The King of Shanghai

by Ian Hamilton

  Ava shot him a glance. “Andy, I don’t think I should discuss this with you.”

  A bus stopped in front of the station and unloaded. As the flood of people moved past them, Ava backed up against a wall. Andy stood in front of her, his hand in his pocket. When the bus moved off, Sonny’s Mercedes slid into its spot. Ava said a quick thanks to Andy and then walked to the car, where Sonny waited, holding the rear door open for her.

  As the car pulled into traffic she said, “What did you think of the meeting?”

  His eyes flickered in the rear-view mirror. They looked uncertain, as if she had sprung a trick question on him. “They’ll have to keep a lid on Wing, and I wouldn’t let Jimmy Tan leave Hong Kong until the election for chairman is over,” he said.

  “You knew about the election before?”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “I didn’t until a few days ago.”

  “No reason for you to know.”

  The traffic slowed and Ava replayed in her mind the meeting with Wing, searching for any mistakes she might have made.

  “And boss, you shouldn’t ignore Li,” Sonny said. “Just because he didn’t rush to Wanchai doesn’t mean he isn’t coming. He knows Xu is hurt. He may take a gamble and try to finish him off. He may think there isn’t any other leadership in place.”

  “I’m not ignoring him,” Ava said quietly.

  Again his eyes flashed in the mirror. “Sorry if that was out of place.”

  “Don’t be,” she said. “And since we’re speaking of Li, do you have any good contacts in Guangzhou?”

  “What do you mean by ‘good’?” he said.

  “People who are connected and discreet.”

  “No, not really, but Uncle Fong does. He was in and out of there for years.”

  “Doing what?”

  “We had bits of business there. Fong was the man on the ground for Uncle.”

  “So he knows Li?”

  “Very well.”

  “I wouldn’t want him to talk to Li.”

  “Of course not.”

  “Does he know Lam?”

  “Even better than Li.”

  “Sonny, how mentally alert is Uncle Fong these days?”

  “I don’t understand what you’re getting at,” he answered.

  “I need someone to talk to Lam who I can absolutely trust. I trust Uncle Fong, but what I don’t know is how capable he is these days of handling something this delicate.”

  “Why talk to Lam?”

  “I want to convince him that Guangzhou should negotiate with us.”

  “Li will make that decision. And from what Wing was saying, it doesn’t sound likely.”

  “I know it’s Li’s call, and I can’t imagine him responding positively to a direct approach from us. But Wing said this Lam character is more pragmatic. If I can persuade him that it’s in everyone’s best interest, maybe he can sway Li. Do you know Lam?”

  “I’ve met him.”

  “And?”

  “He’s solid. Not a man who gets overly emotional.”

  “So, someone we can do business with?”

  “Only to a point. Li makes all the final decisions.”

  “I would never ask Lam to talk to Li about an agreement unless he had something firm in hand, something that would satisfy Li’s needs.”

  “Ava, you’re losing me.”

  “I want to talk to Lam, and Lam alone. I want him to know that Xu is prepared to cut a deal.”

  “Ava, have you discussed this idea with Suen or Lop?”

  “No, I haven’t, and given Xu’s wishes, I don’t think I have to. Do you?”

  “No,” he said quickly. “I’m sorry for even asking the question.”

  “I didn’t mean to snap,” Ava said. “It’s just that things can’t keep going like this. Wing and Li were stupid to attack Xu, but enough revenge has been taken on Wanchai. The bloodshed has to stop and business needs to get back to normal.”

  “No one likes war — except maybe Lop,” Sonny said.

  “So let’s bring an end to it.”

  “But Ava, I have to tell you that what you want done sounds very complicated. For starters, you’ll have to explain things to Uncle Fong very clearly. He’ll be eager to please, but alert or not, I worry about his ability to relay your message to Lam. Truthfully, it might be better for me to tell Uncle Fong what you want.”

  “Will Lam trust him? He must know that Uncle Fong and I are friends.”

