The Nicholas Linnear Novels (135 page)

As they got out she could see the looming spectral shapes, spiderweb gantries, towers, and electronic equipment belonging to various institutions from both the military and the private sectors, used for ongoing weather and seismographic study.

Signs bade them to walk slowly, cautioning those with heart conditions not to come up this high at all. And indeed as they began to walk Justine felt a lightness in her head, a certain feeling that her lungs were not getting their quota of oxygen. A fierce wind tore at them, sent paper flapping, making breathing that much more difficult.

She was grateful when they reached the shelter at the top of the wide stairs. This was a stone and masonry edifice whose entire eastern face was composed of large panes of glass.

From this eyrielike observation post they stared out on the blasted landscape of Haleakala’s craters. The area resembled photographs Justine had seen of the moon’s surface more than it did anything she had come to associate with her own planet. With no visual fix, distances were impossible to judge. Five miles looked more like five thousands yards. It was fantastic.

People gathered in this small place just as the ancient Hawaiians had centuries before to watch the rising of the sun. It was on this very spot, legend had it, that the sun was caught and held hostage, released only when it promised to move more slowly over the Hawaiian Islands to fill them to the brim with its light.

There was nothing in the sky but darkness. There was no hint of change, of the ending of night. But the sun was coming. They all could feel it like a shiver down their spines.

And then like a foundry being fired, one bright red spark speared upward over the intervening rim of Haleakala’s crater. There came an exhalation in concert from the assembled as light came into the world, clear and direct and adamantine.

It was a color that had no earthly analog; it took Justine’s breath away. She felt as if all gravity were gone and, unmoored, she was about to float away.

Pale fire crept across the blasted plain of the crater. Long, sweeping shadows, impossibly black, scored the face of the lava like newly etched cracks. There was no gray, only the darkness and the light.

Then, without any of them knowing quite when it happened, the multifaceted illumination they had all been born into and knew well returned to Haleakala and, just as if it had been some man-made show, the event was over.

“Now will you forgive me for dragging you out of bed?”

Justine and Rick leaned on the wooden railing, the last two still inside the observation post. Behind them they could hear the muffled cough of engines as cars started back down the serpentine drive to warm sea breezes.

“I’m tired,” she said. “Take me back.”

Outside, she saw a lone couple at the rim of the crater. Their arms were around one another’s waists, their bodies glued together. Justine stopped to watch them, her attention caught. The woman was tall and slim, her copper red hair pulled back in a long ponytail. The man was dark haired and large; muscular even through his windbreaker. When the woman moved she did so with the fluid grace of a dancer. The man had somewhat of the same quality, but Justine had lived with Nicholas Linnear long enough to be able to identify another of his dangerous breed.

“What are you staring at?” Rick followed her gaze and his head went down, his gaze swinging away.

I want that, Justine said to herself, still staring at the lovers moving, embracing above the jagged lava cliffs. Sunlight bathed them as if they were gods. Tears burned behind her lids and she thought, I will not cry in front of him. I will not!

She turned away from the lovers and from him, walking quickly down the stairs so that she was gasping for breath by the time she reached the asphalt parking lot. By comparison, everything here looked banal and uninteresting. She got into the car and leaned her head against the window, closing her eyes. Just below the level of the lot, Rick stopped the car and got out. “These are silverswords,” he told her. “They only grow upcountry.” He pointed to a fenced-off patch of ground where two or three vertical plants soared from the dark earth. True to their name, their spiky leaves were a peculiar silvery gray. “It’s said that they take twenty years to bloom and then once they do, they die.”

Justine was staring at the beautiful plants when Rick said this, and despite her resolve she abruptly dissolved into tears. Great wracking sobs broke from her trembling lips and she sat down hard on the path, her head in her lap.

“Justine. Justine.”

She did not hear him. She was thinking of how sad life was for the silversword and, then, of course how ridiculous that notion was. No. Life was sad for her. At her father’s funeral she had felt only relief, had thought she was reveling in that relief.

