"How did you know, tai-pan?" Casey asked him, feeling more at home with tai-pan than with Ian. Ian doesn't belong, yet, she thought, swept by his past and Hag Struan and the shadows that seemed to be surrounding him.

"I asked your attorney."

"What do you mean?"

"John Chen called me last night around midnight. You hadn't told him what K.C. stood for and I wanted to know. It was too early to talk to your office in Los Angeles just 8 A.M., L.A. time so I called your attorney in New York. My father used to say, when in doubt ask."

"You got Seymour Steigler III on a Saturday?" Bartlett asked, amazed.

"Yes. At his home in White Plains."

"But his home number's not in the book."

"I know. I called a Chinese friend of mine in the UN. He tracked him down for me. I told Mr. Steigler I wanted to know because of invitations which is, of course, the truth. One should be accurate, shouldn't one?"

"Yes," Casey said, admiring him greatly. "Yes one should."

"You knew Casey wasa Casey was a woman, last night?" Gavallan asked.

"Yes. Actually I knew several months ago, though not what K.C. stood for. Why?"

"Nothing, tai-pan. Casey, you were saying about Armenia. Your family emigrated to the States after the wary"

"After the First World War in 1918," Casey said, beginning the oft-told story. "Originally our surname was Tcholokian. When my grandparents arrived in New York they dropped the fan for simplicity, to help Americans. I still got Kamalian Ciranoush though. As you know, Armenia is the southern part of Caucasus just north of Iran and Turkey and south of Russian Georgia. It used to be a free sovereign nation but now it's all absorbed by Soviet Russia or Turkey. My grandmother was Georgian there was lots of intermarriage in the old days. My people were spread all over the Ottoman Empire, about two million, but the massacres, particularly in 1915 and '16a" Casey shivered. "It was genocide really. There're barely 500,000 of us left and now we're scattered throughout the world. Armenians were traders, artists, painters and jewelry makers, writers, warriors too. There were nearly 50,000 Armenians in the Turkish Army before they were disarmed, outcast and shot by the Turks during World War One generals, officers and soldiers. They were an elite minority and had been for centuries."

"Is that why the Turks hated them?" deVille asked.

"They were hardworking and clannish and very good traders and businessmen for sure they controlled lots of business and trade. My granddad said trading's in our blood. But perhaps the main reason is that Armenians are Christian they were the first Chris- tian state in history under the Romans and of course the Turks are Mohammedan. The Turks conquered Armenia in the sixteenth century and there was always a border war going on between Christian Tsarist Russia and the 'Infidel' Turks. Up to 1917 Tsarist Russia was our real protectora The Ottoman Turks were always a strange people, very cruel, very strange."

"Your family got out before the trouble?"

"No. My grandparents were quite rich, and like a lot of people thought nothing could happen to them. They escaped just ahead of the soldiers, took two sons and a daughter out the back door with just what they could grab in their dash for freedom. The rest of the family never made it. My grandfather bribed his way out of Istanbul onto a fishing boat that smuggled him and my grandmother to Cyprus where, somehow, they got visas to the States. They had a little money and some jewelry and lots of talent. Granny's still alivea she can still haggle with the best of them."

"Your grandfather was a trader?" Dunross asked. "Is that how you first got interested in business?"

"We certainly had it drummed into us as soon as we could think about being self-sufficient," Casey said. "My granddad started an optical company in Providence, making lenses and microscopes and an import-export company dealing mostly in carpets and perfumes, with a little gold and precious stones trading on the side. My dad designed and made jewelry. He's dead now but he had a small store of his own in Providence, and his brother, my uncle Bghos, worked with Granddad. Now, since Granddad died, my uncle runs the import-export company. It's small but stable. We grew up, my sister and I, around haggling, negotiating and the problem of profit. It was a great game and we were all equals."

"Wherea oh, more trifle, Casey?"

"No thanks, I'm fine."

"Where did you take your business degree?"

"I suppose all over," she said. "After I got out of high school, I put myself through a two-year business course at Katharine Gibbs in Providence: shorthand, typing, simple accounting, filing, plus a few business fundamentals. But ever since I could count I worked nights and holidays and weekends with Granddad in his businesses. I was taught to think and plan and put the plan into effect, so most of my training's been in the field. Of course since I've gotten out of school I've kept up with specialized courses that I wanted to take at night school mostly." Casey laughed. "Last year I even took one at the Harvard Business School which went down like an Hbomb with some members of the faculty, though it's getting a little easier now for a woman."

