Pao by Kerry Young Read Free Book Online Page A

ground-floor windows painted white on the inside.
    I think to myself what I wouldn’t do to see inside one of them places, but it wasn’t no good me even thinking ’bout it. Zhang would have box my ear if him find out I been in there. But then business is business.
    So one evening when I think him open to suggestion I try soften up Zhang with a nice ripe Bombay mango. With any other man you would get him a drink but Zhang never touch no liquor, never seen a drop pass his lips. So when him busy peeling the mango I say, ‘These Yanks sure spend a lot of money on women.’ But him just look at me and carry on with the mango.
    Then him say, ‘What we do here?’
    ‘Look after Chinatown.’
    ‘That is right. Look after Chinatown. Not look after American sailor want use Chinatown. You see Chinese girls do this? You see Chinese fathers want daughter do this?’
    ‘In the old days . . .’
    ‘In old days emperor have concubine, and rich man have wife number one and number two and number three. And what was that?’
    I know the answer he expecting from me so I just say it. ‘That was imperialism, and the exploitation of the peasant and the subjugation of the Chinese woman.’
    ‘That is right. So now, what you ask me?’
    So that then was the end of the conversation and I had to think to myself what else these American sailors could be good for, because Sun Tzu’s first lesson is to use the terrain.
    I send Judge Finley on a mission to loiter ’round the bars and places these boys frequent to find out what they into. It was a kind of fishing trip. And within the week Finley come back to me saying him think he catch something but it might be just a sprat. So I say, ‘Never mind. What you got?’
    It turn out some sergeant down the naval base approach him to say he have American cigarettes and liquor and suchlike. The suchlike turn out to be navy surplus, which is just about everything Uncle Sam give this man to run his business, this sergeant is willing to sell to us, from cook pots to boots and T-shirts.
    Me and Finley go meet him way over Windward Road in a lounge called the Blue Lagoon, a favourite of mine because everybody in there is up to something so you don’t have to worry ’bout anyone reporting them see you in there. The sergeant is called Bill, a stocky, shifty-looking white boy with a little bit of blond fluff on his head. Bill come in civvies, but you would have to be a blind man not to know from a hundred yards away that him just step fresh off of the uss Farmboy . Well even a blind man would have smell him when all that washedness and scrubbedness step through the door.
    Finley stand up so Bill can see him, and then Bill come over to the table and sit down opposite me. I order up some Red Stripe and we get started. We talking maybe five minutes before Bill get himself all agitated.
    ‘Gasoline!’
    ‘Bill, calm yourself nuh. And keep your voice down, man, this is a public place.’ Bill ease back in the chair half inch but him looking red in the face and worried.
    ‘Bill, you want me to take your cigarettes and liquor and all them other things and I do that for you. No problem. I not complaining ’bout that. In fact, I happy for the liquor because even though we got so much beautiful rum on the island rich people still pay hefty for that Scotch whisky. But I need things as well, Bill. There is a war on. We got shortages. And what I need you to do for me is rice and gas. After all, I need gas to drive your stuff all over town. And then I will need a little extra. And Chinatown is . . . well, Chinatown. We need rice. And that is all I am asking you for.’
    So then him settle down, but now Bill want a fifty-fifty split and I am saying no way, we taking all the risk here. And he say, ‘You think I’m not taking any risk?’ And all the time he looking ’round like anybody care what him doing there. He don’t seem to realise how many times men been knifed in that bar in broad daylight and nobody ever