The water rat of Wanchai al-1

by Ian Hamilton

  He must have picked up Derek at the apartment, Ava thought, rerunning the timeline since her departure from Guyana. Customs officials must have gone along too, because she couldn’t imagine Derek letting just Davey and Robbins kick him off the island. She looked in the direction Davey had indicated but all she saw was a wall of lights. “Any good restaurants near the apartment?” she asked, thinking it wouldn’t hurt to make a friend.

  “Enough with the chatter, Davey. You aren’t being paid to be a tour guide,” Robbins said.

  They approached Road Town from the east, taking a route that traced the harbour to the west. She saw signs for Wickham’s Cay II and the inner harbour as they passed through a combination of residential, commercial, and government buildings. The architecture was Caribbean generic, mainly low-rise white stucco housing with the odd dash of coral pink or powder blue. The homes were to the north, set back from the harbour, while the restaurants, markets, government buildings, and commercial offices, with long lists of tenants posted on their exterior walls, crowded near and around the water. Davey turned left off Main Street, following the arrow to Wickham’s Cay I.

  Guildford Apartments, a white stucco three-storey building, was right on the cay. To Ava’s eye it looked as if it had been built in a week.

  Davey stopped right in front of the building. It had a double glass door that looked into the lobby and a reception desk that was unmanned. “How is security?” Ava asked.

  “What do you mean?” said Robbins.

  “I mean, is there any? Do we really want to be answering questions about Seto’s current state? I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be drawing unnecessary attention to myself.”

  Robbins shrugged. “There aren’t any guards. They have a small front desk that’s open from nine in the morning to nine at night. They lock the doors the rest of the time and you let yourself in with your room key.”

  “Cameras?”

  “What does it matter?”

  “How often do they service the apartments?”

  “Again, what the fuck does it matter?” Robbins snapped.

  “Seto is going to be handcuffed and taped around the ankles and mouth for at least part of the time. We don’t want staff wandering in and out.”

  “We’ll ask them in the morning,” he said.

  Davey opened his door and went to the trunk. Ava followed. She took out her and Seto’s bags while Davey hauled out the wheelchair and unfolded it. “That’s a creepy-looking guy you’ve got in the back seat there. Looks like he should be peddling drugs to kids or selling porn,” he said.

  “He’s in the fish business, so you aren’t far off,” Ava said, thinking that Davey might be trying to make a friend as well.

  Robbins got out of the back seat feet first, his arms on either side of the door straining to pull out the rest of his body. He joined them by the trunk and reached inside for a briefcase. “I’m staying the night with the girl,” he said to Davey. “Be here in the morning to pick us up.” Then he turned to Ava. “What time is your meeting?”

  “Ten,” Ava said.

  “Barrett’s, right?”

  “Yes, Barrett’s.”

  “Quarter to ten should be fine,” he instructed Davey. “Now help us get this guy upstairs before you bugger off.”

  Davey pushed the wheelchair to the door. Robbins inserted the plastic room key and then stepped back as he pulled the door open. As they walked into the lobby, a side door opened and a young black woman with a name tag that said DOREEN, RECEPTION almost ran right into them. She looked at Robbins, staring at his gloves, then at Ava, at Davey, and then Seto, whose head was hanging down, his chin on his chest, drool coming from his mouth. “My friend has a terrible case of food poisoning. We need to get him to the room and into bed,” Ava said.

  “What room?”

  “Three-twelve,” Robbins said, holding up the key for her to see. “Liang.”

  The girl hesitated, then said, “Have a nice evening,” as she walked out the front door.

  As they rode the elevator to the third floor, Robbins asked, “What did you knock him out with?”

  “Something that should last another eight hours or so. We’ll tape and handcuff him anyway to be safe. I wouldn’t want him roaming around or running off in the middle of the night. I’ll give him another dose in the morning.”

  “Do you really need him?”

  And if I didn’t, Ava thought, what would you do with him? “Did your brother tell you what I have to do at the bank tomorrow?”

  “I have a rough idea.”

  “Well, until then I don’t know if I need him. If things go perfectly, I don’t. In the meantime, we have to keep him on ice just in case he has to make some kind of appearance.”

