by Ian Hamilton
“Why am I here?” Ava said.
“Did you know that he’s running for chairman of the societies?” Wing wielded the toothpick again, covering his mouth with his hand, his eyes never leaving Ava. “Li Kai is running as well,” he said through the hand. “It’s going to come down to the two of them. I support Li, but I’m prepared to live with whatever the result is. The problem is that your friend has decided to sabotage the democratic process.”
“I beg your pardon?” Ava said. “Democratic process?”
He shrugged and placed the toothpick on the table. “We vote. The majority rules. What would you call it?”
“It’s beyond definition.”
“You’re being cynical again. Frankly, I don’t think it suits you. I think if you heard me out you might agree with me.”
Ava shook her head. “Mr. Wing, why did you invite me here?”
“I need you to talk to your friend.”
“Since you seem to know him so well, why don’t you speak to him yourself?”
“I’ve tried. Li, myself, and others have tried, but he bobs and weaves. He’s a hard man to pin down. He tells you what you want to hear and then goes off and does whatever he wants. The problem may be — and I’m being kind here — that he doesn’t listen very well. When we talk to him, it’s as if he thinks every word is designed to mislead and undermine him. He’s programmed to disbelieve. We’re all very frustrated with him, and in our business frustration sometimes leads to overreaction. I would like to avoid that.”
“That’s hardly my concern.”
“Ms. Lee — Ava, we need to find someone he’ll actually listen to. My opinion is that you could be that person.”
“And why would I volunteer to do that?”
“Who mentioned volunteering? I will pay you, and I will pay a lot.”
“To do what exactly?”
“I want you to listen to me and then I want you to reason with Xu. We need an honest broker.”
“You overestimate my talents. And you’re making some very large assumptions about my relationship with Xu. I’m afraid I would disappoint.”
“I’m prepared to take that chance.”
“Mr. Wing, what I said about my talents and my relationship to Xu was also my way of politely telling you that I want nothing to do with any of this.”
“We’ll pay you well to make the effort.”
“I don’t need or want your money.”
Wing closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and breathed deeply and audibly through his nose. He looked to Ava like an angry man, and she braced herself for a tirade and readied herself to leave the restaurant.
Wing’s eyes opened, the light seemingly gone from them. “You remind me of Uncle,” he said in a whisper.
“Thank you.”
“I don’t mean it as a compliment.”
( 18 )
They sat quietly, looking at each other across the table. The moment lasted not much more than ten seconds, but it was a heavy silence, filled with discomfort.
“I apologize if I offended you with my remark about Uncle,” Wing said finally.
“Accepted,” she said.
“Now please, may I take a few minutes to explain why someone has to talk to Xu?” Wing said.
“I’ve already made my position clear.”
“I know, but you should understand the depth of the consequences of this situation in which we find ourselves.”
“Why?”
“Because if something unfortunate — terribly unfortunate — should happen, it might be important for you to understand the circumstances that led to it.”
“I don’t think I want to hear any more,” Ava said, rising from her seat.
“Wait. Please, I’m not trying to be anything but honest with you,” Wing said.
“But you don’t speak plainly. What the hell does ‘terribly unfortunate’ imply?”
“Nothing that need be inevitable.”
Ava shook her head. Every instinct she had was telling her to leave. But then what? Like it or not, now she needed to know. “Explain to me the circumstances that you’ve alluded to,” she said as she lowered herself back onto the chair.
“Thank you.”
“What are the circumstances?” she repeated.
“He is very clever, your friend. We all understand that, and many of us have benefited from it. And the fact that he spent the past year or two scheming with Uncle only advanced his education.”
“Scheming?”
“Sorry. Let me say that he’s taken Uncle’s counsel for the past year or so and it has helped contribute to his growing success. Are you more comfortable with that description?”
“Go on.”
“The first thing you need to understand is that Xu has made us all a lot of money. He understood very quickly the profits that can be made from software, electronic devices, and designer fashion labels, and most of us went along for the ride. And why not? The profits are almost as good as they are with drugs, and they come without the headaches we have to endure with most of the other traditional businesses, like prostitution and gambling. The fact is, the police don’t really care that much if you’re ripping off some big American or European corporation. Once in a while they’ll raid one of our street markets or shopping centres, but we usually get some notice. We load up the vendors with old inventory for the police to seize and make a big splash in the media as they destroy it.” He laughed. “My man Jimmy says that letting the police grab that inventory is almost cheaper than having to truck it to a dump and get rid of it ourselves.”
“So he’s making you money and doing it in a way that keeps the police off your backs. That’s a hell of a problem to have.”
“Momentai. But a problem I do have is that your friend is manufacturing the majority of the goods we’re selling.”
“You said you were making all kinds of money.”
“True, but what happens if the supply dries up?”
“Has that happened?”
“No, not yet.”
“So what makes you think it’s a possibility?”
