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Authors: Harold Robbins

BOOK: Sin City
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“Welcome to Indiana Jones's den of iniquity.”
The greeting came from Bert Regent, Wan's London gambling consultant. Regent was a white-fleshed, corpulent Britisher with thin, slicked-back hair. He reminded me of one of those James Bond villains who carry white cats and use cigarette holders to smoke.
Wan's casino definitely had a taste of the exotic East. A huge atrium enclosed a tropical jungle. The screams of monkeys and jungle birds punctuated the hum and chatter of slot machines. A crocodile pond was in the center, no doubt convenient for gamblers who lost their shirts and decided to end it all—or who were caught cheating.
Other than the jungle sounds, the casino was surprisingly quiet. Vegas gambling, especially craps and blackjack, rang with shouts and groans. The Chinese in Macao gambled with somber intensity, not unlike what you'd observe at a chess match. Old World Asians were always the most serious gamblers who came into Halliday's, whether they were betting one dollar or a thousand.
The setup was modern, but Wan had some special stuff for the Asian crowd. One was fan-tan, in which the croupier dumped an unspecified number of cubes on the table and then divided the pile into four parts until four or fewer were left. Before dividing the pile into four parts, the players bet on how many cubes would be left in the original pile when it got down to four or less cubes. There were only four possible bets: one, two, three, or four cubes.
There was also a card game called
dai siu,
which involved whether certain cards added up to a large or small number. The odds were roughly even for either configuration, so the betting system was like playing odd-even, red-black in roulette. Hong Kong dollars and Macao patacas were the coins of the realm.
“Quite a joint,” I said, trying to imitate Robert Mitchum.
“Joint is right. I'm sure you have surveillance cameras and skywalks
in Vegas, but have you ever seen a casino with gun ports? That should tell you something about the tenor of Macao's gambling industry.”
I already knew that arguments were settled here the same way Al Capone settled his differences with Bugs Moran in that Chicago garage on St. Valentine's Day.
“They're jockeying for position—the triads and everyone else in town. The Portuguese have literally abandoned the colony because they know Macao's nothing more than a pimple on a gorilla's arse. The Chinese Communists can march in and take over Macao any time they like. When it goes down, the Reds will line up the crooks and shoot them. The fight is over who's going to control gambling because the Reds won't shut it down—it brings in too much money.”
He began the casino tour by explaining the computer system. I listened to him but all I knew about computers was how to flip the on-and-off button. Finding the “bug” in the computer would be Windell's job. And I was sure there was one, not a computer virus, but a bug similar to a mechanical gaff to rig slot machines and clips to hold cards under a table. Bert Regent smelled like a crook to me. Unlike Windell, who punched out quarter slugs, he seemed like a slick operator who'd steal millions with the stroke of a pen or the keyboard of a computer. I looked at the revenue printouts for the club and they stunk. However, why Wan didn't come clean and admit he brought me in to find the bug was the big question. Last time I played this game with him I discovered he had more up his sleeves than a Rolex.
Looking for exotic bargains, Chenza headed for the shops off the side streets of San Ma Lo, Macao's main drive. We had some heated words about Luis Kang. I told her she did everything but bend down and give him a blow job at the table. Her reply was that whatever she did was none of my business. That was true. I wasn't in love with her, but as long as we presented ourselves as a number in public, I expected her to act straight.
I had lunch with Regent on the restaurant's balcony outside the casino.
“That's Wan's house up the hill,” he said. “Qianqinggong. Wan calls it Palace of Heavenly Purity, after the old imperial palace in Peking's Forbidden City.”
The “house” was almost as big as the hill it sat on. With peaked tile roofs that fanned down on four sides and lush gardens with bushes and trees carved into foreign shapes, the compound conveyed the magic of the exotic East to the Western eye. One thing I had developed a particular fondness for in the Far East, besides the women, was the architecture. It was a sharp contrast to the Vegas-style square towers of concrete and glass downtown and ranch-style tract houses in the suburbs. Other than Wan's and Kang's skullduggery, I was finding the Orient a feast to my eye—the buildings, the dress, and especially the beautiful women.
As we ate, I couldn't help but notice we were being watched by someone using a spyglass. It looked like a young woman, maybe in her teens, was watching us from a pavilion jutting out from Wan's Heavenly Palace.
“Wan's daughter?” I asked.
“A-Ma, one of Wan's whores. His favorite one.”
I squinted at the figure in the distance. “She couldn't be more than fourteen or fifteen.”
“Sixteen and he's had her for several years.”
“The dirty old prick.”
“You're in the Far East, old man: Life's cheap here, and the sex is even cheaper. There are places in Asia where baby girls are buried alive or thrown into rivers to get rid of them. From what I've heard, A-Ma would have ended up a floater in the Pearl River Estuary if Wan hadn't taken her in.”
“I've heard the name A-Ma before.”
“You'll see it around the city. It's the name of a goddess. I don't know the whole story, something about fishermen and how Macao got its name.”
After lunch, I wandered around the casino, just checking out the action and getting a feel for the style of laying down bets. I went up to a balcony overlooking the casino floor. The balcony, which wrapped around the entire interior of the main room, was covered with tropical plants. I didn't know if its purpose was to display the monkeys and birds scattered around it, or to get a better aim if there was trouble below.
I sat on a folding chair with my arms on the banister and watched the action below. I soon realized that I was being watched again. On
the other side of the atrium a beautiful Chinese face was poking out of the dense vegetation, the same face that had been spying on me with a telescope from Wan's house.
She was truly beautiful, not in the glamorous sense of a modern movie star or magazine cover model, but in a mysterious, erotic sense, the sort of languid sensuality of Marlene Dietrich and Greta Garbo. Her warm sex appeal radiated down to my groin. My phallus was immediately thinking about making love to this goddess.
“Hungry for some yellow cunt?”
I almost jumped out of my skin.
Chenza had come up behind me. She had a woman with her who looked like a product of Chinese-Portuguese mating. In fact, she looked a little like a gorgeous version of Luis the gangster.
“Maria is Luís's sister. Come upstairs, I want to show you something.”
Once we were inside our suite in Wan's hotel wing, Chenza set down her shopping bags and walked up to Maria and kissed her on the mouth, a long, wet kiss. She reached down and pulled Maria's dress off over her head. She wore nothing underneath except black bikini panties that accentuated her hips. Her breasts were much fuller than Chenza's, her thighs and hips generous but lush.
I watched as Chenza caressed each breast with her hand, then bent down to suck the rose-colored nipples with her wet mouth. I was getting totally aroused watching them. Maria slowly began to take off Chenza's clothes and ran her hands down the sinuous body. They both stood stark naked in front of me. I couldn't hide the bulge in my pants.
“Fuck us,” Chenza ordered.
 
