The Red Pole of Macau

( 12 )

On the ride from Kowloon back to Hong Kong on the Star Ferry, she began to think about Derek. Three or four months earlier she wouldn’t have hesitated to tell him to get his ass on a plane to Hong Kong. He was her personal security blanket. They had met at bak mai, the only two students of their Toronto instructor. He was the son of a wealthy Hong Kong businessman, and as far as she knew he hadn’t worked a day in his life. His only source of income besides Daddy was the money she paid him for the support he had provided once or twice a year for the past few years.

The thing about Derek was that he never questioned, never hesitated. What had to get done got done. And if he had any fear, she’d never seen it. When they’d saved Jack Yee from what was going to be a horrendous beating, or worse, Derek had personally taken out three men, leaving Ava with just two, which he teased her about constantly. She loved Derek. The problem was that her best friend, Mimi, did too. And Mimi was pregnant.

Shit, why did I let them get together? she thought. It had been perfect the way it was before. They hadn’t deliberately hooked up; in fact, she had done what she could to warn Mimi off Derek. Looking back, that was probably the wrong thing to do with someone who was always willing to burn her fingers when it came to men.

I can’t do it, she decided as the ferry began to manoeuvre into the Hong Kong terminal. If anything ever happened to him I’d be doubly devastated — no, with a baby involved, triply devastated. She’d make do with Carlo and Andy for now. They showed very little initiative, which was a good thing, and they followed orders, which was also good. When she was working, Ava liked to be surrounded by low-maintenance men. These two qualified.

She took a cab to the apartment.

Michael opened the door, dressed, shaved, and with his hair slicked back. “Come to the computer,” he said.

Amanda sat at the keyboard. “Hey, I was just getting caught up on my own emails. Let me close this window.”

She hit a tab at the bottom and Simon To’s photo appeared. He held the paper at chest level, the headline and the date clearly visible. His chin touched the top of the sheet. His face dog-sad but untouched, except for a bruise under his eye from the punch at lunch. They didn’t have to scare him, Ava thought.

“Okay, great. Now, Michael, you need to make another phone call to Lok.”

“What about this time?”

“You’re going to thank him for the photo and you’re going to tell him that you’ll need a week to get the money collected.”

A look of disbelief crossed his face. “He told us forty-eight hours.”

“And now we negotiate.”

“Are you sure about this?”

“You thank him for the photo and then you tell him you need a week. Tell him you’ve got ten contacts you’ve got to go to, that you can’t just pull the money out of thin air. It has to be done bit by bit.”

“He’ll never agree to a week.”

“Then you ask for six days.”

Amanda turned away from the computer. “Michael, Ava is right. Lok has to be smart enough to know that forty-eight hours is impossible. He might not buy a week, but you can get more time.”

“And when you do, tell him we need a photo of Simon sent to your email address every day at noon,” Ava added.

“Do you want to listen in again?”

“No, you know the drill. Stick to the point. Keep insisting.”

“Okay,” he said, breathing deeply.

Ava turned to Amanda. “Did you call Jessie?”

“Yes, she’s expecting us.”

“The two of you are going to Sha Tin?” Michael asked.

“We are.”

“Shall I come as well?”

“Not a chance,” Ava said. “One look at your face and Jessie will freak out, and I’m not about to show her that photo of Simon either.”

Amanda stood. “Jessie sounded concerned enough already.”

“Call either of us on our cellphones after you’ve talked to Lok,” Ava said, motioning to Amanda that it was time for them to go.

“I’m glad you left him alone to do it,” Amanda said as they left the apartment. “He was complaining that he felt like a child the way you handled it earlier.”

“He was emotionally unstable then. He seems better now.”

“Let’s hope so,” Amanda said as the elevator doors opened.

When they got to the lobby, Ava asked, “Taxi or MTR?”

“The MTR takes only thirty minutes and their apartment is right behind New Town Plaza in Sha Tin, no more than a ten-minute walk from the station.”

They chatted as they walked to the Central MTR station. Amanda had called Jessie just after Ava left the apartment to meet with Uncle, and she had been more upset than she had let on to Michael. Jessie was convinced that Simon was either blowing his brains out gambling in Macau or had shacked up with another woman. Amanda had nothing to offer her but gentle assurances. Jessie had calmed down a little when Amanda said that Michael hadn’t come home either, and that she was sure the boys were trying to close some business deal.

