The water rat of Wanchai al-1

by Ian Hamilton

The Crown Victoria was where she had left it, with Davey in the front seat, window open, bobbing his head to the sound of Neil Diamond’s “Cracklin’ Rosie.” It made Ava think of Bangkok and Arthon. How long ago was that? And what was up with all the Neil Diamond? Robbins was sleeping, his head flung back, his mouth wide open. As she stood on the sidewalk she could smell the aroma of fresh bread coming from a bakery across the street. She suddenly felt hungry and realized she had eaten only a bag of almonds since noon the day before. She looked up and down the street and spotted a fish-and-chip restaurant a few doors down from the bakery.

  She walked to the front passenger side of the car and stuck her head in the window. “I’m going to eat at that fish-and-chip place. If he wakes up, tell him where I am,” she said to Davey, and then turned and left before he had a chance to say a word.

  The restaurant was plainness itself — linoleum floor, plastic chairs and tables — but it was clean, and the smell of cooking oil was muted. “I’m surprised you’re open,” Ava said to a tall, skinny man dressed entirely in white.

  “Cruise ship docks in about half an hour. We’ll get swamped.”

  She scanned the menu, her fish-and-chip experience limited to the occasional after-club foray with Mimi and Good Fridays with her mother and Marian when the girls were small. She couldn’t remember whether haddock or halibut was the premium choice, so she asked.

  “Take the halibut,” he said.

  “With chips and gravy,” Ava said.

  “Mushy peas?”

  “Why not?”

  She felt a touch guilty when the plate was put in front of her. Loading up on grease was something — Guyana and KFC aside — she rarely did voluntarily. Now she put malt vinegar and salt and pepper on the fish and chips. A dollop of tartar sauce went on one side of the plate and ketchup on the other. She cut into the fish, the batter golden brown and surprisingly light, slathered a piece in tartar sauce, and ate it. The fish melted in her mouth.

  Ava ate quickly, but she was still only halfway through the meal when the front door opened and Robbins lurched in. His eyes danced around the restaurant as if he were expecting to see something other than her sitting at a table. “What are you doing?” he demanded, his voice husky with sleep.

  “What does it look like?”

  “You should have asked.”

  “You were sleeping.”

  His hand went to his head. Ava turned her attention back to her food, not wanting a glimpse of his fingers sliding in the furrows. But the vision was already in her head. She ate a few more chips, a sliver of fish, and a forkful of bright green mushy peas, then put her utensils down. “That really was excellent,” she said to the man behind the counter.

  He nodded as if he was used to hearing such compliments.

  As she left the restaurant she said to Robbins, “I need to find a place where I can make some copies of documents.”

  Davey had moved the car to in front of the fish-and-chip shop. Ava climbed in. “I need to make some photocopies,” she repeated.

  Davey looked back at Robbins. “Go to Quickie Copy,” Robbins said.

  They drove back through town, past the turnoff for Wickham’s Cay II, and continued around the southwest corner of the harbour. The copy shop was on Main Street, in the end unit of a small strip mall. Ava went inside with Robbins tagging along. She made an additional two copies of each of the papers Bates had given her. Her Jackson Seto signature was passable, she thought, but the extra copies gave her some insurance.

  Back in the car she said, “And I wouldn’t mind stopping at a grocery store on the way back to the apartment.”

  “Jesus Christ, this is getting stupid,” Robbins said.

  “I can’t exist on nuts and potato chips.”

  “There’s a market just around the corner from the apartment. I saw it as we were leaving this morning. It’s right on the way,” Davey said.

  “Okay, okay, but that’s it,” said Robbins.

  As Davey pulled up in front of the store, Robbins’s cellphone rang. “Wait,” he said to Ava. He listened for no more than a few seconds. “Here, it’s my brother for you,” he said, passing her the phone.

  She held it away from her mouth. “I left the bank about half an hour ago,” she said, knowing that was why he had called. “Nothing is finalized, nothing is agreed. It was step one, that’s all.”

  “I was going to ask if you slept well,” the Captain said.

  “And then you were going to ask me about the bank.”

