Linnear 01 - The Ninja (39 page)

Ah Ma nodded. ‘Good. I do not want neighbours … involved.’

In the short space of time Penny was gone, Ah Ma thought about her. She had made the right decision in elevating the girl. She was clever with her mind as well as with her hands. Ah Ma would never admit it openly but there were times when she relied on Penny’s judgement, and it disturbed her that she seemed set against the Japanese.

Penny was the name Ah Ma had given to her when she had first applied for a job; Ah Ma gave names to all her girls and henceforth they were known by that name and that name alone. It was neat and tidy and as anonymous as Ah Ma believed her business should be. Besides, it gave her great pleasure to name her ‘children’; it pleased her, too,, that they should address her by the honorific ‘Mother’, a word not lightly used in her land.

There would come a time, Ah Ma thought, when she would have to relinquish her hold here. When that eventuality occurred she wanted to be certain that precisely the right hands took over.

Penny came back, ushering in a boy of about eleven. She stopped just inside the threshold, both hands on his shoulders. He stood perfectly still, his eyes incurious. Through the partially open doorway Ah Ma could hear the quiet bustle of the preparations. As planned, there were only one or two guests expected tonight; this, too, was built into the enormous fee she was charging the Japanese. She did not mind.

She looked the boy over. He had clear, smooth skin, a slight Mongol cast to cheeks and eyes. His irises were like chips of coal. His mouth was wide, the lips slightly sensual.

‘This is Philip Chen,’ Penny said.

‘Close the door, precious,’ Ah Ma said softly. Her hands were clasped in front of her, the fingers interlaced. She looked at the boy. ‘You will have another name while you are here,’ she told him. ‘Sparrow. This will be how you are summoned, how you will be addressed. Is this understood?’

The boy nodded, then smiled slowly.

‘Call me Mother.’

‘Yes, Mother.’

‘Have you been properly instructed? I don’t want any surprises.’

‘Yes,’ he said happily. ‘Penny has explained everything. No problem.’

‘Really?’ Ah Ma’s eyebrows arched. ‘That remains to be seen. All right. Leave us now, Sparrow. Find Willow. She will take you to the proper room You know what to do.’

‘Yes, Mother.’ He turned and left.

After Penny had shut the door behind him, Ah Ma said, ‘Parents?’

Penny shook her head. ‘He lives with an uncle who is too drunk to care if he’s out all night.’

‘The situation is totally secure?’

Penny nodded her head. Her black hair tossed like an animal’s mane, ‘Willow saw to it personally.’

Ah Ma allowed herself a small smile. ‘You have done well, my child.’

Penny bowed her head to cover the flush in her cheeks. It was rare indeed to be addressed in such a loving manner by Ah Ma. Thank you, Mother,’ she murmured.

Ah Ma went silently to stand in front of Penny. She lifted a hand, tilted her chin up. ‘Now tell me what’s bothering you,’ she said quietly.

Staring into those all-knowing eyes, it was difficult to find words. Penny felt as if her throat had constricted so much that not even air could pass through.

‘Come, come, child. Is it the Japanese? What is it about him that offends you so?’

‘I am ashamed that my feelings are so transparent,’ Penny said sadly. Her eyes dropped for a moment and she felt as if she might burst into tears at any moment.

‘Nonsense!’ Ah Ma said irritated. ‘What is apparent to me is not to others. You have lost no face with me. Please tell me now what I wish to know.’

‘It is the drug which bothers me so,’ Penny said. ‘This is something I don’t think we should become involved in.’

For a moment Ah Ma said nothing. She recalled a trip she had taken as a small girl into Shanghai. She could still smell the overpowering, cloying stench of the burning opium. Her nostrils quivered at the memory; she had never smoked but the odour remained with her like a brand.

It had been in the air the night the communists had come for her husband. There had been no sound, no warning. They had been in hiding but the communists had known precisely where to look. They had been traduced.

