by Ian Hamilton
He had bought fried noodles with beef in XO sauce, steamed baby bok choy, and salt-and-pepper shrimp. He opened the bag and put the containers on a chair, then placed chairs on either side. “How’s it going?” he asked.
“Not bad. There’s a paper trail for the goods. Now all I have to do is get more fully into the bank records. It looks like he sold all the chicken feet and pork,” Ava said as she plucked a long, thin slice of beef from its nest of noodles. It was so tender she hardly had to chew. “I wonder how they manage to get the beef so soft,” she said.
“Magic water,” Andy said.
“What?”
“That’s what we call it. My wife and I have a noodle shop at the Kowloon MTR station. My father-in-law opened it years ago and we bought it from him last year. He had this concoction that he soaked pork, beef, and chicken in to soften it. My wife knows what’s in it but I don’t. She just says it’s magic water and tells me not to worry about it.”
“Oh, I wish I hadn’t asked.”
Andy shrugged. “Don’t worry. She wouldn’t let me eat it if she thought it would harm me,” he said. “Now, you didn’t finish telling me about the money. You said he sold everything, but did he make a profit?”
“It looks like it. Not huge amounts, but there was certainly enough margin that he seems to have covered his costs and pocketed some profit.”
“So if we’re owed a million and a half, there should be that much in those two accounts.”
“You would think so, but there isn’t. I took a quick look at the balances on the last statements from both banks, and they add up to just over four hundred thousand, like he said.”
“So where is the money?”
“I don’t know yet. It could have been spent, or tied up in new inventory, or just moved to another account somewhere. I’m missing a couple of paper bank records, but once I go online I should be able to at least find a starting point.”
Andy reversed his chopsticks, picked up two shrimp from the tray, and put them on Ava’s plate.
“Thanks,” she said.
“Could you answer another question?”
“Sure.”
“You brushed me off when I asked you, but Carlo and I were talking about it last night when you were sleeping, and it’s really bugging us.”
“Is this about me and that thug of Kung’s?”
“Yeah. How in hell did you do that? He’s twice your size but you floored him like he was a midget.”
“There isn’t any mystery to it,” Ava said. “I practise a martial art that’s called bak mei. It’s a very old form and it’s designed to cause damage. In this case I hit a pressure point at the base of his rib cage where there’s a gathering of nerve endings. The person’s size doesn’t matter — a blow there with enough force is incapacitating.”
“I’ve never heard of bak mei, and I thought I knew most of the martial arts.”
“Well, bak mei is only taught one-on-one. It’s passed down from father to son, or in my case, mentor to student. I just never imagined I would ever have to use it.”
“Whatever it is, it works.”
“I know. I guess I have my mother to thank.”
“She taught you?”
“Good God, no, but when I was young, she insisted that my sister and I be fully developed young women. She put us into Chinese, abacus, and ballet classes, but I drew the line when it came to learning the violin, so my mother gave me a choice between gymnastics or kung fu. I took kung fu and that eventually led me to bak mei.”
“I have two daughters, and my wife is pushing them into dance and music as well. Maybe I’ll insist on a martial art.”
“It can’t hurt. How about Carlo? Does he have kids?”
“You gotta be joking. He’s a lover, or so he thinks. Most of the action he gets he pays for, and there aren’t many mama-sans in the Hong Kong clubs or over in Macau who don’t know him.”
“And what about Uncle?”
Andy shook his head. “There’s no wife and no kids that anyone’s ever heard about. He’s a bit of a loner and not a talker. Keeps things close to his chest, but when he tells you something, it’s always good to listen, because he’s not wrong very often and he always tells the truth. Maybe you’ll get to meet him when we’ve finished this job.”
“And why would I want to do that?” Ava said.
Andy blinked as if surprised by her response. “No particular reason, other than I think the two of you might get along.”
“What makes you think that?”
“You’re both smart.”
“That’s not much of an answer.”
Andy shrugged and looked down at his food.
“I told you a lot of things about me when you asked how I took that guy out. Now it’s your turn. Tell me a bit more about Uncle.”
“Like what?”
“What business was he in before? Carlo wouldn’t say anything when I asked him at the apartment.”
“Uncle was a dragon head.”
“A what?”
“That’s what they call the guy who runs the organization. It’s an inside term.”
“What kind of organization calls its leader a dragon head?”
“It’s an old Chinese society, a brotherhood.”
“How big is it?”
“It has hundreds, maybe even thousands of members. I don’t know the numbers.”
“And what does this society do?”
“It looks after the brothers and their families, kind of like a union.”
“How?”
He shook his head. “I couldn’t give you any details. I was just a worker.”
“Uncle isn’t with the organization any longer?”
“No, he retired. He’s got all the money he’ll ever need, and besides, I think there was a lot of stress attached to the job.”
“This money-collecting business seems stressful enough to me. What made him get into it?”
“People came to him.”
“I don’t understand.”
