The water rat of Wanchai al-1

by Ian Hamilton

  “No, I didn’t see anything,” Jeff said.

  “It was a cockroach.”

  “We don’t have cockroaches,” he said.

  “It had to be three inches long, with a gold body, black spots, and a black head.”

  “Son of a gun, that does sound like a cockroach,” he said as he dropped her bags at the front desk.

  She tipped him twenty dollars. He looked uncertainly at the bill in his hand. “This is way more than the normal rate around here.”

  “I insist. I appreciated the way you drove.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Jeff, tell me, do you ever make yourself and the Jeep available to guests for non-airport runs?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “Nothing too far out of the way, I would imagine. I may need a ride to a place called Malvern Gardens. Heard of it?”

  “Yeah, I know it.”

  “And I may need you to wait with me a while when I’m there.”

  He shrugged. “I don’t think that’s much of a problem. The usual rate is ten dollars an hour.”

  “For you and the Jeep?”

  “Yeah, but you have to pay for any gas I use, and I have to tell you, gas is expensive.”

  “What are we talking about?”

  “Five dollars a gallon.”

  “No problem.”

  “Do you have any idea when you might need me? I’ve got another airport run to make today and I’ve actually got to get going.”

  “There’s no rush. How about I let the doorman know after I figure things out? Check in with him when you get back.”

  “That’ll work.”

  Ava turned to the registration clerk and gave her name. For almost two hundred dollars a night — almost the same as the Grand Hyatt in Bangkok — she got an ocean view, a single bed, and a television, but no cable. There was Internet access in the business centre on the ground floor, but none in the room. If she wanted to make a long-distance call she would have to let the switchboard know so they could activate the service for her. There was no mini-bar or fridge in her room, and if she wanted ice she had to call down to the bar. She did get coffee and toast in the morning. When she asked about mobile phone service, she was told that if she had Bluetooth she could use her phone in Georgetown.

  Ava rode the elevator to the fourth floor, unhappy with the hotel’s concept of “three star.” Anywhere in Asia, every service she’d asked about at the registration desk would have been provided. When she opened the door to her room, the Phoenix’s rating tumbled to one star.

  There were two single beds covered in pink chenille spreads, and the floor was covered with white tile. It reminded Ava of a hospital. The dresser and bedside table were tattooed with cigarette burns, and the bedside lampshade was slightly frayed, as was the shade on the single overhead light.

  Ava went into the bathroom. No bathrobe, no slippers. Two thin towels and one facecloth. There was one bar of soap, wrapped in paper, and no shampoo. She checked the shower. No mould. She flushed the toilet. It worked.

  Back in the room she gazed resignedly at the room’s only feature that she liked: a rattan chair by the window. She sat in it and looked out at the Atlantic Ocean. The water was choppy, crashing against a seawall that extended over to the Demerara on the left and as far as she could see on the right.

  It could be worse, she thought. At least it was clean, and she wasn’t there for the hotel anyway. Somewhere out there Jackson Seto was waiting to be found.

  (18)

  Since her meeting with Antonelli, Ava had been debating how to approach Seto. She had thought of phoning him first, maybe pretending to be a seafood buyer and setting up a meeting on that basis. There were a couple of problems with that idea. First, she didn’t really know enough about the business to survive any rigorous questioning. And second, why would anyone come to Guyana to buy seafood without making preliminary arrangements?

  No, her first contact had to be incidental. It hadn’t worked with Antonelli, but he was into ladyboys. Not many heterosexual men could resist showing interest in Ava, so she had to find a way to get next to Seto and take it from there.

  She walked down to the lobby and looked for the concierge or the doorman, neither of whom was on duty. She asked the front desk clerk where they were. “They’re on break. Be back around one,” the woman said.

  “I need to buy a few things. Is there a mall around here?”

  “The best place would be the Stabroek Market. It’s just down the street to the right. You can’t miss it — look for the tall clock tower.”

  “Yes, I’ve seen it.”

  “I wouldn’t go dressed like that,” the woman said.

  Ava was wearing her running shoes and a T-shirt and track pants. “Why not?”

  “I mean the jewellery. You should leave it here.”

  Ava had on her gold crucifix, her Cartier watch, and a green jade bracelet. “It’s the middle of the day,” she said.

  “Don’t matter. That watch — it’s real?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so. It’s a magnet. You’ll get all kinds of unwanted attention, and if they go for the watch they’ll take the necklace and bracelet too.”

  Ava took them off and put them in a pocket that zipped closed. “Better?”

  “Just be careful.”

  Outside the front entrance the heat was brutal and oppressive, and Ava thought about using the hotel Jeep, but she could see the clock tower and figured that Stabroek Market wasn’t much more than a ten-minute walk. She was fine until she had gone about a hundred metres and the ocean breeze had dissipated. The sky was cloudless and the sun beat directly down, radiating off the tarmac; the heat seemed to penetrate through the soles of her shoes. She began to sweat, her eyes burning, beads dripping from the end of her nose, her panties absorbing what they could and then sending the excess down her legs. It was hotter than Bangkok, more humid than a Hong Kong summer. And then there was the smell. She held her breath as she walked past the decaying garbage and dog shit on the sidewalk.

