The Dragon's Tale: A Jack Lauder Thriller (12 page)

     Jack and Amie reached their table down the long runway. A man stood to greet them, the infamous K.K. Chow. He was short, well dressed with oiled hair and wearing designer spectacles. He looked like any respectable Chinese businessman. His face was square and dissected by a grin as wide as a street through which shone a mouthful of gold teeth.  Jack introduced Amie; K.K. Chow kissed her hand with an apparently sincere charm. He had provided a sumptuous meal of steamed snacks and had assumed Dom Perignon would suffice for the beverage.  He was swift to reassure Jack that his erstwhile problems were at an end. “You will see what I have done is for best. These men leave you alone. This I promise you.”

      That was a good start and, despite his host’s reputation, Jack found himself relaxing. Amie was effervescent. She seemed in her element and then K.K sprung another surprise. “By the way, there is someone I want you meet." Jack looked at him quizzically. “My business partner,” he added, “It always good to have partner, Mr. Jack.  When you busy like me, you need someone to take care of business. Someone you can trust.” There is a quality about the Chinese which combines the most apparently sincere shyness with a worldly wisdom beyond compare in the West and K.K. Chow had that sort of look on his face as he watched Jack’s reaction.  "Ah," he continued, "here she come now."

     Both Jack and Amie turned round and looked at the woman who was walking across the dance floor.  Dressed in a cheong-sam just like the hostesses, her smooth, silk-stockinged right leg emerging from the dress as she walked, this was another beauty.  The dress was of red silk and she wore red high-heeled shoes, but she was not one of the raven-haired, serving beauties. This was a purely western beauty and, not only was this lady blonde, but, as she came through the hordes of dancers, Jack got his biggest surprise of the evening. He recognised her all right, almost with the sound of the coin dropping down the chute. It was the lady from the airport and he knew now his previous suspicions had been correct. It was Diana Lundy. The delight on KK’s face was difficult to fathom: did he know they had history? Was he teasing his guest for some reason?

     Even though he was quaking inside, Jack stood up politely to greet the newcomer. Diana had no such inhibitions. “Jack!” she exclaimed, her long, slender arms held out towards him. "You two know each other?" K.K. Chow asked in an apparently surprised tone as they embraced. It was enthusiastic on her part but a little more reserved on Jack’s. She knew exactly what she was doing.

     "Yes ... yes ... we do," Jack stammered, "this is Amie Chow," he said, introducing Amie to Diana, "Amie, this is Diana, Diana Lundy." There was a spark between the two women, a moment's electricity.

     "We know each other," Amie said and the tension in her voice was plain. Diana smiled and said something to K.K. Chow in Cantonese, which made Amie blush crimson through her pale, translucent skin. The words were too swift for Jack’s limited grasp of the language. He still didn’t hear it; he had to think about it and translate it into English. On the other hand it was clear that Diana could speak the tongue fluently. Like a wharf coolie was how the comparison used to go. It wasn’t far off the mark in her case.

     "Well, Amie dear," Diana replied to her, "How is life treating you, working in commerce?" Amie looked at the ground momentarily, knowing she was being put down. 

     Jack breezed in quickly, "I've come to Hong Kong to see someone else you just happen to know.” He thought he was telling her news not history.

     "You mean my ex?" She reminded him tersely that she'd never had a problem calling a spade a spade.

     "Sorry. Your ex," he corrected himself with a faintly amused smile. In fairness, with Diana, there were many who could be included in the boyfriend category, not least himself, even if fleetingly.  

     Chow indicated to them to sit down again and he positioned Diana on Jack’s right and Amie on his left.  Diana's right leg slipped out of her dress as she sat down and she made no effort to cover it.  She'd always had pins and Jack could see Amie’s discomfort.  Diana was looking at him with her amazing blue eyes.  The bleakness of winters in the Southern Ocean was in them. You could see albatrosses flying there; you expected an iceberg to heave into view. She knew the effect she had on men.  She held him steadfastly in that gaze until he too felt uncomfortable. He was reminded of chess players who would gaze at you for long, solid minutes, trying to figure out from your body language if you were feinting or not.

