by Ian Hamilton
Ava sat down as well. “Anyway, again, thanks for coming.”
“I didn’t want to, but this is better than you showing up at my office. There’s been enough trouble there, and with my family, because of this. I’m lucky to still have a job.”
Questions popped into Ava’s head but she caught herself, telling herself not to rush. Lac was nervous enough already. “Let’s order some food and then we can chat,” she said. “Is there anything in particular you like or don’t like?”
“I like chicken feet.”
“Duck webs?”
“Those too.”
Ava filled out the dim sum menu and held it aloft for a server to take, mark, and carry off to the kitchen. “I added har gow, eggplants stuffed with fish paste, and deep-fried octopus.”
“Great,” he said, with no enthusiasm.
“Where did you go to school?” Ava asked.
“York.”
“So did I. What year?”
“1990.”
“Ah, I was a few years behind you.”
“No kidding,” he said, and then looked directly at her for the first time. “Tell me, just what kind of company do you work for? And what makes you think you can find Lam and, if you do, that you can get some money back?”
“My company is based in Hong Kong,” she said, pleased that he wanted to get down to business. “We’ve been doing this kind of thing for more than ten years. People who lose money and can’t get it back through traditional methods turn to us. Our client base is mainly Asian. We have a surprisingly high success rate.”
“You said on the phone you know where Lam is. Do you really?”
“Yes.”
“It won’t matter. I don’t think he has any money,” Lac said.
“Someone does. The money went somewhere.”
“And you’ll find it?”
Ava shrugged. “You got in trouble at work?”
“A client put money into the fund.”
“And with your family?”
“One of my uncles.”
“What is his name?”
“Louis Lac.”
The name sounded familiar. Ava pulled out her notebook and checked the entries from the Vietnamese restaurant. There he was, more than two million dollars out of pocket. “Your uncle is now a client of mine. He was one of those who hired us.”
The har gow arrived at the table and Joey plunged in. Ava waited until he had chewed most of his first dumpling. “How do you know Lam?”
“We were at school, at York, together. We graduated the same year and worked at the Commonwealth Bank for a few years before going in separate directions. We always kept in touch. There was a group of us, all Vietnamese, who did that. It was a good network until Lam fucked it up.”
Ava extracted a har gow from the steamer and slathered it with chili sauce. “So you weren’t the only one who referred people to Lam’s fund.”
“No, but I’m the only one who got hit with a baseball bat.”
“That was unnecessary,” she said. “People can get overly emotional when it comes to money.”
The other dishes began to arrive. While Lac dove into the chicken feet, Ava asked, “What kind of man was Lam?”
Lac paused. “I thought — I thought he was a good man, at least a decent man. He was an accountant, like us, and he took his job seriously. Until this shit happened I would have trusted him with my own money.”
“But you didn’t?”
“I didn’t have enough to buy into the fund.”
“Lucky you,” she said, and then regretted it. Nothing he had said warranted sarcasm. “Sorry, I didn’t mean that.”
“I’ve heard worse. I used to like visiting with my uncle, but not anymore. And Bobby Ng and I were friends for years. Not anymore. Lam ruined it all.”
“And you thought he was a good guy.”
“Yeah. And deep down, I still do.”
“Why is that?”
“If you meet him, you’ll find out,” Lac said.
“What does that mean?”
“Lam is so small his father tried to get him to be a jockey. And he’s as timid as he is tiny. In school he was the guy who was always trying to please everyone else, to be everyone’s friend. I kind of felt sorry for him until I got to know him a bit better, and found out how smart he is and how genuine he is. He wouldn’t hurt a fly; really, he wouldn’t. How he got himself into this mess I have no idea, but I have to tell you, I don’t think it was planned, premeditated.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I saw him after the shit began to come down. The first time was when he was starting to have trouble making payments. He told me he’d invested all the money and that the returns were slow because the bank was screwing around with new systems. He swore to me that the money was intact, and I believed him.”
“Why?”
“I don’t think he could have been lying. He was obviously troubled about it but he could still look me in the eye. That meant a lot to me.”
“You met him more than once?”
“Yeah, about a week later my uncle came to me and asked to talk to Lam about getting his money out of the fund. I met Lam downtown. He was a mess — shaking, stuttering, not thinking clearly, almost disoriented. He told me he couldn’t sleep and that he was taking pills and had started to drink. He didn’t act like a guy who had salted away millions of dollars and was about to leave with it.”
“What did he say about the money?”
“He said his contract required my uncle to give him thirty days’ notice before withdrawal.”
“Is that true?”
“I didn’t know and I didn’t care. I pressed him anyway, as a friend. He said he couldn’t help me and just got more nervous.”
“And you didn’t suspect something funny was going on?”
“He said that the way the investors had reacted to one slow payment had really upset him,” Lac said. “After what Bobby Ng did to me, I can’t blame him.”
“Like I said, that was unnecessary.”
“So, I don’t know, maybe Lam was nervous about someone like Bobby, someone who might use something more deadly than a baseball bat.”
“You didn’t ask?”
