by Ian Hamilton
An image popped into her mind. She shut her eyes and gave her head a brisk shake. The image didn’t go away. Then she stopped running, the pictures in her head almost paralyzing her. She was lying on her bed and it was her, not some stranger, not any client. Andy Cameron was on the bed. He had finished with her, but her legs were still open and he was rubbing his penis across her breasts, leaving a trail of semen. He had a grin on his face, and he was happily humming a tune she didn’t recognize.
Ava had stopped just outside a coffee shop. She couldn’t run anymore. She needed water, she thought, and was starting to walk into the shop when a tear rolled down her cheek. She hesitated, her hand reaching out for a wall. Another tear fell, and she felt a weakness in her legs. She turned and pressed her back against the wall for support as she began to sob, her body shaking uncontrollably.
( 23 )
Ava decided she wasn’t going to tell Perkasa the real reason why they were going after Cameron.
Earlier that morning, when her run had ended so abruptly and so emotionally outside the coffee shop, it had taken half an hour for her to drink a bottle of water and to stop her hands from trembling. Two women inside the shop had seen her distress and come out to comfort her. They gathered around her, talking between themselves, as one wiped Ava’s tears with a serviette and the other gently massaged her neck and shoulders.
The woman Ava had seen earlier with Indra was at the front desk when she returned. As Ava approached, she saw the woman’s face take on a worried look.
“I’d like to change rooms,” Ava said.
“Is there something wrong with the room you’re in?”
“I just want another room, something different.”
“Certainly, Ms. Lee,” she said, tapping at her keyboard. “There’s a suite available on the fourth floor.”
“Fine, I’ll take it.”
Time wasn’t moving all that quickly for Ava. The woman seemed to take forever to finalize the arrangement and pass her a key. When she was finally done, Ava said, “Now I need you to arrange something else for me. Could you please ask one of the room maids to go to my old room and pack all my things and bring them to the new one?”
“Yes, we can do that, of course.”
“Thank you. I’ll sit over there until it is done.”
The hotel was busy. There was a steady parade of people crossing the lobby, about half Western and half Asian. Ava counted them, tried to guess where they were from and why they were in Surabaya and in that hotel. It was a pointless exercise but entirely distracting. She had reached thirty-seven when she heard her name being called.
“Your suite is ready,” the desk clerk said.
The suite wasn’t any larger than the room she had before but it was configured differently, and the view from her window revealed a new part of the garden. In Ava’s mind it was enough of a change.
The maid had left Ava’s bags on the floor by the door. Her computer, notebook, and cellphone were on the desk. Ava stepped out of her clothes, threw them on the floor, and got into the shower. When she was done, she rubbed herself dry with a fierce determination, wrapped herself in a bathrobe, and crawled into bed.
She closed her eyes, only to have Cameron’s cocksure face flood her mind. I will get rid of that grin now, she thought. She would have her revenge. Cameron had taken what should have been just business and made it personal. Now she was going to repay him in her own way — quietly, privately, painfully. She pressed her eyelids tightly together. The face vanished.
When she woke, the room phone was ringing. Ava looked at the bedside clock and saw it was one thirty. She’d been asleep for three hours.
“Ava Lee,” she said.
“You changed rooms,” Vivian Ho said. “I called 313 and a man answered. I panicked for a second.”
“I thought a change of scenery might help.”
“Yes, I think that was wise,” she said. “I have those lab results you wanted.”
“So soon?”
“You were the only priority at the lab this morning.”
“Thanks for making that happen.”
“You have flunitrazepam in your system.”
“I see.”
“You’ve heard of it?”
“I have.”
“It would have taken about twenty to thirty minutes to kick in after you ingested it. And judging from the traces, you were given enough to have affected you for eight hours or so.”
“I can remember only the first part of my evening in the lounge.”
“That’s not surprising. It does cause anterograde amnesia.”
Ava said, “Maybe it’s just as well that’s all I can remember, don’t you think?”
Vivian paused and then said, “The pill I gave you this morning should look after any chance of pregnancy. Have whatever other lab you go to send me the other results. In a few weeks you should be able to have peace of mind about other possible complications.”
“In the meantime, all I have to do is cope with my imagination.”
“I didn’t mean to make what happened to you seem insignificant.”
“I know, and I’m sorry if I sounded ungrateful. You’ve been wonderful, and I appreciate it.”
“Well, look, I’ll give you my mobile number and my home phone. If you need anything at all, please don’t hesitate to call. Even if you just want to chat, call me. My weekend is wide open.”
“Thank you for that.”
She hung up the phone and sat up in bed. Her mind felt clearer. The compulsion to cry was gone. The ache in her stomach had ebbed. Perkasa was already en route. She needed to get organized.
