of lightning, that charged through his body, frazzling his skin. He felt as though he were growing inside his own shell, that his muscles and bones were stretching out. He became keenly aware of sounds, the hum of the elevator and the muffled roar of a vacuum cleaner behind a door somewhere. His entire body shuddered involuntarily as he waited for the elevator.
Leave it to the Chinks, Burns thought. Whatever it is, it’s nitro, pure nitro.
By the time the Star Ferry was halfway across the harbour, he felt ready again, his eyes bright and clear, his reflexes quivering like rubberbands stretched to the limit. He got out of the cab and let the hot breeze tickle his skin, watched the concrete skyline of the Central District draw closer. The buildings seemed to soar, telescoping up from their foundations and dominating the two mountain peaks at either end of the island. His heart was thundering and he felt a keen, familiar sense of anticipation and his penis stirred between his legs. Without thinking, be began rubbing his hands together. The exhaustion that racked him was jarred, splintered, purged from his body, like torn pieces of paper thrown to the wind. He got back in the cab.
The driver moved expertly off the ferry and down through the crowded slip, blowing his horn and ignoring the catcalls and shaking fists of the crowds of pedestrians. He turned left onto the Causeway, a wide boulevard, and then drove swiftly, due east towards the shelter, passing through Wanchai, the garish night-club colony with its neon signs of exploding invitations to the mid-day trade, and away from the skyscrapers of the Central District. A minute or two later the driver leaned his head back towards Bums but kept his eyes on the highway.
‘Typhoon Shelter ahead, san. You have a place?’
‘You know sampan three?’
‘Yes,
‘How would you say “no”?’
‘Um.’
‘Um, hunh? Um, hai, um, hai, Burns repeated several times and began laughing and patting his knees like a drummer keeping rhythm with the words. Absolute nitro!
The taxi turned off the Causeway and wound down a curved road towards the waterfront. The Typhoon Shelter was a triangular cove protected on the inland sides by tall concrete abutments. The driver stepped. Burns got out and looked down at the harbour. The cover was choked with sampans. Hundreds of the small fiat-bottomed boats bobbed in the water, their mid-sections protected by hoods made of rice mats, their pilots standing at the tillers in the stern, beckoning to the tourists and calling out prices. Several of the sampans had woks iii the bow and chests filled with beer and soft drinks, like floating delis. The wind carried the smell of cooking fish. and shrimp up to the abutment.
Burns was overwhelmed by the sight. This was the China he had envisioned.
The driver stood beside him and pointed to a wharf directly below them at the bottom of the concrete stairs. Sampans hovered around it.
‘Sampan three,’ he said.
‘Great. What I owe you?’
‘Seven dollars,’ the driver said.
Burns gave him eight and said Dor jay’, and the driver, smiling at his awkward attempt to say thank you, bowed and replied ‘Dor jeh’, and was gone.
Burns walked to the eastern wall of the shelter and waited. At 12:05 a brown and tan Rolls, polished like a mirror, pulled up. The man who got out was tall and beginning to show the signs of overeating. He wore a white linen suit and a flowered sport shirt open at the collar. His receding hair was blondish and he wore a thick moustache and dark blue sunglasses. He walked with a cane of finely polished teak with an ornate dragon’s head handle carved out of gold. The man stared down towards sampan three for several moments and then descended the concrete stairway. The Rolls drove away.
Burns waited for a full ten minutes, watching the roadway leading to the stairs and scanning the entire abutment.
When he was sure the man had not been followed, he too went back to the stairway and down to the wharf.
The big man stood on the pier, haggling with an ancient and toothless crone who stood at the rear of one of the boats. A small child sat at her feet playing with an empty soda bottle. They appeared to be arguing.
‘Gow, gow,’ the woman yelled in a voice tortured with age.
The big man shook his head. ‘Tie goo-why. Laok.’
The old woman glared at him with anger. ‘Laok. Laok! Hah! Um ho gow gee aw!’
The big man laughed. Burns stepped up behind him and said, ‘Why fight with the old crone? There’s plenty of other boats around.’
The heavy-set man jumped and turned quickly, startled by the words. He stood close to Burns and the two men stared at each other for several moments. Finally the big man smiled, very vaguely, then said, ‘She is telling me I am cheap, to stop bothering her. It is a game we play, senhor. She wants nine dollars, I offer six. I pay her seven and tip her two.’ He spoke with an accent that seemed part Spanish, part German.
‘Gay doa cheen,’ the old woman yelled, ‘um goy?’
‘Chut,’ the large man replied.
She grumbled. She looked wounded. She chattered and pointed to the child. Then finally she motioned him aboard.
‘Are you taking a sampan?’ the large man said. ‘Perhaps we can share a ride.’
