Shanghai (74 page)

The boy raised his head and found himself looking into the coal-black eyes of Tu Yueh-sen—and quickly he told of the Narwhal Tusk's hiding place in the depths of the Warrens.

—

After the boy was safely stowed away, Gangster Tu sat at his desk and carefully thought through the options
available to him. How exactly could he use this new knowledge against the
Fan Kuei?
He thought about the Dowager Empress in Beijing.

The Old Buddha was still immensely powerful. Tu couldn't even recall the present Emperor's name, the fool who had tried to pass the Hundred Days of Reform. No one paid him any mind. It was the Dowager Empress who ran things. And she had promised to pay a reward “worthy of a Manchu Emperor” for the First Emperor's Tusk. Tu knew exactly what reward he'd demand for the relic. He smiled and tapped his jagged fingernails on the desktop. He drummed out the rhythm of the rain, and it brought him slowly back to his grandmother and her claw hands on the sides of his face, and her insistence that he wreak revenge upon the
Fan Kuei
. He once again questioned why his grandmother's revenge was so important to him. The rain continued. His fingers drummed and slowly his thoughts coalesced—then hardened. Revenge gave him focus for his rage. In a purposeless world it gave him reason. Like the
I Ching,
it gave form to the formless.

“Drive them out of Shanghai, then out of China. All of them, Yueh-sen, out of the Middle Kingdom until nothing but the Black-Haired people remain in our land.” Then she'd spat and ground her spittle deep into the earth, saying, “My curse upon you, boy, if you fail me in this.”

He shook his head to clear it of his grandmother's angry voice. Now he needed a clear head—and a powerful ally, like the Dowager Empress—and her promised reward “worthy of a Manchu Emperor.” But first he had to figure out how to get to the old slut. That would take some doing.

He flipped open his
I Ching
and read the advice there, and a smile creased his thin lips.

He pressed a button on his desk and his Incense Master slid into the room, silently. “Sir?”

“Who do we know who has access to the great court of the Manchus?”

After months of intermediaries going back and forth between Shanghai and Beijing, and dozens of offers and counter-offers, Gangster Tu finally found himself in the Dowager's meeting chamber deep in the labyrinthine Forbidden City. He had come to claim the “Reward worthy of a Manchu Emperor.”

As he waited, Tu Yueh-sen did his best not to marvel at the wealth in obvious display all around him. He had been waiting for almost four hours but had been informed by his spies that this was to be expected. He sat on a satin-pillowed chair and for a moment wanted to lift his feet and put them on the nearby onyx table. He resisted the impulse. He was not there to make an enemy, he was there to enlist a powerful ally—the most powerful in all of China. For an instant he wondered if the Old
Buddha knew that he was “playing footsie” with men like Chiang Kai Shek, who were, at least on paper, dedicated to her overthrow. He doubted it, although he didn't put it past the Dowager to realize that keeping your enemies close was a good strategy. And the Dowager had been in power for a very long time.

Tu got to his feet and began yet another slow circumnavigation of the room. He paced past the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a fine inner courtyard garden; past a large hanging scroll painting of a country scene, with a mountain in the distance, done on some sort of sheer linen that almost covered an entire wall; past several Manchu ornamental lions; then past long, low, reddish lacquered furnishings. The whole room had a pleasing feel to it. Large, but human in dimension. Thoughtful, tasteful, and utile—yet screaming of money.

Trumpets sounded and he turned. The large gold-plated doors opened and a phalanx of purple-robed men, led by a tall slender man Tu knew to be the court's Head Eunuch, Chesu Hoi, entered.

Tu looked at the half-man—the silky soft skin of his cheek, his lightly rouged full lips, his impossibly long fingernails, his elaborate hairstyle partially hidden beneath a square black board worn at an acute angle, the cold calculation in his eyes.

The Eunuch bowed slightly in his direction and indicated a chair at the oval table in the centre of the room.

Tu sat in the indicated seat. Quickly some of the Eunuch's men moved to either side of him and positioned their writing tablets. Chesu Hoi did not sit but rather moved toward the large scroll painting and bowed his head.

“So you
do
have big ears, as they said.”

