The Red Pole of Macau

by Ian Hamilton

  Lok looked up at them, his eyes filled with fear. “We made a deal,” he said, his voice cracking.

  “Sorry, it has to be this way,” Ava said, raising the gun and placing it against his temple.

  “We made —”

  She squeezed the trigger and then staggered back, shocked by the noise and by the explosion of blood. She fell against Sonny, her head against his chest. “Let’s get out of here,” he said, bending down to pick her up in his arms.

  When they appeared at the top of the stairs, she saw Carlo and Andy and the other men below looking up at her. They had all heard the shot; they all knew what had happened. Simon stood in the kitchen entrance, his mouth wide open.

  Sonny carried Ava down to the ground floor. The three men and the servants were sitting against the wall on the far left side, their hands cuffed behind them, ankles and mouths taped. Carlo had pulled the dead body behind a couch in the den. The guy who was wounded lay on the same couch. It looked like he had a bullet in his leg and another in his side. Carlo had cuffed him and taped his mouth but left his ankles free.

  On the other side of the room was what was left of Wu. Ava saw that the body had stopped bleeding.

  Ava was about to tell the men to gather their things when her phone rang. She pulled it from her pocket and saw May’s name on the call display. “We’re leaving the house now. We’ll see you in a couple of minutes,” Ava said.

  “A police car’s just turned onto the road that leads to the house,” May said.

  Ava felt sick, her stomach burning. “How many cars?”

  “One.”

  Ava looked at her watch. They had been in the house for almost half an hour, so this couldn’t be in response to the alarm. And they would have sent more than one car if they knew what was going down. This had to be a patrol vehicle doing a regular check, she reasoned. Not that it lessened the problem if they decided to come into the house. And why wouldn’t they, with the gate smashed in and the front door demolished?

  “You have to reach General Feng, May. You have to get in touch with him and tell him to arrange to get that car the hell away from here.”

  “Right away.”

  “And then call me back.”

  “How did things go?”

  “May, call the General,” Ava shouted.

  Sonny looked at her.

  “A police car is coming,” she said.

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah, exactly. I’m sorry, Sonny, this wasn’t supposed to happen.”

  He shrugged.

  Andy was at the front door looking out onto the courtyard. “There’s a police car with two cops in it outside the gate, Ava.”

  “I know,” she said.

  “What are we going to do?”

  “What are they doing?”

  “Looking and talking. I don’t think they know what to make of it.”

  “Have you seen them reach for their radio yet?”

  “No, not yet.”

  “Put me on the couch, please,” she said to Sonny. When she was settled, she said, “We need to buy some time.”

  “What do you want to do?” Sonny asked.

  “I think you should go outside and talk to them, Sonny. Tell them Mr. Lok had an incident during the night, but it’s over now and things are back to normal. Thank them for dropping by.”

  “Will they believe that?”

  “What else do you suggest?”

  She could feel the tension in the room, every man’s imagination starting to run wild. She felt her own panic, and struggled to contain it. She had to stay calm, she told herself; at the very least she had to look calm. “Go, do the best you can,” she said.

  He dropped his gun on the couch next to her and headed for the front door. Andy moved aside and then slid back to follow Sonny’s progress. “Tell me what’s going on,” Ava shouted to him.

  “Sonny’s waving at them and he’s walking across the courtyard slowly. God, he’s got balls,” Andy said. “He’s reached the cops and is pointing back at the house. They’re listening . . . One of the cops is talking now and Sonny is doing the listening . . . They’re shaking hands, and Sonny is heading back.”

  “Have the police left?”

  “No, they’re still outside, and it looks like they’re arguing. One of them is pointing inside the vehicle.”

  He wants to call for backup, she thought.

  Sonny took his time coming back. When he came into the house, he walked directly over to Ava. She could tell by his face that it hadn’t gone very well. “Carlo and Andy, get over here,” she yelled. And then softly to Sonny, “Wait for them.”

  They gathered around her. “What happened?” she asked.

  “You were right, it’s a regular patrol. They’re really shook up by the gate and the door, but they know who Lok is, so they’re not surprised that this kind of shit went down. I told them that we were fine and there was no need for them to get involved. The problem is, they don’t know me and they asked to talk to Lok. One of them wanted to come into the house, and I said Lok didn’t want any visitors. So he asked me to send Lok out. I said he was sleeping. At that point he told me to wake him. When I said I didn’t want to, he said he was going to phone the precinct office and request backup. I told him I’d wake Lok, and they backed off.”

  “Fuck,” Carlo said.

  “How much more time do you think we have?” Ava asked.

  “Five, ten minutes, no more than that,” said Sonny.

  “What do we do if the cops come into the house?” Andy asked, looking at Ava.

  “I don’t know about you, but I have no desire to spend two or three months in a Chinese prison waiting for them to put a bullet in my head,” Ava said. “If the cops come, we resist.”

  “What if they wait for backup?” asked Carlo.

  “We resist harder.”

  “It’s the only way,” Sonny said.

  “How will your men feel about this?” she said to Carlo and Andy.

