Gai-Jin

  “He hated him—he had different views than Wilf. Among other reasons, Wilf had slaves, not illegal at that time, or now, in Alabama. And to assist Cooper to take over the firm. After Wilf died, Jeff Cooper bought his shares for a pittance, and cut off my family’s remaining money. Dirk was responsible.”

  Malcolm said, “We certainly have a joint venture with Cooper-Tillman in cinchona bark, Mr. Gornt, and are old friends. As to the rest, I know nothing about it, or believe it. I’ll check the story the moment I get back to Hong Kong.”

  Gornt shrugged. “Years later Cooper admitted he had never approved of Wilf Tillman. His exact words were, ‘Listen, young man, Wilf deserved everything he got, he was a slaver and useless, never did a day’s work in his life, your Southern gentleman was vile. Dirk was right to give the little cinchona he had to others who he judged deserved it. It’s been my work, mine, that made the company that’s paid for your mother, stepfather and you all these years …’”

  Gornt’s face twisted, then he was calm again. Outwardly. “He said a few other things, suh, that … that’s unimportant now. But cutting off funds, our rightful money, was very important. It was then the rows between Stepfather and Mother began and we moved, downwards. It wasn’t till many years later I found out he had married her for her money, his cotton and tobacco businesses were shams, he was just a gambler and card player, not a successful one, and she had continually covered for him. When Mother was dying she told me all this. But he wasn’t bad to me, evil to me, just dismissed me. I’ve been dismissed all my life. Now it’s time for revenge.”

  “I don’t see why you should blame me.”

  “I don’t.”

  Malcolm stared at him. “I thought ‘fighting irons, or swords’ was the beginning.”

  “That wasn’t my idea, I told you. I told Mr. Greyforth it won’t work. He’ll be laughed at if he tries to insist.”

  After a pause Malcolm said, “It sounds as though you don’t like him.”

  “I don’t like or dislike him. I’m here to learn from him for a month and then take over when he retires next year. That’s the plan—if I decide to join Brock’s.”

  “You may have to take over sooner than you think.” Malcolm’s voice hardened. “Next Wednesday—hopefully.”

  “You’re set on having this duel?”

  “Yes.”

  “May I ask the real reason?”

  “He’s gone out of his way to provoke me, surely at Brock’s direction. It will be better for Struan’s if he’s removed.”

  “Will you try to remove me when I go against Struan’s?”

  “I will oppose you, compete with you, stop you if I can—I wouldn’t want to fight you.” Malcolm smiled a good smile. “This is a mad conversation, Mr. Gornt. It’s mad to be so truthful and so open but we are and that’s that. You said ‘revenge.’ You’re determined to have at us, because of what my grandfather supposedly did to Wilf Tillman?”

  “Yes,” Gornt said with a smile. “In due time.”

  “What about Jeff Cooper?”

  The smile vanished. “Him too. In due time.” Then, for a moment, Gornt’s voice became thick with venom. “But that’s not most of the revenge I seek. I want to destroy Morgan Brock, to do that I need your help …” He burst out laughing. “My God, Mr. Struan, suh, sorry, but if you could only see yourself.”

  “Morgan?” Malcolm spluttered.

  “Yes.” Gornt beamed. “I can’t do it alone. I’ve got to have your help—that’s ironic, isn’t it?”

  Malcolm groped to his feet and shook himself like a dog and stretched and sat down again, his heart in overdrive. He poured another glass and spilled some on his desk and quaffed it and all the time Gornt watched and waited, pleased with the effect his words had had. It took Malcolm a little time to respond. “Morgan? For God’s sake, why?”

  “Because he seduced my mother when she was fifteen and ruined her life and abandoned her. In the Bible it says killing your father, patricide, is an unholy deed—my mama made me swear I’d not do it when she told me the truth of my parentage on her deathbed. So I’m not going to kill him, just ruin him.” The words were said flatly, without emotion. “To do that I need Struan’s.”

  Malcolm took a deep breath and shook his head again. None of this made sense to him though he believed it all—even Dirk Struan’s behavior. Ayeeyah, so much to learn, he thought, and listened intently as Gornt continued, saying that Morgan was twenty at the time, apprenticed to Rothwell’s and living in their countinghouse-residence, so it was easy for him to sneak into her bedroom: “At fifteen what would such a girl know, the classic Southern belle, nurtured like a rare plant? When Rothwell found out, he fired him, of course, but Old Man Tyler Brock laughed and quietly and secretly bought a controlling interest in the firm an—”

  Malcolm was shocked. “Brock controls Rothwell’s?”

