The Goddess of Yantai

by Ian Hamilton

  “A contract?”

  “Yes, Sammy was hired to kill me. Not personally, of course. He sent a couple of his men to do the dirty work. Later, thanks to Uncle’s intervention, he cancelled the contract, but not until his men had tried to do me in,” Ava said. “Then, about a year ago, trouble flared again when Wing took exception to Xu’s growing influence. He decided to kill Xu, and I got caught in the crossfire. Obviously he wasn’t successful. In the aftermath, Xu took control of Wanchai and put Lop in charge. There are people who think Xu made a mistake when he kept Wing on as a figurehead; they think he should have killed him. If Lop’s shooting is connected to Sammy, it will look like they were right and Xu was wrong.”

  “Do you think there’s a connection?”

  “There are rumours that Sammy’s nephew, Carter Wing, who has just taken over the Sha Tin gang in the New Territories, wants to help his uncle reclaim his turf,” Ava said. “If that’s true, a lot of blood could be spilled.”

  Ava saw Fai flinch, decided she’d said enough — maybe even too much — and turned towards the window again. Their two-hour flight had originated in Beijing and would be landing at Hongqiao Airport rather than Pudong International, where Ava felt more comfortable. “We’ll be on the ground in about ten minutes. I think I’ve arrived at Hongqiao only once before.”

  “Pudong is on the eastern edge of Shanghai. Hongqiao is in the western part and is only ten kilometres from the centre of the city,” Fai said, sounding relieved by the change of subject.

  “Suen will be waiting for us with the car. The plan is to go directly to the hospital to see Xu,” Ava said. “You’ve met Suen before, right?”

  “I don’t know if ‘met’ is the right word. I’ve seen him, but he was always lurking in the background; he’s so large that he’s impossible to miss. I thought he was just a bodyguard until Tsai told me he has another role . . . although I don’t remember exactly what that is.”

  “He is Xu’s Red Pole, which means he’s the gang’s enforcer and runs all the muscle on the ground. When things are going well, the job is more preventive than proactive.”

  “And in this case?”

  “I won’t know until I talk to Xu.”

  Fai looked awkwardly at Ava. “It is going to be uncomfortable for me to meet some of these people. They’ve only seen me with Tsai, when I was basically his whore. It might be difficult for someone like Suen to understand why I did that, and how I finally came to terms with my sexuality at this point in my life.”

  Ava shook her head. Pang Fai, although perhaps China’s greatest film actress, wasn’t well paid by Western standards, and she was not financially self-sufficient. In the past she had augmented her income by dating and sometimes sleeping with wealthy men. Tsai Men, the son of the governor of Jiangsu province, had been one of those men. Ava had first met Fai at a dinner with Tsai and Xu. “Fai, pay no attention to what others think or say. I can’t imagine that anyone associated with me or Xu would ever be disrespectful. All that matters is that you’re happy and at peace with yourself.”

  “Which I am, but I still need reminding now and then that it’s okay for me to feel that way.” Ava and Fai had been a couple for a year, but because of Ava’s business demands and Fai’s film commitments, they had spent only about two months of that time together. The reason they were flying from Beijing to Shanghai was that they had spent the previous week in the Chinese capital sorting out a problem Fai was having with the China Film Syndicate. Their intention had been that when those issues were resolved — which they now were — Ava would travel with Fai to Yantai to meet her parents. Xu’s illness had changed those plans, and now the troubles in Hong Kong were threatening to change them again.

  The plane’s descent quickened and the pilot announced that they were making their final approach to Hongqiao. Ava closed her eyes and said a short prayer to Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost causes. She had given up most of her Roman Catholic faith in reaction to the Church’s position on homosexuality, but she still turned to Saint Jude whenever she felt as if events in her life were spinning out of control. She didn’t know what she would find when she landed in Shanghai, so her prayer simply asked for things to be as normal as possible.

  Hongqiao, like most of the newer airports in Asia, had been built for efficiency. Within fifteen minutes of landing, Ava and Fai were walking through the doors of the arrivals hall into a horde of people waiting for travellers.

  “Ava!” a man’s voice called out.

  Ava looked to the right and saw Suen. Even in a throng he was impossible to miss. At six feet four and with his 240 pounds of muscle accentuated by a tight-fitting polo shirt, he was an imposing figure. She and Fai walked towards him.

  He reached for Ava’s bags. “I’m very happy to see you,” he said.

  “Do you remember Fai?” Ava asked.

  “Sure,” he said, nodding at her. “Good to see you too.”

  “How’s Xu?” Ava asked. “Have they finally settled on a diagnosis?”

  “They are now quite definite that it’s bacterial meningitis,” Suen said.

  “I was hoping it would be something else.”

