“Don’t you think he
’s handsome?” Daisy asked in an almost too cheery tone.
Eleanor looked up from the phone and said, ever so nonchalantly, “Oh yes, very handsome.”
None of the other ladies said anything else about Mrs. Bao’s son for the rest of the dinner, but all of them were thinking the same thing. There was no way it could be a coincidence. Bao Shaoyen’s injured son looked just like the woman who had caused the great estrangement between Eleanor and her son, Nicholas.
Yes, Carlton Bao was the spitting image of Rachel Chu.
* * *
*1 Unfortunately for Eddie, only Emirates, Etihad Airways, and Singapore Airlines have private cabins aboard their Airbus A380s. Emirates even has two Shower Spa bathrooms with sumptuous shower stalls for first-class travelers. (Mile High Club members take note.)
*2 Hokkien for “Wash your bottom.”
*3 According to Cassandra Shang aka “Radio One Asia.”
*4 Women of Eleanor’s background would rather camp out six to a room or sleep on the floor of anyone they remotely know than spend money on hotels. These are the same women who wouldn’t blink at shelling out $90,000 on a South Sea pearl “trinket” while on holiday.
*5 Hokkien for “nosy” or “meddlesome.”
*6 Eleanor, who normally didn’t wear pricey designer clothes and made a point of bragging that she “started getting brand-name fatigue back in the seventies,” kept a few choice pieces reserved specifically for special occasions like today.
*7 Never mind that the restaurant inexplicably resembles a 1980s Greek taverna, with its whitewashed barrel vault ceilings, Asian foodies will fly to London just to savor Mandarin Kitchen’s signature dish, because nowhere else in the world can one get Chinese hand-pulled egg noodles braised in an intoxicating ginger scallion sauce, served with giant lobsters caught daily from the Scottish Sea.
*8 The Holy Trinity are Four Seasons for the roast duck, Mandarin Kitchen for the aforementioned lobster noodles, and Royal China for the dim sum.
PART ONE
Everyone claims to be a billionaire these days. But you’re not really a billionaire until you spend your billions.
—OVERHEARD AT THE HONG KONG JOCKEY CLUB
1
THE MANDARIN
HONG KONG, JANUARY 25, 2013
In early 2012, a brother and sister clearing out their late mother’s attic in the London neighborhood of Hampstead discovered what appeared to be a cluster of old Chinese scrolls at the bottom of a steamer trunk. By chance, the sister had a friend who worked at Christie’s, so she dropped them off—in four Sainsbury’s grocery sacks—at the auctioneer’s salesroom on Old Brompton Road, hoping they might “take a look and tell us if they’re worth anything.”
When the senior specialist of Chinese Classical Paintings opened up one of the silk scrolls, he nearly went into cardiac arrest. Unfurled before him was an image so remarkably rendered, it immediately reminded him of a set of hanging scroll paintings long thought to be destroyed. Could this be The Palace of Eighteen Perfections? The artwork, created by the Qing dynasty artist Yuan Jiang in 1693, was believed to have been secretly removed from China during the Second Opium War in 1860, when many of the royal palaces were ransacked, and lost forever.
As staffers scurried around unrolling the scrolls, they discovered twenty-four pieces, each almost seven feet tall and in immaculate condition. Placed side by side, they spanned thirty-seven feet, almost filling the floor space of two workrooms. At last, the senior specialist could confirm that this was undoubtedly the mythical work described in all the classical Chinese texts he had spent much of his career studying.
The Palace of Eighteen Perfections was an opulent eighth-century imperial retreat in the mountains north of modern-day Xi’an. It was said to be one of the most magnificent royal residences ever built, with grounds so vast that one had to travel between the halls on horseback. On these ancient silk scrolls, the intricate pavilions, courtyards, and gardens that meandered through a dreamlike blue-and-green mountain landscape were painted in colors so vibrantly preserved, they seemed almost electric in their iridescence.
The auction-house staff stood over the exquisite masterpiece in awed silence. A find of this caliber was like discovering a long-hidden painting by da Vinci or Vermeer. When the international director of Asian Art rushed in to see them, he began to feel faint and forced himself to take a few steps back for fear that he might fall onto the delicate artwork. Choking back his tears, the director finally said, “Call François in Hong Kong. Tell him to get Oliver T’sien on the next flight to London.”*1
The director then declared, “We need to give these beauties the grand tour. We’re going to start out with an exhibition in Geneva, then London, then at our Rockefeller Center showroom in New York. Let’s give the world’s top collectors a chance to see it. Only then will we take it to Hong Kong, and sell it right before the Chinese New Year. By then the Chinese should be frothing at the mouth in anticipation.”
Which is precisely how Corinna Ko-Tung came to be sitting in the Clipper Lounge of the Mandarin Hotel in Hong Kong a year later, impatiently awaiting the arrival of Lester and Valerie Liu. Her richly embossed business card listed her as an “art consultant,” but for a few select clients, she was a great deal more than that. Corinna was born to one of Hong Kong’s most pedigreed families, and she secretly parlayed her extensive connections into a very profitable sideline. For clients like the Lius, Corinna did everything from refining the art on their walls to the clothes on their back—all in service of getting them memberships at the most elite clubs, their names onto the right invitation lists, and their children into the city’s top schools. In short, she was a special consultant for social climbers.
Corinna spotted the Lius as they ascended the short flight of stairs up to the mezzanine lounge overlooking the lobby. The couple cut quite a striking picture, and she had to pat herself on the back for this. The first time Corinna met the Lius, they were both in head-to-toe Prada. To these new arrivals from Guangdong, it was the height of sophistication, but to Corinna, it just screamed clueless Mainland money. Thanks to her handiwork, Lester entered the Clipper Lounge looking particularly dapper in a bespoke three-piece suit from Kilgour of Savile Row, and Valerie was chicly clad in a silvery Persian lamb parka from J. Mendel, appropriately sized black pearls, and dove-gray suede Lanvin ankle boots. But there was something a little off about her outfit—the handbag was a mistake. The glossy ombré-dyed reptile-skin bag obviously came from some nearly extinct species, but it reminded Corinna of the sort of handbag only a mistress would carry. She made a mental note to drop a hint at the appropriate moment.
Valerie arrived at the table apologizing profusely. “I’m sorry we’re late. Our chauffeur mistakenly took us to the Landmark Mandarin Oriental instead of this one.”
“Not a problem,” Corinna replied graciously. Tardiness was one of her pet peeves, but with the kind of retainer the Lius were paying her, she wasn’t about to complain.