Never Wake a Sleeping Man. James Holding

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       COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

       NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING MAN

COPYRIGHT INFORMATION

      Copyright © 1983 by James Holding.

      Originally published in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, November 1983.

      Published by Wildside Press LLC.

      wildsidepress.com | bcmystery.com

NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING MAN

      Liu Kam Fan was nodding behind his high desk when Jimmy Lee entered his office.

      The old man, wizened and wrinkled as a dried-up walnut, frequently fell asleep at his desk these days, especially in the long slow hours of the afternoon. His inadvertent catnaps surprised nobody, however, since Mr. Liu, at the advanced age of seventy-six, still put in a full day’s work (save for his naps) at Liu Enterprises, of which he was sole proprietor. He was also, in his own considered opinion, the only man in Hong Kong capable of managing his far-flung businesses with any guarantee of continued success.

      For five seemingly endless minutes, therefore, standing upon the thick carpet beside the window, Jimmy Lee waited in fidgety silence, gazing the while through Mr. Liu’s eighth floor office window. Across Victoria Bay was the bustling ant’s nest of Kowloon; beyond that, the squat, distant shape of Stone Cutter’s Island, barely visible now through the late afternoon haze.

      Mr. Liu slumbered peacefully on, bolt upright in his leather desk chair, until at length, Jimmy Lee’s impatience overcame his caution and he cleared his throat, loudly. The sound was as raucous in the quiet room as a peahen’s roosting complaint.

      Mr. Liu opened his eyes at once. He saw Jimmy Lee standing by the window. “Ah,” he said graciously, “I apologize for ignoring your entrance, my boy. Which of my employees are you?” He fumbled with his appointment pad, searching for the name.

      Mr. Liu smiled, deepening the wrinkles in his cheeks. “Have a chair, Jimmy Lee,” he said. “Of course I remember you, now. You’re the young man I hired to assist in computerizing my business, are you not? Graduate of the Stanford College in the U.S.A.? And…let me see…a business degree from some Ivy League place?”

      “Harvard,” murmured Jimmy Lee.

      “Yes, Harvard. And has your computerizing gone well?”

      “Great,” said Jimmy Lee, who was Hong Kong Chinese born and bred but sometimes affected the speech patterns of his American college classmates. “Everything in place now and working like a charm, sir.”

      “So I understand.” Mr. Liu stared at the wall beside his desk for a moment, lost in thought. “One misses the old ways, though, occasionally,” he said at length. “Computers indeed. Quite a change from our honored abacus, eh?”

      “Yes, sir. And a decided improvement. I’m sure you’ll agree.”

      “Not a doubt of it.” Mr. Liu put on a pair of steel-rimmed granny glasses and peered at Jimmy Lee over them. “So the old man was asleep when you arrived for your appointment, eh?” He shook his head, amused. “Deplorable. I apologize again. There is an ancient Arab adage on the subject, you know.”

      “What saying is that, sir?” What Jimmy Lee thought to himself was: “The old fool!”

      “‘Never wake a sleeping man—he may be dreaming of Paradise.’” Mr. Liu smiled again. “I was not, however, dreaming of Paradise. I was dreaming of my youngest great-grandson, who is more like an imp from Hell. So you are forgiven for disturbing my nap, Jimmy Lee.” He tapped his desk top with a gold fountain pen. “You wanted to see me?”

      “Yes, sir. On a matter of some importance.”

      “Important to whom? Liu Enterprises? Me? You?”

      “With respect, sir, all three.”

      “Excellent,” said Mr. Liu. “And which part of our business does it concern, this important matter? Let me guess, Jimmy Lee. You have conceived a new accounting procedure to make our computers even more efficient than they now are?”

      “No, sir. My idea doesn’t concern computers or accounting except peripherally. It concerns our only true consumer product. d.”

      Mr. Liu’s eyes lit up behind his granny glasses. “Ah!” he said. “Our consumer product, eh? A Harvard business school phrase, no doubt. Our traffic in Heavenly Happiness Salt does not go through our books, Jimmy Lee. Not our official books, at any rate.” Mr. Liu laughed. “But you are familiar with it, nonetheless?”

      Jimmy Lee grinned. “Of course, sir. Everybody is. The stuff is famous in Hong Kong.”