The Water Rat of Wanchai

by Ian Hamilton

  “Tom, I’m not really your type,” Ava said gently. “Believe me, I’m not.”

  ( 20 )

  AT TEN O’CLOCK AVA SLIPPED HER NOTEBOOK AND her Canadian passport into the Chanel bag and went downstairs. Dressed in a black knee-length skirt, black pumps, and a white Brooks Brothers shirt, she looked every inch a conservative, serious businesswoman.

  She went straight out of the hotel up to Young Street, turned right, and walked two and a half blocks to a white wooden house the size of a small apartment building that flew the Canadian flag. She assumed that the embassy offices were on the ground floor and the residences above. She had expected to meet security at the double doors, but there was none. In the small air-conditioned vestibule, a young black woman sat at a reception desk behind a plastic shield that was perforated at mouth level.

  Ava walked towards her, the woman eyeing her as if she were a thief. “Hello, my name is Ava Lee. I’m Canadian and I’m here on business. I’ve run into a bit of trouble and I need to speak to the ambassador,” she said, flashing her passport.

  “There is no ambassador. We have a high commissioner, and he sees no one without an appointment.”

  “This is an emergency. If he isn’t available, is there anyone else who can help me?”

  “I’m not sure —” she began, and then was interrupted by the appearance of a man who didn’t look to Ava much like a diplomat.

  He stared at her from behind the shield, his hand resting on the woman’s shoulder. Ava smiled and held up her passport. “I’m having some problems and I hope you can help.”

  There was a slit at the bottom of the shield. He pointed to it. “Slide your passport through there, please.” She did. He took it and examined her picture and all her visas and entry stamps; then he spread it apart to check the binding.

  “What’s the problem?” he said.

  “Do I have to stand out here?”

  He thought about it. “No, I guess not.” He reached down and hit a button. The door to the offices buzzed and swung open.

  She walked through and held out her hand. “I’m Ava Lee.”

  “Marc Lafontaine.”

  He was a hulk of a man, layered with muscle. “You’re not the high commissioner, are you?” she said.

  “I’m with the RCMP.”

  “Ah.”

  “I’m the security around here.”

  “You may be exactly the person I need to talk to.”

  “No one ever wants to talk to me.”

  “Don’t be so sure.”

  “What is it you want to discuss?”

  “Out here? You don’t have an office?”

  “Pushy, aren’t you?”

  “Desperate is more like it.”

  That caught his attention. “Follow me,” he said. “We normally don’t let people back here, but you don’t look like a threat.”

  His office was modest, containing a metal desk, a wooden swivel chair, and two four-drawer metal filing cabinets. On a coat rack in one corner, his uniform hung inside a plastic dry-cleaning bag. She noticed there were three stripes on the sleeve. Two photographs of three young girls sat on top of one of the filing cabinets. “Are those your daughters, Sergeant?”

  “Yes, and call me Marc.”

  “Are they here with you?”

  “They’re in Ottawa with their mother.”

  “I see.” She looked at the pictures and then at him. He had short auburn hair cropped close to his scalp, thin eyebrows, a long nose, and a chin that was distinctively pointed. All the girls shared that chin. “They look like you,” she said.

  “We don’t get many Canadians walking in off the street the way you just did. Tell me why you’re so desperate. That is the word you used, right?”

  “That may have been a bit of an exaggeration. It’s a bit too soon to tell.”

  “Are you going to make me guess what this is about?”

  She had dealt with Mounties several times before. They had not been very imaginative but they had been rigorously honest, and she knew they valued the same in return. She had no intention of lying to him; she just needed to gauge how much she could tell him. “As security, I imagine you have to deal with the local police and the like.”

  He nodded.

  “Well, I need to know how the system works here.”

  “You are going to tell me why, aren’t you?”

  “I represent a Canadian company that was bilked out of a substantial amount of money by someone currently residing in Guyana,” she said carefully. “I’m here to try to collect some or all of that money.”

  His face didn’t register any emotion; he had probably heard this story before. “That’s why there are lawyers. I can recommend a couple if you want,” he said.

  “This has gone beyond lawyers,” she said. “Besides, the scam took place in the U.S., the money is probably in an offshore account, and the culprit is here. You can imagine how complicated any legal action would be, involving four separate jurisdictions.”

  “I can. Now you haven’t told me just what you do. Are you a lawyer?”

  “I’m an accountant, a forensic accountant.”

  “So you tracked the money.”

  “I did.”

  “And you know who took it and where he or she is?”

  “His name is Jackson Seto. He has a house in Malvern Gardens, on the outskirts of Georgetown, and he’s there right now.”

  “I know Malvern Gardens. Him I’ve never heard of.”

  “Why would you?”

  He shrugged. “You’d be surprised.”

  “Anyway, I need to tackle Seto head-on.”

  “What’s stopping you?”

  “I’ve been told by several sources that he’s connected to the people who run things in Guyana, that he probably has some measure of protection.”

  “If he lives in Malvern Gardens it wouldn’t surprise me to know he’s connected.”

  “To whom?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “How do things work here? You just can’t land at the airport, pay off a few cops, and all is well. There has to be some kind of established system, yes?”