  “Don’t panic. They’ve shot him full of antibiotics, and the doctor told me he’s sure they caught the disease in time.”

  “Is Xu alert? Is he responsive?”

  “Sometimes he’s lucid and sometimes his mind wanders and he starts talking nonsense. And he’s still physically weak.”

  “Have you told Auntie Grace about the diagnosis?” Ava said, referring to Xu’s lifelong housekeeper.

  “I thought I’d leave that to you. She’ll trust whatever you tell her, whereas with me she always has a hundred questions that I can’t answer,” Suen said. “I assume you’ll be staying with her?”

  “We will.”

  “And I assume you’ll want to see Xu first?”

  “Of course.”

  Suen looked at the gold Rolex on his wrist. “Then we’d better get going. It’s already quarter to eight and visiting hours end at nine. He’s in the Shanghai East International Medical Centre in Pudong, which is a thirty-minute drive from here. Wen is waiting for us with the car.”

  Ava and Fai followed in Suen’s wake as he barrelled through the crowd. He stopped to let them pass when he reached the arrival hall’s exit doors. When Ava stepped onto the sidewalk, she saw Wen directly in front of her, standing next to Xu’s silver S-Class Mercedes-Benz.

  Wen bowed his head when he saw her. “Xaio lao ban,” he said.

  Ava smiled. Wen had been the first person to call her xaio lao ban — “little boss” — to her face, although he had been quick to add that most of Xu’s men, even Xu himself, often referred to her that way when she wasn’t around.

  “Good to see you, Wen, although I wish the circumstances were different,” she said.

  “The boss will be okay,” he said with determination.

  Wen was a small, wiry man, but his size was no indication of his grit. Ava had seen his bravery first-hand the year before, when a special unit attached to the People’s Armed Police had come to Xu’s house — where she was alone with Auntie Grace — to arrest her. Wen had organized the resistance and had been prepared to exchange fire with the police. Thankfully it hadn’t come to that, but Ava didn’t doubt for a second that Wen had been ready to do whatever it took to protect her.

  “Yes, I’m sure he will be okay,” Ava said.

  As Wen loaded their bags into the trunk of the car, Ava and Fai slid onto the back seat and Suen sat in the front. “You haven’t mentioned Lop,” she said. “How is he?”

  Suen turned to face her. “He’s still alive.”

  “And what’s happening in Hong Kong?”

  “The last time I heard, it was quiet. Nothing out of the ordinary.”

  “Except for Lop getting shot.”

  “I’m hoping that
was an aberration, a mistake of some sort.”

  “Do you really believe that?” she asked.

  “No. I said I hope that’s the case, not that I believe it is.”

  “Does Xu know about Lop?”

  “Not yet. Telling him now doesn’t seem to be the right thing, given his state of mind.”

  Ava shook her head. “He needs to know. Not telling him is usurping his authority. I know your intentions are good, but they could be misconstrued.”

  “If we do tell him, it might be better coming from you,” Suen said. “You’re the one he told about his concerns there, and it’s your man Sonny who’s been poking around.”

  “Speaking of Sonny, have you heard from him?”

  “He called me a couple of hours ago. He wanted you to call him when you landed,” Suen said. “I’m sorry, I should have told you earlier.”

  “No need to apologize. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate,” Ava said, reaching for her phone.

  Sonny Kwok was as large as Suen, and probably more vicious. He had been a member of Uncle’s Triad gang in Fanling before becoming his fanatically loyal bodyguard and driver. When Uncle became ill and knew he was going to die, he’d asked Ava to employ Sonny, saying, “A Sonny with nothing to do and no ties will eventually get into trouble, and it is the kind of trouble that you cannot begin to imagine.” So Ava had hired him. The fact that she lived in Toronto and Sonny wouldn’t fit in anywhere but Hong Kong was a challenge, but they agreed that whenever she was in Asia, she had first call on his services. The rest of the time, Sonny drove for Ava’s father, Marcus, her brother Michael, and Amanda Yee, who in addition to being Ava’s business partner was married to Michael. They all lived in Hong Kong and the arrangement had worked well so far. Ava knew that Sonny was as loyal to her as he had ever been to Uncle.

  “Wei,” he answered.

  “It’s Ava.”

  “How is Xu?” he asked.

  “I’ll know soon; I’m on my way to the hospital. Suen tells me he has bacterial meningitis but it’s treatable. I’ll call you after I see him,” Ava said. “How are things on your end? How is Lop? Any noise from Sammy Wing?”

  “Lop is at Dr. Lui’s clinic in Kowloon. Lui thinks he should be moved to a regular hospital, but I talked it over with Ko, Lop’s right-hand man, and we decided to leave him where he is. If he goes to a hospital the cops will get involved, and there will be a lot of questions that no one wants to answer.”

