The water rat of Wanchai al-1

by Ian Hamilton

  “That isn’t to say that I might not need active assistance at some point.”

  His eyes glittered, and she wondered why he seemed so amused.

  “There is a substantial difference between turning a blind eye and becoming actively involved in whatever it is you have in mind,” Robbins said.

  “Everything has a price.”

  “You are a mercenary, Ms. Lee.”

  “I am an accountant,” she said.

  “Exactly.”

  “Obviously I can’t be sure what kind of help I might need until I can actually get to Seto and spend some time alone with him.”

  “Give me an idea, though, will you?”

  “I’d like all the information you have on him. You must have a dossier somewhere.”

  “That’s not difficult.”

  “He has a Vietnamese bodyguard. I would like to have him put out of circulation for forty-eight to seventy-two hours.”

  “Go on.”

  “Seto seems to go to Eckie’s Club every night. I’ll try to talk to him there. If he isn’t cooperative I’ll need a place to take him. I can’t very well bring him back to the hotel. His house would be ideal but I’m not sure that will be doable, so I want to have a backup plan.”

  “This is getting more expensive. You know that, yes?”

  “If I do need to start moving him around I’ll need some physical assistance, so you might have to assign someone to me.”

  “Is there more?”

  “Not for now.”

  “Those are a lot of ifs.”

  “I always think it’s better to plan for the worst.”

  “You do know that he pays a fee to some friends to look out for his interests?”

  “I’ll pay more.”

  “But you’ll only pay once. He pays annually. Then there are all those ifs. How do we factor those into the equation?”

  “I want you to assume that I’ll need all the help I’ve outlined here and to give me a figure that accommodates them and makes everyone happy about upgrading friends.”

  He put the beer bottle to his lips and drank delicately. “I’m not good at numbers,” he said.

  Ava was not going to be the one to put the first offer on the table. It was Uncle’s primary rule of negotiation: let the other party start. Not that she needed that advice. Her mother had practised that her entire life, in every transaction, big or small, that she had ever made. Even at the Chanel store in Toronto, her mother regarded the sticker price as merely an opening bid in the negotiation process. Ava had absorbed that life lesson. She turned her palms upward, as if helpless to know where to start, caught his eye, and let him know she was waiting for him.

  He breathed deeply, a sigh of exasperation. She could almost see him calculating. How much money was she here to get? How much could Seto have gotten away with? He was in Guyana, after all, not the Cayman Islands, so it couldn’t be a fortune. What percentage of it could he claim?

  “Two hundred thousand will get you all the assistance you need,” he said.

  She had expected a larger sum. “That’s too much, Captain. My clients would never agree to pay that amount.”

  “Then…?”

  She couldn’t insult him. They had paid for help before, sometimes up to ten percent of the amount owed. But that had been based on a successful recovery. This was a payment with no guarantees attached. All she knew was that without the Captain she probably had zero chance of success.

  “One hundred thousand — U.S. dollars of course,” she said.

  “Cash?”

  “We prefer wire transfers.”

  “Upfront.”

  Uncle hated paying upfront. The most he had ever agreed to was half upfront and half at the conclusion. But the Captain hadn’t been making a request — those were his terms. She sensed that trying to negotiate those terms would put a crimp in what had so far been a relatively painless exercise. Uncle was going to have to put up with it.

  “Yes, upfront.”

  The Captain’s face broke into a smile. “Okay, let me speak with my friends. If they’re happy with the arrangement I’ll let you know and give you the details of how the money should be transferred.” He nodded in the direction of Robert and Patrick. “You’ve met the boys. If we go ahead I’ll lend one of them to you as a… liaison. Do you have a preference?”

  “Who is senior?”

  “Patrick.”

  “He’s the one I’ll take.”

  “Assuming we do business,” the Captain said.

  “Assuming.”

  (24)

  Ava called the number Lafontaine had given her and got his voicemail. She left a message apologizing for the way their dinner had ended. Nothing else. If things went as planned, she wouldn’t have to speak to him again.

