by Ian Hamilton
They settled into their first-class seats, Xu and Ava in the first row, the men sitting together several rows behind. They were a well-dressed, conservative-looking group. Xu discouraged tattoos and outlandish hairstyles; he wanted his men to be as nondescript as possible. Suen and his two companions were wearing slacks, plain shirts, and casual jackets with Polo or Tommy Hilfiger logos. Xu had on his standard black suit with white shirt and black tie. Ava matched his monochromatic look in black slacks and a white button-down shirt. Collectively, she thought, they looked like Hong Kong office managers on a day outing.
There were a few empty seats in first class, but economy was full. Ava knew it would be the same story on every boat, every half-hour, every day of the week. There was no legal casino gambling elsewhere in China, so over the past dozen years Macau had transformed into a giant money-making machine for the world’s largest casino companies. Millions of gamblers found their way there each year, leaving more than US$45 billion behind in the city’s thirty-three casinos. By comparison, Las Vegas’s seventy casinos generated only $6 billion a year.
Macau hadn’t always been dominated by gambling. In the 1500s the Portuguese had landed there and used the region as their trading base, paying an annual tribute to the Chinese government. This continued until 1864, when, after the first Opium War, they were granted permanent occupation rights, similar to what the British had in Hong Kong. Those rights eventually reverted and the territory was returned to the Chinese in 1999.
Ava had been there many times with Uncle to visit clients and collect debts. There were still vestiges of the Portuguese occupation in Macau’s cuisine and architecture, but they were few and far between. The population of 600,000 was ninety-five percent Chinese, and almost no one spoke Portuguese. Unlike the British in Hong Kong, the Portuguese had no interest in creating legal, bureaucratic, or educational infrastructures. It was all about trade, all about extracting every dollar they could. Now they were gone and a foreign horde of even cleverer money-extractors had replaced them.
When Ava made her first trips to Macau with Uncle, the casinos weren’t so omnipresent. In fact, compared to what she’d seen in Las Vegas, they were almost quaint. There were about a dozen, all operated by the same company, the Sociedade Turismo e Diversões de Macau. The company had been granted a monopoly in 1962, and over the next forty years, through a syndicate controlled by Stanley Ho, it was the sole operator in the territory. Ho’s casinos, with the exception of the modestly sized Lisboa, were small, drab, and sometimes dingy, and they didn’t offer much in the way of service, food, drink, or entertainment. Uncle hated them, even though they were sometimes a source of business. He didn’t like the paper wrappings and cigarette butts that littered the carpets, which were sometimes damp from spilled drinks or, more often, spit. He didn’t like the moneylenders who sat next to the gamblers with briefcases filled with cash. Uncle called them parasites and couldn’t understand why the government would allow that practice, although the truth was the casinos encouraged them to be there and probably were getting paid by them. He also didn’t speak kindly of Stanley Ho, whom he knew. This was unusual for Uncle, and Ava wondered if there was more behind his distaste than the way he felt about the casinos. There were rumours that Ho had triad ties, specifically to the Kung Lok gang in Hong Kong, but Ava never asked Uncle if that was the root cause of his feelings.
Quaint Macau had disappeared in 2002, when the Chinese government issued six new gambling concessions and the big boys from Las Vegas came rumbling in. The STDM’s dozen modest casinos quickly found themselves with twenty new competitors —including the Venetian, Wynn, Sands, and MGM Macau —some of them exact replicas of their Vegas namesakes. And every year, it seemed to Ava, there was a new one being built or an addition being made to an existing casino.
The jetfoil pulled away from the dock and entered the channel that would take it out to the South China Sea. As the engines roared, it gained speed. Ava turned to Xu, raising her voice over the noise. “Have you heard from Lam about the meeting location?”
“We’re still going to the restaurant,” Xu said. “He pushed as hard as he could without upsetting them for a change of venue. Lop knows the decision. He’ll add some extra men.”
“But we’re heading for the Grand Hyatt first?”
“Yes. Lop will be at the ferry terminal with enough cars for all of us.”
