The Godfather of Kathmandu - By John Burdett Page 0,122

pull at my tie to yank it off—it’s an identity issue—then take out my wallet to flash my cop ID. What I’m interested in, of course, is his reaction to the Thai script and the royal emblem on the card. Sure enough, his expression flattens and his eyes harden when he looks up at me from examining the card. He says something firm and not at all fey to the two men, who nod and stand on either side of me. “Go with them,” Ng says. “I’ll join you shortly.” Then, with the kind of contemptuous benevolence only the best crooks can muster, he glances at my crêpes suzette and adds, “You can take that with you.” Anyone of good breeding would have been crushed, but his disdain has no effect on me at all. I’m still holding the plate and munching on the last of the crêpes when we reach the underground garage, the heavies and I.

47

Have you noticed, farang, how even in the very finest of modern buildings the parking garages have all been designed by Stalin? I predict an architectural revolution one day, which will give us underground parking garages to die for, rather than in. (Our descendants will watch ancient footage and exclaim, How could they ever have put up with such drab parking garages?) Dismal is the word, and now I’ve finished the crêpes suzette and don’t know what to do with the plate. I feel diminished. I’m going through my usual self-recrimination at having turned myself into a fool while flying by the seat of my pants: Why couldn’t you just play it straight for once, you just had to imitate a frigging Hong Kong jeweler, for Buddha’s sake, what the hell were you thinking of, still trying to prove you’re a cop and not a consigliere, who are you kidding? You will understand that in this state of mind, it is quite a relief when Ng roars up in a red Ferrari, opens the passenger door, and snaps, “Get in.” He is still in his Nehru jacket, but the gold jewelry has been safely deposited somewhere and his top buttons are undone, giving a quite different impression of the personality of the owner, whose voice has deepened a shade and lost its queenly intonation. I cannot resist handing the empty plate to one of the heavies, along with the silver fork, before getting into the car.

Now we’re all about torque as we roar up a turnpike, which leads up the mountain called Victoria fast enough to create our own bow wave. Lesser vehicles get out of the way: wealth here is a sign of power, and every Asian knows from bitter experience that might is right. We’ve turned off the turnpike before Ng speaks again.

“You have no investigative powers here.”

I nod humbly. “That’s right.”

“And by crashing our party you compromised yourself totally.”

“That’s true.”

“If a Hong Kong cop behaved like that I’d have his balls for batter.”

“That’s a good expression. Where did you get it?”

He allows himself the ghost of a smile. “One of my mothers was English. So was one of my wives.”

“Was your English wife male or female?”

For some reason Ng finds this question very funny. He’s still laughing when security lets us into his high-end condominium building.

Now we’re standing in a great split-level salon with floor-to-ceiling windows through which dark energy travels from the city below. At the back soft footlights illuminate two ten-foot commemorative portraits: a Chinese couple in frontal pose sitting on elaborately carved chairs draped in brocade, a lavish carpet at their feet, wearing winter gowns and fur-trimmed robes. The woman’s feet and hands are hidden, and they both wear long jade necklaces and elaborate headdresses with gold and silver ornaments. The resemblance to Doctor Moi’s ancestral portraits is so strong I want to know if they are the same; but when I step closer I can see that they are not. Ng watches me with curiosity. He is entirely at home, entirely relaxed. I’m the third-world nerd who provides a kind of foil. If I weren’t here, who would he feel superior to?

“My paternal great-grandparents,” he explains. “Before the revolution.”

“You are from Swatow?”

“I’m not from anywhere. Chairman Mao threw Mummy and Daddy into an oven when I was four. They say I cried out loud at the very moment their brains popped—that was my childhood over and the end of identity.” He waves a hand to forestall questions. “Distant relatives, foster parents, some of them foreigners—I wound