Crown 2: Macao Mayhem

By Terry Harknett

Hong Kong – the international brokerage house for the exchange of secrets. Somebody was buying some big ones and selling them at a big profit. Then a girl nobody seemed to care about got killed. Somebody did care. Senior Superintendent John Crown of the Royal Hong Kong Police Force. And when he took a hand, Chang Po, his Chinese partner, joined the action.
Macao – not part of Crown’s Colony. But the blood and violent trail led there, so that’s where Crown and Chang went. In the tracks of a girl who knew too much. Enough to make her another victim ... unless she traded her secrets for protection instead of money.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Piccadilly
• Release date: Nov 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005012496

Terry Harknett

Terry Harknett has written under an array of pseudonyms, including George G. Gilman (edge and Adam Steele westerns, Joseph Hedges, William M. James, Charles R. Pike, Thomas H. Stone, Frank Chandler, Jane Harman, Alex Peters, William Pine, William Terry, James Russell and David Ford.

Book preview

Chapter One

THE LOW LINE single story house was built of rough-hewn stone and cedar wood and was the only home on that particular restricted stretch of the Pok Fu Lam Reservoir Road. It was a secluded stretch, curving through a stand of pine trees a quarter of a mile back from the junction with Peak Road. The house was sited on a rise and the lawned garden behind it swept down steeply to where an expensive twenty-five meter swimming pool had been built: because the terrain continued to fall away, ultimately to the edge of the reservoir, the pool had to be supported by a large wedge of concrete. Immediately, behind the house, extending from the rear wall to the lip of slope, was a patio paved with brightly-coloured tessellated tiles. White wrought iron garden furniture spread with purple velvet cushions was scattered across the patio. The entire wall was comprised of Plexiglass panels that slid in both directions, offering easy access and exit to either of two bedrooms and to the living room. It was a home for the rich.

On this pleasant late winter evening with the Far Eastern full moon high and yellow and the hint of a breeze drifting through Hong Kong’s Peak area, one of the glass panels was open. The almost imperceptibly moving air wafted across the pool without rippling the chlorinated surface, dragged itself wearily up the slope of the lawn, flopped over the lip of the patio and sighed in silent exhaustion through the open panel. Inside, the humid staleness of the room’s atmosphere—leaden with post-sex muskiness—dissipated whatever fresh element the breeze had carried into the hills from the sea. Then a lighter flame flared through the inky dark of the bedroom. For a while, as the faint glow of a cigarette end brightened and faded, the acrid taint of tobacco smoke masked the other doors.

‘Let’s go for a swim, Tony. I feel sticky.’ It was the voice of a young woman, sensually husky, speaking in Chinese-accented English: clipped and high-pitched.

The short laugh was that of a man. ‘I like it when you’re sticky, baby. I get more fun from watching Bonanza on the Chinese channel than a dry screw.’ His voice was also strongly accented, the sounding of the vowels suggesting a clue to Latin origins.

‘I wish you wouldn’t talk dirty like that to me,’ the woman complained.

‘But you’ll forgive me for doing so, Mu Li?’

His hand moved somewhere to raise a giggle from her. ‘If we can go for a swim, Tony.’ The giggle became a squeal of laughter as a hand slapped bare skin. Then she leapt from the bed and ran out on to the veranda patio.

Huang Mu Li was tall and slim and pale brown. The bright moonlight, unfiltered by cloud, accentuated the loveliness of her face and beauty of her naked body. She was twenty-five years old and combined the innocent charm of girlhood with the ripening bloom and hinted mystery of an adult woman. She had large, widely-spaced black eyes like almond shaped olives and high cheekbones with a full mouth above an impishly dimpled chin. When she was experiencing no deep-seated emotion it was a face that expressed an underplayed coy invitation. Long hair, as dark as her eyes, fell around her face to her shoulders, thick and waved with a spun-silk texture. Her body with an evenness of colour marred only by narrow strips of pallid brown at breasts and hips, was just a trifle out-of-proportion; appearing short in relation to the long slimness of her legs. But this somehow added to the sensual effect, the shoulders falling in a sweep of satin-smooth skin to the gentle swells of her purple-crested breasts: then the line narrowing in a dramatic taper to the waist before the hips flared to encompass the slight concave of her stomach. Then came the inverted triangle of shadow that was her shaven pubes above the long, elegant, final swells and tapers of her legs.

Constantly aware of her beauty, she now halted for a moment on the patio, turning so that the moon glow bathed her skin with a carefully careless construction of light and shadow: presenting a three-quarters profile of dully glistening curves and darkened indentations to the man inside the house. Then, when she heard his bare feet slap on the composition flooring, she gave a gentle scream and launched into a smooth run: loping gracefully with long strides down the freshly-mown turf that emanated such a fine, clean smell.