  “He did, for a time, just enough to fire Rothwell and all their directors and appoint new ones. When Jeff Cooper found out, he had enough clout to force Old Man Brock to make it a hands-off deal, fifty-fifty. In return Jeff would run the company and keep it secret, particularly from Struan’s. The deal’s still in effect.”

  “Does Dmitri know?”

  “No. Nor Mr. Greyforth. I stumbled on the details when I was in London.”

  Malcolm’s mind was working hard. Struan’s had been involved with Rothwell’s over the years but no one had ever said they had been poorly treated, or cheated. Then something Gornt had said ran to the front of his mind. “Does Morgan know you know about him?”

  “I wrote to him in London when Mama died. He replied it was all news to him and denied it, but telling me if ever I was in London to come to see him. I did. Again he denied it. Nothing to do with him, he told me, he’d been blamed for the mischief of some other apprentice, nothing to do with him. I was destitute at that time so he found me a job of sorts, then helped me get into Rothwell’s.” Gornt sighed. “Mama told me when Morgan had been confronted by Rothwell he had said that he would ‘marry the slut if her dowry be ten thousand nicker a year.’” A shudder took him though his face did not change, nor the flatness of his voice. “I could forgive Morgan everything, maybe, but never that, never ‘the slut.’ That’s in writing from Rothwell, he’s dead now but his letter isn’t. Thanks for listening.” He got up and stretched and started for the door.

  “Wait,” Malcolm said, startled, “you can’t finish there!”

  “I don’t intend to, Mr. Struan, but this sort of talk, confession is perhaps a better word, is good for the soul but exhausting. Also I can’t spend too much time here or Mr. Greyforth might be suspicious. I’ll arrange about the pistols, and about shooting from twenty paces, then come back.”

  “Wait a minute, for God’s sake! What help do you need? Why should I help you anyway? What do you want from me?”

  “Not much actually—you can kill Norbert Greyforth, but that’s not essential,” Gornt said with a laugh, then again became serious. “More important is what I can do for you. Before the end of January, the Brocks will crush Struan’s, but that you already know, or should. I can stop them, for a price. As God is my witness, I can give you information that can turn their genius against themselves, to destroy Brock’s forever.”

  Malcolm felt his heart turn over. If he could get Struan’s off that barb his mother would concede whatever he wanted. He knew her too well. She’ll give me anything I want, anything, he shouted silently, if I want her to become Catholic she’d even do that!

  Whatever the cost, he knew he would pay it, and pay gladly. “The price—apart from revenge?”

  “When I come back.”

  Malcolm waited all day but the stranger did not return. It did not worry him. That night he dined alone. Angelique had said she was tired, too many parties and late nights and an early night would do her good. “So, my darling Malcolm, I shall just eat a snack in my room and do my hair and then into dream time. Tonight I love you and leave you… you are abandoned.” He did not
mind. His brain brimmed with so much hope that he was afraid if she had stayed he would have to confide in her—and when Jamie dropped by early in the evening he had to stop himself blurting out the fantastic news.

  “Heavenly found an answer?” Jamie asked.

  “No, good Lord no, not yet. Why?”

  “You seem so—so … as though the weight of the world has fallen off you. Haven’t seen you looking so good in weeks. But you have had good news?”

  Malcolm grinned. “Perhaps I’ve turned a corner and am really getting better.”

  “Hope so. Your accident on top of everything else…I just don’t know how you do it. With all that’s happened in the last few weeks, I’m truly tired, and that fellow Gornt’s the last straw. Something about him frightens me.”

  “How so?”

  “Don’t know, just a feeling. Maybe he’s not as harmless as he seems.” Jamie hesitated. “Do you have a minute to chat?”

  “Of course, sit down. Brandy? Help yourself.”

  “Thanks.” Jamie poured a small measure from the sideboard, then pulled the other high-backed armchair beside the fire opposite him. The curtains were drawn against the night, the suite cozy. Nice smell of wood smoke and the sound of ships’ bells from the fleet in the bay also comforting. “A couple of things: One way or another I want to go back to Hong Kong for a couple of days—before Christmas.”