  The apartment door opened into a white-tiled living room with a couch, two pine chairs, and the room’s main feature, a forty-eight-inch Panasonic Viera television. On the right was the kitchen, with a wooden table, four flimsy-looking folding chairs, and a sliding door that led out to a balcony. There was one bathroom to the left, the sink visible through the open door. There were three bedrooms between the bathroom and kitchen. “Let’s put him in the middle room. If there’s a fuss we’ll be sure to hear it,” Ava said to Robbins.

  He looked at her as if she were trying to trick him. “Stick him the middle,” he said to Davey.

  Davey wheeled Seto into the bedroom and Ava followed with her Shanghai Tang bag. “Throw him on the bed and take off his pants and shirt,” she said. As Davey undressed Seto, she went into her bag and took out a roll of duct tape. She wrapped his ankles together and then put a strip across his mouth. The handcuffs went back on. “Could you tuck him in now, please?” she asked.

  Robbins watched them from the doorway. When they were done, he motioned to Davey. “A quarter to ten. We’ll meet you outside.”

  Ava stood in the living room and watched the small man leave. Robbins walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. “Your boyfriend bought some stuff on his way here. Too bad he didn’t have time to try it.” He took out a Stella Artois and brushed past her on his way to the couch. He spread himself across it and turned on the television.

  From where she stood Ava could see bags of chips and nuts on the counter. She hadn’t had any dinner and wasn’t about to ask Robbins if she could go out. She went into the kitchen and picked out a bag of smoked almonds. She didn’t drink beer, so she hoped Derek had bought some soft drinks. To her surprise there was a bottle of Pinot Grigio. She gave silent thanks.

  “I want the bedroom with the king-size bed,” Robbins shouted from the couch.

  Ava turned. He was staring at her from across the room, looking at every part of her except her eyes. Almost absently, his hand reached for his head and he stuck his fingers into the furrows in his scalp and slid them back and forth, the latex gloves easing the path. Ava turned away, repulsed. She put the wine back in the fridge and left the kitchen with her bag of nuts. She picked up her other suitcase and went into the bedroom closest to the bathroom. Two twin beds. She was about to close the door when he yelled, “Leave it open. I need to be able to see you.”

  She dropped the bag on the floor and went back into the living room. Enough of this crap, she thought. “Listen, you fucking jerk. If you heard your brother properly, we’re supposed to be partners. I have a big day ahead of me tomorrow and I need to get organized, I need to get my head in the right space. So I’m going to close my bedroom door until I decide I want to open it again. If you have a problem with that, call the Captain and explain to him just exactly why you need to have it open, and then the Captain can explain to me how that is going to contribute to our getting our hands on some money tomorrow.”

  He barely looked at her. “Whatever,” he said.

  Ava turned away. She knew she would have to put up with him until the money had found its way to Hong Kong. After that… well, she’d play it by ear.

  With the door closed, Ava opened her Louis Vuitton suitcase. She took off
her watch, undid her cufflinks, detached the ivory chignon pin, and put them neatly inside their pouch. She stripped down to her bra and panties, carefully folding her slacks and shirt and putting them back in her bag with the jewellery. Then she put on her Adidas training pants and a black T-shirt. She looked in her Shanghai Tang bag and found her notebook and a pen, then saw her computer back staring at her. She did a quick visual search of the room for a computer link and saw none. Even if one was available it wasn’t worth the risk, at least not yet. On the side and near the bottom of the Tang bag was a zipper. She opened it and reached inside. It was still there: a Hong Kong passport in her name. If the Captain was right about Thomas it wasn’t going to do her much good if she wanted to leave the island by air. Not that she was ready to leave anyway. Do the banking; just get the banking done, she told herself.

  She picked up the notebook and pen and opened the door. Robbins hadn’t moved from the couch. Ava went to Seto’s bedroom and poked her head in. He was still tucked in bed, his head visible above the covers, looking almost happy.

  She closed Seto’s door and turned. “There’s a balcony just outside the kitchen,” she said to Robbins. “I’m going to take a bottle of wine, my notebook, and my pen, and I’m going to sit out there and get ready for tomorrow.”

