A Coffin From Hong Kong (11 page)

The owner of the restaurant opened two screens, bowing and smiling at Leila, and we were immediately submerged in noise and privacy.

Leila set her handbag down on the table, adjusted her brassiere, shifted her solid little bottom firmly in her chair and showed me her beautiful white teeth in a radiant and excited smile.

"I will order," she said. "First, we will have fried shrimps, then we will have shark's fin soup, then we will have beggar chicken—it is the speciality here. Then we will see what else there is to eat, but first we commence with fried shrimps."

She spoke rapidly in Cantonese to the waiter and then when he had gone, she reached across the table and patted my hand.

"I like American gentlemen." she told me. "They have much vitality. They are very interesting in bed and they also have much money. '

"Don't count on either of those statements," I said. "You could be disappointed. How long have you been in Hong Kong?"

"Three years I came from Canton. I am a refugee. I only escaped because my cousin owns a junk. He took me to Macau and then I came here "

The waiter brought us Chinese wine. He poured it into two tiny cups It was warm and reasonably strong. When he had gone, I said. "Maybe you know Jo-An Wing Cheung who is also a refugee." She looked surprised.

"Yes. I know her very well. How do you know her?" "I don't," I said.

There was a pause as the waiter set before us a bowl of king-size shrimps cooked in a golden batter.

"But you know her name. How do you know her name?" Leila asked, snapping up a shrimp with her chopsticks and dipping it in Soya sauce.

"She was married to a friend of mine who lived in my home town," I said, dropping a shrimp on the tablecloth. I nipped it up again with my uncertain chopsticks and conveyed it cautiously to my mouth. It tasted very good. "Did you ever meet him? His name's Herman Jefferson."

"Oh, yes." Leila was eating with astonishing speed. Three-quarters of the shrimps were gone before I could spear my third. "Jo-An and I escaped from Canton together. She was lucky to find an American husband even though now he is dead."

The waiter came with a bowl of fried rice in which was mixed finely-chopped ham, shrimps and scraps of fried egg. Leila filled her bowl and her chopsticks flashed as she whipped the food into her mouth. I lagged behind. To do justice to this meal, you had to have considerably more experience with chopsticks than I had.

"He lived with her at your hotel?" I asked as I dropped rice onto the tablecloth in a vain
effort to keep pace with her.
She nodded.

The shrimps had disappeared and more than half the rice. She certainly had the technique of getting the most inside herself in the shortest time.

"He lived with her in a room next to mine for three months after they married, then he went away."

A large bowl of shark's fin soup appeared. Leila began to fill her bowl. 

"Why did he go away?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"He didn't need her any more."

As I could cat the soup with a spoon, I managed to keep pace with her.

"Why didn't he need her any more?"

Leila paused for a moment to give me a cynical stare, then she went on spooning soup into her small, insatiable mouth.

"He only married her so she could keep him," she said. "When he began to make money for himself, he didn't want her."

"How did she manage to keep him?" I asked, knowing what the answer would be.

"She entertained gentlemen as I do," Leila said, and looked serenely at me. "We have no other means of making money."

The waiter came through the screens. He brought with him a strip of matting which he laid ceremoniously on the floor.

Leila turned in her chair, clasping her small hands excitedly. "This is the beggar's chicken. You must not miss seeing any of this."

A Chinese boy came in carrying what appeared to be an enormous ostrich egg on a wooden plate. He rolled the egg onto the matting.

"The chicken is first rubbed with many spices and then wrapped in a covering of lotus leaves," Leila explained, squirming around on her chair with excitement. "It is then covered with clay and put on an open fire and cooked for five hours. You can see the clay has become as hard as stone."

The boy produced a hammer and cracked the egg open: from it came an aroma that was unbelievably delicious. The waiter and the boy squatted opposite each other. The boy eased the chicken out of the layers of lotus leaves onto the dish held by the waiter. The bird had been so thoroughly cooked the flesh fell from the bones as it unrolled onto the dish. With skilled and enthusiastic hands, the waiter spooned pieces of the chicken into our bowls.

Leila's chopsticks began to flash again. I began on my portion. It was quite the most sensational dish I had ever eaten. Leila paused for a brief moment, a shred of chicken held securely in her chopsticks to ask, "You like?"

I grinned at her. "Sure ... I like."

There was no point in asking her further questions until the meal was over. I could see her concentration was now centred on the food and I didn't blame her. We finished the chicken, then she ordered mushrooms, bamboo shoots, salted ginger and finally almond cake. By this time I had given up. I sat, smoking a cigarette, marvelling at the amount of food she could put away. After a further twenty minutes, she laid down her chopsticks and heaved a long, satisfied sigh. "It was good?" she said, looking inquiringly at me.

I regarded her with considerable respect. Anyone who could eat as much as she had and still keep a nice shape was entided to respect. "It was wonderful."

She smiled contentedly.

"Yes, it really was wonderful. May I please have a cigarette?"

I gave her a cigarette and lit it for her. She blew smoke from her small neatly made-up mouth and then her smile became inviting.

"Would you like to return to the hotel now?" she said. "We could make love. It would be good after such a meal."

"It's early yet ... we have the night before us," I said. "Tell me more about Herman Jefferson. You say he began to make money three months after he married Jo-An. How did he make it?" She frowned. I could see Jefferson as a subject bored her.

"I don't know. Jo-An didn't tell me. One day I found her alone and crying. She said he had left her. He no longer needed her because he was now making money."

"She didn't tell you how?"

"Why should she? It wasn't my business."

"Did he come back?"

"Oh, he came back from time to time." Leila pulled a face. "Men come back when they want a change. He only came back for a night now and then." "What did Jo-An do when he left her?"

