Blue Lantern (25 page)

“Where will it end, Andy?”

“I think it could end as it is now, if you make a deal with Flinn. If you don't, you could be kicked out of the Force or go to prison.”

“But everybody's doing it, for Christ's sake, Andy!”

“Try proving that,” Marsden said with a death's head grin.

Brodie shivered. “Won't anybody be interested in who I got the money from?”

“Your word against Flinn won't work. You'll be blamed, just as Sherwin was effectively blamed for the Lantau debacle. Don't imagine this situation is new. The Force has a century's experience in dealing with extortion, and those who are too pansy to live with it.”

Brodie felt he was on the edge of dark water full of predators. “Are IID in on the take?”

“I don't know. They'll be reasonable. Look, I'm sure I can get the charges dropped, if only you'll see reason.”

Marsden gave Brodie a caring look, his dressing gown hanging open to the navel, revealing his black-haired torso.

“OK,” Brodie said, without any idea of what ‘seeing reason' really was.

Brodie did his allotted duties in the next few days, which were not controversial, and otherwise remained in his room. He made excuses to Marsden, and did not respond to Vanessa's invitations. He couldn't speak to Helen because she had started her vacation, and apart from seeing her on Christmas day at St John's Cathedral, if he chose to go, they would meet next on the
Pacific Cloud
. He was glad of the respite; he was too broken up to face Helen's penetrating questions.

He stayed out of Flinn's way. He saw Flinn watching and waiting, the deep, piggy eyes fixed on him across a room or in the corridor. The idea that seemed best to him was to stall everything until after the Manila vacation.

On Christmas day Brodie awakened shortly after dawn. He showered and dressed casually in the half-light; and then undressed, and put on a suit and tie. He walked up Nathan Road. The sky was gray. The air was chilled, but humid. He thought of eating, and steered close to a couple of stalls, but the whiff of hot oil and fish did not attract him; he walked on. He sat on a bench outside the ferry terminal with the pigeons. A few Chinese were doing tai-ji-quan. He crossed to Victoria in the Star Ferry; the ferry was almost deserted. He walked through Central District, and up Battery Path toward the government offices.

He went into St John's Cathedral and sat at the back. The cathedral was nearly full, and a festival of women's hats. The priest was offering communion. Brodie could remember the chill of the chalice on his lips, and the bitter-sweet of the wine. He listened to a hymn about dark, satanic mills, and then went outside and stood beneath the Burmese rosewood tree on the lawn, waiting for the crowd to come out. When the service was over, the entrance of the church was crowded with Hong Kong's elite, the judges, civic counsellors, lawyers, doctors, businessmen and civil servants, and their smartly dressed wives, British, Chinese, Indian and Portugese. The gowns of the clerics and choristers, red and white, fluttered in the wind.

She came out of the throng toward him, smiling. She was wearing a long, dark blue cheongsam, with a high collar, a small, stiff-backed figure. Her hair was piled on the top of her head, under a wide straw hat. Her skin was white. She looked more completely Chinese than he had ever noticed before.

“Merry Christmas,” she said, touching his hand, and bowing her head slightly. “I can't stay long, but I'm very glad you came, Mike. It's good on this day, particularly. It means something to me.”

He didn't say he came only to see her, and had no interest in the church or the ceremony. “Do you have time for a cup of coffee?”

She appeared to dwell on the suggestion, and then said, “No, and there's nowhere open.”

“We can find somewhere.”

“I'd like to Mike, but I have to go. I'm going to my brother's house to see his children, and this afternoon to our local church,” she said, looking round.

He saw from the direction of her glance a group of Chinese of various ages, about six or eight of them, all dressed in smart, dark clothes, who were not staring at Helen, but plainly waiting for her, talking idly in the splashes of sunlight, the children fooling around their legs.

“Your family?”

“Uh-huh.”

He could suddenly see, and feel the distance between him and them, a young white cop, and a cultured Chinese family. “We meet at ten tomorrow, at the breakwater, by the Yacht Club.”

“Have a nice Christmas,” she said.

She held out her hand, touched his again, and stepped away. She walked toward her waiting family; they surrounded her and she was lost to view.

