Chapter 19
It did not seem to Grimes to be a place at which to wait for a cab—or its local equivalent—but, after a wait of no longer than five minutes, an empty trishaw, its operator pedaling lazily, drifted along, halting alongside them when hailed. Yet another New Cantonese, Grimes decided, a little man, scrawny in his sleeveless singlet and baggy shorts yet with muscles evident in his thighs and calves.
Grimes clambered into the basketlike passenger compartment, which was forward of the driver, followed by Sanchez who, before mounting, ordered, “Garden of Delights.”
The trishaw operator grunted acknowledgment and, as soon as his passengers were seated, began pumping his pedals. The journey was mainly through quiet side streets and, Grimes decided, more or less toward the locality of Port Libertad, the glare of lights from which was now and again to the right and now and again to the left but always forward of the beam.
They came to a street that, by local standards, was fantastically bright and bustling. There were street stalls, selling foodstuffs, from which eddied all manner of savory aromas. There were brightly lit facades, establishments whose names were picked out in multi-colored lights. The Pink Pussy Cat . . . The Dallas Whorehouse . . . The Old Shanghai . . . The Ginza . . . The Garden of Delights . . .
The trishaw stopped.
Grimes got out and began to fumble for money. Sanchez forestalled him, tossing coins to the operator, who deftly caught them. The two men walked into the vestibule of the Garden of Delights where, sitting in a booth that was like a miniature pagoda, an elderly Oriental gentleman who could have been Wong Lee’s slightly younger brother was sitting in receipt of custom.
Again Sanchez paid and led Grimes through a doorway, through an entanglement of beaded curtains, into a large, dimly lit room, the air of which was redolent with the fumes of the incense burners standing on tripods along the walls and between the tables. The decor, thought Grimes, was either phonily Terran Oriental or fair dinkum New Cantonese—but he had never been to New Canton and never would go there. (Neither would anybody else; the planet was now no more than a globe of incandescent slag.) There were rich silken hangings. There were bronze animals that could have been either lions or Pekingese dogs. There were overhead lanterns, glowing parchment globes encircled by painted dragons. There was music—the tinkling of harplike instruments, the high squealing of pipes, the muted thud of little drums.
There was a stage at one end of the hall. On it was a girl, gyrating languidly and gracefully to the beat of the music. She was attired in filmy veils and was discarding them one by one. (And what the hell, wondered Grimes, did Salome have to do with China, or New Canton?) Nonetheless he watched appreciatively. The girl was tall, high-breasted, slender-limbed. Her dance was a dance, did not convey the impression that she was disrobing hastily prior to jumping into the shower or into bed.
Grimes’s attention was distracted momentarily by a waitress who came to their table. She was wearing a high-necked tunic that did not quite come down as far as possible, golden sandals and nothing else. She had brought two bowls of some savory mess, one of rice, what looked like a tall, silver teapot, two small silver goblets, two pairs of chopsticks. She poured from the pot into the cups, bowed and retreated.
“Your very good health, Joachim,” said Sanchez, raising his cup.
“And yours, Raoul.”
Grimes sipped. He had been expecting tea, was surprised—not unpleasantly—to discover that the liquid was wine, a hot, rather sweet liquor. He put the cup down, picked up his chopsticks and with them transferred a portion of rice to the sweet-and-sour whatever it was in his bowl. He sampled a mouthful of the mixture. It wasn’t bad.
On the stage the dancer was down to her last veil. She swirled it around her—partially revealing, concealing, affording more glimpses, concealing again, finally dropping the length of filmy fabric. She stood there briefly, flaunting her splendid nudity. She bowed, then turned and glided sinuously from the stage. The orchestra (if one could call it that) fell silent. There was a pattering of applause.
Grimes looked around. There were not, he saw, many customers. There were men, dressed as he and Sanchez were. At two of the tables there were obvious spacers. At one of these the waitress’ was being mauled. Obviously the girl was not enjoying having those prying hands all over her body but she was not resisting.
“You’ll not get shows like this out in the country, Joachim,” said Sanchez.
(And that, thought Grimes, was the pilot’s way of telling him that there could be bugs here, it was very hard, these days, to find a place that was not bug-infested.)
He said, “That was a lovely dollop of trollop. On the stage, I mean.”
“She’ll not be that way long, Joachim. The signs were there. Her eyes—didn’t you notice?”
Grimes admitted that he hadn’t paid much attention to her face.
“That faraway look. Dreamsticks. Soon she’ll start to wither. The waitresses, too. But there are plenty more where they came from. Don’t tell me that you haven’t had the recruiters around your plantation yet.”
“I thought that they were selling encyclopedias,” said Grimes.
“Ha, ha!”
The music had started again, a livelier tune. The dancer who came on the stage might have been beautiful once, still possessed the remains of beauty. But her movements were clumsy; her strip act was just that and nothing more. When she was completely naked she stood there, swaying, beckoning to various members of the audience. Grimes felt acutely ashamed when he, briefly, was the target of her allure. He was ashamed for his cloth when, finally, one of the spacers got to his feet and shambled to the stage.
“They aren’t going to do it here!” he whispered to Sanchez.
“There are rooms at the back. Joachim. She’ll want to go through his pockets in privacy. Her habit’s expensive. But let’s get out of here. It’s not very often that you have a night on the town and there are more places to sample.”
“Wait till I’ve finished my sweet-and-sour,” said Grimes.
The Dallas Whorehouse was their next port of call. The girls there were all tall and blonde, the music a piano on which a tall, thin and very black man hammered out old-time melodies. He was far better than the instrument upon which he was performing. Grimes recognized “The Yellow Rose Of Texas” and, in spite of himself, was amused by the very well-endowed young lady who borrowed two twenty-cent pieces from a spacer sitting just under the stage and placed one over each nipple, after which she counter-rotated her breasts without dislodging the coins. When she was finished she deftly flipped them into the cupped hands of the spaceman.
“In a few weeks’ time,” said Sanchez sourly, “she’ll have to use paper money—and stick it on with spit.”
“A pity,” said Grimes sincerely.
The pilot looked at his wrist companion. “Finish your beer, Joachim. I have to show you that the big city’s not all boozing and wenching, otherwise you’ll be going back home with a false impression.”
“Give me time to finish the tacos and this chili dip,” grumbled Grimes.