Hadley, page 12
The dealers were staring at me with their arms folded. The one on the right pulled out a phone and punched in some numbers.
“You think you’re a pretty funny guy, right?” he said while waiting for someone to answer.
“I like to think I have my moments.” I wanted to catch Maria’s eye.
“No, it’s that British sense of humour. It’s great. Standing on the sidelines of life and mocking everything you see. Most people have it broken out of them by the time they’re eighteen.”
He turned his back and walked away, talking into the phone. His friend shrugged his shoulders, patted me on the cheek, and said: “Touched.”
The stroke of midnight two nights later found me in one of the packed Wanchai basement clubs, where the girls were all Filipina pros and the Filipino band played awful Deep Purple songs. I remembered Joe’s Jaffe Road address and the opening chords of ‘Smoke on the Water’ convinced me that now was the time to investigate.
Rich Mansion is an ancient apartment block shaped like a disposable lighter, thin and high. There was an old man asleep at the reception desk. I had no plan, but wondered if a bit of authority would help. My nodding acquaintance in Wanchai, the British detective, would be perfect for the job (I was even pretty sure where to find him at this time of night). But I pressed on alone. A slow, rickety lift arrived to take me to the top floor. Joe’s address was 30D. I had the sense to get out of the lift two floors below and then quietly climb up the fire stairs to, and then past, Joe’s floor, briefly looking through a panel of meshed glass on my way up to the roof. An upside-down Chinese good luck sign was on the door of 30B; an incense offering with two tangerines sat next to the mat. A sign on the door of 30C said ‘do not enter when light is red’, but there wasn’t any light. Du-uh. I reckoned 30D was on the northeast of the building, overlooking Jaffe Road. I reached the roof one floor above, expecting some kind of view, but there was precious little, Rich Mansion surrounded on all sides by ever taller and richer mansions. There was the glare of neon from Lockhart Road below, the click-clack of mahjong tiles, the cries of a couple of babies, the rushing sound of gas burners from restaurants at street level, and the inevitable smell of fried tofu. I leant over the newly painted side of the building where I supposed Joe’s flat to be. Bingo. The lights were on. Did that mean Joe was in there? What difference did that make? I could just go and knock on the door and say hello. But then what? I had a strange feeling; those collywobbles were returning. There was some sort of resolution in store. What I needed was a mirror.
Back at ground level, in a bar a few yards to the south, I tried to explain to a twenty-one-year-old dancer called Suzie why I needed to borrow her compact.
“It will only be for an hour or so. I’ll bring it back, I promise.”
“But why do you need it?”
“I want to lean over the roof of a building and spy on an old man with a ponytail in his flat.”
“You always make jokes, Hadley. Tell me why you want it.”
Oh boy. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll bar-fine your compact.”
“What?”
“I’ll pay you for your compact. How about $50 for an hour.”
“You don’t bar-fine me, but you want to bar-fine my makeup? You one crazy English fucker.”
“Well, what do you say? I’ll also need a coat hanger.”
Ten minutes later, the guard was still asleep and I made it back to the roof of Rich Mansion. I wound the end of the unravelled coat hanger round the open compact and held it up to see if would stay put and at the right angle. The compact stayed put, but the stuff inside, the powdery, flesh-coloured cake stuff, tumbled in one chunk on to my face.
“For fuck’s sake.”
It was in my eyes, my mouth, my hair and up my nose. Why do women use this… gunk? I spat and swore again and set to work. I leant over the concrete wall. The lights were still on. I lowered my device until I could see into the room (the curtains were open, or the blind was up), and what I saw as I tweaked the mirror from side to side made me gasp.
The room was empty. Completely empty. White walls, parquet floor, and nothing else. And yet the light was on. Why? I raised the mirror and stood back. The whitewash off the wall had left a foot-wide stripe of chalk or dry paint across my jacket. I walked to the front of the building and looked over. The lights were on in a different room. A man was arguing with the driver of a red taxi on the street below. I lowered my contraption again, careful not to let it go too far and not to bang it against the glass.