  “That is incorrect. I was also going to ask if my brother was good company.”

  “And then you were going to ask about the bank.”

  “True enough.” He laughed. “So if it is just business you want to discuss, tell me how it went.”

  “I didn’t get thrown of their offices, if that’s what you mean.”

  “That’s the last thing I would have imagined.”

  “You may be expecting too much of me, and it’s way too soon to know how this will end. The banker, Bates, is very sharp and very conscientious. He’s insisting on talking to Seto,” Ava said.

  “And you’re trying to tell me that could be a problem?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I see the potential risk.”

  “That’s an understatement.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you’ll be able to handle it, Ms. Lee. I have nothing but confidence in you.”

  Ava saw no reason to pursue such a pointless conversation. “Look, I have to go. I have papers to sign and things to organize.”

  “What is your schedule?”

  “I’m going to talk to Bates again this afternoon. If he’ll accept at face value the documents with my version of Seto’s signature, I’ll attempt to get the money wired to Hong Kong today. If that happens, and after I have confirmation, I need to email my end to initiate a wire back to you. Obviously I need to use my computer to do that, so you’ll have to instruct your brother accordingly.”

  “That won’t be a problem.”

  “Landing here wasn’t supposed to be a problem.”

  “Ms. Lee, don’t be churlish,” he said.

  “Assuming we get to the point of sending a wire from Hong Kong — and I’m not guaranteeing we will — I’ll ask my people to email you a scanned copy of the wire as I did before. And to be doubly safe, I would like to send you a fax copy. Do you have a fax number that’s secure?”

  “My brother has that number.”

  “I don’t want to ask him for even that much,” said Ava.

  “Ah. He does lack charm, I admit. All right, I’ll email it to you.”

  Ava saw Jack Robbins stiffen and realized that he could hear what his brother was saying. That gave her pause. She had been about to nudge the Captain about returning her Canadian passport and calling off Morris Thomas after he received the wire transfer notification. Suddenly and completely, that felt like one of the worst ideas she’d had since leaving Toronto. God, don’t appear the least bit anxious, she thought. And don’t give him time to think about doing it. Try to catch him when he’s just been told he’s about to pocket two million dollars. “Thank you,” she said. “You understand this means I have to get into my computer?”

  “As long as it’s related to our business and Jack is watching you, I have no objections.”

  “Aren’t you generous.”

  “Ms. Lee, you honour your commitments and I’ll honour mine.”

  She handed the phone back to Jack Robbins. “I’m going to buy some food. Here, you talk to your brother.”

  Robbins caught up with her as she was putting two bottles of sparkling water into her basket. “Stop running out on me,” he said.

  “Just trying to save time.”

  “My brother wasn’t finished with you.”

  “Tough,” Ava said, and held out the basket. “If you’re going to follow me around you might as well carry this.”

  Robbins stared, his eyes for the first time really looking into hers. They weren’t e
ntirely lifeless, she saw, more like disinterested, as if she was completely insignificant to him. She knew that goading him wasn’t the best approach, but she couldn’t bring herself to make nice. “Let’s go,” he said, ignoring the basket.

  Ava walked down two more aisles, adding rice crackers, cheese, a jar of olives, and a small plastic container of hummus. Robbins stayed close behind her, his gloved hands jammed into his jeans pockets, saying nothing.

  Outside the store she could see that the apartment building was no more than a couple of minutes away; she asked Robbins if they could walk. He opened the car door and said, “Get in.”

  Davey dropped them in front of the building. “Do you need me later?” he asked.

  “If I do, I’ll call,” said Robbins.

  Doreen, the young woman they had met in the lobby the night before, was behind the reception desk. She stared, rather rudely, Ava thought, as she and Robbins entered and walked to the elevator. What lurid thoughts were running through her mind?

  The apartment was as they had left it. Ava went to look in on Seto. He had rolled over onto his side, kicking the bedcovers clear. His hair was dishevelled and starting to look greasy. Drool had dried on one side of his mouth. She covered him, hoping it wasn’t going to be necessary to clean him up.

