by Mark Burnell
'Did he tell you that? Or did you figure it out by yourself?'
'It's what happened.'
'What were you doing in Marrakech?'
I watch him conjure up an answer that isn't the truth. 'It was business. Max and me – we go back a long way.'
Big-boned, he's heavier than in the photographs I've seen of him. In Marrakech he was sitting down in partial darkness so it was hard to tell. His hair is short, thick and black. His eyes are almost the same colour. He's sweating so hard I can watch it streaming down his forehead and cheeks. His shirt is drenched. I'd love to pretend I was the reason, but I'm not. It's like a sauna in here, my own skin prickling as the pores open up.
'Can I ask you something?'
His first move.
'Go on.'
'Why were you in Marrakech? Your deal – it never existed, did it?'
'It served its purpose.'
It takes him a while to work it out. 'Because it got you close to him?'
'That's right.'
'Someone hired you to kill him?'
'No. It was personal. He cheated me.'
'Ah.'
'I lost a lot of money because of him.'
'That's what this is about? Money?'
'Not really. He left me for dead.' That slows him down. I let it sink in for a moment. Then I say, 'He should have made sure when he had the chance.'
'I never heard about this.'
Which is when I drop the bomb. 'Claudio Argento.'
The effect is immediate: his spine stiffens, the eyes widen.
An Argentinian based in Paris, Argento negotiated a deal with Mostovoi in July 2001 for a cargo of arms and explosives to be shipped from Tirana to Marseille. At the exchange there was a shoot-out. Five people died, including Argento himself. Since Mostovoi's business has always depended on his reputation, the incident has been reworked. Revisionist history now plays it like this: Argento tried to cheat Mostovoi and so the Russian exacted a brutal revenge. Thus a negative became a positive, allowing Mostovoi to emerge from a potentially damaging incident with his professional reputation not only intact, but enhanced.
Except that Magenta House had discovered the truth.
'The shoot-out in Marseille was engineered by Mostovoi, wasn't it, Milan? As retribution. Argento was fucking Mostovoi's girlfriend. That's what it came down to. Not just fucking her but boasting about it too. He let everyone know just how much she loved to be degraded by him …'
Savic's expression tells me I'm right.
'The trouble is, Argento never told him who the end-users were. Or that he wasn't negotiating the deal directly. I put up two million dollars when I hired Argento to talk to Mostovoi. It wasn't his deal, Milan, it was mine. And my partners put up another two million. That was our deal. So when Mostovoi walked off with our money and our cargo, that left me four million down.'
'If this is true, Max never knew.'
'Well, that's a great comfort. Sadly, my partners never saw it like that. They're not renowned for their tolerance. It must be the cocaine.'
'Narcotics?'
'Well, there are some people who regard them as Colombia's finest. FARC.'
'They were the end-users?'
'Would have been. Fortunately, I wasn't dealing with them directly. Unfortunately, the three-man contact group were not very understanding when I couldn't come up with their money.'
'Look, I don't know about any of this …'
'They sent four men to take care of me in Miami. They didn't even bother trying to kill me for the first forty-eight hours. You know how it is. Boys will be boys. Entertainment first, business later …'
Now he's beginning to get it, and he looks truly worried. I'm an unbalanced woman with a loaded gun. And not just any woman, either. A woman who enjoys her work, if her reputation is anything to go by. A woman with dead eyes.
'Anyway, I'm here and they're not. In case you're wondering, they experienced more pain than I did.'
I offer him a sickening smile. Why not? He's a man familiar with other people's pain. He might appreciate it. Except it doesn't look like that. If anything, he looks like he might throw up. Which is, in its own way, deeply satisfying.
'It took a lot of time and effort to track down the members of the contact group. Now they're dead, that just leaves Mostovoi.'
I move deeper into the room. There's a door on the far side of the bed, light seeping from beneath it. I can now see what he was bending over when I entered: a bulging canvas bag. I take another step forward and peer inside. Passports. A couple of hundred, I'd guess, many nationalities, mostly used by the look of it, the covers dog-eared and scratched. On the floor, beside the bag, lie bricks of cash: Hong Kong dollars, US dollars, euros, Chinese Yuan.
