by Ian Hamilton
The U.S. Customs officer in St. Thomas hardly glanced at her passport. She took a cab from the pier to Charlotte Amalie and boarded American Airlines flight 672 at two fifteen. At six o’clock she was eating a bowl of gumbo in the TGIF restaurant at Miami International.
She waited until seven to call Uncle. He was up already. Ave could hear Lourdes, his Filipina housekeeper of more than thirty years, asking if he wanted another cup of tea. “I’m in Miami,” she said. “I’ll be in Toronto by midnight.”
“Thank goodness you are out that place. I didn’t sleep well.”
“I told you, no worries.”
“Between you and Tommy Ordonez it has been a hard two days.”
“Don’t mention Tommy Ordonez,” Ava said. “I’m not home yet. I need to get home and I need to rest for a few days. So please, Uncle, not another word about Tommy Ordonez until I feel I’m ready.”
“All right,” he said, his reluctance obvious, but he knew how superstitious she could be.
“I just want to finish the Tam job, and it won’t be finished until I’m in my own bed again.”
“Speaking of Tam, call him, will you? He wants to thank you personally.”
“He left me a voicemail already.”
“Ava, please. The man just wants to say thank you. You saved his business, his family’s capital. Let him be appreciative.”
She reached Tam at his apartment. “It’s Ava. I got your voicemail. I’m just calling to tell you that I’m pleased things worked out.”
There was a long silence from the Hong Kong end. “Andrew, are you there?” she asked.
“Sorry, Ava, I’m still in a bit of shock from yesterday. I was only a couple of hours from total disaster when the money came through. I had no idea it had been sent. I mean, you didn’t communicate with me.”
Was that a complaint? she thought. “I wasn’t in a position to communicate directly. The best I could do was give Uncle at least an indication that the money was on its way.”
“He didn’t pass that on.”
“What do you want me to say?” Ava asked. “You got your money — what else matters?”
“Nothing. I’m sorry if I sound unappreciative.”
“In a day or two I’ll send you our bank information. You can remit our commission then.”
“Yes, yes,” he muttered.
She felt another flash of irritation. They were always eager to agree to pay the fee when they thought it was their only chance to recover their money. Then when they had the money back, they tried to cling to every dollar of it. “The fee is only half what we normally charge. Uncle waived his portion out of respect for your uncle.”
“We’ll pay the fee, and Uncle’s part as well, if you want,” Tam said quickly.
Ava knew she’d overreacted. Her nerves were still on edge; she needed to get home. “No, just pay my part, but you should understand that Uncle did more than just waive his fee for a friend. At one point he advanced $300,000 U.S. without any guarantee he would ever see it again,” she said, knowing that Tam would tell his uncle, knowing that the uncle would be forever indebted.
“They swam from China together,” Andrew Tam said, as if that explained everything.
Maybe it does, she thought.
(43)
It was a miserable night in Toronto. As the plane approached Pearson Airport from the west, Ava looked out and saw a sea of white slashed here and there with ribbons of highway that were struggling to stay black. As they started the final descent, the plane’s windows became wet with sleet; the lights lining Highway 401 illuminated falling snow.
She coasted through Customs and Immigration, flashing her Hong Kong passport, and grabbed a limousine. The highways were slushy and the driver was being careful, not talking, focused on the road. The only time he spoke was when they hit a pothole pulling onto the Don Valley Parkway. “Sorry about that,” he said.
She thought about Guyana and smiled. “No problem,” she said.
Jack Robbins’s phone had been turned off since she left Road Town that morning. She had thought about calling the Captain from Miami and quickly dismissed the idea as foolhardy. She needed to be on home ground, as far from him and his influence as she could get. She turned it on as the limo headed south on the Parkway, and was greeted by a barrage of messages. Ava checked the incoming numbers. All except one were from the Captain.
She opened the Shanghai Tang Double Happiness bag and took out her notebook, then hit CALL RETURN on Robbins’s phone. “Where are you?” he screamed.
“I’m riding in a car… in a snowstorm actually.”
He paused. “I don’t believe that.”
“I’m in Toronto, in a limo, trying to get home from the airport. I figure I’m about ten kilometres almost directly east of Olive Street.”
Ava could hear ice clinking on glass. He was drinking, his nighttime ritual. She waited for him to speak, waited for him to acknowledge the Olive Street reference. When he didn’t respond, she began to read from her notebook.
