The Windup Girl(13)

The foreigner makes a face but doesn't threaten her anymore, and at last the doctor completes her sewing. Hock Seng takes her aside and hands her an envelope with her payment. She wais her thanks but Hock Seng shakes his head. "There is a bonus in it. I wish you to deliver a letter as well." He hands her another envelope. "I would like to speak with the boss of your tower."

"Dog Fucker?" She makes a face of distaste.

"If he heard you call him that, he'd destroy whatever is left of your family."

"He's a hard one."

"Just deliver the note. That will be enough."

Doubtfully, she takes the envelope. "You've been good to our family. All the neighbors also speak of your kindness. Make offerings to your… loss."

"What I do is too little." Hock Seng forces a smile. "Anyway, we Chinese must stick together. Perhaps in Malaya we were still Hokkien, or Hakka or Fifth Wave, but here we are all yellow cards. I am embarrassed I cannot do more."

"It is more than anyone else." She wais to him, emulating the manners of their new culture, and departs.

Mr. Lake watches her go. "She's a yellow card, isn't she?"

Hock Seng nods. "Yes. A doctor in Malacca. Before the Incident."

The man is quiet, seeming to digest this information. "Was she cheaper than a Thai doctor?"

Hock Seng glances at the yang guizi, trying to decide what he wants to hear. Finally he says, "Yes. Much cheaper. Just as good. Maybe better. But much cheaper. They do not allow us to take Thai niches here. So she has very little work except for yellow cards-who of course have too little to pay. She is happy for the work."

Mr. Lake nods thoughtfully and Hock Seng wonders what he is thinking. The man is an enigma. Sometimes, Hock Seng thinks yang guizi are too stupid to have possibly taken over the world once, let alone twice. That they succeeded in the Expansion and then-even after the energy collapse beat them back to their own shores-that they returned again, with their calorie companies and their plagues and their patented grains… They seem protected by the supernatural. By rights, Mr. Lake should be dead, a bit of human offal mingled with the bodies of Banyat and Noi and the nameless stupid Number Four Spindle megodont handler who caused the beast to panic in the first place. And yet here the foreign devil sits, complaining about the tiny prick of a needle, but completely unconcerned that he has destroyed a ten-ton animal in the blink of an eye. The yang guizi are strange creatures indeed. More alien than he suspected, even when he traded with them regularly.

"The mahout will have to be paid off again. Bribed to come back to work," Hock Seng observes.

"Yes."

"And we will have to hire monks to chant for the factory. To make the workers happy again. Phii must be placated." Hock Seng pauses. "It will be expensive. People will say that your factory has bad spirits in it. That it is sited wrong, or that the spirit house is not large enough. Or that you cut down a phii's tree when it was built. We will have to bring a fortune teller, perhaps a feng shui master to get them to believe the place is good. And then the mahout will demand hazard pay-"

Mr. Lake interrupts. "I want to replace the mahout," he says. "All of them."

Hock Seng sucks air through his teeth. "It is impossible. The Megodont Union controls all of the city's power contracts. It is a government mandate. The white shirts award the power monopoly. There is nothing we can do about the unions."

"They're incompetent. I don't want them here. Not anymore."

Hock Seng tries to tell if the farang is joking. He smiles hesitantly. "It is Royal Mandate. One might as well wish to replace the Environment Ministry."

"There's a thought." Mr. Lake laughs. "I could team up with Carlyle & Sons and start complaining every day about taxes and carbon credit laws. Get Trade Minister Akkarat to take up our cause." His gaze rests on Hock Seng. "But that's not the way you like to operate, is it?" His eyes become abruptly cold. "You like the shadows and the bargaining. The quiet deal."

Hock Seng swallows. The foreign devil's pale skin and blue eyes are truly horrific. As alien as a devil cat, and just as comfortable in a hostile land. "It would be unwise to enrage the white shirts." Hock Seng murmurs. "The nail that stands up will be pounded down."

"That's yellow card talk."

"As you say. But I am alive when others are dead, and the Environment Ministry is very powerful. General Pracha and his white shirts have survived every challenge. Even the December 12 attempt. If you wish to poke at a cobra, be ready for its bite."

Mr. Lake looks as if he will argue, but instead shrugs. "I'm sure you know best."

"It is why you pay me."

The yang guizi stares at the dead megodont. "That animal shouldn't have been able to break out of its harness." He takes another drink from his bottle. "The safety chains were rusted; I checked. We aren't going to pay a cent of reparations. That's final. That's my bottom line. If they had secured their animal, I wouldn't have had to kill it."

Hock Seng inclines his head in tacit agreement, though he will not speak it out loud. "Khun, there is no other option."

Mr. Lake smiles coldly. "Yes, of course. They're a monopoly." He makes a face. "Yates was a fool to locate here."