He has Laughing Chan offering a bounty to every yellow card in the city for rumors of old Expansion properties that may have crumbled and revealed structural items worth harvesting. Anything that will allow them to bring the line back to full production before the monsoons finally pour down and make river transport of a new teak spindle practicable.
Hock Seng grinds his teeth with frustration. Everything is so close to fruition. And yet now his survival depends on a line that never worked and on people who have never been successful. It's almost enough for Hock Seng to attempt a little arm twisting of his own. To tell the tamade devil that he knows something of Mr. Lake's extracurricular life, thanks to the reports of Lao Gu. That he knows every place Mr. Lake has visited, of his trips to libraries and old family homes in Bangkok. Of his fascination with seeds.
And now this strangest, most astonishing thing. The news that sent Lao Gu scurrying to Hock Seng as soon as it occurred. A windup girl. An illegal piece of genetic trash. A girl that Mr. Lake pursues as if he is drunk on the transgression. Lao Gu whispers that Mr. Lake brings the creature to his bed. Does so repeatedly. Pines for it.
Astonishing. Disgusting.
Useful.
But a weapon to be used as a last resort, if Mr. Lake attempts to truly eject him from the factory. Better to have Lao Gu watching and listening and gathering more information than revealed and fired. When Hock Seng first arranged Lao Gu's employment, it was for just this sort of possibility. He must not waste this one bit of leverage just because he is angry. And so instead, even as his face feels as if it has been thrown on the floor, Hock Seng jumps like a monkey to make the foreign devil happy.
Hock Seng grimaces as he crosses the factory floor, following Kit to another point of complaint. Problems. Always more problems.
All around them, the activity of repair echoes. Half the power train has been torn out of the floor and reset. Nine Buddhist monks chant steadily at the far side of the building, stretching the Thais' sacred thread that they call saisin everywhere and imploring the spirits that infest the place—half of them likely Contraction phii who are angered that the Thais are working for farang at all—begging them to allow the factory to work correctly. Hock Seng grimaces at the sight of monks and the expenses he is incurring.
"What's this new problem?" Hock Seng asks as they squeeze past the cutting presses and duck under the line.
"It's here, Khun. I'll show you," Kit says.
The salty warm stink of algae thickens, a humid reek that hangs heavy in the air. Kit points to the algae tanks where they stand in damp ranks, three dozen open surface breeding vats. Their waters are coated with the rich green skim of algae breeding. A worker is dragging her net across the surface of the tanks, drawing off the skim. She smears it across a man-sized screen before hoisting it up on hemp ropes to hang overhead with the hundreds of similar screens.
"It's the tanks." Kit says. "They are contaminated."
"Yes?" Hock Seng eyes the tanks, hiding his distaste. "What is the difficulty?"
With the healthiest vats, the skim is more than six inches thick, a pillowy vibrant chlorophyll green. The voluptuous scent of seawater and life emanates from them. Water trickles down the sides of the translucent tanks, thin lines that damp the floor and leave salty white blooms as they evaporate. Streamers of still-living algae trail down drain channels to rusty iron grates and disappear into darkness.
Pig DNA and something else. . . flax, Hock Seng thinks. It was flax that Mr. Yates always believed had been the key to this algae. That made it produce such useful skim. But Hock Seng always liked the pig proteins. Pigs are lucky. This algae should be, also. And yet it has caused nothing but trouble, despite its potential.
Kit smiles nervously as he shows Hock Seng how several of the tanks have lowered levels of algae production, an off-color skim, and a fishy reek, something more akin to shrimp paste than the verdant salty smells of the more active tanks.
"Banyat said they should not be used. That we should wait until the replacement supplies came."
Hock Seng laughs harshly and shakes his head. "We won't have any replacements. Not with the Tiger of Bangkok burning everything that comes off the anchor pads. You'll have to make do with what we have."
"But it's contaminated. There are potential vectors. The problem could spread into the other tanks."
"You're certain of that?"
"Banyat said—"
"Banyat walked under a megodont. And if we don't have this line running soon, the farang will be sending us all out to starve."
"But—"
"You think another fifty Thais wouldn't like your job? A thousand yellow cards?"