He shrugged. “You have to understand that there’s more involved here than just the supply line. As that business grew over the past few years, we began to move away from our more traditional pursuits. We let them go or we pushed them down to the bottom rungs of our gangs. It will be very hard, if not impossible, to rebuild what we had if your friend decides to play god.”
“Is he playing god?”
“I think he’s testing the idea.”
“What makes you think that?”
“Shipments that were always on time are now sometimes late. Orders that were always filled properly now come up short.”
“Perhaps demand is outstripping supply.”
“That seems a logical explanation, but I’m attentive, and I’ve noticed that people who support him for chairman don’t have those kinds of problems.”
“How would you know?”
“There’s talk.”
“It sounds more like gossip.”
He smiled. “Exactly. We gossip like young girls, except it isn’t boys we talk about. It’s about how much product reaches who and when,” he said. “We have created — and it’s our own fault — a dependency on those products. It’s much like a drug addiction. All we can think about is when the next shipment will be coming in, because we know the one on hand will soon be gone.”
“Why didn’t you create alternative supply lines?”
“Ah, an excellent question.”
“So you didn’t.”
“My excuse is that my dependency snuck up on me. One day selling software and iPhones was a sideline, six months later it was half my business, and now . . . I don’t want to tell you. The world moves so fast today that even the Triads can’t keep up with it.�
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“Xu does.”
“Yes. I give him full credit for that. He has the technology, the engineers, and the factories, and he keeps buying more, hiring more, and building more. We tried to figure out how he did it but we couldn’t. Oh, here and there we found an alternative supply, but there was never enough product and, truthfully, the quality was never good enough.”
“It sounds to me as if you need to accommodate him until you’re in a position where your need isn’t so great.”
“We’ve tried.”
“My understanding is that the attempts to accommodate came only after threats and violence didn’t work.”
Wing sat back, his hands folded across his belly. “I was told you’re smart. I know Uncle wouldn’t have felt the way he did about you unless that was the case. I mean, I know there were rumours that you kept his bones warm, but I never believed them. That kind of behaviour wasn’t typical of his character. He was a man who kept everything separate — he would never mix business and pleasure. So he kept you by his side for business, and for you and him to be partners for ten years speaks well of your intelligence and abilities. So I’m going to believe you’ll act as smart as I think you are.”
“Is that meant to be a compliment?”
“Only if you’re smart enough to understand that Xu can’t have everything.”
“Everything?”
“He can’t ransom his way to becoming chairman. It doesn’t work. The end result, I mean. It’s one thing for him to have economic leverage over us and to use it as any gang leader would, to further the interests of his own people. It’s another thing to combine that leverage with the prestige and powers and perks that come with the chairmanship. He could — he would have us all by the throat.” His hands went to his knees and he leaned forward, the smile disappearing. “He must drop his attempts to become chairman.”
“You still haven’t told me why.”
He looked hard at her across the table, any hint of conviviality gone. “The chairman mediates,” Wing said. “Eighteen organizations form our brotherhood, and from time to time there are territorial disputes, arguments about payments or financing, disagreements about who has the right to do what. The chairman is the man who decides who is right.”
“Is the decision binding?”
“Yes, at least as long as everyone wants to stay in the family.”
“If they don’t?”
“When the chairman makes a decision, he communicates it to everyone and we proceed accordingly. It’s possible that a gang might choose to ignore a ruling that went against them and try to go their own way, but they would very quickly find themselves cut off from the brotherhood. As a punishment, isolation can be very powerful. As formidable as any one gang may be — even Xu’s — none of them would last very long without the support of the brotherhood’s infrastructure.”
“I see.”
“It’s a practice that goes back hundreds of years. No one, not even me or Xu, would go against it without expecting the consequences to be dire.”
“Why do think Xu would not be even-handed if he was chairman?”
Wing pressed his hands against the seat of his chair and pushed. Slowly, painfully, he rose to his feet. “He might have no reason to be. He already has enough economic power, and now he’s in the process of building a small army in Shanghai.”
“Don’t exaggerate.”
“That episode in Borneo — there was no need for it. He just wanted to show us that he has the gun-power. It’s been quite some time since any gang attacked another like that.”
“He saved my life there.”
“And I saved your life here.”
“So why should I take sides?”
“Because there isn’t any other choice. We can’t let him have the kind of absolute control he seems to want. Either you’ll talk to Xu and get him to step down or we’ll do everything we can to stop him.”
“How do you expect him to react to a threat like that?”
“That depends on how you tell him. He doesn’t need the chairmanship; he has enough influence and power. He talks and talks about preserving the societies but he’s doing everything he can to cut the guts out of every society but his own. In Xu’s perfect world, only Shanghai matters. The rest of us are peasants working for the king.”
“Then vote against him, and get the gangs who feel the way you do to do the same.”
“It’s an open vote.”
“What are you saying? That people are scared to vote against him because he’ll withhold product as punishment?”
“That’s how he’s already acting. It can’t go on like this.”