Tu looked in amazement at the Eunuch, but the man's head stayed bowed and his lips had clearly not moved. Besides, the voice had been an old female's, not a de-sexed male's.

“You are lucky they don't call you Ugly Big-Eared Tu—that would be more accurate.”

Tu finally understood that the voice belonged to Tzu Hsi, the Old Buddha, the Dowager Empress of China. She had been watching all this time from behind the wall hanging, which explained the gossamer-thin linen upon which the artist had committed his vision.

A light came on behind the painting, outlining, in silhouette on the linen, the figure of an ancient seated woman leaning on what Tu assumed was some sort of cane—no, sword. For an instant he was happy that he hadn't put his feet on the table.

He belatedly noted that the other men had all leaped to their feet on the first words uttered from behind the wall hanging. He slowly got to his feet. He smiled.

“Please don't. You are repulsive enough with your big ears and your mouth closed. Please don't smile in my presence. Don't.”

Tu noted that the men in the Eunuch's party had drawn weapons. Two had swalto blades. He removed the smile from his face.

“So, ugly giant-eared man, do you have the First Emperor's Narwhal Tusk?”

Tu nodded. He told her of the carver's son and the Tusk in the Warrens.

The Dowager Empress of China listened and allowed her anger to slither up from her ancient heart.
So it is true,
she thought.
All these years of rumours of an ivory tusk. All these years of claims and counter-claims of a plot
to control the future of the Middle Kingdom—my kingdom. All the efforts to locate it! All the expense!

“What reward do you want for the trinket?” she asked.

“I want nothing but what would most benefit the Sister of the Moon.”

“Yes, well, don't we all,” she muttered. “Would one thousand silver
taels
suffice?”

“No,” Tu said in a cold, flat voice. “No, it would not be a reward worthy of a Manchu Emperor—as you promised.”

“Did I ever make such a promise? Surely not!” She shifted slightly in her seat, and servants appeared from hidden alcoves and moved quickly to reposition her pillows, careful not to touch her—especially her ginger-root-like feet. She swatted them away and shooed them out of the room.

Although the Europeans had robbed her of much power with their insistence on legal extraterritoriality and their damnable land grabs, she still had a vast system of spies. And knowledge came to her from many sources, from people who didn't even know that they were spying for her. She knew what this intensely ugly man wanted for the Tusk.

“You want an ally, don't you?” she asked bluntly. “The most powerful ally in all of China. I will be that ally if you bring me the Tusk. You want revenge against the
Fan Kuei
for some reason. Fine—revenge against the
Fan Kuei
is fine. Who cares about the reason?” Then she chortled a quick laugh that sounded ominously like a death rattle.

Chesu Hoi's mind was flooded with fear.
At least the Chosen Three thought ahead and have Loa Wei Fen in position. I must contact him. Should I tell the Carver to
move the Tusk now? No, that might endanger the Tusk even more. No. Wait until the attack is imminent. Prepare, but wait
.

Suddenly the Dowager Empress screamed inside her head,
We must have the Tusk! I must have the Tusk!
She began to fret, scratching her long nails against the delicate skin of her palms, drawing blood. She wanted to scream,
Get it for me. If you love me, get me the relic!
But she held her peace. She'd waited for years—she could wait a little longer. But not too long. She knew that there were other parties in the Middle Kingdom anxious to claim legitimacy, and they would literally kill to get the Tusk to prove to the people that they should rule.

She controlled her voice and said, “How kind of you to have my concerns paramount. So bring me the Narwhal Tusk, like an obedient servant of the Celestial Kingdom.” She coughed a throaty chortle.

Tu noted the anxious stares of the men in the room. The coughing continued. The silhouetted figure swayed ever so slightly. Then suddenly the coughing stopped and a single word followed. “Now!”

The force with which the word came from the obviously frail body was impressive, and much to Tu's surprise, he felt a desire to obey the command. But he resisted the impulse and sat.

A stunned silence entered the room. Chesu Hoi signalled his men to step back.

Then Tu put his feet up on the table.

Tu Yueh-sen found the squeal from behind the wall hanging gratifying. Before it crested he said, “I want your detailed promise in writing before I bring you the Narwhal Tusk.”

Tu sensed the men in the room preparing to attack.