  Robbins pulled himself semi-erect, his belly hanging over his knees. His face was pinched; he started to say something and then stopped.

  Ava took that as “I don’t care” and walked to the fridge. She took out the wine, found a glass in the cupboard above the sink, and slid open the balcony door.

  It wasn’t a large space: there was room enough for two canvas chairs and a small plastic table between them. She plopped into a chair and stretched her legs towards the railing. It was a beautiful evening. A light breeze was blowing in from the harbour, carrying a mixture of sea air and flowers. The balcony overlooked the water, and there was enough light from the boats and the surrounding buildings for her to see that the harbour was packed with sea craft of every size. Ava knew nothing nautical, couldn’t tell a catamaran from a yacht or a skiff from a sailboat, and was equally lost in terms of the lengths and values of boats. But she was impressed with Road Harbour anyway, because it seemed to have something of everything bobbing on the water. It was soothing, watching the boats, and as she became calmer the reality of her situation began to settle in, moving past shock towards acceptance and from there to dealing with circumstances by priority. The number one priority was Jeremy Bates and Barrett’s Bank. Without success there, Robbins’s threats were irrelevant and Andrew Tam was toast. She needed to focus on the bank.

  Ava poured herself a glass of wine and opened her notebook. For ten minutes she reviewed the strategy she intended to use, again looking for weaknesses and antici-pating questions. It wasn’t perfect and couldn’t be, given Seto’s state, but the basic approach she had outlined did make sense, regardless of Robbins’s intrusion. She needed to get the bank to transfer the money, and that was all in her hands, under her control. What would happened afterwards, where and how the money would change hands… well, that was open for evaluation, and that was what she began to think about.

  Since landing at Beef Island she’d been in a state of suspended disbelief, going through the motions, trying to keep the surprise of it all at bay. Robbins had done a good job springing it on her, and she had to acknowledge that she was in a bit of a jam. No Derek. No passport. No phone. Jack Robbins parked on the sofa. But how much danger was she really in? Nothing had changed in terms of Seto and the bank except that Robbins wanted a cut of the money. If that was all he wanted, then it was manageable. And she had to assume that was all he wanted. The only question was how to handle it.

  She could, of course, do exactly what she had told Robbins she would do. But there were certain problems attached to that, not least of which was whether she could trust Robbins to be satisfied with $2.2 million. What if, once he knew she had moved the money to Hong Kong, he got even greedier? What if he continued to hold her passport over her head and demanded even more money?

  And then there was the ethical issue surrounding Andrew Tam. It was his money. He was entitled to all of it. From a practical viewpoint, she and Uncle had never guaranteed any return, let alone full return, but Ava couldn’t lie to herself about the fact that the money was intact and within reach, and that with a little ingenuity she might be able to get it all. Why give Robbins anything if she could find a way around it?

  How cooperative, how gullible would Robbins be once he knew she had successfully engineered the wire transfer to Hong Kong? Assuming he was going to be satisfied with the $2.2 million, was he prepared to instruct Thomas to give back her passport and let her leave the country once he had proof that the wire had been sent to his Cayman account, rather than wait until the money actually reached it? He had been willing enough to do that in Guyana. But that was there, and those were much smaller stakes. How much did he actually trust her?

  So there would be a Plan A and a Plan B, she decided, and then caught herself before going too far down that road. Let’s focus on tomorrow, she thought, reopening her notebook. In the back she had taped Seto’s Washington state driver’s licence. She took it out and placed it at the bottom of an empty page; then, starting at the top, she filled the rest of the page with Seto’s signature. By the bottom of the page it was beginning to look authentic.

  Ava finished her glass of wine and poured another. Below she saw a knot of ten people on the dock walking towards a boat that looked like a small floating hotel. They looked like couples, old friends, arms entwined or thrown loosely around necks. They weaved as they walked, their voices rising towards her, the happy voices of happy people who had probably just finished a gourmet meal and six bottles of wine. Well, I have my wine, she thought, and a nice evening and a great view. Things could always be worse. If only she hadn’t googled Tommy Ordonez.

