LITMIR.BIZ

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stage in my life and not realized what business you were in?’

      Mori nodded slowly and picked up the bottle. ‘More wine? Now tell me where this is leading.’

      ‘You and Mr Morgan were talking about Hong Kong. He mentioned huge investments in skyscrapers, hotels and so on and the worry about what would happen when the Chinese Communists take over.’

      ‘That’s simple. Billions of dollars down the toilet,’ Mori said.

      ‘There was an article in The Times yesterday about Peking being angry because the British are introducing a democratic political system before they go in ninety-seven.’

      ‘So where is this leading?’ Mori asked.

      ‘I am right in assuming that you and your associates have business interests in Hong Kong?’

      His grandfather stared at him thoughtfully. ‘You could say that, but where is this leading?’

      Jackson said, ‘What if I told you that in nineteen forty-four Mao Tse-tung signed a thing called the Chungking Covenant with Lord Louis Mountbatten under the terms of which he agreed that, if he ever came to power in China, he would extend the Hong Kong Treaty by one hundred years in return for aid from the British to fight the Japanese?’

      His grandfather sat there staring at him, then got up, closed the door and returned to his seat.

      ‘Explain,’ he said.

      Jackson did so and, when he was finished, his grandfather sat thinking about it. He got up and went to his desk and came back with a small tape recorder. ‘Go through it again,’ he said. ‘Everything he told you. Omit nothing.’

      At that moment Rosa opened the door. ‘Lunch is almost ready.’

      ‘Fifteen minutes, cara,’ her father said. ‘This is important, believe me.’

      She frowned, but went out, closing the door. He turned to his grandson. ‘As I said, everything,’ and he switched on the recorder.

      When Mori reached the Glendale polo ground later that afternoon it was raining. There was still a reasonable crowd huddled beneath umbrellas or the trees because Carl Morgan was playing and Morgan was good, a handicap of ten goals indicating that he was a player of the first rank. He was fifty years of age, a magnificent-looking man, six feet in height with broad shoulders and hair swept back over his ears.

      His hair was jet black, a legacy of his mother, niece of Don Giovanni, who had married his father, a young army officer, during the Second World War. His father had served gallantly and well in both the Korean and Vietnam wars, retiring as a brigadier general to Florida where they enjoyed a comfortable retirement thanks to their son.

      All very respectable, all a very proper front for the son who had walked out of Yale in 1965 and volunteered as a paratrooper during the Vietnam War, emerging with two Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and a Vietnamese Cross of Valour. A war hero whose credentials had taken him into Wall Street and then the hotel industry and the construction business, a billionaire at the end of things, accepted at every social level from London to New York.

      There are six chukkas in a polo game lasting seven minutes each, four players on each side. Morgan played forward because it gave the greatest opportunity for total aggression, and that was what he liked.

      The game was into the final chukka as Mori got out of the car and his chauffeur came round to hold an umbrella over him. Some yards away, a vividly pretty young woman stood beside an estate car, a Burberry trenchcoat hanging from her shoulders. She was about five foot seven with long blonde hair to her shoulders, high cheekbones, green eyes.

      ‘She sure is a beautiful young lady, Mr Morgan’s daughter,’ the chauffeur said.

      ‘Stepdaughter, Johnny,’ Mori reminded him.

      ‘Sure, I was forgetting, but with her taking his name and all. That was a real bad thing her mother dying like that. Asta, that’s kind of a funny name.’

      ‘It’s Swedish,’ Mori told him.

      Asta Morgan jumped up and down excitedly. ‘Come on, Carl, murder them!’

      Carl Morgan glanced sideways as he went by, his teeth flashed and he went barrelling into the young forward for the opposing team, slamming his left foot under the boy’s stirrup and lifting him, quite illegally, out of the saddle. A second later he had thundered through and scored.

      The game won, he cantered across to Asta through the rain and stepped out of the saddle. A groom took his pony, Asta handed him a towel then lit a cigarette and passed it to him. She looked up, smiling, an intimacy between them that excluded everyone around.

      ‘He sure likes that girl,’ Johnny said.

      Mori nodded. ‘So it would appear.’

      Morgan turned and saw him and waved and Mori went forward. ‘Carl, nice to see you. And you, Asta.’ He touched his hat.

      ‘What can I do for you?’ Morgan asked.

      ‘Business, Carl; something came up last night that might interest you.’

      Morgan said, ‘Nothing you can’t talk about in front of Asta, surely?’

      Mori hesitated. ‘No, of course not.’ He took the small tape recorder from his pocket. ‘My grandson, Tony, had a man die on him at Our Lady of Mercy Hospital last night. He told Tony a hell of a story, Carl. I think you could be interested.’

      ‘OK, let’s get in out of the rain.’ Morgan handed Asta into the estate car and followed her.

      Mori joined them. ‘Here we go.’ He switched on the tape recorder.

      Morgan sat there after it had finished, a cigarette drooping from the corner of his mouth, his face set.

      Asta said, ‘What a truly astonishing story.’ Her voice was low and pleasant, more English than American.

      ‘You can say that again.’ Morgan turned to Mori. ‘I’ll keep this. I’ll have my secretary transcribe it and send it to Don Giovanni in Palermo by coded fax.’

      ‘I did the right thing?’

      ‘You did well, Antonio.’ Morgan took his hand.

      ‘No, it was Tony, Carl, not me. What am I going to do with him? Harvard Medical School, the Mayo Clinic, a brilliant student, yet he works with the nuns at Our Lady of Mercy for peanuts.’

      ‘You leave him,’ Morgan said. ‘He’ll find his way. I went to Vietnam, Antonio. No one can take that away from me. You can’t argue with it, the rich boy going into hell when he didn’t need to. It says something. He won’t be there for ever, but the fact that he was will make people see him as someone to look up to for the rest of his life. He’s a fine boy.’ He put a hand on Mori’s shoulder. ‘Heh, I hope I don’t sound too calculating.’

      ‘No,’ Mori protested. ‘Not at all. He’s someone to be proud of. Thank you, Carl, thank you. I’ll leave you now. Asta.’ He nodded to her and walked away.

      ‘That was nice,’ Asta told Morgan. ‘What you said about Tony.’

      ‘It’s true. He’s brilliant, that boy. He’ll end up in Park Avenue, only, unlike the other brilliant doctors there, he’ll always be the one who worked downtown for the nuns of Our Lady of Mercy, and that you can’t pay for.’

      ‘You’re such a cynic,’ she said.

      ‘No, sweetheart, a realist.’ He slid behind the wheel. ‘Now, let’s get going. I’m famished. I’ll take you out to dinner.’

      They had finished their meal at the Four Seasons, were at the coffee stage, when one of the waiters brought a phone over. ‘An overseas call for you, sir. Sicily. The gentleman said it was urgent.’

      The voice over the phone was harsh and unmistakable. ‘Carlo. This is Giovanni.’

      Morgan

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