World of Suzie Wong : A Novel (9781101572399) by Richard Mason

killed me!”
    â€œReally, Molly? I noticed you didn’t complain last night.”
    â€œYou kept me too busy!” She giggled, then abruptly abandoned Molly and became Suzie again. “I just been to the Roxy with my boy friend. He’s waiting outside the shop. All right. I go now.”
    In the bar she claimed me as her “No. 1 boy friend” and was inclined to monopolize me; and (shades of Stella!) she would regard with deep suspicion any girl whom I appeared to favor in my sketching. The other girls naturally supposed, from her visits to my room, that our relationship was more than platonic, and this was the source of much gratification to her pride. She begged me not to disillusion them, and was very hurt when I would not promise. But I did not care to live under false pretenses; and moreover I wanted to remain on friendly terms with them all. I began to find her possessiveness a little irksome.
    Then a new girl called Betty Lau came to work in the bar. Betty was Cantonese, though very westernized, and had modeled herself very obviously on an American film star who was famous for her waggling behind. She had achieved her object with considerable success: as she teetered along on her too high heels, her posterior undulated in so striking a manner that it drew whistles, catcalls, and hilarious remarks from the sailors, and provoked the comedienne Fifi into comical imitations. It was hypnotic. One stared in fascination, wondering how it was done: how she always managed to maintain that rhythmical slow-motion.
    One day, after Betty’s behind had just waggled past our table, Suzie asked me what I thought of this most unorthodox manner of progression. And failing to take warning from her watchful look, I told her that although it was so exaggerated as to be almost grotesque, my baser nature found it distinctly provocative.
    Suzie was silent. And for a chatterbox like Suzie this foreboded ill. Betty had clearly fallen under suspicion.
    Two days later I was drinking a San Mig before lunch when Betty, to whom I had never spoken before, sat down at my table. She fluttered her big curled eyelashes, laid a hand caressingly on my arm, and purred that she had heard of my reputation for aiding girls in trouble. I wondered in alarm what was coming next. Was she going to ask for money? Or for my help in procuring an abortion? And I muttered that my reputation had been acquired by nothing more than handing out codeine tablets for headaches.
    However, my fears were at once dispelled; the big vamp act had been a steam hammer for driving in a nail. Her trouble was nothing more serious than a Northern Irish five-pound note, which she had accepted from a sailor only to find that the moneychangers would not change it. Could I help?
    I offered to try my own bank, which duly obliged me the next day by exchanging the note for seventy-six dollars. I handed these over to Betty in the bar, taking care to do so while Suzie was absent, since I had already foreseen how easily this transaction might be misconstrued. However, the precaution was not enough, for a few hours later my telephone rang.
    â€œHello. This is Suzie.”
    Not Molly—that was bad.
    â€œHello, Suzie.”
    â€œWhat are you doing now?”
    â€œNothing.”
    â€œAll right. I come and see you.”
    And for five minutes after entering the room she made trivial conversation, watching me from the corner of her eye. Then the direct, level look.
    â€œYou go with that Canton girl. I know everything.”
    â€œWhat Canton girl?” I asked innocently.
    â€œThat girl with the show-off walk. You give her seventy-six dollars.”
    It was typical of Suzie’s careful mind that she should know the exact amount. News of the payment, I gathered, had spread round the bar, and Betty, who was a mischief-maker, had no doubt been only too delighted to let it give a wrong impression. I told Suzie the truth but she refused to believe