I saw Maria sitting at a round melamine table, her hair done back in a ponytail. The shake in my hand was amplified by the length of the coat hanger and it was difficult to get a focus. Maria was looking across the table, as though being spoken to by someone out of sight, her head dipped, her eyes looking up through her lashes. The look on her face was that of adventure, satisfaction. Of relaxation. I stood up, catching my jacket on a newly painted red lightning rod. I didn’t want to have another look in the room, but I had to find out what was going on. I had never seen Maria wear her hair like that.
I moved along the roof top to try to get a narrower angle into the room, to see who else was there. I lowered the bar-fined compact (which had proved to be a real bargain at $50, the price of a regular beer at the Rawhide) but could see nothing except a Chinese landscape print on the wall. I slowly raised the mirror, moved back to my original position and gently lowered it again.
Maria was laughing as Torment, who was now sitting next to her at the table looking lascivious and lizard-like, placed his hand on her leg. My periscope gave a hard, involuntary ‘clack’ against the glass.
“Bugger.”
I saw Maria react in the mirror in the split second before I lifted it away from the window. A guilty freeze frame. I caught my jacket again on the lightning rod and this time Suzie’s compact went flying, bouncing off laundry poles about four floors down and curling away into the street.
I thought fast. Should I go down and confront them before they came up? Would they come up to investigate? If so, how long would it take them to come up? Would I have time to get below their level on the fire stairs before they started coming up? If they came up and saw me, covered in white chalk, red paint and pink gunk, what would they do? What would I do? Starting to panic, I ran to the back of the building and looked over. About three feet down was the roof covering the fire-escape stairs leading from one of Joe’s doors or windows. There was a low rail around the edge, making it an unlikely balcony, but a safe place to hide.
A door went bang not far away. I climbed over the wall. What was that line about not raising your head above the parapet? I eased myself down on to the ledge, my face to the wall. Another door banged and I held my breath.
“I saw something flash pink,” I heard Maria say. No response from anyone. “And then it went away. But it hit the window.”
“Some asshole,” another woman said. “Some jerk off. Come on, Maria, forget it.”
Some jerk off. Now pangs of jealousy tore through me like a silver dagger through a Korean big-hair bun. Was it jealousy? Or was it just a pure thrill? I had the hots for both of them. But hold your horses! Where did Torment fit in? Or Joe? Were they both bonking both of them? Worse than that, was Joe filming them? I felt a little overwhelmed as I pondered these permissive permutations, crouched on the roof of a thirtieth-floor fire-escape with a frown breaking through the Max Factor. My heart was beating so hard it was no longer safe to stay. My heart was rocking my whole frame. I straightened up, half expecting to see the three of them waiting for me. No one was there.
Back at street level, I retrieved the compact which by the look of it had been run over about forty times. Inside there was an inscription: To our darling Suzie on her graduation, from her proud and loving parents.
Sorry, Suzie.
CHAPTER TEN
TWO DAYS LATER I was sitting in the economy section of a Sri Lanka North Air Airbus. The slogan was ‘The Sky’s the Limit for Sri Lanka North Air’, which I found disturbing. If the sky were the limit (subjunctive!), how on earth would they land? And if something’s the limit, it usually means you are angry with it. So the Sri Lanka North Air pilots are angry with the sky? That’s no way to fly. Torment’s camera crew and aides were in business class and Torment, naturally, was up in first. Crammed in at front of economy, I caught a glimpse of Torment coming back to josh with his team and pat a passing air stewardess on the bottom. Write what you see, I thought. A malevolent ponce, as fake as a game show host, turning on the charm and insinuating himself into yet more nice people’s lives.
I fell asleep and dreamt that Adolf Lee had appeared at the front door of Joe’s house and insisted on being allowed in. “I rule the world, as a director. I rule everyone,” he said as he unbuckled his sword and sat down in a bowl of hot water.
