They craned to watch Laura as she was escorted, not to the debarkation tunnel but down a hastily supplied flight of stairs leading from the pilot's quarters. Several bent down, peering through the small thick windows at the procession: a few uniformed men touched their hats in salutes, glanced quickly at her pa.s.sport and entry doc.u.ments, smiled, extended a hand to help her toward the Rolls-Royce that waited just steps away. Her luggage appeared immediately and was placed in the trunk of the car.

"Well, what do you think of that?" One businessman on his way to a convention of cotton dealers asked his seatmate.

"Somebody's mistress," he answered.

Who else could she be?

Laura leaned back, deep into the luxurious silk-soft leather, stretched her legs, closed her eyes for a moment. Soft music came from the speaker directly in front of her as the driver, speaking into a small microphone, asked, "Is all right, the music?"

Laura smiled. "Fine. Thank you, Arnold. You always remember my favorites."

She opened the door of the small bar, reached for a blue bottle of mineral water, amused that it had been imported from Wales. She plucked a few green grapes from a perfectly shaped bunch. She hadn't eaten anything on the plane, a trick she learned through bitter experience. The fruit tasted clean and pure. She cut a plump peach in half, then in quarters, and carefully nibbled. She glanced out the window, then spoke to the driver.

"Where are we going?"

Softly, he informed her, "To the school, Miss. Before we go to the Great House."

She thought for a moment, then asked, "Is he there? At the house?"

"Not yet, Miss. But he will be in time for dinner. So you can visit for a while with the boy."

Laura felt invigorated. She bit into the peach with a sudden appet.i.te. She hadn't seen him in nearly six months. When he was a baby, the time between visits was devastating. He was three years old before he recognized his auntie immediately at each visit. That's what he called her: Auntie.

The British School for Boys was in the British section of Hong Kong, outside the traffic and hustle of the incredible city. From the school grounds Victoria Peak could be seen, surrounded by fog, overlooking the wonderland that was this world center for commerce.

She had taken the boy up the cable car to the peak one time, a few years ago. His father was furious; why did she think the Rolls was available? The driver met them, nervously, at the end of the cable lift and the boy's face shone with excitement. To see the city laid out beneath them as though it was a toy metropolis, all steel and gla.s.s and bronze and lights, with heliports on the tallest buildings; to look down upon the brightly lit signs naming international banks and companies, the flags of various countries flapping in the wind. It was awe-inspiring. She wasn't sorry she had taken the boy. It was probably the only time in his life he hadn't been overprotected.

At his school, the headmaster, a tall, slender, gray-haired man with a rigid right arm from a war wound, offered his left hand automatically.

"Just a moment, Ms. Santalvo. I just have to check with-"

Laura nodded. She understood. No one questioned the presence of security people a.s.signed to certain students. They were an international group of boys, many of whom had moved around the world's schools at their fathers' rea.s.signments. Some were princes, some heirs who would one day rule exotic Arabian countries. A movie star's two sons were enrolled, guarded by masters of street fighting. Their father was a legendary hand-to-hand battling champion up from the streets, who had caught the eye of a Chinese filmmaker; now he had become a star so valuable that stunt doubles were hired to do the dangerous stuff for him.

The two men who entered the headmaster's office knew Laura. When she smiled and greeted them, they both bowed their heads ceremoniously. They would bring the boy at once.

"I don't want to interrupt his cla.s.s," she said, not really meaning it.

"No, no, not to worry. Anthony will be so glad to see you."

He had been escorted from the playing field. His knees, showing in the s.p.a.ce between his gray shorts and high knee socks, were scabby. His face was red from exertion and he seemed annoyed.

"Headmaster, why-"

His guards hadn't told him; they left discreetly, as did the headmaster.

The boy spun around at the sound of her voice.

"Anthony. Stop growing so fast. You're only twelve. You've time to reach six feet when you're twenty."

He flung himself at her from across the room, and she felt the impact of that strong, solid, muscular body. He smelled of sweat and dirt and boy. He pulled back and studied her face.

"Auntie, Auntie. You are so beautiful!" There was such pa.s.sion and joy in the moment. She reached out and caressed his flushed cheek, then kissed his forehead, still inches below her. She studied him hungrily: the set of his brows, the straight nose, strong mouth, black eyes. She saw much of his father in him. She searched for something of herself.

CHAPTER 30.

