Riding the Snake (1998) (20 page)

"Okay, now let's jump to current events," Vickers said with a flourish of his hairy arms. "Margaret Thatcher--the Chinese call her Sa Cha Fu Ren, or 4Wife Thatcher'--goes to Beijing in 1984 and signs the Sino-British Joint Declaration in the Great Hall of the People. This Declaration is a real piece of bullshit, in my opinion, 'cause I don't think it's ever gonna work. It says that after the Chinese take over Hong Kong in July of '97, there will be 'One Country, Two Systems.' The one country, of course, is China. The two systems are a laissez-faire economy for Hong Kong, side by side with a repressive Communist dictatorship for the rest of Red China. No fucking way! These two diverse ideologies can't coexist, and deep down, everybody knows it, and that's why everybody is so jittery. The U
. S
. and other world powers are trying to buy into this bullshit idea because they don't want to piss off China and lose that huge market, and they don't want to lose Hong Kong as a banking and shipping center that links East and West.

"This Joint Declaration also states that China will not change the capitalist system in Hong Kong for fifty years from the date of repatriation. Again, I say, good fucking luck."

Now Wheeler was leaning forward, listening intently.

"In June 1989, the Chinese scare the piss out of all the Hong Kong citizens when they kick ass in Tiananmen Square," Vickers said, still pacing. "After that massacre, a brain-drain ensues. Wealthy Chinese business owners leave Hong Kong like a flock of pigeons taking off after a backfire. The Chinese don't want Hong Kong to be an empty shell now that they finally have it, so they're trying to make it look like they're going to live up to the Sino
-
British Joint Declaration and not change anything for fifty years like they promised.

"Plus, the Brits did one thing that really infuriated the Chinese. A little going-away present, if you will."

"What was that?" Tanisha asked.

Vickers grinned toothily. "Democracy. Can you believe it? For one hundred and fifty years, the Brits run the place like a kingdom. They treat the Chinese citizens of Hong Kong like serfs and peons. They have no political rights. There's no such thing as habeas corpus. Forget British citizenship! The only elected officials Hong Kongers can vote for are the Urban Council, which supervises sidewalk peddlers, garbage pickup, and street names--I'm serious! Then, six years before they are due to sky out, the Brits decide to hold free elections for the Legislative Council. You can imagine how pissed the Communist Chinese up in Beijing were! They never had any intention of keeping the Joint Declaration. Now they've got to go in, just eight years after the massacre in Tiananmen Square, and deal with another democratic movement in full view of the whole world. If they fuck over Hong Kong, they put their own Most Favored Nation trading status in jeopardy. So they have to act cautiously.

"In December of last year, they appoint Tung Chee Hwa, a shipping tycoon from Shanghai, to be their first Chief Executive of Hong Kong. Two hours after midnight on July 1, 1997, they boot out the elected legislature and replace it with hand-picked puppets of their own. They send in two mechanized divisions the next morning to garrison the place. Hong Kong is now a Special Autonomous Region of China. 'Autonomous' my ass. Although it's on a lease, it's still the golden goose, producing forty percent of China's foreign exchange. They can't treat it too roughly. As of today, twenty-nine percent of the Colony has fled. We are poised and waiting. The whole world is watching, wondering what will happenThis year, the first Chinese-controlled democratic elections are supposed to take place. These are supposed to be free elections to pick a new Chief Executive and Legislature. The Chinese Commies in Beijing obviously don't want a bunch of Western
-
leaning Social Democrats to get installed, but if they stifle the election, everybody will know the Joint Declaration was bullshit, and the remaining banks and world businesses in Hong Kong will take off. So I think something very evil may have happened, and now I'm into pure speculation and rumor."

"What?" Tanisha asked.

"A man named Willy Wo Lap Ling recently made a trip to Beijing. It was reported on CNN. Nobody knows why he went, but I have a suspicion."

"Who is he?" Tanisha asked, pausing from her note-taking to look up at Vickers.