“I wasn’t exactly in full control of my own faculties. All I could think about was how my uncle was going to react.”
Ava glanced at her notebook. “He collected cash, correct?”
“That’s the Vietnamese way.”
“And put it into Bank Linno?”
“That’s what he told me.”
“What do you know about that bank?”
Lac shrugged. “They had one branch here, on College Street. It’s closed now.”
Ava gaped. “How do you know that?”
“I went there. When Lam disappeared, it was one of the few leads I had.”
“And it was closed?”
“I spoke to an accountant who had an office on the same floor and he told me they’d done a weekend flyer. The landlord wasn’t pleased.”
“Did the accountant know anyone who worked there?”
“No, and I did ask. I also followed up with the landlord to see if he would give me the name and phone number of the person who had signed the lease. He did. It was some guy from Indonesia who the landlord was trying to chase down.”
“Did you call Indonesia?”
“I did. The guy wouldn’t take or return my call.”
“Do you have his name?”
“It’s at my office.”
“Could you email it to me, with his phone number?”
“Sure.”
“And the landlord’s name and number as well, if you could.”
Lac furrowed his brow and pressed his lips together. “I’ll do it, but I think you’ll be wasting your time.”
Ava shook her head as she passed him her card. “My email address is there,” she said. “This thing about the branch closing, how odd is that? Taking all that cash from Lam and then, when he runs into
financial difficulties, closing its doors . . .”
“Of course it’s weird, but it was hardly a mainstream bank. The office was on the eighth floor of a rundown building, and from what the accountant told me, there were never many customers coming and going.”
“What kind of bank is it? I looked on its website and there was hardly any information.”
“The sign on its door said PRIVATE INVESTMENT BANK, so it probably wasn’t offering any kind of regular service.”
“Did it have a charter?”
“Not that I could find, and I did look.”
“I’m sure you did,” Ava said.
“It just dead-ended.”
“When was the last time you saw or heard from Lam?”
“When I met with him to ask for my uncle’s money back.”
“Did he ever say anything about the bank?”
“Not a word.”
“And you really don’t think Lam took off with the money?”
Lac tossed back his head, his eyes pressed shut. “No, and I wish I did. It would be easier that way, because there would at least be some hope of recovering it. But it isn’t like Lam to steal. He just isn’t that kind of person.”
“So you insist,” Ava said. “But if he didn’t steal it, where did it go?”
( 10 )
Ava opened her eyes to the glare of cabin lights. She looked out the window onto the South China Sea, glittering under the morning sun and dotted with ships that would increase in density every kilometre they drew closer to Hong Kong. She stood, stretched, and then went to the bathroom to pee, brush her teeth and her hair, and get her mind settled.
Chep Lap Kok was one of a series of newer Asian airports — Bangkok, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Beijing — built simply to move people and baggage as efficiently as possible. It had none of the romance of the old Kai Tak Airport in Kowloon, which was approached through a mountain pass over Victoria Harbour and was surrounded by apartment buildings so close that washing hung out to dry seemed to flutter against the sides of the planes.
Lap Kok was built on a manmade island in the middle of nowhere, about twenty kilometres from Hong Kong. Its virtue in Ava’s eyes was that she could deplane, clear Customs, and get her baggage (if it had been checked) in about fifteen minutes. Then, to get to the city, she could ride a high-speed train or take a cab along airport-dedicated six-lane highways. Kai Tak was only a ten-minute cab ride from Uncle’s apartment, but by the time she had cleared Customs — many times the lines in the arrivals hall extended into the corridors — and lined up for a cab, it took longer to get to Uncle’s than it did from Chep Lap Kok.
As usual, Ava was through Customs and into the arrivals area within minutes. She was starting towards the taxi stand when she heard her name called. She turned and saw Sonny. He was standing beneath the sign that read MEETING PLACE.
She blinked and then looked for Uncle. He wasn’t in sight. Sonny waved uncomfortably. Ava started to walk towards him, and as she did, tears welled in her eyes. The last time she had seen him, he was carrying her in his arms from the house in Macau. It had been a one-sided battle: three dead and one badly wounded on the other side, Ava the only one wounded on theirs. Sonny had probably saved her life.
“Hey, boss,” he said. He was wearing a black suit, white shirt, and black tie, none of which did much to make him look any less menacing. He was just over six feet, broad, thick, and incredibly agile. Ava couldn’t think of another man more fearsome.
“Sonny,” she said, holding out her arms.
They hugged, something new in their relationship, something that had been changed by Macau.
“Good to see you. We weren’t sure you were coming back.”
“Neither was I.”
He reached for her carry-on. She resisted, but only for a second. They walked side by side to the exit. She had always felt small beside him, and never more so than now, as memories of Macau came charging into her head. She hadn’t thought about it, she realized. Or she had chosen to forget it. Either way, being with Sonny brought it all back.
“I told Uncle not to come to the airport,” she said.
“He sent me anyway.”