  (34)

  Ava crawled into bed fully dressed, her mind jumping back and forth between Jeremy Bates and Robbins. She began taking long, slow breaths and tried to focus on her bak mei exercises. It was difficult to maintain that kind of concentration; it took her half an hour, maybe longer, to finally fall asleep. When she did, her father came to her in a dream. They were in a hotel, ready to leave for an airport. He said he was going to check out and asked her to collect their bags from their room. Except she couldn’t find the room. She wandered from floor to floor, her frustration and panic increasing. She was ready to run to the lobby to get his help when someone else entered her dream.

  Ava didn’t dream that often, and when she did, her father was always in it. The locations, the situations, the other people changed from dream to dream. None of that mattered. It always came down to her and her father and one of countless variations of him leaving and her trying to catch him or imploring him to stay. She never caught him. He never stayed.

  Ava sensed a presence, a subtle change in the light triggering her response. She was on her back, arms by her sides, head resting on two pillows. She opened her eyes and saw him standing in the doorway, the light from the living room glowing around him like an aura. She thought she could hear him breathing. Her own breathing had stopped. She lay perfectly still, her eyes unblinking, locked on the doorway. Ava’s arms were outside the covers but her legs weren’t. She calculated the distance between the door and her bed, and knew that she had the time she needed to react if he decided to come into the room, even if he came charging into the room.

  She thought about saying something, and then thought, No, let him think I’m still asleep. Let him try to do whatever it is he has chosen to do, and then I’ll do what I choose to do. How badly would she hurt him? There was no limit in her mind. Money or no money, she wouldn’t let him get close enough to even think he had a chance. Then the Captain could decide which he valued more, his brother or a payday.

  Minutes passed, or maybe it was just a few seconds — Ava had no real sense of time. Robbins stood immobile in the doorway,
his massive backlit head stretched towards the bed. She couldn’t see his eyes and wondered if he could see hers, wondered if he knew she was awake.

  Then he moved, turning, one hand reaching for the doorknob. Ava’s legs twitched; her body coiled, her mind cleared. He took a step back. Then she heard a deep breath and was plunged back into darkness as the door closed.

  Now she could not sleep. She had no idea what time it was and didn’t care. She forced herself to think of something other than the man in the next room. Jeremy Bates and Barrett’s Bank were her choices. She conjured question after question and threw back answer after answer until the sun slipped between the slats of the blinds that covered her window. The room gradually filled with sunlight and just as gradually dulled her nighttime fears. Ava looked towards the door. That hadn’t been a dream.

  She slid out of bed, the tiles cold on her feet, increasing her urge to pee. She took out her toiletry bag, walked to the bedroom door, and opened it with purpose. Six empty bottles of Stella sat on the coffee table. Robbins had left the sofa but he hadn’t left the room. He was in one of the pine chairs, which he’d pushed against the apartment door. His head was back, mouth open, as he breathed and snored in spurts.

  Ava went into the bathroom and locked the door. It took her half an hour to pee, brush her teeth, shower, wash and dry her hair, and put on the lightest touch of makeup. She couldn’t remember ever enjoying bathroom time quite so much. As she was finishing up, she heard shuffling in the apartment and knew that Robbins had left his chair. She listened, trying to figure out where he was. She had no intention of opening the bathroom door and walking into him. Then the noises he was making became indistinct and she had two thoughts: he was in his bedroom or he was standing outside waiting for her.

  She opened the door carefully and saw him almost at once. He was standing at the entrance to Seto’s room. “You need to look after this guy,” Robbins said.

  Ava had almost forgotten about Seto. She went to his door. He was flailing on the bed, kicking the covers free, revealing a pair of jockey shorts that didn’t flatter his stick-like legs. When he saw her, he motioned with his head for her to come close. She pulled the tape from his mouth. “I need to pee,” he gasped. His eyes were still glazed from the drug, but she could see that the flash of anger, the hint of growing confidence that had begun to emerge in them the night before had completely disappeared. He was a whipped puppy again, just the way she liked them to be.