"Wo Lap Ling is one big-time gonif. I keep running into his name. So far, he's just smoke on the radar. . . . Can't quite identify his game, but I think he's involved in a lot of bad shit. There's even an unsubstantiated report he's trafficking in black market Russian nukes--he's been trying to purchase some suitcase bombs missing from the Russian armory. I got that from a spook in the CIA named Carter DeHaviland who's pretty reliable. He's officed out where you are in L
. A
. He thinks Willy's already got his hands on some of those nuclear weapons. If that's not enough to scare the shit out of you, he's also rumored to be involved in big-time smuggling of drugs and illegal immigration into the U
. S
. Some Hong Kong Royal Police I know think he's connected, somehow, to the Chin Lo Triad, which is one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the world. I've represented some Snake Riders who whisper about Willy Wo Lap. A few Hong Kong detectives who started to investigate him met with violent ends. Nobody can prove it, but in my opinion, anybody who walks like a duck and quacks like a duck is a fucking Chin Lo Peking duck. The Triad is responsible for a good deal of the burgeoning crime and political corruption here in America. So why is Willy Wo Lap, who is supposed to be a Hong Kong businessman, in Beijing talking to China big shots? I think Wo Lap Ling is being groomed to run for Chief Executive of Hong Kong. If I'm right and this deal has been cut, and if Wo Lap Ling is connected to the Chin Lo Triad, it will mean that Hong Kong, the third-largest banking center in the world, has been flat out sold to a worldwide criminal organization."

"And the U
. S
. government will let this happen," Wheeler said.

"These guys aren't stupid. Wo Lap Ling has big-time Guan
-
Xi with the U
. S
. government. He's on the board of directors of the American Red Cross. He gives millions to charity every year in Hong Kong and America. They throw dinners to honor this guy. He dines with Clinton in the White House, sleeps in the Lincoln bedroom, donates big to everybody's campaign. Both our political animals get fed by this guy. He builds soup kitchens and hospital wings. The Americans like him because he was born in Kowloon, not Communist China. He's a free market economy kind of guy, with strong ties to the West. You may have noticed, our government guys only see green."

"But you can't prove any of it," Tanisha said.

"No, I can't. But let's suppose ..." He waved the typed sheet Tanisha had brought. "Let's suppose the payoffs on this transcript have something to do with this rigged election in Hong Kong in 1998. Then maybe a big piece of the cover is flapping up."

Chapter
17.

The Man with Good Shoes

The ugly girl led Fu Hai out of the restaurant and through the Ching Ping Market. She reached back and took his hand and pulled him along so they would not get separated amidst the teeming crowds of people. He followed her obediently, watching the soft swell of her haunches moving under the fabric of her baggy trousers. He had not had a woman in months. He wondered what it would be like to make love to the ugly girl. Then he reminded himself that her father was a dangerous criminal and a Snakehead who would be getting him to America. Only a fool would attempt such a reckless act.

The ugly girl led him to a warehouse down by the Pearl River. Beyond the metal building, he could see old Chinese junks and a rusting metal freighter tied to a concrete dock being loaded by peasant laborers. The girl took a key out of her sock and unlocked the warehouse door.

The inside of the building was dank and smelled of rotting fruit and engine oil. He was led to a place in the back, and again the girl put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him into
a s
itting position on a row of wooden pallets. Then she turned and left.

Fu Hai sat quietly, wondering what would come next. He thought of all that had happened on the journey to Beijing. What had surprised him the most was how China had changed. No longer a sleeping giant, she had awakened. New buildings and roads were everywhere he looked. All over the Eastern Provinces the cities were changing. From Jiangsu Province, south to Zhejiang, from Fukien to Guandong, China was bustling with new architecture, life, and ideas. Had he picked the wrong time to leave? Would he miss the opportunity the awakened giant would bring to her people? What was he going to find in America?

He had heard wonderful stories of America, about immigrants who had gone there with nothing and, in a few years, owned huge houses and had many American cars. But how on earth did one make this happen? What if it were not true? Perhaps he had made a mistake, but even as he had these thoughts, he knew China did not want him. China might change, but its new face would not welcome him. He would never be happy here. With new resolve, he was determined to go to America. He would become his dreams. But he was frightened. Confucius said: Good medicine is often bitter to the taste. Fu Hai gritted his teeth. He would take the bitter medicine of change and leave the land of his birth forever.