  “Yeah, he’ll know, but Uncle Fong has been Triad his whole life. He took the oaths and he honours the traditions. Lam also knows that Fong is retired and has no particular axe to grind.”

  “So you’re saying that we can use Uncle Fong as our go-between and you’ll brief him?”

  Sonny’s head bobbed, and she knew he was pleased with himself. How often had Uncle used him as a sounding board? It was a question she’d never considered.

  “I think we will do it that way,” she said. “Uncle Fong should contact Lam and say that he’s been talking to me and that I requested he make an approach. We want to do a deal and we’re prepared to make concessions. The first step towards reaching an agreement is for Lam to contact me directly. Uncle Fong has to make it absolutely clear that it’s too early to involve either Li or Xu. Lam and I will need some time to feel out each other’s positions and find a middle ground that we think will be acceptable to the Mountain Masters. When he and I are satisfied, then we’ll bring the bosses into the picture.”

  “Lam will have lots of questions.”

  “And Uncle Fong won’t have any answers. Lam will have to talk to me.”

  “He’ll be suspicious.”

  “I want just one phone call from Lam to tell me he’s prepared to talk. Nothing more than that. We’ll take it from there.”

  “He may run directly to Li.”

  “Uncle Fong must stress that if the bosses are brought in too soon there will never be a deal — their egos will get in the way. Lam and I need to lay the groundwork.”

  “So all you want is for Lam to agree to meet with you?”

  “Yes, so make sure Uncle Fong has my cellphone number. He can also tell Lam I’m staying at the Mandarin Oriental.” Ava looked into the rear-view mirror and saw that Sonny was staring straight ahead, his brow furrowed, his lips moving. “How soon can you meet with Uncle Fong?” she asked.

  “As soon as I get you back to Central, I’ll call him.”

  “How will he contact Lam?”

  “He’ll phone him, but only to arrange a meeting between the two of them. There’s no way something this sensitive can be discussed over the phone.”

  “If Lam agrees to see him, how soon can we get him to Guangzhou?”

  “I’ll drive him myself. It’s a two-hour trip unless the border is clogged.”

  “You haven’t slept in more than twenty-four hours.”

  “In the past I’ve gone seventy-two.”

  “Sonny, if Lam agrees to meet Uncle Fong, schedule it for early tomorrow.”

  “That might be best.”

  “We don’t want Lam to think we’re too eager.”

  ( 33 )

  Ava called the clinic from her hotel room and got Dr. Lui. “He’s resting,” he said.

  “When he wakes up, please tell him I called.”

  “It may be a while. He had a very restless night and morning and I’ve upped the dose of sedative. He needs sleep.”

  “Of course. There’s no urgency to my call.”

  She unpacked her bags and then turned on her computer. With the Wing issue resolved, she thought for a second about calling Richard Bowlby to try to set up a meeting for that afternoon, but she knew her head wasn’t in the right space. Neither was her body. She was tired. The sleepless night, combined with the adrenalin drain af
ter the meeting with Wing, had left her feeling limp. She glanced at the bed, but she knew that climbing into it would be the worst thing she could do. A two-hour nap would screw up her body clock for days. She needed to do the opposite, she thought, and reached for her running gear.

  It was a typical hot and muggy Hong Kong summer afternoon. Ava didn’t mind the heat, but Hong Kong’s humidity and perpetual cloud cover made the air thick and everything seem gloomier, more oppressive. But she was an outdoor runner, and at least she could run in Victoria Park.

  She walked from the hotel to the Central MTR station and took the train three stops east to Causeway Bay. Victoria Park was a tiny oasis of green nestled in a concrete jungle. It had been built in the 1950s, on land reclaimed from what had been a typhoon shelter for the yachts, fishing boats, and junks that now anchored at the nearby Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club and docking sites along the bay. It wasn’t particularly large; its forty-six acres paled in comparison to New York’s Central Park, at nearly eight hundred acres, and the combined 630 acres of London’s Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens. The Victoria Park jogging path was just over six hundred metres, a quarter the length of her favourite run at Lumpini Park in Bangkok. But everything is relative; given the population density of Hong Kong Island and the pressure on the government to use every square metre of land, Ava was grateful there was a jogging path at all.