“When he retired, I think his plan was to buy some horses and spend his days at the Happy Valley and Sha Tin racetracks. But people kept coming to him for help getting their money back from the scumbags who’d taken it. Some of them were friends and he couldn’t say no to them. Word got around and, I think before he knew it, he was in the business. And Carlo and me and some other guys had new full-time jobs.”
“Obviously he’s good at it.”
“He’s the best.”
“What makes him the best?”
Andy shrugged again, and Ava could see he was feeling uncomfortable.
“It’s isn’t my place to talk about Uncle,” he said. “I think I’ve probably said too much already.”
Ava placed her chopsticks on her empty plate. “And what I think is that I’d better get into those electronic bank records. Again, you don’t have to hang around if you don’t want to.”
He shrugged. “There’s a coffee shop a few doors down from this building. I’ll go there and then check back with you in about an hour.”
“That’s sounds just fine, and if I’m finished before then I’ll come and find you.”
He left with the paper bag filled with the remains of their lunch. Ava made sure the door was locked behind him and then went back to the desk. She logged on to the China Agricultural Bank website, entered the account number and TRADER22, and “Kung Imports” appeared. She had separated and stacked the letters of credit, purchase orders, wire transfers, manifests, and invoices to one side of the computer. Now she matched invoices to deposits and wire transfers to outgoing funds. Within five minutes she was smiling.
Over the past twelve months, the money flowing into the China Agricultural Bank account had come from the sales of Lo’s products and nothing else. His customer base was only a bit broader — five maj
or customers and then a few smaller ones — so it didn’t take long to see that the numbers fitted. She was able to confirm what the partial paper records had already told her: every pound that Lo had shipped had been received, sold, and paid for.
Now she switched over to the Guangzhou Chemical Engineering Bank and found the same pattern. That account was the depository for the money Kung made selling Royal Meats’ products. There were no other suppliers, and again only a handful of customers.
At first Kung had paid both Lo and Royal promptly and in full, but then the delays started and finally non-payment became the norm. The only question was, where had he moved the money he’d received?
She scrolled through the Guangzhou statements. Money that had left the account was always sent by wire transfer. On the statements, every withdrawal was listed as a wire but showed only a date, an amount, and an account number for the recipient. Ava opened the wire transfer file on the desk and found the detailed instructions. From the Guangzhou bank, wires had been sent to two companies: Meridian Trading and Bai Trading. They shared an address, on Bute Street in Kowloon. According to the wires, the money sent was for the purchase of toys from Meridian Trading and shrimp from Bai Trading.
Ava turned to Kung’s purchase order file and saw that he had issued POs to both companies and had been invoiced from the Bute address. It took her fifteen minutes to work her way through all the shipping documents, manifests, and inventory reports. When she was finished, she was convinced that either Kung had never taken possession of the goods or the goods had never existed.
She repeated the process with the China Agricultural Bank statements. Again Meridian and Bai had been paid for goods for which there were purchase orders and invoices but no other indication the goods existed.
Bute Street was where Ava had gone to find Kung in Kowloon. She knew it was no coincidence. The bank where both Meridian and Bai had accounts was the Kowloon Light and Power Bank. What were the odds that the two companies would share a bank?
He could have made more of an effort, she thought. Unless he was just trying to evade taxes, and purchase orders and invoices were all the Chinese collectors wanted to see.
Ava started to print the bank statements and put together the files she wanted to take, but then she thought of something else. She wrote down the account numbers for Meridian and Bai Trading and then logged on to the Kowloon Light and Power Bank website. She entered the account number for Meridian, and when the password prompt came up, she typed in TRADER22.
She hadn’t actually expected to get access to the account, so it almost shocked her when she did. The American dollars that had been wired to the Kowloon bank had been converted into Hong Kong dollars at an exchange rate of HK$7.50 for every American dollar. There was close to HK$5.5 million in the Meridian account.
Ava logged out of that account and then tried Bai Trading, scarcely believing that TRADER22 would work again. It did. The account held HK$4 million.
She did a quick conversion from Hong Kong back to American dollars. Together, the two accounts in the Kowloon bank contained more than $1.2 million U.S.
( 14 )
AVA SAT AT the desk and stared at the computer screen as she tried to figure out what to do.
Even before she had gained access to the accounts using Kung’s password, she had been convinced that Meridian and Bai Trading were shell companies set up by Kung to hide money. There wasn’t much doubt in her mind that the money in the Kowloon bank came from the sales of Mr. Lo’s and Royal Meats’ products. Kung could wave around his phony purchase orders and invoices, but without any shipping or inventory records they had zero substance. The only complete paper trail ran from the suppliers to Kung to his customers, back to Kung again, and then through the two banks to the Kowloon bank. As well, the dates showed that the money was sent to the supposed trading companies as soon as Kung was paid by third parties for the pork or chicken feet. That money should have been sent to Lo and Royal. Ava’s conviction that Kung was stealing became 100 percent certain after she had gotten into the Meridian and Bai accounts.