  When Ava was about twenty paces from her destination, she heard a buzz in the air, a mixed symphony of voices haggling and car horns blaring. It wasn’t until she stepped onto Water Street that she had a full view of Stabroek Market. The building encompassed a large area of about sixty to eighty thousand square metres; it was, as advertised, completely encased, including the roof, in red iron. To Ava it looked less like a shopping centre than a steel foundry.

  The noises she’d heard came from outside the building, where people were hawking goods from tables and stands shaded with tarps to fend off the sun. It was crowded, the stands were jammed close together, and people were milling about as they tried to avoid the bi-cycles and buses that circled the perimeter. Ava pushed her way past mounds of pineapples, plantain, bananas, coconut, okra, sweet potatoes, long beans, and spinach, sides of pigs and goats, and chickens clucking in cages. They were selling clothing outside as well, but not the knockoffs found in most Asian markets. These looked like second-hand garments that had been collected by a charity in the developed world and sold by the pound to some trader. Apparently there was a market for old Toronto Maple Leafs jerseys.

  Ava went inside the market building to search for food and air conditioning. There were pockets of cold air here and there, and she lingered while she decided what to eat. She toured the stalls, trying to choose between chicken curry, duck curry, lamb and goat curry, rice and beans, and roti. She was about to give a curry a try when saw a vegetarian stand. She ordered three fried lentil patties with hot sauce and washed them down with mauby, a local soft drink made from tree bark.

  After she finished eating, Ava wandered through the market. It was eclectic, to say the least. Most of the fruit, vegetables, and meat available outside were also for sale inside, along with more second-hand clothing, shoes, furniture, dishes, household utensils, fish, shrimp, and a surprising amount of gold. She had read that Guyana had deposits of the metal. And here it
was, mined, refined, and then fashioned into some of the crudest jewellery she had ever seen. It was super-bling — large, chunky necklaces and bracelets moulded into zodiac signs and commercial logos for brands such as Nike, Calvin Klein, and Chanel. But crude or not, the jewellery looked to be made from twenty- or even twenty-two-karat gold.

  Ava didn’t find what she wanted until she got to the very end of the market. It was dark there; the stalls were pressed closer together and there was no overhead light. She had to work her way around a throng of local shoppers, and as she did, she could feel eyes following her progress. The desk clerk hadn’t been wrong.

  She wandered into one of the stalls and was greeted by an East Indian woman wearing a sari, rolls of flesh cascading over her waistband. She seemed surprised to see Ava, and turned away as if she expected her to leave again. When Ava didn’t go, the woman finally acknowledged her with a raised eyebrow.

  “I want one of those,” Ava said, pointing to a selection of knives locked in a glass case.

  “Which one?”

  “I can’t tell. Could you open the case for me?”

  The woman struggled to her feet and took a key from a drawer. She looked around suspiciously as she unlocked the case. When it was open, she motioned for Ava to come closer.

  They were nearly all automatic switchblades, and it was a surprisingly good collection. She recognized Heckler and Koch, Blackwater, Schrade, Buck, and Smith and Wesson. Ava took her time appraising them and then asked the woman to pass her a Schrade. The blade was bit too short. “I prefer stilettos,” she said.

  The woman lifted the felt-lined tray; underneath was a row of Italian stilettos. “Everything from six inches to fifteen inches,” the woman said.

  “I think eleven inches will do just fine.”

  The woman passed her the knife. It was lightweight and fitted easily into her palm. She touched the button and the beautifully crafted blade hissed into view in a microsecond. “How much?”

  “One hundred and fifty American.”

  “One hundred.”

  “One twenty-five.”

  “One hundred.”

  “One twenty, final.”

  “Done,” Ava said.

  It was hotter than ever when she exited Stabroek. A taxi with its windows open sat at the curb. She got in and told the driver to turn on the air conditioning and take her to the Phoenix.

  “I don’t have air conditioning,” he said.

  “Drive anyway.”

  “It is too close. You should walk.”

  She passed him ten dollars. “Drive.”

  At the hotel the doorman was back on duty. He was leaning against a wall, looking out at the empty lobby. She hadn’t seen any other guests coming or going and was beginning to wonder if she was the only one staying there. He acknowledged her arrival with a nod. She nodded back and walked over.

  “Is Jeff back from the airport yet?”

  “No, but he should be here soon enough.”

  “When he does get back, could you please ask him to call my room? Tell him I’d like to use the Jeep this afternoon.”

  She stripped off her clothes when she got to the room. There was a full-length mirror on the back of the closet door, and she caught her image in it. She was proud of her body and worked hard at maintaining it, but not to excess. No powerlifting for her; she liked her leanness. She liked even more her proportions, which were just about perfect. She had a thing about girls with thick ankles or long torsos — they weren’t for her.

  Ava’s sense of well-being disappeared when she stepped into the shower. The water spewing from the showerhead was a light chocolate brown. She waited for it clear. It didn’t. She sniffed the water and detected a chemical odour. She waited for another minute, and when the colour still didn’t change, she left the bathroom and phoned the front desk. “The water in my shower is brown,” she said.