  “But if Lop’s life is at risk . . .”

  “Lui is a really good doctor and he has all the equipment you’d find at most hospitals,” Sonny said. “He’s just nervous about having someone like Lop at the clinic.”

  “Then why did he agree to take him in?”

  “He didn’t, really. We showed up on his doorstep with Lop in tow. He couldn’t turn us away.”

  “Lui is your girlfriend’s brother, right?”

  “Ex-girlfriend’s brother. That might also be why he’s reluctant to help.”

  “So you think Lop is going to live?”

  Sonny paused. “I don’t know. He caught three bullets, one in his gut and two in the upper chest. Lui got them out but Lop lost a lot of blood, and Lui isn’t sure how much damage was done internally.”

  “Lop is incredibly fit.”

  “Bullets do their damage whether you’re fit or not.”

  “How about Ko? Is he strong enough to take over, even temporarily?”

  “He’s a good number two, but that’s what he is — a number two. I can’t see him running a gang on his own. Besides, he’s a Shanghai man, and that’s not the best of references around here right now.”

  “Shit.”

  “The good news is that nothing else has happened since Lop was shot,” said Sonny. “If Sammy and Carter were going to make a play for Wanchai, they would have followed up more aggressively.”

  “Maybe they’re waiting to see how Xu reacts. The last time Sammy tried to take him on, Sammy and his gang were taken apart in less than twenty-four hours.”

  “But that was with Lop in charge of the troops on the ground.”

  “Even so, the Wings have reason to be cautious.”

  “The other reason might be that the shooting doesn’t have anything to do with Wanchai. Maybe someone just has a hate on for Lop.”

  “Do you believe that?” Ava asked.

  “Not really. I trust Andy’s information. If he heard that Sammy and Carter’s Sha Tin gang are going to make a play for Wanchai, then I believe it,” Sonny said. Andy was an old Triad colleague of Sonny and Ava’s who was loosely connected to the Sha Tin gang.

  “What do you know about Carter?”

  “He’s young, tough, ambitious, and aggressive. He’s only been heading that gang for a couple of months, but already he’s making a lot of his neighbours nervous,” Sonny said. “One more thing you should know: Carter’s father died when he was young and Sammy has always looked out for him, so they’re close. Now that Carter’s got some power, he might be trying to use it to repay his uncle.”

  “But you haven’t heard anything definite?”

  “No, just rumours.”

  “Well, until something else happens, we’ll have to assume that’s what we’re dealing with,” Ava said. She saw that Suen was listening to her end of the conversation. She didn’t blame him. With Xu in hospital and Lop in the Kowloon clinic, it might fall to him and the rest of the Shanghai executive to decide on a course of action if the rumours materialized into something more sinister. “Sonny, I have to go. I’ll call you after I see Xu. In the meantime, stay on top of things there. Let’s try to avoid any more surprises.”

  “How is Lop?” Suen asked as soon as Ava ended the call.

  “He’s not dead, but he’s in no condition to run anything, let alone a war.”

  “This couldn’t happen at a worse time.”

  “How close are we to the hospital?” Ava asked, in no mood to respond to something so obvious.

  “Ten minutes,” Wen said.

  “Then let’s have some quiet time. I need to gather myself. Being in two hospitals in as many days is a lot for my system to deal with.”

  Acknowledgements

  The Goddess of Yantai is the twelfth book in the Ava Lee series, and I have to confess they don’t get any easier to write. One reason is the growing expectations from my readers. I am loath to disappoint them and when I send the first draft to my first readers, the next weeks are hell as I await their (always) honest verdicts. Fortunately, Goddess did not disappoint, so big thanks to Kristine Wookey, Robin Spano, Farah Mohammed, Catherine Roseburgh, and my wife, Lorraine, for giving me their time and support.

  I can’t think of the word “support” and not think of my agents Bruce Westwood and Carolyn Forde. I know there are times when I try their patience, but they do persevere and help me get through the ups and downs that plague many writers. I trust their judgment — which is no small thing — and that hasn’t steered me wrong.

  This is my first book with my new editor Doug Richmond after eleven books with Janie Yoon. A big thank you to Doug for his efforts, and for leaving me feeling that I’m still in good hands.

  IAN HAMILTON is the author of twelve novels in the Ava Lee series. His books have been shortlisted for numerous prizes, including the Arthur Ellis Award, the Barry Award, and the Lambda Literary Prize, and are national bestsellers. BBC Culture named Hamilton one of the ten mystery/crime writers from the last thirty years that should be on your bookshelf. The Ava Lee series is being adapted for television.

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  Ian Hamilton, The Goddess of Yantai