"How did you manage to become hatchetman hatchetlady to Par-Con Industries?" Dunross said.

"Perspicacity," she said and they laughed with her.

Bartlett said, "Casey's a devil for work, Ian. Her speed reading's fantastic so she can cover more ground than two normal execs. She's got a great nose for danger, she's not afraid of a decision, she's more of a deal maker than a deal breaker, and she doesn't blush easily.'

"That's my best point," Casey said. "Thanks, Linc."

"But isn't it very hard on you, Casey?" Gavallan asked. "Don't you have to concede a hell of a lot as a woman to keep up? It can't be easy for you to do a man's job."

"I don't consider my job a man's job, Andrew," she replied at once. "Women have just as good brains and work capacity as men."

There was an immediate hoot of friendly derision from Linbar and Gavallan and Dunross overrode them and said, "I think we'll table that one for later. But again, Casey, how did you get where you are at Par-Con?"

Shall I tell you the real story, Ian lookalike to Dirk Struan, the greatest pirate in Asia, or shall I tell you the one that's become legend, she asked herself.

Then she heard Bartlett begin and she knew she could safely drift for she had heard his version a hundred times before and it was part true, part false and part what he wanted to believe had happened. How many of your legends are true Hag Struan and Dirk Struan and what's your real story and how did you become tai-pan? She sipped her port, enjoying the smooth sweetness,-letting her mind wander.

There's something wrong here, she was thinking now. I can feel it strongly. Something's wrong with Dunross.

What?

"I first met Casey in Los Angeles, California about seven years ago," Bartlett had begun. "I'd gotten a letter from a Casey Tcholok, president of Hed-Opticals of Providence, who wanted to discuss a merger. At that time I was in construction all over the L.A. area residential, supermarkets, a couple of good-sized office buildings, industrial, shopping centers you name it, I'd build it. We had a turnover of 3.2 million and I'd just gone public but I was still a million miles away from the Big Board. I'd"

"You mean the New York Stock Exchange?"

"Yes. Anyway, Casey comes in bright as a new penny and says she wants me to merge with Hed-Opticals which she says grossed $277,600 last year, and then together, we'd go after Randolf Opticals, the granddaddy of them all 53 million in sales, quoted on the Big Board, a huge slice of the lens market and lots of cash in the bank and I said you're crazy but why Randolf? She said because first she was a stockholder in Bartlett Constructions she'd bought ten one-dollar shares I'd capitalized at a million shares and sold 500,000 at par and she figured it'd be dandy for Bartlett Construc lion Randolf, and second, 'because this son of a bitch George Toffer who runs Randolf Opticals is a liar, a cheat, a thief, and he's trying to put me out of business.'"

Bartlett grinned and paused for breath and Dunross broke in with a laugh. "This's true, Casey?"

Casey came back quickly. "Oh yes, I said that George Toffer was a liar, a cheat, thief and son of a bitch. He still is." Casey smiled without humor. "And he was certainly trying to put me out of business."

"Why?"

"Because I had told him to go to drop dead."

"Why'd you do that-?"

"I'd just taken over Hed-Opticals. My granddad had died the previous year and we'd flipped a coin, my uncle Bghos and I, who'd get which businessa I'd won Hed-Opticals. We'd had an offer from Randolf to buy us out a year or so back but we'd turned it down we had a nice, small operation, a good work force, good technicians a number of them Armenians a little slice of the market. But no capital and no room to maneuver but we got by and the quality of Hed-Opticals was optimum. Just after I took over, George Toffer 'happened to drop by.' He fancied himself, my God how he fancied himself. He claimed he was a U.S. Army war hero but I found out he wasn't he was that sort of guy. Anyway, he made me another ridiculous offer to take Hed-Opticals off my handsa the poor little girl who should be in the kitchen bit, along with the 'let's have dinner tonight in my suite and why don't we have a little fun because I'm here alone for a few daysa' I said no thanks and he was very put out. Very. But he said okay and went back to business and suggested that instead of a buy-out we subcontract some of his contracts. He made me a good offer and after haggling a bit we agreed on terms. If I performed on this one he said he'd double the deal. Over the next month we did the work better and cheaper than he could ever have done it I delivered according to contract and he made a fantastic profit. But then he reneged on a verbal clause and deducted stole $20,378, and the next day five of my best customers left us for Randolf, and the next week another seven they'd all been offered deals at less than cost. He let me sweat for a week or two then he phoned. 'Hi, baby,' he said, happy as a toad in a pail of mud, 'I'm spending the weekend alone at Martha's Vineyard.' That's a little island off the East Coast. Then he added, 'Why don't you come over and we'll have some fun and discuss the future and doubling our orders.' I asked for my money, and he laughed at me and told me to grow up and suggested I better reconsider his offer because at the rate I was going soon there'd be no Hed-Opticals.