She unpacked her bags. She had enough clean clothes for one more day. She dressed in her casual gear, went to the desk, and turned on her computer and iPhone. There was the usual barrage of emails from friends and family. She wrote to them all collectively. I’m going to be out of touch by phone and email for the next few days. I’m involved in some business negotiations that need my full attention. I’ll contact you as soon as issues here are resolved. Everything is going very well, so don’t worry about me.
Her voicemail was less busy. Maria whispering that she missed her. Sonny telling her that Uncle had gone to the hospital that morning but was now back at home. And Uncle just saying, “Ava, call me.”
She knew she had to call Sonny back. He was going to worry and keep phoning unless she did.
“Sonny, it’s Ava.”
“He went to Queen Elizabeth.”
“So you said.”
“And the woman thinks he recognized her. She stayed outside but he looked back at her when he went in.”
“There isn’t any need for her to follow him anymore, is there? We know where he’s going. Now we just need to find out why, and Doctor Parker should be able tell us.”
“When will that be?”
“I’ll be back in Hong Kong in two or three days, so please, Sonny, be patient until then.”
“I’ll do the best I can.”
“Thanks. Now listen, I’m not going to be available to talk until it’s time for me to come back. We have some business here that needs my attention.”
“I understand.”
“Good. I’ll let you know when I firm up my schedule.”
She sat at the desk, staring at her notebook for a few minutes, after her conversation with Sonny. She was going to phone Uncle; she just needed to figure out what to say to him. Unless she was badly mistaken, he would already know that Perkasa was coming to Surabaya. She had learned over the years that with Uncle’s contacts, all roads led back to him. They might be assisting her, but it was because he had done the asking, and he was the man they wanted to please. So there were no secrets between them and her. She assumed that everything she said, everything she did, would be relayed back to Uncle in one form or another. It didn’t bother her. She had respect for their loyalty to him, and she was smart enough to know that it bound them to her. Still, if she was correct in assuming that Perkasa had phon
ed Uncle to say he was heading to Surabaya at Ava’s request, Uncle would be calling her to ask why.
Why.
In their years together, personal lives had sometimes meshed with the professional, but usually in alignment with a job. Completely personal matters weren’t for sharing. And how much more personal could this be for her?
She was certain, as much as she was certain about anything in her life, that if she told Uncle what had happened, it would not just be a matter of Perkasa coming to Surabaya. It would be Sonny and Uncle flying in from Hong Kong with blood in their eyes. And she didn’t want that to happen for any number of reasons, not the least of which was that she had pride in her ability to manage her life, and she wasn’t about to cede control to anyone when it came to Andy Cameron. He was hers.
There was also the matter of the humiliation Cameron had imposed on her. She was Ava Lee. There wasn’t a man on earth outside of her father and Uncle who could hurt her. Cameron had violated that self-image, not just physically but, more important to her, psychologically. She needed to regain that feeling of immunity, and she was going to do it her way.
She called Hong Kong.
“Wei.”
“Uncle, it’s Ava.”
“How is it going?”
“Good. I had dinner last night with Andy Cameron, the CEO of Bank Linno. He’s a sneaky little guy. I tried to get him to open up about the bank and its operations and he was completely evasive. There’s something strange going on there, I feel it,” she said in a rush, and then immediately told herself to slow down. Uncle was clever at picking up her signs of stress.
“Do you think it will have any relevance to our clients?”
“I don’t know. That’s the thing, I don’t know.”
“A British guy running an Indonesian bank is unusual.”
“A British guy who was somehow recruited from a job in Rome.”
“And the bank’s growth is startling.”
“He told me last night that he’s increased their capital base twenty-fold.”
“What else did you get out of him?”
“Almost nothing else. I asked about their international business and he slammed the door on me.”
“So what do you want to do?” asked Uncle.
“I’ve asked Perkasa to come to Surabaya,” she said and then paused, giving him the chance to acknowledge that he knew.
“Yes, he told me,” he said.
Ava didn’t miss a beat. “I think it’s time we had a private conversation with Cameron, one in which he’ll be more amenable to answering questions. If it leads to nothing, then I’ll be back in Hong Kong in a day or two.”
“Do you have access to him?”
“I’m arranging that.”
“Ava, do you think this is worth that kind of trouble?”
“We have clients; we owe them our best. I don’t know any other way of getting to the truth about what happened between Lam, Purslow, and the bank.”
“Perkasa arrives today?”
“This afternoon.”
“When will you pick up Cameron?”
“I’m aiming for tomorrow.”
“Well, if it has to be done, it has to be done. Just make sure there are no repercussions if Cameron and the bank have nothing to hide. I do not want you being hounded.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“Keep in touch.”
“As always.”
“And good luck.”
It wasn’t entirely a lie, she thought as she ended the call.
Ava opened her notebook and starting making a list, a short one, of the things that needed to be done. Indra’s information was at the top and she hadn’t heard from him.
She called downstairs to the front desk. “This is Ava Lee. Can you tell me if there is a hardware store in the immediate neighbourhood?”
