“Quite hard. I had to. I was afraid she wouldn’t tell me, and I had to know. It was a question of self-protection. Anything I did, I did because I had to.”
“And then?”
“Then she told me.”
“How did her clothes get ripped off her?”
“She...she fought me. I had to have someone hold her.”
“And that was who?”
The first lie now; he was getting overconfident: “Just a couple of Chinese who work for Ming.” Not a lie, really; an evasion.
“And then?”
The voice was so quiet I could hardly hear him. “I believe...I believe they raped her.”
“In front of you?”
A whisper: “Yes.”
“Then you told them to? Or merely...allowed it?”
“Cain, please, I beg of you.”
“Did you tell them to rape her?”
“Yes, I told them.”
I said: “I can’t hear you, Wentworth. Say it louder.”
He swallowed hard and said: “I told them to. I told them to.”
“To what?”
“To...to rape her.”
I looked across at Mai. Her face was composed, quite unemotional; only her hands were moving, the fingers restlessly twining with each other. Wentworth exploded suddenly, his fear and his anger coming together. He said loudly:
“All right! I know it was a terrible thing to do, but...Well, she’s not exactly a lady, is she? I don’t suppose it’s the first time she had that sort of...I mean, it wouldn’t be as bad for her as it might be for, well, for someone else. I mean...Well, would it?”
I let him talk, not answering him, letting him put the rope around his neck. Mai was looking at me now, and I knew what she wanted; I shook my head.
He said again: “All right, it was a terrible thing to do, but...I had to treat her badly, Cain, don’t you understand that? With someone of our class it would not have been necessary, but a woman off the streets—they’ve different standards from ours, can’t you understand that?”
Mai moved, and I sat still. She went across to him and took him by the collar of his jacket, and yanked him to his feet. The surprise on his face was on account of the physical thing: he was a small man, but she was slighter, and yet, she yanked him up as if she were lifting a kitten off the floor. She held him with her left hand under his chin and jabbed the pointed fingers of her right hand into his gut; they were hard, quick, three rapid-fire blows into the solar plexus, and I said: “Don’t do that, Mai, he’ll be sick all over the carpet.”
She took hold of his thin wrist, twisted her shoulder under his armpit, doubled up and yanked, and sent him flying through the air to land with a terrible thud against the wall; I heard his arm break as she let go of it at just the right moment.
I said: “All right, Mai, sit down.”
She was moving towards him again, her hands open for a chop at his neck that would have killed him, and I said sharply: “No! Sit down! Sit down, Mai!”
She looked at me hard for a moment, then went and sat down, put her hands in her lap, and looked sadly at the tips of her little black shoes.
Wentworth groaned. He said, stumbling over the words: “My arm...my arm’s broken.” He didn’t know yet the pain that would soon hit him around the gut, but his face was white.
I said: “Go back to your corner and talk.”
He staggered to his feet and moved across the room, keeping a wary eye on Mai, and sank down again, leaning his head back, clutching his arm and groaning.
I said: “Now, the big question. Where is Sally Hyde now?”
He shook his head, moaning, and I said again, sharply: “Where is she, Wentworth?”
“I don’t know. So help me, I don’t know, Cain. If I did, I’d tell you. I swear I would.”
“I believe you. Where’s Alexander Ming?”
“He’s...he’s in Macao.”
“So I guessed. But it’s a big town.”
“He...he moves around a lot.”
“And at this precise moment?”
He whispered: “He’s going to kill me, Cain, unless you get me out of here. South America. He’ll kill me.”
