Before the last of the lamps sputtered out, the Shelby brothers said goodbye to their youngest on his doorstep.
"Let go of me, you fucking sop," John laughed, trying to wriggle out of the headlock Arthur had put him in. He was only successful when Arthur loosened his grip, releasing him with a smile. "Look what you've done – you've mucked up my hair."
"Wish I was going with you," Arthur grinned. "Have fun in London, lad."
"Not too much," Thomas warned. "Remember why you're there."
"Yeah, yeah. The races; I know."
The string of intelligence that made them bet on Lucky, who did not live up to his namesake, had come from London. Thomas had expected many obstacles as the Peaky Blinders attempted to expand their enterprise, but he never imagined that horse racing was on the agenda of larger fish in the pond. Either that or one of his men had decided to go rogue for a big break at the cost of betraying his gang.
It needed sorting whichever it turned out to be – a rival gang trying to trip them up before they'd even got to London or an ambitious but stupid backstabber. That was why Thomas had sent John. London had too many vices for Arthur, who had enough as it was.
"Get going then – I need to take a fucking nap," Arthur ran a tired hand through his hair. Under the yellow lamplight, Thomas noticed his brother's sunken eyes. He saw the same thing in the mirror. Night had fallen, but it was rare for the Shelby men to fall with it.
"Take those pills Doc gave you," John said, climbing into his car. The headlights flickered on, casting beams of white into the dark. "I'll see you boys soon."
"Usual channels for letters," the smoke from Thomas's cigarette swayed with the grace of a dancer. "Keep us informed, alright?"
John tipped his cap, "Always."
The car's engine gave a few rumbling coughs before running steady. Thomas and Arthur held up their hands as they watched John give a wave. It wasn't long before the car turned the corner and dropped out of sight.
Thomas gently clapped Arthur on the back. "Get some sleep, old man."
"Who are you calling old?" Arthur grumbled good-humoredly. "Night, Tommy."
"Goodnight, Arthur."
Arthur shuffled into his own house. As the door closed, Thomas checked his watch. Midnight. The whorehouse would be full of men – bachelors feeling the blood rush, married men hastening to realise their dreams of infidelity, green boys emboldened by the cover of night. If he went now, he expected others to assume he was just another customer at Chinatown's most infamous business.
What he hadn't expected, however, was not even being allowed into its premises.
Thomas heard the whorehouse before he saw it, loud and busier than ever now that the sun slept. Huang Sun stood at the entrance, glaring at the stream of bustling, bumbling men with hawk's eyes. Some customers chatted and bragged; others turned their hoods up and faces away, worried about being recognised. Huang Sun examined them all, searching for the handle of a knife, the barrel of a gun. The clientele was rough – of course they were – but under no circumstances were they allowed to be lethal. Still, Thomas doubted whether it was possible for anyone to be so in the face of the bodyguard's bulk.
Next to the twin was the translator girl Thomas had seen upon his last visit – Arthur had told him her name was Wendy. She smiled and batted her eyelashes, inviting passerby to fork out their wallets and do more than watch. It worked. Wendy's demureness was magnetic, and Thomas could tell from the licking of lips and the flush of cheeks what the men thought when they caught her eye.
Wendy saw him first. She bowed her head. "Mr. Shelby. Miss Hu is expecting you."
Thomas tipped his cap at her. "Wendy, is it?"
Wendy nodded. "Yes, sir. Wu Yan, before you ask."
"How did you know I would?"
Wendy smiled prettily. "Miss Hu told me you like knowing as much as possible."
"And she likes hiding as much as I like knowing."
Thomas was about to stride through the door when a pillar of muscle blocked his way. He raised an eyebrow at Huang Sun, who only acknowledged him by crossing his arms. The man's attention remained on the line of customers that was beginning to snake around the side of the whorehouse. Thomas wouldn't have gotten anything out of him even if he did speak English.
He raised an eyebrow at Wendy, "I thought you said Miss Hu was expecting me."
"Not here, Mr. Shelby," Wendy answered. A man whistled as he walked past her. "Behind."
"In the new tents?"
"You'll know it when you see it," Wendy promised. She turned and began to work again. A group of men started to holler. Thomas heard one say:
"You speak good English for a Chinese girl."
"Thank you, sir," was Wendy's response.
"What do you speak in bed then? Chinese or English?"
"How much more is it if I ask you to speak Chinese?"
"Give us a sample before I pay, will ya'? Have to know I'm getting my money's worth!"
The voices trailed off as Thomas gladly left the whorehouse behind. He surveyed the new batch of tents that had been set up. They were positioned in an oddly systematic fashion; they seemed to frame the sides of Chinatown rather than spring up wherever seemed most convenient, lined up against the buildings in which the market nestled.
Then Thomas understood why Wendy had such faith in him. One tent, while also gleaming red, was the only one sporting edges lined with gold. It was larger than the rest. Thomas suspected only the whorehouse and Chinatown itself were larger. If that wasn't a big enough clue, the man who guarded its entrance – Huang Yu – was better than a signpost.
"The Tigress, please."
The twin turned and rapped three times on the tent's fabric. A voice that had whispered to Thomas under the bridge responded. Huang Yu pulled the flap of the tent back, and just like that, Thomas saw her.
"Adorable, aren't they?"