He followed at a distance as the Lau family walked down Battery Path. He saw them climb into two black hire cars in Queen's Road. As Helen stepped into the car, a gust of wind parted her cheongsam, and showed her neat ankle and a black silk stocking. She looked in his direction, but gave no sign of recognition. He thought he saw anxiety on her face, but she might have flinched at the disturbance of the wind.

21

Brodie walked down Ice House Street to Chater road, and turned up toward Pedder Street. He regretted the idea of a party now; it had been an insurance policy against the solitariness of Christmas, inviting people to an afternoon party. He had arranged to borrow Ted Wells's apartment again, while Ted was on one of his visits to Macao. Now, feeling like a fugitive, partying was almost unthinkable. He was in suspension. His blood wouldn't begin to circulate until the noon gun sounded tomorrow, and the yachts crossed the start line.

When he entered the rooms, the winter sun lay across the carpet like a slab of cheese. The lounge smelled of cigarettes and flat beer. Brodie gave money and instructions to the amah for food and liquor, and threw the windows open. He took off his jacket, loosened his tie and lay down in the spare bedroom – the honeymoon room – fully clothed. He tried to stifle his nagging anxiety about what Flinn had in store for him. He would deal with everything afresh after Manila.

It was not until the amah shook him that he realized he had guests. He got up, splashed his face with water, and combed his hair. The air smelled of roasting meat. At the door of the lounge he noticed that the amah had set the table with candles and red paper napkins tucked into wine glasses.

Andy Marsden and Vanessa, who hadn't noticed his appearance, were falling over each other to chase a paper glider. Gary was trussed up, lying on the hearth mat, watching. When they saw Brodie, Marsden and Vanessa stopped as if a power supply had been cut off. The child's noise broke in. They approached Brodie with smiles.

“Andy picked me up on the road,” Vanessa said.

“You don't seem so bright,” Marsden said.

“I've been asleep. I didn't want to interrupt your game, that's all.”

Marsden laughed showing his small, clean teeth and pink throat. His mouth laughed, while his eyes watched keenly. Brodie poured drinks. Other guests arrived; a random collection from the station, and the training school, with their wives or partners, who had not received a more attractive invitation. Hong Kong, for expatriates, was haunted by the spectre of absent friends and relations at Christmas. Any party was better than no party.

Vanessa chatted in Cantonese with the amah, helping her bring dishes of cake, chocolate and nuts to the table. Gary's demands were soon submerged in the din. The party exchanged presents, trivial things, although Brodie himself had not brought any presents for anybody. They ate and drank in a swirl of liquor-powered voices and taped music.

Freddie Hudson arrived trailing his wife, and his plump daughter who was wearing a short skirt which disclosed the muscularity of her thighs. When Brodie took her and her mother to the bedroom, to leave their coats, Gloria pressed close to him. She had met him before at the Hudson apartment, and for an English girl, Vanessa was not competition, but rather an irritating vice. Brodie slapped her bottom to get her moving back to the party, and she went with a good-natured, elephantine skip.

Andy Marsden said to Brodie out of the corner of his mouth, “Freddie Hudson's a stupid, incompetent, drunken old bastard. Why invite him?”

“Freddie's an example of what the Colony can do to you,” Brodie retorted.

Later, Freddie Hudson cornered Brodie at the liquor cabinet. “I've heard you're in trouble.”

“What trouble?” Brodie rasped, stiffened by a few gins.

Freddie Hudson winked at him, drained his glass, swayed, and said, “You can't beat the system old boy. Don't even try. I'm serious. I'm saying that because I like you.”

Marsden went on later to castigate Gloria, to Brodie. “She looks obscene in that getup.”

Brodie, who had no appetite for the food, and not much thirst for the drink was not too busy to see that Marsden was now engaged in talking earnestly to Gloria. After a while, he saw them leave the room, and head down the hall toward the bedrooms. Vanessa had been watching too, and in a few moments tossed her long hair, and ventured down the hall herself. Brodie observed this with a shrivelling feeling inside. Vanessa came back, sour-faced after half a minute. Gloria followed shortly, patting her breasts; then Andy Marsden smoothing his hair. Vanessa slunk sinuously around the room, with a bilious complexion, her chest caved, dagger eyes.

