so much merchandise.
“Right, Lovejoy! We’ve done a good job there, eh?”
“If you say so,” I said, cold.
We left the hotel, Steerforth sauntering slightly ahead and Lovejoy the manservant trogging meekly behind. Actually not as meekly as all that: more terrified and head pounding, because as the huge glass doors hissed to behind us I made the invariable mistake of the cold-climate man in the subtropics, reflexly turning to shut the automatic door by hand.
And in the long wall mirror’s reflection I saw Sim. No good saying I didn’t, that it was all imagination, because I did and it wasn’t. He was standing by an open office doorway.
The office was peopled and well-lit. And among them was the jade woman, Ling Ling. I stumbled after Steerforth, stupefied. The scene was for all the world in tableau like an oriental version of The Last Supper, a long table and the people arranged down its length and Ling Ling gazing. No smiles. No movement. They’d all been staring motionlessly towards the foyer entrance.
So what? So there was only one person in the grand porch at that very moment and that was me. They were staring intently at me. That’s what’s what.
11
« ^ »
THE Digga Dig restaurant’s interior was a sumptuous jungle of subdued lighting, velvet panels. Music played somewhere. One wall unbelievably was a slow waterfall, seeming a shower of diamonds. Obediently I sat as Steerforth bade. Elegant people floated in the gloaming. It was pure affluence, every alcove a luxury seduction.
An odd incident stuck in my mind. We passed a frail gray lady alone at a table. She raised her eyes as we approached and asked for a light. It took nerve. Her voice was shaking, the cigarette wobbling.
“Sorry, love. I don’t smoke. I’ll get you one—”
A waiter sprang from nowhere with a lighter. To my surprise she shook her head and sat there, bowed, quivering, solitary. Even her face seemed gray, yet she couldn’t be forty. Sensing a fellow dud I would have said hello or something, but Steerforth hustled me on, whispering.
“Don’t worry about her. It’s only old Phyllis. She’s always here, trying courage on for size.” And that was what Phyllis dealt with—for the moment.
“One thing,” I asked hesitantly. “Am I me, or still ‘Hey, you, there’?”
He smiled, lit a cigarette in a mile-long ivory holder. “We’re now business partners, Lovejoy.”
“Right.” I relaxed and asked the waiter for coffee, looking about. “What business?”
“You’ll find out.”
All around was affluence, yes, but feminine. The decor was soft, gentle. Nothing garish or sudden. In fact it was so pretty and quiet, you had a hard time seeing as far as the other customers. Mostly women in pairs, I noticed. And no elegantly cocooned Chinese hostesses. A disappointment, really. The staff seemed all men.
“Here, Steerforth.” I pointed this out. “Every nationality under the sun.” Very few Cantonese evident.
“So it is,” he said evenly. I shrugged. I reached for a note to pay the waiter but the bloke, a Filipino in glitzy uniform, was astonished and stared from me to Steerforth before withdrawing. I put my gelt away, thinking. I’d learned the hard way that Hong Kong has the poorest poor and the richest rich. But I’d never seen a waiter thunderstruck at money before. I’d have opened my mouth and asked why, only Mame and Lorna hit town about then and superwhelmed me.
As it happened, that was the moment I was transformed. Into what, I didn’t yet know. I only learned the answer to that a little later.
Shame’s my long suit, so compassionate souls out there might like to skip this bit.
Mame and Lorna were Americans, fortyish, dressed in a costliness that did them proud.
Mame seemingly was an old friend of Steerforth’s, Lorna her pal who’d come along just for the—er, company. I nearly said ride. They came with that semibreathlessness women use to such good effect, Mame plumping down at our table with Lorna second, a little less effusive.
“James, darling!” said Mame. “Now don’t start! There was no way we could have been on time! Menfolk!” She was slightly the older, showy and determinedly blue-rinsed. Her clothes were worth twice me, I guessed. Lorna was quieter-looking, mousy, elegantly slim. A lady with character in depth, Lorna.
Clumsily I’d risen. I’m always awkward but made my hellos.
“This, Lorna dear, is the dreadful James I’ve told you about, and this is…” Mame’s eyes sparkled, drank me in. “Isn’t he sweet!” She made an imperious gesture for a cigarette.
Steerforth made slick fire.
“Lovejoy,” I said. “How do you do?” I’m never at my best with people who immediately know they’re boss. It happens to me a lot.
“Very well, thank you,” Mame said gravely, then fell about laughing. Lorna too was amused. Weakly I smiled along, wondering what the joke was.
“His first name’s terribly secret,” Steerforth said. I looked at him. His mannerisms had suddenly gone affected. Others would have said campish. Another private giggle, maybe? “But he’s been such marvelous help with those wretched old chairs your husbands adore.”
Eh? Did he mean the antiques, the nerk?
“Oh, good!” Mame ordered drinks. “They’ll be so pleased!”