The train was packed and they couldn’t get seats. Even standing, they were soon separated by a continual inflow of passengers fighting for every vacant inch. Ava couldn’t comprehend how people could do this twice a day, every day.

The train had just pulled out of Central when Ava’s cell rang. She couldn’t get to it, her arms pinned to her sides. A moment later Amanda’s cellphone was going off. Ava watched her struggle to get to her purse to remove it. It stopped ringing before she could.

At Sha Tin the train half emptied, the two women swept along with the throng. They both reached for their phones as soon as they had room to move. “It’s Michael,” Amanda said, listening to her voicemail. “Four days . . . Lok gave him four days.”

Ava called him from the station platform. “Great work. Four days is good, but is that four days from today or from tomorrow?”

“We never actually discussed that.”

“In that case we’re going to assume it’s from tomorrow. Was he okay about sending the photos every day?”

“Yeah.”

“And how was he otherwise?”

“Actually quite co-operative. He didn’t even go off on me when I told him I needed more time.”

“He’s got his head in the money now,” Ava said. “He’s not going to do anything that’ll screw up his chances of getting paid.”

Michael went quiet. Ava knew exactly what he was thinking, and before he could speak again she said, “I’m working on some options. The money is only one of them.”

“How the hell can you get that kind of money? And even if you can, how are we going to pay you back?” he said.

“It’s one option. You’ve bought us all some time, so let me use it.”

Ava felt Amanda staring at her as she spoke to her brother. She ended the call and said, “Now, how do we get to Jessie’s?”

They inched their way out of the station and then inched their way to New Town Plaza. At one time it had been the biggest mall in the New Territories, with more than fifty acres of shopping space in a nine-storey structure. Amanda led Ava through the maze to the back exit and right into a wall of apartment towers.

As they walked, Ava talked about how to handle Jessie. “We have to be upbeat, positive. The boys are involved in a business dispute in Macau, pure and simple. As a sign of good faith, Simon and Michael offered to have one of them stay there until the money that is owed is paid. Simon insisted it be him, so now Michael is back in Hong Kong organizing the money. He should have it transferred to Macau in a few days. It’s a bit unusual, but that’s the way business is often done over there. The really good news is that the deal seems to be back on track.”

“Do you really think she’ll buy that?” Amanda asked.

“That depends on how well you spin it.”

“Me?”

“Hey, I’m a stranger. I don’t have any credibility with this woman. Why should she believe anything I have to say? You’re the one she knows and trusts — her husband’s partner’s girlfriend.”

“I’m not a very good liar.”

Ava stopped walking, reached for Amanda’s arm, and turned her so she could see her face. “You are not lying, and you have to convince yourself of that before you can convince her. You’re doing a little bit of shading, using gentler semantics, but the message is essentially true, is it not? He is being held in Macau. We are organizing the money. He will be home in a few days. What more is there to say? Just avoid loaded words like ransom or hostage.”

“When you put it that way —”

“There is no other way to put it. And one more thing: lead with the bad news. Don’t try to ease into it. It should just be ‘Jessie, Simon is stuck in Macau for a few days over a business dispute, but we’ll have him home by Friday.’”

“She’ll want to talk to him.”

“I know, but you’ll have to be firm about the fact that he can’t talk to anyone, not even Michael, until the deal is finalized. Again, try to keep it low-key, make it sound like the natural course of business in Macau. If you can, Amanda, try to raise the topic of communication before she can ask the question — be proactive. And, of course, you’re going to have to tell her that she can’t talk about this with anyone, not her mother or her siblings or any of their friends. Say that you’re under the same restrictions, that the deal requires this level of confidentiality. She can always call you, night or day, right?”

“Right.”

“If you’re calm and in control, she’ll absorb it.”

“I believe you.”

“Can you do it?”

“I think so.”

“I think you can too.”

The building wasn’t quite what Ava had expected: gritty, mid-grade security in the lobby in a small office with a plastic shield, two elevators for thirty floors, and notices from debt collectors plastered on the walls. The notices were a standard Hong Kong debt collection technique, naming the debtor and the amount owed and making ugly references to his or her character as a way of shaming them in public, in front of friends and neighbours.

