Jade Woman l-12 Read online

  “Wotcher, Harry,” I said, all cheery. “I’ve come about that mulberry-design paperweight, Pantin factory post-1850. You can’t teach them Parisians anything about art glass, eh?” My convincing chuckle proved unconvincing. I started explaining to Janie the loveliness of these beauties, but Harry spilled his tea. He was visibly trembling.

  “Don’t tell me, Harry,” I said with repellent heartiness. “You’ve decided to sell that Yoruba tribal voodoo cult fetish carving, right?” African folk art nowadays is costlier by the hour.

  Janie stood frostily by. She hates anything to do with the trade. She thinks antiques come from Bond Street.

  “Lovejoy,” Harry croaked. “Piss orf, okay?”

  “Only when we’ve settled that Lower Saxony gilt bronze of Saint Thaddeus, Harry.” I told Janie, “Imagine—1350 a.d.! Beautiful as the day it was—”

  With a groan Harry ran out of the door and off up East Hill like a hare.

  “What extraordinary behavior, Lovejoy!”

  “He must have remembered something. Let’s try the Arcade.” I set off with her, heart in my mouth in case Big John’s goons decided the time was ripe. Every car that passed had me cowering. Wisely I walked on the inside, keeping Janie between me and any possible assassin. No good telling my lovely companion that the antiques I’d mentioned to Harry would total something like a modern light plane. She looked at me curiously.

  “He seemed terrified of you, Lovejoy. Have you been up to something?”

  “Me?” I gave her my full innocence.

  She gave me a hug. “Sorry, darling.”

  From then on we became less jubilant. Gradually, as we maneuvered through my antiques contacts, Janie grew quiet. I called on them all. Margaret Dainty, lame but lovely, warned me slyly when she thought Janie wasn’t looking; nervous Lily; Jessica the ferocious grab-all; Mannie the clock dealer; and Big Frank from Suffolk even ducked past me as we emerged from the Arcade. By then I was desperate. Surely even Janie should have cottoned on by now.

  We’d been at it four hours—quieter and quieter—before Janie walked firmly into the Castle Park’s rose garden and sat us down on a bench. Dawning-realization time.

  “Lovejoy,” she said. “Something’s the matter, isn’t there?”

  “Mmmmh?” I gave back. From our bench we faced the war memorial. A dark saloon was parked next to Janie’s long low sleekster. My heart was hammering. Big John was about to display his irritation. A squat bloke was calmly strolling past.

  “Everybody said no to you.” Earnestly she pulled me to face her. “And they’re frightened. They couldn’t get rid of you fast enough, even though you’re a divvy, Lovejoy.”

  Her car erupted as the saloon pulled away. I actually felt the blast waft heat on my eyeballs. Sound engulfed us both. I was up and running before I knew what I was doing, dragging Janie one-handed as the shouts and fire roar started. A smoke pall slanted across the garden. I tore out, down a pub yard and across into the old churchyard opposite, only pausing for breath when we’d reached the porch. Sirens began, folk running, away from the inferno. She was tugging to be let go.

  “Lovejoy! My car! It exploded! What’s happening?”

  “Tell you in a minute.”

  We recovered as the mayhem took on a hectic order. Police arrived to quell the traffic’s rebellion. Crowds were gathering to stand in awe—where did they all come from?

  We watched the burning car. Janie was looking from the smoke to me and back. The Hollytrees is an eleventh-century church now a folk museum. To Big John, superstitious if homicidal, its sanctuary would be respected.

  “Darling.” Janie was searching for answers in my pallor. At least the penny had dropped that there was actually a question, thank God. “Are you in difficulties?”

  Dear God. Difficulties. “Yes, love. The bailiffs took my painting. I had to give it to Sheehan today.”

  She was horrified, outraged. “And he did that? We must tell the police, Lovejoy!”

  Women with conviction slay me. “We’d not get ten yards, love.” No acting now; I felt really despondent, fated.

  “Can’t you do another painting?”

  I stared. She knew even less about antiques than Big John, a zilch minus. “The one the bailiffs nicked was an 1891 Unterberger. It took me eight weeks.”

  Another fire engine wah-wahed past. The street was in uproar, traffic tangled.

  “Then we’ll buy him one, Lovejoy.”