Ava shook her head. “You keep talking about things that are beyond my knowledge.”
Wing hovered over her, his eyes now tiny slits. He wiped the sweat from his face with a paper napkin and let it drop to the floor. “You need to understand that when I speak of consequences, they would not be restricted to Xu alone,” he said. “Our reach would extend to people who consider him a friend, and even more surely, to those who are his partners.”
“Just a minute —” Ava said as Wing brushed past her and lumbered towards the door without looking back.
( 19 )
Sonny was waiting for her outside the restaurant. Night had fallen. Ten metres away, illuminated by a 7-Eleven sign, Wing was climbing into the back seat of a Bentley, its door held open by the man Carlo had introduced as Bobby.
“Where are Carlo and Jimmy Tan?” she asked.
“They left together after you went into the restaurant,” Sonny said, his attention divided between the Bentley and her. “Do you need either of them?”
The evening rush hour was now in full force. Even the sidewalks of the street where they stood were crammed. “No, I guess not. I think I’d just like to go back to the hotel.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yes.”
“You look either pissed off or worried. Did that prick Wing try anything?”
“Let’s walk,” Ava said.
Sonny led the way, Ava tucked in behind him like a small boat trailing an ocean freighter. When they reached the Mandarin, she paused by the entrance. “I’m going to stay in tonight,” she said. “If I need you I promise I’ll call, but I think it’s quite unlikely.”
“What happened with Wing?”
“Nothing,” Ava said. “Nothing at all.” The big man sighed and she saw the doubt etched in his face. She also knew he was too devoted to challenge her. “Tomorrow I expect I’ll be going to see the lawyers in the morning. Their office is only a few streets from here, so I’ll walk. After that I might need you, so I would appreciate it if you were on standby,” she said.
“I’ll be here.”
Ava gave him a little wave and then turned and went in, his eyes boring into her back.
Her room had been serviced by the maid, the bed turned down and a small orchid and a Godiva chocolate left on her pillow. The curtains hadn’t been closed, and the skyline was now lit up in all its brilliance, the water of Victoria Harbour gleaming along the shoreline under the skyscraper light show. She could see Tsim Sha Tsui in the distance, the Pacific Mall glowing like a giant beacon.
She rolled the desk chair over to the window and opened the mini-bar. She took out a miniature bottle of California Chardonnay, twisted off the cap, and carried it to the window. She had no need for a glass. She sat down, took a large swig, and extended her legs so they rested on the window ledge. What a mess, she thought. What an awful fucking mess.
She had to get her emotions under control. Then she had to think things through. The problem was that she hardly knew where to begin.
When she left the restaurant, she had been filled with an anger that bordered on rage. She was furious with herself for having been sucked into the meeting and then losing control of it, with Sammy Wing for his cl
umsy threats, and maybe most of all, with Xu. Who had he spoken to? What had he said? Less than forty-eight hours after making their supposedly confidential business agreement, it was now already in the open. What the hell had she gotten herself into? Worse, what had she involved May Ling and Amanda in?
The first idea that had come to her as she followed Sonny back to the hotel was to return Xu’s money. Now she thought about the consequences. Without Xu’s money they could still go ahead with the Po deal, but if the PÖ line suddenly took off, they might not have enough to properly finance its growth. And they certainly wouldn’t have enough money for Suki to acquire the Shanghai business unless they put a lot more of their own capital into Three Sisters. Even if they did, May had been adamant that they should always retain some flexibility, some cash reserves, and trying to do both deals without Xu’s money would leave them hamstrung. We could pull back from the investments, Ava thought, and then felt almost nauseated at the prospect. No matter what excuses she invented, they would lose all their credibility with Suki while having to continue dealing with her as a partner in the Shanghai business. That would not be fun. She would have to explain to Clark and Gillian that she hadn’t actually lied to them about her willingness to fund their business. She doubted they would care either. And how would Amanda and Chi-Tze react? She couldn’t tell them the truth, so it would be a case of saying she had changed her mind about the deal. She knew that would devastate them. How much of their trust and respect would she lose?
May was another factor. Ava knew the money could not be returned without her involvement and agreement, so she would have to be told about Xu’s indiscretion and Wing’s threats. Ava wasn’t worried about recriminations or damage to their friendship. She expected her to be understanding and to go along with whatever Ava wanted to do, regardless of how it would damage May’s relationship with Suki Chan. There would be disappointment, though; voiced or not, Ava hated the idea of being the cause of it.
But what nagged at her even more was the thought that giving back the money would make not one bit of difference to Sammy Wing. He might choose not to believe they had done it; he could decide he didn’t care even if they did. They were leverage. The money didn’t matter; it was the relationship — or what he thought was the relationship — between Ava and Xu that he was exploiting. He thought Ava would go running to Xu looking for protection, and he was gambling that Xu would do whatever was necessary to protect her. Would Xu withdraw from the contest for chairman if she asked him? She had no idea.