WITH A SOFT PURRING sound, the Rolls glided up the steep twisting road, at times perilously close to the edge of the deep mountain rising to Victoria Peak.

Some tour buses were descending: Laura saw faces trying to peer into the blackened windows of the car. In the heart of Hong Kong, a Rolls-Royce didn't attract much attention. On the long narrow road, rising in solitary mystery, it was an item of momentary curiosity to tourists still gasping at their sky-high view over the top of the Hong Kong fantasyland.

She remembered her first ride in a car like this one. He acquired a new Rolls every five or six years, and kept two vintage models, just for the pleasure of viewing them. He never drove the Rollses; his cars of choice for personal pleasure were, of course, his Maserati and a succession of Jaguars, a remembrance of his university days in England.

Laura had met him many years ago, when she was married to the prince. She saw him as a somewhat exotic man, remote, cool: more an observer than a partic.i.p.ant. He was courted wherever he went and expected to be; rarely accepted invitations. He had been interested in purchasing a yacht, a very expensive model, and the salesman who ran within the prince's circle practically tricked him into attending a dinner at a private club in London. He had spotted Laura at once-an incredible young woman who no more fitted the setting than he did.

She seemed to observe the others as he did, physically present but only distantly involved in whatever conversation or story flitted around the table. She drank sparingly, as he did. She pulled back slightly when spoken to directly. She answered softly, marginally polite; giving no offense, but also no encouragement.

Dennis Chen had been totally enchanted with Laura Santalvo, from the moment he saw her through all the years he had been her lover.

After the death of her second, younger husband, Laura had expanded her design house-had thrown herself into the business, with great success. He had seen her, listening intently, nodding, earnestly discussing some bolt of material at a silk factory he owned in Hong Kong. He waited her out, and then, as she prepared to enter her hired taxi, he had gently taken her arm. When she faced him, pleasure overcame surprise. They later confided each had fully expected that they would one day be together.

Their lives were as separate as they wished. Their time with each other was just that. Each had a full personal life, with no further explanation. When she became pregnant, he had no intention-nor did she want him-to leave his wife and two daughters. He was with her when she gave birth to Anthony, in London, and the child had dual British-Chinese and American citizenship. Dennis Chen traveled on a British pa.s.sport, since he had been born in Hong Kong. Such pa.s.sports were at a premium as the Chinese takeover of Hong Kong grew nearer, moment by moment.

Physically, he was her male counterpart. His body was long and slender; his movements easy and graceful. His muscles were as clearly defined as an anatomical drawing: everything in proportion. His skin was fine and smooth, its color an even, light honey.

His father, Lee Phon Chen, had been a very successful entrepreneur who had escaped China under the rule of the Generalissimo and stayed in Hong Kong when the Reds took over. He dealt in diamonds; gold; then, bored, had ventured into other fields. Eventually, the Chen name was on a multiplicity of things-from fine bone china to bolts of silk; from ivory jewelry to gambling devices. His investments included worldwide holdings in both legitimate and not-quite-legal enterprises. It was not until he met the quiet, fair-haired Englishwoman whose father worked in the British Emba.s.sy that he found something he wanted but did not have. He had his requisite wife, a Chinese beauty of the old style, who had given him four daughters and three sons. His home life was regular, his merest need and desire met instantly. But with the English girl, there was adventure-and treachery. Her father had conspired to have him killed. Instead, after a series of quiet meetings, after considerable money had changed hands, the Englishman had been rea.s.signed to a post in South Africa. The daughter, by then, had made her commitment to Chen. Dennis was their only child; she died giving birth to a second child when he was six years old.

Facially, the boy would be defined as Chinese, yet there was something of the European mother to him as well. Something just slightly off-kilter for a Chinese boy. His hair was not quite so coa.r.s.e, had brown glints in the sunlight. His cheekbones were not quite so high as his father's, his face not quite so broad. His color was light, and his mother kept him out of the sunshine; by the time of her death, his amah knew he was to be always protected so that his skin would never darken.