  Hopeless. “Look, love. This hoodlum has a standing army of eleven killers. He needs my Unterberger to goldbrick a collection of dud William IV antiques—to authenticate his dross, so he can sell it to a dealer he hates. The deal’s success depended on my fake.”

  My mouth dried. Two goons were standing opposite, staring somberly at the porch. I shrank. “Crisping your car was his opener.”

  She shrank with me. She was learning, but slowly. She said with asperity, “I’ll speak to my husband about this, you just see if I don’t!”

  “Janie.” I pulled her inside the museum. It’s mostly natural history— gruesome animal relics, skeletons, birds’ eggs. Nobody ever goes in except a dozy curator. 1 cupped her face in my hands, though I was shaking and every neuron in my panic-stricken cortex was shrieking to run for it. “They’re going to catch me sooner or later. Well, so be it.” I gave her a noble if sweaty smile of self-sacrifice, a real Sidney Carlton.

  “But it’s… murder, Lovejoy!” Her poor little—well, rich and big— experience couldn’t cope with all this criminal behavior.

  “Yes, darling.” I sighed more soul, gave her a gentle kiss to show utmost sincerity. “But I won’t let you suffer. I’ll…” I swallowed in panic because my life depended on how she took my next lie, “… go out and face them.”

  Her eyes filled. “Oh, Lovejoy! You’re so brave!”

  Fuck the tears, you silly cow, my aghast mind shrilled. Get on with it! Buy me a plane to Alaska, Istanbul, Hull…

  “Good-bye, Janie.”

  “Wait!” She was in tears, desperately swinging her lovely hair as she cast about. Her voice took on resolution. “I’m not going to let you! There must be a way!”

  “But what?” I said, most sincerely brave and puzzled.

  “I’ve got it!” She was so thrilled. “Algernon!” she said excitedly. “I’ll send you with Algernon!”

  “Algernon?”

  “Yes, of course! Macao! My husband’s firms partly finance that racing syndicate!

  Advertising or something. Stay overseas, a week maybe, and Mr. Sheehan will have quite forgotten about your mistake with that painting.” My mistake? See the way they shift the blame? She drew me among the horrible glass cases. I went willingly, now she’d seen sense. “Quickly! I’ll send for a car, we’ll collect your things. You’ll catch Algernon at the airport.”

  I almost fainted with relief. “I’ve got no things, love. The bailiffs.” But they’d given me an envelope with two dud checkbooks, driver’s license, and passport. Then I confessed, to clarify things even further, “I’ve no money, doowerlink. And think of the expense.”

  “Lovejoy!” she said, kissing me fiercely. “I’m determined! Do you understand?”

  About bloody time. “Yes, dearest,” I said humbly. At last I was heading for safety out of this whole mess.

  An hour later, though overcome by nostalgia, I shrank down in the limousine rather than give a backward glance at the High Street, the shoppers, the distant green countryside to the town’s north. Janie’s driver headed us out on the A12 trunk road while she pretended a frosty boredom and secretly held my hand. My jacket bulged with a wadge of notes and travelers’ checks. I had no luggage, only an outdated pamphlet on Macao that Janie had grabbed in the money exchange. Not much to be leaving with, but if I stayed I’d have less.

  3

  « ^ »

  ONCE upon a time, before a helpful lady ravished my chastity into extinction, I used to wonder about women. Even though at the time I was only a beardless wobbly-voice
d sprog with vocal cords, for an alarming spell, unsure of their destiny.

  The day after my virginity vanished—V-Day plus one, so to speak—it dawned on me that women are affected by men as much as we are by them. That is to say, women are the cause of almost all the world’s theories, which is why most theories aren’t worth a light. Like, I mean, if a theory’s any good, it ends its career and becomes fact, right?