'Take some, if you want.'
I couldn't look more disgusted. 'Is that what you think of me?'
'I don't know where he is. I need time.'
There's a part of me that's itching to squeeze the trigger. I'm already exerting more pressure than I should. Savic is lucky I've got a steady hand.
'I can't tell you how easy it was to find you, Milan.'
This, perhaps, scares him more than anything else.
'If you shoot me you'll never get to Mostovoi.'
'Don't be absurd. Of course I would. You're simply a short cut.' I ease the safety-catch back on. 'But I'm not going to shoot you. I'm going to make it easy for you. I'm going to give you the opportunity to establish some trust.' I lower the Browning. 'You're going to make some calls. Tomorrow we'll meet. You pick a time and place and I'll be there. Come alone. If you don't show, I'll find you. Take my word for it.'
And with that, I'm gone.
Time for a change. First, new clothes. She went to Pacific Place, a slick shopping mall spread over several floors, where she bought a piece of Samsonite luggage and clothes to fill it. There were two hotels on top of Pacific Place, the Conrad and the Island Shangri-La. From a coffee shop on the ground floor, she rang them. Both had rooms available. She made a reservation at the Conrad, then returned to her room at the Majestic on Kowloon. She showered in tepid dribble, changed into some of her new clothes, gathered her belongings, then checked out and moved into the Conrad. Claire Davies, accountant turned tourist, had become Claire Davies, accountant, full stop.
Now there was nothing to do but wait. At seven she went downstairs for a drink. The bar at the Conrad offered the greatest possible contrast to room 1 of the Lucky Seven Guest House at Chungking Mansions: cool, open and airy, muted light, tables set apart, walls of glass offering a view of glittering skyscrapers. There was a singer, accompanied by a pianist. Slim, with glossy waist-length hair, wrapped in a figure-hugging dress of ruby silk, she brought 'These Foolish Things' to a close and launched into 'One For My Baby'.
Stephanie was the only single woman in the bar. The majority of the customers were on business, she estimated, plenty of single men among them. As Stephanie, that made her uncomfortable. More than once she'd been alone in a hotel bar only to be mistaken for a hooker. As Petra she couldn't have cared less. Except that there was a part of her that remained Stephanie: the Siemens phone that she'd brought down from her room. Petra's phone was still on her bed.
A waitress asked what she wanted to drink. She ordered a glass of champagne, then checked the phone. No messages. Not a spoken word, in fact, since she'd left London. Just the playful e-mail. The part of her that was Petra was delighted.
A short cut. That was what she'd told Savic he was. The more she thought about it, the truer it was. A short cut to the Gemini list. A short cut to the big prize; a future beyond Magenta House. A future where all the options were hers.
Her champagne arrived in a slender flute. She drank to Mark. Later, alone in her room, she dialled his number. But she never pressed the green button.
Lan Kwai Fong in Central, a steep sloping street littered with bars and restaurants popular with ex-pats and locals. Stephanie had checked it during the afternoon and had found it a suitably sterile
environment. At five to six it was still relatively quiet, the after-work rush hour not yet in full flow. Stormy Weather was at the top of the street, on the corner; Moby playing on the sound system, English football on the TV overlooking the bar. Stephanie was amused to find Savic already there, a bottle of Blue Girl beer almost finished, two Salem cigarette butts in the ashtray. Clearly, missing the meeting had never been an option.
Apart from a white T-shirt, Savic wore black, including a black leather jacket. They always do. He drained his beer bottle, waved it at the girl behind the bar and asked Stephanie what she wanted. Mineral water, she said, sliding onto the stool opposite him. He lit a third Salem.
'Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I thought I was a dead man.'
'You're not looking too bad on it.'
'When I was growing up in Belgrade it never occurred to me. Even during the campaigns of the nineties there was never a moment where I actually thought I was going to die.'
'It's not great, is it?'
