by Ian Hamilton
“I will do the best I can.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s not communicative at present.”
“What —”
“Miss, I can’t discuss his condition in any more detail. Please call Doctor Parker.”
She closed the phone. Sonny was staring at her. “Is it bad?” he asked.
“Yes, but I have to call Doctor Parker to find out how bad. Do you have his number?”
“No.”
“Call Hong Kong information and get it for me.”
“Okay.”
Ava turned to Wan. “Where are my phone and my shoes?”
“They should be at the restaurant.”
“Send one of your goons to get them.”
“They won’t get near the restaurant,” one of Suen’s men said.
“Why not?”
“We disposed of some of his men there. It was noisy, and messy. The cops are sure to have been called in. They’ll have the place secured by now.”
“Well, I need to get to my hotel and I need some shoes.”
“My daughter wears a size close to yours,” Auntie Lin said from the bedroom doorway. Ava wondered how long she had been standing there, what she had heard.
“Thanks,” she said.
“I have Parker’s number. I’m dialling it now,” Sonny said.
She looked at Wan. “I want you to call the brothers.”
He looked at Sonny and then finally turned to her with a mixture of confusion and fear crossing his face. “What brothers?”
“Tambi and Mamat, the brothers of Chi-Tze, one of the young women you arranged to have beaten up in the restaurant parking lot.”
“I didn’t arrange that,” he said quickly. “It was done through my man Hwang. I knew nothing about it until it was over.”
“I don’t care what you knew or didn’t know. Call the brothers.”
“But why?”
“They paid your man Hwang.”
He shook his head. “No, they didn’t.”
“Then who did?” Ava asked, searching his face for the lie.
“The woman.”
“What woman?” Ava asked.
“The sister. The one named Ah-Pei.”
( 30 )
The shock jolted Ava’s body, and she knew that her face had to be registering the same surprise. “How do you know it was her? I mean, how do you know for certain?”
“Hwang told me.”
“Hwang was killed, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, he’s dead, and probably so are the two men he sent to do the job,” Wan said.
“So how am I to believe what I’m being told?”
Wan shrugged. “I talked to her yesterday; I talked to her about you. I asked her what she wanted us to do with you.”
“And what did she say?”
“She wanted to know if we’d mentioned her name. When I said no, she said we could do whatever we wanted. You were no concern of hers.”
“Ava, excuse me,” Sonny said. “Parker’s phone is ringing.”
Ava took Sonny’s cell from him and turned her back on Wan. The phone rang four times and went to voicemail. “Shit,” she said, and left a message asking him to call her on Sonny’s phone. “We’ll be in Hong Kong later today. We’ll go directly to the hospital.”
Suen reappeared at the door. “The boss sends his regards.”
“I’m sorry, but you might have to phone him again. Sonny and I need to get to Hong Kong today, and I don’t want to leave my friend May Ling Wong alone here. Can you provide her with some men for a few days?” Ava said.
“Sure, and I don’t have to call Xu. How many do you want?”
“Four?”
“Not a problem.”
“Thanks.”
“Now what about this bunch?”
“I need Wan and Yu.”
“We made a deal with Xu,” Wan said.
“Relax. All I want you to do is make a phone call and set up a meeting,” Ava said.
“The woman?”
“Yes, the woman. Tell her to meet you in the lobby of the Méridien Hotel in an hour — no excuses for not being there. If she doesn’t want to come, tell her you’ll go to her office or her house. I want you to greet her when she arrives at the hotel, and then you can leave and get on with the rest of your life.”
“Okay.”
“Do it now,” Ava said, and then turned back to Sonny. “Have you spoken to May Ling?”
“Not since we landed. She knows we’re here, that’s all.”
“I’ll call her from the bedroom.”
As Ava turned to go, the pain in her knee flared and she stumbled. She pressed a hand against the wall and steadied herself. Common sense told her to see a doctor, but that would have to wait until she was in Hong Kong. She limped into the bedroom.
May’s cell hadn’t completed one ring before Ava heard her voice. “Sonny, is she all right?”
“May, it’s me and I’m fine.”
“Thank God, thank God, thank God. I’ve been so crazy with worry.”
“When I got past twenty-four hours with those creeps, I thought I might be seeing Sonny, but I didn’t expect him to arrive with an army.”
“All I knew was that he’s here — he called me when he arrived. I have no idea who’s with him or what’s been going on, though the hotel lobby was all abuzz this morning about gunfire in town. They made it sound like war had broken out.”
“Close enough.”
