by Ian Hamilton
Ava felt a twinge of guilt for even thinking about the inconvenience of the Cross-Harbour Tunnel. “Has he been to see a doctor?”
“We don’t know.”
“Is it possible that on the days he leaves the apartment without you, maybe he’s going to see one?”
Sonny shook his head and sighed. “I never thought of that . . . Why the fuck didn’t I think of that?”
“If he gave you no reason to think it, why would you?”
“But you did.”
“I’m as sneaky as he is.”
Sonny slapped the steering wheel. “I’m going to park my ass outside the apartment on the days he says he doesn’t need me. I’ll tail him.”
“That’s a good idea,” Ava said, though she could hardly imagine Uncle not picking up on Sonny’s presence. “Another thing you can do is talk to Lourdes and find out who his doctor is. I’d like to know myself.”
“I’ll do that,” Sonny said as they finally made their way into the tunnel and began the last leg to Kowloon.
The restaurant was in Tsim Sha Tsui, near the Star Ferry terminal. The area was jammed with buses and taxis, and even Sonny couldn’t find a place to park, legally or otherwise. He dropped her off at the entrance and told her to call his cell when they were done.
Uncle was already there. She couldn’t remember the last time she had gone to meet him and had to wait. The front entrance was crowded, but she spotted him between the bodies of the people in front of her. He sat in a booth with a pot of tea in front of him, his legs dangling off the floor. Like Sonny, he was wearing a black suit and a white shirt, closed at the collar. His hair was still mainly black, though there were more streaks of grey than she could remember. His face was almost completely unlined. He was short, no taller than her, and now he looked as if he had shrunk a little and, as Sonny said, lost some weight. Ava stared hard at him. His dark brown eyes seemed as lively as ever, and if he was worried, there was no sign in them.
She pushed through the throng and walked towards him.
He saw her and a grin lit up his face. He stood and reached for her. “As beautiful as ever, my girl, as beautiful as ever.”
She kissed him on the forehead. “I’m so happy to see you.”
“You do not mind us eating here?”
“Of course not. You know I love congee.”
“Truthfully I did not feel like driving to Hong Kong or putting up with the Star Ferry in rush hour.”
“And I’m sure the walk did you good.”
The waitress hovered, anxious to get their order, get their food, get the table turned.
“Do you know what you want?” Uncle asked Ava.
“Congee with chopped spring onions in it.”
“I will have the same, with salted eggs and pickled vegetables on the side,” he told the waitress.
“Oh, I also want you tiao,” Ava said.
“Of course,” said Uncle.
It was at their table in a matter of minutes. Congee and jook were the same thing, a simple rice porridge. Ava added soy sauce and white pepper to hers and then dipped you tiao — a deep-fried breadstick — into it. Uncle left his plain but took bites of egg and vegetable between slurps. “I come here many mornings,” he said. “Lourdes would be upset if she knew. She thinks she makes the best jook in Kowloon, and I do not have the heart to tell her otherwise.”
“I won’t say a word.”
“I was sitting here waiting for you and thinking about the last time we were here.”
“Seems like years ago.”
“I was so worried about you.”
She glanced up at him from her bowl. There was that sentimentality again, but his face showed none of it. “It wasn’t anything we couldn’t handle, was it. At the end of the day we prevailed,” she said.
“Somehow.”
“I’m sorry if I dawdled all summer,” she said, trying to get them closer to the present. “It took weeks before my leg began to function anything close to normal, and by then I was at the cottage and feeling lazy. I’m back at work now, so let’s put worries aside.”
He ate slowly, carefully skimming congee from the top as if it were a hundred-dollar bowl of shark’s-fin soup, then emptying his spoon with tiny slurps. He had never been a careful eater, but now he was being deliberate. She found herself resting between spoonfuls so as not to get too far ahead of him.
“I have to tell you, I’m not sure that my going to Ho Chi Minh City will result in anything positive,” she said. “This could be a short assignment.”
“Why do you say that?”
She detailed her meeting with Joey Lac, emphasizing his belief that Lam was incapable of a theft of that magnitude.
“It is always the ones we never suspect until it is too late,” Uncle said, discounting the opinion with a little wave of his hand.
“Still, Lac did know him well.”
“You will find out for yourself soon enough.”
“What arrangements have you made in Vietnam?” she asked.
“You will be met at the airport by a friend. He will be wearing civilian clothes but he is an officer in the police force, District One. He will do whatever you want him to do . . . within reason, of course.”
“I’m not anticipating that Lam will give me serious trouble. He’s an accountant, not a thug.”
“Just be cautious. Remember, his brother is a man of substance, and in Vietnam he is also going to have friends. In that country that invariably leads to the police or the army.”
“I’m not going to do anything rash,” Ava said as she took her notebook from her bag. She tore off a blank page and copied the information on Bank Linno that Lac had emailed her. “Do we have contacts in Indonesia?” she asked.
“Some. Mainly in Jakarta, of course.”
She slid the paper across the table to him. “This bank is headquartered in Surabaya. I have only one name attached to it, plus a phone number and an email address. Could you find out what you can about the bank?”