  “If you had said anything different we would have had a problem.”

  “Okay, so we know where we stand. Andy, go back to the door and keep your eyes on them.”

  “We could try to rush the two guys out there now,” Carlo said.

  Sonny looked down at Ava, disapproval on his face.

  “We couldn’t get across the courtyard fast enough,” she said. “Let’s be patient, huh? May Ling is trying to work her brand of magic. Give her a chance.”

  Simon had ventured out of the kitchen again. Ava didn’t know how anyone could look more out of place. “Simon, I want to talk to you,” she said.

  The cocky man she’d seen in the Millennium videos was gone. The angry man who had accompanied her on the first trip to Macau was gone. “They told me you were shot,” he said when he drew near. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about all this.”

  Ava reached into her jacket pocket and pulled out the four cheques. “These cheques cover the money you advanced to Lok. Get them into a bank as fast as you can . . . Now, it could get hairy around here in the next fifteen minutes or so, and I don’t want you anywhere near it. So stay close and pay attention to me. The moment I yell your name, I want you to get upstairs as fast as you can and get into one of those bedrooms. Don’t concern yourself with anything going on down here. If your door opens and the police come charging in, tell them exactly what happened between you and Lok, and leave us out of it. You don’t know who we are or why Lok and us were having a go at each other. You’re just an innocent bystander. Got that?”

  “I think so.”

  “Simon, I’ve gone to a lot of trouble for you. I don’t want you to do anything but agree with me and do exactly what I say.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now this may all come to nothing, but I’ve never believed in ignoring the worst-case scenario.
”

  “Do you want me to go upstairs now?”

  “No, not yet. I’ll tell you when.”

  “They’re talking again,” Andy yelled from the door. “One of them sure as hell wants to call this in.”

  May, where are you? Ava thought, reaching for her phone. She got a busy signal. A busy signal was good — or bad. She didn’t know anymore.

  Sonny hovered. “How’s your leg?”

  “I haven’t thought about it in the past five minutes.”

  “That’s good.”

  “I guess.”

  He looked towards the door. “If the two of them decide to come into the house, we can probably take them out without having to hurt them.”

  “I don’t think there’s a chance in hell they’re going to come in here alone. They’ll call this in and wait for backup.”

  “That’s different.”

  Andy jumped back from the door. “One of them is reaching for the car radio.”

  “Here we go,” said Sonny.

  Ava struggled to her feet. As she did, the makeshift bandage around her thigh slid down to her ankle. She pulled up her pant leg, exposing the dishcloths, which were completely soaked in blood.

  “We need to get you out of here,” Sonny said, kneeling down and removing the cloths.

  “It isn’t as if I’m not willing to go,” she said.

  “The guy on the radio is getting in the car. The other one is staring at the house,” Andy reported.

  Ava’s phone rang. She leapt at it. “Yes.”

  May was almost breathless. “Those policemen should be leaving soon. Feng spoke with his contact at the Security Force. He told him that the PLA has an interest in the house. I had to call Chao to get to Feng, and Feng had to make several calls himself before getting to the right man. Ava, I’m sorry it took so long.”

  “The other cop’s getting into the car . . . he’s closed the door . . . The car is leaving!” Andy yelled, doing a little dance at the door.

  “Bless you, May,” said Ava.

  “Did everything else go okay?”

  “We’ll see you in a few minutes, but yes, it went well enough.”

  “You have Simon?”

  “Yeah. We’ll see you in a few minutes.”

  Sonny had gone to the other side of the main floor with Carlo. Ava saw him talking to the people they had cuffed and taped. She felt faint for the first time, and with the bandage removed her thigh felt colder, less sticky, the blood almost tickling as it trickled down her leg.

  “Simon,” she said.

  He ran from the kitchen.

  “We’re out of here.”

  Sonny carried Ava to the SUV and laid her in the back seat. “I’m going to drive this one, you handle the other one,” he said to Carlo.

  Carlo, Andy, and their three men bundled into the second car. Simon sat up front with Sonny in the other. “She’s bleeding badly,” he said.

  They sped up the road to the highway. When they reached it, Sonny paused as if expecting the police to be waiting in ambush. Instead all he could see was May, Song, and Geng standing beside their vehicles, their backs resting against the seawall. Sonny drove the SUV parallel to them and rolled down his window. “Let’s go,” he said.

  May stared into the two vehicles. “Where’s Ava? I don’t see her,” she said.

  “In the back.”

  May opened the door and gasped.

  Ava tilted her head back. “Listen to Sonny.”

  May turned and shouted to Geng, “Drive my car.” Then she climbed into the SUV, lifting Ava’s head clear before placing it on her lap. “There’s blood seeping through your pants,” she said.

  Those were the last words Ava remembered hearing.

  ( 29 )

  She woke in a fog, intravenous in her arm, a dull pain in her thigh, needing to pee, alone in a small room that contained only her bed. It took several minutes before she began to make sense of things. She raised her head and looked around. “Hello,” she shouted.