But now she knew the truth. She missed him. He was the only father she would ever have. He raised her and in his own way, she supposed, even loved her. Now he was gone without mourning or a sense of the diminishing of the quality of life. Or so she had thought. She was so smart. Oh, yes. The truth was that she was a moron. She could no more understand her own emotions than she could anyone else’s. That’s why she was useless to Gelda. Useless as well to Nicholas.

But now was not a time to think of that. Not yet. This was her time to grieve, as a little girl who missed her daddy, who had always missed him, and who could never now say to him how sorry she was that they had not had their time together as was right and fair.

Life was unfair, and now she knew it to her roots. She could not stop weeping. She did not want to. Her mourning was long in coming, for her father as well as for the confused and vulnerable young girl she had been up until this moment. Her rite of passage was upon her, and at long last she was making her torturous way through the thorns and nettles that separated childhood from adulthood.

Slowly, as she allowed her long pent-up grief to flow through her, as she allowed her entire being to feel it, wracked with a pain that was almost physical, Justine began to grow up.

Nangi lay atop his bed in room 911 at the Mandarin Hotel. He was on the Island. From his sparkling windows he could see Victoria Harbor and just beyond the clock tower of the Star Ferry terminal, the very southern tip of Kowloon and the Asian shore. Somewhere far to the north, ultimately in Peking, no doubt, Liu’s masters lived. They—as well as he—would have to be dealt with judiciously.

The main problem, Nangi thought, was time. He did not have very much of it, and as long as the Communists believed that to be the truth they would sink their teeth into him and never let go.

What they, through Liu, were asking was patently impossible. To give up control of his own
keiretsu
was unthinkable. He had struggled all his adult life, conquered innumerable threats, neutralized many competitors, sent many an enemy to his grave to get to this exalted state.

Yet if there were any other way out for him but to sign that paper he was not aware of it. Either way he would lose the
keiretsu
, for he knew his company could not long weather the set of pyramiding losses and future pledges in which the accursed Anthony Chin had enmeshed the All-Asia Bank.

For all this, Nangi was calm. Life had taught him patience. He had that rare ability known to the Japanese as
nariyuki no matsu
, to wait for the turn of events. He believed in Christ and, He, surely was a miracle. If he were to lose the
keiretsu,
that was
karma
, his penance for his sins in a previous life. For there was nothing Tanzan Nangi held more dear than his company.

And yet he was absolutely certain that he would not lose it. As had Gōtarō on their makeshift raft so long ago, Nangi had faith. His agile mind and his faith would see him through this as they had all the other crises in his life.

Nariyuki no matsu.

A knock on the door. Did he feel the tides turning? Or would they continue to run against him until they pushed him far out to sea?

“Come in,” he said. “It’s open.”

Fortuitous Chiu appeared, closing the door behind him. He wore an oyster gray raw silk suit. In the light of day he appeared trim and hard muscled. He had a handsome, rather narrow face with keen, intelligent eyes. All in all, Nangi thought, Sato had chosen well.

“It’s seven o’clock on the button,” Fortuitous Chiu said. He stood by the door. “I am anxious to make a good impression …after last night.”

“Did you finish the translation?”

Fortuitous Chiu nodded. “Yes, sir. It was only difficult in parts because, as you no doubt already know, inflection is infinitely more important than the word itself in Chinese.”

“You needn’t be so formal,” Nangi said.

Fortuitous Chiu nodded, came across the room, grinning. “There was a great deal on the tape that was wordless. Someday, if the gods permit, I would meet this woman. She must have been born under a lucky star if her manipulation of this foul-smelling Communist son of a diseased dog is any indication.”

“I’ve taken the liberty of ordering breakfast for us both,” Nangi said, swinging his legs off the bed with the aid of one hand. “Sit down and join me, will you.” He began pulling small plates out of the food warmer, piling them on the table.

“Dim sum,” Fortuitous Chiu murmured. Nangi saw that he was impressed, being served a traditional Chinese breakfast by a Japanese. The young man sat down in one of the satin-covered chairs next to the table and took up his chopsticks.

While they ate, Fortuitous Chiu spoke of what the tape had revealed to him. “First, I don’t know how much information you have on our
Comrade
Liu.”