“Where are you staying?” she asked.
“The same hotel. If all goes well, I’ll stay for at least a night. Lam and I have some things to go over, and I’ve never really seen the place. Every time I’ve been here, it’s been in and out,” Xu said. Then he noted, “You didn’t bring an overnight bag.”
“I didn’t think I’d need to stay in Macau overnight,” Ava said. “My gut feeling is that this isn’t going to be a long, drawn-out negotiating session. Besides, I have two partners waiting for me in Hong Kong who will be desperate to hear how things went, and I’d like to tell them in person.”
“You could be right about the meeting being short,” Xu said. “I’ve been thinking about the approach I’m going to take and have decided to be as direct and blunt as possible. It may not go down well, but from what I know about these guys and what Lam has told me, they aren’t about subtleties.”
“What are you going to say?”
He shrugged. “I’m still working on it, and I want to hear what Lam wants to say. Do you mind waiting until we’re all together?”
“Of course not.”
The jetfoil was bouncing over the sea. Ava turned around to see how Sonny was doing and saw that his eyes were closed. She was contemplating doing the same when her phone rang. The screen read PRIVATE CALLER. She hesitated and then realized it was the phone Xu had given her.
“Yes?” she said.
“Ava, this is Fai. I hope I’m not disturbing you,” she said. “Where are you?”
“No, you’re not disturbing me. I’m on a boat,” Ava said over the engines, then quickly changed the subject before Fai could ask any questions. “Are you okay? You sound groggy.”
“I just woke up. I couldn’t get to sleep last night and had to take some pills.”
“Are you still a bit jet-lagged from the London trip?”
“I don’t know. I’m tired physically but my mind keeps turning. Sometimes I think I’m going crazy.” Fai laughed.
“I know that feeling. Sometimes it takes a week after a trip like that for life to get back to normal,” Ava said. “When do you leave Beijing to go to your film shoot?”
“It starts in Kunming and ends in Beijing. I leave in three or four days —I don’t actually remember. That’s how tired I am.”
“You’ll probably be better by then.”
The line went silent, and Ava wondered if Fai had put down her phone. She waited for ten or fifteen seconds and was about to end the call when Fai said, “How long are you going to be in Hong Kong?”
“I’m not sure. I have a meeting tonight and if it goes well I could be out of here tomorrow,” Ava said.
“Oh.”
“But I might stay an extra day to see my father.”
“I don’t know Hong Kong very well,” Fai said, sounding distracted.
“I read somewhere that you made a few movies here.”
“Two films, and both times I was shuttled back and forth between the set and the hotel. I hardly saw anything else . . . I should let you go,” she said suddenly.
“And actually I should go. I have to get myself organized for the meeting.”
“All right,” Fai said, again lapsing into silence.
“Call me whenever,” Ava said. “I may be able to use my regular phone tomorrow, so try it first.” She put the phone in her bag.
“Who was that?” Xu asked.
“It was Pang Fai.”
“When you mentioned a film shoot, I thought that’s who it would be.”
“She’s still fighting jet lag.”
“I’m pleased she’s working with you
. She adds real glamour to the line,” Xu said. “I didn’t realize she’d become such a good friend.”
“I think she really enjoyed being in London,” Ava said. “You know, it wouldn’t be a bad thing if we gave her some shares in PÖ.”
“Assuming that after tonight the shares are worth having.”
( 44 )
The last time Ava had seen Lam, they were in an abandoned mah-jong parlour near the Happy Valley racetrack in Hong Kong. He had just put two bullets into Li, Guangzhou’s Mountain Master and his boss. Xu had a direct hand in the killing, Ava an indirect one. Either way, if ever a death was warranted, Li’s was. He had tried to kill both of them —Ava twice —and Xu was convinced that if Li lived he’d try again. Still, the execution had shocked her. Xu and Lam had been calm and composed and took turns assuring her that it had been an inevitable outcome. Inevitable or not, the death was convenient. It paved the way for Xu’s election as chairman of the triad societies in Asia, and it vaulted Lam into the Mountain Master position in Guangzhou.