“This is connected to Lam?”
“Very much so.”
“Never heard of the bank.”
“It was big enough to have a branch in Toronto, and that is where Lam deposited the cash he was collecting. The strange thing is, it shut down its office shortly after Lam ran into trouble.”
“Do you think there is a connection?”
It wasn’t his nature to leap to conclusions, no more than it was hers. Slow and steady had always been their style: A to B to C until they got to the end, not taking shortcuts, because shortcuts more often than not led to wild goose chases and a waste of time and money. “I don’t know what to think,” she said. “I need to get to Lam first.”
“I will find out what I can from Indonesia,” Uncle said.
“Thank you.”
He set his spoon aside, the jook only half finished. “I have to tell you that I was surprised when you called me to talk about this job.”
His face was impassive, but Ava heard the slight tremor in his voice. “Why should you have been?” she asked.
“I thought that after Macau you might have decided the risks were not worth the rewards anymore. I mean, you have enough money never to have to do this kind of thing again, and you are so damn bright you could do anything else you wanted.”
Ava reached over and rested her fingers on the back of his hand. “This is about May Ling again, isn’t it.”
He smiled. “She is not as subtle as you, although she likes to think she is. She called me yesterday, not for the first time, and actually asked me if I had ever thought about returning home to Wuhan. And when I said I had — which was true ten or fifteen years ago — she said that Changxing and she would be honoured if I would take a position in their corporation, some elder-statesman kind of role. This from a woman who resisted hiring us for that job because she did not want their family name associated with mine. She must want you to join her very badly if she is willing to put up with me.”
Ava saw no poin
t in being anything other than direct. “Uncle, you helped bring May and I together. Now we’re friends. And yes, she has been trying to get me to become part of their firm. Truthfully, I have thought about it, and I have decided that I’m not ready yet. Maybe one day I will be, but not yet. Are you okay with that?”
“Of course. You owe me nothing.”
“I owe you everything,” she said, more sharply and loudly than she had intended.
His eyes turned away from the table, looking towards the front window. “I see Sonny has been circling. We need to get you to the airport and I need to make some calls to Indonesia, and maybe even the Philippines. My contacts are not so good in Indonesia, but I know Uncle Chang is strong there.”
“If you talk to him, send him my regards,” Ava said.
“We speak every week,” Uncle said. “He is still at Tommy Ordonez’s right hand, and I expect he will die there.”
( 11 )
Sonny drove her to the airport. They didn’t speak until they had cleared the tunnel and were heading through Hong Kong towards the bridge. “You need to keep track of him,” Ava said. “He seemed not too bad to me — his mind is still sharp, but physically I see a bit of deterioration. What bothers me most is that he seems to be getting maudlin.”
“That’s the word I was searching for earlier, when I told you about him wanting to talk about the old days.”
“I don’t think it’s a symptom of anything. We could be overreacting to simple mood swings, so don’t press him, eh? If you are going to tail him, be discreet; remember who you’re dealing with. He has always been sensitive to his physical surroundings, and unless you’re careful he’ll spot you in a moment.”
“I was thinking of using someone else, a female friend he’s never met.”
Ava nodded. “That’s a great idea, Sonny. Really, a great idea. This woman, though, she’s professional enough to pull it off?”
“Yeah.”
He said it so aggressively that it triggered a host of questions in her head. She ate them all. “Good. Please keep me posted.”
Sonny dropped her off at the VIP departures gate. It took her less than five minutes to check in at Cathay Pacific and only ten minutes more to clear Customs and Immigration on the departures level; she was through security in another five. She had given herself two hours, so she headed for the Cathay first-class lounge. She grabbed a double espresso and copies of the South China Morning Post and the International Herald Tribune and deposited herself in one of the big easy chairs the lounge provided.
The papers headlined a huge sell-off of stocks in the United States that had evidently been triggered by a computer entry mistake. Some trader selling futures had punched in sixteen billion instead of sixteen million, and the computer had taken over from there. Ava’s money was widely distributed — Canadian government bonds, Canadian bank stocks, gold, real estate investment trusts — and she hardly gave market activity a thought, but she found it alarming that so much value could be vaporized through sheer stupidity.
Her cellphone rang. She looked at the screen and saw the name MARCUS LEE. All thoughts about the U.S. stock market disappeared. “Hi, Daddy,” she said, kicking herself for not having called him first.
“Mummy said you were going to be coming through Hong Kong,” he said.
“I’m in the Cathay lounge at the airport, in transit to Vietnam.”
“Back at work, she says.”
“Yes, and mainly because of her, in case she didn’t tell you. One of her friends lost some money in an investment fund and Mummy put her on to me. A small case, really, and one that I don’t think is going to last too long or result in too much.”
He paused, and Ava braced herself. Instead he said, “Just be careful.”
“I promise I’ll be careful.”
“Make sure you do. Ava, I know you’re entirely capable, but all of us overreach. Look what happened to Michael.”
“He survived.”
“Speaking of Michael, did you look at your emails today?”
“No, why?”
“Amanda and he have set a wedding date. Our two families had dinner together last night and went over the details.”