'It's happened to you?'
'Once.'
'Actually I'm surprised it hasn't happened to you more often.'
'In my business it usually only ever happens once. Just before the fear becomes a reality.'
'Maybe you should change business, then.'
'What I do is who I am.'
Stephanie didn't think she'd ever uttered a truer phrase as Petra.
Savic said, 'I guess it's the same for me. I've always been in business. In Belgrade, when I was a kid, I stole a rusty foot-pump from a garage. I used to let down car tyres, then charge people for inflating them again. At first one or two of them smacked me around the head. So I sneaked out in the night and slashed their tyres to ribbons. Everyone got the message. Pretty soon I didn't even have to bother letting tyres down. People paid me not to.'
'What about Croatia? Or Bosnia and Kosovo? Was that business?'
'I don't know what you've heard about me but I can guarantee you this: it won't be the truth. You should hear some of things people say about you.'
'I have. The difference is, they're mostly right.'
Savic said, 'What would it take to make you forget Mostovoi?'
'Amnesia.'
His smile didn't last long. 'Look, he and I are business partners. We have a shared history.'
'I know.'
'If I give him to you, I'm screwing myself.'
'If you say so.'
'What about a compromise?'
'The men in Miami weren't interested in compromise.'
'Max had nothing to do with them.'
'Don't be naïve.'
'We can make a deal.'
'You're not listening.'
Savic sat back and exhaled in exasperation. 'Okay. So you kill him. Then what?'
Stephanie shrugged. 'I'll get to that when the time comes.'
'Killing him won't buy back what you lost.'
'You're overestimating me. My thrills come pretty cheap.'
'Come on. There has to be a way around this.'
Time to offer him a glimpse.
Stephanie waited, then softened. 'What have you got in mind?'
The Lexus was outside the Conrad at ten the following morning. Stephanie sat next to Savic in the back. Vojislav Brankovic was hunched in the front passenger seat. They took the Cross Harbour Tunnel to Kowloon and headed for Kai Tak, the airport that had served Hong Kong until July 1998.
They cruised past the old departure terminal, now a vast second-hand car showroom that also traded left-hand drive vehicles for the Chinese mainland, then headed out along the deserted runway, which protruded into Kowloon Bay. When they reached the tip they came to a driving range, Oriental Golf City. The rubber stains left by aircraft wheels were still visible on the cracked concrete of the car park.
Savic said, 'Go onto the range. He'll be down the far end.'
'Who?'
'The ugly bastard. You'll see.'
'You're not coming?'
'He'll want to talk to you alone.'
She got out and shut the door. The Lexus pulled away. She watched it bounce over sleeping policemen, then head back along the taxiway that ran parallel to the runway.
A fierce sun burnt in an unusually clear sky. A stiff breeze blew across the bay, churning the waters. At twenty past eleven on a mid-week morning, Oriental Golf City was almost deserted. There was no one in the shack that passed for a clubhouse. The driving range was the rough grass that had once fringed the end of the great runway. There were only three men practising, two nearby, one away to her right. She headed for him.
He had his back to her; a small man in tan trousers, white golf shoes, a black polo shirt and a towelling visor. Stephanie stopped and watched a shot. The ball looped into the air and fell short of the hundred-metre marker.
'Do you play?'
'No.'
'That's a shame. The idea of someone like you playing golf is amusing. The golfing assassin. It has a ring to it, don't you think?'
He turned round. His jaw was grossly undershot, his nose splayed to the face, hooded eyes partially concealed behind glasses with a heavy black frame and tinted lenses. The mouth sloped, his blubbery lips thicker towards the droop. Thinning black hair was oiled back over the scalp, the sun winking on the slick.
'My name is Gilbert Lai. I hope you don't mind if I practise while we talk.'
'Not at all.'
'I'm a member of the club beside my house at Deep Water Bay. Usually I play there. But when I have to come to town I always make sure I have an hour here. Especially at this time of the day, if I can.' He tapped another ball onto the mat. 'Standing here, at the end of the old runway, we are about as isolated as it is possible to be in Kowloon. Or Hong Kong, for that matter.'
