Fortune Is a Woman - Elizabeth Adler [204]
She was alone in her office atop the spectacular new thirty-story Lai Tsin Building between Connaught and Des Voeux roads, though the company’s official business address was still the old godown on the seedy waterfront where the Mandarin had first started. When the new skyscraper had replaced the Mandarin’s first headquarters Lysandra had insisted that all the great things he had shown her so proudly as a little girl, the malachite columns, the mosaics and the carvings, were preserved and incorporated into the startlingly modern new reception hall. And the great bronze lions still presided over the front steps, keeping out the bad ch’i.
It was seven-thirty P.M. The sun was just setting over Victoria Bay, painting the sky orange and gold, and the gray water and bustling little ferries a gay carnival pink. Lysandra had been in her office as usual since seven-thirty that morning, and now it was silent but for the ticking of a tiny jeweled clock and the muffled noise of traffic in the street far below. She rarely left her office during the day—people always came to see her, and if there was a lunch meeting it was always in her private dining room on the thirtieth floor, which had the reputation of being the gastronomic equal of the best restaurants in Hong Kong. And Lysandra had the reputation of being one of the city’s toughest businesswomen.
“The old man knew what he was doing when he chose her to run the company,” the Hong Kong taipans acknowledged with grudging admiration. “You can’t put anything over on Lysandra Lai Tsin. Nothing gets past her eagle blue eyes and she has an instinct for a deal that can only be called supernatural. Or good fung shui.”
They said that Lysandra had started her career when she was still just a child of ten years.
In November of 1941, Lysandra had been on her annual visit to Uncle Philip Chen and his family—and forever afterward Buck was to blame himself for his lack of foresight. Although there was a war in Europe it was business as usual in Hong Kong: the harbor was crowded with cargo vessels and Pan Am flying boats came and went regularly from the U.S. Buck was still well-liked in Washington, though he had resigned from the Senate. He’d wanted to spend his time with Francie and devote himself to expanding the ranch and the winery, but Washington still lured him and occasionally he found himself called upon in an advisory capacity.
He had been asked to go to Hong Kong on a three-week mission by the War Department under the guise of being an observer for a proposed trade delegation. There was no reason to believe America or Americans were under any threat and the Japanese were not acting belligerently across the borders in China. And Lysandra had cajoled and pleaded, her blue eyes filled with longing. “After all,” she’d said wistfully to Francie, “Hong Kong is my home, too, or it will be one day.” A look of sadness had filled her eyes as she added, “Besides, it’s what Grandfather Lai Tsin wanted me to do.”
It was the look of sadness that did it. Francie’s eyes had met Buck’s and she’d sighed. “It’s true, the Mandarin did want you to visit Hong Kong each year.”
Lysandra had flung her arms around her mother’s neck. “Please, Mommy,” she murmured, “please let me go. I’ll be safe with Buck, you know I will.”
Buck had grinned and said, “I can’t argue with that.”
So Lysandra had gone with him and after only three days in Hong Kong, Buck came down with typhoid, spent two weeks in the hospital and was shipped home on a stretcher. It was decided that