Gai-Jin (127 page)

“You’ve certainly done that! This will incense every trader here and throughout Asia and it’ll backfire—we need friends just as much as they need us.”

“I agree. But why should my letter backfire? Ah!” His letter was in the lead position and headlined: noble house to take noble stand! “Good caption, I like that.”

“Sorry, but I don’t. It’s bound to backfire because everyone knows we have to use those trade goods or we’re stuffed. You’re tai-pan but you can’t …” Jamie paused. Malcolm was smiling at him, unperturbed. “What about the Choshu rifles, for goodness’ sake? We’ve accepted their money though you agreed to pass them over to the other man, Watanabe, for Lord Someone or other—the order you increased to five thousand?”

“All in due time.” Malcolm remained calm though reminded that his mother had cancelled the order that he had, promptly, reinstated by the fastest mail possible. Silly of her, she understands nothing about Japan. Never mind, only a few more days and she’ll be curbed. “Meanwhile, Jamie, there’s no harm in taking a public, moral position,” he said airily. “We must bend with the times, don’t you think?”

McFay blinked. “You mean it’s a ploy? To confuse the opposition?”

“Bend with the times,” Malcolm repeated happily. His letter advocated, at length, the phasing out of opium and guns, just as the Admiral wanted,
and put him squarely behind the Admiral’s vehement position and the Government’s proposed new plan for Asia:
Ways must be found at once to put our trading approach on the most perfect footing, for the greater glory of H.M. the Queen, God Bless Her, and our British Empire. The Noble House is proud to lead the way
… he had written among other flowery effusions, signing it,
The tai-pan, Struan’s
, as his father and grandfather had done with letters to the press. “I thought it was all put rather well. Don’t you?”

“Yes, it is,” McFay said. “You certainly convinced me. But if it’s just a …” He was going to say “sop,” but sop to who, and why? “But if it’s just a ploy, why do it? Couldn’t be a worse time. You’re bound to be challenged at the meeting.”

“Let them.”

“They’ll think you’ve gone mad.”

“Let them. In a few weeks they’ll have forgotten it, and anyway we’ll be in Hong Kong.” Malcolm beamed, filled with good humor. “Don’t worry, I know exactly what I’m doing. Do me a favor, leave a message for the Admiral. I’d like to drop by and see him before dinner, and Marlowe when he comes ashore. They’re both dining with us at eight, yes?”

“Yes, both accepted.” McFay sighed. “So you’re going to keep me in suspense over the why?”

“Don’t worry, everything’s perfect. Now, much more importantly, today we must settle on next season’s order for silks. Make sure Vargas has the books up-to-date. I want to talk to the shroff about specie and funds as soon as possible—don’t forget, tomorrow, Angel and I will be gone all day with Marlowe aboard
Pearl.”
He would have danced a jig if he could have, but his legs and stomach were aching more than usual. Never mind, he thought, tomorrow’s the great day, I’m almost home, then the hell with everyone.

Jamie was finding him strange, not understanding him at all. Every ship from Hong Kong brought both of them another, ever more vituperative letter from Tess Struan and yet, for the last week-odd, Malcolm was completely at ease and as he had been pre-Tokaidō, good-humored, clever, attentive and dedicated to business affairs though still in deep discomfort and walking badly as ever. And then there was the overriding hazard of the duel set for Wednesday, the day after tomorrow.

Three times McFay had approached Norbert Greyforth to make an accommodation, even enlisting Gornt’s help, but nothing would dissuade the man: “Jamie, you tell the young bugger it’s up to him, by God,” Norbert had said. “He started this shit. If he apologizes I’ll accept it—if it’s public, and mighty public at that!”

McFay bit his lip. His last resort was to whisper the time and the place to Sir William, but he hated the idea of breaking his solemn oath. “I’m to meet with that bugger Gornt at six o’clock, to fix the final details.”

“Good. Sorry you don’t like him, he’s a good fellow, Jamie. Really. I invited him tonight. ‘Dinna fash yoursel’.’” Malcolm aped a heavy Scottish accent as a pleasantry.

McFay smiled, soothed by the friendliness. “Do y—” A knock interrupted him.

“Come in.”

Dmitri strode in like a bad squall and left the door open behind him. “You gone crazy, Malc? How can Struan’s back these assholes about opium and guns?”

“No harm in taking a moral position, Dmitri.”

