The King of Shanghai

by Ian Hamilton

  “Thank you for saying that.”

  “It is the truth.”

  “And it’s an entirely remarkable offer,” May said. “Why should we accept it?”

  Xu slid his forefinger over his upper lip. Ava saw sweat gleaming where the finger touched.

  “You get an additional one hundred and fifty million dollars in interest-free, strings-free working capital. Whatever it is you want to do, you can do more of it and you can do it faster.”

  May nodded. “Xu, I don’t want to seem impolite, but who would know we had taken your money?”

  “As I said, the money is clean. We’re not asking you to launder it or do anything illegal. And it will come to you through the co-operative, not from Yan Yee Tong.”

  “But an outsider’s perception could be different, and my nature is to be cautious.”

  “I understand that. Only a handful of people in my inner circle know, and whoever you choose to tell.”

  “And if we tell no one?”

  “Then it should not go past this table.”

  “You don’t expect an answer right now, do you?” Ava asked.

  “No, of course not.”

  “We need to talk, and I’m not sure how long it will take for us to decide what to do.”

  “I have waited this long.”

  “Yes, you have.”

  “Whatever your decision, I appreciate the time and attention you have given me.”

  “How do we get in touch with you?” Ava asked.

  He reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip of paper. “Here are my private home number and my mobile number. Please try the home number first; if you can’t reach me, call the mobile. I am available twenty-fours hours a day.”

  May rose from the table. “Whatever we decide, this has been a meal I’ll never forget. Thank you for your hospitality, and for your honesty.”

  Xu stood and extended his hand. “It was my pleasure. Hopefully it will not be the last time we have an opportunity to eat together.”

  Ava pushed back her chair and took a step towards the door. “We’ll call you as soon as we’ve made up our minds.”

  “Thanks,” Xu said, and then turned to May. “I do not mean to be rude, but I would like to speak privately to Ava for a minute.”

  May looked at Ava, who simply nodded. May left the room, closing the door behind her.

  “I hope this was not an unpleasant surprise,” Xu said, still standing at his side of the table. “I debated telling you on the phone before you came, but I thought that would be disrespectful towards May. You are equal partners and you had the right to hear my offer for the first time when you were together. I did not want May to think I had gone behind her back, or that you and I were concocting our own plans.”

  “That was considerate of you.”

  “It was practical.”

  Ava drew a deep breath. “Xu, I have no idea what we’re going to decide.”

  “I am not prying or lobbying. I have stated my case and now it is up to the two of you.”

  “Is that what you wanted to say to me?”

  “Only partially. Mainly I want you to know that I was not phoning you in Toronto for any reason other than to build on the friendship that I think we had started, and that regardless of what the decision is, I want to maintain our relationship.”

  Ava looked across the room at Xu. He hadn’t moved from the table. One hand rested on top of it, his gaze fixed on her. She saw nothing but sincerity in his manner and in his eyes. “Yes, I think I would like that too,” she said.

  “Good. I’ll leave here tonight content, knowing that we will be speaking again.”

  ( 10 )

  They sat in the hotel bar, May Ling sipping a martini, Ava nursing a glass of soda water.

  Xu had walked them to the restaurant entrance and offered to accompany them back to the hotel. They declined his offer and made their way back alone. May tried to talk as they shuffled through the crowd, but the Bund was still jammed with people and the noise level made it impossible to carry on any kind of conversation. It wasn’t until they reached the hotel that Ava could hear May without her yelling.

  “I need a drink,” May said.

  “I’ll crash if I have one.”

  “Then just keep me company.”

  The bar was quiet and they found a table by the window with a view of the Bund. The waiter was there in an instant. May ordered a martini, Ava a glass of soda water.

  “That was quite the dinner,” May said when he had left.

  “Sorry for the surprise. I told you what he was hinting at earlier, but I wasn’t prepared for anything like that.”

  “It was rather unexpected . . . but fascinating all the same.”

  “Do you mean you would consider it?”

  “From a business standpoint it is one hell of a deal. How many times do you get the chance to more than double your working capital with free money?”

  “Assuming the money is unencumbered, and assuming that it really is as far removed from Yan Yee Tong as he says.”

  “I actually don’t doubt that, but nothing was as true as when he was talking about the government’s ability to undo things that seem done. There isn’t a law in this country that can’t be changed in a day or — perhaps even worse — ignored for a day.”

  “That seems like a case for not taking the money, even if it is clean.”

  “It is a case for being cautious.”

  “If — and I do mean if — we decide to take it, we could set up a separate company outside China and shift the money there. Canada would work,” Ava said.

  “So then the money would be four times removed from Yan Yee Tong.”

  “Exactly. And I don’t remember Xu saying that the money had to be invested in China. He might have implied it, but he didn’t say it.”

  “The problem is that most of our investment opportunities are here.”

  “We could ask Amanda to focus on businesses elsewhere.”