The man, also naked, stood for several quiet moments at the top of the slope. He watched the girl and breathed in deeply of the hot, country air. Then he moved off in pursuit, feeling just a little sad that in less than two hours the beautiful girl would be dead. He began to run, slower and almost ungainly in comparison with the lithe speed of Mu Li. By the time he reached the edge of the pool she had launched herself into an elegant, curving dive and was swimming strongly for the far, deep end.

He went in feet-first with an untidy splash and heard her good-natured laughter trilling at him. He was not a good swimmer and never went beyond a point where he lost contact with the bottom. Now he dog-paddled with more splashing in water little deeper than a meter, gasping to overcome the shock of its chillness against his previously a sweating body.

‘Hey, you want me, you Portuguese hunk?’ she called. ‘You come and get me.’

She had her arms hooked over the rail at the far end and her tone poked gentle fun at him. When he stood up he could see her clearly, with water nudging her half-exposed breasts and pasting her hair across her face.

‘It’s too damn cold,’ he yelled, then laughed. He stooped and put both his hands between his legs, exaggerating a pained expression. ‘If I don’t get out of here soon I think it’ll snap off like an icicle. What’ll you do then?’

‘Many men in Hong Kong and Macao would like to sleep with a beautiful, hot-blooded Chinese girl,’ she called back. But she pushed away from the rail and swam swiftly for the shallow end of the pool. By the time he had hoisted himself up out of the water, she was on the apron of tiles beside him, laughing from deep in her throat, her eyes shining as she squeezed droplets of moisture from her hair. ‘Here, let me have a look!’ she cried, making a grab for him.

But he evaded her outstretched hand and began to run for the house. She bounded after him and narrowed the gap within a few strides: so that he was more than five yards short of the patio when she leapt at him, reaching her hands around his neck, curling her legs about his waist and with laughter trilling louder as she bit his ear. They both fell headlong across the soft grass.

‘Foul tackle!’ he protested, throwing her off him on to her back.

When he rose to his feet she made no move to get up. Instead, she spread her legs wide and raised her arms, cupping her hands in invitation. Her eyes still shone in the moonlight, but no longer with gaiety.

‘Come on, Tony,’ she whispered. ‘There is no other man in all the world for me.’ Her dark eyes roved his body hungrily and came to rest at his loins. ‘Yes, he is shrivelled small with the cold. But Mu Li has a warm place for him.’

Antonio Tiroa towered over the girl, looking down upon her willing body as ravenously as she examined him. For long moments he hesitated, enjoying her beauty and relishing her need for him. Then he replied to her invitation, sinking to his knees between the funnel of her splayed thighs, lowering himself on to her yielding body, allowing her to caress him into readiness. Then she guided him into her as he licked the water from her lips before probing the depths of her warm mouth with his cold tongue.

It was good. It was always tremendously good with Mu Li: for after she had been made aware of her attractiveness to men she had also discovered that a pretty box was useless unless its contents lived up the promises of the trimmings. So she had carefully developed a technique of love-making that was endlessly adaptable in its variety and Tiroa never ceased to wonder at how she was able to give herself to him on each occasion as if every time were the first.

He was forty-eight and when he was neither tired nor anxious knew he could pass for forty. Not quite six feet tall he had a broad, muscular build just beginning to thicken with the softness of his sedentary occupation. He did not consider himself handsome but knew there was something about the set of his features which appealed to women. His face was square and although he was a full-blooded Portuguese he looked vaguely mid-European: due in large part to the fact that he wore his greying black hair in a severe crew-cut. His skin was tanned an even brown and was faintly lined around the light brown eyes, flared nostrils and generous mouth. It was not a rugged nor a clean cut face but fell somewhere between the two. He had inherited the near classic shape of his nose from his mother and the thrusting, heavyweight’s chin from his father. He could recall good-humouredly how, as a young boy in primary school at Oporto, he had often provoked fights with bigger children in an attempt to get his nose broken to complement the pugilistic jaw. But nobody had been able to hit such a sympathetic face that hard, so in puberty he had grown a moustache to try to add character to his looks. But it had been totally wrong and he shaved it off the morning it reached maturity.

By that time, however, he began to discover that as far as the teenage girls of central Portugal were concerned, his face was fine the way it was. And whatever it was that stirred the female of the species, it had stuck with him in the Far East as he entered middle age.

‘Not so cold now, uh?’ Mu Li asked after he had shuddered through his climax and raised his body from hers.

He rolled over on to his back, stretched himself full-length on the grass beside her and stared up at the inky sky. The air was so clear it seemed the stars were tinselled specks of dust suspended a few inches above his face. ‘You make the hot shower obsolete,’ he replied.