  “To see Mother?”

  Jamie nodded and sipped his brandy. “I’d like to be on Prancing Cloud. She’ll dock … why the smile?”

  “You’re one jump ahead of me. I was planning to be aboard her too.”

  Jamie blinked, then smiled seraphically. “You’ve changed your mind and you’re going to do what she says?”

  “Not exactly.” Malcolm told him his plan about Prancing Cloud and saw Jamie’s euphoria evaporate. “Don’t worry, I’m a much better shot than Norbert, and providing he agrees to shoot from twenty paces without the walk he’s as dead as the dodo—if I decide to kill him. Forget Norbert. Angelique: if we can’t smuggle her aboard, I say ‘we’ because you always were part of the plan, you bring her by the next ship, so one way or another you’ll be in HK before Christmas.”

  Jamie hesitated. “Mrs. Struan will still be very irritated to find Angelique with us.”

  “Let me worry about that.”

  “I do. Which brings me to the nut: When I leave Struan’s I was thinking of trying to start my own firm, that’s really what I wanted to chat about. If you’d have any objections.”

  “On the contrary, I’d go out of my way, Struan’s would, to help in every way. But that won’t be for years yet.”

  “I think she’s decided I am to go.”

  “I’ll object like hell,” Malcolm said, startled. “You’re due for promotion, a raise and the company wouldn’t want to lose you, she would know that. That’s a shocking idea.”

  “Yes. But if it becomes necessary…bear with me, Tai-pan, if it’s necessary would you object?”

  “To you going off on your own? No. But I hate the idea and Struan’s would be the loser, I swear to God. It won’t happen, and if…if you asked to leave I’d find a way to make you stay—to persuade you to stay. I would.”

  “Thanks, thanks very much.” Jamie took a large swallow and felt a little better. Not from the warmth of the brandy but from the way Malcolm had spoken. The last few weeks had been bad. Yesterday, because of Mrs. Struan’s letter to him, he had been confronted with an immortal truth: however loyal you are to a company, however much service you give “the company,” the company can and will spit you out at its whim, without conscience. And what is “the company”? Just a group of men and women. People. Mrs. Struan, for instance.

  People are “the company” and those in charge can and always will hide behind that facade, that “the company must survive,” or “for the good of the company,” and so on, wrecking or promoting for personal reasons, enmities or hatreds.

  And don’t forget most companies these days are family companies. In the end it’s “family” that wins. Blood is thicker than competence. They may fight amongst themselves but in the end they usually unite in the face of the enemy who is anyone not family, so it’s Albert MacStruan who has been positioned to take over Japan. Nothing I can do, will do about that. Maybe family businesses are more humane, can be better than impersonal bureaucratic, anonymous institutions but even there, perhaps more so, you’re subject to the old-boy network. You lose either way ….

  Last night, untypically, he had got very drunk in his little house in the Yoshiwara, finding no solace in Nemi. Every time he thought about the truth of “the company”—adding it to the hanging crime he had almost committed, and Tess Struan’s unfairness, Malcolm’s stubbornness, and his own stupidity, knowing that if Malcolm had not stopped him he would have ripped the string off and torn the letters up and thrown them overboard—his head would spin and only another tumbler of rum would stop the motion until it created spinning of its own. Nemi couldn’t help: “Jami, wot you matter? Jami, Jami!”

  “It’s Machiavelli who said it best,” he had said, his words slurred and incoherent. “Put not your trust in bloody princes, they can plead expedience.” Bloody princes, tai-pans, mothers of bloody tai-pans, sons of Dirk Struan and their sons …” and then he had wept.

  Ay, he thought queasily, that’s the first time in years, last time was when I’d just arrived in Hong Kong, twenty years ago and heard Ma had died while I was on the high seas. She must have known she was dying when I left. “Off you go, my bonny laddie, earn our fortune, and write every week …” If it wasn’t for her we would have all died—only her strength kept us alive until the Struans arrived and our joss changed.

