Ever heard that old American expression ‘Loose lips sink ships?' Babe, dead lips don't say nothing.”
She kissed Diego. “You're a genius.”
“Yeah, that's why I get the big dinero. Don't forget who set this up. There's plenty of room in the desert for one more.”
She grabbed his crotch. “If you kill me, bury me with this in my mouth.”
“You have any problems getting your friend's signatures on the will?”
“None. I told him he was signing a letter to his lawyer to sue Zack Riordan for his interest in the casino. He'd sign the Declaration of Independence if I told him it would screw Zack.”

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