Ah Ma’s husband had been a political activist. His foresight was long-range. He had seen the impending storm of the Communist Revolution, perhaps had even understood its inevitability. Yet he fought against it with unequalled vehemence. ‘For once,’ he had said in speeches, had written in pamphlets, ‘we are in a position to learn from the Japanese. What good did the closed regime of the shoguns do them? There came a time when it became apparent that the country was stagnating, strangling in its hard-bound traditions of iron. The way of the future for the Japanese became Western capitalism. Now see where they are. Can we here in China ignore such a historical example? A communist take-over will seal us off from the West, from the very capitalism, which has made such thriving cities of Hong Kong and Shanghai. Thus will China fall behind the rest of the world, a true sleeping giant.’

They burst in, throwing Ah Ma against a wall so that her head banged into the edge of a cupboard. They dragged him out of bed, stripped him, beat him with their heavy sticks, the butts of their rifles. The red star embroidered on their peaked caps, the epaulettes of their stinking uniforms. They had dragged Ah Ma’s husband, unconscious and bleeding, from the house. It was the last time she ever saw him. To this day she could not be certain whether he was alive or dead. But she hoped for his sake that he had died quickly. Perhaps he had found a bit of wire or a length of bed-sheet. She did not want to think of what they might have done to his mind.

That was a long time ago but sometimes, on the dismal grey days, when rain lashed the windows and even the street below was obscured, Ah Ma thought that the wound had never quite healed.

She brought her thoughts back to the present, smiled into Penny’s eyes. She was so beautiful. Perfect and beautiful. ‘It is good you feel that way, my precious/ she said. ‘As a rule you know I don’t allow drugs of any nature in here. This man is an exception.’ He fights the communists in China, in his own way, Ah Ma thought. He believes that his security is total but I know. Of course I know. I would not be who I am otherwise. I know all about everyone who comes here. Without exception. This one merely took more time, more baht. But there are always palms willing to be greased; there is a price on all such matters.

‘May I know the reason?’ Penny asked softly.

Ah Ma patted her shoulder. ‘It does not concern you.’ She smiled. ‘Now go help Willow. It’s almost time.’

Penny bobbed her head, her eyes on the floor in front of her. ‘Yes, Mother. Right away.’

Ah Ma watched her silently pad out of the room, wondering what the world was coming to.

As for the Japanese, he was, at this time, leaving the movie theatre via its side entrance. He immediately crossed Forty-ninth Street and ran the last several steps to catch a downtown bus. It was fairly crowded but thinned out not long after they passed Thirty-fourth Street.

He swung off one stop from the terminus, walked the rest of the way into the Village. On Eighth Street he turned east until he came to Cooper Square with its black metal cube sculpture balanced on one point. Along one face someone had spray-painted in white ‘Zombie loves Karen R’. It seemed to fit.

He caught the City Hall bus on the corner of Eighth and Third Avenue, traced the Bowery as far as Canal Street. There he found the first phone booth. He stared up at the chunky old-fashioned clock above the jewellery store on the corner.

He dialled a number, got the correct time. He hung up and waited precisely one minute and fifty seconds. Then he dialled a local New York number. He detested this procedure but it was a built-in factor and a logical one; he did not fight logic.

At the other end the receiver was picked up. The Japanese read off the seven digits of the number from which he was making the call, then immediately replaced the receiver. He held down the bar while lifting the receiver, placing it against his ear. A woman who had been looking at him turned around disgustedly, searching for another phone.

Four and a half minutes later the phone rang. The Japanese lifted his finger from the bar. The conversation was in Japanese.

‘Yes.’ He could hear the hollow sound of the overseas line.

‘Status.’

‘We’re running.’

‘Tell me more. What results have you?’

‘Results?’ He seemed somewhat taken aback. ‘I’m in place. The buy is running.’ Buy was his own word for mission.

‘I see.’ There was a pause during which it was just possible to hear the sibilants of another call far in the open background. ‘The line is secure?’

‘From this end, absolutely.’

The voice at the other end appeared to disregard the discourtesy. ‘We wish a rapid denouement.”

“That was made clear to me in the beginning.’ Every fifteen seconds he checked his immediate area. Not that he expected to find anything; one should never forget security. It was all one ever had.

‘Precisely.’

‘These things can’t be rushed. You know that. I work a certain way. This was agreed upon or I never would have taken on the buy.’

‘Oh yes. We are well aware of that. But life is ever changing and recent events - events which have taken place while you were out of the country - necessitate a more precipitate closure.’