     Jack was back there on that beach: it was midnight in the Lamma channel, he’d been to a dinner party where Diana was also a guest; she'd just split up from her husband, Patrick Lundy. He never did know the reason but Patrick could bore for the Commonwealth. Diana was a clever girl. She could speak a number of languages – not that she had qualifications, she just picked them up. The son of an old fashioned New Zealand banker, Patrick didn’t appreciate her ambition. He wanted her home, barefoot and pregnant, as training for the isolated fruit farm he was going to buy back home when he’d made his pile. She had other ideas; she wanted some fun out of life; and it was her quick wits and ability to talk on just about any level to his guests in whatever language they might speak, which made her the ideal person for K.K. Chow’s right-hand woman. By that time Patrick was history and she had to fend for herself.

     The night Jack was thinking back to she was making a play for one of the men at the party, teasing this bloke chronically.  The victim was lapping it up, lusting for this beautiful creature who was giving him the impression he was the only male in the world for her - if he just said the word he could have it right there and then on the parquet floor, in front of the specially invited audience, including this bloke‘s partner. From his position of apparent disinterest, Jack saw the covert glances the man gave her and her robust eye-contact in response. Maybe he was a little jealous as he looked at this interplay. He was unattached. Diana’s response to him had always been about as welcoming as an iceberg’s. She was a country lass, fresh out of the Aussie outback but with an extraordinary zest for living and for the trappings of success. He had the impression she found his Englishness quaint. He figured, though, he was here so that both of them, the two partnerless ones, could meet. His Australian friends engaged in that kind of match-making. Perhaps Diana had rebelled against that. She had just got rid of a fuddy-duddy banker. The last thing she wanted was a stuffed-shirt lawyer. Ah, but she didn’t know him, or did she? Perhaps she recognised instinctively a serious person when she saw one. Perhaps that was why she issued her challenge to hang off the rails from the thirtieth floor and was so shocked when Jack accepted it.

     The night went on from there. Revelling in her new-found freedom and her power over the opposite sex, Diana got herself quite spectacularly drunk and a row developed between her would be paramour and his partner.  She decided to make a grand exit and, as she flounced out, she fell on the floor, like someone slipping on a banana skin.  For someone with her cool, that was a terrible thing to happen, and she stormed off out of the building, took the lift down and disappeared.  Everyone was nonplussed and Jack, the only neutral, offered to go and check she was all right. When he got out into the night air, it was difficult to trace her at first, and then he saw a figure drifting across the paddy field on the path down to the bay.  He shouted and a hand waved.  He thought, she's all right anyway, and was going to leave it there, but it was a fine evening, ideal for a walk. The conversation had been getting stuffy upstairs and a lot of booze had been sunk, so he decided to take in some of the sea air.  There was a breeze up over the channel and it cooled him through his white cotton shirt. After about five minutes walk, he got down to a little bay, looking across to Lamma island.  Diana was standing there.  She smiled, "Fancy a midnight swim?"

     He did a double-take but it only assured him that she was quite serious. "No bathers," he laughed.

     "You don't need togs.”

     The change in her voice was arresting, then she began an elaborate striptease in front of him, taking off each flimsy garment with exaggerated movements of her body, letting her hands run slowly over her limbs. She was facing him all the time, doing it for his benefit, enjoying his discomfort. She reached behind her and unclasped her bra, letting it fall over her arms, turning tantalisingly away at the same time so that her breasts were hidden from his eyes like forbidden fruit.  She walked to the water margin in the moonlight. A shimmy of her hips and she was stepping out of her pants as well.  She stood there long enough to let Jack gaze at the perfect hemispheres.  She was looking back and smiling. "You're very cool you Poms," she said, "an Aussie wouldn‘t stand on ceremony.” She laughed and slid below the surface, swimming in the clear water, her head just above, the whiteness of her body just visible beneath. It shimmered hazily. "Come on!" she exclaimed, "stop being so bloody British, come for a swim, it'll do you good."