  May shook her head. “To a degree we could, but this is where our expertise and contacts are, and this is where the greatest profits are to be made.”

  The waiter arrived with their drinks. May took her martini from the tray and raised her glass. “Partners,” she said.

  “Partners.”

  “There was another thing I thought of when Xu was outlining his deal,” May said. “There are some synergies we can exploit.”

  “Such as?”

  “He mentioned garment factories. If we did the Po deal, we’d have instant, controllable production capacity. And we could turn Suki loose with her expansion plans and maybe, with the co-operative’s help, grow her customer base even more.

  “It sounds like you want to take the money.”

  May took the toothpick from her glass and put the first of three olives into her mouth. “It does have some appeal,” she said. “But I have to tell you, I don’t think this is my decision to make.”

  “What do you mean?”

  May slid the other two olives into her mouth and then looked out onto the Bund as she chewed. “Xu made it plain enough from his side when he said that without you, there would be no thought of doing a deal. This is all about you and him and Uncle.”

  “There isn’t that kind of bond between him and me.”

  “He saved your life.”

  “He did that for Uncle.”

  “Who knows what motivated him?”

  “He told me it was because of Uncle.”

  “He still acted, and without him the end result would not have been the same.”

  “What’s your point?”

  “I’m not sure that I have one,” May said slowly. “It was just — when Xu was speaking all I could hear was Uncle. And it isn’t just the way he dresses, in that black suit and white shirt. I found that h
e presents himself like Uncle: calm, soft-spoken, every word calculated. With Uncle there was always the understanding that there were layers, hidden depths, to him, and that his words exposed only a fraction of his mindset. That’s all — he reminded me of Uncle and I thought, That can’t be a bad thing. But you have to decide. If you want the deal, I’m in. If you don’t, then I’m out. Either way I am entirely comfortable with your decision. The way I look at it, you knew Uncle better than anyone, and I’m guessing you have a very good read on Xu already. You know, Ava, he was bang on when he talked about contracts. You can paper a deal a thousand times over, but in the end it all comes down to trust.”

  “And do you trust him?”

  “Yes, I think I do. But it isn’t my judgement that matters here, it’s yours. You have to feel comfortable about him.”

  “May, one of my problems is that when my business with Uncle ended, I saw it as a turning of the page. Xu reminds me of what I left behind. Even talking to him on the phone when I was in Toronto made me feel like I was still partially in that life. I wanted to make a clean break.”

  “None of us can escape what we have done and how it has helped form us, but I do know you have experienced extremes, and I can understand why you don’t want to go back there.”

  Ava finished her water, closed her eyes, pushed her head back, and rolled her neck. “I might be making too much of this,” she said. “I’m tired, I’m jet-lagged, and my head feels like it’s filled with mush. Let me sleep on it. We’ll talk more in the morning.”

  “You should go to bed,” May said.

  Ava slid down from the bar stool. “And that’s where I’m headed.”

  “I’m going to have another martini. My head is full of Suki Chan, the Pos, and Xu. I need to calm it.”

  Ava took the elevator to the fifth floor, stripped as soon as she got into her room, and then tried to decide between jumping directly into bed or showering. She opted for the shower, thinking it would relax her and help ease her into sleep. Instead it jump-started her system and left her feeling as if she had downed half a dozen energy drinks.

  After tossing and turning in bed for fifteen minutes, her mind running in circles, she got up and sat at the desk. She turned on her computer, checked her email, and fired off a billet-doux to Maria. She then accessed an English-language search engine and for half an hour looked at the websites of various designer clothing brands. She was most interested in their histories and was surprised to find that virtually all of them could be traced back to one creative, often eccentric, young designer.

  She then shifted to Xu. She searched his name and those of Yan Yee Tong and Sun Fong Fa in English and then in Chinese. There wasn’t a single mention in either language. She liked the name Sun Fong Fa. It translated into “new way” in English and showed, if nothing else, that Xu had a sense of irony.

  The room was cold and Ava was dressed in only a T-shirt and underwear. When she began to shiver, she turned off the computer and went back to bed. She slipped under the white duvet, turned off all the lights, and then turned on the television. Hong Kong’s Jade Channel was airing a soap opera set in the Ming Dynasty. It brought Xu back into her thoughts again. She willed herself to concentrate on the show. She watched for ten minutes, or an hour — she had no idea. It was a mindless farce but it distracted her, and her mind was calm when she hit the off button on the remote and finally fell asleep.

  Her father visited her again in a dream, but this time in a different setting and with a different emotional pull. Rather than just the two of them trying to connect in a hotel or catch a flight, her father was in a restaurant, sitting at a round table surrounded by ten Chinese women. Ava could see them from all the way across the dining room, where she was standing by herself. They were eating and the women were chatting as the lazy Susan spun a series of dishes from chopstick to chopstick. Her father was laughing, and the women seemed to be revelling in his attention. A few of them looked younger than Ava, two could have been in their forties, and the rest were around Ava’s age. They were all well dressed and there wasn’t a wrist or a throat that was unadorned. Even from a distance she could see green and white jade, platinum, and the rich glow of twenty-one karat gold.