Ava hadn’t thought much about Li’s death since that day, but as the jetfoil neared Macau the memory flickered through her mind. “What kind of Mountain Master is Lam?” she asked Xu as Macau came into view through the water-spattered windows.
“Why do you ask?”
“I was thinking about the last time I saw him, in Happy Valley, and then I remembered how he was when I met him in Huangpu and we began negotiating the settlement between the Shanghai and Guangzhou gangs. I found him to be low-key and thoughtful. I was wondering if becoming the boss has changed his operating style.”
“You’ve been talking to him on the phone. What do you think?”
“I haven’t detected any difference, but then I don’t work for him or have to compete with him.”
“He’s still thoughtful and calm,” Xu said. “But becoming the boss has affected him.”
“In what sense?”
He turned to Ava. “When you’re the deputy, your main concern is keeping your boss happy, and in Lam’s case with Li, that meant worrying about the day-to-day business. The future wasn’t his responsibility. Now it is, and he has thousands of men —and, by extension, their families —depending on him, and only him, to ensure their long-term economic security. Every decision he makes has to strike a balance between the immediate challenge and its long-term impact, and then when he makes the decision, he has to present it in a way that makes it seem the only possible decision that could have been made. There’s no room for self-doubt. Your people can never see you confused or in a panic. I think that Lam understands and has mastered that part of the craft,” Xu said. “If I was going to be critical of him, I’d say he is sometimes too careful, too risk-averse, and that’s in both his opinions and actions. Li was the opposite, so maybe Lam’s style is a reaction to that.”
The jetfoil’s engines cut back and the vessel slowed. Ava saw people stirring. Many in economy were already making their way towards the doors, anxious to be first off the boat and first to get through Customs. “They’ll race each other to the casinos,” she said.
“They just want to win their fair share of money before the casinos run out of it,” Xu said.
The boat docked and now everyone except their group was at the doors or in line. They remained seated until the exit was completely clear and took their time walking to Customs and Immigration. There were only a few people waiting to be processed when they arrived. The booths were well staffed and the officers were trained to move people through as quickly as possible. A few minutes later they exited the terminal to find Lop and two cars waiting for them.
“Hey, boss,” he said to Xu, and then nodded at Ava. “Nice to see you again.”
“And you too, though we always seem to meet under difficult circumstances,” she said.
“It’s the nature of the work,” Lop said.
“Speaking of work, I want to thank you for what you and Sonny did for us in Shenzhen.”
“He’s a good man and I like working with him. Any time he wants another job, he knows where to come,” Lop said, smiling at Sonny.
“I don’t mind lending him out from time to time,” Ava said, “but I’m not giving him up.” This time Sonny smiled.
“We should start moving,” Xu interrupted. “Lam is expecting us.”
“I thought that you, Ava, me, and Suen could take the first car,” Lop said. “The other guys can go in the second.”
“Who are the drivers?” Suen asked.
“All men I brought with me from Hong Kong. I’ve got five more at the Grand Hyatt and another group already positioned around the restaurant and near the Lisboa.”
“Any sign of the Italians?” Xu said.
“One of my men went into the Lisboa for something to eat and thought he noticed some Westerners who looked tough enough to be part of their team.”
“What were they doing?”
“Walking and watching, like us.”
“How many did he see?”
“Six, but based on the manifests and the fact that Ava didn’t recognize any names, I’m figuring there must be ten to fourteen of them in town.”
“And there’s no indication that they’ve hired local support?” Xu said.
“No.”
“Good. Then let’s go see what Lam is doing.”
Macau was a peninsula attached to the Chinese mainland, across from the Pearl River delta. The vast majority of the population lived in an area of about six square miles, which made it the most densely populated territory on earth. Curiously, its inhabitants also had the world’s longest life expectancy. The number of casino/hotel complexes on the peninsula had grown from twelve to twenty-three since Stanley Ho’s monopoly ended in 2002, and had chewed up all the available land. The island of Taipa, directly south of Macau, took the overflow. Now there were about a dozen complexes there, including City of Dreams, the Wynn, and the Venetian.
