The knocking on the door grew more insistent, and Jian finally gave up and went to answer it.  He had gone straight home without stopping for supper after work, and had been trying to relax a bit.  “Yes, yes, what is it – oh, hello Ming,” he said, brightening as the door opened to reveal his friend’s smiling face.  “Just get back from Liachao?”
        The other feline nodded and hefted the small valise in his paw.  “Yeah, just got in, and I’m famished,” he said feelingly.  “All they had on the train was cold noodles and – Jian, what’s the matter?”  He noticed that his friend seemed to be tired and was favoring his left side.
        “Had a hard day,” Jian replied, shrugging.  He started to turn away and stopped as Ming gasped.  “What?”
        “Your undershirt – you’re bleeding.”  Two reddish-brown streaks showed through the light cotton shirt, punctuated near the top by a wet smear of red.
        “It’s nothing.”
        “Yeah, I’ll bet,” Ming said, easing Jian aside and walking into the small apartment.  He dropped his valise next to the sofa and said, “Come on, let’s get that looked after.  You have any iodine?”
        “Yes, in the bathroom cupboard.  Look, Ming, you had a long trip back, and I’ll be fine – “
        “Nonsense,” the other feline cut him off.  “What are friends for, anyway?  Now, you get that shirt off and I’ll get a rag and the iodine.”  He walked over to the small apartment’s bathroom and Jian heard him start shifting bottles around as he eased off his undershirt.  He sat on the sofa a bit self-consciously.
        He hissed as the iodine seared into his wounds, Ming gently brushing his fur away from the two long, shallow gouges in his friend’s shoulder.  “What the hell happened?” Ming asked.
        “Lee,” Jian said.  “He likes to think he’s feline sometimes, and those tusks of his are sharp.”  He winced.  “I guess I should be grateful he doesn’t have antlers.”
        “Yeah, I guess you should – hold still.”  Ming dabbed a bit more of the antiseptic onto the wounds, then shook his head at the wounds.  “You really should go see a doctor about those.”
        “Stitches?”
        “Hmm.  No, they’re not bad, but you should have them dressed properly.  Your fur will stick to the blood.”
        Jian shook his head.  “As you say, they’re not bad, so they’ll heal up,” he said as he pulled on his undershirt and sighed.  “Ming, am I a bad person?”
        His friend blinked.  “No, why?”
        “You know,” and the gray-furred feline waved a paw at his back.  “For being what I am, and letting Lee do things like this.”
        Ming looked at Jian for a moment then shook his head.  “No, you’re not a bad person, Jian.  You’re making your way through life the best way you can, and if that means putting up with what Lee wants – well, he’s your boss, isn’t he?  And he won’t last forever, so you might end up taking his place.”  He winked.  “Imagine that – you as the man who whispers in the Governor’s ear.”  He laughed as Jian suddenly looked thoughtful.  “Now, I’m starving.  Let’s get something to eat, eh?”
        Jian nodded.  “Sure.  Let me get a shirt.”


        “So one of the railroad workers comes up to me and asks, ‘Are you going to stop us from striking?’  And I tell him No, because I want to watch him try to hold off the police,” Ming said with a grin as he and Jian walked back into Jian’s apartment.  Dinner had been a fairly simple affair of fish and noodles from a nearby kiosk, washed down with beer.  Jian had been hungry as well as tired, and the alcohol was starting to make him drowsy.
        “Well, did they?” he asked.
        “Did they what?” Ming asked.  He had had three beers to Jian’s one.
        “You know, strike.”
        “No, the police convinced the organizers to go home,” Ming replied.  “You look tired, Jian.  Working tomorrow?”
        Jian nodded, his tail swishing in counterpoint.  “Not much to do, though, apart from a few reports.  Lee said that he would be busy, something about going fishing with a few friends.  He even gave me the weekend off.”  He must have looked a bit relieved, because Ming started to chuckle sleepily.
        “I’m going home,” the feline said, but Jian stopped him with a paw on his shoulder.
        “Stay here,” Jian suggested.  “You wouldn’t get a block down the street before you got rolled and left in an alley.  You’re a good friend, Ming.  I don’t want to lose friends.”
        Ming blinked at him, then looked toward his friend’s bedroom.  “All right.”