“There is, by God, if it’s crazy. If Struan’s take that position, the rest of us are fighting uphill, for crissake—goddam Wee Willie will use that to—” He stopped as Norbert Greyforth stalked in without knocking.

“Have you gone bloody mad?” Norbert snarled, leaning over the desk and waving the paper in Malcolm’s face. “What about our bloody agreement to act together, eh?”

Malcolm stared up at him, hating him, instantly colorless. “If you want an appointment, make it,” he said icily, but controlled. “I’m busy. Get out. Please!”

Norbert flushed, also on notice by Sir William to behave or else. His face twisted with anger. “Wednesday, early, by God! Just bloody be there!” He spun on his feet and stalked away. The door slammed behind him.

“Rude bastard,” Malcolm said mildly.

Normally Dmitri would have laughed but he was too concerned. “While we’re on that subject, I might as well tell you I’m not taking part in Wednesday’s ‘meeting.’”

“That’s no problem, Dmitri,” Malcolm said. Color was coming back into his face. “I still have your word, gentleman’s honor, that nothing leaks.”

“Sure.” Then Dmitri burst out, “Don’t do it, you could get seriously hurt.”

“I’m seriously hurt now, old chap. Please don’t worry. If Norbert keeps our date he’s …” Malcolm was going to say, He’s a dead man, and tempted to disclose Gornt’s scheme to Dmitri—he had already explained it to McFay who had, reluctantly, approved it as workable—but decided not to.

Instead he said, “I’ve already offered Norbert a private accommodation but he spurned that. I’m damned if I’ll crawl in public. Listen, while you’re here, what about Colt Armaments? I hear Cooper-Tillman have a block of shares they want to sell. I’d like to buy.”

“Eh? How d’you know about them?” Dmitri glanced at McFay, who was equally astonished but had managed to hide it. “Where’d you hear about that?”

“A dickybird told me.” Malcolm hid his glee. Edward Gornt had given him the tip, amongst other inside tips about Brock’s and Cooper-Tillman,
to prove his sincerity about the major information he would pass over about the Brocks. “Why wait to tell me, Mr. Gornt?” he had said. “If the information is as good as you say it will need dealing with at once.”

“It will, yes, at once, Tai-pan. But let’s leave it as we agreed: Wednesday’s the day. Meanwhile, as we’re going to have a long and happy relationship, why not let’s drop the ‘Mister,’ you call me just Gornt, I’ll stay with ‘Tai-pan’ until we meet in Shanghai or Hong Kong—after Sir Morgan’s ruined. Then, maybe, we could be on a first-name basis, eh?”

He watched Dmitri, his excitement increasing. So much good happening now. “What do you say, old chap? Is Jeff Cooper prepared to sell, and do you have the necessary authority to deal?”

“Yes, I have his authority but.”

“But nothing. The authority’s in writing?”

“In writing and he might sell half but. At the right price—16.50 a share.”

“Balls, that’s nowhere near right—that’s your Medicine Man approach coming out. 13.20, not a cent more. We can draw up a letter of intent, dated today. Forty thousand shares.”

Dmitri gaped at him but quickly recovered—forty thousand was exactly the right number. 13.20 was low. He had offered the shares to Morgan Brock who had tendered 12.80, a fire-sale price, with a year payout which made the offer unpalatable, though to find a buyer for such a large block of shares was almost impossible. Where the hell did Malc get the information? “13.20’s nowhere near good enough.”

“13.20 today. Tomorrow it’ll be 13.10, Wednesday I withdraw the bid.” Gornt had told him Cooper needed to sell quickly to invest in a new U.S. venture making Ironclads—for either navy. “I’ve plenty of time, but old Jeff hasn’t.”

“What you mean by that?”

“Just that I have time and Jeff hasn’t. Nor has the Union or even Confederate … navy,” he added pleasantly, “with the war going badly for both sides.”

“Crap on your spies,” Dmitri said. “No deal. 15.20.”

“Dreamer. 13.20, payment in gold from a sight draft on our bank as soon as it arrives in Boston.”

Dmitri opened his mouth but Jamie McFay butted in hastily, “Tai-pan, it might be a good idea to conside—”

“Getting HK’s approval,” Malcolm finished the sentence for him. “Come on, Jamie, we’ve had that out and that nonsense is finished once and for all.” His voice was level, and brooked no argument. “Right?”

