| It is kinda unrestful when a guy crashes off a 14-hour flight and high-tails it for the comfort of the Mandarin and what does he find there but his message light is flashing, voice mail for you, sir, two nuclear warheads are awaiting collection at Kai Tak airport and seeing as space is limited will you kindly come and sign for them? Mom, there must be some mistake, I never order anything more lethal here than a large Auld Willie (the Spirit of Scotland) from the Captain’s Bar, but what bushes me is whether the mistake comes courtesy of Harvey Q. Schicklgruber III.V, our new senior vice-president (strategy and tactics) who just happens to be the bank’s aged president’s favorite grand nephew. Two days ago Harvey calls me to ask if Hong Kong is closer to head office or to Moorgate, and if so, he wishes me to brush up on my Commercial Banking 101 which takes in bills of lading, and go see what happens to this consignment out of mainland China he gets the bank to finance, it mostly consists of two thousand sporting rifles made for local hunters in the panda season, so maybe the warheads are part of this. Such deals are no part of the administration’s strategy and tactics back in Washington, where they just voted China to be most favored nation but only 3% more favoured than Iraq, with Cuba a close third, what with range finding in the Taiwan Strait and helping themselves to US copyright material the Chinese do not play well in the Beltway, and besides, their notions of the rights of man are not those of Thomas Paine and Thomas Jefferson. None of this fazes Harvey, tho’ he tells me China is the world economy’s great hope, if every Chinaman can be persuaded to buy pants with turn-ups on them it is goodbye recession for ever, Harvey says, I figure some snake-oil merchant gets to him as a trustee of our retirement fund and my pension now depends on the performance of Tibetan Extra Income, and as for human rights, Harvey’s family never cares too much for them. Of course we have our own resident snake-oil merchant here in Holey Buckett, Herbie, he says, try your luck in Hong Kong, we can always use another fund with decent front end loading, I am thinking of a Hong Kong Colonial Convertible with the right to switch into Greater China Hyper-Growth next year, maybe Jardine Fleming can help you with this, if they are not too busy just now. Well, here is something else for me to do in Hong Kong, as if I need it, as well as having shirts made and attending the races and eating power lunches at the China Club, see and be seen, morning, Tango, morning, Herbie, and I sure cannot spare the time to tunnel my way out to Kai Tak and avert World War III, not even if I ride in the Mandarin’s superior Rolls Royce and charge it. So I call the agent who calls and leaves a message on his voice mail, stalling him, and scoot out to pick up the scuttlebutt which in this town has zeros on it, boy, do the big shots have it in for this British colonial governor, they complain how whenever he opens his mouth it riles the Chinese and they lose another order, why cannot he just parade around in a plumed hat and lay foundation stones until the Queen sends her yacht along to pick him up and take him home? I tell these guys how we have a similar problem with a British governor some time ago, in Boston, Mass., and do they yet throw China tea into the harbor, apparently someone does try this but all that happens is the harbor catches fire, and besides when I ask what it is this governor says that so annoys them, it sounds as if someone tells him about Jefferson and Paine. Still, maybe his difficulty is our opportunity, and maybe Harvey’s strategy works out, stranger things do happen, Hong Kong has an open door policy for banks so if we move in and sit quiet for 400 days we find ourselves grandfathered right into China, and can lend to all the tailors to finance the extra cloth they need for making pants with turnups, and our fortune is made. All I need now is the go ahead from Harvey and another from the neat new Monetary Authority they have here as tenants of Citibank, but I never get the chance to call them, back at the hotel my phone is already ringing, our agent again, now he says they evacuate the freight hall at Kai Tak and business there is at a standstill, which is the worst thing that can ever happen in Hong Kong, someone complains that our warheads are ticking. Well, what am I to do, I tell the guy to have another look at them and see if he can find a switch and if so turn it off, but if not he is to leave all the documentation at ground zero, or at least any paper with our name in it, by way of precaution, while I put a person-to-person call thru to Harvey and ask him what we do with the sporting guns. Harvey is not a happy bunny when he gets the call, he wishes to know if I know what time it is at this time, and as for the warheads, they are no more than display models for a trade exhibition, called Nuke-a-Neighbor, just like it says in the bill of lading, tho’ I recall enough from Commercial Banking 101 to know how bills of lading do not always tell the truth. By now he learns this too, he explains to me how there is some other mistake about the sporting guns, they are on the way to a consortium of olive oil importers in Chicago when the FBI busts them, and agents come round to head office and start asking questions and tip off the blatts, happily the Tombstone Epitaph is a customer of ours and owes us money, but elsewhere the coverage is unhelpful. I ask Harvey what he does about this and he tells me he fires the head of corporate affairs, poor guy, still, better him than me, but I guess our new tactics and strategy are to lay off the China play for just a while, much love from Your disoriented son Herbie picks up the scuttlebutt from Christopher Fildes |