"I cursed him," Casey said. "I can curse pretty good when I get mad and I told him what to do with himself in three languages. Within four more weeks I'd no customers left. Another month and the work force had to get other jobs. About that time I thought I'd try California. I didn't want to stay in the East." She smiled wryly. "It was a matter of face if I'd known about face then. I thought I'd take a couple of weeks off to figure out what to do. Then one day I was wandering aimlessly around a state fair in Sacramento and Linc was there. He was selling shares in Bartlett Construction in a booth and I bought"

"He what?" Dunross asked.

"Sure," Bartlett said. "I sold upwards of 20,000 shares that way. I covered state fairs, mail orders, supermarkets, stockbrokers, shopping centers along with investment banks. Sure. Go on, Casey!"

"So I read his prospectus and watched him a while and thought he had a lot of get up and go. His figures and balance sheet and expansion rate were exceptional and I thought anyone who'd pitch his own stock has got to have a future. So I bought ten shares, wrote him and went to see him. End of story."

"The hell it is, Casey," Gavallan said.

"You tell it, Linc," she said.

"Okay. Well, then"

"Some port, Mr. sorry, Linc?"

"Thanks Andrew, but, er, may I have another beer?" It arrived instantly. "So Casey'd come to see me. After she'd told it, almost like she's told it now, I said, 'One thing, Casey, Hed-Opticals grossed less than 300,000-odd last year. What's it going to do this year?'

"'Zero,' she said with that smile of hers. 'I'm Hed-Opticals' total asset. In fact, I'm all there is.'

"'Then what's the use of my merging with zero I've got enough problems of my own.'

"'I know how to take Randolf Opticals to the cleaners.'

"'How?'

"'22 percent of Randolf's is owned by three men all of whom despise Toffer. With 22 percent you could get control. I know how you could get their proxies, and most of all, I know the weakness of Toffer.'

"'What's that?'

"'Vanity, and he's a megalomaniac, but most of all he's stupid.'

"'He can't be stupid and run that company.'

"'Perhaps he wasn't once, but now he is. He's ready to be taken.'

"'And what do you want out of this, Casey?'

"'Toffer's head I want to do the firing.'

"'What else?'

"'If I succeed in showing you howa if we succeed in taking over Randolf Opticals, say within six months, I'd likea I'd like a one-year deal with you, to be extended to seven, at a salary you think is commensurate with my ability, as your executive vicepresident in charge of acquisitions. But I'd want it as a person, not as a woman, just as an equal person to you. You're the boss of course, but I'm to be equal as a man would be equal, as an individuala if I deliver.'"

Bartlett grinned and sipped his beer. "I said, okay you've got a deal. I thought, what've I got to lose me with my lousy threequarter million and her with her nothing zero balance for Randolf Opticalsinsix months, now that's one helluva steal. So we shook, man to woman." Bartlett laughed. "First time I'd ever made a deal with a woman, just like that and I've never regretted it."

"Thanks, Line," Casey said softly, and every one of them was envious.

And what happened after you fired Toffer, Dunross was thinking with all the others. Is that when you two began?

"The takeover," he said to Bartlett. "It was smooth?".

"Messy, but we got blooded and the lessons I learned, we learned, paid offa thousand percent. In five months we'd control. Casey and I had conquered a company 53~ times our size. At D-hour minus one I was down to minus 4 million dollars in the bank and goddamn near in jail, but the next hour I'd control. Man, that was a battle and a half. In a month and a half we'd reorganized it and now Par-Con's Randolf Division grosses $150 million yearly and the stock's way up. It was a classic blitzkrieg and set the pattern for Par-Con Industries."

"And this George Toffer, Casey? How did you fire him?"

Casey took her tawny eyes off Linc and turned them on Dunross and he thought, Christ I'd like to possess you.

Casey said, "The hour we got control I " She stopped as the single phone rang and there was a sudden tension in the room. Everyone, even the waiters, immediately switched their total attention to the phone except Bartlett. The color had drained out of Gavallan's face and deVille's. "What's the matter?" Casey asked.