  Uncle answered her call on the first ring. “Ava, when will you be finished with this project?”

  Ava was caught off guard. Uncle never rushed a job. “I’m not sure. Two days, maybe three. I made progress today… Has something happened?”

  “We have landed a huge client. Have you heard of Tommy Ordonez?”

  “The Filipino billionaire?”

  “That’s him. He is ethnic Chinese; the family name is actually Chew but he changed it to fit in with the Filipinos. He has a brother here in Hong Kong, David Chew, and another in Vancouver, Philip Chew. Tommy is the eldest, so all of the family money flows through and around him. He called me today through a friend.”

  “Tommy Ordonez got screwed in a deal and needs us to chase money for him?” she asked.

  “Don’t be foolish — he never gets screwed,” Uncle said. “The brother in Vancouver is the one who was unwise. Someone, who obviously doesn’t know he is Tommy’s brother, took the family for more than fifty million in a land swindle. If it were the Philippines or China or anywhere else in Asia, Tommy would look after it himself. Canada is another world. So a friend referred him to me. We have the contract. I had to cut our rate, but not that much.”

  “I need at least three days, and that’s not a promise,” she said.

  “If Tam weren’t the nephew of my friend… You think three days?”

  “Minimum.”

  “Where are we?”

  “I’ve found him. I think I’ve bought off the local muscle. Now I need to get my hands on Seto and get the money back to Tam.”

  “How much to buy off the locals?”

  “One hundred thousand, upfront, all of it by wire.”

  “You know — ”

  “I know,” Ava said, louder than she intended. “It can’t be done any other way, and without them I’m nowhere. This is like a Chinese provincial backwater where one guy controls everything and nothing happens unless he says so. In this case, the main guy won’t give the green light unless the money is sent to him upfront.”

  “He is that powerful? He is that insistent?”

  “Yes and yes.”

  “Okay, Ava, I understand. Where do I send it?”

  “I won’t know until tomorrow.”

  “As soon as you know — ”

  “Uncle, I want to get out of here more than you want to make Tommy Ordonez the happiest man in the Philippines.”

  “Sorry,” he said.

  She wasn’t used to getting apologies from Uncle. Normally if he made an error — and that was seldom enough — he’d correct it and tell her about the change in the situation without acknowledging a mistake had been made in the first place. And she, of course, would accept the change as a given and never mention the events that had preceded it. It was enough that they both knew; there was no reason for her to be disrespectful by remarking on it and no reason for him to explain himself. She guessed that he was feeling guilty about pushing Tommy Ordonez at her when the Tam job was still on the boil.

  “Let me finish here,” she said, “and then we’ll make the Chews one big happy family.”

  Ava crawled into bed with the James Clavell novel. She slept amazingly well and didn’t wake till just pas
t eight. Skipping breakfast and Tom Benson, she went for a completely uneventful run. When she got back to the hotel, Patrick was asleep in the lobby, his head on the back of the chair, his mouth half open.

  She tapped his arm. He snorted and his eyes flicked open, immediately alert.

  “I was on a run,” she said.

  “Yeah, they told me,” he said. “Here, the Captain wanted me to give this to you. It’s what we could come up with on Seto last night.” He handed her an envelope. “He’s been coming here on and off for years, mainly to do fish business, but recently just to hang. He’s never been a problem.”

  “Is that because someone decided to leave him alone or because he was saintly?”

  “Who knows, but if he was left alone it was because he never went over the line.”

  “Who’s the woman?”

  “Anna Choudray. They’ve been together for about six years. She was a bar girl when they met. They aren’t married but he must like her a lot ’cause she’s the legal owner of the house in Malvern Gardens, lucky her. The Vietnamese is Joey Ng. He travels under an American passport, the same as Seto. He isn’t new; he’s been here with Seto quite a few times.”

  “I was told this is where Seto comes when things get too hot elsewhere.”

  “Could be. Like I said, he’s trouble-free here.”