“Yes, sorry, you’re right.”

Calmly Malcolm said, “Well, Dmitri, yes or no?”

Dmitri stared at him with renewed respect. The immediate payout had
already clinched it for him. “It’s a deal.” He offered his hand. Malcolm shook it.

McFay said, “I’ll draw up the paper this afternoon and have it for your signatures at 5:00
P.M.
All right?”

“Good. Thanks for coming to see me, Dmitri, you’re always welcome. Dinner’s at 8:30.”

After Dmitri left McFay could not stay quiet. “That’s a lot of money.”

“$528,000 to be precise. But Colt’s got a new order for a hundred thousand rifles of a radical new design. By the time our letter of credit clears their shares will have doubled so we’ve just made half a million dollars.”

“How can you be sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“You’ll sign the promissory note?”

“Yes. If you tell me I can’t because I’ve no authority because of what my mother has or has not said, I will take no notice whatsoever and sign it anyway.” Malcolm lit a cheroot, continuing, “If it’s not honored that will backfire and ruin Struan’s like nothing in our history. I’m tai-pan, like it or not, until I resign or until I’m dead, whatever she says.”

They both watched a smoke ring rise and vanish and then McFay nodded, slowly, his misgivings overcome by Malcolm’s strange surety and authority that he had never experienced before. “You know what you’re doing, don’t you?”

Malcolm’s eyes lit up. “I know many things I didn’t when I first came here. For example, if you insist on leaving … Come on, Jamie, I’m sure in your heart you’ve decided, and why shouldn’t you? You’ve been treated shabbily—I know I haven’t helped but that’s all over, if I were you I’d do the same. You’ve decided, haven’t you?”

McFay swallowed, disarmed. “Yes, I’m going to leave, but not until Struan’s business here is optimum, six months or so, unless she fires me first. Christ, I don’t want to leave but I must.”

Malcolm laughed. “You’ve taken a moral position.”

McFay laughed too. “Hardly. It’s crazy.”

“No, I’d do the same. And I’m sure you’ll be a huge success, so much so a hundred thousand of the dollars I’ve just made—I have, Jamie, no one else—will be an investment in McFay Trading. For a …” He was going to say forty-nine percent share but changed that, to give McFay face, and thought, You deserve it, my friend, I’ll never forget the mail you could have hanged for—Sir William would have caught us, I’m sure of that too. “A sixty percent share?”

McFay said, “Twenty-five,” without even thinking.

“Fifty-five?”

“Thirty-five.”

“Forty-nine percent.”

“Done, if!”

They both laughed and Malcolm said what McFay had been thinking, “If the shares double.” Then he added seriously, “And if they don’t I’ll find it another way.”

McFay looked at him for what seemed a long time, his mind in a thought pattern of questions but no answers. Why has Malcolm changed? Heavenly? The business over the mails? The duel? Surely not. Why does he want to see the Admiral? Why does he like Gornt, who’s a crafty one, all right?

And why did I blurt out, Yes, I’m going to leave, before I knew it, making the decision I’d been thinking about for months: to take a chance before I die. He saw Malcolm watching him, weak in body, but tranquil and strong. He smiled back, glad to be alive. “You know, I’m sure you will.”

Angelique was taking her pre-dinner siesta, a coal fire merry in the grate. Curtains were drawn against the wind and she was curled under down covers and silk sheets, half asleep half awake, one hand comfortably between her legs as Colette had taught her in the convent when they would sneak into bed with one another after the nuns had left the dormitory and were snoring behind their curtained cubicles. Fondling and kissing and whispering and chuckling under the covers, the two young girls sharing secrets and dreams and wants, pretending to be grown-up lovers—as described in the romantic but forbidden street pamphlets that were smuggled in by the chambermaids and circulated from hand to hand amongst the students-all make-believe and healthy and amusing and harmless.

Her mind was on Paris and the wonderful future ahead, Malcolm softly content beside her, or already out in the Struan countinghouse, now headquartered in Paris, rich and tall, all his bad health a memory, her bad health not even a memory, a baby son in the nursery along the corridor of this their chateau, his own nanny and maids watching him, her body again strong and as well shaped as now, his birth easy. Then there would be visits with Colette to Struan’s fabulously successful silk factory that she had persuaded Struan’s to build after learning so much about the harvesting and growing of the silkworms:

“Oh, Colette,”
she had just written,