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CHAPTER 21

      THE BUILDING on Wazee Street was one of many warehouses that had been hurriedly thrown up in Denver. The cheap bricks were already cracked in places, and light showed through the wall where the mortar hadn't filled in.

      Che'en Po was led past boxes and barrels stacked along the aisle. The man ahead of him opened a heavy wooden door and gestured to Che'en to follow him up a steep flight of stairs. Another man followed him so closely that Che'en could smell the garlic on his breath. At the top of the stairs was a corridor guarded by the biggest Chinese he had ever seen. The giant, rolls of fat overlapping his belt, rose from a chair and looked him over carefully and searched him for weapons, but Che'en had followed the advice of the messenger who had come for him and left his gun and knife with his aunt, where he was staying. The big Chinese smiled at him, showing teeth as large as dominoes, and motioned for him to enter the door behind him.

      They stood in a barren room without the rich drapes and elegant furniture Che'en expected. Two windows, one of them cracked, looked out on the cold gray day. The giant, who had come in, closing the door behind them, stood by the door, his arms folded.

      Che'en Po looked about furtively; he had never met Kao Yang, and he was justifiably nervous.

      As a boy in Canton, Che'en Po had joined the Tong and taken the oath, gladly accepting other Tong members as brothers. He believed that he added honor to the memory of his ancestors because of his loyalty to the Tong. In Canton, the Tong had once commanded him to kill a man who had revealed Tong business, and he had done it efficiently and quickly. But soon after, he had left famine-swept China for a new life in the United States, and he had had no contact with the Tong since then.

      Now he was in the presence of mighty Kao Yang himself. The Tong leader was a handsome man of middle-years with piercing eyes that missed nothing. As head of the Tong, Kao wielded legendary power. He could make men rich or have them killed. He was the history and tradition of China in the new world, the arbiter of all problems, both business and personal, the salvation of those too weak to help themselves. During the Blake Street riots, when Chinese were being hunted down by stupid drunken whites, it was Kao Yang and the Tong who had driven them away.

      Now, as Che'en approached him, Kao drew himself up regally, turning away from the young Chinese clerk who was seated at a nearby table, using an abacus to total up long strings of figures and record them neatly in a huge ledger.

      Che'en folded his hands and bowed humbly, but Kao offered him his hand and shook it like an American. Then he sat down in an massive carved chair and nodded solemnly. "Why do you come to seek me out?" he asked.

      Che'en Po had his speech prepared. He identified himself, and told of his relationship with the Tong in China. He told Kao about Tres Marias, and its Law and Order Society, and the troubles that had started between its members. He identified Nugent, Amhearst, Watson, Hopper and Gaines, and even Weitnaur, whom Nugent had no idea he knew about. He told Kao about each man's position in the community, what they owned with Nugent, how they operated. Che'en Po was more than a good cook, he was a good listener, and he remembered everything.

      Kao listened carefully, sometimes interrupting to ask him to clear up a point. Che'en Po's face flushed and his voice trembled as he told how Nugent had sent him to the Tong with money to enlist its aid — as though the white man's puny dollars could buy loyalty from the Tong.

      He finished, and for a long time there was silence except for the clicking of the abacus beads, then they stopped, and the clerk rose and came to put his hand on Che'en shoulder. "I am Kao Yang," the clerk said.

      The man Che'en had been talking to got up from the chair and moved away, going to stand in a corner of the room where he stood opposite the guard, arms folded.

      The real Kao Yang seemed to be no more than thirty, bland-faced and thin, with dark eyes that gave no indication of his thoughts. He led Che'en to the table where they sat down together. "What real reason brought you here," the Tong leader asked. "You have already admitted that you don't think the white man's dollars will buy him help from us. Surely you knew before coming here we will not help this man Nugent keep control of Tres Marias."

      Che'en Po nodded. "I thought perhaps. . . " he stopped, wondering how to continue.

      "Do you owe him some debt that you must repay this way?" Kao asked.

      "No."

      "Then why did you come?" Kao asked patiently. "Why do you take my time?"

      Che'en Po took a deep breath and blurted out the truth. "I have come to you to beg your help in killing Nugent and the others so I can take over their holdings."

      Kao Yang's grave expression changed, and he smiled at Che'en as a father smiles at his pleasing son, although Che'en Po was at least fifteen years older than this powerful young man.

      "This truth is like fresh air." His eyes, which had appeared at first to be so bland, met Che'en's with a sudden cheering impact. "Tell me that you will share your riches with the Tong."

      "Of course," Che'en Po said. "The Tong are my brothers."

      Kao Yang clapped his hands. "Bring us tea," he told the giant. "We must conceive of a plan."

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