Read A Lotus For Miss Quon for Free Online

your headlights picked them out, a few yards ahead of you, you realized you were on the point of running them down. Quick braking meant the chance of another car slamming into your rear.

    As you approached Cholon, the Chinese district, the street narrowed. The vast, loitering population spilled off the pavements and into the street, offering suicidal hostages to fortune.

    Jaffe had been driving in this district for months and he had no difficulty in weaving his car through the congested traffic and avoiding the wandering pedestrians. The distraction of driving took his mind off his immediate problems.

    Finally, and not without some difficulty, he managed to park his car within a hundred yards of the Paradise Club. He waved aside three ragged Chinese children who had rushed up to open his car door and help him wind up the windows in the hope of earning a piastre or two, then he walked down the narrow, stifling street, brilliantly lit by Chinese neon signs to the entrance to the Paradise Club.

    As he climbed the stairs that led to the club, he heard the Philippine dance band blasting and a girl screeching: the music and her voice trebly magnified by microphones to a nerve shattering volume that delights the Chinese who believe the louder the sound the better the music. Jaffe lifted aside the curtain that screened the entrance to the dance hall. Immediately a tall Chinese girl her face whitened by powder, her figure under a white Cheongsam provocative, came tip to him. She was Blackie Lee's wife, Yu-lan, and as soon as she recognized Jaffe she smiled at him.
    "Khan hasn't come yet," she said, caressing his arm with her slim fingers. "She will be here very soon."

    Her welcome relaxed Jaffe. He went with her into the dance hall. The place was crowded, but the lighting was so dim it was impossible to see more than a crowd of silhouetted heads outlined against the light from the band's dais.

    She led him to a table, away from the band, and in a corner. She pulled out a chair for him.

    "Tu va bien?" she asked, smiling at him. She always tu-toi-ed him.

    "Ca va," he said and sat down. "Blackie around? I'll have a Scotch on the rocks."

    " Toute de suite ," she said, and he was aware she looked quickly at him and he realized he had spoken more sharply than he had intended.

    She went away and he sat there, his mind dulled by the violent sound of the dance music and the impact of the woman singing into the microphone. The power of her lungs was shattering to Western nerves.

    With scarcely any delay, Blackie Lee appeared out of the shadows and eased his fat body gently on to the chair next to Jaffe's.

    Blackie Lee was a squat shaped man of thirty-six with broad shoulders, black oiled hair, parted in the middle and a broad yellow face that at any crisis remained expressionless.

    One shrewd glance at Jaffe told Blackie that something was wrong. His alert mind quickened to attention. He liked Jaffe. He was a free spender, a non-trouble maker, and it was good for Blackie's business to have non-trouble making Americans for clients.
    "What contacts have you in Hong Kong?" Jaffe asked abruptly.

    Blackie's face remained expressionless and sleepy-looking.

    "Hong Kong? I have many friends in Hong Kong," he said. "What kind of contacts do you mean?"

    Jaffe felt like a man standing on the edge of a swimming pool, preparing to dive in. Could he trust this fat Chinese? he asked himself and hesitated.

    Seeing him hesitate, Blackie said encouragingly, "Besides my many friends, my brother also lives in Hong Kong." There was another long pause while Blackie probed his teeth with a gold tooth-pick and ,Jaffe stared out across the crowded dance floor while he tried to make up his mind whether to trust Blackie or not.

    Finally, he said, "A situation has arisen: it's tricky and strictly confidential. A friend of mine may need a false passport."

    Blackie gave an imperceptible start but enough to puncture his gum with the sharp point of the