The left-behind cell phone would become Ava’s signature move.
Within months, Ava took charge of hiring and training their shoppers. She rented a unit in a nondescript South San Francisco office park so the shipments wouldn’t come to their homes. She incorporated their business in the Cayman Islands and opened them both Swiss bank accounts to maximize privacy and minimize taxes.
Five months into their work together, with profits growing steadily, Mandy Mak called with her preposterous plan to build their own black factory. Ava was the one who pushed Winnie to go along with it.
Following the extended conference call, they locked themselves in Ava’s study to go over the details of the proposal.
“Mandy is playing with fire,” Winnie whispered, so as not to risk being overheard by Maria, the sharp-eyed nanny. (Ava insisted Maria was safe—the woman was smart enough to know it was better not to know—and while Winnie concurred, she always took extra precautions.)
“It’s an audacious move,” Ava agreed.
“If any of the brands even suspect what she’s up to, Mak International will be done for.”
“Thankfully,” Ava said, “that’s not our problem.”
Winnie started. Even after observing the way Ava addressed their shoppers, her ruthless pragmatism still occasionally took her aback.
Ava continued. “Here’s how I see it. If we decline to sign the contract, they’ll be free to replace us. They’ll find some lackey to implement your genius scheme exactly as we’ve done, and then it’s all over for us.”
“But if we say yes,” said Winnie, “the balance of power flips completely. They control the inventory. We’re at their mercy. We work for them.”
Ava sank her fingers into her hair and massaged her scalp, as though that could somehow clear the blockage in her brain. “Unless they’re in our debt. Unless they owe us, like really owe us.”
Winnie didn’t follow. The Maks were so connected, so influential. What did they lack that they couldn’t easily procure?
“Like, what if we did them the kind of favor that is impossible to repay? The kind of favor that engenders eternal loyalty and gratitude?”
“Like, say, by giving Boss Mak the liver transplant that saves his life?”
“Or, barring that, leading him to hold out hope that we’ll eventually make it happen.”
The nape of Winnie’s neck tightened. She pictured Boss Mak’s cheekbones jutting out of his gaunt, sallow face, his Adam’s apple protruding like something that should be kept under wraps.
Ava softened her tone. “Look, I’ll do everything I can to convince Oli to do the transplant. But just in case.”
In this way it was decided: they would sign the contract rendering the Maks sole supplier of their counterfeit bags, and they would reap the profits that came with it—profits that they would then direct into a new, even more innovative and lucrative scheme. All Winnie had to do was come up with it. For wasn’t creativity at the core of her work? Wasn’t it the reason Winnie loved the job? In this business copycats were an occupational hazard, and only the most inventive, the nimblest, deserved to stay on top.
From Dongguan, Ava reported the discussions had gone smoothly. The new factory was even better than they’d hoped. She ticked off Manager Chiang’s advancements: instead of a traditional assembly line, workstations were arranged in the shape of a U, with the sewing machines on one side and the assembly on the other, to cut the time it took to pass work from one station to another. Yes, Ava said, every second counted, as evidenced by the plastic signs displaying the precise number of them needed to complete each task.
“You should have seen these workers. So focused, so efficient.” It didn’t hurt that they were paid nearly as well as their legitimate counterparts, unheard of in black factories.
Ava told Winnie about meeting a young worker, no older than fourteen, who shyly revealed that her salary was enough to put her little sister through school. “Westerners love to talk about ethical labor without asking what the laborers want themselves.”
“You tell ’em, sister,” Winnie said. Her use of such Americanisms always amused her friend.
For the celebratory dinner, the men had taken Ava to the rooftop restaurant of the Great World Hotel, the cacophony of gaudy glitz that was Boss Mak’s preferred spot.
“I’ve never seen so many bottles of wine for so few people,” Ava said. “And all of it ultraexpensive, ultra-French.” Matching the men drink for drink, she felt like she was back at her old law firm, with limitless youthful energy to burn.
The accompanying meal had floored her. How long had Ava spent describing the Peking duck, cooked in a special oven transported over from Beijing, fueled with freshly cut wood from apple and date trees that infused the meat with intense aromatics?
The men treated her like the guest of honor, keeping her glass full, offering her the choicest morsels, including the sweet, tender cheeks of the fried grouper.
Winnie had worried that they would consider Ava an outsider and hold her at arm’s length, but her friend assured her they’d gone out of their way to make her feel welcome.
“They really tried to talk to me, to get to know me. Thank god Kaiser Shih was there to translate.”
This, Winnie always knew, was Ava’s superpower—her ability to make people want to take care of her. She projected such harmlessness, such innocence, and that rendered her lethal.
After dinner came karaoke in a swanky private room decked out with an immense TV screen, state-of-the-art acoustics, psychedelic disco lights, endless whiskey and champagne.
“You should have seen the men’s faces when those hostesses barged in,” Ava said. “They were so embarrassed. It was kind of sweet.”
The men chose songs they thought she’d know—by ABBA, Bryan Adams, Madonna, Bon Jovi. Before long they were all on their feet, yelling in unison, shimmying and shaking, clinking their glasses again and again and again.
At some point in the evening, Ava lurched out of the room to stealthily pay the check. On the way back, to tease the men, she peeled off a few bills for the manager and told her to send in the girls. They spilled through the door in their identical black dresses right as the opening notes of “Dancing Queen” filled the room. The men hollered in protest until they saw Ava in the doorway fighting to suppress her laughter. Everyone joined in to sing. The girls draped their thin arms over the men, swaying their hips from side to side. The police chief took Ava by the waist and twirled her around the room, surprisingly agile for someone of his age and girth, while Kaiser Shih rattled a tambourine.
“You can dance, you can jive,” they blared into each other’s faces, “having the time of your life.”
Hours later, ears ringing, throats hoarse, they staggered outside. Was that dawn bleeding into the eastern sky or merely the lights of downtown Dongguan? The men took turns clapping Ava on the back, complimenting her alcohol tolerance, and thanking her for footing the bill. Before she climbed into her ride-share back to the hotel, they hugged one another and slapped palms like teammates who’d won the big game.
Hearing Ava recount all this, Winnie felt an almost parental pride.