Chapter 68 The Search
Ming-tsu was still on her knees, her eyes glazed, feverishly mopping at
the spotless floor, when Chiang Chan pounded on her door for the fourth time,
this time hard enough to rattle the wooden panel on its hinges.
Startled back to reality by the force of the knock, Ming-tsu looked around
blankly, wondering what had become of Luk Yee. What had happened? Where had
he gone? A few minutes earlier he had seemed on the verge of surrendering to
her seduction, but now there was nothing left of him except for the faint
masculine smell left by one who had spent the night sleeping in the street. Her
breathing still uneven from her exertions, Ming-tsu called out tremulously, "Who
is it?"
An unfamiliar but authoritative voice responded, "Ming-tsu! You have been
summoned to the Black Pagoda. Let us in. At once!"
Ming-tsu climbed unsteadily to her feet, still shaken by the vision of
Liu's sorrowful face floating on the surface of her tea. Could it be time
already? George Chan had promised her twelve hours. And she had been close, so
close to seducing Luk Yee, when she had seen the eerie vision in the teacup.
"Very well," she replied nervously. "One moment." She stepped into her
bed-chamber and sat for a moment before the mirror examining her features. It
was important that she look her best when she was called before Richard Chan.
She would need all of her feminine wiles to stave off calamity inasmuch as the
jewels were still no closer to being found.
"Open up, woman! Before I kick the door in!" It was a second voice,
deeper, louder, angrier."
"Yes, yes, I'm coming," Ming-tsu called as she brushed the wildness from
her glossy black hair. She reached for a dress that was hanging in a small
closet, but ...
"Now!" roared the deep voice again, causing her to jump. Throwing her
dress hastily over her arm, she hastened toward the door.
Ming-tsu opened the door to find two of the four Scorpions that she had
dispatched with the bodies a few nights earlier. The leader of the duo, though
she did not know it, was Chiang Chan. The younger, thinner man brushed past
her, followed quickly by his tall, ill-featured gaptoothed comrade.
There was something peculiar about the first man to enter her lodgings she
thought. It was odd for someone so young to be so inscrutable, so proficient at
masking his emotions behind a cool facade. She had seen him briefly at the Black
Pagoda on the memorable night on which Li Chang and the others had died, but he
seemed quite different from most of the Scorpions she had met. His demeanor was
free from the vulgarity, and his speech from the coarseness that seemed as
natural to the rest of the Scorpions as bodily functions. As she had been on
the Night of the Tiger, she was struck by his faint resemblance to someone.
But to whom?
Gaptooth, the second man through the door, was a more typical Scorpion,
powerfully built and possessed of an almost obscene uncouthness. Like his
leader, he was clothed in the ebony tunic and trousers emblematic of the Black
Scorpions. Ming-tsu well recalled how Gap-tooth had assisted her and the
barbaric Feng during the interrogation of Liu. A chill passed over her body as
she remembered how the crooked-toothed thug had ogled the slender but
well-formed body of Wen-chi's grand-daughter while he guarded the old man .
Later on it had been he who had prepared the hot irons and it was his lips that
had curled into a cruel smile, and his eyes that had lit up with blood-lust when
the brands had been applied to the unblemished skin of their comely prisoner.
But now it was her own lovely body that the brute's dark eyes were ravishing.
She shuddered again and though modesty had never ranked highly among her
virtues, pulled her dark green robe closer about her.
"Forgive me, I was just dressing," Ming-tsu stammered nervously, as she
indicated the dress. "I will rejoin you in a moment."
Dao's reached out with a long arm and tore the dress from her hands. "You
won't be needing that any time soon!"
Ming-tsu, furious at this affront, turned to the younger man who, for all
his youth, comported himself with a certain air of dignity and authority.
"Remind your ugly friend, sir, that I am under the protection of George Chan
himself!" She glared at Dao. "He will regret speaking to me in this way!"
Dao, his features contorted with rage at her insult, reached out angrily
as if to strike her and then thought better of it. "You fool! Don't you know
who you're ta ...."
"Enough, Dao!" Chiang Chan silenced his gap-toothed minion with a
peremptory glance. There was nothing to be gained by revealing his identity to
the stunningly beautiful concubine at this point. It would only serve to put
Ming-tsu on her guard. It was fortunate, he thought, that he had inherited his
facial traits and his physique from his late mother, who had been a striking
woman. He was taller than his father, and much thinner of frame. And his face,
like his mother's, was oval-shaped rather than cut in the roundish visage of his
father. But in mind, in spirit, and in soul, he was a worthy heir to his father
and his father's father before him. He was as cruel, as clever and as
calculating as the wily old Jiang Shao Chan himself.
