“I should skin you alive for what you did this morning.” Kim slammed his door so hard a map fell off the wall. “What treaty? You never mentioned a treaty to me.”
“That’s because I didn’t know about it before. We have treaties with everyone, all sorts of treaties. The Foreign Ministry has a bureau that does nothing but treaties. When Macau became part of China, we had to redo all of our liaison agreements. You’re going to have to deal with them, replace them, renegotiate them, or something. You can’t just trash them.”
“Says who?”
“They’re legal. They’re on paper. That makes them sacred, isn’t that right?”
“I have news for you, Inspector. When your government goes out of business, everything it ever signed goes in the toilet.”
“You wish. What happens is, everyone goes to court and things are tied in knots for years. Meanwhile, though, my government is still in business, and its treaties remain in force. That’s the law, comrade.”
“Since when are you an international lawyer?”
“I’m not, and neither, obviously, are you. The fact is we don’t have any exchange agreement with the Macau police on this particular issue. I checked.”
“We keep circling around on this, O. How is that? I don’t need any documents from Macau. I need you to fix a problem.”
“ ‘A little problem’ is what you said. Only it isn’t little. If it were little, Mr. Blue Suit wouldn’t have been up here. If it were a little problem, we might be able to wiggle between the words. But it’s big, a very big problem, and big problems fall under the heading of Treaties, Agreements, Memoranda of Understanding, and So Forth.”
“Can you or can you not fix this problem? The man in the blue suit wasn’t kidding. He’ll get someone else to do the job, and he won’t want people hanging around who are leftovers with a lot of information they shouldn’t have.”
“Tough guy.”
“Not tough, thorough. He doesn’t leave loose ends. He wasn’t happy with what he heard today. He made that clear after you left.” Kim picked up the map and put it back on the wall. “Funny how territory can be moved around, yet it always goes back to where it belongs. See what I mean?”
“It’s crooked,” I said. “Tilted to the right.”
“You haven’t told me, Inspector. I’ve been waiting patiently. But I’m not waiting anymore. Are you with me or against me? Your performance this morning was ambiguous. It raises questions. There can’t be questions about loyalty. It’s not possible.”
Loyalty? Did the man actually think I was loyal to him? Or might ever be? “Is that how things are in your world, Major? Do you imagine that people here are going to line up, once you’ve raised your flag and sounded the trumpets to announce a new dynasty has swept aside the old? What are you going to do, have everyone sign oaths of allegiance? You don’t have enough pens.”
“They’ll come along, as long as there aren’t troublemakers stirring things up. The point is, it will be even smoother if they have someone at the top whom they can cheer and weep for, someone on the reviewing stand, waving as they march by. The lead on every newscast, the picture on the front page every day, the name that follows them around from the moment they wake up in the morning.”
“If that’s your idea of order, good luck.” That was the problem I was supposed to fix. That was why Kim’s assembled group was so anxious. They needed a shepherd for the sheep. It didn’t matter what he had done or not done. The past was irrelevant when the future was about to blow down the walls.
Chapter Four
In the line standing at the front desk was a man whose wig was not straight. This was the sort of thing I used to focus on right away. These days, I might not have paid attention if not for the young woman on his arm. She was golden brown all over from what I could see, and I could see plenty. The fish on the carpet were goggle-eyed.
The bellboy was standing next to me. “My lucky day,” he said. “Brazilians! Hot! Hot! Hot!” He wiggled his hips. The people in line turned to watch him. The golden one put out her arms and made a noise with her tongue. Then she laughed. The man in the crooked wig laughed. The desk clerk-busy collecting passports and giving out room keys-frowned in concentration, but the group laughed as it did the samba up the stairs.
“You want a list of their rooms?” The bellboy had loaded the luggage onto his cart and was pushing it toward the elevator. “You never know when one of them will get lonely. Beautiful people. Very hot.”
“You fool around with tourists and you’ll get a one-way ticket to a coal mine.”
“These days? My, oh my, Inspector. You are a relic. We interact; that’s the word. We interact globally. Boy, I’d like to interact with the Golden One. Why don’t you have a drink with her friend later? Give us an hour or three.” He winked at me as the elevator door closed.
I walked twelve floors up to my room and was sitting on the bed catching my breath, thinking about what Kim had told me, when an envelope came under my door. The note was on the hotel’s stationery. “Drinks at 4:30?” No signature. At 4:15, I went down to the bar and made my way to the darkest corner, farthest from the door.
“You don’t have any customers,” I said to the bartender as I walked past him. “I’m not here.”
“So what else is new?” he said. “Don’t tell me, you just want to sit.”
No one came in at 4:30. A few minutes later, a wig poked through the door. “This the bar?”
“It’s not the bus station,” said the bartender. “Have a drink?”
The rest of the man stepped inside and immediately was searching the corners of the room. “Sure,” he said at last. I could tell from the way he moved that he’d seen me. “A bottle of vodka, if you please, senhor. And two glasses.”
He sat down at the table next to mine. “Sorry to have kept you, Inspector.”
“Not at all, Luis,” I said. “I’ve been expecting you.”
The bartender appeared. “Finnish vodka. The label came off the bottle, but I know it’s Finnish.” He put down the glasses. “Why don’t you sit together? That way I don’t have to wipe off two tables. I think there’s another bottle somewhere if you finish this one, so go ahead and drink yourselves silly.”
When we were alone again, Luis straightened his wig. “I love Brazilian girls, but they can be rough.”
“Already? You just got here. Besides, I thought you were Portuguese.”
“I am. But your consulate people were rejecting all Portuguese passports, wouldn’t even take any extra money for the visa. I figured it must be serious. That’s why I didn’t get here when I promised.”
“I didn’t realize you’d make the next flight. I was worried someone had come up behind you in a dark alley.”
“Nothing so dramatic. I went back to the office, rummaged around in the bottom drawer of my desk, and came up with something from Brazil. I nearly forgot I had it.”
“And the wig?”
“It wasn’t what I would have chosen if I’d had more time. Work with what you have-that’s what they teach us. It fit better in China. Something about the air here makes it slip.”
“What have you got for me?”
“You want to talk now?”
“This is good, better than going for a walk. That only attracts flies. Don’t worry about the