‘I never do things that way, I -‘

‘You will now.’ The voice was as soft as silk, the tone even. There was no haste to the words, no heavy-handed menace. ‘It is imperative you close the buy within the next seventy-two hours.’

‘I do not think that -‘

‘Your fee is doubled.’

The line was dead in his hand.

‘Good evening,’ Ah Ma said. She stitched a smile on her face, extended an arm. ‘You honour this house’

‘Is it all ready?’

Ah Ma kept her annoyance at this serious breach of ritual courtesy out of her voice. She was an extremely orderly woman; she did not take well to disruptions. Or to rudeness. She thought briefly of throwing the Japanese out. Certainly she did not need his money. But he had killed communists in China. Three high officials that she knew of; that surely meant the true figure was higher. She hated the communists far more than the Japanese. Besides, the arrangements had already been made. It would have been a cruel waste of time for her people had she sent him away now.

Ah Ma gave the Japanese her warmest smile. ‘All is in readiness, as we discussed.’ Covertly, her wide-apart black eyes, as alert as a bird’s, studied him. His mood is different, she thought. He seems less relaxed, almost on edge. Perhaps he goes from here to kill another communist. She shrugged inwardly. It was none of her concern.

‘Would you care for some tea first?’

‘No.’

‘Dumplings are just now being prepared.’

He shook his head.

Ah Ma lifted her shoulders. ‘As you wish.’ Barbarian! she thought. The amenities mean nothing to him. Time rushes him as if he were a Westerner. Ah well! The Japanese are much like the Westerners now; they are great mimics. ‘Willow,’ she called softly.

A woman glided up. She was tall and slender, her face bony. This set off her long eyes and full, wide lips. She was most striking. Yet she possessed a remarkable icy detachment. No one could mistake her for one of Ah Ma’s girls; one knew immediately, almost instinctively, that she was far more. One had no idea what that might be.

Willow looked at Ah Ma and at no one else.

‘Take the gentleman,’ Ah Ma said softly, ‘to the Gold Suite.’ All the rooms used for professional purposes were designated by colour.

Willow bowed and led the man down a dimly lighted hallway. The walls, save for the decorative moulding at floor and ceiling, were covered in blue-green Shantung silk. The carpet was a deep beige, as were the moulding and the closed doors they passed.

They came to the last door on the left and Willow halted. Her hand reached out for the knob.

‘Wait a minute.’ The man’s fingers encircled her slender wrist. He pulled her round to face him. ‘Are you going to -‘He was speaking in Cantonese, saw the blank look on her face, switched to Mandarin. It was too much to expect that they’d know Japanese. ‘Has the old woman fixed you up with me ? I told her I didn’t want anyone tall.’ Willow stared at him mutely. ‘Listen, I don’t want you. Understand? There’s been some mistake.’

Willow dropped her gaze to his fingers holding her.

‘Tell the old lady there’s been a mistake. For the money I’m -‘ He stopped, puzzled. She had made no move to break away from him. He had wanted her to struggle, even to whimper. He increased the pressure of his fingers but there was no response. He let go her wrist.

Willow turned and silently opened the door. She did not step over the threshold.

The Japanese went inside and turned around to look at her but the door was already closing behind him.

The room was large. Green carpet covered the floor. The walls were gold; the ceiling, an eggshell white. The room contained a large double bed, a wide sofa and a trio of matching chairs, all done in gold cotton. An open door in the right wall led to a rather large and, upon closer inspection, ornate bath. A highly polished oak armoire stood along the left wall next to a large window.

He crossed to this, looked out on Pell Street. There was a conventional black iron fire escape running up the side of the building; there was no window in the bathroom. Normal security precautions. He turned round.

He saw a young boy and, behind him, a young woman.

‘What is your name?’ he asked the boy. He did not ask for the woman’s name.’

‘Sparrow.’

‘Do you have it?’

The boy nodded, took a step towards the Japanese.

‘Stop,’ he commanded. ‘Give it to the girl.’

The boy turned and handed her something, -bring it to me.’

The girl bowed. On her way to him, she stopped to pour a cup of hot safe. She handed it to him.

He stared at her, his eyes boring into hers. His hand flipped out in a blur, knocking the cup from her outstretched hand. She stifled a cry at the blow. Her fingers stung terribly.