The ferry terminal was in Macau, on the outer harbour —the Porto Exterior. Ava knew from her last trip that it was about seven kilometres from the terminal to City of Dreams. They would drive south from the terminal, cross the Governor Nobre de Carvalho Bridge, and enter Taipa. City of Dreams was near the northern tip of Taipa, on a stretch of land called the Cotai Strip.
The ride to City of Dreams was quiet. Everyone seemed taken with the surroundings, and Ava had to admit they were impressive. The closest counterpart was the Strip in Las Vegas, but it wasn’t surrounded by sea and seemed almost suburban compared to the density of Macau and the Cotai Strip.
The Taipa skyline dominated the view almost as soon as they drove onto the Carvalho Bridge. A few minutes after reaching the island, the lead car began to wind its way into the maze of buildings that was City of Dreams. There were four towers, all about forty storeys high, surrounding a central pod. Two were dedicated to the Grand Hyatt Macau; the others were a Hard Rock Hotel and a Crown Towers Hotel.
As they entered the Grand Hyatt property, Ava felt a twinge of disappointment. She had anticipated something lavish or maybe even spectacular, but the hotel had a rather modest sign and its exterior was a wall of plain glass in an uninspired design.
The cars rolled to a stop at the hotel entrance.
“I have to check in,” Xu said to Ava. “You can wait for me or go directly to Lam’s suite.”
“I’ll wait,” she said, and followed Xu and his men into the lobby.
The interior was everything the exterior wasn’t. It was a huge, cavernous space with walls tiled in tan, beige, and white. The walls soared about sixty feet towards a brightly lit ceiling made of coloured glass that resembled clouds. Strings of crystals or glass hung from the ceiling like rainfall. The floor was black marble and flickered under the light from overhead. The lobby’s size reminded Ava of a 1920s railway station in a city like New York, except that its design was lighter, airier, even verging on minimalist.
She and Sonny walked to the elevators. She was still admiring the lobby when Xu approached with
Suen and Lop. “Lam is waiting for us,” he said.
“Where are the other men?”
“Lop has given them their orders. If you don’t see them again, that’s a good thing.”
They bundled into the elevator and Lop pushed the button for the thirty-seventh floor. “I was in Lam’s suite earlier,” Lop said. “It has a separate living room, den, and dining room. I think it’s bigger than my apartment in Hong Kong, and it has to cost twelve thousand Hong Kong dollars a night.”
When the elevator stopped, Suen stepped out first, looked both ways down the corridor, then waved them forward. Two men were standing outside a set of double doors at the far end of the corridor. One of the men opened the door before they reached it. As Xu passed, he and his partner lowered their heads in respect.
“Welcome,” Lam said from the far end of the suite. He stood in front of a window, the light framing him. He was slightly taller than Xu, but thinner and wirier. As he walked towards them, Ava noticed that his long, narrow face was just starting to show his age. His white hair was tied back in a ponytail. It was a youthful look, one he accentuated with a pair of red-tinted round wire-framed glasses. He was wearing a long-sleeved white silk shirt, black jeans, and tan Ferragamo loafers. A year at the top of the Guangzhou gang didn’t seem to have affected his appearance or manner.
Xu met him in the middle of the suite. They shook hands, Xu’s left hand clasping Lam’s elbow. “Good to see you,” Xu said. “And thanks for all of this.”
Lam took a small step to one side and peered past Xu. “I’ve only done what Ava wanted —which seems to be the case every time I get involved with her,” he said with a grin. “Ava, come and give me a hug.”
Ava crossed the floor. “All I’ve been hearing about for days is Three Sisters and PÖ,” Lam said as he put his arms around her. “As lovely as you are, I’ll be glad to put this business behind me.”
“That’s a view we share,” Ava said.
“Well, hopefully we’ll accomplish it. The Italians are here, including the two you were most anxious to meet.”