  She expected to see a nurse, but instead a small, wiry man with a thick moustache, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, came into the room. “I’m Doctor Hop,” he said.

  “Where am I?”

  “Macau.”

  “Which hospital?”

  “The Hop Ling private medical clinic.”

  “I need to pee.”

  “The washroom is right over there. Let me help you up,” he said, leaning forward so she could use his shoulders for support.

  She sat on the toilet for what seemed an eternity, peeing in fits and starts. Her leg ached like hell, worse than when she’d been shot, and she wondered what they had done to it.

  “What day is it?” she asked Hop when she came out of the washroom.

  “Friday.”

  “What time?”

  “Two in the afternoon.”

  She could hardly believe time had moved that slowly. “Where are my people?”

  “They’re close by. I’ll call them when I think you are ready to see them.”

  “When will that be?”

  “Later today, maybe. You need to get a bit more rest and some more fluids into you.”

  “What did you do to my leg?”

  “The bullet was embedded in muscle, quite deep — and you have lots of muscle. I had to make a large incision to get at it.”

  After the doctor left the room, Ava slept again. No dreams, no sense of time or place, her body and mind floating in abstraction.

  It was dark when she woke again, the room still strange but her mind quickly registering the name Hop Ling. She was in Macau, in a clinic, and they had taken the bullet out of her leg. “Hello,” she shouted.

  No one came, no one answered.

  She jiggled her leg and felt nerve endings burn. She wouldn’t be jogging for a while, she knew. She swung her good leg over the side of the bed, put both hands down, and forced herself to sit up. The pain made her yelp. “Hello,” she cried.

  Her head was surprisingly clear. She knew exactly where she was and remembered exactly what had happened up until the moment May got into the SUV. But where was everyone?

  She lifted the corner of her hospital gown to look at her leg. All she could see was a bandage that seemed too big for the wound, and what looked like a full roll of tape holding it down.

  The door to her room opened and Hop walked in with a short, middle-aged woman in a nurse’s uniform. He looked at his watch. “You slept really well — it’s nearly nine o’clock.”

  “Still Friday?”

  “Yes.”

  “Where are my people?”

  Hop said, “He is nearby; let me phone him. Now I think you should lie down again.”

  She lay on her back, memories of that morning dancing in and out of her head. It hadn’t gone exactly as planned, but then, when did it? “Thank you, Saint Jude, for Sonny,” she muttered, and then wondered if Saint Jude would appreciate being thanked for the deeds they had done. “And thank you for May Ling.”

  Hop swung the door open and held it back for Uncle. In the dim light he looked older than she could ever remember seeing him. He came to the bed, reached for her hand, and then bent over and kissed her on the forehead. “I have never seen you like this before,” he said. “Quite the day.”

  “I don’t remember anything after we left the house.”

  “Sonny called me from the car and told me what happened. He did not think he could get you past Immigration in Macau or Hong Kong. I told him to bring you here. Hop is a friend, a good man in an emergency and someone who knows how to keep his mouth shut.”

  “How long does he think I’ll have to stay here?”

  “Up to you and how you are feeling. You lost a lot of blood, but he tells me he has replaced it and it is now just pain management on your part.�
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  “I want to get out of here as soon as I can.”

  Uncle said, “I have a bag in the outer room with clothes in it. May talked the Mandarin into letting her into your room.”

  Tears welled in her eyes, and she felt a surge of uncontrolled emotion. She closed her eyes, trying to shut it out. “I shot Lok.”

  “I know. Sonny told me.”

  “I executed him. I put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger.”

  “Ava, there was no other choice,” Uncle said, gripping her hand tighter. “I spoke to Sonny yesterday before he left and reminded him what kind of men Wu and Lok were.”

  “I have never killed anyone in cold blood. Before it was always —”

  “You or them? Well, let me tell you, I do not think this was any different in reality.”

  “I’m supposed to be an accountant,” she said, her voice cracking.

  Uncle grinned at her, and despite herself she found a small smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. Then she began to cry in earnest.

  He held her hand, wiping her tears with a tissue.

  “Could you get my clothes, please? And I’ll need someone to help me get dressed.”

  “There is a nurse outside. I will get her,” he said.

  The same nurse who had come into the room with Hop returned, bringing the bag with her. She emptied the contents on the bed.

  Ava sat on the edge of the bed, gathering the willpower to stand. Finally she put her hands on the nurse’s shoulders and slid to the ground. Pain burst along the entire length of her leg. She winced and groaned.

  “You need to move,” the nurse said. “The pain will ease the more you use the leg.”

  Ava nodded. She put on the black T-shirt herself, forgoing a bra, and then handed her panties to the woman. “I’m sorry, but you’ll have to help me with these.”

  The nurse knelt down, put Ava’s feet into the panties, and then slid them gently up her legs. She repeated the process with her track pants.

  Ava leaned back against the bed. “Do you have crutches?”

  “I’ll get them,” the nurse said.

  A few minutes later, Ava hobbled out to a small waiting room, where Hop was chatting with Uncle. “Take me home, please,” she said.