The Vets (Stephen Leather Thrillers) (41 page)

They talked of passports while they waited for the food to arrive. She expressed envy at Chung’s possession of a French passport and said that she hoped to obtain Australian citizenship within the next year. Chau asked why she hadn’t considered getting Canadian citizenship and she shuddered prettily and said it was too cold. “Besides,” she said, “most of my friends are going to Australia. I want to be somewhere where I have friends.”

“But you don’t have to stay for ever,” said Chung. “Three years is all you need to get your residency, then you can come back and live in Hong Kong.”

“Ha!” she snorted. “No one wants to live here after the Chinese take over. After 1997 there will be no one left. No one that matters, anyway. Almost all the big stars have Australian or Canadian passports already. Isn’t that true, Paul?”

“All my clients who can afford it have bought their way in, yes,” agreed Chau.

“And those who can’t are doing everything they can to earn enough before 1997,” said Yo-yo. “That’s my plan, anyway. To work as hard as I can and to earn enough money to emigrate.”

“Did you apply for a British passport?” asked Chung. The British government had offered passports to up to 50,000 heads of households and their families based on a points system.

“I asked for an application form, but you should have seen it,” laughed Yo-yo. “You needed a university degree to understand the explanatory book that came with it. They made it as difficult as they could. Besides, who wants to live in Britain? The climate’s lousy and the people hate us, you know that. They took what they could from Hong Kong and now they want to throw us back to the Chinese. They don’t want us in their country.”

“I didn’t know you were so political,” said Chung as waitresses arrived bearing their food.

“It’s not politics, it’s common sense,” said Yo-yo. “It’s every man for himself.” She breathed in the fragrance of the fish and nodded approvingly. The captain himself came over to lift the silver lid off the plate of
bat choi tsai
and was rewarded with a stunning smile and a murmur of thanks.

“Hong Kong is finished,” she continued. “Some of the big studios have already moved to Singapore and I think the rest will follow soon. The record industry here has pretty much gone. Everybody I know has either got a passport or is planning to get one, either by earning enough to buy one or by marrying someone.”

“You’d do that?” asked Chung, surprised. “You’d marry someone for their passport?”

“But of course, if I had to,” she said, spooning hot prawns into her bowl. She reached over and took Chung’s bowl and filled it with prawns, too. He nodded his thanks. “I have offers, many, many offers,” she said.

“I can believe it,” said Chung, popping a prawn into his mouth with a deft movement of his chopsticks.

“But I don’t want to be owned by anyone,” she said. “I want to depend only on myself. It would be a last resort, that is all.” She looked at Chung earnestly. “But I would do it, if I had to. There’s no way I’ll be sitting here waiting for the communists to take over. There’s no way I’d trust them. Anyone who puts their faith in the communists deserves whatever they get.”

Chung was surprised by her vehemence and changed the subject, not wanting to upset her. They talked of the heads of the various studios, their forthcoming films and their mistresses. There were no secrets in Hong Kong. She was soon laughing and giggling, and occasionally she reached over and tweaked Chung’s arm. Once her foot touched his beneath the table and she smiled when she caught his eye. When the plates and bowls lay empty before them and waitresses began to clear the table and serve small cups of fragrant tea, Yo-yo asked to be excused and picked up her small black handbag. Both men watched her walk to the Ladies room. A dozen other men in the restaurant turned to watch her go and at least one got his hand smacked by a jealous girlfriend.

“She’s lovely, isn’t she?” asked Chau.

“No doubt about that,” agreed Chung. “I was surprised how anti-communist she is. She really seems to hate them.”

“One of her cousins was killed in Tiananmen Square,” explained Chau. “At least the family assumes he was. He was with the demonstrators when the troops opened fire. They never found his body, but that’s hardly surprising because as soon as they’d cleared the square they used bulldozers to pile them up and then they poured petrol over them and burned them.” His mouth suddenly dropped. “What am I saying?” he said, embarrassed. “You were there, of course. Anthony, I’m sorry, I don’t know why I forgot. Your father, how is your father?”