“I waited up for you the other night, as I said I would. By midnight I was starting to get concerned and I thought maybe you had forgotten to call me. I went to your room and then down to the lobby to ask if they had seen you come back. When they said no, I parked myself there to wait. By two I was seriously paranoid, so I called Uncle in Shanghai and told him what was going on. He tried to call the contact he’d given you here but couldn’t get through. We kept in touch for the rest of the night. By seven he said he’d decided to send Sonny and was making arrangements. Then I got a call from the furniture factory saying that a guy had phoned looking for me. He said it had something to do with Ava Lee. He wouldn’t leave a number, just said he’d call back in fifteen minutes. I told them to give him my cell number when he did. They did, and he called me.”
“How did he know who you are? How did he know to ask specifically for you? I never gave them your name.”
“I just assumed you had.”
“No matter. What kind of deal did he try to cut?” Ava asked.
“He wanted a ransom. I told him that I thought we’d pay but I had to consult with my other partners. He gave me an hour to make a decision.”
“How much did he ask for?”
“A million U.S. dollars.”
“Which partners did you talk to?”
“Just Uncle.”
“You didn’t mention anything to Ah-Pei?”
May Ling paused, and Ava knew she had been caught off-guard. “No. Uncle was the only one I considered talking to.”
“Of course.”
“I have never heard him so upset. He could barely speak at first. He said the man he was meeting with — someone called Xu — had offered a plane to bring Sonny to KK and was organizing a squad of men to send with him. He told me to stall for as long as I could. He told me to ask for pictures, and when I got those, and if they were okay, to tell them it would take us some time to pull together that amount of cash.”
“When did the men leave Shanghai?”
“After I got the pictures confirming that they had you and that you were still alive.”
“How many pictures?”
“Two.”
“Who saw them?”
“I had arranged to have them emailed directly to me. I sent only one to Shanghai.�
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“Thank you.”
“Uncle seemed distraught enough already.”
“He’s in Hong Kong now. He’s taken a bad turn.”
“Ava, I’m so sorry.”
“I want to get there today, but first we need to wrap up our business here.”
“Don’t think about business.”
“No, we need to finish this thing in KK and with those thieves in Holland. I’m at a house somewhere in the city. I’m going to head to the Méridien in a few minutes. Can you meet me there?”
“I’m there already.”
“May, did you get a chance to speak to the lawyer about the money that was sent from Aruba to Malaysia?”
“Yes, and his contacts have been able to track it. It was a very clear trail that led to a numbered account.”
“Is there a name attached to the account?”
“Yes — Song, the brothers’ family name.”
“Was there a first name?”
“No, just the initials C.C. That surprised me a bit because the brothers’ names are Mamat and Tambi, but when I asked the lawyer, he said the account had been in place for more than twenty years and until the past month had been dormant for about three years. I assume it was the parents who set it up.”
“That seems logical. And as for the recent activity, I don’t think it had anything to do with the brothers.”
“What?”
“As hard as this may be to believe, I think Ah-Pei was responsible for the attack on the girls. And I think it’s Ah-Pei who cut the deal with the Dutch.”
May Ling gasped and then went silent.
“I know it sounds absurd,” Ava said, “but the guy who told me has no reason to lie. In fact, he has every reason to tell me the truth.”
“Why?” May said. “Why would she do something like that? How could she do something like that? It’s . . . unthinkable.”
“Those are questions we can ask her ourselves. I’ve arranged for her to be at the Méridien in about an hour.”
“To meet with us?”
“No, she thinks she’ll be meeting with the people she hired to act for her.”
“Oh my God.”
“May, I want to find out the truth and then I want our money back. That’s where our day with her will start and end.”
“If she doesn’t co-operate?”
“She will,” Ava said. “One more thing — call the lawyer again; he should be on standby for us. Once she comes clean, we’ll want it in writing and videotaped. I want something we can use against the Dutch. I also don’t want to give her any chance to change her story later when she has to face her sister.”
“The police?”
“There’s no need for them, except as a threat. Her life is going to be ruined — that’s punishment enough.”
“And the business? What do we do about that? We can’t let her stay involved.”
“That’s a subject for another day. Can your Chiks hold the fort until we make a decision?”
“Of course they can.”
“Good. Then let’s leave it at that and take some time to consider our options. Now let me get myself sorted out here.”
“I’ll wait for you in the lobby.”
“Just be discreet. I don’t want Ah-Pei to see us until we’re ready for her.”
“I understand.”
Ava came back into the living room. Wan and Yu were sitting on the couch and Sonny was leaning against the wall next to them.
“Did you talk to her?” asked Ava.
Wan nodded. “She’ll be at the hotel.”
“What did you say to her?”
“I told her there were big problems and that we had to meet.”
“Did she have any questions? Did she ask about me? Did she ask if I had been ransomed, or shot?”
“No questions.”
“So she readily agreed to meet with you.”
“There was some resistance, until I stopped asking nicely. I scared her.”
Ava turned to Suen. “How many cars do we have?”
“Two.”
“Can I catch a ride to the Méridien Hotel with Sonny?”
