The Red Pole of Macau

( 16 )

It was past six o’clock when she got back to the hotel, just enough time to shower and check her emails. The guy at Citadel had already sent the specifications. She downloaded them onto a USB drive to print later at the business centre.

She got to the lobby early but Uncle was already sitting on one of the plush couches, his feet dangling above the ground.

“You look grim,” he said, standing.

“It’s bad.”

He put his arm through hers. “We will talk at the restaurant.”

Uncle had called ahead and booked his normal table. There was no host at the front of the restaurant. Uncle walked past the stand and led her directly to the table. Two pots — one spicy, the other milder — were already bubbling away, and a cart laden with trays of food sat alongside.

“I don’t have much appetite,” she said.

“Eat what you can,” he said. “Now I am going to have a beer. Do you want some white wine?”

“Sure.”

He waved at the owner, who ran over. “San Miguel and the house white wine. Make sure they are both cold.” As they waited for their drinks he began to fill the pots with fish balls, oysters, thin slices of beef, mushrooms, strips of bean curd. He poured soy sauce into her bowl and added mixed green and red chilis.

Their drinks arrived, cold and glistening.

“Before you say anything, you need to know that I made some more phone calls today. I talked to Lok’s old Mountain Master twice, asking him to intervene. He finally called me back about an hour ago.”

She knew from his demeanour that it hadn’t gone well. “Thanks for trying.”

“Uncle Tong said you cannot reason with Lok. In his own crazy way he has convinced himself that your brother and his partner really do owe him money. He also told Uncle Tong that the partner started the violence in the restaurant, and that while Wu was trying to calm things, you attacked him from behind.”

“That’s bull.”

“I know, but it shows his state of mind.”

“Does Uncle Tong think he’ll kill Simon?”

“Yes — pay or don’t pay, the result will be the same. He said Lok is really amused that your brother is actually trying to negotiate and seems willing to pay.”

Ava plucked a fish ball from the pot. “I have to get him out of there.”

Uncle grimaced. “I knew you would say that.”

“What choice do I have?”

“I spoke to Andy when he got back. He told me about the house.”

Ava gazed into the spicy pot just as a large, plump oyster bobbed to the surface. She offered it to Uncle. “Thank you,” he said as she put it on his plate.

“The house is difficult,” she said.

“Andy thought it was nearly impossible.”

“You can’t get over the walls unless you parachute in. They’re too high, and the way they’ve strung the electric wire makes it almost suicidal to try.”

“He was as impressed with the gate.”

“Well, again, we can’t go over it, but maybe we can go through it.”

“This is getting overcooked,” he said, dipping into the pots with a strainer and putting the food on a separate plate.

“It’s stainless steel and it’s what the manufacturer calls ‘anti-ram,’” Ava said. “But when I talked to them, they weren’t so sure that a truck — a big one, obviously, and loaded with something heavy — couldn’t force its way through.”

“Not so sure? That is not exactly an endorsement.”

“I have the gate’s specifications. I need time to look at them and to talk to someone who can calculate the probability.”

“Ava, I have to tell you that I hate to hear you talking like this. It is not like you to be so . . . uncertain.”

She drained her wine. “I’ll have another, please,” she said.

Uncle finished his beer and held his bottle in the air. Within a minute, a fresh glass of wine and another bottle of beer were on the table.

“Actually, I’m even more concerned about something other than the gate.”

“What is that?”

“The police.”

“How so?”

“The alarm system is hooked directly to the police station. Lok evidently has had them on his payroll for years. The alarm goes off, the police show up. And fast. And believe me, the alarm will go off. So even if we can ram our way through the gate, I figure we’ve only got about ten minutes to neutralize Lok and Wu and somewhere between five and eight other men, find Simon, and get the hell out of there.”

“Ava, that is not enough time.”

She put a sliver of beef onto the bean curd, rolled them together and dipped them in her sauce. “The food here is always so good. My appetite is starting to return.”

“I wish your common sense would.”

“Is there any way, you think, that I could take the police out of the equation?”

“Can you find a way to bypass the alarm system?”

“No. The moment we enter the house, or maybe even the property, the alarm is going to sound and the cops will know we’re there.”

He looked at the food left on the cart. “I think I want some shrimp. Will you share?”