Kit closes his mouth. Hock Seng nods grimly. "Make this line work."
"If the white shirts inspect us, they will see that the baths are impure." Kit runs his finger through a gray froth coating the rim of one of the tanks. "We shouldn't be seeing this. The algae should be much brighter. None of this bubbling."
Hock Seng studies the tanks sourly. "If we don't get the line running we all starve." He's about to say more, but the girl Mai runs into the room.
"Khun. A man has come looking for you."
Hock Seng gives her an impatient look. "Is it someone with information on a new spindle? A teak log ripped from some temple bot, maybe?" Mai's mouth opens and closes, stunned at his blasphemy, but Hock Seng doesn't care. "If this man doesn't have a winding spindle, I don't have time for him." He turns back to Kit. "Can you drain and scrub the tanks perhaps?"
Kit shrugs noncommittally. "It can be tried, Khun, but Banyat said that if we don't have new nutrient cultures, we can't start completely fresh. We will be forced to reuse the cultures that come from these same tanks. The problem will likely return."
"We can't sieve it? Filter somehow?"
"The tanks and cultures cannot be fully cleaned. Eventually it will be a vector. And the rest of the tanks will be contaminated."
"Eventually? Is that all? Eventually?" Hock Seng scowls at him. "I don't care about 'eventually.' I care about this month. If this factory fails to produce, we won't have a chance to worry about this 'eventually' you speak of. You'll be back in Thonburi, picking through chicken guts and hoping you aren't hit with flu, and I'll be back in a yellow card tower. Don't worry about tomorrow. Worry about whether Mr. Lake throws us all out on the street today. Use your imagination. Find a way to make this tamade algae breed."
Not for the first time, he curses that he works with Thais. They simply lack the spirit of entrepreneurship that a Chinese would throw into the work.
"Khun?"
It's Mai, still lingering. She flinches at his glare.
"The man says that this is your last chance."
"My last chance? Show me this heeya." Hock Seng storms toward the main floor, shoving aside the curtains of the fining rooms. Out in the main hall, where the megodonts lean against spindle cranks burning money that they simply don't have, Hock Seng stops short, wiping algae fines from his hands, feeling like a terrified fool.
Dog Fucker stands in the middle of the factory like cibiscosis in the middle of Spring Festival, watching the whir and clatter of the QA line as it runs through tests. Old Bones and Horseface Ma and Dog Fucker. All of them standing so confidently. Dog Fucker, with his fa' gan fringe and his missing nose, and his thug cronies, hard-edged nak leng who have no pity for yellow cards and no fear of police.
It's only dumb luck that Mr. Lake is upstairs going over the books, only dumb luck that little Mai came to him and not to the foreign devil. Mai scampers ahead, leading him toward his future.
Hock Seng motions for Dog Fucker to join him out of sight of the observation windows above, but Dog Fucker, maddeningly, sets his feet and continues to study the rumbling line and the shamble of the megodonts.
"Very impressive," he says. "Is this where you make your fabulous kink-springs?"
Hock Seng glares and motions for him to move out of the factory. "We should not be having this conversation here."
r /> Dog Fucker ignores him. His eyes are on the offices and the observation windows. He stares up at them intently. "And is that where you do your work? Up there?"
"Not for long, if a certain farang catches sight of you." Hock Seng forces himself to make a polite smile. "Please. It would be better if we went outside. Your presence arouses questions."
For a long moment, Dog Fucker doesn't move, still staring up at the offices. Hock Seng has the unnerving feeling that the man sees through the walls, that he sees the huge iron safe sitting up there, holding its valuable secrets tight.
"Please," Hock Seng mutters. "The workers will speak enough about this as it is."
Abruptly the gangster turns away, nodding to his men to follow. Hock Seng stifles a rush of relief as he hurries after them. "Someone wants to see you," Dog Fucker says, gesturing toward the outer gates.
The Dung Lord. Now, of all times. Hock Seng glances up at the observation window. Mr. Lake will be angry if he leaves.
"Yes. Of course." Hock Seng motions back toward the office. "I will just tidy my papers."
"Now," Dog Fucker says. "No one keeps him waiting." He motions for Hock Seng to follow. "Now or never."