He was taller than his father, as his English mother had been. Nor did he have the stocky, blocky build of his father's other sons. He had lived with his mother in a beautiful house-a mistress house-and when she died, he was sent to school in England. He knew of his father's other children; they knew of him. His father's will confirmed that he had been the favorite. The Englishwoman's b.a.s.t.a.r.d, legitimized by his vast inheritance. He had trained for business both at university and at his father's side. By the time he was to take over, Dennis Chen was a brilliant businessman. The directors of all the various companies had been carefully chosen. His older brothers were given important positions, but all were subordinate to him. They generally did not mind. Dennis Chen was ultimately fair to all of them; generous with praise, bonuses, even employment for his half sisters' husbands. Actually, his older brothers were relieved that the awful responsibility had not been theirs.

All the businesses, legitimate and otherwise, ran smoothly. Dennis Chen's venture into the drug trade-by far the most lucrative-was the one business he shared with no one.

Now he lay naked on the silk-sheeted bed, his head propped on his hand as he watched her move unselfconsciously about the room. She peeled her clothing off as carelessly and naturally as a child, tossing it to the chaise lounge, the floor, a chair. She wore the exotic, exciting underwear he had had made for her exclusively: lavender and deep purple silk. It pleased him that beneath her usual black, next to her skin, she wore his favorite colors. Whether she wore them when they were apart, he did not know or care. They existed for each other only when they were together.

Finally, naked, she stood very still, at ease, and looked at him. When their eyes met in a secret coded communication, the world became absolutely still. He pulled himself into a sitting position, then stood up from the bed and approached her. She remained motionless.

He ran his slender fingers along the sides of her face, traced her shoulders, circled her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, then leaned forward and tasted her flesh. He pulled back and slowly, carefully examined her without touching. He moved his chin just a fraction, and in response Laura turned and he studied her from behind. He ran his hands over her, cupped her b.u.t.tocks. His mouth tasted her neck, her earlobes. He pressed into her, wrapped his arms around her. He felt the thick growth of black pubic hair, his fingers lightly touching, then moving to the very edge of her inner body. He felt the moisture he had caused and slid a finger into her. He could feel the slight contraction, her acknowledgment of him. He pressed her shoulder and she turned toward him, her head back so that they communicated again with just their eyes. Hers were a slatey gray; they darkened when he made love to her and he wondered if his changed in any way. He had to slow himself down; play with her; encourage her, all without a word.

For years, periodically, they had made love in many places and in many ways. Each knew the other's body, and each tried to find some way of surprising the other: some new movement, expression, hesitation, interruption. Sometimes they were subtle, other times very primitive. She had surprised him at the beginning, even though he knew of her marriage into the depraved circle of her prince husband. There was never anything vulgar or blatant about their lovemaking. Laura seemed to refine whatever vulgarity, whatever crudeness she had learned, into something special. Even when they indulged wildly, noisily, Laura brought something entirely her own.

As did Dennis Chen. He had absorbed knowledge from the most expensive and best-trained wh.o.r.es his father could provide, and then made use of his knowledge with an a.s.sortment of women whose experiences only farther enriched his understanding.

But every encounter with Laura was special for one reason. No matter what technique, game, scenario, no matter how routine or familiar, there was always a difference.

Because she was Laura.

Her skin had a darker cast than his: both her parents had been Sicilian, but her coloring was neither sallow nor Mediterranean. Her coppery tone shimmered in the soft lighting of the room. Her face glowed as though reflecting candlelight, though there were no candles. She shone from inside herself; her face, in pa.s.sion, still seemed to him somehow controlled. As though no matter how much of herself she gave to him, there was still some essence of herself she withheld.

They moved to each other's rhythm as though engaged in a dance. He would try to keep slightly ahead of her, but she would catch up immediately and smile up at him. As she rolled from under him, mounted him, rubbed her mouth over his, forced her tongue between his lips, nipping him playfully and then more pa.s.sionately, he kept his eyes on her; in response she opened her gray eyes, which darkened as they continued to stare into his. There was something both knowing and impenetrable to those eyes of hers; he suddenly became uncomfortable because he could not see into her, and when he slipped from under her he turned her on her back more roughly than he had intended. She registered some slight surprise, but he kissed her gently and began the deeper movement of his body-no longer watching her face, his own eyes locked now. He felt her slight but growing resistance, felt her hands on his head, the known touch, the special signal, and he traveled down her body and tasted the contractions, felt them on his tongue, quick, decisive, then he raised himself and plunged into her. They moved and exploded as one. Whose body was this responding-was her body his, was his body hers?