Stephanie moved so that when he addressed the shot she was facing him. He raised the club and swung. The ball travelled further than its predecessor.
'Golf is the new heroin, Miss Reuter. Except it's better than heroin. Because it doesn't kill its addicts. And because its addicts have money. Which means they can be bled for longer and for more.'
'And it's legal.'
'Another advantage, yes.'
'On the other hand, it's not without its devastating social consequences.'
Lai looked surprised. 'Such as?'
'The clothes.'
She was as inscrutable as he was.
'I have many interests, property among them, and I can tell you this: entertainment is the future. The new Disney complex that is being constructed here is proof of that. In my own modest way I have contributed to the culture. Here we are restricted by lack of space. On the mainland, that has never been a problem. I own seven courses. My travel agencies provide package tours for people in Hong Kong. They book through my companies, they stay in my hotels, they play on my courses.'
He hit another ball. Badly hooked, it curved to the left. Shielding her eyes from the sun with a raised hand, Stephanie looked around. To her right, North Point and Quarry Bay on Hong Kong, to her left, across the Kwun Tong Typhoon Shelter, Kwun Tong itself, fronted by the old cargo working area. Large dredgers were moving along either side of the runway.
'Earth moving,' Lai explained. 'They're trying to decontaminate the Land.'
'What's wrong with it?'
'Seepage from the massive underground tanks that used to store aviation fuel.'
'What follows decontamination?'
'Potentially, the greatest property development project we've seen here in years. But nobody knows what it will be.'
'Is that another reason you come here?'
He didn't answer immediately, preferring to play another shot. Then he changed the subject. 'I don't know what Savic has told you.'
'Next to nothing.'
'I have a proposition for you.'
'I'm listening.'
'I wish to hire you.'
Stephanie watched a dredger slope past them. 'When you said you had a proposition, I imagined you were talking about a financial settlement.'
'That's easy for you to say.'
He nodded. 'I understand you lost two million dollars when Claudio Argento was killed. And that your partners lost another two million.'
'That's right.'
'If you agree to my terms I will compensate you fully. Three million dollars. Two for the money you lost, one for the job I have in mind.'
'Does Mostovoi know he's worth so much? To me he's always been a slug; something fat that leaves slime in its wake.'
Lai smiled for a moment. 'As a human being I'm inclined to agree. But you're in Hong Kong now, Miss Reuter. This is business. Sentiment we leave to others.'
Stephanie looked out to sea. 'What's on your mind?'
'One job, two targets.'
'Who?'
Lai slid his five iron into his golf bag and took out a seven. 'One of them is local. Chinese, rich, prominent in his own way, but nobody outside the SAR. The other is an American, based in Singapore, a lawyer.'
'Usually that would qualify you for a discount.'
'They're not political. It's strictly business.'
'Names?'
'Felix Cheung and Alan Waxman.'
'I'll need time to consider it.'
'Naturally. My driver will take you back to your hotel. He'll give you my personal number. You can call me any time you like.'
At the Conrad she sent an e-mail to Magenta House, asking for S3 profiles of Gilbert Lai, Felix Cheung and Alan Waxman. Shortly before seven she received a reply from Rosie Chaudhuri.
> Please find attached a profile for one of the three. Speak to our contact regarding the other two.
Stephanie opened the file. Gilbert Lai's wealth was estimated at a billion dollars, primarily in real estate and shipping. His first fortune was made at sea and he continued to maintain a global cargo fleet and container business. In the seventies he'd moved into property, specializing in hotels and casinos, and had once enjoyed a close association with Stanley Ho, founder of the Sociedade de Turismo e Diversoes de Macau, the body largely responsible for overseeing Macao's transformation from provincial slumber to gambling glitz. A keen gambler himself, Lai had secured his own place in Las Vegas folklore when, during a one-week visit in 1991, he managed to drop $1.5 million in a single evening at Caesar's Palace, only to win $2.1 million at baccarat three nights later.