The Last Six Million Seconds

money could buy. Better, the new Bank of China was the tallest building in Central. From the start it was envisaged that the People’s representatives would not suffer during their frequent visits to the despised British colony.

She was shown upstairs to the glass-enclosed cocktail area on the roof of the building, where the old man was waiting. Seventy stories below, toy cars sped along Connaught Road; tiny ships lay at anchor in the harbor; the richest city on earth lay at the feet of the seventy-year-old man lounging in an Italian leather-and-chrome armchair. The owner of possibly the largest personal fortune in the world after the sultan of Brunei’s, he wore an open-neck shirt of the kind that could be bought in Stanley Market, khaki slacks. His worn sneakers rested on a suede footstool hand-stitched out of brown and beige triangles.

He did not rise to greet her. Nor did he offer her one of the cigarettes that he shook out of a flimsy pack: Imperial Palace, unavailable outside the PRC.

“So?”

She took a seat opposite him, sat straight, tried to attract his attention. Some kind of sexual chemistry might have been useful in these interviews, but he had never shown the slightest interest. His age didn’t help either. Mass murderers do not necessarily mellow with the passage of time. His wiry form reminded her of a ginseng root. She recognized in it the will of her people at its crudest. Her striking looks, enlarged breasts, billions in assets, the respect she was able to command throughout Hong Kong and anywhere else in the world where money was revered had no effect at all on this ugly old man. Still without looking at her, he started to pick his nose.

“You had lunch with your little friend the lawyer?”

“Yes.”

“And?”

“I told you, he’ll do whatever we want.”

“Yes, that I already know. How did you develop the matter today? That’s what interests me.”

“I’ll phone him in a day or two; he’ll come to see me at my house. If you’re really serious about this.”

The old man grinned. “What could be more serious than five hundred million American dollars?”

“In cash? It’s pure provocation.”

He laughed with a whinny like a horse. “Not provocation. Convenience. I’m tired of these gweilo games. Why should we hide anymore? With only two months to go, we’ve won already. Now we can start enjoying the victory.”

“I know. I guess I don’t understand why you need to move five hundred million again so soon. Less than a month ago you also moved half a billion dollars.”

An expression of intense fury passed over the old man’s face. He caught himself. “I’d forgotten I’d told you. There was no laundering involved on that occasion. We were paying for something. In cash. This next consignment I want to be clean and official. There are still parts of Hong Kong we haven’t yet bought.”

Emily breathed in deeply. “I can’t think what.”

The old man twisted his features into a smirk. “Now, tell me, this interesting piece of luck with that detective- did you explore it at all?”

“The only lucky part is that Chief Inspector Chan is Jonathan Wong’s brother-in-law. The rumor is that Chan himself is a dedicated fanatic, who hates Communists. I don’t know what you expect Jonathan to do.”

“Do? They’re in the same family, aren’t they? Your friend is rich; the detective is poor. How much does he want?”

She watched while he took a long draw on his cigarette.

“I told you, he’s dedicated. I don’t think he takes money.”

The old man kicked the footstool away, turned to look at her for the first time. “Everyone takes money. Anyway, he’s half Chinese, isn’t he?” He laughed again, then made a long retching noise in his throat. About to spit, he remembered that there was no spittoon. He swallowed instead. “Cuthbert will have to deal with it.”

“He won’t. Aiding and abetting isn’t part of the deal; you know that. He’ll turn a blind eye, but that’s all he’ll do.”

The old man had a way of looking with one eye closed, immobile as a lizard on a rock.

“Are you telling me we may be driven to something more decisive?”

Emily felt her cheeks burning. She rose, stood directly in front of the old man, who blinked.

“Can’t you people get it through your skulls that you can’t just kill everyone who gives you trouble? Yes, I’m daring to yell at you; are you going to kill me too?”

He laughed then. “Who said anything about killing? I want the little detective to carry out his investigation. I want to know who died in that mincer. I want him to tell me first-perhaps exclusively.”

He stared at her. She felt the fear again, a sense of doom in the pit of her stomach. Never raise your voice to a psychopath. She sat on the footstool, kept her eyes below his.

“I’m sorry. Everyone thinks you had them killed. Give me another few weeks. I’ll see what I can do. I have a few ideas.”

The old man sneered at her. “What ideas?”

“Wong needs to get to know his brother-in-law better first. They’re not great friends. I’ll try to set it up.”

The old man grunted. “It’s not urgent until the little detective gets close. I want to know what happened to those three before Cuthbert is told.” He stared at her. “D’you still fuck him?” He smirked at her discomfort. “Pity. You could have kept me informed about how much he knows, our little English diplomat. They’re going to make him Sir Milton Cuthbert when he goes back in July. If you’d managed to marry him, you would have been Lady Cuthbert.” He sniggered.

“I don’t understand. Why are you so interested in those killings if you didn’t do it? It was probably just triads; people like that get snuffed out.”

The old man turned his face away from her. “Maybe. See what you can do about the detective anyway-make friends with him, find out what stage he’s at. Fuck him if you have to. And as far as the five hundred million is concerned, I expect results. It’s been hanging around for too long. You don’t want to lose those development rights along the Pearl River, do you? You have a lot of money riding on that. All your money, taking the personal guarantees into account. I don’t think you want to be poor.”

Seeing the expression on her face, he laughed again.

When she had gone, the old man picked up a telephone on a coffee table near his left hand, told his secretary whom he wished to speak to. When the telephone rang, he began speaking immediately in Mandarin, his voice heavy with condescension. At the end of the conversation he said: “By the way, don’t impersonate me again. I want this investigation to continue. I want to know who died and who did the killing.” His reply to the question that followed was to hang up. After a moment’s thought he pressed the intercom button again. “Get me the other Englishman, the one in London. And stay on the line; I’ll need you to translate.”

17

Moira was a generous lover. Generous and adventurous, the beneficiary of a culture that ordained that the over forties must have fun. Chan was surprised she’d had the delicacy to sober up before his return from work and more surprised that she’d been able to arouse him when Angie hadn’t. She was unexpectedly sensitive, and then there was a self-sufficiency to her suffering that attracted him. Half dreaming beside her, he found it possible to believe he lay with a woman whose soul was as big as the world. He liked her breasts. They were large, pendulous, friendly. He formed a spoon around her body to hold them while she slept. She woke up once to say thank you, turned over, fell into a deep sleep.

As usual he remained awake. After a while he slid out of bed, closed the door, sat naked on the couch to smoke. He turned on the television with the sound off. Monks who had perfected the art of kung fu in the Shao Lin Monastery flew through the air, slaughtering their opponents against the usual impossible odds. On another channel an aging landowner in mandarin dress was taking his daughter to market when they were ambushed by a gang of robbers. Fear of rape, pillage and murder was amplified by the makeup. China dramas usually dug into the distant violent past. The recent violent past was too much for most stomachs.

He turned back to the monks of Shao Lin. He’d gone through his karate stage. To perfect the body to the point where you could defy gravity was a legend engraved in the imagination of every Asian boy. He lit another cigarette,