She took his hand and carried it up and across her body to press it against her small breast. The cold water from the pool had dried and her flesh was slick with the sweat of love-making in the hot night. He remained still for a moment longer, then turned to look at her. He smiled into her eyes for many seconds before getting to his feet and pulling her up with him. They stood close together, skin touching in many intimate places.

Time for you to go, sweetheart,’ he said.

She didn’t reply. Instead, kissed him lightly on the lips, extricated herself from his embrace and ran quickly across the lawn and on to the patio. He watched her nude body until it disappeared into the house before setting off in her wake. He sat on the edge of the bed in the darkened room and smoked a cigarette as he listened to the shower hissing. The sensation of soap lather and water on her flesh seemed to chase away the attack of the blues that had hit her out on the lawn. She started to sing happily in Cantonese.

Despite what he had become in recent years, Tony Tiroa still retained a trace of Latin sentimentality. So he put on a bathrobe and went out into the lounge. He switched on the lights and moved to the built-in bar to mix two highballs. It was Mu Li’s favourite drink. The lounge was a beautiful room, like all the others in the secluded house. Richly-toned wood panelling on the walls, a stone fireplace, original oil paintings, a pure wool carpet and elegant Scandinavian furniture. When he was in the house, Tiroa found it possible to like Hong Kong almost as much as Macao.

‘Wonderful, Tony,’ the girl exclaimed as she entered the room. She wore a simple white dress unadorned by jewellery. She had brushed her hair into a damp semblance of order and lightly made up her face to eradicate all signs of their recent passion.

He gave her the drink and they clinked the glasses. ‘Here’s to the next time, Mu Li,’ he toasted. He finished the drink at a single swallow, like it was beer and he was parched.

She took it as a sign she should hurry, and finished the highball quickly. She crunched a fragment of ice. ‘You’ll call me as soon as there’s something for me to do?’

‘Sure, baby,’ he told her, taking her arm to steer her towards the door.

She scooped up her small handbag from a side table on the way. ‘It was all right? The information I gave you tonight?’

‘Very valuable,’ he assured her as he pulled open the front door. ‘Sorry I must throw you out this way, Mu Li. But there’s some business that really can’t wait!’

‘I understand, Tony,’ she said, and went up on tiptoes to brush her lips against his. ‘It was terrific’

Then she went over the threshold. Two cars were parked on the tarmac area in front of the house, their chrome trim glinting in the moonlight. Tiroa’s red Lamborghini Espada newly washed and waxed and Mu Li’s mud-spattered and dented Morris Minor. She waved happily before getting into her car. Then she started the engine, flashed the headlights twice and reversed out on to the road. With a short blast on the horn, she gunned the car away.

He remained in the doorway until the engine noise faded and the twin blurs of the tail lights went from sight among the trees. Then he retreated inside and closed the door. Back in the lavishly-furnished lounge, he made another highball and carried it to the telephone. He wedged the handset between his shoulder and ear and sipped the drink as he dialled a number.

‘Stardust Hotel, good evening,’ a Chinese woman greeted. She sounded old at the end of a hard day.

‘The baggage is on its way,’ Tiroa said. ‘Allow thirty minutes, then it will be any time after that.’

‘We shall be prepared.’ The voice was more cheerful.

Tiroa smiled as he replaced the receiver without saying goodbye. In Hong Hong’s Wanchai district, where notorious hotels and bars were thicker than flies around a cesspool, there was nothing better than a murder to give one particular place an edge over its rivals.

Chapter Two

‘YOU LOOK LIKE they took you to the cleaners, son,’ Senior Superintendent John Crown said brightly, grinning through the rolled-down window of the battered green VW Beetle.

Inspector Chang Po grimaced as he walked around the front of the car and slumped into the passenger seat. ‘Mah-jong never was my game,’ he complained.

‘And you a fine bright Cantonese boy born in the walled City,’ Crown chided as he started the car and cut selfishly into the traffic stream of Hennessy Road, heading west.

‘It’s because I’m Cantonese I can’t resist playing,’ the Chinese detective countered. ‘It doesn’t mean I have to be lucky enough to win, Mr. Crown.’

‘If it’s bought us anything, maybe I’ll sign an expense chit for your losses,’ the senior man offered.

‘Two hundred and ten dollars. For a pay-off point where a drop’s being made tonight.’

‘Where?’ Crown asked, no longer light and cool.

‘We’re going in the wrong direction, Mr. Crown,’ Chang answered, good-naturedly savouring the few moments of having information while his superior was ignorant. Then: ‘We want the Cross-Harbour Tunnel. New Territories. Hills east of the Sek Kong Airstrip.’

The grin wrapped itself over Crown’s features again, as he cut up traffic to make a right turn on to Flamingo Road. Angry blasts of horns trailed after the VW all the way down to the Wanchai waterfront. Crown constantly drove as if he were at the wheel of a patrol car in Royal Hong Kong Police Force livery with siren wailing