  Ava heard a clatter from the living room and looked out to see Robbins clearing the Stella empties. She walked towards him as he deposited the bottles in the kitchen trash bin. “I need this space,” she said. “I have a lot of papers to sign and I need to concentrate, so I’d appreciate it if you could leave me alone. I don’t want the television on. In fact, I don’t want any distractions at all, so it would be ideal if you could hang out in your room until I’m done.”

  She saw his body tense; this time he wanted to argue. Before he could react she brushed past him and sat at the kitchen table. He stood near the sink, staring down at her. She tried to ignore him, extracting from her purse the documents Bates had given her, setting out the extra copies she’d made, and laying out Seto’s passport, Hong Kong ID card, and driver’s licence in a row. “I need to work,” she said, not looking up.

  “Cunt,” he muttered.

  Ava heard it clearly enough but pretended she hadn’t. She searched in her purse for one more document, a copy of Seto’s last withdrawal request from the bank, and then put it next to his other identification. She opened her notebook. “I need to work,” she said.

  He took two steps towards the living room, stopped to look back at her, and then shuffled across the floor to his room.

  Ava sat quietly at the kitchen table for a few minutes, collecting herself. Robbins was becoming a distraction, and she blamed herself for letting him annoy her. She opened her notebook and looked at the signatures she’d penned the night before. Not bad, she thought, not bad at all.

  There were a lot of things for her to like about Seto’s signature. It was short, for one thing, simply JSeto. It also wasn’t identical from document to document. Similar, of course, and recognizable obviously, but with minor variations. It gave her a little wiggle room. Despite those positives, she sat quietly at the table for a few minutes, gathering her nerve. She had done this often enough in the past and never failed, but her perfectionist streak could always find flaws. The truth was, any reasonable facsimile normally worked. She was just afraid of running into someone as anal as she was.

  She started with a blank page in her notebook and began to practise. The signature was basically a big looping J, the bottom loop curling into the upper, and a relatively straightforward S, followed by a straight line that tailed off to a dot. The J was dominant. If she got that right, imperfections in the rest would pass. The proportions were tricky, though, between the top and bottom loops, and when they were out of sync the signature looked contrived.

  Ava began to write J’s — just J’s. She had filled almost the entire page before she managed to get three in a row that looked similar to the ones in front of her. She closed her eyes, envisioning it. I have it, she thought.

  She started with the copies of his ID. With one eye fixed on the bank document he’d signed and the other on the paper in front of her, she wrote JSeto nine times in rapid succession. When she had finished, she discarded only the last two — the J was out of whack. Take a break, step away, she thought. She got up and turned on the kettle. While the water boiled she looked out onto the harbour, amazed by the level of activity.

  Ava drank half her coffee on the balcony, clearing her head, and then went back to the table. She had written two more lines of J’s in her notebook before she recaptured the balance she wanted. Then quickly she redid the two signatures that looked suspect and moved on to the wire transfer requests. Those went smoothly, the signatures indistinguishable, even to her paranoid eye, from what the bank had on record. There, the easy part is done, she thought, as she organized the paperwork into matching sets.

  It was too soon to call Bates. There was no value in letting him think Seto had been well enough to affix the signatures so promptly. She’d wait. It was almost eleven thirty. One o’clock — no, one thirty worked better. Give him time to have some lunch.

  She gathered the documents and slid them into their folder. Out of nowhere came a yawn, and Ava realized she was tired. She’d been awake since God knows when, and the morning had been draining. She had time to kill, and a rest couldn’t hurt.

  Ava didn’t say anything or look into Robbins’s room as she walked past to hers. If he couldn’t figure out that she had finished working, that was his problem. She closed the door behind her and lay on the bed fully clothed. Her mind was more of a jumble than she would have liked. Bates was more than enough to occupy her, but Robbins — both Robbinses — kept intruding. She tried to shut everyone out, thinking bak mei, crane position: her foot poised to strike, her hands moving faster than light.

  When she woke, it was with a start, her eyes darting to the doorway. It was closed. She was on her bed, still dressed, nothing out of place. She lifted her left hand and looked at her watch. Two forty-five. She sat on the edge of the bed, composing herself.