“If I do not return to Shanghai, my men have strict orders to destroy the Tusk.”

Another, even more gratifying squeal came from behind the curtain. Tu sensed the men in the room in motion and found himself on his knees with a knife pressed against either kidney and a swalto blade across his throat, so keen that its touch drew blood.

Tu allowed his breathing to steady. He did not resist. He did not move. He waited. He knew where the Tusk was—she did not. He didn't need the Tusk—she did. So, despite his present physical predicament, he knew that he had the power in the room. He watched the blood drip from his neck onto the intricate pattern of the tiled floor. Watched it find paths as it entered the hatching marks on the tiles. And he waited—waited for the world to change.

And it did.

Within the hour he was on his way back to the city at the Bend in the River with a written promise from the Old Buddha, the Dowager Empress of China: “If you deliver to me the First Emperor's Narwhal Tusk, then you may have your way in Shanghai. My troops will not interfere. They will encircle the city at a distance of forty
li
and not allow anyone in or out. What goes on within the circle of my troops, within both the Old City and the Foreign Settlements, is strictly your business.”

—

Shortly after the ugly man left the meeting chamber, the Dowager Empress called in Chesu Hoi. The two walked side by side—very slowly—through the most interior and most beautiful of gardens in the Forbidden City.

Chesu Hoi had already written his warning to the old Carver and had seen his most trusted servant on his way
with the warning, “Spare no speed. China itself is in the balance. Deliver my message personally to the Carver, then disappear.” He had handed the man a small pouch of gold and said, “And don't allow me or anyone from the court to ever find you again.”

Chesu Hoi turned slowly back to the Dowager.

“Do you approve?” she asked.

The Eunuch put his hands behind his back and assumed the classic pose of the scholar. “Of your decision?” he asked, knowing full well the answer.

“Obviously, of my decision.”

“Gangster Tu could become a dangerous power in Shanghai.”

“He could, but his hatred of the
Fan Kuei
is beyond all bounds. He will attack them, and they will fight back. Perhaps, if there is any justice under the heavens, they will mortally wound each other. If not, my troops will go in and finish the job that this ugly man began.”

Chesu Hoi doubted that, but kept his counsel to himself.

The Empress nodded her head and put a hand on the Eunuch's cheek. “Do you understand why we need that Tusk?”

He did. It offered her a legitimacy that no other action or object under the heavens could grant her. A direct line back to the First Emperor. A way to defuse the ever growing wave of anti-Manchu anger in the country.

He nodded.

“Good,” she said, then she reached up and kissed him full on the mouth. His lips were warm and firm. Soft. She sighed, then said, “I've always wanted to do that.”

Chesu Hoi didn't move a muscle. He knew that he was in as dangerous a position as he had ever been. If he were to make a wrong move, either physically or emotionally, he wouldn't live to see the sunrise.

The Dowager nodded and smiled. “Good,” she said. Then, with a dismissive wave of her hand, she added, “But if you ever bring a man as ugly as that into my presence again I will have what little of your manhood remains deep-fried and fed to you as your last meal on this earth.”

Before Chesu Hoi's messenger could get to Shanghai, Loa Wei Fen was summoned to a most unusual meeting. He had never seen anything like it in his time as a ranking Red Pole in the Tong of the Righteous Hand. It was a war council. He had been party to raids and executions—thefts and strong-arm work—but this was different. Even the constituency of the meeting was different. Besides the usual inner circle, there was a builder, a map-maker, a river pirate, and a strange young man whose eyes kept rolling back in his head. On the central table was spread out a huge map of the Foreign Settlement and the Chinese Old City leading down to the water.

“The Warrens?” Tu said, pointing out a series of dotted lines on the map.

“Yes, but the marks on the map might not be completely accurate. The Warrens are constantly changing.”

“Why is that?”

The builder took a deep breath, then said, “Sometimes from cave-ins—the river is, needless to say, very close, so some of the tunnels are under pressure. As well, some passages get used for years and years and then are closed up. Even the access points to the Warrens keep on changing. Some of the entrances are in the basements of buildings or houses. When a property changes hands, an entrance can be lost. Many of the entrances are tightly held secrets.”