He turned to his father's beautiful mistress. Her anger had given fresh
color to her cheeks, and her sudden retreat from Dao's upraised arm had caused
her to be careless with her robe. When she had stepped back he got a fresh
glimpse of the amber-gold thighs that had pointed so shamelessly toward the
ceiling when she had 'unfolded the lotus' for his father in his den.
"Miss," Chiang began with a feigned courtesy that was not matched by any
friendliness in his forbidding stare, "perhaps you can save my friend and I some
time -- and your pleasant home from being searched." Chiang Chan looked around
the room with an appreciative eye. A pleasant home it was, indeed, thanks both
to Ming-tsu's stylish taste in decor and his father's wealth. The furniture,
the carpets, the draperies were nearly as inviting to a guest as Ming-tsu's
lovely face and figure. The room itself was redolent with an exotic, tropical
scent. Ming-tsu had overlooked no detail in offering Li Chang a home worthy of
a courtier in the Forbidden City. It would be a shame to root through her
belongings like vandals, but .... Chiang Chan met Ming-tsu's angry gaze, with a
question. "Where are Mai-Lee's necklace and earrings?"
'It is I who should be asking you,' Ming-tsu thought contemptuously, as she
turned away from him for a moment and stooped to pick up the pieces of the
porcelain cup that Luk Yee had gathered into a small pile on the floor. During
her long, steamy bath {Chapter 63} she had come to the conclusion that this
young man whose dark eyes appraised her so candidly had probably been the
ringleader of a conspiracy hatched by the four Scorpions who had taken the
bodies to the harbor. For a long moment she considered whether she should
challenge him now, and then decided against it. Far better to spring her
suspicions about him suddenly, in the presence of Richard Chan, so that he
would have no time to prepare a defense.
Having regained her confidence and her color, Ming-tsu spun around on her
knees and addressed Chiang Chan as boldly as she would have a servant.
"I did not take them," she insisted with asperity. "Even if I had, would I
have kept them here? Do you think me a fool? Search for them yourself if you
wish!" she snapped haughtily.
Chiang Chan's eyes narrowed at her offensive tone. 'Enjoy your air of
superiority, Ming-tsu,' he thought to himself. 'But the time may well come when
you wish you had not spoken to me in such a fashion.'
When Ming-tsu had turned quickly toward him her robe had fallen open in
front and Chiang was treated to the pleasant vista of the eye-catchingly low-cut
black chemise that clung to her beautifully-shaped breasts like water-colors on
a canvas. Chiang Chan stared at her appraisingly for a long moment, envying his
father's familiarity with her luscious body. How many times, he wondered idly,
had his father touched those marvelous breasts? How many times had he kissed
them, nipped them, bitten them? How many times had he slapped those firm young
globes until they were rosy from his attentions? Judging from the crisp blows
he had seen his father deliver to Ming-tsu's breasts with his desk ruler -- not
to mention the intense flogging he had seen him administer to Erika Weiss -- he
knew that his father was capable of even sterner measures. On how many
occasions, Chiang wondered, had his father strapped or birched those luscious
hemispheres of dark-nippled flesh until his honey-skinned concubine had begged
for mercy? How many times had he eased his virile manhood back and forth in the
exquisite valley between her tempting lust globes before anointing them with
ropes and ropes of Chan-juice?
Ming-tsu looked quizzically at the enigmatic smile which crossed Chiang
Chan's face, as he entertained these pleasant notions. Despite the exciting and
exhausting debauchery with Ci-ci and Peony on the prior night, Chiang Chan felt
his manhood stiffen with renewed vigor.
But first things first. "Search the house!" he ordered Dao.
Chiang Chan watched as Dao, beginning in the far corner of the room,
commenced a thorough inspection of Ming-tsu's salon by tearing the cushions off
of the divan, and searching under them. Finding nothing in the divan, he
reached for the golden letter-opener, which was still lying where Ming-tsu had
left it, and stabbed into one of the cushions, spewing its feathery contents
around the room.
"W-what are you doing?" Ming-tsu implored, as Dao cut open a second
cushion.
"Jewelry is easy to hide miss; but we intend to search thoroughly."
