He sighed. “A man named Bonelli, he owns this house. An old friend, a good friend.”
“How careful are you with words?”
“A good friend, Cain. For a long, long time.”
“Carlo Bonelli?”
He nodded. “You know him?”
“Only by repute. Is he the man you told I was coming here?”
He was suddenly surprised. “Yes, but how did you...” He broke off and said thoughtfully: “Ah yes, that attempt on your life.”
“That hopeful assassin called me by name.”
“But Bonelli—take my word for it—he had nothing to do with it. I merely asked him, when I got Colonel Fenrek’s letter, if he’d ever heard of you.”
“And had he?”
There was that old sardonic touch again. “He’d heard. And if you need help, that’s the first place to look for it.”
It was a famous name in these parts. Bonelli was Italian, an expatriate who’d built up a fortune out of three hundred tons of salvaged potassium nitrate that had found its way to these waters at the end of the Korean War; that’s a lot of fireworks in the making, and Bonelli had built a factory first, then switched his interests and founded a chain of fan-tan houses in Macao, Hong Kong, Bangkok, and Singapore; and some said that there were other phases of his business that wouldn’t bear too close inspection.
I said: “Am I right in supposing that Bonelli has already made an attempt to find your daughter?”
He nodded. “When I first came here, a few days ago.”
“Tell me about him. If he’s been a friend for a long time...what about the old days, when you were Ben Stirani?”
“Yes, we knew each other then. He was almost the only man who knew just how Stirani...died, and was born again.”
“And he was with you in the rackets?”
Emphatically: “No. As a matter of fact, he hated what I was doing. He’d made his money illegally sometimes, but his trade was not quite as...as vicious as mine, and he tried to get me to give it up. You find that strange, in a man like him?”
“When I get to know him, I’ll answer that.”
“Well, Bonelli was the man who found Markle Hyde all the papers he needed to start out. My passport, to this day, is a phony; it was made in Istanbul, I believe, by one of those shadowy figures we all used to know so well.”
There was a nagging thought at the back of my mind. I said: “Forget the paternal pride for a moment. Just how bright is your daughter?”
He was very sure of himself. He said: “As bright a woman as you’ll ever meet, Cain. That’s not just a father talking, it’s a businessman. If Sally had gone into General Motors, in five years she’d have owned the company. That’s how smart she is.”
“Then she wouldn’t have come all the way here without some nesting place to hide in. Surely she must realize that if she’s out to get Ming, pretty soon he’ll be out to get her.”
“Undoubtedly.” He was very calm about it.
I said: “Would she have friends here unknown to you?”
“Maybe.”
“And Bonelli knows her?”
“He’s never actually met her.”
I waved away the silent servant. He came and went all the time, and I wondered why Markle Hyde chose to discuss these private things so openly when the old man was always within such indiscreet distance. I asked him about it, and he smiled and said:
“One of Bonelli’s men. I’d trust him with my life. Or with Sally’s.”
I sat and thought for a while, and Markle Hyde waited and said nothing, letting me take my time to decide. I said at last: “The old organization is back on its feet, now under a man named Ming, and it’s a lot more deadly than it used to be, right?”
“Right. In my time, society was against us. Nowadays, it’s more permissive. We knew that what we were doing was wrong, and we said the hell with it, look at the money. But these people...” He sighed, “A lot of folks nowadays don’t really believe that drugs are all that bad, and so...now, the organization works with much less antagonism, and it’s gotten stronger. All they’re fighting now is the law, whereas in my time—hell, Cain, you know what it’s like nowadays. There’s a kind of cynicism around I’d never have thought possible, and good honest folks are saying, well, why shouldn’t they experiment if they want to? You know what I mean?”
“And Alexander Ming’s headquarters are here, in Macao?”
He shrugged. “He comes and goes, no one ever knows where from or where to. He’s refined the art of the sudden disappearance till it’s masterly. His poppies are grown in Southeast Asia and Anatolia, but mostly the stuff’s refined here. And it’s here that the distribution starts, so...yes, his real headquarters are here. But he’s everywhere, Cain. And I don’t have to tell you what you’ll be up against. They’ve more power than we would have thought possible in my day. And just the same kind of contempt for the life of anyone who gets in their way.” He laughed shortly, sardonically, and added: “If it worries you too much, do what I used to do; think of the money.”
“Uh-huh.” I said: “I’ll need your phone number, I’ll need photographs of your daughter, and I’ll need a rough biography. I want to know her as well as possible, everything you can tell me about her. Take a couple of hours and write it all down. Everything.”
“I’ll have it by this evening.”
“I’m at the Penha Palacio for the time being.”
“I’ll send it over.”
“I want to know her tastes in food, her favorite colors what kind of music she likes, her hobbies.”
“Hobbies? She collects stamps.”