The Tigress gestured to a chair opposite her. Like the room in the whorehouse, the table in front of her was circular. However, instead of wood, it was made of marble. Perhaps it was an odd pop of luxury within the Chinatown Thomas was used to, but it fit perfectly with the rest of the room. There were delicate vases of porcelain housing yellow lilies, which hung over the edge of ornate wooden cabinets supporting them. Pictures of sprawling mountains and ancient willows hung from walls hidden by red fabric. This was the Tigress's new home.
"Who do you mean?" Thomas asked, taking a seat. The lamp above them was as bright as it was small. A glimmer of orange appeared in her brown eyes.
"Wu Yan and Huang Sun, of course."
"Your translator and your bodyguard. You approve?"
"I suggested it."
"Does Wu Yan still work?"
"For me, yes."
It was refreshing to talk to her without an intermediary, but this was curbed by how much her accent unnerved him. He would have been more comfortable if it were a parody, yet every word was genuine. Every word sounded like an echo of his own.
Thomas lit a cigarette. He offered one to her, but she shook her head.
"You don't drink, you don't smoke. Is there a reason for that?"
"How would you know I don't drink?"
"Little bird told me."
"The same one who sank to the bottom of the river yesterday."
"I misjudged. He looked irreplaceable."
She smiled. "Nobody's irreplaceable."
"And Wu Yan won't be as susceptible to bribes, will she?"
"She knows white men being part of Chinese business is not a good look."
"And yet you seem to have dragged me into it all the same," Thomas exhaled. "Why?"
A pause. The Tigress clasped her hands together, carefully placing her elbows on the table. Thomas saw his cigarette smoke reflected in her gaze. He was very aware of how hot the tent was.
"We want total control of the Chinatown docks."
Thomas leaned back in his chair. The Tigress was watching him as closely as her namesake, now. The only difference was that a tiger usually trained its eyes on prey; very rarely did it meet another predator, and both Thomas and the Tigress knew that they were nothing if not predators. "Sixty percent isn't enough for you?"
"It's our people coming in. Not yours. You shouldn't be getting anything at all."
"And it's our dock. We're just letting you use it. That's what the agreement with Grandpa Huang was: you get full freedom to ship whatever you want – food, weapons, people – and you pay the lease in return."
"It's not a lease if it's calculated by shipment. It's a fucking cut."
Even the curse was coated in the voices of Birmingham. Thomas's curiosity got the better of him.
"You speak like you're from here – how?" He gestured with his cigarette. "I can understand being taught English in China, but not Small Heath English."
"Do you want Upper-Class London English?" In the blink of an eye, her accent had changed. She reminded him of Churchill on the radio broadcasts. "I can do Cockney too," now she sounded more like the messengers Thomas used to run letters between London and Birmingham. "Irish is similar to Scottish" – her accent morphed from Belfast to Edinburgh – "but American is very different."
Thomas felt as if he was suffering from whiplash. "What the fuck?"
The Tigress gave a sardonic smile, different from the calm, knowing ones she had flashed his way before. "I'm not a spy; I just always had a knack for this sort of thing. How do you think I convinced all of Chinatown to obey me in a month?"
"You speak everyone's mother tongue," Thomas said. "I'm impressed. What other language can you speak?"
"Business. Give me the docks."
"No," Thomas responded just as forcefully. "Are you going to drown me like you did that boy today if I refuse?"
The Tigress scoffed. "I drown useless people. You still have something I want. I'll never get it if it washes away in the water."
"So how are you going to make me give it up?"
"I can smell what you smoke," the Tigress said suddenly. Now her smile was more of a leer, and a fire was beginning to burn in the pit of Thomas's stomach.
"Tobacco?"
"The other thing we import," her eyes were full of vicious mockery, now. "No docks, no opium, Mr. Shelby. How will you fare at night?"
Thomas's throat constricted like a garotte wire biting into his neck. The dark pupils of her eyes had become the darkness of the tunnel. Not a soul on earth – not even his brothers – knew what plagued him when the shadows of sleep turned into shovels and tunnels. Tunnels and shovels. Digging and digging and digging deeper into the spirals of his brain until they were behind his forehead, piercing his skin, the whites of his eyes, the veins in his wrists.
Something was trembling. It was his hand and the black, smooth metal that he held pointed directly at the space between the Tigress's eyes. A pistol was no hunting rifle, but it would do.
"Shoot me, Thomas," the Tigress's voice was deadly quiet now. Her lips were redder than the blood that would spill from a killing shot merely the jerk of a finger away. "Shoot me and I will join the ghosts that haunt you."
She spoke with a conviction that chilled him to the bone. The sounds of metal squelching against mud grew louder. He stared at her, saw her staring down the barrel of his gun in turn, and understood that this was not the first time she had seen her own death.
Wu Yan was right. He liked knowing more – not only that, he needed to know more. Especially about this woman who knew his fear but had none of her own.
Thomas screwed his eyes shut. The ringing in his ears faded, as did the sounds of metal squelching against mud. He slowly lowered the gun and found himself standing up. He must have jumped out of his chair at some point.
"You said you won the trust of the people through their own language," his voice wasn't shaking, but his barely controlled fury was evident.
"I did," the Tigress said. She didn't seem surprised he had lifted his finger off the trigger.
"I wonder how they'll feel about you mocking them by pretending not to know the words of their enemies."
"My translator was bait," she admitted. "But I don't need that anymore. I've already reeled you in, haven't I?"
Thomas stared. He imagined what she would look like with a bullet through her brain.
Then, without another word, he left the tent.