Chung shrugged. “He’s as well as can be expected, under the circumstances,” said Chung, looking down at the tablecloth.

“Is there anything I can do?”

Chung shook his head. “Everything that can be done, is being done. You know how these things work.”

“I understand, but if there is anything I can do, let me know. I mean it.”

“I know you do, Paul, and I appreciate it.” The subject of his father still pained him so he changed the subject. “Will Yo-yo get a passport, do you think?”

“She earns good money.” He laughed. “I should know, I get to keep twenty per cent of it.” He wiped his fleshy lips with his napkin. It came away smeared with thick, orange-coloured sauce. “Seriously, though, she’s cutting it close. She earns about 100,000 Hong Kong a film, which means she’s not in the big league yet, and time’s running out. She spends like there’s no tomorrow, as well. You should see her closets, they’re full of clothes, most of them with designer labels. She has friends, though, and I think if she really has a problem they’ll help her. She’s the occasional girlfriend of the chairman of one of the big hongs here. He’ll take care of her if she needs it, I’m sure.”

“Who is it?” asked Chung.

“Anthony, Anthony, surely you don’t expect me to betray a confidence, do you? Let’s just say my friend is one of the ten richest men in Hong Kong and that he reckons that Yo-yo is one of the best lays he’s ever had.”

“You bastard, tell me,” grinned Chung.

“Okay, you’ve twisted my arm,” laughed Chau. He gave Chung the name and Chung raised his eyebrows in surprise. The man was a pillar of the Chinese community and had been tipped as the man who would run Hong Kong once the Chinese took over. Chau had been modest when he said the man was one of the ten richest in Hong Kong. Chung knew of only one or two who could possibly be richer.

“You’re joking!” exclaimed Chung.

“No, it’s the truth,” said Chau. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

“You have no heart,” said Chung. “And he said that Yo-yo was the best lay he’d ever had?”

“The absolute best.”

“This isn’t just a sales pitch, is it?” asked Chung. “You’re not trying to raise the price?”

“The price is as we discussed,” said Chau. “Ten thousand Hong Kong.”

“For the night?”

“For as much of the night as you want her for,” said Chau. “But remember she has to be on the set at eight o’clock tomorrow morning.”

“That’s fine by me,” said Chung.

“And Anthony?”

“What?”

“Don’t mark her, okay?”

Chung looked suitably offended. “Paul, what are you suggesting?”

“Just remember what I said, that’s all.”

The door to the Ladies opened and Yo-yo came out, pausing for dramatic effect before beginning the walk back to the table. Both men got to their feet. Chau placed his napkin on the table as Yo-yo and Chung sat down.

“I have to be going,” he said, holding out his hand to Chung. Chung shook it firmly. Yo-yo looked up and Chau gave her a small, almost imperceptible, nod, letting her know that the fee had been agreed. Pimping was an ugly word, but, whichever way you cut it, that was what Chau did for Yo-yo, and for a handful of other top starlets. She relaxed and Chung felt her small foot press against the back of his calf.

Chau left and Chung and Yo-yo made small talk while they waited for the bill to arrive. He paid with his gold American Express card and she linked her arm through his as they walked together to his car. Chung was conscious of the number of heads she turned and the way her hip touched his as she held his arm.

She squealed when she saw his car and squeezed his arm so tightly that she practically cut off his circulation. “It’s a Ferrari!” she said. She unlinked her arm and ran a hand along the side of the car. The red paintwork gleamed under the fluorescent lights, giving it a cold, hard look.

“Oh, it’s lovely,” she cooed. “It’s fabulous. How much did it cost?”

Chung wasn’t surprised at her directness. Like most Hong Kongers, Yo-yo had no qualms about asking the price of anything she saw. “Sticker price is about 400,000 US dollars, but dealers can get more than 700,000 US dollars for them. But you want to buy one in Hong Kong, you’ve got to pay one hundred per cent car tax.”

She looked at him with wide eyes which were full of admiration. “One and a half million US dollars?” she said.