“The difference is, at the end of the day, when the cameras stop rolling, I rule nobody. I am another face in the crowd. Whereas Torment…”
“Yes?”
“Torment rakes people. He’s a charming rake. He rakes people like I rake leaves. I put my leaves on the compost heap, in Norfolk. Up against the wall. Of the Old Rectory.”
“What are you talking about?”
I was woken sharply by a stewardess tugging at my sleeve.
“Sir?”
“Yes? Sorry, I was asleep.”
“That’s okay, sir. Need your head sex.”
“Need what?”
“Head sex. Before we land.”
I assumed I was still dreaming and looked around. I was confused and concerned. I checked my watch. “Do we have enough time?”
The girl reached across and grabbed my head set and took off down the aisle.
“Are you Chinese?” I called after her, half-heartedly.
Torment was to meet the prime minister and try to look serious as he discussed international aid. The east coast of Jaffna had been ravaged by the storm, but Macho had been saved by some geological freak of Nature. My job was to track down the whisky priest, presumably still in Jaffna, and to get to the Chinese homeland. I had done some homework. From my Sri Lankan guidebook, I found that Macho was actually a sprawling, lush archipelago which had been runner-up to Thailand in the choice for the location of ‘The Man with the Golden Gun’. It had one of the most corrupt local governments on earth and had been colonised by every country in the world at one time or other – except for Canada. Poverty and violence were entrenched, the book said, “but with a little thoughtful planning and plenty of sun block, there is no reason to let this spoil your holiday”.
Jaffna was dry and ruined, nearly three decades of war having smashed the place to smithereens. What hadn’t been destroyed was strewn with landmines, some of them pretty, bright-coloured bomblets, designed to be picked up by children. Many had a delayed response, so the children would take them home, play with them for a couple of days, and then the explosion would take out a whole family.
I found the stringer’s office down a tiny street between a tailor’s and – progress! – a Chinese takeaway. Out in the open, old men in sarongs sat sweating at ancient typewriters, making a living adding to the mind-numbing bureaucracy by writing pedantic letters for people looking for government jobs or seeking compensation for their ruined homes. I climbed four flights of stairs with no lights and walked through a door with Shrubs written twelve inches high in drawing pins. The five people inside, half of them sifting through cardboard boxes on the floor, stopped what they were doing and stared balefully at me. One man with a paunch got up and with a small bow, introduced himself as Leon, the office manager.
“We are beholden,” Leon said. “That you travel through the war zone to greet us is an honour.”
“I am afraid you have taken me by surprise.” I had assumed that Waverly, like most stringers, worked alone. “I didn’t know we had a manager. Where’s Waverly?”
Leon bowed again. “Is it that you don’t like me, sir?”
“Excuse me?”
“Don’t you like me? Of an evening?”
I walked through to the priest’s office. A wizened old man was brushing the carpet, raising huge clouds of dust. Waverly’s desk was littered with cuttings and press releases. On the top of his spike was a carbon duplicate of an old-fashioned telegram dated a day earlier.
“Jaffna is a poisonous town and I think I’ve got dysentery stop Everyone I meet is plotting something and the hostility has been too depressing for words stop Adios stop.”
“He is gone into the air.” The office manager was at the door. He had changed his shirt and reinforced his deodorant.
“Look,” I said. “Who writes telegrams in this day and age? I don’t know who you are or what you are doing. But my job is to find out.”
“Please do not be angry, sire. I do my work, as Mr Waverly has instructed all these years. Do you like my colourful shirt?”
I changed tack. “Has anyone been to the Chinese takeaway next door?”
Leon looked puzzled. “For one’s eating pleasure?”
“Yes, and no.”
“You are hungry for one?”
“For one what? Do you have any information on the Chinese?”
“Wait.” Leon skipped out of the office to a back room and came back and handed over a menu. “Luckily for you.”
“I am going to interview them.” I spoke as though issuing a threat, curling up the menu and pointing it at Leon. “And then I am going to find Waverly. Excuse me.”
