Before Robert could finish the sentence, the Lear throttled up its engines and began racing down the runway at remarkable speed. A moment later they were ascending altitude in a steep climb. Both Luke and Robert were pinned to their overstuffed recliners.
Robert looked over at Luke with a big grin on his face. Over the roar of the engines, he shouted, “I just love this kind of stuff. They pop this takeoff just for me. Wait till they bank out of the pattern. That’s a real toe-kisser.”
In Watsonville, Luke took forty bucks off Robert and sped away from the airport in a cab. He told Robert that twenty was for the cab, and twenty was to grease security into speeding up the withdrawal process. Which secretly meant flowers for his grandmother.
Thirty minutes later Luke returned to the airport with the paper-wrapped portfolio, which he kept tightly clutched under his arm. Robert was waiting on the tarmac and looked noticeably relieved when Luke returned. Eight minutes later they were in the air again.
A TALL, BLACK-HAIRED, WELL-DRESSED GENTLEMAN with Indian features met their Learjet with a limo in San Francisco. Luke’s unspoken question was almost instantly answered when Robert introduced his father’s personal secretary, Mr. Shu-RI Ram Sing. This gentleman smiled with humility and invited Luke to call him Mr. RI. With a self-deprecating grin, he said it was far easier to remember.
Mr. RI escorted his charges to a small but very elegant hotel between the Embarcadero and Chinatown. It was so understated that the management didn’t display a name of any kind, and the lobby looked like a fashionably appointed Victorian living room. The new guests were invited to make themselves comfortable on a plush red leather sofa in front of the marble fireplace, while a pleasant young man brought snifters of whatever was requested. They then filled out their check-in cards, and by the time they were shown to their suites, the bags had preceded them. Nonetheless, despite all courtesies offered, Luke never let the folio out of his sight.
Luke’s suite was opulent in the extreme, and he was quite pleased with himself and the arrangements. He had just hung up his clothes when a knock came at the door, and a very polite Chinese gentleman in a white coat said he had come to pick up a suit and shirt to be pressed, and a pair of shoes to be shined. He promised to have everything back in twenty-five minutes or less. Luke shrugged, but he happily complied and handed the little man his whole hanging bag to save time. Then he went off to check out the six-headed shower installation.
Luke had almost made it to the bathroom when another knock sounded at the door. This time it was a house waiter pushing a folding table piled high with fruits, cheeses, breads, pitchers of exotic juices, bottled waters, and God knows what else. Robert followed the waiter into the room. He appeared rather pleased with himself as well.
“This is all pretty slick, don’t you think? If it was just me, my old man would be happy putting me up at a motel, but you pop along and suddenly we’re camped out at the most exclusive members-only hotel on the West Coast. And if that weren’t enough, Mr. RI tells me we’re to have dinner at the Great Kahn. Mind you, my father is a generous fellow when it comes to my education, and my room and board, but he believes the rest is up to me.”
Luke looked up from the mountain of food on the table. On top of this abundance rested a card that indicated that everything came with the warm compliments of the house. Luke shook his head. “Why go out? There’s enough fruit here to loosen the bowels of an elephant, and enough bread and cheese to stop him up again . . . So what’s so great about this Great Kahn place?”
Robert looked somewhat deflated. “Well, to tell you the truth, I’ve never been invited there before. The Great Kahn is the most exclusive and prestigious eating emporium in the western United States. In fact, it’s not a public restaurant at all. It’s more like a millionaire’s private food club. They only allow a membership of one hundred and six. Don’t ask me why, this is all hearsay, but I’ve heard it costs one hundred and fifty grand to be admitted, and a yearly fee of twenty thousand, and you still haven’t paid for the food.”
Luke was suddenly curious. “How do you go about getting to be a member?”
Robert shook his head as he picked at the cheese. “That’s the dark part. Someone has to die and leave it to the prospective member in his or her public will. Of course, some places come up because the expense proves too great, or the member no longer cares to participate, but that’s rare, and those seats change hands for serious money.”
A perplexed expression shadowed Luke’s features. He was slightly anxious about all the secrecy and blatant exclusivity. “So why are we to be so honored just now? What’s your father’s real interest in all this? He doesn’t strike me as the hard-boiled academic type, despite his background.”
Robert smiled and shrugged. “Beats me. Your guess is as good as mine at this point. I swear, Luke, he hasn’t told me a thing, but then he never really does. My father infers, he doesn’t tell. Come to think of it, I’ve never even heard him give an order. Things he wants done just get done.”
Mr. RI picked up his charges in a chauffeured town car promptly at seven that evening. Luke carried the sealed folio under his arm. The car drove down the Embarcadero toward the Bay Bridge in the last orange-purple rays of twilight. Near the bridge, the car pulled up to the garage ramp of a nondescript three-story commercial building. The only front entrance appeared to be a green metal door with a camera dome mounted above. After a moment, the large metal garage door began to roll up, and Luke noticed a camera dome above it as well.
Once inside, the car coasted down a steep ramp and then leveled out in front of a pair of red elevator doors. The overhead lights came on just as the car doors opened. When he got out, Luke noticed that the car wasn’t in a garage. Some basic instinct, probably inspired by watching too many spy movies, forced him to clutch the folio more tightly under his arm. The ramp continued up on the other side to meet another garage door leading out to another street. There was room for only two vehicles in front of the elevators at one time.
Robert exited the car looking just as confused as Luke. For a moment they stood blinking at each other like toads, then Mr. RI motioned them toward the elevator. There were no buttons, simply a key plate. Mr. RI withdrew a key from his vest pocket, inserted it with a quick twist, and the large elevator doors opened to reveal a plush Victorian, leather-paneled room, with generous green leather benches on both sides and cut-glass lighting sconces on the walls. Luke surmised that the space had once been a large freight elevator. This was confirmed when they arrived at the second floor and the opposite wall slid back to reveal a Moorish-looking foyer with a pair of ornately carved wooden doors on the far side.
Luke looked at Robert and shook his head, and again he tightened his grip on the folio. Mr. RI politely motioned them to approach the doors, but remained behind himself. Slowly the doors opened inward to display a scene that Luke could only later describe as a cross between a tented Mongol palace and a film set from The Last Emperor. A tall, dapper blond gentleman dressed in a white silk suit, tie, and gloves was waiting to greet them.
Luke judged the room to be about eighty feet square, but he couldn’t really be sure with all the fabric hangings. They had entered on the balcony floor that ran around three sides of the room. Below lay a single large space broken only by the placement of elaborately carved screens. To Luke’s surprise, there was only one table visible in