“There’s an Ace Hardware in Tunjungan Plaza.”
“Thank you, and could you also tell me if Pak Indra is still in the hotel?”
“He’s standing next to me.”
“Can I speak with him, please?”
He came on the line almost at once. “I assume you’re calling about that information you wanted.”
“I am.”
“I just put it in an envelope. It will be delivered to your room in a few minutes.”
“Wonderful. Is it complete?”
“Absolutely . . . How much longer do you think you’ll be a guest in the hotel, Ms. Lee?” he asked casually.
“Another day or two.”
“And then back to Hong Kong?”
“Yes.”
“Well, I hope you enjoy the rest of your time with us.”
“That is the plan.”
“But please be cautious. Surabaya isn’t a violent place, but young single women need to be careful.”
“I normally am,” she said.
She waited by the door for the envelope. She had expected it to be hand delivered, but the bellboy slid it under the door. She opened it as she walked back to her desk. Cameron lived in a house in Citraland. Indra had underlined the fact that he had full-time, live-in domestic help. He drove a black Porsche Boxster with a standard plate number. He golfed at a private club, Paradise Run, that had security at the entrance. There were four phone numbers at the bottom of the page, for mobile, home, office, and golf club.
Ava went online and searched for Citraland. There it was, “the Singapore of Surabaya,” a large high-end, affluent community in the western part of the city, home to Surabaya’s professional class. Paradise Run was also in the west, farther out from the city by about ten kilometres. It advertised itself as East Java’s finest and most exclusive golf and country club. She had no doubts that the security Indra had mentioned would be tight.
She copied the information into her notebook and then began to detail the options they had for getting to Cameron. She wondered how capable Perkasa’s local contacts were. That was a question that was going to have to be answered, and answered soon.
( 24 )
She heard from Perkasa as she was walking out of Ace Hardware with a bag holding two rolls of duct tape.
“I’m here,” he said.
“Where exactly is ‘here’?”
“The lobby of the Sheraton Hotel.”
Ava checked her location in the plaza. The hotel was no more than a five-minute walk away. “Wait there for me. I’m on my way. I’m wearing a black T-shirt and black Adidas training pants.”
She liked him the instant she saw him. Young, tall, athletic, dressed in black jeans and a dark blue cotton shirt. He stood with his back against a pillar, his eyes darting right and left, attentive without being obvious. He looks like Derek, Ava thought — the same build, the same confident way he carried himself. When he saw her, he smiled and gave her a little wave. That’s like Derek too — easygoing, relaxed, even when going about the hard part of a job.
“I didn’t expect someone so young,” he said as she approached, her right hand extended.
“Me neither. Uncle’s contacts are usually older and usually policemen or army officers. You aren’t army or police, are you?”
He took her hand and shook it firmly. “No, I’m not military or police. As for Uncle, he’s known my family for a long time. He and my grandfather left Wuhan around the same time and they’ve kept in touch ever since. We owe him a lot of favours.”
The Wuhan link again, Ava thought. It spanned decades, thousands of miles, and all of the adopted cultures.
Ava looked around the lobby. It was quiet, and she motioned to a nearby seating area. “Let’s sit and talk,” she said. “Time is working against us.”
He was about a foot taller than she was, and close up she saw that he was far more muscular than she had thought. He had two knapsacks with him; he tossed one over each shoulder.
“Have you checked in?” Ava asked.
“Yes.”
“Do you want to take those to your room?”
“They can wait. I came to work, so
let’s get started.”
They found two chairs in an alcove and settled in. “Did Uncle give you any idea what I want you to do?”
“The only thing he said was that it would probably be something physical.”
“There’s a bank president here by the name of Andy Cameron. I want to get him someplace private and secure so I can talk to him. We’ll need to use a couple of locals. We’ll need two vehicles, preferably SUVs — something large. We need a place to take him where we don’t need to worry about him making a racket. And we’ll probably need weapons,” she said. She waited for his reaction.
He just shrugged as if he’d heard it all before. “My jawara have guns. One of them drives a Pathfinder, and I’m sure we can find another car without any trouble. I’ll call them as soon as we’re finished here and ask about a place to take your banker. If they don’t have one, they’ll get one.”
“You trust them, do you?”
“I’ve worked with them many times before. The older one is a policeman, the other is his brother. They don’t speak English, which under these circumstances is probably a good thing, because we won’t have to guard our words. But even if they understood everything we were saying, it wouldn’t bother me. They’re reliable, very professional.”
“And they know you’re here today?”
“I had them on standby after talking to Uncle the first time, and I called them this morning right after talking to you. I asked Waru — he’s the older one — to find the picana you wanted. They’re waiting for me to contact them for a meeting. I wanted to talk to you first so I could give them some idea of what we were up to.”
Ava said, “Uncle told me your name was Perkasa, but I don’t know if that’s your first name or last name. What should I be calling you?”