She tasted herself in his mouth, the taste completing the joining and sharing. She had tasted his flesh many times, and the commingling with her own juices was a rare gift. She had taken his s.e.m.e.n in her mouth, and then carefully moistened his face, his lips, his mouth with his own essence. He had told her no woman had ever done that to him, and when he asked if she had done this to any other man, she had put her finger over her own lips. No questions, no answers.

She had known, of course, of his visit to Papa Ventura, and of his plans to rent a house in Queens for a short period of time. They had never been together in New York. It was a mutual decision made without explanation, but in accord.

He propped his head on his hand, elbow resting alongside her. His tongue flicked to the corners of his mouth and he spoke to her softly.

"How did the boy look? How did he seem to you?"

"Ugly as ever."

"And stupid, right? So stupid a boy, who ever would want to know him?"

It was a game they played. He had told her of his amah's superst.i.tion: If you praise a child too much, an evil spirit might overhear you and become jealous and steal the child for himself.

In a conspiratorial whisper, breathy into his ear, she said, "My G.o.d, he is magnificent. So much like you."

"I see you in him. It's interesting that you cannot."

She thought of the boy's face: the cheekbones, the shape of his mouth; the way he held his head at certain moments. Yes. She nodded; there was something of herself.

"When he's in school in London," Dennis said, "you can stay in the apartment whenever you visit. He can stay with you for holidays."

"When will he go to London?"

"When the fall term begins. This summer I want to take him sailing." He gestured broadly. It was a world large with possibility. He studied Laura carefully, caught a quick expression. She was withdrawing from him into some secret sad place of her own. He reached for her face, turned her chin up. "What?" When she pulled her face away, he insisted. "Tell me."

"Does he know who I am?"

Dennis Chen moved away abruptly. They had had this discussion before. He stood up, wrapped himself in a long, dark, red silk robe, knotted the belt around his narrow waist.

She did not repeat the question, but she didn't take her eyes from him.

Finally, in a cold voice, he said, "You are his auntie. He loves you very much. That is it."

She had agreed to all of his terms at the very beginning. She had at first wanted to have an abortion but he had wanted her to have a child for him. And if it was a boy, the child would be part of his life. In return, she could visit with him, love him, be "related" to him in some unclear way.

Laura hadn't meant to bring this up again. She had made the deal; she would abide by it. But she hadn't known how much she would love the child. Realistically, she knew there was nothing she could do about the way things were. She also knew he could close her out completely.

She did nothing to hide her bitterness. She shrugged slightly, more angry at herself than at him.

When she finished showering, he wrapped her in a large, thick towel. "Laura-"

"What?"

Not wanting to say it, but saying it anyway, Dennis Chen asked her, "Is this ... all of this ... just for the boy? Or-"

Laura stiffened. She smacked his hand away and glared at him. Her voice was deadly. "Do you think for one single moment of thought that I would come here as some kind of wh.o.r.e, as part of some agreement, that I would barter my body for ..."

He put his hands on either side of her face, smoothed the short clean strands back so her face was naked in its anger.

"Forgive me."

He should have known better. Laura did only what she wanted to do. Nothing could force her into the kind of giving, the kind of sharing, they had between them.

Not even the boy. He was sure of that.

He was practically sure of that.

CHAPTER 31.

NICK WAS IMPRESSED BY the extent of his grandfather's industrial holdings. Other families went into the controlling of nearly every vital activity the city needs to run efficiently, services the average citizen took for granted-private garbage pickup, laundry services-hotels and restaurants and hospitals could not function without the services of the union members. The families controlled the fish industry, the meat industry. Won million-dollar contracts for building city-owned projects-even if their bid wasn't necessarily the lowest. There are always unantic.i.p.ated cost overruns, after all.

Nicholas Ventura, of course, extracted a certain percentage of all such enterprises as his family's rightful share. But personally, with his own a.s.sets-and through the a.s.sets of his organization-he also owned a network of large storage buildings; small factories; car repair shops; hard use places; yards where sc.r.a.p iron was stored, automobiles were crushed. Ventura Enterprises held leases on a tremendous number of neighborhood mom-and-pop stores; family restaurants, Italian and Chinese, j.a.panese and Thai. In some areas of Queens and Brooklyn, every Korean fruit and vegetable store was rented through Ventura, the owner. Every butcher shop, fish market, soft ice cream and yogurt stand; every bowling alley. No s.p.a.ce, of any kind, was rented without certain upfront understandings: where the produce would be purchased, how delivered, where and how sold. There was a checklist of more than a hundred rented stores, some large ones situated in malls, some small stores in residential neighborhoods that used various Ventura storehouses for their merchandise, whether imported or not. Strewn about the five boroughs of New York City, as well as towns and villages in Na.s.sau and Suffolk County, Long Island, were a large number of Ventura Enterprises, not necessarily identifiable by the specific name. Wherever there was money to be made, Papa Ventura held a lease. And a cut.