  She opened her bedroom door and saw Robbins back on the couch, watching television. She went to the bathroom, locking the door behind her, and washed her face with cold water, slapping at her cheeks. Then she undid her hair, brushed and coiled it again, and put the ivory chignon pin back in place. She reapplied her makeup. Her eyes looked a bit puffy from sleep, but there wasn’t anything she could do about that.

  Robbins turned towards her as she re-entered the living room. “I need to call the bank,” she said.

  “Use that phone,” he said, pointing to the only one in the apartment, which was on the wall near the kitchen.

  She called the number on Bates’s business card, assuming it was his private line. Instead, the receptionist she had met earlier answered with a rolling “Barrrrrett’s.”

  “Mr. Bates, please. Ms. Lee calling.”

  He came on the line quickly, and she guessed he had been waiting for her call. As he’d said, she was a diversion from his usual routine. “Ava, how are things progressing?”

  “Hello, Jeremy. Well, not bad at all. Jackson has signed the draft requests and all the other documents that are needed.”

  “Wonderful. So when will I see the two of you?”

  She heard the emphasis, however slight and subtle, on the word two. Ava drew a small breath. She knew for certain, knew totally and completely, that no matter how she spun things, Jeremy Bates wouldn’t be sending any wires until he actually saw Jackson Seto. Suggesting anything else, no matter how creative she could be, wasn’t going to fly. She could try to charm him, of course, but she knew there were limits to charm, and when charm had to compete against money, it lost its lustre pretty quickly.

  “Unfortunately, Jeremy, there is that continuing problem with Jackson. Frankly, I’m having a tough time getting him from the bedroom to the bathroom, let alone dressed and out the door to visit the bank. In fact, I may need to ask you
for the name of a doctor.”

  “Ah,” he said.

  To Ava’s ear, that simple interjection was filled with hesitation, questions, doubt. She felt a slight touch of panic, and spoke before he could shut any doors on her. “There is another way, though,” she said, in as low-key a manner as she could manage. “Why don’t you come here to collect the documents? I know Jackson would like to see you to say hello.”

  He didn’t respond immediately, and for a second she thought she had misjudged the situation. “You know, that’s not a bad idea,” he finally said.

  “The sooner, the better,” she said. “He’s exhausted and keeps nodding off.”

  “About an hour?” he asked.

  “Perfect. We’re in apartment 312.”

  “See you both then.”

  (36)

  Ava tried to put herself in Bates’s position. Every transaction he conducted was a candidate for scrutiny, a potential target for the only person who might scare him: the bank’s auditor. All the good bankers she had known made it a religion to cover their tracks, regardless of the size or nature of the transaction. Following banking regulations had become second nature to them. So to her mind, dinner invitation or not, Bates wasn’t going to treat her differently from any other customer. It was her job to make sure he had everything he thought he would need if an auditor came calling. And she thought she had done that adequately.

  He had the email from Seto saying that he wanted to send a wire and bringing Ava into the picture as a trusted associate. He had met Ava, and she seemed to be the person Seto had described. She knew, given the time difference, that he hadn’t had a chance to call the accounting firm in Hong Kong to confirm her position, and from the way he had looked at her card and at her, she knew he wouldn’t. He had seen all the originals of Seto’s identification, and they matched everything they currently had on file. Now he was going to get the signed original copies of the wire transfer requests and signed and dated copies of the same ID. It was, all in all, Ava thought, a paper trail that would satisfy any auditor.

  But there was still the important matter of Bates actually meeting Seto, actually witnessing him signing the necessary documentation. It was a chink in the due diligence process, she knew, that might cause Bates problems if he had to explain the situation later. But that would be later, when hindsight would make it easy to adapt what had actually occurred into what was supposed to have transpired. And even then, he could say with all honesty that he had seen Seto. The fact that he was comatose could be explained. Seto was ill, after all, and Bates had made the point of physically going to his apartment to meet with him. He couldn’t be blamed for the fact that Seto was sleeping at the time. Due diligence had been done. The bank couldn’t reasonably expect more of him.