“Shabby,” Ava said.

“They bought it when they were first married. Jessie’s mother lives one floor below them, and she babysits. Simon wants to move but Jessie says this is too convenient to give up.”

They waited forever for an elevator, and if Jessie hadn’t lived on the twentieth floor, Ava would have walked.

She lived at the end of the corridor, a metal grille fronting the door. Amanda pushed the buzzer and the door opened. Jessie flew into Amanda’s arms, knocking her backwards. Behind them Ava saw a short, round woman with a baby in her arms and a suspicious look on her face. The resemblance between her and Jessie was unmistakeable. Ava knew there was no way the conversation would take place without her.

“Hey, take it easy, Jessie. There’s absolutely nothing to be worried about. Everything is fine, just fine,” Amanda said.

It took an hour, two coffees for Ava, two pots of tea for the others, a plate of biscuits, and the same story repeated almost word for word four or five times before Jessie began to accept that things were fine, that they were being managed and there was no need to panic. As Amanda talked to Jessie, Ava tried to engage her mother with smiles of encouragement and direct eye contact. By the time they were ready to leave, the mother was weighing in too, telling Jessie not to be such a worrier.

As Amanda again emphasized to Jessie the need for discretion, Ava said to the mother, “This applies to you too, Auntie. You need to keep this secret. Simon and Michael stand to make a lot of money, and we don’t want to mess it up.”

They left the apartment in a flurry of hugs and kisses. As they walked to the elevator Ava could see that Amanda was very pleased with herself.

“You’ll need to call her at least twice a day,” Ava said. “Try to call at the same times so she comes to expect it. You’ll need to keep reinforcing everything you said in there, because Jessie won’t be able to keep from getting anxious and you’ll have to stop it from getting out of control. So twice a day — more, if you can do it.”

“Okay.”

They waited for the elevator, Amanda peering at Ava. “How did I do?”

Ava said, “I’m proud of you. How’s that?”

“That’s just absolutely fine.”

Amanda talked for the entire MTR ride back to Central. Ava nodded, pretending to listen, her mind miles away as she tried to organize the day ahead.

“You’ll come back to the apartment. We can go out for dinner,” Amanda said as they pulled into the Central MTR station.

“No, I have too much to do. I’m going to the hotel. You spend the evening with Michael. And, Amanda, make sure to tell him I don’t want him discussing any of this with our father, and I’d prefer it if you kept your father in the dark as well.”

“I’ll do that,” Amanda said as they exited the train.

“Tell him as well that he needs to check his email tomorrow at noon for the photo. I’ll phone him around twelve fifteen to confirm that he got it.”

“All right.”

“And that’s it,” Ava said.

They climbed the stairs from the MTR platform to the street. Ava turned to leave and saw that Amanda looked reluctant to go home. Ava said, “Amanda, I really do have things to do.”

“Okay, I’m going, I’m going,” she said, and still didn’t move.

Then an idea Ava had had on the train revisited her. “Do you have plans for tomorrow?” she asked.

“Work in my father’s office, that’s all.”

“Can you get the day off?”

“Sure.”

“Then meet me at the Macau Ferry terminal at ten o’clock.”

“Macau?”

“I’ll explain in the morning.”

“Do I tell Michael I’m going?”

“Better not. No need to worry him.”

“Okay.”

“And, Amanda, do you have a briefcase?”

“Of course.”

“Bring it. Put some papers in it — it doesn’t matter what they are.”

“This is getting a little weird now, Ava.”

“You don’t have to do it.”

“I’ll be there, I’ll be there.”

“One last thing: dress down a bit, skip the stilettos, and look professional — middle-class if you can — and cut back on the makeup.”

“What’s wrong with my makeup?”

“It makes you look five years older. You have beautiful skin; you don’t need that guck.”

“God, what next, ditch my padded bra?”

“Actually, if you have one with even more padding, throw it on.”

“Are you serious?”

“Not really,” Ava said, kissing her on the cheek. “See you in the morning.”

Ava walked back to the hotel, glad to be alone. The day had started with her drafting an offer sheet to help them save their business; it was going to end with her trying to figure out how to keep Simon To alive.