In the late afternoon the guests began to leave with profuse and drunken thanks and kisses and hugs of affection. Somebody retrieved the glider, and sent it for a final flight, clearing half a dozen tiny blown glass ornaments off the mantelpiece. Brodie ignored the mess of broken fragments in the fireplace. When only Vanessa and Gary remained, she collapsed sulkily on a couch. Brodie poured himself a whisky, lit a cigarette, and blew a cloud into the pall of smoke in the room. It was too cold now to open the balcony doors. The stereo music still shuddered in the air. Brodie pulled Vanessa off the couch on to the rug beside him. Her lips rubbed his, but her eyes were looking over his shoulder.

“What's the matter?” he asked, bitter, but not enough to challenge her connection with Marsden.

“You were going to give me money regularly. You did for a while.”

“There won't be any more, Vanessa. At least there won't be any large amounts, because I don't have any… I'll give you something from my salary.”

“Sixteen hundred bucks a month?” she asked, her eyes veiled almost to closing, and her lips contorting.

“Well, it's a bit more now, but yeah. It's the best I can do.”

She exhaled strongly. The skin on her cheeks simmered. He reached out for her. His fingers touched her averted chin. She avoided his eyes. His hand dropped away. Gary cried from the bedroom.

“You're not interested. I want to go to the ferry.”

He felt a remote flare of resentment, but again, not enough to voice it, or contest her wishes; they had hardly spoken since her arrival. He felt like pushing her into the cab with the money for the fare when it arrived, but he honoured the trifling practice of the past, and went with her. They sat in the cab like strangers, he looking out the window, and she tending the child.

“Don't pay. You can go back in it,” she said, when they pulled in to the Star terminal. “I'll manage the other side.”

He couldn't help seeing that a taxi journey could be a defining moment in a relationship with a woman, when he thought of Greta. The ride was over in strict time, without the space to reflect. The driver turned impatiently toward them, and Brodie made a move to help Vanessa and the child out. Their hands never touched. Her hair billowed up in the wind, and spilled over her face. Outside the vehicle, she hefted the child across her chest.

As the cab moved away, Brodie looked back. Vanessa had placed the child on a low wall by the footpath. She was crouching, zipping Gary's anorak, a girlishly slender, nondescript figure.

22

Brodie stayed in the cab until it had cleared the terminal entrance, and then paid it off, walked back, and caught a ferry to Kowloon side. He decided to go back to Mongkok, and change into more relaxed clothes, before returning to the apartment to make sure it was cleaned up. He counted the hours, keeping busy. When he got to the station, Flinn accosted him outside the duty room.

“Not so fast, my friend,” he said, blocking Brodie's way. “We need to talk, whether you're on leave or not. Unfinished business. I haven't heard from you.”

He motioned Brodie into his office, and closed the door.

“I've certainly heard from you. Your thugs went through my room at five am. You think that scares me?”

Brodie declined to sit, and spoke with a boldness that he didn't feel. Flinn relaxed in his chair, his hands clasped behind his head, looking up.

“I don't care about scaring you, Brodie. The raid was successful, that's what I care. Get a man when he's asleep. Although in your case, you've hardly been awake at any time.”

“You can't prove anything. And you're involved. Your prints are on the envelope IID recovered.”

Another defiant statement, a sudden idea, a random blow. Brodie remembered the care with which the IID men handled his articles. An envelope would carry a print, and even if IID would protect Flinn by wiping the print, it was worth saying. Flinn's little eyes receded warily.

“You're in very serious jeopardy, you jerk. You're headed for Stanley Prison.”

“Bastard. You deserve twenty years there. What are you doing here on Christmas day? Getting your bonus graft? Having a tipple with your triad customers? Counting the loot in your safe? I've learned plenty since I've been here. If you press on against me, the whole of this rotten empire is going to come down!”

Brodie was sparked by alcoholic irritability, slightly out of control. Flinn's gray tongue showed when he laughed, shoulders and chest heaving.

“What I want to know, Brodie, is whether you're going to follow my instructions, or go it on your own, when you come back from leave.”