        “Feeling better?”  Ming asked the next day.
        “A lot, thank you,” Jian replied.  He stepped out of the bathroom, where he had been checking the scratches on his back with a small paw-held mirror.  They looked like they were healing over well.  “There’s tea ready.”
        “Thanks.”  The larger feline got out of bed, scratching under his ribs and yawning.  After his host left the bathroom he stepped in and closed the door.
        Wisps of fragrant steam from the tea drifted with the breeze coming in from the open window as Ming stepped out of the bathroom a few minutes later and started dressing.  “Anything interesting in the paper?” he asked.
        “Not much.  Hmm.  Two union organizers found dead up in Lia Province.”
        “Really?” came the question through the closed bedroom door.
        “Yes.  ‘Two suspected union organizers were found dead beside the railroad tracks outside Liachao late last night.  Police suggest that the two were murdered,’” Jian read aloud as Ming emerged dressed from the bedroom.  “You didn’t say anything about anyone getting killed.”
        “No one did, while I was there,” Ming said as he poured a cup of tea for himself.  “But these people take their lives in their paws every time they start talking.  I’m surprised they hadn’t been killed by the time we got up there to talk with them.”  He sipped the tea and sighed.
        “The pay’s always been bad out there,” Jian observed.  “My university class went out there as part of a class on government planning.”
        “Oh?”
        “Yeah.  Some of us concluded that the workers needed a pay increase or we could see a Communist revolution.”
        “And what did the rest of you think?” Ming asked, eyeing his friend over his teacup.
        “The rest of us felt that if the pay was increased, the workers would settle down and not turn to socialism.”  Jian shrugged.  “Come to find out that they did raise the pay, and the workers called off their strike.”
        “All’s well that ended well, then.”  Ming drained his cup of tea and wiped his lips with a napkin.  “I have some things to do today, and I have to finish typing up my report,” he said.  “Care to come over for dinner tonight?”
        “Sure.”


May 11, 1935
At sea:

        The cabin cruiser was of the larger sort, with room aboard for one VIP, twenty passengers and a crew of ten.  Most of it was luxuriously appointed, displaying both wealth and taste.
        The passengers were treated to much less in the way of comfort, manacled as they were in the cruiser’s hold.  All complaints about the accommodations and the food were ignored.  One passenger, in fact, had been shot and thrown overboard when she had attempted to overpower one of the staff.
        Lee Piao stood beside the vessel’s captain in the wheelhouse and grinned carnivorously – ordinarily quite a feat for a deer.  The cruiser had made excellent time coming back from Krupmark with its load of cargo, destined for several very quiet and secure places in Kuo Han.  His employer was still pleased with the job he was doing.
        “Piao,” Leonard Allworthy had boomed in his characteristic bass voice as his sister Susan smirked, “you are the best factotum I’ve ever had.  Keep doing your job and you’ll continue to be well-rewarded.”
        The musk deer had been warmed by the praise, and even more so by the attentions of two of Leonard’s women later that night. 
        Even the loss of one of the women below had not dampened his anticipation of the profits that he expected to reap from this little ‘fishing trip.’  Some of them were quite attractive, and would fetch a high price.  More profit for the Allworthys, with a hefty slice of it going to him as the price of keeping Kuo Han’s traffic in flesh supplied.
        With the cargo had come orders, as well.
        And Lee Piao was a ruthlessly efficient fur, so Leonard had complete confidence that those instructions would be carried out.
        “We should be arriving at the rendezvous before nightfall, sir,” the cruiser’s captain remarked crisply.  The Shar Pei’s sagging jowls lifted as he smiled.  “A bit ahead of schedule.”
        Lee’s frown, with his tusks as grace notes to his expression, caused the canine’s eyes to go wide.  “I’ll slow down,” he said hastily as a paw scrabbled for the throttles and pulled them back.  “We’ll arrive exactly on schedule, sir.”
        “Better, Captain,” Lee said, and much to the canine’s relief the cervine left the wheelhouse.
        The musk deer dined early, his meal served on fine porcelain and his wine served in a glass of cut crystal. 
        The occasional muffled scream from below his feet added to his pleasure in the meal.

        As the captain had assured him, the cabin cruiser hove to at a certain point perhaps a mile offshore from one particular island in the Kuo Han archipelago.  The coastal patrols had been told to stay away, and the bribes paid to their commanding officer guaranteed that they would be elsewhere. 
        Lee stepped off the cruiser and into a small motorboat that immediately headed northwest, toward a spot just outside of Wangchung.  His driver would be waiting for him there, and he would sleep in his own bed that night.  Perhaps, he thought, he might actually allow his wife to join him.
        He gave scarcely a thought to the live cargo he left behind.


May 13, 1935:

        “Good morning, sir,” Jian said as his superior entered the office that Monday morning.  “Your briefing is on your desk, as is your mail,” and the feline smiled.  “Did your fishing trip go well?”
        The musk deer smiled widely.  “It did indeed, Jian,” he said. 


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