Ava had an immediate and almost irrational flash of jealousy. Neither Michael nor Amanda had mentioned anything about a specific wedding date to her. And when Marcus mentioned the two families, he meant the Yees and he and his first wife. Ava hadn’t paid much attention to the wedding plans, and now that she did, her only thought was whether she would be invited. The instant it came, she just as quickly dismissed it. There was no way, no way at all, she could envision Michael’s mother, her father’s first wife, agreeing to have Jennie Lee’s daughter at the wedding. It was one thing to have a husband with second and third families who were out of sight; it was another to have one of the offspring from those unions at what would be a large, public, and high-profile event. It wouldn’t matter what Michael and Amanda wanted. Neither of them would go against his mother.
Jack Yee, Amanda’s father, whom Ava knew well and had helped, would be happy enough to invite her if she asked. As soon as that idea came to her she trashed it, and her jealousy began to turn into anger. Her mother understood, accepted, and respected the position that Wife Number One had in the family, and she had passed on that respect and understanding to her two daughters. But that respect has to cut both ways, Ava thought. So if she was going to be at the wedding, the invitation would have to come from the Lee side of the family. To accept anything else would be disrespectful to her own mother and downgrade the relationship that Jennie, Ava, and Marian had with Marcus Lee.
“When is it scheduled for?” Ava asked as calmly as she could.
“January. I know it’s a bit odd, but it fits their work schedules.”
“And where?”
“The Grand Hyatt.”
“Nice.”
“Jack can afford it, and Amanda is his only child.”
“I know.”
“So do you think you can get over here for it?”
Ava was sure she had misheard. “What?”
“I wish you had checked your emails; it would have been better that way. But since you haven’t, I guess it’s up to me to tell you. Amanda wants you to be her maid of honour.”
“Daddy, that is crazy,” she said without thinking.
“Amanda doesn’t think so, and neither does Michael.”
“But Michael’s mother —”
“Is fine with it.”
“How is that possible?”
“Our lives, especially mine, are evolving in unexpected ways. This is just one more twist.”
“Don’t talk in riddles.”
“Elizabeth loves our children to death, and none more than her oldest. They have always been close — almost abnormally so — and they confide in each other. Michael told her about meeting you for the first time at the Mandarin. Michael told her about the problems he was having. Michael told her that he had asked you to help. And when it was all finished, Michael told her you had saved him and his business.”
“I see,” Ava said, feeling a touch of guilt about her ambivalence towards her half-brother.
“And then Amanda weighed in.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Elizabeth told me that you and Amanda had a conversation during the direst part of Michael’s crisis.”
“We had more than one.”
“This one was very specific. Amanda told Elizabeth that you weren’t helping Michael because of what his problems might mean for him. She said you were doing it to protect the family, that Michael had put it at risk, and that you couldn’t let him bring down his father, your mother, two aunties you have never met, and two small children in Australia whom you also haven’t met.”
“I do remember saying that,” Ava said softly.
“Elizabeth asked Amanda if she believed that, and Amanda said she believed it with all her heart.”
“That was kind.”
“No, that
was the truth.”
“Still.”
“So when Michael went to see his mother two weeks ago to tell her about the wedding plans, he asked her point-blank if she could accept having you there as part of the bridal party. And Elizabeth said, ‘I can’t only not deny her, I should be welcoming her with open arms.’”
Ava experienced an uncommon sensation: she was at a loss for words. “Good grief,” she said finally.
“There you are.”
“So now what?”
“Tell them you’ll be there.”
Yes, Ava thought, and then thoughts of her mother loomed. How would Jennie Lee take it? Would she regard it as an act of disloyalty? “Daddy, someone has to talk to Mummy about this. You do understand she could be hurt if I accept.”
“Yes, I do, and I’ll be the one to talk to her.”
“Thanks . . . I love you.”
Ava ended the connection and then felt a surge of conflicting emotions. What a morning, she thought. What with Sonny and then Uncle and her father and the complications surrounding the wedding, she had gone through more turmoil that morning than she had for the past two months.
She checked the incoming emails on her iPhone. More than forty had accumulated during the past twenty-four hours. She went directly to Michael’s. It was headed WEDDING!!!!!! She read it quickly and couldn’t help noticing that he seemed to take her acceptance as maid of honour for granted. Amanda was less effusive and more guarded, simply saying she would be pleased if Ava would agree. Ava replied to Amanda first, drafting an email that started with Have you thought long and hard about this? Then she deleted it and wrote one to both Michael and Amanda, saying she would be thrilled to play any role in the wedding party.
When that was done, she turned her attention to the other messages. The first to catch her attention was from Joey Lac, asking her to let Theresa and Bobby and his uncle know that he had been helpful, then reiterating his belief that although Lam Van Dinh was capable of being stupid and could have lost the money in some ill-timed investment, he couldn’t buy into the idea that Lam had stolen the money. He asked Ava to keep that opinion to herself, because he knew it might offend everyone who had lost money in the fund. At the tail end he affixed the names, email addresses, and phone numbers of the contact at Bank Linno in Surabaya and the Toronto landlord.