Dunross broke the silence. "It's one of our house rules. No phone calls are put through during lunch unless it's an emergency a personal emergency for one of us."

They watched Lim put down the coffee tray. It seemed to take him forever to walk across the room and pick up the phone. They all had wives and children and families and they all wondered what death or what disaster and please God, let the call be for someone else, remembering the last time the phone had rung, two days ago. For Jacques. Then another time last month, for Gavallan, his mother was dying. They had all had calls, over the years. All bad.

Andrew Gavallan was sure the call was for him. His wife, Kath- ren, Dunross's sister, was at the hospital for the results of exhaustive tests she had been sick for weeks for no apparent reason. Jesus Christ, he thought, get hold of yourself, conscious of others watching him.

"Weyyyy?" Lim listened a moment. He turned and offered the phone. "It's for you, tai-pan."

The others breathed again and watched Dunross. His walk was tall. "Hello?a Oh hel What?a Noa no, I'll be right therea No, don't do anything, I'll be right there." They saw his shock as he replaced the phone in the dead silence. After a pause he said, "Andrew, tell Claudia to postpone my afternoon board meetings. You and Jacques continue with Casey. That was Phillip. I'm afraid poor John Chen's been kidnapped." He left.

8 - 2:35 P.M.:.

Dunross got out of his car and hurried through the open door of the vast, Chinese-style mansion that was set high on the mountain crest called Struan's Lookout. He passed a glazed servant who closed the door after him, and went into the living room. The living room was Victorian and gaudy and overstuffed with bric-a-brac and ill-matched furniture.

"Hello, Phillip," he said. "I'm so sorry. Poor Johul Where's the letter?"

"Here." Phillip picked it up from the sofa as he got up. "But first look at that." He pointed at a crumpled cardboard shoebox on a marble table beside the fireplace.

As Dunross crossed the room he noticed Dianne, Phillip Chen's wife, sitting in a high-backed chair in a far corner. "Oh, hello, Dianne, sorry about this," he said again.

She shrugged impassively. "Joss, Taiwan." She was fifty-t~vo, Eurasian, Phillip Chen's second wife, an attractive, bejeweled rnatron who wore a dark brown chong-sam, a priceless jade bead necklace and a four-carat diamond ring amid many other rings. "Yes, loss," she repeated.

Dunross nodded, disliking her a little more than usual. He peered down at the contents of the box without touching them. Among loose, crumpled newspaper he saw a fountain pen that he recognized as John Chen's, a driving license, some keys on a key ring, a letter addressed to John Chen, 14A Sinclair Towers, and a small plastic bag with a piece of cloth half-stuffed into it. With a pen that he took out of his pocket he flipped open the cover of the driving license. John Chen.

"Open the plastic bag," Phillip said.

"No. I might mess up any fingerprints thattre on it," Dunross said, feeling stupid but saying it anyway.

"Oh I'd forgotten about that. Damn. Of course, fingerprints! Mine area I opened it of course. Mine must be all over it all over everything."

"What's in it?"

"It's " Phillip Chen came over and before Dunross could stop him pulled the cloth out of the plastic, without touching the plastic again. "You can't have fingerprints on cloth, can you? Look!" The cloth contained most of a severed human ear, the cut clean and sharp and not jagged.

Dunross cursed softly. "How did the box arrive?" he asked.

"It was hand delivered." Phillip Chen shakily rewrapped the ear and put it back in the box. "I justa I just opened the parcel as anyone would. It was hand delivered half an hour or so ago."

"By whom?"

"We don't know. He was just a youth, the servant said. A youth on a motor scooter. She didn't recognize him or take any number. We get lots of parcels delivered. It was nothing out of the ordinary except the 'Mr. Phillip Chen, a matter of great importance, to open personally,' on the outside of the package, which she didn't notice at once. By the time I'd opened it and read the lettera it was just a youth who said, 'Parcel for Mr. Phillip Chen,' and went away."

"Have you called the police?"

"No, tai-pan, you said to do nothing."

Dunross went to the phone. "Have you got hold of John's wife yet?"

Dianne said at once, "Why should Phillip bear bad tidings to her? She'll throw a temperament that will raise the roof tiles never mind. Call Barbara? Oh dear no, tai-pan, nota not until we've informed the police. They should tell her. They know how to do these things."