  The park was open twenty-four hours a day. Early morning and evening were the peak hours. Ava had once tried running in the morning but had given up because the track was so jammed she could barely walk, let alone run. But that afternoon she was able to manoeuvre her way around the track without having to stop. There were also fewer distractions, such as the tai chi practitioners with their fans and swords and the old men with their caged birds, than there were in the morning. She was able to focus on the run, getting past the pain in her thighs and steadying her breathing until she was on cruise control, knocking off each lap in about three minutes. By the second lap she was drenched in sweat. She used a hand towel she’d brought from the hotel to wipe her face.

  She tried to think about May Ling in Beijing with Suki, and Amanda and Chi-Tze waiting in Shanghai for the Pos, and then her meeting the next day with Richard Bowlby. But almost without her realizing it, the names Lam and Li came to mind, and she was soon replaying that morning’s meeting with Wing and her talk with Sonny. It wasn’t over, she knew, not by a long shot. There were too many moving pieces, too many men still in the shadows, and she had to put her plan in the hands of Uncle Fong. That was stupid, she thought suddenly. How many years had he been retired? How senior had he actually been? How sharp was he? How could she expect him to get a meeting with Lam, let alone convince him to meet with her?

  The realization caused her to miss a breath. She felt her chest tighten, her pace slowed, and she came to a halt in the middle of the track. She had done ten laps, six of them while obsessing about Wing, Lam, Li, and Uncle Fong. But she felt energized and her mind was more alert. She’d call Sonny when she got back to the hotel, she decided.

  Rush hour had started by the time she went down the stairs into the Causeway Bay MTR station. She was still sweating profusely when she got into the train, which was almost full, and her presence in the car wasn’t welcomed. The people heading home from work didn’t appreciate being crushed against someone so sweaty. She did the best she could to be unobtrusive, but there was no escaping the masses inside the cars. By the second stop she found herself pressed so tightly that her arms were pinned to her sides, leaving her sweat to roll unchecked. The ride back to Central took only about ten minutes, but her discomfort was so extreme that it felt like half an hour, especially since, in addition to being wet, she had to put up with looks of disgust and muttered curses from the other passengers.

  Back at the hotel, she stripped and wrapped herself in a thick white terry cloth robe. When her body cooled down, she’d shower. She made herself a coffee and sat at the desk. Her worries didn’t seem quite so extreme now that she was in a different, calmer environment.

  Ava turned on her cell and saw that she hadn’t missed any calls. She opened the computer. Her inbox contained a long list of unread messages, most of them from May Ling, keeping Ava up to date on her progress. In the first she responded to Ava’s news that she was checking out of the hotel by writing: I don’t like the sound of that. Be careful. In the last she said they’d just finished lunch and were going back to work.

  The phrase to work implied structure and routine, which Ava found rather strange. The debt-collection business had been anything but regular. Jobs were intermittent, sometimes months apart, and when they did come, they often involved days of endless slogging punctuated by moments of enormous stress and, as she had told Amanda, occasional terror. Could she handle the routine? The first job she had had was with a large accounting firm in Toronto — she didn’t last six months. She wasn’t good at blindly taking orders, she had a low threshold for boredom, and she had been quietly, almost subversively, insubordinate. Three Sisters won’t be as mundane, she told herself. May Ling and Amanda were so passionate and committed that she felt stimulated just being around them. And it was nice, for a change, to feel like part of something bigger than herself. With Uncle, Ava had been on her own more often than not. This was different. Whatever they accomplished would be the result of a group effort.

  She responded to May’s emails, telling her that she would be meeting with the lawyers the next morning and that she was back in the hotel and life was good.

  There were no messages from Amanda. Ava wrote: Have you heard from Gillian? If not, please call her.

  She headed for the bathroom and took another long, hot shower. She checked her cellphone when she came out and saw she’d missed a call. The red light on the room phone was blinking as well. Xu, she thought.

