Eddie Ching

**Eddie Ching** was an underworld buyer and collector of precious items. She built her reputation by not letting much of her life being known, and most people thought she was a man. The Police Commissioner ordered his officers to lay off "him".

She employed the help of her thugs, Lou and Felipe, and was an owner of a Samurai Speeder. Her apartment and personal gallery occupied the whole top floor of Knickerbocker with a security system installed by Underwood Inc. Among her possessions was the 10-volume user's guide of a Samurai Speeder, the Best of Readers' Digest 'Drama in Real Life', a pet geigger, and the only three surviving artifacts from the Byzantine Empire. Some of her personnal effects were stashed in an Ultra Safe 8000, which had a combination her of her birthday.

She came in the possession of the Habuh, conscious that it was a dangerous artifact, which she kept it safe in a high-security vault filled with all her other priceless artifacts. She had offers from many black market buyers which she ignored, as the Brotherhood of Purity, who had made several attempts to get it from her.

The Brotherhood (via "Countess Renier") employed Tex Murphy to get the statuette for them. With the help of the underworld collector Franco Franco (who held a personal grudge against her), he learned her whereabouts and broke into the apartment.He stole the Hubah as well as her pet Geigger.

When Ching found out, she and her thugs located Murphy and broke into his office at the Ritz Hotel. After some beating, she explained him that his serving of the Countess put the world at stake.

## Novelization

Ching lives in the Torre Latino Americana in Mexico City.

An acquaintance of Ching stole the Habuh from a Viennese museum and contacted her to find out more. As Ching found potential buyers and collected bids, an agent of CAPRICORN warned her not to give it anywhere. Ching was skeptical but everything she learned verified this scenario. She held onto the statuette and saw that the cult was more and more around her to find it. Eventually the statuette was stolen by Tex Murphy.

Ching found out about Tex and broke into his office. Ching was wearing a red silk blouse and black jeans sitting on his desk. He explained that the bird was stolen from him in Brownsville where he stopped for cigarettes. Ching reprimanded Tex for his blunter and suspected that the Countess was none other than Jacques Fou.

While smoking, Ching noticed Roy O'Brien's picture with Tex and decided (as there were no other on their side) that Tex could be useful. To help her, Tex showed to her the data-storage clip he stole from GRS, written by the mole. There it explained te actions of the GRS, its link to the Brotherhood, and their moving to the lunar penal colony. The four of them decided to join forces and confront the cult themselves.

Ching arranged for some connections to get them a passage to the colony without clearance. The 4 gathered at the New San Francisco Interplanetary Spaceport and met Karl Voorman, the pilot of a shuttle-cruiser. During the 30-hour trip, Tex came closer to Ching, especially after she supplied them with 2 bottles of Black Bush Irish whiskey as space flights made her sick.

As they approached the colony, it seemed to be empty. They had to wear vacuum suits and break into an airlock. After examining some security monnitors they decided to break out and investigate. However Ching soon was found by Brody and two other men who were called by Voorman. However she managed to operate her communicator while they talked, and Murphy realized it was a set up by Voorman, and escaped by another way. Ching and her thugs were trapped by the mercenaries and left there to die.