“And the girls took good care of you?”
“Splendid care.”
“And your junk is ready. After lunch, I’ll run you over there. It’s not far. And, oh yes, your friend Mann-Crawford.”
“Harry?”
“His horse came in at ten o’clock this morning, didn’t it? I’ve sent over his winnings.”
“Good old Harry. He’s going to twiddle that mustache all day and wonder if it’s a bribe of some sort. And then he’ll pay it to the Police Benevolent Fund, just in case.”
Bonelli said, with great sympathy: “It takes all kinds to make a world, doesn’t it?”
We walked over to the Palacio together, and I noticed that he was keeping a very sharp lookout. And I also noticed that we were being followed. There was an unattractive man keeping his distance behind us, a roughly dressed Portuguese with more scars on his visible body than I would have thought possible to acquire in a lifetime. A sailing man, by the looks of him. I was about to tell Bonelli about it, when suddenly two youths on bicycles appeared from nowhere and came swooping down towards us, moving quite fast, as though they were racing each other; one of them swerved and almost, but not quite, collided with me, and I saw that there was a long knife in his hand and a wild and greedy look in his eye. The hand went back and up; and I was on the verge of picking him up and throwing him away, when the unattractive man behind me stepped forward; and I thought for a moment that I might be in trouble. But then, the two cyclists were suddenly caught together in the thick arms of the sailor type, and their heads were smashed hard together, and they were pushed bodily out of the way; but both recovered quickly and got up and ran, hard, and then the sailor was just as suddenly gone before I could even begin to ask him what was happening. I looked at Bonelli.
Quite unmoved, he was examining the rose in his buttonhole, a beautiful little white cup-shaped Soulieana; he raised his eyes to me and said: “I wonder if I should have told you? That was Ericeira.”
“Ericeira?”
“The skipper of your junk. He’s keeping an eye on you. I felt sure you wouldn’t mind. You don’t, do you?”
I said politely: “Let me just tell you how impressed I am with his competence. I’m a competent sort of man myself, but four fists, no doubt, are better than two.”
“I’m so glad you feel like that.”
The skipper had faded away, completely. Bonelli left me at the hotel, and when I asked for Sally Hyde, I was shown up to a top-floor suite overlooking the magnificent panorama of the harbor.
And there, sitting at the dressing table in a marvelously ornate kimono, brushing her long, fair hair in front of the mirror, was an attractive, svelte, and impossibly well-poised woman. I closed the door behind me and leaned against it, and she looked me over from head to foot, very slowly and completely, with a hard, controlled expression in her eyes. The hand that held the brush had stopped, and now it moved on again in long and rhythmic sweeps. She said nothing, and she did not take her eyes off me, and it seemed that she was sizing me up at her leisure.
But behind her, a little to one side, the door to the other room was open. And there, a shadow moved slightly, and a young girl came forward. She stood in the doorway and looked at me. She was holding a revolver.
She looked about sixteen or seventeen years old, though it’s hard to tell with the Cantonese women. And she was undoubtedly one of the most beautiful women I’d ever seen, and I’ve seen a good number of lovely women in my time. She had the slender, willowy hips of the Cantonese, and smooth ivory skin with a not quite Chinese look to it.
She wore the tight silk sheath with the slit skirt that they call the cheosonq, with a rather higher collar than was correct—a style usually reserved for the prostitutes. Her waist was so slight that I could easily have put my two hands around it, fingers touching. And her hand was steady as a rock, with a long-barreled Bayard .38 pointed straight at my groin.
The woman at the dressing table said at last: “Well, you’re the biggest goddamn son of a bitch I ever saw, and I suppose that makes you Cabot Cain. I’m Bettina Harkan.”
She turned to look back in the mirror, and looking at the young girl’s reflection, she said casually: “All right, Mai. This couldn’t be anybody else. Piss off.”
The young girl tossed the gun casually to the woman at the dressing table and moved towards me, heading for the door, her eyes cast down as though she didn’t want to look me in the face. She was very tall for a Cantonese, but she moved in absolute silence in her cloth shoes, like a cat. As she reached the door, I stepped aside and put a hand on her shoulder gently. She stopped and looked up at me, her deeply slanting eyes expressionless. But I felt an inexplicable tensing of her body.
I said: “Mai?”
For a moment, she held my look. Her eyes were smiling suddenly, though her lips did not move. She said at last, her voice very soft and musical: “Mai Cho-sing, Mr. Cain.” She made a little gesture that was almost a bow, and opened the door; and before she went out, she looked at me again with an almost surreptitious smile; and then she was gone.
And as I watched her moving silently down the corridor, I heard Bettina Harkan say, her voice hard and decisive and sarcastic: “If you can take your eyes off that skinny little tart for one minute, Cain, let’s talk business.”
I closed the door and went over and sat on the edge of the bed for a chat with Bettina.
CHAPTER 4
The Palacio is a good hotel. The rooms are large and airy, and they have old-fashioned fans in the ceiling that keep the air moving and give at least the illusion of cool in the stifling, humid heat.
The pastel-painted houses along the Praia Grande, pale blue, pale pink, and pale yellow, and shaded by dark-leaved trees, could be seen through the big, open windows.
Beyond them, the water was green and shining, and the saffron-colored junks were painted on canvas as they swung at anchor. Somewhere, a brass band was playing on the street; there were always raucous noises in these parts.
I said: “Yes, indeed, I’m Cabot Cain. Who’s the young girl?”
Bettina said tartly: “Young girl? She’s older than I am. Don’t let that milky white skin fool you. She’s my amah, my servant, my bodyguard, too, and from what that bastard Mann-Crawford told me, I’m going to need one. What about the money?”
“He made a deal with you, the Superintendent?”
She picked up an envelope from the dresser and tossed it to me. It had been opened carelessly, though there was an elaborate red seal on the back. It was a note from Harry:
This will serve to introduce Miss Bettina Harkan, the lady whom we discussed. She has agreed to work for you, in the capacity you outlined, for five hundred dollars a day; American, not Hong Kong, I’m afraid. She’s undoubtedly going to tear this open and read it, in spite of the official seal, so I’ll say no more except that she’s really quite a reliable person in spite of her many faults. Good luck. I hope you get along together as nicely as brother and sister. Harry.
I put the letter away; the image of the young Chinese girl was still with me, somehow more startling now than it had been at first. I said: “For a bodyguard, I’d have expected someone a trifle less fragile.”
“Fragile?” she snorted. “She could break you in two, Cain, in spite of those God-awful muscles of yours. Before they shot him for hijacking the payroll, her father was combat instructor to the Canton Security Force, and she could throw him around like a rag doll. What about the money?”
“You know what you have to do?”
She did not answer, but just sat there waiting imperiously, so I made a gesture and handed her my wallet. I said: “A few days’ pay in advance? Help yourself, dearie.” I was carrying fifteen hundred dollars in cash, and she took the lot and handed the wallet back to me, for which I was grateful.
She said casually: “I’m supposed to show myself around town and pretend I’m this broad of yours. What am I supposed to do when some bastard takes a shot at me?”
I said: “Duck.”