  “Very established.”

  She waited. “Is it my turn to guess?” she finally said.

  He looked troubled.

  “You know, if we need to be off the record, that works for me. Both ways, of course,” she said.

  “Do you want to start?”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  With anyone else she might have asked for more assurance of discretion, but she knew from experience that he would take offence. Mountie honour is a prickly thing.

  “As I said,” she began, “I’m here to try to collect money that was stolen from a client. To do that, I need to meet with Seto to try to persuade him that it would be in everyone’s best interest if the money were returned.”

  “And how exactly would you do that?”

  “Well, I would try to reason with him initially, and if that failed . . .” Time to take a little leap of faith. “Then I would pressure him in any way I could, and that might include some physical interaction.”

  “Physical interaction?”

  “I’m not as gentle as I look,” she said.

  “How extreme might this physical interaction get?”

  “He’s no use to me dead, crippled, maimed, or otherwise unable to function.”

  “You’re serious?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He shook his head, a tiny smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “I am so glad I came to work today.”

  “I don’t actually find this amusing.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, still shaking his head. “It’s just that I’m sitting across from a young, beautiful woman who can’t weigh much more than a hundred and ten pounds, who tells me she’s an accountant and then tells me she’s here to rip this Seto guy a new asshole.”

  “That’s the way it is,” she said. “My problem — my pot
ential problem — is that if I have to go beyond reasoning with him I’m going to run into his friends, and my experience in the developing world is that I won’t stand a chance. They’ll run me right out of the country, or worse.”

  “Here it would probably be or worse.”

  “So I need to know who they are.”

  “Why?”

  “So I can make them my friends, or at least disentangle them from Seto.”

  “Just how much money does this guy owe?”

  “About five million.”

  “Wow.”

  “So who do I need to talk to?”

  He pushed himself to his feet, walked to the door, and closed it. “This is off the record — we are agreed on that?”

  “I wouldn’t have told you what I just did if that wasn’t the case.”

  He sat down, leaned back, and looked at the ceiling. “It’s called the Guyana Defence League. During the 1960s the communists were active here and Cheddi Jagan was prime minister for a while. At the time that made Guyana only the second communist government in the Americas, after Cuba, and the U.S. sort of went ballistic. They pushed — and financed —Jagan’s former political partner, Forbes Burnham, into going up against his old colleague; they had been allies in forcing the U.K. to surrender their colonial power. There were strikes, riots, boycotts, and a lot of random violence against Jagan and his people. The fact that he was East Indian and Burnham was black only made it worse.

  “Anyway, Jagan ended up in jail and Burnham became prime minister, supported by the Americans. At the time there was only a small police force in Guyana. The Americans needed assurance that the communists wouldn’t be coming back, so they invested heavily in building an army and creating a clandestine special forces unit. Because the country is so small, they came up with the idea of grouping all these security forces together, creating the Guyana Defence League.

  “The communists came and went. Burnham was in and out of office. Even Jagan — who was now a social democrat — got a chance to be the leader again. Through it all, the Guyana Defence League remained intact and developed methods of operation that are still in play today. Basically, the person who heads up the special forces is the top man. The military report to him, the police report to him. He moves officers back and forth at will among the various services. So when you’re dealing with the police, you aren’t really. Everything flows upstream.”

  “Including money?”

  “Especially money.”

  “I’ve just left Thailand, but it feels like I haven’t.”

  “I’m sure the scale is different,” Lafontaine said. “This is a small, poor country. There’s only so much graft to go around, and the politicians feed at the same trough.”

  “Who heads up the Defence League?”

  “Commissioner Thomas for the police, and General Choudray heads up the military. One’s black, the other East Indian, and that’s the way it always is: one of each. The strange thing is, they report to a white guy, the infamous Captain Robbins.”

  “A white guy — that’s curious.”

  “Isn’t it. When I arrived here, I met him at a High Commission function. He has two daughters at school in Toronto — Havergal College — and Canada is his country of choice in terms of making investments. I thought he was just a fat, jolly businessman until the High Commissioner pulled me aside and told me to be careful, very careful.

  “He’s had the same job for twenty years. There isn’t a man in any of the forces who is not beholden to him for his job, and in this country, with unemployment at around thirty percent, that’s no small thing. He also knows where all the bodies are buried, and he’s probably responsible for a number of them himself. There isn’t a politician whom he doesn’t know inside out, and I can’t imagine there’s one who would defy him. It has been tried, though. Last year there was an East Indian minister of mines who decided the royalties that were going to the Defence League should end. His house was broken into and he, his wife, and his mother-in-law were shot dead. They never found the perpetrators.

  “So, Ms. Lee, if Seto has protection, it emanates from Captain Robbins, directly or indirectly.”

  “How do I meet Captain Robbins?” she asked.

  Lafontaine smiled again. “You’re serious, aren’t you? I mean, really serious. I keep looking at you and thinking you’re pulling a practical joke on me.”

  “Do you have a phone number for him?”

  He opened a Day-Timer that sat on his desk. “Write this down, though I don’t think it will do you any good. He doesn’t take calls and he never returns calls unless he wants to talk to you, not vice versa.”