Three hours later, the ugly girl returned with a man who spoke Mandarin. He was tall and had good shoes.

"Chi fan le ma?" the man asked, without introducing himself. This meant "Have you eaten yet?"

"I have. Have you eaten?" Fu Hai replied. In China, because of the long-standing scarcity of food, it had become a traditional greeting to inquire if somebody had eaten. It was not an offer to eat. It was the American equivalent of "How are you?" In America one replied, "Fine. How are you?" In China, one did not bore the asker with a long list of complaints.

The man with good shoes told Fu Hai that the Snake Ride would begin by boat down the Pearl River. He would travel inside a coffin to Hong Kong. The Chinese Army patrolled the border now, protecting Hong Kong from the flow of immigrants that tried to pour in from China to take advantage of the "other system." This was strictly prohibited by Beijing, but Fu Hai needed to cross into the New Territories to leave China.

"Hong Kong is forty miles downriver," the man with good shoes said. "You must jump in the water as the freighter rounds East Lamma Channel. You will swim ashore and find your way to the village of Wah Fu. There you must climb up a jungle gorge to Wong Chuk Hang, where you will find Neolithic carvings that look like spirals. They are at least five thousand years old. Wait there and Big-Eared Tou's cousin will find you," he said.

Later that night, Fu Hai was led by the man with good shoes down to the dock and a small rusting freighter with the name Tai He Ping (Great Peace) painted on the side.

He went aboard, past crewmen who didn't look at him or ask questions. He was led down into a dark, rusting hold where there were twelve empty coffins made from beautiful bai mu, white wood, the preferred material for coffins in China. It came exclusively from Liuzhou in the Guangxi-Zhuang Autonomous Region of southeast China. The coffins themselves looked like small boats with high, rounded ends. He knew they were very expensive, maybe ten thousand U
. S
. dollars each. The man with good shoes opened the lid of the farthest one and told Fu Hai to get into the coffin. Reluctantly, he climbed in, fearing it might be bad luck to spend time inside a casket.

"If soldiers board this boat and check the load, they will not open the casket. They are afraid of death," the man with good shoes told him. Fu Hai nodded. That was his feeling exactly. He closed his eyes as the man lowered the lid.

Hours passed in the hot, dank hold. Occasionally, he heard people coming down the metal ladder or moving heavy boxes, but he couldn't understand what they were saying through the wall of the coffin. Then he felt the rumble of the freighter's powerful engine as it started.

Soon the boat was underway. The time passed slowly for Fu Hai, a living corpse inside the white wood casket. He wondered if the soldiers would board the freighter; if, as the man with good shoes said, they would be as afraid of the coffins as he was. He knew that all people weren't the same. Great ancient wisdom said that flowers look different to different eyes. He prayed that the man with good shoes was right.

When he heard the patrol boat, his heart almost stopped. It came roaring up alongside, its engine growling like an angry beast. He could hear voices shouting, and he pushed the lid of the coffin up slightly to hear better. Moist air came into the steamy, hot casket and cooled him. He heard footsteps ringing on the ladderway, as people came down into the hold. Through the crack in the lifted coffin lid, he caught a glimpse of two soldiers wearing the green uniforms of the People's Liberation Army. He softly lowered the lid. Fu Hai heard them slam their gun barrels on a few of the beautifully crafted coffins, undoubtedly leaving ugly, greasy gouges in the polished white wood. Then they turned and quickly left, in a hurry to get away from the baskets of death.

He heard the patrol boat start up and leave. He had been told by the man with good shoes that it would now be safe to get out of the coffin. Fu Hai pushed back the lid and clambered out. His body was drenched with sweat, his clothes damp and clammy.

There was a small porthole forward of where the coffins were stored, and Fu Hai went to it and looked out. The cold river air felt like rain on his face. He smiled as he saw the billowing, churning Pearl River flowing past the hull. In the distance, he could see the lights of Hong Kong. The huge skyscrapers lit low-hanging clouds with incandescent, man-made light. Fu Hai had never seen a sight like this before. The clouds were ablaze with the city's glow. It was as if they were on fire.