Locations for the dispersal of the China White, the purest heroin ever imported into the country, were ready. The Far Eastern network of suppliers and dealers was firmly in place in the West Coast: San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego; into Las Vegas, Denver, Chicago. South to Atlanta, Miami, New Orleans. Atlantic City and now the New York area. The Chinese Triads that controlled the stuff could now view the Red China takeover of Hong Kong as little more than a nuisance. Taiwan served as a major player in the drug trade: as had the Generalissimo in the good old days of cooperation between the Triads and all their criminal activities and the ousted leader and his defeated army. The Triads were powerful enough to have worked successfully with the j.a.panese invaders during the war. To everyone's advantage. They would eventually make their deals with the Reds.

The changing ethnic population in areas of Queens gave rise to many shops selling imported Asian furnishings, carpets, pillows, artifacts, herbs, vegetables, concoctions for every need. These stores had come into being within the last three or four years, as Italians, Greeks, and Irish moved out and Pakistanis, Chinese, Koreans, and others too exotic to be easily identified moved in. Whatever their background, from wherever they came, these merchandisers understood the protocol and accepted it as the price of doing business.

Nick and his grandfather dined together in a popular Italian restaurant in Na.s.sau County, known for its fresh fish and northern-style cooking. The matre d' was a smooth-smiling guy about Nick's age, introduced to him as Charlie Napolitano's son, Little Charlie. He brought Nick to meet the cook, a cousin, who had worked his way from his own small Canarsie restaurant to run the large, spotless, modern kitchen that he delighted in showing to Nick.

"Cookie" Nostriana told Nick, "You be sure you come back here before you leave, I give you a little something to take home with you."

The little something was enough food for a four-course dinner for six. Nick regretted he had no one to share the meal with. For the first time in a long while, the bright, snub-nosed face of redheaded Eddie Manganaro flashed in his brain. That was one guy with a hollow leg for good Italian food. But he couldn't reach back. Not to Eddie; not to anyone. He hadn't spoken to his uncle Frank in weeks. He was sticking to the rules laid out for him.

Papa Ventura told him only what he wanted Nick to know, and what seemed important to Papa was that Nick understand that the Ventura family would not deal directly with drugs. Others would handle the delivery, dispersal, and monies involved in the multi-billion-dollar business. Within the boundaries of his influence, the Venturas would collect vast sums of money, though not from the actual handling of the Chinese heroin. They would merely make available, for a price, locations: storehouses, retail stores, business locations, apartments, houses, junkyards-whatever they were asked. What the customer did or did not do was their own concern-as long as they paid Papa Ventura's people a sum of money for the privately run businesses in which they dealt. The fact that many Chinese businesses rented large executive office s.p.a.ce in the forty-story buildings along Queens Boulevard, for what to all intents and purposes was legitimate activity, was all to the good. Many apparently stand-up businesses were financed by drug money, laundered and scrubbed, so sanitized and profitable that no one could possibly compete.

Factories that paid desperately small amounts of money to desperately poor illegal immigrants, whose Chinese families were in debt for years, turned over tremendous profits on cleansed drug money. Items could be made for pennies and sold for dollars. Profit was everywhere; only a small number of people involved in all of these organizations really knew the financial facts. And of this small number, only a very carefully selected few knew the whole story. If any of them was found to be untrustworthy, he disappeared without a chance to say good-bye.

How the other families handled the Chinese heroin business was their own concern. Nicholas Ventura never even saw a bag of white powder; nor did any of his employees. At least, not to his knowledge.

Just when his grandfather had begun expressing impatience at the lack of any useful information Nick was pa.s.sing along to him, Caruso offered Nick a big one.

"This is really out of the lines, Nick," the professor had told him. "Someone's gonna be very unhappy about this. But, hey, what the h.e.l.l. You have to give Papa some really hard stuff every now and then."