They left the airport and walked almost directly into the silver Mercedes S-Class that was Uncle’s new car. It was standing in a no-parking zone with a policeman alongside. He smiled at Sonny, and for a moment Ava thought he was going to open the doors for them. Instead he gave a slight bow of his head and moved away from the car. Ava started to open the front door, but Sonny put his hand on hers and opened the back. “You know Uncle always rides in the rear,” he said.
She hesitated and saw Sonny frown. She slid into the back seat and turned on her phone as they pulled away from the terminal. There was one voicemail from Maria, who sounded a lot more downcast than she had when Ava said she was going back to work. It was early evening in Toronto and Ava could have reached her. She decided not to. When she was on a job, she tried to keep her personal life and any distractions it might bring at bay. It was a good habit to get back into.
“We aren’t going to the Mandarin,” Sonny said, his eyes looking at her in the rear-view mirror. “Uncle said the last time you were here you ate jook in Kowloon and that it brought you luck. He’ll meet you at the same restaurant.”
“That’s fine,” Ava said.
They drove the first part of the trip to Hong Kong in silence. Sonny wasn’t a talker at the best of times and Ava was entirely comfortable with silence, so it was a natural state for them both. But as they crossed the Tsing Ma Bridge and Hong Kong bore into view, Sonny said, “I can’t tell you how happy he is that you’re here and that you’re working on a job together again.”
“It will be good to see him too.”
“He needed this.”
“What do you mean?” Ava asked.
“He needed something to be interested in again,” Sonny said. “Lourdes and I have been worried about him.”
“You’re scaring me,” Ava said quickly. “Is there something going on that I need to know?”
Sonny half turned towards her. “We aren’t sure.”
“Sonny, talk to me, please.”
“There is nothing really to talk about, no real reason to be scared. It’s just that there have been days when he hasn’t left the apartment, and you know that isn’t like him. And then there are other days when he’s left by himself, without telling me. That isn’t like him either.”
“Do you know where he goes?”
“No.”
“Sonny, this is too strange.”
She saw from his eyes in the mirror that he was confused. “Lourdes thinks he’s just getting old.”
“He is old.”
“Of course he is, but he’s never acted old. His mind was always so sharp, and physically he was never a man to have aches and pains.”
“What’s changed?”
Sonny hesitated, and she knew that it was difficult for him to talk about Uncle in any way other than with complete, blind respect. Even suggesting a normal human frailty would seem to him a betrayal of sorts.
“We’re like a family, Sonny,” she said.
“He’s been talking to me about the old days,” he said slowly. “We’ve been together for more than twenty years. He pulled me out of trouble, you know. I had a temper back then, and I never thought twice about anything; I’d just react to whatever got in my face. Well, I went too far when I was running a small gang in the New Territories. Uncle was the boss — the big boss — and it was up to him to decide what would happen to me. He could have just given the order, but instead he sent for me and we talked. I’d never met him before. It turned out we shared a common kind of childhood; there was a connection — rough, of course. He told me he thought I could be useful to him if I could control myself. I said, ‘I don’t know how to do that.’ And Uncle said, ‘Just do exactly what I tell you to do. Do not try to think for yourself anymore. Life will be easier for you that way.’ And it has been.”
A
va felt her cheeks flush. The relationship between Sonny and Uncle had been one she had observed but had never tried to analyze or question. It had a life of its own, closed to outsiders. She had never expected Sonny to be the one to talk about it. She was also taken aback by how long he had gone on for. She wasn’t sure she had ever heard him utter more than two or three consecutive sentences. “You say he’s been talking about the old days?”
“Yeah, and he never did that before. Oh, when he was with Uncle Fong or some of his old colleagues, they’d reminisce about it, but he never did it with me. Now he does.”
They exited the bridge and began the slow crawl through Hong Kong towards the Cross-Harbour Tunnel to Kowloon. “What does he say to you?” she asked.
“It bothers him what’s happened to the societies. It all came to a head when he couldn’t help you with that asshole in Macau. He told me that when he was chairman, he thought he had brought some structure to them and that the oaths meant something again. But as soon as he left, everything reverted to shit. He feels his time was wasted, that part of his life was wasted.”
“He still has so much to be proud of.”
“He doesn’t seem to want to listen to that.”
“Well, I’ll talk to him,” she said.
Sonny fell silent again and Ava wondered if he’d dismissed her offer. Then he said, “Yes, I think you need to. You may be the only person he actually listens to. Me and Lourdes, we’re like old furniture.”
There was a lineup of cars leading into the tunnel, and Ava silently wished they had stayed with her plan to meet on the Hong Kong side. “This won’t take so long,” Sonny said, as if reading her mind.
“Those aches and pains you talked about — anything specific?” she asked.
“He seems to be having stomach problems more often than he should, and he isn’t eating as much as he used to. Lourdes says he’s lost weight.”
“He told me he’d been eating too much cheap sashimi.”
“That’s bull. He hasn’t eaten Japanese in months, unless he’s doing it behind my back. He used to have a healthy appetite but now he’s picking at his food, and he’s cut out a lot of stuff from his diet. That’s why I think he wants to meet you in Kowloon. He eats congee every morning now, and sometimes Lourdes says he has it for dinner.”
