Lust, Caution Read Free Page B

winning black cape.
    “I suppose we could ask Liao Tai-tai to come over. Go and telephone her,” Yee Tai-tai went on to Chia-chih. “At least stay until she gets here.”
    “I really need to go now.” Chia-chih looked at her watch. “I’m going to be late—I arranged to have coffee with a broker. Mr. Yee can take my place.”
    “I’m busy this afternoon,” Mr. Yee excused himself. “Tomorrow I’ll play all night.”
    “That Wang Chia-chih!” Yee Tai-tai liked referring to Chia-chih by her full maiden name, as if they had known each other since they were girls. “I’ll make you pay for this—you’re going to treat us all to dinner tonight!”
    “You can’t let your guest buy you dinner,” Ma Tai-tai objected.
    “I’m siding with Yee Tai-tai,” the other black cape put in.
    They needed to tread carefully around their hostess on the subject of her young houseguest. Although Yee Tai-tai was easily old enough to be Chia-chih’s mother, there had never been any talk of formalizing their relationship, of adopting her as a goddaughter. Yee Tai-tai was a little unpredictable, at the age she was now. Although she had a dowager’s fondness for keeping young, pretty women clustered around her—like a galaxy of stars reflecting glory onto the moon around which they circulated—she was not yet too old for flashes of feminine jealousy.
    “All right, all right,” Chia-chih said. “I’ll take you all out to dinner tonight. But you won’t be in the party, Mr. Yee, if you don’t take my place now.”
    “Do, Mr. Yee! Mahjong’s no fun with only three. Play just for a little, while Ma Tai-tai telephones for a replacement.”
    “I really do have a prior engagement.” Whenever Mr. Yee spoke of official business, his voice sank to an almost inaudibly discreet mutter. “Someone else will come along soon.”
    “We all know how busy Mr. Yee is,” Ma Tai-tai said.
    Was she insinuating something, Chia-chih wondered, or were nerves getting the better of her? Observing him smile and banter, Chia-chih even began to read a flattering undertone into Ma Tai-tai’s remark, as if she knew that he wanted other people to coax the details of his conquest out of him. Perhaps success, she speculated, can turn the heads of even the professionally secretive.
    It was getting far too dangerous. If the job wasn’t done today, if the thing were to drag on any longer, Yee Tai-tai would surely find them out.
    He walked off while she was still exhaustingly negotiating her exit with his wife. After finally extricating herself, she returned briefly to her room. As she finished hurriedly tidying her hairand makeup—there was too little time to change her clothes—the maidservant arrived to tell her the car was waiting for her at the door. Getting in, she gave the chauffeur instructions to drive her to a café; once arrived, she sent him back home.
    As it was only midafternoon, the café was almost deserted. Its large interior was lit by wall lamps with pleated apricot silk shades, its floor populated by small round tables covered in cloths of fine white linen jacquard—an old-fashioned, middlebrow kind of establishment. She made a call from the public telephone on the counter. After four rings, she hung up and redialed, muttering “wrong number” to herself, for fear the cashier might think her behavior strange.
    That was the code. The second time, someone answered.
    “Hello?”
    Thank goodness—it was K’uang Yu-min. Even now, she was terrified she might have to speak to Liang Jun-sheng, though he was usually very careful to let others get to the phone first.
    “It’s me,” she replied in Cantonese. “Everyone well?”
    “All fine. How about yourself?”
    “I’ll be going shopping this afternoon, but I’m not sure when.”
    “No problem. We’ll wait for you. Where are you now?”
    “Hsia-fei Road.”
    “Fine.”
    A pause.
    “Nothing else then?” Her hands felt cold, but she was somehow warmed by the sound of a