There was girls from Spanish Town and May Pen, Kingston and Linstead, and Bull Bay, all in them favourite colour. Red dress. Red shoes. Red fingernails. Red lips. Red hibiscus in them hair. And there was boys from New York and Baltimore, Washington and Detroit and Milwaukee. All of them laughing and dancing, and smooching and drinking right there in the street. Right there in the doorways of bars that got their ground-floor windows painted white on the inside.
I think to myself what I wouldn’t do to see inside one of them places, but it wasn’t no good me even thinking ’bout it. Zhang would have box my ear if him find out I been in there. But then business is business.
So one evening when I think him open to suggestion I try soften up Zhang with a nice ripe Bombay mango. With any other man you would get him a drink but Zhang never touch no liquor, never seen a drop pass his lips. So when him busy peeling the mango I say, ‘These Yanks sure spend a lot of money on women.’ But him just look at me and carry on with the mango.
Then him say, ‘What we do here?’
‘Look after Chinatown.’
‘That is right. Look after Chinatown. Not look after American sailor want use Chinatown. You see Chinese girls do this? You see Chinese fathers want daughter do this?’
‘In the old days…’
‘In old days emperor have concubine, and rich man have wife number one and number two and number three. And what was that?’
I know the answer he expecting from me so I just say it. ‘That was imperialism, and the exploitation of the peasant and the subjugation of the Chinese woman.’
‘That is right. So now, what you ask me?’
So that then was the end of the conversation and I had to think to myself what else these American sailors could be good for, because Sun Tzu’s first lesson is to use the terrain.
I send Judge Finley on a mission to loiter ’round the bars and places these boys frequent to find out what they into. It was a kind of fishing trip. And within the week Finley come back to me saying him think he catch something but it might be just a sprat. So I say, ‘Never mind. What you got?’
It turn out some sergeant down the naval base approach him to say he have American cigarettes and liquor and suchlike. The suchlike turn out to be navy surplus, which is just about everything Uncle Sam give this man to run his business, this sergeant is willing to sell to us, from cook pots to boots and T-shirts.
Me and Finley go meet him way over Windward Road in a lounge called the Blue Lagoon, a favourite of mine because everybody in there is up to something so you don’t have to worry ’bout anyone reporting them see you in there. The sergeant is called Bill, a stocky, shifty-looking white boy with a little bit of blond fluff on his head. Bill come in civvies, but you would have to be a blind man not to know from a hundred yards away that him just step fresh off of the USS
Finley stand up so Bill can see him, and then Bill come over to the table and sit down opposite me. I order up some Red Stripe and we get started. We talking maybe five minutes before Bill get himself all agitated.
‘Gasoline!’
‘Bill, calm yourself nuh. And keep your voice down, man, this is a public place.’ Bill ease back in the chair half inch but him looking red in the face and worried.
‘Bill, you want me to take your cigarettes and liquor and all them other things and I do that for you. No problem. I not complaining ’bout that. In fact, I happy for the liquor because even though we got so much beautiful rum on the island rich people still pay hefty for that Scotch whisky. But I need things as well, Bill. There is a war on. We got shortages. And what I need you to do for me is rice and gas. After all, I need gas to drive your stuff all over town. And then I will need a little extra. And Chinatown is… well, Chinatown. We need rice. And that is all I am asking you for.’
So then him settle down, but now Bill want a fifty-fifty split and I am saying no way, we taking all the risk here. And he say, ‘You think I’m not taking any risk?’ And all the time he looking ’round like anybody care what him doing there. He don’t seem to realise how many times men been knifed in that bar in broad daylight and nobody ever see anything. Not that there is much daylight in there anyway.
But I see he have a point and I say to him, ‘I have expenses, you know, Bill, you only dealing with me, I am dealing with the whole of Chinatown. I have to negotiate. I have to transport. I have to distribute. I have to provide protection.’
So then we talk some more and I send for more beer till in the end we settle for seventy-thirty and him seem happy enough with that. And that is good with me especially since I have no intention of giving Bill any account books so he will just have to take my word for it ’bout how much this stuff is fetching.
So next thing we busy fixing up the door and boarding the rafters in Miss Tilly’s outhouse just like I say to Hampton the very first time him take me there almost three years ago. And we getting a truck to move all this surplus.
Everybody at Matthews Lane very happy ’bout the rice, because up to then it was noodles, noodles and more noodles. We even hear tales ’bout people breaking up spaghetti into little pieces and cooking it like it was rice. Though I don’t even know where they get the spaghetti from. And then there was some man uptown that was selling rice off a cart at three o’clock in the morning. Knocking on people’s door to wake them up, which was his idea of a joke, but the rice got all sorta brown bits in it so I dunno where that was coming from.
Bill’s rice was good though, and it go well with Ma’s recipes. Like instead of duck and orange it was chicken and orange juice with tin garden peas. Or curry chicken with scallion and Irish potato. Or pork with butter beans. Or mince pork balls in cabbage leaves. She even take to curing her own ham choi, and it turn out that Ma’s ham choi taste better than anything you could buy in the shop.
Plus I was selling the extra rice, like I was selling the extra gas to one or two special customers who didn’t feel like they wanted to go take the engine outta their car and turn it into a horsedrawn vehicle like all them others you see ’round the place. And what a sorry sight that was, horsedrawn cars riding down the street next to them buggies that decorate up so fancy with all sorta tassel and lace and net all over it, and all over the horse as well. So that is when you realise how little there was for rich people to spend their money on.
This little arrangement with Bill turn out good for me, but how he was getting away with this every month I didn’t know. I reckon sooner or later somebody going catch up with him, at which point I hope he know how to keep him mouth shut. So just as a sort of insurance I say to him one day, ‘Bill, you know who I am?’ And him nod his head, and I say, ‘We making good money together. We good partners. But if you cross me I kill you, you know that?’ I just say it, even though I never kill nobody in my life, and him just nod his head. Him look so frighten I wouldn’t have been surprised to see a puddle under the chair him sitting on.
The funny thing was Bill never seem to realise that I was only a boy. But then him never really look at me. He only look at the idea of me, and see Fu Manchu.
6
So one day Bill say to me that the American navy going send a truckload of liquor and fancy food for some big shindig the British army having at Up Park Camp. Bill say it a goodwill gesture. I don’t even know what half of this stuff is but Bill say it really nice and it going fetch a price, so that is OK with me.
The truck going leave the naval base and then turn up South Camp Road and head up to the camp. Bill going make sure that the escort that the truck got to have going leave late and travel slow. So we have to stop the truck and wave it ’round the corner at Hope Street and unload the things fast before the escort jeep catch up with us. And because everything got to happen so quick I decide to ask Xiuquan to come help us. But he don’t want to do it.
‘It no mean nothing to yu, man. A few minutes of yu time, that is all.’
‘Yu asking me to go get involved in daylight robbery.’