Hock Seng hesitates, torn, then waves for Mai. She dashes up as Dog Fucker leads them toward the gates. Hock Seng leans low and whispers. "Tell Khun Anderson that I will not be returning. . . that I have an idea of where to locate a new winding spindle." He nods sharply. "Yes. Tell him that. A winding spindle."
Mai nods and starts to turn away, but Hock Seng pulls her back, pulls her close. "Remember to speak slowly, and in simple words. I don't want the farang to misunderstand and put me out on the street. If I go, so do you. Remember that."
Mai grins. "Mai pen rai. I will make him very happy that you are working so hard." She dashes back into the factory.
Dog Fucker smiles over his shoulder. "And I thought you were only the king of yellow cards. Here you have a pretty Thai girl doing your bidding, too. Not bad for a Yellow Card King."
Hock Seng makes a face. "The king of yellow cards is not a title to aspire to."
"Nor the Lord of Dung," he says. "Names hide much." He surveys the compound. "I've never been in a farang factory," he says. "It's very impressive. A lot of money here."
Hock Seng forces a smile. "The farang are crazy with how much they spend." His neck prickles at the workers' eyes watching him. He wonders how many of them know of Dog Fucker. For once he is grateful that more yellow card Chinese don't work at the factory. They would recognize in an instant who he treats with. Hock Seng forces down the irritation and fear he feels at the exposure. Of course Dog Fucker would like to see him off-balance. It is part of the bargaining process.
You are Tan Hock Seng, head of the New Tri-Clipper. Do not let petty tactics unsettle you.
This mantra of self-assurance lasts until they reach the outer gates. Hock Seng stops short.
Dog Fucker laughs as he opens the door for Hock Seng. "What's the matter? You've never seen a car before?"
Hock Seng stifles an urge to slap the man for his arrogance and stupidity. "You're a fool," he mutters. "Do you know how this exposes me? How people will speak of an extravagance like this, parked in front of this factory?"
He ducks inside. Dog Fucker climbs in after him, still grinning. The rest of his men crowd in after. Old Bones calls forward to the driver. The machine's engine rumbles to life. They start to roll.
"Is it coal diesel?" Hock Seng asks. He can't help whispering.
Dog Fucker grins. "The boss does so much for the carbon load. . ." He shrugs. "This is a small extravagance."
"But the cost. . ." Hock Seng trails off. The exorbitant cost of turning this steel behemoth into acceleration. An extraordinary waste. A testament to the Dung Lord's monopolies. Even in his wealthiest days in Malaya, Hock Seng would never have considered such an extravagance.
Despite the heat in the car, he shivers. There is an ancient solidity to the thing, so heavy and massive—it might as well be a tank. It's as if he's locked inside one of SpringLife's safes, isolated from the world beyond. Claustrophobia swallows him.
Dog Fucker smiles as Hock Seng tries to master his emotions. "I hope you aren't wasting his time," he says.
Hock Seng makes himself meet Dog Fucker's gaze. "I think you would like it better if I failed."
"You're right." Dog Fucker shrugs. "If it were up to me, we would have let your kind die on the other side of the border."
The car accelerates, pressing Hock Seng into the leather seat.
Outside the windows, Krung Thep slides past, utterly removed from him: crowds of sun-drenched skin and dusty draft animals and bicycles like schools of fish. Eyes turn toward the car as it forges past. Mouths open wide and silent as people shout and point at his passage.
The speed of the machine is appalling.
* * *
Yellow cards crowd around the tower entrances, Malayan Chinese men and women trying to look hopeful as they wait for labor opportunities that have already faded in the heat of the afternoon. And yet still they try to look vital, try to show that their bony limbs have calories to spare, if only someone will allow them to burn.
Everyone stares as the Dung Lord's car arrives. When the door opens, they kneel in a wave, all of them performing khrabs of abasement, triple bows to the patron who keeps them housed, the one man in Krung Thep who willingly shoulders the burden of them, who provides a measure of safety from the red machetes of the Malays and the black batons of the white shirts.
Hock Seng's eyes slide over yellow card backs, wondering if he knows any of them, momentarily surprised that he is not among them performing his own khrab of obeisance.