"But you're ruining my things! George Chan himself bought those for me,"
Ming-tsu wailed as Dao cut into one of the plush harem pillows whose presence in
her parlor had caused Luk Yee to lapse into the erotic daydream in which he had
plunged his manhood repeatedly into the inviting crevice between Ming-tsu's
tantalizingly uptilted buttocks.
But her words went unheard and Dao set about dismantling her elegant living
room, while Chiang Chan busied himself tapping on walls and floorboards in
search of hollow places.
It took Dao about an hour to complete his methodical pillaging of the front
room. He was just preparing to continue his quest in Ming-tsu's bed-chamber
when the threesome heard loud footsteps advancing up the walk.
Chiang Chan opened the door to see the hulking body of Zheng the Ox
blocking out the sun. Behind him stood the slight figure of Lin the Drooler.
"Lu ..." Lin began, but was interrupted by a finger placed vertically
across Chiang Chan's lips.
"I mean, he," Lin continued, understanding Chiang's gesture, "managed to
lose himself in the textile district, boss. There must be a hundred narrow,
winding streets. We came across three other Scorpions while we pursued him, and
left them to help Tai Hwang continue the search. We thought it best to report
back to you."
The Ox concurred with a bovine nod of his head.
Chiang Chan slammed his fist against the wall in anger. Luk Yee seemed to
have escaped them by a matter of mere moments yet again! Chiang glanced at Lin
and the Ox; they were eyeing Ming-tsu the way a falcon eyes a plump fieldmouse.
He wondered how diligent their search had been; he suspected that they had
returned more to be sure not to miss out on whatever fate was to befall
Ming-tsu, than to convey the results of their search.
"Boss! Look at this!" Dao emerged from the bedchamber waving the thick
stack of currency that Ming-tsu had hidden away in her inlaid dresser -- the
money that had accompanied Sung Lo's offer to buy her club.
Lin whistled at the sight of so many bills -- more than he had ever seen at
one time in his life. Even Chiang Chan lifted an eyebrow.
"That is my money!" Ming-tsu stepped in Dao's path angrily.
Chiang Chan studied her closely. Perhaps the thieving whore has already
begun to convert the jewels into cash, thought Chiang Chan. He took the money
from Dao, and riffled through it, counting it rapidly. "How do you come to have
such a sum in the house, Miss?"
"It's - it's a good faith deposit; a gentleman has offered to buy my
business."
"He is showing remarkably good faith, indeed, with such a sum."
Ming-tsu ran toward the dresser, and extracted Sung Lo's letter. "Here,
here is the proof!" Chiang Chan ran his eyes quickly down the letter, pursing
his lips as he did so. When we was done he gave his father's mistress a stony
glance. "We shall see, miss, we shall see. In the meantime, Dao, keep looking!
Lin, Zheng, give him a hand. Overlook nothing!"
With three men rummaging through her bedchamber, the pace of the search
picked up speed. At one point, Dao bellowed, "Aha!" when he stumbled across
Ming-tsu's jewelry box. But it was quickly ascertained that, although some of
its contents were exquisite, Mai Lee's matchless diamond earrings and pearl
necklace were not among them.
A few minutes later Lin made another discovery, exclaiming jubilantly,
"Hey, look at what I've found."
His three comrades stepped closer, grinning and elbowing each other as Lin
held up the felt lined box that contained "Jumbo", Ming-tsu's ivory
pleasure-phallus. The silken-haired concubine flushed with embarrassment.
"Hmm, I wonder where that's been hiding," Dao chortled, as his comrades
erupted in coarse laughter.
Lin held the large ivory dildo up and imagined its mushroom-shaped tip
sliding in and out of Ming-tsu's wet, quivering pussy. "In a nice box, I'll
bet!" Lin rejoined.
"Hey, Ox, you're in luck! It looks like she likes them big," Dao grinned
as he slapped his huge comrade on the back.
The three lower-ranking Scorpions had been staring at her rudely ever since
they had entered her lodgings, mentally stripping the dark green robe from her
shoulders, but this latest discovery seemed to give them additional license.
Ming-tsu was appalled and horrified by the way the threesome no longer even
pretended to mask their lust-filled stares.
Dao continued exploring the drawer which held some of Ming-tsu's erotic
accoutrements. He rummaged through ben wa balls of various sizes, and a variety
of oddly-shaped articles, one pair of which was studded with brilliant blue
sapphires.
Lin whistled softly at the sight of the precious stones, and picked up the
tiny hinge-like devices to which they were attached and stared at them blankly
for a moment. "Nipple clamps, stupid," Dao explained scornfully to the naive
young Scorpion...