  She wiped sweat from her brow. “I need to shower and change. It will take me about half an hour. Will you stay and have breakfast with me?”

  “Of course.”

  “This means that the Captain has accepted our arrangement?”

  “I wouldn’t be here otherwise.”

  “And you are my… liaison?”

  “That isn’t the word he used but the meaning is the same, I guess.”

  “Banking information?”

  “In the envelope.”

  The shower could wait. Ava went directly to the business centre, opened the envelope, and sent an email with Robbins’s bank particulars to Uncle and the Hong Kong accountant who handled their wire transfers. It was mid-evening there and nothing would move until the next morning, which meant that, given a twenty-four-hour transit time, the wire wouldn’t get to Robbins until two full days from now. She didn’t fancy spending two days doing nothing, so she asked the accountant to scan and email her a copy of the wire transmittal. It was being sent from the Kowloon Light and Power Bank, which was owned by some friends of Uncle, to the Cayman Islands branch of a Canadian chartered bank. Kowloon Light and Power was substantial enough that she was sure the Canadian bank wouldn’t have any issues with the amount. In that case, maybe Robbins would accept the copy of the transmittal as confirmation and let her get started before he actually had the money.

  It took her close to an hour to get things sorted out. That didn’t seem to bother Patrick, who had fallen asleep again. A slight nudge wakened him. “Do you want some coffee?” she said.

  “Sure, but not here. The coffee here is horrible.”

  They climbed into a Toyota truck sitting in the no-parking zone in front of the hotel. He weaved through the now all-too-familiar downtown terrain.

  “I’ve already sent the bank directions. The wire should be done within the next twelve hours. I’ll get you a copy of the confirmation once it’s gone,” she said.

  “I don’t need to know any of this, so it’s best not to talk to me about it anymore. Just put the information in a sealed envelope. The Captain likes to keep details like that between himself and people like you. My directions are more basic.”

  “Such as?”

  “Take Ng out and do what I can to help you with Seto.” He looked hard at her. “The Captain says you’re a debt collector. He says you must be a very special kind to come here by yourself and be able to wire $100,000 as if it were nothing.”

  “That’s what I do for a living,” she said. “Now, taking Ng out — how hard will that be?”

  “Not a problem for us. How about Seto for you?”

  She liked Patrick already. He was direct without being rude or aggressive, and he was confident and assertive.

  “I’ll meet him at Eckie’s and try to convince him that it’s in his best interests to cooperate with me,” she said.

  “What will you say? ‘Pretty please, give me back whatever gazillions of dollars you scammed’?”

  “Something like that,” she laughed.

  “Does it ever work?”

  “You’d be surprised. Once they know I’ve found them and once they know I’ve located the money, most of them understand that I’m the best chance they have to give it back and maintain — how shall I say it? — their physical well-being. Mind you, this is me dealing with the Chinese — and all our clients are Chinese — in Hong Kong or New York or Toronto or Vancouver. They always assume that I’ve been sent by the triads, and that if they don’t cut a deal with me they’ll have four guys with machetes sitting beside their beds.”

  “The Captain thinks you are triad.”

  “I have no guys with machetes sitting back at the hotel,” she said, smiling. “And I have no tattoos. Everyone knows that triads have tattoos.”

  “Do you think Seto will be as cooperative as your Chinese in Hong Kong?”

  “Actually no, I don’t. He thinks he’s protected here. So I think I’m at Plan B already.”

  “So not much chit-chat?”

  “No.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Tell me first, how will you handle Ng?”

  “Under our national security law we can detain anyone we suspect of anti-government activity for up to a week without laying charges and without providing a lawyer. They don’t even get to make a phone call. We’ll use that law to put Ng on ice for as long as you need. Now tell me about Seto.”

  “He seems to go to Eckie’s every night. We’ll confront him there. He’s a scrawny little piece of shit — you shouldn’t have any problem putting handcuffs on him and getting him out the door. We’ll take him to his house. If the woman is in the club, she’ll go with us. If she isn’t, we’ll deal with her at the house.”