  It was Sonny, and in his message he sounded pleased with himself.

  “It’s me,” Ava said when he answered.

  “I just left Uncle Fong. He was thrilled that you want him to do something.”

  “I’m glad I made him happy.”

  “You’ll be gladder still. He called Lam and the two of them talked. Lam is going to meet with him tomorrow morning.”

  “In Guangzhou?”

  “On the outskirts, so we won’t have to go all the way into the city.”

  “That’s thoughtful of him.”

  “Also he might not want anyone to know he’s meeting with Uncle Fong.”

  “And why not?”

  “You said to keep Li out of this. There’s a better chance of that if they meet on the edge of the city. Besides, these guys are all naturally suspicious.”

  “Were you with Uncle Fong when he spoke to Lam?”

  “I was.”

  “And how did Uncle conduct himself?”

  “As you wanted. In fact, better than I could have imagined. I’d forgotten how smooth and persuasive he can be. He was Uncle’s Straw Sandal, and that job was all about communicating.”

  “Lam didn’t wonder why Fong wanted to meet with him alone?”

  “Yes, but Fong just said it was about something too important to discuss over the phone.”

  “And Lam didn’t push for details?”

  “No, he didn’t push for details. I don’t know him that well, but Uncle Fong says he’s very smart and subtle. I’m sure he’s reading something between the lines.”

  “What time is the meeting tomorrow?”

  “Nine.”

  “I’ll be at the lawyer’s office from eleven on. Call me anyway on my cell the moment you can.”

  “Okay.”

  “And thank Uncle Fong for me. Tell him I’m sure he’ll do well tomorrow.” Ava hung up with the sense of satisfaction that comes when a decision is vindicated.

  ( 34 )

  She slept for twelve hours, her dreams calm and fleeting and the outside world kept at ba
y. When she woke, the room was bathed in almost complete darkness. But when she opened the drapes, the morning sun had climbed well up in the sky and the streets below were full of cars and pedestrians.

  She did a bathroom run, grabbed the Wall Street Journal and the South China Morning Post from the door, and made a coffee. She hadn’t set an alarm or asked for a wake-up call, and with only an hour to get ready before leaving for the lawyer’s office, she knew she shouldn’t procrastinate. Still, she couldn’t help leafing through the Journal, making another coffee, and turning on her computer to check her email. There were more updates from May Ling but still no word from Amanda. She turned to the Post and scanned it quickly, looking for any mention of violence in Wanchai. There was nothing. She pushed aside the paper and went back to the washroom to shower and get herself presentable for her meeting at Burgess and Bowlby.

  May Ling’s description of Burgess and Bowlby had been a revelation to Ava. Her experience with lawyers had been primarily with those who represented the thieves and scumbags who had stolen money from her clients, lawyers who as a rule were as slimy as the people they were trying to shield. They would lie and threaten, and when that didn’t work, they would resort to the legal system to slow things to a crawl. But Ava and Uncle didn’t acknowledge the system when it came to bear on their clients’ situations — going to court wasn’t how they operated. They preferred a more direct, hands-on approach.

  It was May Ling who had discovered Burgess and Bowlby about a year earlier. One of her and Changxing’s businesses had become involved in a dispute with a Hong Kong–based supplier that B&B represented. When the firms, together with their lawyers, met to resolve their issues, May Ling had been impressed by Richard Bowlby. She told Ava that he was smart, calm, analytical, and even-handed, and — unlike other gweilo lawyers she’d dealt with — he spoke fluent Cantonese and passable Mandarin and really seemed to understand the Chinese mentality. She had used his firm to incorporate Three Sisters and then hired him to paper their Borneo Furniture and Suki Chan acquisitions.

  Before leaving the hotel, Ava called the clinic. “Mr. Xu had a peaceful night,” Dr. Lui told her. “He was awake quite early and was able to speak to a couple of his colleagues. But that did seem to tire him, and he’s sleeping again. I think I’ll ban visitors and phone calls for the rest of the day. If he has complete rest today, by tomorrow he should be able to get out of bed.”