“Give or take a few,” said Chung laconically. In fact the car was leased and he didn’t expect to have it for more than a few months.

She put her arms around his neck and kissed him full on the lips. He felt her small breasts against his chest and her warm tongue forced its way gently between his teeth. Yo-yo Yip was clearly turned on by money in a big way, he decided, but then so was almost everybody in Hong Kong. He broke away and opened the passenger door for her. She slid into the spartan interior and smoothed the grey flannel which covered the dashboard.

“It’s just like a racing car,” she said as he buckled himself into his bucket seat.

“It is a racing car,” he corrected, helping her fasten the six-point racing harness.

“How fast does it go?” she asked.

“It’ll do 197 mph, but there’s nowhere in Hong Kong where you can get it up to that speed,” he said. “But it’ll do nought to sixty in 4.2 seconds.”

“Wah!” she said. She rubbed her thighs together and Chung heard the whisper of silk.

He edged the car out of the car park, gunning the accelerator to keep the revs above 4,500 so that the plugs wouldn’t foul. He drove away from the harbour towards his apartment in Kowloon Tong. Out of the corner of his eye he saw her face fall when she saw where they were going. Kowloon Tong was a high-class residential district, home to some of the richest families in Hong Kong, but it also had hundreds of love motels, short-time hotels which were perfect for afternoon assignations and where many businessmen took their mistresses if they were too tight-fisted to buy them their own apartments.

She had obviously assumed that Chung was taking her to a love-motel, judging by the way she pouted and looked moodily out of the passenger window. Her face brightened when Chung guided the Ferrari through the wrought-iron gates which led to the residential block where he lived. He parked the car in the underground car park between a Rolls-Royce and a convertible BMW. The pout evaporated and she ran her fingernails down the back of his jacket as they walked to the lift. The doorman in the lobby looked up from the racing paper he was reading and nodded at Chung. The walls and floor of the lobby were finished in green-veined marble and the elevator doors were made of a dark, highly polished wood. There was a tall palm in a gilt urn towering in a corner and two large leather sofas where guests could wait. Yo-yo nodded approvingly.

The doors hissed open and Chung stepped to the side to let her in first, her high heels clicking on the hard marble floor. Chung pressed the button for the penthouse, the doors closed respectfully, and the elevator whisked them twelve floors. Kowloon Tong was under the flight path to Kai Tak Airport and there were rigid height restrictions on all buildings, another reason for the apartments being so expensive. The elevator doors opened to reveal a small marble-lined lobby and a single mahogany door. Chung took his keys and opened the two high-security locks and showed Yo-yo inside.

She sighed appreciatively as she walked along the hall-way and into the lounge. The far wall was virtually all glass and it looked down on a courtyard full of lush green trees and bushes around a small pool which was lit by discreet spotlights. The walls and ceiling of the room were painted white, the floors were wooden and stained a pale beige, and there were vertical white blinds which had been pulled back to either side of the window. It was a stunning room during the day, when the sun streamed in through the double-glazed glass wall, and even at night Chung knew Yo-yo would be impressed and that it wouldn’t be long before she asked him how much it had cost. Like the Ferrari, the apartment was leased. So was the furniture, which, like the car, was Italian and very expensive. There were three sofas covered in a cream fabric, a coffee table made of an oblong sheet of toughened glass balanced on three black marble spheres, and a long, low black table on which were lined up the components of a Bang and Olufsen stereo system, a Hitachi video recorder and a large, flat screen television. At either end of the table stood tall, thin speakers which were as tall as Yo-yo. Two paintings, modernist splashes of red, black and green on pure white canvas were highlighted by track-mounted spotlights on the ceiling and to the right of the door was a black, oblong dining table, around which were eight high-backed chairs.

“It’s lovely,” she said. “It’s fabulous.” Chung wondered if she realised that they were exactly the same words she’d used about the car.

“I like it,” he said. He’d left a couple of glossy car magazines on the coffee table next to a copy of the
Hong Kong Standard
, and there was a squash racquet leaning next to one of the speakers, small touches which made the rented apartment look more like a home.