  The restaurant was full, but there was an empty seat at her father’s table. Ava walked towards it feeling self­conscious and nervous. I have a right to be here, she told herself. When she got close to the table, the overhead lights suddenly dimmed.

  “Daddy, it’s me, Ava,” she said, smiling.

  He peered at her, the women’s eyes following his.

  “I don’t know any Ava,” he said.

  “And no one calls him Daddy!” one of the women shouted.

  Ava moved closer, thinking that perhaps he couldn’t see her properly in the weak light. “I don’t think that’s very funny,” she said.

  He shrugged and turned his head away. The women did the same. The lazy Susan began to circle again, chopsticks plucking food from dishes. Ava felt as if she were watching them through a one-way mirror, able to see but not to be seen.

  “Don’t let him upset you,” a voice said.

  She froze.

  “He loves everyone in turn, and no one for very long.”

  He was sitting off to the left, in a green leather armchair pressed against a wall. Beside him was his ashtray stand. He had a lit cigarette in his hand, the smoke curling around his shadowed face. But she knew the voice.

  “Why does he do these things to me?” she said.

  He crossed his legs and she saw that his feet barely touched the ground. He looked like a child being swallowed up by the chair. The smoke cleared and she could make out his black suit, the white shirt buttoned to the collar, the bottom half of his face. She searched for his eyes but they were lost in shadow.

  “He moves from life to life. There is no malice in it, just practicality,” Uncle said.

  She tried to step towards the chair but couldn’t move her feet. “Why are you here?” she asked.

  “I miss you.”

  “I miss you too.”

  “Don’t cry.”

  She felt a tear trickle down her cheek and her hand shot up to intercept it. “I’m not.”

  “I also need to talk to you.”

  “About what?”

  “Xu.”

  “Did he send you?”

  “No, he would never ask that of me. And if he had I would have thought so little of him that I would never speak to him again.”

  “He reminds me of you. Not entirely, but a bit.”

  He butted out the cigarette in the ashtray, reached into his jacket pocket for his pack, took out a fresh stick, and lit it with a long wooden match. His face glowed in the phosphorus light, the skin taut and unlined, his lips a bit redder than usual. He blew on the match and was plunged into deeper darkness.

  “There were rumours that he is my son. Physically we have some resemblance and we share some speech patterns, and he adopted my manner of dress, but the rumours are not true. I am close to him all the same. His father was a friend and a trusted colleague for many years, and after he died I inherited some responsibility for Xu. I did not mind. It made me feel young and purposeful again.”

  “He seems calm on the surface, like you, but I sense there is turmoil raging inside.”

  “He has chosen a difficult path, and there are times when he does not think it is the correct one. There are times when he doubts himself.”

  “You know what he wants of me?”

  “Yes.”

  “And the money is only part of it?”

  “You are as beautiful as ever.”

  “Uncle!”

  “And as perceptive.”

  “Tell me what he wants.”

  “He needs you.”

  “That isn’t an answer.”

  “I don’t know what more I can say.”


  “Uncle, please.”

  “You must talk to him.”

  “I don’t know if I want to,” she said.

  He took a deep drag on his cigarette. When he exhaled, his face disappeared in the smoke.

  “Uncle!” she shouted. Her vision became cloudy and she heard her own voice, the word Uncle still on her tongue.

  She was sitting upright in her bed at the Peninsula. Across the room, by itself in a corner, was a green leather chair. She sniffed the air. There was a hint of cigarette smoke.

  ( 11 )

  Ava woke at just past seven. A thin stream of morning light had escaped around the edge of the curtains and found her eyes. She burrowed into the pillows but couldn’t get back to sleep.

  She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She was still groggy from sleep, jet lag, and wine. Her eyes fell on the green leather chair in the corner, and a sense of loss washed over her. It had been there all the time, she knew. Since Uncle’s death she had been carrying around a tight knot in her belly. Now it felt as if the knot had come undone, and whatever it was holding together had been unleashed and was free to course through her body. She blinked as tears began to fall. She wrapped her arms around her chest and shuddered, filling the room with halting, gulping sobs.

  At seven thirty the alarm sounded. She was still in bed. The tears had stopped and the ache in her belly had eased. She slid out of bed and went to the window, pulled open the curtains, and looked out onto the garden and the creek. The world was going about its business as it always did, and now she needed to look after hers.

  Ava made coffee and sat at the desk, then turned on the computer and checked her emails. A love note from Maria made her smile. She pushed the chair back from the desk, retrieved her notebook from her bag, and opened it to a fresh page. Across the top she wrote Xu and in point form summarized the offer he was making. Then she wrote Pro on the left side of the page and Con on the right. When she was finished, the right side of the paper contained only one word: Triad. She picked up the room phone and dialled May’s extension.

  “Yes,” May said.