39

“Might as well be Naples. They’re off me in the States.”

“All right. Cook’s or the American Express?”

“Address me the Milan direct.”

Cunningham nodded.

“Well, good-bye.”

“Good-bye, Dick. I’m sorry I gummed it up.”

“I thought you’d be. Good-bye.”

But as Cunningham passed from sight, the man on the cot smiled ironically at the sun-splashed ceiling. A narrow squeak, but he had come through.

Cunningham, grateful for the sunshine, limped off toward Woosung Road, grotesquely but incredibly fast for a man with only one sound leg. He never used a cane, having the odd fancy that a stick would only emphasize his affliction. He might have taken a ’ricksha this morning, but he never thought of it until he had crossed Soochow Creek.

But Ling Foo was not in his shop and the door was locked. Cunningham explored the muddy gutters all the way from Ling Foo’s to Moy’s tea house, where the meeting had taken place. He found nothing, and went into Moy’s to wait. Ling 40 Foo would have to pass the restaurant. A boy who knew the merchant stood outside to watch.

40

Jane woke at nine. The brightness of the window shade told her that the sun was clear. She sprang out of bed, a trill of happiness in her throat. The shops! Oh, the beautiful, beautiful shops!

“China, China, China!” she sang.

She threw up the shade and squinted for a moment. The sun in the heavens and the reflection on the Whangpoo were blinding. The sampans made her think of ants, darting, scuttling, wheeling.

“Oh, the beautiful shops!”

Of all the things in the world—this side of the world—worth having, nothing else seemed comparable to jade—a jade necklace. Not the stone that looked like dull marble with a greenish pallor—no. She wanted the deep 

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