“It's called the Dance of the Phoenix Birds,” Maria said.
She lay naked on her back with Chenza spread on top of her. They were positioned so both their naked buttocks were at the edge of the bed. She paused as they kissed each other. “You enter Chenza's secret garden with your jade peak.”
My “jade peak” was red and throbbing. Chenza was pressed breast to breast with Maria and had her buttocks up in the air with the secret garden between her legs already watered by Maria's tongue. It was the Tao Way of lovemaking. For sure, Maria hadn't learned it from a book.
Standing next to the bed, I slowly put my penis in Chenza's opening, feeling her wet hole suck me in.
“Now thrust slowly,” Maria cooed. A few moments later she said, “Remove your jade peak and put it into my secret garden.”
I went back and forth between the two of them, taking turns fucking Chenza doggy style and then Maria.
I had a rhythm going when I got that feeling again that someone was watching us. I looked up at the ceiling and saw the unmistakable small round lens of a video camera.
Good old Mr. Wan.
I laughed and gave the camera the finger.
 
 
THE GOLDEN GODDESS
 
The storm came like a crouching tiger, suddenly springing.
CANTON, CHINA, 1974
A fisherman untangling a net in his sampan looked up as a young voice addressed him.
“There,” a little girl about nine said. “There” was the peninsula and two islands that formed the Portuguese enclave of Macao eighteen miles across the Canton delta. The little girl was a mudlark, one of the hundreds that hung around the wharf—the lucky ones helping their parents handle fish, the others surviving on garbage until they're swept away by disease.
“Go away,” he said.
“There,” she pointed again.
He had seen her earlier, coming down the line of boats, using the same word and gesture. He hadn't heard her speak another word and wondered if
there
was the only word she knew. Her meaning was clear enough. She wanted a ride across the water to Macao. She had been turned away by all of the boats. His was the last in the line. He was a poor man and his boat was also the smallest and least seaworthy of the sampans and junks along the waterfront.
He went into the sampan's tiny hut formed by mats and put on a slicker.
Like all the fishing people, his whole being was in tune with the weather, especially in the bay during August, when sudden storms could erupt with the mindless fury of a rabid dog. When that happened, his poor boat was the least likely to survive. He had been swamped before and nearly drowned. Now he could taste rain. He had to get back to Macao with his catch or it would rot on him, but he feared the crossing.
When he came out, she hadn't moved. She stood on the dock and looked up at him with liquid almond eyes. Her eyes were unusual, he thought; large and round, intense, as if she saw things that others didn't.
He squinted at the clouds. The sky was darkening. He had to hurry. On impulse he said, “Come.”
She scrambled aboard and sat in the V formed by the bow as he rolled with a scull from the stern, working the oar from side to side to move the boat forward. Into open water, he raised the sampan's small sail and went back to rowing. Other boats, some even with small outboard motors, passed him as he rowed and kept an eye out on the darkening sky and freshening wind.
The little girl took well to the action of the boat, hardly moving when waves burst over the bow as the boat rode the choppy water. He wondered if her parents had been fishermen, drowned in a sudden storm or struck down by an epidemic. She didn't fear the sea—children often don't—but she seemed to embrace it as did the children of fishermen.
The storm came like a crouching tiger, suddenly springing. An angry wind roiled off the hills and blew across the top of the water, carrying rain and sea. The fisherman quickly took down his sail and got back behind the helm, rowing faster.
“Come here, come back here,” he yelled to the little girl.
She gave no indication that she heard him. Standing at the bow, she laughed as wind and water lashed the boat. He was a good man and he would have crawled forward to grab her but it was all he could do to hold onto the helm.
The storm tore at the small boat, ripping the sail loose and tearing the roof off the small hut. Other boats around him were also in trouble, keeling over from the force of the storm. A larger and sturdier boat near him keeled over until water swamped it and it sank. No one could help the people who were thrown into the water; the storm had command of the sea.
Gripped by fear, the fisherman held onto the helm with all his might and prayed. The rain and sea lashed the boat. He could barely see the bow of his boat, but the little girl was still there, as if glued to the bow, a dark silhouette in the storm. He was sure he could hear her laughter over the fury of the storm.
The storm died almost as suddenly as it had risen. Rowing toward the wharf at Macao, he heard from the other boatmen that in its fury, eight boats had been lost, the most at one time in anyone's memory. Other fishermen shook their head with amazement that his boat had
survived the storm when so many more seaworthy boats had been torn asunder.
He yelled back to them that A-Ma had protected him and he pointed to the little girl, still riding the bow. A-Ma, the goddess of the sea, protector of sailors. Macao's name was derived from that of the goddess.
When they reached the shore the little girl disappeared as he was unloading his catch. He paused for a moment, looking around for her. He had little but he would have shared it with the child, who he was sure had brought him luck.
 