  Well, my own particular theory about women is that they’re constitutionally incapable of feeling appetites same as us. I’ve said it before, but don’t misunderstand me: they have their moments, but it’s all tangential stuff. They get peckish, but never quite reach that outermost pitch of actual hunger that we feel. They desire, but can’t absolutely lust. A bloke, now, is the exact opposite. When we crave, we can’t see, think, do anything else at all, for nothing matters until it’s gratified. That’s why women always seem so odd; their appetites are always in relative neutral. I just can’t understand the point of living in a state of less than maximum revs. Birds are really odd. You can’t tell them this, though. They won’t have it. They always say things like “Women feel love more than men,” which is a scream and only goes to show. It proves my point, because love isn’t a mere feeling, but there’s no telling women. Like talking to a brick wall. I have to mention this now because there might be no time later on, and in any case, it’s women that rule us, though they pretend the opposite. Hence I was fleeing from an unfair vendetta caused by Janie when I’d done nothing wrong and it was all her fault. See? In spite of everything, I like their company more than anyone else’s, but haven’t quite got the hang of why they all hate each other so. Still, that’s their problem.

  Or so I thought. Hong Kong was to teach me very, very different to much of this.

  At Heathrow Airport—“Thiefrow” to regulars—I bade a most sincere farewell to Janie, quickly reminded her to cable Algernon, and darted in to book a flight. I didn’t know it then but it was my nth mistake. I should have been tipped off by my reception at the booking desk, where a bonny girl shook her head.

  “Macao, sir? There are no flights to Macao.”

  “You’re mistaken, love. My friend’s just flown there. It’s in the Far East,” I offered helpfully.

  “Hong Kong, sir. You change to a boat in Hong Kong.”

  “Eh?” This was unnerving. She finally convinced me with a map and checked with cronies.

  The second doom hint was catching sight of Toby the Motorman. He collects car keys left by bona fide travelers at the issue desk, nicks the cars and drives them to Wolverhampton to be resprayed for sale by his cousin. I should have been on the lookout for friends, those ultimate hazards, but was sure he hadn’t spotted me as I slid among the dispirited shambling crowds into the departure lounge to wait out the eight long hours.

  Just like air terminals, all flights are a drag. When finally aboard, I was stuck in the umpteenth class next to a noisy kitchenette, which didn’t help. Why do designers let us down so? I’ve never yet seen a modern aerodrome that looked individual. Anonymity’s no hallmark. And as for airplanes, you might as well be inside a bog roll’s cardboard tube. I suppose things might improve if ever airships get going. Anyhow, in a stupor I left Heathrow—that plastic-chrome-polyethylene horror zone where refuse collectors shuffle forever among soiled tables—with relief. At least Big John Sheehan’s goons hadn’t outguessed me. Heading out of danger. I thought.

  Flying’s a waste of traveling, I always find. You sit, eat plastic gunge until you’re stuffed as a duck. No wonder air hostesses call passengers “geese.” I was obedient, noshed my cubes when called upon, watched the films—endless car chases, crashes into piles of boxes, and knocking over that same weary old vegetable barrow before somebody confronts somebody in a warehouse shoot-out. All I can remember of the flight is that this bloke in the next seat bored me about Hong Kong. He called it Honkers.

  “Honkers,” he said, in what I call an immediate voice, a posh drawl uttered loudly through a half-closed larynx. “Great. You’ll find it jolly pleasant, not cheap, messy, hellish hot.”

  I waited for more. “Is that it?”

  “Eh?” He dwelled for a second, then brightened. “No. It’s crowded too. Going on business?”

  “Business?” My mind clicked: threadbare, disheveled, but traveling. “No. I’m, er, an artist.” Well, almost true. He was a lanky bloke with huge teeth and a prognathous jaw, a sandy-haired Hapsburg. He kept totting up numbers in a leather folder with matching everything.

  “An artist, hey?” He was delighted. “Successful?”

  I said modestly, “Just sold one to the National Gallery. I do antiques too.”

  “Indeed.” He gave me a card. “That’s me. Del Goodman. Investment, sales. We’ve an antiques sale coming up in Honkers. Anything—buying, selling—give us a ring. Once knew an artist years ago. Nice chap…” I dozed fitfully as he prattled on and kiddies ran up and down the aisle.

  Naturally, I was dreaming of finding antiques galore in Hong Kong—the eggshell porcelains that reached perfection in 1732; the bowls decorated in five colors by Tang, the greatest in all history, who represented fruits and flowers so naturalistically during Ch’ien Lung’s eighteenth-century reign.