“Sure.”

As he ordered, she could see he was distracted. She knew she was upsetting him, and she began to wonder again if his age was starting to erode his confidence. “You obviously have something in mind when it comes to the police,” he said.

“I could buy them off.”

“And just who would you talk to?” he said sharply.

She shrugged.

“Exactly — you do not know who his connection is. And let me tell you, it is more complex there than it used to be. They created the Macau Security Force in the late 1990s, combining different departments. There is still a Public Security Police Directorate, but you do not know who might make the decision. Even if you have a million Hong Kong dollars to spend, or two million, or three million, you need to find and speak to the right person. One miscommunication and Lok knows everything.

“Then let us suppose you find the right man and you make the offer. What is to stop him from going to Lok anyway? Actually, what is to stop him from cutting a deal with you, taking your money, or part of it, and then betraying you? You could walk into the house, find Lok waiting for you with his small army, and have the police waiting around the corner to finish you off.”

“I know it isn’t a perfect idea.”

“Not perfect? Ava, I have not heard you say anything so silly to me in years.”

The owner arrived with a plate of head-on shrimp. Uncle tipped all of them into the spicy pot. “Bring two more drinks,” he said.

“I need a way to get to the police,” she said.

“You are so stubborn.”

“If I can isolate Lok, I’ll find a way to get through the gate.”

“Ava, listen to me,” he said, reaching for her hand. “Lok is a man who, given what he does for a living, has limited guanxi. But what guanxi he has is tied to the police force. He is Macanese, and so are all of them. They share blood, they share years of mutual trust, and God knows how complicated and intertwined their financial arrangements are. So trying to separate the police from Lok is, in my mind, a plan with disaster written all over it.”

She sat back, her attention on the spicy pot, waiting for the first shrimp to pop to the surface. “I have three more days,” she said.

Fresh drinks arrived. Her second glass was still half full, but Uncle downed the rest of his and picked up the third. She’d never seen him drink so quickly. “That gives you some time to think, and you need to do that. You need to think this through better.”

A thought that had been nagging her since Uncle mentioned Andy’s comments on the house pushed its way forward. “Uncle, if I do decide to visit Lok’s place, can I count on Carlo and Andy?”

He sighed. “Of course you can. Those two would follow you anywhere.”

“I would need more men than that, though.”

He took a shrimp from the pot and put it on her plate. “Then talk to the boys. Andy has a brother-in-law who is very handy, and Carlo has some friends he trusts as much as he trusts Andy. You have to be careful about whom you choose and how you choose them. You do not want hired guns who are strangers, because no matter how good they are, there always comes a point when a decision has to be made between them and you. The loyalty that the boys have to you is absolute, you should know that. You cannot expect anyone else to match that, but if they are as loyal to Carlo and Andy as the boys are to you, that is enough.”

“I’m not ready to talk to anyone yet. You’re right, I need to think this through a bit better.”

“Good girl.”

“But, Uncle, I’m telling you, I can’t sit back and do nothing.”

“I understand. Take some time; let that active imagination of yours see what it can come up with.”

When they had finished dinner, he walked her back to the hotel, his steps a bit unsteady. She didn’t like it when he drank too much, when he lost even a small amount of the self-control she so much admired. She was thinking that she should get in a taxi with him and ride back to Kowloon when she saw Sonny standing by the car in front of the hotel. She kissed Uncle on the cheek and passed him to Sonny.

Ava stopped at the business centre and printed the specifications for the gate. She glanced at them as she rode the elevator to the twenty-third floor, and saw that they were beyond her comprehension. Maybe it’s the wine, she thought. They’ll be clearer in the morning.

She undressed quickly, pulled on a clean T-shirt, turned on the television, took two cognacs from the mini-bar, and crawled into bed. A Hong Kong variety show was on, an endless parade of singers interspersed with comedy sketches that were broad, coarse. It was mindless entertainment, exactly what she needed, and she even had a laugh or two.

She downed the two cognacs quickly and was about to raid the mini-bar again when Eric Tsang, the chubby little actor from Infernal Affairs, came on the screen. He reminded her of Simon To. His hair had been dyed blond for the film and was now black again. She felt a tear on her cheek and wiped it away with a rough stroke of her hand.