  “Thanks for all this,” she said after writing down the number in her notebook.

  “We’re here to serve.”

  “That’s always been my experience with the Mounties. You’re a very professional group.”

  He nodded in acknowledgement. “Where are you staying?”

  “The Phoenix Hotel.”

  “Neighbours.”

  “Sort of.”

  “Tell me, would you like to have dinner with me while you’re here? You could keep me up to date on your progress.”

  She looked over at the pictures of his children.

  “I’m divorced,” he said.

  Two propositions in one day, Ava thought, and unless she was wrong, Jeff was a potential third. For reasons she didn’t understand, gweilos found her attractive. In Hong Kong she could stand on a street corner holding a sign reading PLEASE TAKE ME OUT TO DINNER and not get this much action.

  “I wouldn’t mind having dinner with you, but in keeping with our honesty policy I have to tell you I’m gay.”

  “I did say dinner; I wasn’t assuming anything else,” he said, but the flush that crept up his cheeks told her differently.

  “How about I keep in touch with you? Can I get your cell number?”

  He handed her a business card. His title read ASSISTANT TRADE COMMISSIONER.

  “I’ll let you know how it goes with Captain Robbins.”

  ( 21 )

  JEFF WAS STANDING AT THE ENTRANCE OF THE PHOENIX wearing slacks and a Polo golf shirt. He looked happy to see her, and she knew she was going to end up saying no to him as well.

  “I have your SIM card,” he said.

  “How much do I owe you?” she said as she took it.

  “Twenty.”

  She gave him thirty.

  “Will you need me today? I have to make a run to the airport around one. After that I’m free.”

  “I’m not sure. Call me when you get back.”

  The room was way hotter than when she had left. The maid had turned off the air conditioning. She turned it back on and for good measure jacked it way down.

  She undressed; her clothes were damp even though it was no more than a three-minute walk from the High Commission. She put on her running gear. It was really too hot to run but she needed to think, and running freed her mind. Before leaving the hotel she checked her emails at the business centre. Nothing from Seto. That was no surprise.

  From the literature in the room she knew there was a walkway along the seawall. The path was grass, and running on grass was easy on her legs. Add the sea breeze to that and she thought maybe it wouldn’t be too tough, despite the heat.

  The Georgetown seawall had been built during the nineteenth century by the Dutch, the original colonists, before the British ousted them. Georgetown, and in fact most of the northern coastline, was below sea level. The Dutch were experts at keeping the sea at bay, and they had constructed an impressive bulwark of stone about two metres wide and a metre high.

  Ava began jogging towards the Atlantic. It was close to low tide, and between the wall and the ocean was a large expanse of sandy beach. On her right was Seawall Road, which was lined with embassies and consulates. There was hardly any traffic on the road and virtually no one on the path. Ava could see maybe two or three kilometres ahead. A woman was on the beach tossing sticks to a dog, and farther
down she could see two figures sitting on the seawall.

  She had run about a kilometre before the seated figures became distinct. They were two East Indian men, sitting maybe twenty metres apart. As she drew near she noticed she had attracted their attention. She thought about stopping and turning back, then told herself she was being silly. It was the middle of the day, and they were in a wide open area.

  When she was five metres from the first man she saw him stiffen, and her senses prickled. She sped up to get past him. Just as she did, the second man jumped off the wall onto the path. She was trapped between them.

  One of the men was about five foot ten and had to weigh at least two hundred pounds. He wore ragged blue shorts and a T-shirt that read DRINK COORS. The other, who was a bit taller and not much thinner, was wearing soiled jeans and a singlet that exposed his chest and armpits. Ava noticed he had only one eye. It was fixed on her, and it wasn’t conveying kind intent.

  She stopped and turned so that she was facing the wall and had a clear view of the two of them.

  “This can be easy or hard — your choice,” the one to her left said, a knife now visible in his right hand.

  Ava saw no reason to respond; the outcome would be the same. The other man didn’t seem to be armed, so she decided to take on the one with the knife first.

  They inched towards her, trying to maintain equal distance. Ava moved left to bring her closer to the one with the knife. He waved it in the air until he was about half a metre from her. Then he reached down to grab her hair with his left hand, the knife held back, poised to strike.

  She retreated backwards about half a step. When he tried to close the distance, she stepped forward. Her right arm rocketed towards him with the force of a piston. The extended knuckle of her index finger crashed into the bridge of his nose. She wasn’t sure which she noticed first, the crack of cartilage or the gush of blood. He sagged to the ground, dropping the knife as both hands moved to cradle his nose. She picked up the weapon and threw it over the wall.

  The other man hadn’t moved as she put his friend out of action. Now he edged towards her, his fists balled. He didn’t move very well; his hips seemed to propel his legs. She knew she could avoid his swings but she wasn’t about to give him the chance. When he was within striking range, her right arm shot out again. This time she used the base of her palm to strike at the centre of his forehead. He reeled back and she leapt after him, her left fist driving into his Adam’s apple. He collapsed, his eyes rolled back, and his hands clutched his throat as he gasped for air. She had known people to die from that blow.