  Cried my heart out. Like last night, though the tears were different. I was crying for my lost innocence. Can’t believe how naive I was to believe in “the company.” Would Dirk have let me down? Never. The tai-pan wouldn’t have, couldn’t have, but he’s just a legend. I’ve got to find the courage to strike out on my own—I’m thirty-nine, old in Asia, though I don’t feel old, only a ship without a rudder. And so is Malcolm … Is he?

  He looked at him, still noticing the change. Malcolm’s different, more like his old self, he thought. More adult, is that possible? Don’t know, but either way his joss is fixed, like mine. “I’m glad we didn’t tamper … I can’t say how sorry I am she’s blocked you.”

  “Me too.” Malcolm had told Jamie what Sir William had said about expecting the letter, and about opium and their Bengal fields, the news of which this morning had erupted the Settlement into a frenzy. The noon meeting at the Club had been more violent than usual with the added motion, carried unanimously, that Sir William should be strung up or at the least impeached if he tried to enforce Parliament’s stupidity. He saw how deeply unhappy Jamie was and once again was tempted to pour out the marvelous development called Gornt. But he remembered his oath. “I’m very confident now, Jamie. Don’t worry. You’re off to the Yoshiwara?”

  “Not immediately though I’ve got to see Nemi.” Jamie smiled ruefully. “I hung one on last night, going to take her a present. It’s not necessary but she’s a good sort, and lots of laughs. First I’m seeing Nakama, Phillip asked me to see him for half an hour. Seems he asked Phillip about business and banking, capital, things like that—Phillip asked me to explain the rudiments.”

  “That’s curious.”

  “Yes. The bugger’s got an enquiring mind all right. Pity he’s not so forthcoming with us.”

  “Barter your knowledge for something we want to know. Tomorrow I think I’ll have a chat with Phillip. Ask him to see me, will you?” Malcolm’s voice hardened. “We were to share all information, wasn’t that our agreement?”

  “Yes, yes, it was.” Jamie finished the brandy. “Thanks. And thanks for the chat.” He stood up and said sincerely, “I hope with all my heart it works out for you, Malcolm.”

  “Yes, I know, Jamie. It will work for you too. ’Night.”

  In t
he quiet of his room, Malcolm contentedly stretched out his legs towards the fire, anxious for the morrow and more from Gornt. What could be the price? he mused, watching the coals. He could hear voices inside the building and outside on the praia. Occasional laughter and a few drunken songs. John Marlowe had come by this afternoon bringing a message from the Admiral, could he drop by the flagship tomorrow, or if not convenient, Sir William’s.

  “I could meet at Sir William’s. What time?”

  “Noon?”

  “Good. What’s it about?”

  “Don’t know,” Marlowe said. “I’ll bet it’s not to pass the time of day.” Ever since Admiral Ketterer had returned from the engagement at Mirs Bay and Hong Kong he had been seething about adverse and critical reports in the papers, and was still furious that British-made cannon had fired on his ships. “I don’t think he took kindly to some of the more rude remarks at the meeting today.”

  “Tough,” Malcolm had said, and laughed, still intoxicated with Gornt’s information.

  Marlowe had laughed too. “For God’s sake, don’t say that on his quarterdeck, the whole ship would blow up! By the way, my trials are approved, Monday or Tuesday, weather permitting. Which would be best for you both?”

  “How long would we be out?”

  “Leave at dawn, or thereabouts, back latest by sunset.”

  “Tuesday.”

  A coal fell out of the fire onto the hearth but safely. He nudged it under the basket with the poker and stirred the embers. The blue-greened orange flames rose a little and died down again, making pictures for him. Positive pictures. About him and about her. He looked at their adjoining door. No sound ever came through it.

  Gornt’s the key to Tess.

  Ironic that he needs me as I need him and we are enemies. I’ve a feeling we always will be. What’s his price? It will be something I can deliver. He’s wise enough to do that. Why are you so sure? Revenge is too strong a motive, I know.

  In the Inn of the Lily, Phillip Tyrer was being massaged by a muscular Japanese woman with massive arms, her fingers of steel finding the pressure points, and she played them like a keyboard to his groans of pleasure. This House was not as delicate, or as expensive, as the Three Carp but the massage was the best he had ever had and took his mind off Fujiko and Nakama and André Poncin, and Sir William, who had been furious all morning, culminating at noon when the raging venom from the Club almost blew the roofs off Yokohama.