  My only artistry lately had been that Franz Unterberger. I slept because I could foresee no real problems now. Being thick helps optimism, because it’s unreliable stuff at the best of times. I’ve always found that…

  The flight was forever, until at unbelievable last the stewardess woke me to strap in, the captain was yawning through some urgent announcement, and ships’ funnels and riding lights were sliding past the windows, frightening me to death.

  Twenty minutes more and we all stumbled down the gangways into the world’s soggiest and most unbreathable air. I halted on the aircraft steps, stunned by the oven heat, then went forward into catastrophe.

  4

  « ^ »

  KAI TAK International Airport’s runway stretches out into Hong Kong Harbor. For all that, the aerodrome has the same sterility that adorns these terminals. So why was I bewildered? Tired. Deafened by the din, I blundered through presses of tour couriers with stick placards. It was pandemonium. I’d never heard so many people talk so loudly. Everybody seemed to be shouting in Chinese, laughing, hurrying. Signs were in English and Chinese, with me peering and reeling, out on my feet. Jet-lagged or dying didn’t matter anymore. In that first moment Hong Kong established itself irrevocably in my mind: brilliant colors and indescribable noise. Somebody asked was this my only baggage, slurring r’s in staccato English. Then I was through. I started staggering about the melee looking for Algernon, but the idiot was nowhere.

  After an exhausting hour of this, my stunned brain asked, since when has Algernon ever been on time? So get your head down, lad, search later. I trudged round in the turmoil among a zillion passengers swirling as baffled as I was.

  In my delirium I tried to work out possibilities. I could stay here in the clamor, or go to Macao and search for him and his lunatic motor-racing pals there. But where the hell was Macao? I decided to give the nerk one hour more, then make my own way as best I could. I slumped against a wall—even that was burning hot—and gaped blearily at the throngs of milling Chinese.

  My eyelids flickered as fatigue took hold. No real need to nod off, I told myself, not really, because hadn’t I just survived a year-long flight dozing and noshing? Yet the draining heat and drugging air reduced me to a dazed, baffled robot. I thought, well, Lovejoy, no harm to shut your eyes for a couple of seconds, eh? Algernon’d find me when he arrived.

  All doubts and cautions logicked to extinction, I rested. Delirium passed me to oblivion.

  People may have pushed by me now and again but I wasn’t having any and slept determinedly on, safe, for wasn’t I practically at the ends of the earth? Once I dimly felt somebody give my shoulder a shake, but my stunned brain knew that importuners can’t be trusted. My neurons vanished me, and I was glad.

  Isn�
��t it odd that promises of Heaven are impatient, even frenzied? Hell, on the other hand, is a patient villain. Unbeknownst to me, it stood doggedly by while I reposed against the wall of Kai Tak’s arrival lounge. Another curiosity is that it isn’t restfulness that wakes you. It’s expectation. I awoke hungry, my belly clamoring for food. My mind was still obstinately befogged when I opened my eyes to a horrendous zoom, clang, crash.

  And closed them again to shut out the tumult while I remembered. Bailiffs, Janie, BJS, my escape flight, the non-Algernon. And open, to the cacophony, the noisy press, queues, the clashy announcements of this flight and that. Stiff as a poker, I clambered erect and stood blinking owlishly. No Algernons abounded. I realized with surprise that I was a bit taller than average, an unexpected novelty. Still, no good standing here gaping inanely. Off to Macao.

  It seemed brighter than when I’d dozed off. I never carry a watch, so absolute time always escapes. Yawning and stretching, I realized I must have slept longer than I’d assumed. Maybe I’d even arrived in the early evening and slumbered all night? Certainly there was a morning air about, a relative freshness. I saw a multilingual legend and an arrow: “Taxis This Way.” Great. I’d go and throttle Algernon—always start as you mean to go on, I always say. I reached for my bag and… and a quick puzzlement while I turned round once, searching the floor.

  No bag.

  Well, no matter. There hadn’t been much in it except a dated map of Macao. Somebody must have taken it by mistake while I’d dozed. And I still had my money wadge, Janie’s travelers’ checks… I went cold.

  Nothing.

  Malaise swept me. Illness. Nausea. Panic. My hands poked, probed frantically.

  Sweating, I spun, looked round at the marble floor, took a pace, retraced, delved and searched in a fever of fright. Nothing. My forehead went clammy, shoulders, hands.