Chapter 8

Released ... with an ID on a neck strap ... I moved into the yard. Looking back at the gate I saw my cabbie arguing with the gate guard. He ... the driver ... saw me looking and waved a handful of bills at me.

I trotted back.

“Tip,” I said.

“You’re kidding,” said the guard. But he turned to the driver and explained. Big eyes ... sagging chin ... shock. He still tried to give the majority back.

Wasn’t having it. I knew ... that the change from a capitalist society to a Mao perceived communism was going to be rough. What I didn’t know was the price of buying a taxi license would soon exceed five million Hong Kong dollars ... even though there would be 18 thousand cabs in the city soon. A single cab could and did support an extended family.

That was in an unknown future.

My present was finding my yacht in this zoo.

Moving into the yard, I could see that repair and refit were “Small Potatoes” here. Building one-upmanship yachts was the bread and butter of this manufactory.

BIG ... really BIG ... expressions of conspicuous consumption abounded. I, who had stood next to an aircraft carrier, was impressed. Suddenly my pitiful 65 foot catamaran Basilisk, the boat I grew up on was likened to a one horse town as compared to New York City. City hell ... city block more like. And 100 foot Surprise wasn’t much bigger.

<You have that kind of money, Surprise.>

“Don’t tempt me,” I said.

<Why not, it’s what we do.>

“Quit. Where’s my boat?”

“What boat?” said the man. He was in a suit that was NOT made in Hong Kong. Bespoke from Savile Row I’ll wager. He might have been as old as 40 or as young as 25 but he was pretty. Probably 6 and a half feet tall... (two meters for you who subscribe to Napoleons measure.) He was head and shoulders above me. Handsome, in the accepted modern sense of the word. Rugged ... carved ... God save me from that chin. Coal black hair and forget-me-not blue eyes ... I could lose my soul in those eyes.

“Surprise...”

“You are that,” he said.

Oh God.

“Surprise is a hundred foot catamaran in for refit,” I said. Get it together, girl. Before you do something rash. Yes! Lets! Nooo. I could smell hot woman ... oh ... that’s me. I blushed.

“Left at the Broward,” he pointed at the crumpled nose of a 275 foot aluminum yacht, “And straight on to morning.”

There’s no ring on his hand! Oh God. Don’t ... don’t say the magic word.

“You are obviously not Cynthia Flintkote. You must be Surprise,” he said.

I nodded.

“Would you care to have dinner, tonight?”

SHIT! he said it ... the magic word!

I nodded. NO! Surprise! Don’t. “I’d love to.” Someone said.

“8:30?”

“Yes.”

Who is speaking?

Oh ... Me.

“Let me escort you to your boat. She’s hard to find.” He took my hand. There was a spark.

Fucked ... you are fucked.

<About time.>