“Hey!” Yongli shouted out to the kitchen. And heads lifted. “Big Li got his promotion!” And he grabbed a couple of stainless-steel ladles and started working his way up a line of hanging pots and pans, beating out a tattoo on them as he went. A cheer went up from the staff, and there was a spontaneous round of applause. Li flushed and shook his head with embarrassment, still grinning like an idiot. Yongli reached the end of the row. “So the next time you get lifted by the cops,” he shouted, “you can just say, hey, don’t you know who I am? I’m a pal of Big Li Yan. And they’ll let you go faster than hot coals.” He turned a huge, sparkling-eyed, maniacal grin on his friend and stalked down the aisle towards him, taking Li’s face in two giant hands and planting a big wet kiss on his forehead. “Congratulations, pal.” And the two embraced, to further applause from the kitchen staff.

They had been best friends since meeting on their first day at the University of Public Security nearly fifteen years before. Two kindred spirits, each instantly recognising the other. Big daft boys, then and now. It had broken Li’s heart when Yongli had dropped out in their final year. His results had been deteriorating in almost precise correlation to his pursuit of women and karaoke bars and a lifestyle he could not afford. It was the essential difference between them. Li took his career more seriously than his pleasures. But to Yongli the pursuit of pleasure was all. And he had jumped at the chance to train as a chef with a Sino-American joint venture.

“The money’s fantastic,” he had told Li. And, compared to the subsistence existence of a Chinese student, it was. Even after his promotion, Li would earn substantially less than his friend. Yongli’s training had also included lessons in English, six months at a hotel in Switzerland learning how to cook and present European food, and three months in the States finding out how Americans liked to eat their steaks. There he had learned how to fully indulge his hedonistic inclinations, returning with a great appetite for all things American and a three-inch addition to his waistline. In many ways Li and Yongli had grown apart, their paths in life taking very different courses, and their friendship now was sustained more by its history than by its present. But the warmth between them was still strong.

“So.” Yongli pulled off his hat and threw it to one of the other chefs, who caught it deftly. “Tonight you and I are going to celebrate.”

“But you’re working.”

Yongli twinkled. “I made contingency arrangements—just in case the news was good. The boys await my call, and a table is booked at the Quanjude.”

“The boys?”