“Ellie and Lizzie live in apartment 816 at 1415 Olive Street, about two blocks from Havergal. Ellie is in grade twelve, Lizzie in grade eleven. Ellie drives a blue Honda Accord, licence plate number BDAC 685. They leave for school at eight in the morning and are normally home by four thirty. My friend Derek, who, you might remember, did not meet me in Road Town, has been keeping an eye on them. If you need to know about their social lives, boyfriends and the like, sexual experiences even, he can find out. They seem like nice girls, Captain. It would be a tragedy if anything unfortunate were to happen to them. There isn’t any reason for that to occur that I can think of, unless of course I find my life disrupted in any way…”
She could hear him breathing as he absorbed this new reality. “Where are you?” he said deliberately, the rage tempered.
“As I said, I’m in Toronto, and I really am only about ten kilometres east of Olive Street.”
“How did you get out of Road Town, and — ”
“What does it matter?” she said.
She could hear liquid pouring, the clang of ice swirling around his glass. Then he sighed as if he was giving in to something inevitable. “There’s no reason to involve my girls in any of this,” he said.
Ava said, “That’s my preference and, in my absence, Derek’s. We don’t want any reason to act otherwise. Although we would if the need arose, and you need to believe me when I say we would.”
“Leave my girls alone and you will never have to fear any action on my part.”
“You’ll need to pass that message along to your brother too.”
“When he’s functioning again, I will.”
“They found him?”
“Oh yes, they have him. When I didn’t hear from you by nine, I sent in some of his men.”
“Is he okay?”
There was a long silence. “He may be blind in one eye.”
“Yes, perhaps,” Ava said.
“He can’t hear out of one ear.”
“That may pass.”
“And he’s not going to be walking for a while.”
Ava thought about Jack Robbins standing over her with the belt and the baton, and moved on. “How was Seto?”
“Groggy, confused. He says he can’t remember how he got there or who brought him.”
“What do the police think happened?”
“They can’t get anything out of him that makes sense.”
“Captain, I think it’s best that your brother be equally confused. I don’t want to have to deal with long-distance police enquiries.”
“My brother won’t talk to anyone unless I tell him to, and then he’ll be following my advice.”
“And what kind of advice do you think you’ll give him?”
“Seto has set an example that I think he should emulate.”
Ava looked out the limousine window as they exited the Parkway onto Bloor Street. The snow was falling harder now, the wind picking up. “It seems we have an understanding, Cap
tain.”
“Yes, I think we do, Ms. Lee… But tell me — humour me, please — where is the money that was supposed to have been sent?”
“There is no more money, you know that. You were paid $300,000 for services rendered. Be content with that.”
“Did you ever intend to send it?”
“You know, there was a chance that it would have been sent,” Ava said slowly. “I honestly hadn’t decided what to do until your brother tipped the scales. In effect, he — in reality, you — made that decision for me.”
“You were never going to send it. It was always a game with you,” he said.
“I don’t see any value in second-guessing each other, Captain. You are $300,000 richer and I have a happy client. Let’s leave it at that.”
“Yes, Ms. Lee, maybe we should.”
“There is one last thing, Captain. I would very much like to have my Canadian passport back. I hate the idea that it’s in someone else’s possession and could be used for mischief.”
“Give me your address and I’ll — ”
Ava laughed. “Yeah, sure. Look, have it sent to the bank in Kowloon to be held for pickup. And considering that I’ve already paid you $300,000, don’t send it COD.”
Robbins hesitated and then said slowly, “Ms. Lee, I have to tell you that I wish our business relationship had ended on a more congenial note.”
“The only way that would have been possible from your end is if you had gotten your two million dollars. Me, I’m happy enough with the result as it is,” Ava said.
“You aren’t entirely wrong about the money — ” he began.
“Goodbye, Captain.”
“Ms. Lee, if you’re ever back in my neck of the woods — ”
“Not a chance, Captain. Not a chance,” she said, closing the phone.
Ava saw the limo driver looking her in his rear-view mirror, and she realized that her end of the conversation must have sounded strange. “What’s the weather forecast?” she asked him.
“More of this,” he said.
She opened the window far enough to be able to stick her hand out. It was turning colder, the snow sticking to the ground. She tossed the phone out onto Bloor Street. It bounced twice before the back flew off. Traffic would take care of the rest.
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