Seekers

Mona had gone daily to the Chinese employment agency, a little cutout storefront near King Street that featured a wall of paper tickets on which various types of jobs were offered. She pretended to be a job seeker, and discovered most of the ads were for busboys, dishwashers, kitchen help. A few for laborers, grist for the construction trades. Some tickets for sweatshops.

Many of the seekers were Fukienese by dialect, but she’d understood a little of whatever Mandarin she overheard. Most of the seekers were in transit to other places, Say nga touh, Seattle, being only their first destination.

She’d have a cup of nai cha tea after each visit, at the Fuzhou Garden bakery across the street, still watching the little employment agency storefront.

The third week, Mona noticed her, a Chinese woman about the same height and weight as herself. Mona knew the woman’s eyes would be brown, and the hair color didn’t really matter. Age could be altered by a mask of calculated makeup, and besides, it was often difficult to guess the age of Chinese people.

Mona struck up a conversation with the woman, and over yum cha tea at the Fuzhou Garden, discovered that she had emigrated under a guest worker program visa, and had worked as a nanny for a Chinese couple in the Queen Anne neighborhood, who had a two-year-old child and also required housekeeping duties.

After almost six months, the husband had come on to her, pressing her for sex, and the wife had wound up firing her. She had considered working for Caucasians, the gwailo, but her English wasn’t any good.

Jing Su Tong was five foot two, 118 pounds. Yat yat bot. Yat bok yat sup bot. Sure to prosper, sure to grow. Twenty-eight years old. Perfect. She had straight shoulder-length black hair, with some partial bangs across her forehead.

Mona knew she could copy the look, could forge a realistic resemblance. The height and weight, approximately. Most customs workers appeared to feel that Asians all resembled each other anyway.

Jing Su had been hoping for work as a home-care attendant in Chinatown but hadn’t seen any such jobs posted. Her savings were being depleted and she was becoming desperate; her family in China needed her monthly contributions. She was considering going to San Francisco where she had relatives.

Appearing sympathic, Mona explained that her own tourist visa had expired, and wondered if they couldn’t help each other. She offered Jing Su five thousand dollars in cash in exchange for her Social Security card, non-driver’s identification card, and employment documents. Offering her too much would arouse Jing Su’s suspicions, thought Mona, but if she offered too little, the woman would ask for more anyway. Being firm was best. Five thousand dollars would cover the woman’s efforts to find work, enable her to send some money back home, and tide her over for at least three months. After that, she could report her cards lost or stolen, and some Wah chok wui, some Chinese service center, would help her get them reissued.

By then, Mona had planned to be long gone.

Jing Su accepted Mona’s offer, of course. To her, renting her papers for three months was a godsend. Buy time, find work, family in China. “Mo mon tay,” she declared. “No problem.”

No problem, thought Mona. If only it were true.

But the new identity was a ticket out.

The way of freedom.

Back in her James Street sanctuary Mona blew the steam off the Iron Goddess tea, caressed the jade charm in her palm, ran her fingernails over the bot gwa Taoist trigrams. Bok she’d touched. North. Mountains. Mountain over Water. The Chinese word for blindness came to mind—Beware the woman who sees the gold and not the man. Nothing good will come of it.

Blindness.

Childlike naïveté.

Yet all goes well?

She paused, unsure how to interpret this. Naïveté could lead to danger, but all goes well? She took a deep sip of the Iron Goddess.

Move forward, she resolved.

The way of freedom.

She looked at the large sack of jasmine rice propped up in the corner near the rice cooker. Plenty, she’d told the old couple, don’t stand on ceremony. Just ask if you need some.

She remembered the folktale about villagers hiding a fortune inside the rice barrels. What thief would suspect a fortune hidden in plain sight? But she knew that inside the rice sack, buried near the bottom, was a mahjong case full of gold Panda coins, diamonds, and jewelry. More than a quarter million dollars’ worth.

Soon she’d have a safe deposit box and wouldn’t have to take such risks.

She knew she had to be careful selling the coins and diamonds. Dumping the whole lot at once would draw the wrong type of attention, and lessen the value as well. There was enough cash to tide her over until she could set up the bank accounts. Gradually, she’d sell some of her cache, and offer a pair of diamonds, a few coins, to test the waters. An American gold firm that employed American-born Chinese, jook sings, could be useful. Less chance of a connection to the triads.

Perhaps it would lead to more opportunities; the American-born cared more about the markup than where the gold and jewels came from. Besides, she believed her new identity would shield her. After all, Chinese families sold off jewelry and gold all the time.

Or may tor fut. She whispered the Buddhist chant, rubbing the jade between her palms. Her fingers crossed the hexagrams as she read Heaven Over Lake. An escape route opens. Be mindful of small steps, and there can be safety even on dangerous ground. Tread around the tiger’s tail.

Savoring the Cherry

Gee Sin powered off the bionic hand, lest its electric murmur intrude, spoiling the mood of the expected debauchery.

A female cho hai, a new Grass Sandal, 432 rank, had selected them from an aspiring pimp, Kowloon Charlie, who’d guaranteed the girls were at least seventeen years old, even if they could easily pass for fourteen. Two siu jeer, “young ladies,” recruited from the impoverished zones and orphanages: the poor, the desperate, forsaken children. Gee Sin knew Grass Sandal would never place Paper Fan in jeopardy, given Hong Kong’s rigid underage prostitution–human trafficking laws. And the continuing police efforts targeting him. It was difficult to guess a young whore’s age anyway, he thought, even if you were Chinese and knew the clues.

Gee Sin also knew Kowloon Charlie had a growing interest in the triad’s prostitution rackets; he was an up-and-coming gai wong, pimp player, whom competing triads wanted to lure away. Or kill outright. Kowloon Charlie had been eager to please, to fulfill Paper Fan’s requests. Charlie had the best whores, and for the time being, nobody had wanted to bring the vice dogs from the Royal Hong Kong Police down into the lucrative operations, especially in Tshim Sha Tsui.

Sin motioned with his quiet arm, directing both girls into his bedroom. “Chue som,” he said in a low voice. Get undressed.

The first one would have been the age of a granddaughter if he’d had one: short, but Bok bok jeng jeng, with light skin and pretty, sweet with long black hair. She offered a crooked half-smile and a look of resignation as she stripped. She had small breasts with thick nubby nipples, but they were nicely shaped, he thought, and made her appear more juvenile. A waifish body, hardly any hips, but her backside was rounded and plump. Gow leng, cute enough.

Naked, she lay down on the bed, placed a thick pillow under her rear. She put one hand into her hair and fanned it across the comforter, extending her pink high heels toward the bed corners. She spread her knees open with her free hand.