Nangi shrugged. “The basics, I suppose. I’m no newcomer to Hong Kong but I have been unable to call upon the knowledge of my bank president, Allan Su. He is not privy to what we do here. I don’t want him involved until the very last instant.” Nangi paused for a moment, marshaling his thoughts. “Liu’s a member in good standing of the Crown Colony. His varied businesses on the Island and in Kowloon have brought a great deal of money into Hong Kong: shipping, banking, printing…I believe one of his companies owns a majority of the go-downs in Kwun Tong.”

Shoveling a shrimp ball into his mouth, Fortuitous Chiu nodded. He munched with the quick, short bites of the Chinese. “Indeed, yes. But did you also know that he is the head of the syndicate that owns the Frantan?”

“The gambling casino in Macao?”

“The same,” Fortuitous Chiu said, consuming a dough-wrapped quail egg. “The Communists find it most convenient to wash money in and out through the Frantan because it allows them to convert bullion into any currency they choose without embarrassing questions being asked. Some of the
ta-pans
here do the same thing, though not at the Frantan.”

Nangi’s mind was working furiously, considering the possibilities. He had begun to get an inkling of the tides turning.

“Comrade Liu and this woman—Succulent Pien—are longtime lovers, that much is clear.” Fortuitous Chiu stuffed a pork roll into his cheek, chewing contentedly while he continued to talk. “The slime-ridden sea slug has thought up so many ornate endearments for her it made my head swim. He is quite ardent.”

“And she?” Nangi inquired.

“Ah, women,” Fortuitous Chiu said as if that covered it all. He stacked the empty plates to one side, brought other laden ones before him. Grabbing the soy sauce, he shook the bottle vigorously over the dumplings before him. Then he reached for the fiery chili paste, red as blood. “It has been my experience that one can never tell about women. They are born with deceit as a deer is with a cloven hoof. They cultivate it like they do a current hairstyle. Is this not your experience as well?”

Nangi said nothing, wondering what the young man was getting at.

“Well, it has been mine,” Fortuitous Chiu said, just as if Nangi had interjected a comment. “And this one is no exception.”

“Does she love the Communist?”

“Oh, yes. I think she does. Though what she could find of sufficient promise in that lice-ridden motherless goat I cannot imagine. But what she feels for him is, I believe, irrelevant.” He cleared another plate, pulled another toward him. On went the soy sauce and the chili paste. “That is because it is clear to me that she loves money much more.”

“Ah,” said Nangi. He sensed the tides rolling back. “And where does she assuage this burning desire? From friend Liu?”

“Yes, indeed.” Fortuitous Chiu nodded. He had worked up quite a sweat eating. “The pox-infested dog enjoys giving her presents. But I fear that he is not as generous as our Succulent Pien would wish.”

“Thus she wanders afield.”

“So I have been told.”

Nangi was quick to anger; he was walking a fine line here. “Who knows what you do?”

“No one but you.” At last Fortuitous Chiu was finished. He pushed the last plate away from him. His face was shiny with grease and sweat. “But something she said to Liu caused me to make enquiries. Succulent Pien lives in the Mid-Levels, on Po Shan Road. That territory belongs to the Green Pang Triad.” He produced a white silk handkerchief and carefully wiped his face. He grinned. “It just so happens that my Number Three Cousin is 438 of the Green Pang.”

“I don’t want to owe anyone in a Triad a favor,” Nangi said.

“No sweat.” Fortuitous Chiu washed away his words. “Number Three Cousin owes his rise in the Green Pang to my father. He’s delighted to help. No strings attached.”

Nangi thought he could go into culture shock talking to this one. “Go on,” he said.

“It seems that someone else is plowing the same fragrant harbor that Comrade Liu is.”

“And who might that be?”

“I’m not a miracle worker. I need some time to find out. They’ve been very careful to cover their tracks.” He leered at Nangi. “Number Three Cousin and I may have to do some on-site inspection during the night.”

“Does the Green Pang have to be involved?”

“I’ve got no choice. It’s their turf. I can’t make a bowel movement over at the Mid-Levels without letting them in on it.”

Nangi nodded. He knew well the power of the Triads in Hong Kong. “What did Succulent Pien say to get you started on this?”