Wu-hou was a procurer. As a girl of ten, she had been sold by her parents to a man who trained young girls and boys for roles as “jewels” to wealthy men who could afford such trinkets. The man carefully chose children who would grow up to be pleasing to the eye and who had the intelligence to master music and poetry, which their culture esteemed.
Wu-hou had been an orphan and he gave her the name of a famous Chinese empress, a woman of intrigue and utter ruthlessness. He had sold her to a man who admired more practical qualities in a woman than the liberal arts.
Wu-hou's own benefactor died when she was thirty. Only modestly attractive and far beyond the desirable age for jewels, she avoided life in a house of prostitution by her business acumen, eventually entering the “jewel” trade herself. Success had awarded her many luxuries and she found life pleasing.
Walking with a servant along a Macao wharf, selecting fish for her table, she saw the little girl. A nine- or ten-year-old in a ragged dress rummaging for food in a trash can would not have caught the eye of most people but Wu-hou had an eye for high art. She saw in the little girl's dirty face valuable grace and rare beauty.
When she asked the girl's name, she said, “A-Ma.”
“Take her home and wash her,” she told her servant, “and delouse her good. Take her to my doctor for shots. Who knows what she picked up in garbage cans.”
 
Three years of training polished the jewel to a fine sheen.
“Please play a song for me,” Wu-hou told A-Ma. She lay on her bed
in a silk robe. The room was heavy with the poppy incense that Wu-hou preferred and cloaked in darkness except for candles. Hearing the soft melody played by A-Ma on the lute until Wu-hou closed her eyes had become a bedtime ritual for the older woman.
The girl sat on a stool next to the bed and began to play. A-Ma had been on her mind for some time. She was the quintessential jewel; the quietest of her trainees but the one that glistened the most. She rarely talked yet when she did her voice was musical. She studied in silence and absorbed everything. At thirteen she was proficient in English, French, and three Chinese dialects, including Hakka, which Wu-hou believed to be her native tongue.
Like all of her students, A-Ma was taught to walk and talk with grace and poise, learning business and scientific terms besides the arts, and even more important to
listen
to a man's woes, rubbing the man's neck and murmuring condolences when he had troubles, clapping with enthusiasm at his victories. It was the way of the Chinese concubines of an earlier age. In the days when concubines were common, her feet would have been bound from childhood to create the tiny crippled feet Chinese men found so sensuous.
A-Ma was the first jewel that Wu-hou had wanted to keep for herself, the first that she was willing to give up a fat commission to keep. But the client who asked for her was not someone she could refuse.
She held up her hand to signal A-Ma to stop playing. The time for her had come.
“You are the best of my students, little one. Now it is time for you to learn the most important things that a man desires. In a moment I will have Kao come in,” she said, referring to a young male servant. “You will learn with him the places a man is to be touched to please him and the places he will want to touch you. But before you learn to please a man, you must know all about a woman's body.”
Wu-hou slipped out of her robe and lay back, naked. She was forty years old and although her face showed her years and more, her body was still firm and lush.
“Come here, my child.”
A-Ma sat beside her. She took the girl's hand and placed it on her breast. “A body is like the lute. You must learn how to play it.”
Deception and deceit are the tools of a wise general.
—Sun Tzu,
The Art of War

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