Dog Fucker leads him into the tower darkness. The skitter of rats and the smell of close-packed sweating bodies convects down from the floors above. At a pair of gaping elevator shafts he flips open a tarnished brass speaking tube and shouts with brisk authority. They wait, eyes on one another: Dog Fucker bored; Hock Seng carefully hiding anxiety. A rattling comes from above, gears clicking, the scrape of iron on stone. A lift sinks into view.
Dog Fucker drags open the gate and steps in. The woman at the elevator controls disengages the brake and shouts into the speaking tube before yanking the gate closed again. Dog Fucker smiles through the gate. "Wait here, yellow card." And then he is whisked up into darkness.
A minute later, ballast men slide into view in the secondary shaft. They squeeze out of the lift and dash for the stairwell in a herd. One of them catches sight of Hock Seng. Mistakes his look.
"There aren't any more places. He has enough of us already."
Hock Seng shakes his head. "No. Of course not," he mutters, but the men are already disappearing back up the stairs, sandals slapping as they scramble for the sky to make the ballast drop again.
From where he stands inside the building, the glare of the tropics is a distant rectangle, clotted with refugees, all watching the street with nothing to do and nowhere to go. A few yellow cards shuffle the halls. Babies cry, their small voices echoing against hot concrete. From somewhere above, the grunt of sex comes. People screwing in halls like animals, out in the open because they have given up on privacy. It is all so familiar. Extraordinary that he once lived in this same building, sweltered in this same pen.
Minutes tick by. Perhaps the Dung Lord has changed his mind. Dog Fucker should have returned by now. Movement catches the corner of Hock Seng's eye and he flinches, but there is nothing but shadow.
Sometimes he dreams that the Green Headbands have become cheshires, that they can molt and appear where he least expects them—while he pours water over his head as he makes his bath, or as he eats a bowl of rice, or squats over the latrine. . . they simply shimmer into existence and grab him and gut him and stack his head on the streets as a warning. Just like Jade Blossom and First Wife's elder sister. Just like his sons. . .
The lift rattles. A moment later Dog Fucker descends. The elevator woman is gone, Dog Fucker's own hand runs the bra
ke system.
"Good. You didn't run away."
"I'm not afraid of this place."
Dog Fucker gives him an appraising look. "No. Of course not. You came from it, didn't you?" He steps out and motions toward the tower dimness. Guards materialize where Hock Seng thought only shadows existed. He forces himself not yelp, but Dog Fucker still catches his twitch. Smiles at it. "Search him."
Hands pat Hock Seng's ribs, run down his legs, prod at his genitals. When the guards are finished, Dog Fucker gestures Hock Seng into the lift. He guesses the heft of them and shouts up the speaking tube.
From high above, the rattle of men climbing into the ballast cage filters down. And then they are rising, climbing up through the layers of hell. The heat thickens. Deep in the heart of the building, exposed as it is to the full force of the tropic sun, it is an oven.
Hock Seng remembers sleeping in the stairwells here, struggling to breathe as the bodies of his fellow refugees stank and rolled about him. Remembers how his belly pressed against his spine. And then, all in a rush he remembers blood on his hands, hot and alive. A fellow yellow card, reaching out to him, begging for aid, even as he drove the knife edge of his whiskey bottle into the man's throat.
Hock Seng closes his eyes, forcing away memory.
You were starving. There was no other way.
But he has a hard time convincing himself.
They continue to rise. A breeze caresses him. The air cools. Scents of hibiscus and citrus.
An open hall flashes by—a promenade, exposed to the city air, careful gardens, lime trees bordering the edges of wide balconies. Hock Seng wonders at the amount of water men must carry to this height. Wonders at the calories that must be spent and the man who has access to such power. It's both thrilling and terrifying. He is close. So very close.
They reach the top of the building. The sun-drenched expanse of the city spreads before them. The gold spires of the Grand Palace where the Child Queen holds court and the Somdet Chaopraya pulls the strings, the chedi of Mongkut's temple on its hill, the only thing that will survive if the levees fail. The broken and tumbling spires of the old Expansion. And all around, the sea.