Now what to do? She could call Mr. Chow, or Uncle, as she was beginning to think of him, and explain what she’d found. Then what? He’d tell Andy and Carlo to start negotiating with Kung again. How long would that take? How much more money would they be able to get out of him? It was they, not she, who had Kung under control. What could she do if they decided to cut a bargain-basement deal that satisfied their client and then turned Kung loose?
The only leverage she had was the money. Rather than just knowing where it was, if she could bring it under her control, then she would have the upper hand in terms of dictating the final settlement. The problem was, to get control of the money, she would have to transfer it from Kung’s bank accounts to hers or someone else’s. She would have to steal it.
Well, not really steal it, she told herself. Kung was the thief. All she was doing was trying to reclaim the money for her client. Still, she knew she was on shaky moral ground and probably even shakier legal ground. If she were at home in Canada, she would never consider what she was now contemplating. There were rules of law there, and a system that could be trusted to be fair. But what Chinese or Hong Kong laws had she already broken by looking into Kung’s bank accounts, even though he’d given her the password?
Worse, what Hong Kong or Chinese laws would she be breaking by transferring money out of the Meridian and Bai accounts? And even if she wasn’t breaking any laws, what kind of connections did Kung have? What kind of trouble could he cause? The idea of being detained at the Chinese border or at the airport in Hong Kong filled her with dread.
Maybe, she thought, I should discuss it with Uncle. Maybe she should try moving the money to his account and let him deal with the local authorities, with whom he must be more familiar than she was. No! she thought savagely. Mr. Lo was her client. She’d found his money and a possible way to get it back to him. Not to go ahead and do so would be irresponsible.
And then it occurred to her that she might not be able to transfer the money. She was looking at the Bai records. She clicked on the link that said MANAGING YOUR ACCOUNT. One of the options it offered was electronic transfer. Maybe Kung hadn’t signed up for that service. And if he had, maybe there were limits on the amount that could be moved from the account at any given time. She chose the transfer option and a blank form opened up.
Ava looked at the information required about the recipient and quickly filled in her own company name, address, phone number, and contact person. She reached for her bag and took out a card from her Canadian bank manager. The bank’s name, address, phone number, account number, and swift code were all on it.
The sender portion wasn’t as straightforward, since she wasn’t sure if the information Kung had provided to the bank was legitimate. What the hell, she thought, as she typed in BAI TRADING, the Bute street address, and the phone number on the invoice. Finally she added Johnny Kung’s name as the contact and authorizing officer. She waited for the form to disappear or for asterisks to appear next to her entries or for any other indication that she was about to be rejected. But the website took her to the next page.
Now the question was, how much could she dare send to Canada? She didn’t want to empty the bank account entirely but she also didn’t want to send some minor amount on a test basis, in case transfers were restricted to one a day. She decided to try to send herself HK$3.6 million. Even though she knew it was highly unlikely there would be any negative backlash if she failed, she felt the slightest tremor in her fingers and a cold sweat on her brow as she typed in the numbers. She stared at the amount and then repeated the numbers aloud to make sure they were correct. Then she hit the SUBMIT button.
The web page disappeared. Ava’s cold sweat turned hot. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, expecting the worst, she saw a line that read: Your transfer has been completed. We will send confirmation t
o your email address. You can print a copy from our website.
She pressed the PRINT button, closed the account, and switched over to Meridian’s.
Five minutes later she had dispatched HK$5 million from Meridian to her Canadian bank account. She tried to imagine what her branch manager would think when he saw the overnight deposit reports. Since she’d opened the account, the largest amount she’d ever had in it was $8,000. When the Hong Kong dollars were converted to Canadian, her account would contain more than $1.2 million.
She pushed the chair back from the desk and took a deep breath. She had just stolen more than a million dollars. But any guilt or anxiety she had was quickly swamped by a rush of almost sheer joy as she contemplated Mr. Lo’s reaction. He wouldn’t care how she’d got the money. Why should he? And why should she? But there was still one more loop to close.
She headed out the door and was at the top of the stairs when she saw Andy at the bottom. “I need you,” she said.
“You sound excited,” he said, and began to run up.
“You have to call Carlo and get me Kung’s email address. If he has more than one, I want them all. And obviously I’ll need his passwords.”
“Let me see what I can do.”
“There is no ‘let me see.’ I have to have them. I don’t care what Carlo has to do. Tell him to cut off Kung’s balls if he has to.”
“You are excited,” Andy said.
“Sorry.”
“Momentai,” he said, taking his phone from his pocket as he walked into the office.
Ava went back behind the desk. “I’m waiting,” she said.
Andy smiled as he called Carlo. “Hey, our new boss lady needs some information from Kung. Get us all of his email addresses, with passwords . . . Yeah, right now.” He covered the mouthpiece with his hand. “Carlo’s talking to him.”
“What a ride this has been,” Ava murmured, and then realized she had landed in Hong Kong less than thirty-six hours before. “What a day.”
“[email protected],” Andy said to her.
“Capital letters?”