  “Yes?”

  “Did you hear what I said?”

  “The water is always brown. We get it from the Demerara. We have our own purification system — the water is perfectly safe, but we can’t do anything about the colour.”

  Ava hung up and climbed back into the shower. She closed her eyes, shut her mouth, and tried not to breathe through her nose, soaping and rinsing herself as quickly as she could. Getting to Jackson Seto was becoming more urgent.

  When she got out of the shower, she put on a fresh T-shirt and track pants and waited for Jeff in the rattan chair. She passed the time reading a copy of the Guyana Times, which had been at her door when she came back from the market. The lead article was about some club owners who were complaining about police raids. The clubs were indeed illegal, but the owners maintained that the police were being too heavy-handed during raids and were driving away tourists. What made it even stranger was that the minister of culture and tourism was quoted as saying that the club owners had a point. The next page was one giant police blotter: a list of crimes committed over the past twenty-four hours. Arrests for drug dealing, robbery, mugging, and physical assault were pretty common.

  Ava heard a knock at the door. She opened it to see Jeff standing there. He had changed his clothes and was now wearing jeans and a tank top. On his right shoulder was a tattoo of a lightning bolt.

  “I called but no one answered,” he said.

  “I guess I was in the shower.”

  “You want to go somewhere?”

  “Yes. I mentioned Malvern Gardens earlier and you said you know where it is.”

  “I do.”

  “That’s where I want to go.”

  “It’s a housing estate.”

  “I know.”

  “Do you have an address?”

  “No, we need to find that out. The guy who lives there is named Jackson Seto.”

  “Wait a minute,” he said, and squeezed past her into the room. He opened the bottom drawer of her dresser and pulled out a phone book. “He lives at number eight.”

  As they rode the elevator to the ground floor Ava said, “Before we go, there are a few things we need to make clear. For starters, I’m probably going to be sitting in the car with you for a while, and I have no idea how long. I’m looking for this guy Seto, and all I know is that he lives at 8 Malvern Gardens. When he does appear, we’re going to follow him and see what happens. Are you okay with that?”

  “What if you don’t see him?”

  “Then we’ll go back tomorrow and do it all over again.”

  “Is this legal? I mean, are you a cop or something?”

  “It’s perfectly legal and I’m not a cop.”

  “Can I ask why?”

  “No.”

  He gazed down at her. “Well, I can’t say you look like much of a threat to anyone.”

  The Jeep had been left idling at the hotel entrance. Jeff started up High Street and then cut left. The road was littered with potholes, and one was so big it could have swallowed the front end of the vehicle. “Don’t they ever fix those things?” Ava asked.

  “No.”

  “Do they try?”

  “Not so you’d notice.”

  When they reached the end of the street, they were confronted by a structure about six or seven storeys high made entirely of corrugated iron. Ava could see rows of razor wire along the top. The building had no windows, just a door barricaded by a semicircle of concrete pillars. Standing to the left of the door with their backs pressed against the wall was a line of women.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Camp Street Prison,” he said.

  “It must be an oven in there.”

  “No one much cares.”

  “And the women?”

  “Waiting for visiting hours.”

  As they moved away from the city centre, the mix of retail stores gave way to rows of stucco, stone, and even brick houses, most protected by tall concrete walls with rolls of razor wire glinting fiendishly across the top. “I’ve never seen so much razor wire,” she said.

  “It’s the choic
e of the budget-conscious middle class, who can’t afford a personal guard or a security service. Ever come in contact with it?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “It’ll rip you to shreds.”

  They had left the city proper and were driving through countryside when a housing development, as isolated as an oasis in the desert, appeared on the right. From a distance all Ava could see was a brick wall and red tile roofs; she thought, Gated community. But as they drew closer she saw that the road leading into Malvern Gardens wasn’t barred. Jeff stopped the Jeep between two stone pillars at the entrance to a cul-de-sac. There were five houses down each side and two at the end. The two-storey brick-and-stone homes were enormous, reminding Ava of high-end suburban developments in Toronto. Each sat on a one-acre lot surrounded by a stone wall about 2.5 metres high that was crowned with large shards of glass and razor wire. The only way into each compound was through heavy metal gates with sharp points at the top and more razor wire strung through them.

  “This is Millionaires’ Row,” said Jeff.

  The house numbers went up by fours. Seto’s house was the second on the left. It had a latticed gate, and as they drove past Ava saw an old Mercedes and a Land Rover parked in the driveway. Someone was home.

  She pointed back towards where they had turned off the main road. “If we park behind one of those pillars we can see everyone coming and going from the house,” she said. “And if they turn left to go to the city, we’ll have a clear view.”

  Jeff turned the Jeep around and parked behind the pillar. From that angle they could see Seto’s gate and the end of his driveway.

  “Now what?” he asked.

  “We wait.”

  “Do you mind if I sleep?”

  “Go ahead.”

  Jeff got out and climbed into the back seat to lie down. “I sleep lightly, so don’t worry about having to wake me if we need to move.”

  She had kept her watch in the zippered pocket of her pants. She pulled it out and put it on. It was 3:30 p.m.

  Jeff slept until just past five, when he woke with a start.