      What the hell, he thought, and began to take off his clothes.  She laughed encouragingly. She wanted him to get everything off but he was too shy for that. Moments later, he splashed out to meet her, wearing only boxers.  She laughed at his modesty.  Within seconds they were splashing each other, swimming up and down.  She ducked under the water, swum like a fish beneath him and pulled down his shorts.  He made the feeblest of protests, as if it was something he didn't want, but she wasn't having any. She surfaced again, her hair wet and her ice blue eyes streaming. "It's your lucky day," she said, "do you go down the Wanch, Jack?   Do you like their tight little asses?  I bet you get fed up with it! I bet you’d kill for some white silk!" She swam away.  He caught her at a sandy island in the channel. It was simply coincidental that a wave brought him right in behind her and those two firm hemispheres nestled in his groin.

      Now, in the Club Volvo, Jack looked into those blue eyes again and he knew exactly what she was thinking: they had unfinished business. But he was with Amie. The evening went well enough. He was conscious of some sword fencing on K.K. Chow’s part but he steered clear of the subject of Gerry Montrose. On their way back to the taxi rank, Amie mentioned how withdrawn he’d become. "I really like you, Jack," she said, "you're different from most of the Gwai los."

     "I feel the same way about you too," he replied, "you're different from most of the Gwai los too." Even though he'd tried to defuse the moment by making a joke of it, he felt the static as her hand touched his.

     “Not tonight,” she said, “I have to think about this.”

     “Tomorrow then?”

     “Okay. I am not working tomorrow. What would you like to do?”

      There was an answer to that but he thought it best not to go there. “I’d like to go up the Peak,” he replied after a few moments’ thought.

      “Great! Let’s meet at the Peak café then.”

     He was disappointed by her distancing herself; she wanted to meet in a public place. In truth the evening had him really worked up and he wanted her to come home with him, but it was pointless, she usually said what she meant. Then the moment was gone and she waved as she got into one of the waiting taxis and there was another behind pulling up for him. Reluctantly, wondering why he didn’t just tell the driver to follow hers so he could at least say what was on his mind, he took the taxi back to the flat, his mind in turmoil. He remembered Diana and that night on the beach. You don’t forget the sheer unadulterated joy of something like that, something so free and so spontaneous. The delights of Amie hadn’t entirely quenched that flame.

     He arrived back at the flat, reflecting that he felt less apprehensive now K.K. Chow was on the case. He had a shower and went straight to bed. A knock on the door made him stiffen suddenly but then his fear changed to hope that Amie had changed her mind. He was surprised when he threw the door open:  Diana was standing there. "Surprise, surprise, the night’s still young!” Her eyes were wide as she looked for his reaction.  On the ground next to her was a bucket of ice and champagne.

     “How did you know I was here?” He didn’t want to show concern but it was hard to hide.

     She looked at him as if he was an idiot, “K.K. Chow told me.” She didn’t explain how he knew. She probably thought Jack had told him.

     "Haven’t we had enough?" Jack pointed at the booze.

     "We’re the same, you and I, Jack.  We've never had enough!" She had always been so sure of herself. She started to pour the champagne while Jack sized her up.  A little heavier than she had been those years ago, but, if anything, that had added to her attractiveness.  She might not be as young as those girls who worked in the nightclub but there is something more sexually attractive about a mature woman.  He wondered what he would say if it was offered on a plate.  Would he have the strength of mind to say no, particularly now he and Amie might become an item?  Or were they? Was she telling him something discreetly? He remembered to keep his cool with Diana, that he wanted to be the one posing the questions and said, "What happened to you?"