"Do?" Leila stared at me. "What could she do? She worked as before."

"Entertaining gentlemen?" "How else could she live?"

"But if Jefferson was making money and she was his wife, surely he gave her something?"

"He gave her nothing."

"Do you know where he lived after he left her?"

"Jo-An told me he had rented a big villa belonging to a Chinese gambler at Repulse Bay. I have seen the place." Leila heaved an envious sigh. "It is very beautiful ... a big white villa with steps leading down into the sea with a little harbour and a boat."

"Did Jo-An ever go there?"

Leila shook her head. 

"She was never asked."

The waiter came in smiling and bowing. He gave me the check. The price of the meal was ridiculously cheap. I paid while Leila watched with a happy expression on her face.

"You are pleased?" she asked.

"It was a wonderful meal."

"Let us go back to the hotel then and make love."

I was in Hong Kong. There was this odd atmosphere of surrender to the senses that made argument difficult. Besides, I had never made love to a Chinese girl. It was something I felt I should do.

"Okay," I said, getting to my feet. "Let us go back to the hotel."

We went out into the noisy dark night with the clatter of Mah Jongg tiles following us. We began to walk down Nathan Road.

"Perhaps you would like to buy me a little present?" Leila said, taking my arm and smiling
persuasively at me.
"I could be talked into it. What had you in mind?"

"I will show you."

We walked a little way, then she steered me into a brilliantly lit arcade of small shops. Before each shop stood a smiling, hopeful Chinese salesman.

"I would like to have a ring to remember you by," Leila said. "It need not be an expensive ring."

We went into a jewellers and she selected an imitation jade ring. It wasn't much of a ring, but it seemed to delight her. The salesman asked forty Hong Kong dollars. Leila and he spent ten minutes haggling and finally she got it for twenty-five dollars.

"I will always wear it," she said, smiling at the ring on her finger. "I will always remember you by it. Now let us go back to the hotel."

It was after we had left the ferry boat and I was waving to a taxi that I lost her. It is something I haven't been able to understand even now. Three heavily-built Chinese, in black city suits, jostled me as the taxi moved towards me. One of them bowed and apologised in imperfect English while the other two surrounded me, then the three moved off to a waiting car. When I looked around for Leila she had vanished. It was as if the sidewalk had opened and had swallowed her up.

He opened one heavy eyelid, stared blankly at me and said, "No speak English." and the eyelid snapped shut.

I went to my room. Leila's door was shut. I turned the handle and the door swung open into darkness. I groped for the light switch and turned it on. I looked into the clean little room: no Leila.

Leaving the door open and the light on, I entered my room, also leaving the door open. I sat on the bed, lit a cigarette and waited.

I waited a little more than an hour. Then because it was more comfortable, I stretched out on the bed. In half an hour, lulled by the heat and the heavy eating, I went to sleep.

I woke, feeling hot, damp and uncomfortable. The early morning sun was filtering through the shutters. I raised my head and looked at my strap watch. The time was twenty minutes to eight. I sat up and stared across the passage into Leila's empty room. A creepy sensation moved icily up my spine. I had a sudden feeling that something bad had happened to her. She hadn't run away from me. I was sure of that. She had been spirited away and I could guess why. Someone had decided she not only knew too much but she had been talking too much. I considered what to do. I got off the bed, closed my door, shaved and washed as best I could in the cracked basin. I put on a clean shirt, then feeling slightly better than a dead man, I stepped into the passage, locked my door and went to the head of the stairs.

A Chinese boy sat behind the counter: probably the reception clerk's grandson. "Leila hasn't returned to her room," I said.

He giggled with embarrassment and bowed to me. I could see he hadn't understood one word I had said.

I went down the stairs, waved away an eager rickshaw boy and signalled to a passing taxi. I told the driver to take me to police headquarters.

I was lucky. Chief Inspector MacCarthy was getting out of his car as I arrived. He took me to the police canteen where we were served with strong tea in thick white mugs. I told him the whole story.

I found his attitude infuriating. This was the first time I had ever done business with a British cop. His calm stolid don't-let-panic manner made my blood pressure rise.

"But something's happened to her," I said, trying to keep from shouting. "I'm sure of it! 

One moment she was right with me— the next she had vanished and she hasn't returned to the hotel."

He produced his Dunhill pipe and began to fill it.

"My dear chap," he said, "you don't have to get worked up about it I've had fifteen years' experience handling these girls. They are here today—gone tomorrow. She probably saw someone she thought had more money than you. It is a well-known dodge with these girls. They get what they can out of you—then they disappear." I drank some of the tea and fought against grinding my teeth.

"This is different. We were going back to the hotel—oh, the hell with it! Someone thinks she's talking. She's been kidnapped."

"Talking about what?"

"I'm trying to solve a murder case," I snarled at him. "She was giving me information."

MacCarthy blew expensive-smelling smoke at me. He smiled the way a parent smiles when his first-born has said something cute. I could see he regarded me as just another American screwball.

"What information could she give you to solve a murder that happened in America?" he asked.

"She told me Herman Jefferson rented a luxury villa at Repulse Bay. She told me he suddenly began to make money three months after he married and because he was making money he left his wife."

He smiled that bright Britannic smile that has even fazzed the Russians.

"My dear chap, you shouldn't pay any attention to what a Chinese prostitute tells you—you really shouldn't."

"Yeah. I guess I'm simple. You think she was kidding me and was staying out of her room just to give me an uneasy night?" 

He blew smoke at me.

"It's part of a prostitute's job to stay out all night."

"Do you know of any Americans living out at Repulse Bay?"

"I believe there are quite a few."

"Would you know if Jefferson had a place out there?"

"If he had, I would have known, but he hadn't."