‘Sounds okay to me,’ Burns said.
The big man offered his hand. ‘I am Victor DeLaroza.’
‘Howard Bums.’ They shook hands.
‘I am going to the Tal Tak,’ DeLarza said. ‘It is the finest floating restaurant in the city.’
‘What a coincidence,’ Burns said. ‘So am I.’
‘Excellent. Are you a visitor?’
‘Yeah,’ Burns replied.
‘Well, perhaps I will be able to recommend some dishes.’ DeLaroza took seven Hong Kong dollars from his pocket and gave it to the woman. She counted it and glared at him. ‘Aw tsung nay,’ she muttered. DeLaroza laughed. ‘She says she hates me. When I tip her, she will tell me she loves me.’
Burns stepped into the sampan and walked to the seat in the mid-section. He was hunched over and walked with his hands on the sides of the tenuous skiff, and he turned cautiously before he sat down. DeLaroza followed, walking upright with ease and sitting beside him.
‘You do that like a champ,’ Bums said to him.
‘Ho!’ the old woman cried out and cackled.
‘She tells me “good”,’ DeLaroza said. ‘I was like you at first, overly cautious. She is the oldest of the old. Jung- yee Pau Shaukiwan, the grandmother of Shaukiwan.’
‘What’s a Shaukiwan?’
‘Shaukiwan is the Chinese settlement, a floating village around on the southeast side of the island. You have never seen greater poverty.’
The old woman stood at the rear, moving the scull with arms as thin as twigs, expertly guiding the sampan around the hundreds of other boats and moving it towards the open water of the harbour. Ahead of them, to the west, was a great three-storey junk, its pagodalike awnings stretching out over the water and its garish red and yellow trim gleaming in the sun.
‘That’s Tai Tak,’ DeLaroza said. Behind him the baby started banging the empty bottle on the bottom of the boat.
‘Hell of a place to babysit,’ Burns said. ‘What happens this thing, you know, dumps over?’
‘She and the child will, probably drown. He is her grandson. She watches over him while her daughter works in one of the whore-houses in West Point, the old city. When he is a little older, they will sell him.’
‘Sell him!’ Burns was shocked. ‘Sell their own kid?’
‘It will be better for him. He will be sold to a good family, possibly even British or American.
‘Jesus, don’t they have any feeling for the family?’
‘Life is harsh on the harbour,’ DeLaroza said, and then, ‘I almost bought the boy myself.’
Burns turned to him and stared for a moment at one corner of his sunglasses. Burns never looked anyone directly in the eye. Then he looked back at Jung-yee.
‘It’s all right, you can speak freely. She does not understand English.’
‘You’re crazy,’ Burns said flatly.
‘A little, I suppose.’
‘You got pretty fat and sassy there, uh, uh...’
‘Victor. V-i-c-t-o-r. I am Victor, you are Howard.’
‘Yeah. Anyway, you learned a lot out here, only a coupla years, too.’
‘You haven’t changed much at all,’ DeLaroza said. ‘Yeah, well, a little grey hair maybe. Fifteen years is a long time, right? I wouldn’t recognize you. Not at first anyway. The weight, the hair. You done something here too, around the eyes.’
‘It is called a stretch. They pull the skin tight to the ears on both sides. Gets rid of the wrinkles.. I do not have the proper bone structure for a face lift, but . . .‘ He let the sentence dangle.
‘The accent’s good too, pal,’ Burns said. ‘Now what’s this about buying the kid? Some kind of guilt thing?’
‘No, loneliness. And pride. I am building an empire and there is no one to carry on the line. When Victor DeLaroza dies, then what?’
‘So what, that’s what. When you die, who gives a damn?’
‘They have a saying here. If a dragon smiles on you, you have luck. If two dragons smile on you, you have love. And if three dragons smile on you, you are immortal.’
‘Quite the philosopher there, ain’t you, Vie, old boy? Well, goes with the new look. We got a saying too. You can’t take it with you.’
‘Exactly. That is my point.’
‘You got a lotta time. So far the dragon’s been pretty good to you.’
‘So far only one dragon has graced me.’
Burns did not answer immediately. DeLaroza took out a cigar, snipped off the end, and lit it with a small gold lighter. He puffed it until the end glowed evently. Then he turned abruptly to Burns, offering him one.