  He didn’t speak again until he stopped the truck at Donald’s Doughnut Shop. She looked around; the neighbourhood was even more rundown than central Georgetown.

  “I live over there,” he said, pointing to a small red bungalow at the end of the street. “It’s my mother’s house.”

  They got out of the truck and entered the shop, sitting in the booth farthest from the door. The coffee wasn’t instant but she didn’t complain. Her doughnut was virtually oozing fat. She ate it silently.

  “Seto owns a piece of Eckie’s,” Patrick said between bites. “That’s how our people got to know him at first. Eckie’s is not completely legal. By that I mean clubs in general aren’t exactly legal, so if you want to operate one you have to make arrangements with the right people.”

  “Are there bouncers at the club, or might any of his partners choose to interfere with us?”

  “If they know we’re involved, everyone will stay out of the way. No see, no hear, no nothing.”

  “Then let’s hope he goes to Eckie’s.”

  “If we weren’t involved, how would you — I mean, what do you do in other cases when people aren’t co-operating?”

  “There are always options,” she said. “The most important thing is figuring out ahead of time what will work. If I think a direct approach will succeed, then I become direct. If I think there’s going to be resistance, then I’m more discreet, less visible. In a case like Seto’s, if I were acting alone I would use something like chloral hydrate to strengthen my position.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Jesus, I haven’t heard that mentioned in a while.”

  “I know, it’s a little old-fashioned. But it’s effective. There’s something about waking up with your hands and feet bound, your eyes masked and mouth covered, that makes people want to be cooperative. It brings an unknown quality; it lets me create a bit of fantasy. Since I have you, that won’t be necessary, but I’ll st
ill tape his eyes and mouth until we get to the house.”

  “No problem,” he said.

  “Where are you from?” she asked suddenly. “You and the Captain have a similar accent. I can’t place it but I know it isn’t from here.”

  “Barbados — we’re both Bajans. My grandmother was his nanny, if you can believe that. He moved here more than thirty years ago and made his name, made his fortune. I was a boy in trouble back home when Gran called the Captain and asked him to take me on. So I came with my mother and my sister. It isn’t Barbados, but we’re doing okay.”

  “The Captain is an impressive man,” she said.

  “The Captain runs this poor excuse for a country,” he said. “He keeps the animals in check.”

  She fought back an urge to comment on the potholes, brown water, and irregular power. “Thank goodness,” she said.

  “What are you going to do today?” he asked.

  “I have a little shopping to do. Other than that I can’t do very much until the Captain gives me the green light.”

  “I know.” Patrick yawned. “I had a late night. I think I’ll go to the gym and get myself revved. You want to come?”

  “No, I ran this morning. I’m good.”

  “We were talking last night, Bobby and me, about the way you handled those two creeps. They’re handy, both of them, so we couldn’t figure out how you did it. I thought maybe you could show me at the gym.”

  “I practise bak mei,” she said. “It isn’t something you teach someone at a gym.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “It’s a Chinese martial art.”

  “Like karate, kung fu?“

  “Like kung fu but not kung fu. No one makes movies about bak mei.”

  “What is it, then?”

  “It’s very old, very Chinese — Taoist in fact. It has never caught on in the Western world because it isn’t pretty and it can’t be made into a sport. It’s purely functional, designed to inflict damage. And it can be lethal when applied to the extreme. I went relatively easy on those two.”

  “Do you use kicks?”

  “Only below the waist.”

  “Nice,” he said. “How did you learn this stuff?”

  “I was already into martial arts and I was good, good enough that one of the teachers pulled me aside and asked if I had heard of bak mei. I hadn’t. He explained that it was a secret art — in the old days, a forbidden art — and that it was only taught one-on-one: father to son, teacher to student. He asked me if I wanted to learn. When I said I did, he sent me to see Grandmaster Tang. I haven’t stopped learning since.”