fashion with octagonal bowl, facon de Venise. I sat with her on the carpet. The faded tangerine color, its rice-grain pattern with the five medallions, the ivory, blue, and yellow, put it about Ch’ien Lung. She smiled. “Yes, Lovejoy. I too doubt the inclusion of yellow. But who can challenge the wisdom of ancestors?”
She was delectable, decorating the carpet with grace in her silk cheongsam. I felt a slob, and knew I looked it.
A board clattered not far off, cups on a tray. I recognized Ong’s voice. Rattle, shuffle.
Mah-jongg in progress. An amah laughed. Assistants and murderers waiting in the wings.
For a second I had a mad idea of spinning it out with clever conversation, making a run for it, but gave up. Ling Ling was probably a black belt, whatever. And whatever I could plan, they’d planned light-years before.
“Your health,” I said. The wine was luscious.
“And yours, Lovejoy.” I watched her mouth lower to the frosty glass and her lips open to the cold white wine.
So in the broad day, beneath a parasol shade, sheltered by mountains that curved down to the aching blueness of the South China Sea, with my killers laughing close by, Ling Ling and I made smiles. Greed, I learned, is the only appetite that never fails—all others weaken with satiation.
Last rites. Perfect last rites. And I’m not being blasphemous. More things in this life are sacraments than we suppose.
Most women natter after love. Ling Ling is the only one I’ve ever known who knew better. It must have been an hour later that I surfaced, seeing my face-marks on her breast. The clatter and slap of mah-jongg, Hong Kong’s sound, meant the game was still on. I yawned, buried back close to her.
“Was that the best, Lovejoy?” she asked. I could hear the smile in her as she added,
“No. I know your answer: the next.” I thought, how’d she know that?
The yacht gave a single hoot then, constricting my throat. She rose from the carpet as an old amah came to enfold her in a dressing gown. I pulled myself together and stepped a yard to look at the bay. The white vessel was standing in close to us, less than a hundred yards off. The seabed must shelve steeply, as in Repulse Bay. It was moving slowly, crewmen motionless and ready for anchoring.
“Lovejoy.” Leung came beside me, cracking sunflower seeds.
The end, then. On a beach, knackered from love and worry, not a friend in sight. I went, stood amongst Leung’s four goons watching the yacht, eighty, sixty, finally stopping with a rattle and splash less than forty yards from the cliff. Dr. Chao was first to come ashore. Then, separately from round the blind side, Sun Sen, Fatty, and Steerforth —surprise, surprise, a dinghy rowed by two sailors. I realized the enemy quartet were as out of their depth in all this rurality as I was. The difference was they were going to do for me, not vice versa. We formed two small groups. Ling Ling vanished with her woman into the nearby greenery.
The trouble was, Steerforth looked in a worse state than me. Neat as ever, but lacking in confidence. Two of us?
A sailor stood behind Dr. Chao shielding him with a sunshade. Another shaded Fatty, making ancient emperors of them. Chao ascetic, thin; Fatty enormous, wheezing. They stood formally, generals talking war.
“Lovejoy has been devious,” Dr. Chao announced gravely. “He made an extra copy of the Song Ping. What sentence?”
“Execute,” Fatty shrilled. “We no need him now.”
“Very well.” Dr. Chao gave an order. Leung beckoned me. Ong followed with Steerforth.
Forty paces into the vegetation, and boulders hid us from the beach.
“I’m sorry about this, Lovejoy.” Steerforth, fine-weather faithful, gestured for Leung to move away. I stood by a boulder. “Want to turn round?”
They say you scream and pee yourself. It’s not true. You want to but you can’t. You can’t do a thing.
“You’re the one who stabbed Del Goodman, Steerforth. I should have known. Sim can’t bear violence.” That from the godown when they’d killed the old addict.
“Yes.” He shrugged. “An asset like a divvy—I just couldn’t lose the chance of trading you to the Triad. It’s made my future, Lovejoy.” And brought him closer to Ling Ling.
Ah, true love.
“Noticed anything, James?” I indicated my plight.
“Promotion costs casualties.” He even shrugged, which was big of him.
“You didn’t pass on the message I gave you?”
“Not until…”
“Until you dropped in at my studio to nick the extra painting.” I’d already guessed.
“Even though you knew it was the price of saving Marilyn? Is she another casualty?”
He moved an arm a fraction and a knife slipped into his hand. I really wished I could do that. “No more talk, Lovejoy.”
He stepped at me. Leung shot him. He seemed to give a shudder as if clouted. Blood came from his mouth as Leung shot him a second time. I heard myself going “Argh, argh,” in fright at the deafening gunfire, backing away from the appalling sight of Steerforth, handsome elegant Steerforth, scrabbling wide-eyed on hands and knees in blooded sand.
Ong touched my arm. I leapt, screeched in terror. He only stood there, grinning.
“Come,” he said. I followed, warily eyeing Leung in case it was a ruse. As if he’d need one.