“Sure, if someone tells me where it is and how to get there.”
“Do you have a car outside?” she said to Wan.
“Yeah.”
“Drive it to the Méridien. We’ll follow.”
“I’ll send a couple of men with them, for company,” Suen said.
“Thank you. Now there’s one more thing I have to do before we leave,” she said to Sonny. “See that scum over there with the mohawk? Put him against the wall.”
Kang managed to take a step towards the door before Sonny reached him, picked him up, and slammed him against the wall where he had held Wan, his right hand gripping him by the throat.
“Lower him so his feet almost touch the ground, and then move to one side,” Ava said.
Sonny let his hand slide down slowly.
Ava limped towards them. She put her right hand against Sonny’s shoulder for balance and then drove her good left knee into Kang’s groin. The groan turned into a gargle as Sonny squeezed his throat. Ava kneed him again.
She looked into his face. His eyes were half-open, and Ava thought she saw a hint of mockery in them. She stepped back, the memory of his hands on her breasts becoming more vivid. “Fuck you,” she said, her right hand forming a phoenix-eye fist. “Now you can look exactly like your brother.”
Sonny didn’t let go of him even as blood from Kang’s shattered nose spurted over the sleeve of his suit.
“We can leave now,” said Ava.
Sonny loosened his grip and Kang fell to the floor, groaning and curling into a fetal position.
“You don’t have any shoes,” Sonny said.
Auntie Lin appeared at the kitchen doorway. She held a pair of pink flip-flops in one hand, a plastic shopping bag in the other. Ava walked over to her. “Your clothes are in the bag,” the old woman said.
“Thanks for these, and for your kindness,” she said. “I’ll return the shoes and the clothes you loaned me.”
“There’s no need. And besides, I want to ask for a favour.”
“What?”
“My nephew, he isn’t that bad a man.”
“Then he should take on a different line of work. Nice guys aren’t that good at it.”
( 31 )
By Ava’s reckoning she had been absent from her world for about thirty-six hours. The last thing she had done before her second meeting with Wan at the restaurant was tell Jacob Smits to send the information he had to Jeremy Bates at Barrett’s Bank. That seemed a long time ago.
She had given Sonny back his phone; now she asked for it again. She called her own number and accessed her voice messages. Three from May, each increasingly panicked; one from Maria, wondering she hadn’t called; and one from Jeremy Bates saying he had received the information from Smits. He didn’t say what he thought of it or what he had done with it. It was far too early to call to find out.
Ava and Sonny were in the back seat of the car. Suen and one of his men sat in the front. Ava had spoken only Mandarin since arriving in Kota Kinabalu, but now she switched to Cantonese. “Sonny, who is Xu?”
“He runs Shanghai.”
“I assumed that, but how does Uncle know him? From the old days?”
“Xu’s father was from Wuhan. He and Uncle were close when they were young.”
“Ah.”
“Xu came to Hong Kong about a year ago. I don’t think Uncle had met him until then. He might have heard of him, but I don’t think he had met him.”
“What did Xu want?”
“I don’t know. They always meet privately.”
“Always?”
“After the first visit, Xu came to Hong K
ong often. And twice — before you came back to look after him — Uncle went to Shanghai.”
“What kind of man is he?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sonny, you have eyes and ears.”
“I picked him up once at the airport in Hong Kong. I’ve seen him in Shanghai twice, and the only real time I’ve spent with him was when he and Uncle were discussing what to do about Wan.”
“Describe him as best as you can.”
Sonny looked doubtful and then said, “Well, he’s young — still in his thirties, I think. He’s quiet, respectful towards Uncle. He looks and behaves like a man who has an education.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“He’s very well-spoken. I’ve never heard him curse, and the only time I heard him raise his voice was when he saw how devastated Uncle was about your situation. He swore to Uncle that he’d get you back and that Wan would pay for his stupidity.”
“His men don’t look like typical triads.”
“That’s his doing. He likes them to look like regular citizens.”
“And him?”
“The same. He looks quite ordinary, like a businessman, a professional of some kind.”
“He can’t be that ordinary.”
“I mean the way he looks. He’s obviously some kind of operator. His men worship him.”
“Sonny, how many men died here today?”
“I’m not sure, maybe six or seven. I know Suen’s crew took out three. Xu said that if you were harmed, all of them had to go. He said if you were well, Wan could live. But even then, only if that was your choice.”
The Méridien appeared on their right and Wan’s car turned into the driveway. Suen looked back at them. “Do you want us to come into the hotel with you?” His face was impassive, but Ava saw a gleam in his eye that hinted he might have understood the conversation she had just had with Sonny.
“Please. You need to meet May Ling Wong,” she said. “And we should make sure that Wan continues to understand his position.”
They pulled in behind Wan, who stopped his car in front of the hotel and tossed the keys to the valet.