“Ask them about number twenty-two,” Leon called after me. “Ask them where they find the balls to make such a recipe.”
I ran downstairs and into the takeaway shop, where the door gave a familiar Sotobech high street ring as it opened. But there was no one inside. There was a half-finished bowl of noodles on the Formica counter and an out-of-date calendar on the wall next to some Lunar New Year greetings in red and gold. A tassel curtain hung over a doorway to the back.
“Anybody at home?” I made my way to the foot of some stairs and started up. “Hello?”
At the top, a door stood ajar and an old Chinese man was sitting on a bed, watching television. He wore a pair of shorts and no top and had a can of beer in his hand. “Hello?” I said softly. “I’m sorry if I’m disturbing you.”
“Not at all. You’ve come with the boxes?”
“Boxes?”
“Boxes. Yes. From Hong Kong.”
“No. I’m afraid not. I’ve come to ask about the DALJC,” I said, breaking all the rules about interviewing someone you don’t know on an emotive subject. You don’t just jump in with two feet.
What the man did next was surprising, largely because of the agility with which he did it – he jumped up with two feet, turned off the television and leant against the wall as relaxed as could be. Something was wrong.
“It would only take a few minutes,” I added. “I work for Shrubs News Agency which has an office upstairs. I have come here with Chris Torment and I was wondering if you knew anything about the Democratic Association…”
“I know nothing about such a group,” the old man said. “I’m just here waiting for my boxes.”
Time to calm things down. “Well, is there any chance of getting something to eat?”
“Something to eat?”
“Yes. Something to eat. From your restaurant.”
The man looked at his watch. “It’s one o’clock.”
“I was thinking of having some lunch.”
“Well, we could give it a shot.” The man walked to the door. “Ming-min!” he called down the stairs. He went back to his bed. “Go down now, sir. Ming-min will serve you. Before you go…”
“Yes?”
“You said you were here with Chris Torment.”
“Yes.”
He sat down carefully, as though in pain. “Chris Torment’s a nob.”
Downstairs again, I glanced at the menu, which dramatically claimed to have ‘the finest speciality’. The tassel curtain moved and a Chinese girl, about nineteen, with a flower in her hair and out of breath, came through. She was startlingly beautiful. She looked like of one of the girls in the 1930s Shanghai cigarette ads.
“Well, hello.” I leant on the counter towards her breasts. “You must be Ming-min. Never in a million years did I expect to find such a lotus blossom as you hiding in this godforsaken place. Why on earth you Chinese would like to make a homeland…”
“Did Mr Waverly send you?” Ming-min said, playing with a nail on her manicured hands. She was looking at the door behind me.
I looked at her. Her shoulders held back, head held high. The posture was perfect.
“Waverly, my little jasmine flower?” I looked at the blossom in her hair. “What do you know about Mr Waverly?”
Ming-min reached up and pressed her slim fingers against my mouth.
“He wears a codpiece,” she said. I detected a Hartlepool accent. “He’s a scumbag, but I can’t talk of such things now.”
Ming-min swept around the front of the counter and took me by the arm. “Go now. I will see you soon,” she said. “Once the boxes have arrived.”
She pushed me out into the street and closed the door with a tinkle, turning the ‘open’ sign to ‘closed’. She dashed back behind the curtain. Barking mad, I thought. What a waste – but hardly surprising in such a dump. I looked round the back of the building, but could not find another entrance. I gave up and left to find Waverly.
The priest’s home was a suite at a waterfront hotel with teak floors and a sea spray and a month of dirty laundry tucked under the bed. I was going through the drawers when the phone went. It was my news editor.
“So where’s the flower-pot priest?” Baxter asked.
“Haven’t been able to trace him yet. Did you know he has an office with five people in it?”
“Oh no! Not an office with people in it?”
“I mean he’s a stringer. Yet he’s got an office with Shrubs written on the door. I met a Chinese girl, a new contact, who knows him intimately. She’s a close friend. An informative and reliable source. You got my telegram? I didn’t know you could send telegrams in this day and age.”
