by Ian Hamilton
“How did you know that I had been there, that I had anything to do with any of this?”
“Hua told me that you and your friend Lop met with Mo and mentioned Thailand. She said that if Fai didn’t want to go, Mo was only too happy to comply,” Chen said. “Another thing I don’t know is, who the hell is Lop?”
“He’s a friend. You don’t need to know anything else.”
“And actually it doesn’t matter if I do. It’s enough that you’ve destroyed Fai’s career and put my business at risk.”
“It’s premature to say that.”
“Bullshit. It’s already happened.”
“So that’s it? There’s nothing more that can be done?”
“Maybe if I crawl on my hands and knees, kiss Mo’s feet, and beg for forgiveness he won’t take this out on my other clients. But there’s nothing I can do to save Fai.”
“He really has that much power?”
“No, he has all the power. Without Mo’s support, very few films get made, and none of them get distributed.”
Ava shook her head slowly, and as she did she noticed that Lop was keenly following her end of the conversation. “Have you told Fai about what happened?” she asked Chen.
“Yeah. That’s how I got your phone number.”
“How did she react?”
“Far more calmly than I would have expected.”
“I’m glad to hear that.”
“Don’t be. I’ve known her far longer than you and I know her every little quirk. As the weeks and months pass and there’s no work, her calmness will turn into panic, and then hysteria. I can tell you from experience that dealing with her then won’t be a picnic.”
“Chen, she’s tired of prostituting herself. She’s a great actress. Her talent should be enough to secure her future.”
“Prostituting herself? Consensual sex between two adults is hardly prostitution, and until now I’ve never heard her complain. I blame you for this. You’ve poisoned her mind with your lesbian bullshit,” he said, his voice rising again. “This is how the system works here. It’s how it’s always worked. There’s no magic fairy dust that produces movies or makes stars. Nothing happens unless the Syndicate says yes, and it’s not going to say yes just because someone can act or they like a script. There’s a quid pro quo that needs to be respected. It’s not so much about the sex as it is about recognizing and acknowledging who exercises power in the Syndicate. It’s all about power.”
“That’s a very perceptive comment,” Ava said softly.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Never mind, it doesn’t matter. Let’s move on,” Ava said. “Tell me, is there anything we can do — that Fai can do — to soften the Syndicate’s attitude?”
“She can crawl with me or she can crawl on her own,” Chen said after a slight hesitation. “Mo does like her; he likes her a lot. He might back off if she’s conciliatory enough.”
“You mean submissive enough?”
“You asked me what she could do and I’ve told you. I’m not going to repeat it, classify it, or justify it.”
Ava hesitated and then said, “I’ll talk to her.”
That seemed to have caught Chen off guard. He started to say something and then suddenly stopped. When he spoke again, his manner was distinctly more subdued. “It would be good if you could. She obviously listens to you,” he said. “If it helps, I don’t think going to Thailand would have to be part of any arrangement. Mo might let that go if he’s sure she’s still part of his team.”
Part of his team? Ava thought. That’s a subtle way of describing submission. But all she said was, “So you’re sure he would meet with her?”
“If he’s approached in the right way.”
“Can you handle that?”
“No. It has to be Fai who makes the request.”
“You mean if she begs.”
“Fuck. For a moment there I thought you were being sensible.”
“Sorry,” Ava said quickly. “I just find it distasteful. I know it’s necessary, but I can’t help feeling the way I do.”
“As hard as it may be for you to believe, I have similar feelings,” he said. “But business is business and sometimes we have to let things go.”
“I’ll talk to Fai.”
“Just like that?”
“Yes. I’ll talk to her this afternoon.”
“Good. And now can I give you some advice?”
“It sounds like you’re going to whether I want to hear it or not.”
“First, stay out of my business. You don’t understand it, as your escapade of earlier today clearly proves,” he said. “Next, I don’t care what you and Fai do behind closed doors, but just keep it there. The only thing that could cause her more damage than pissing off Mo is for her adoring public to find out that she’s a lala. There’s no surviving that in this culture.”
Ava didn’t reply.
He waited for a moment and then added, “I’m not anti-gay. I just need to make sure you understand what’s at stake.”
“I understand perfectly well,” Ava said.
“And you’ll still talk to Fai?”
“I will.”
“Ask her to call me when she’s decided what to do,” Chen said. “I think that strategically it might be better if she talked to Mo first, to get the emotions out of the way. Then I can follow up and rebuild some kind of working relationship.”
“I’ll pass that message along to her,” Ava said, and then ended the call.
Lop tried not to stare at her from across the table, but his focus kept shifting from the buns and meat to her, until it was fully on her. “That didn’t sound very good,” he said.
“Mo’s surrogates from the Syndicate called Fai’s agent, Chen, and in a roundabout way told him that Fai and the film are history.”
“We did expect that outcome.”
“I know. They just moved faster than I imagined. I would have liked the opportunity to tell Fai myself what happened. Instead, Chen did.”
“So now what?”
“Chen thinks that if Fai begs Mo for forgiveness there is a chance it will be granted.”
“Would you really ask her to do that?”
“As I said, I think we need to meet with Mo again, and we need to meet him in a place where he’s not surrounded by security,” Ava said.
“You’d use Fai as bait?”
“I prefer the word ‘enticement,’ but I guess they aren’t really that different. One just sounds better than the other.”
( 12 )
Ava and Fai sat at the table in the kitchen. It was becoming a familiar and comfortable locale for Ava, a place for conversation, a place where secrets weren’t necessary. In some ways it reminded her of the pond in Xu’s courtyard. He had a small table and some folding chairs next to it, and that was where he and Ava most often explored whatever dramas were going on in their lives. Fai’s kitchen didn’t have quite the same atmosphere, but it still made her feel there was nothing that couldn’t be said within its walls. Ava realized that level of trust came more from who she was speaking to than where they were, but still, an almost unconscious link was triggered by the locations.
It was late afternoon when Ava finished describing to Fai her meeting with Mo and her phone conversation with Chen. The only things she’d excluded were Mo’s description of her as an aging actress and what Ava thought their plan of action should be. Lop had gone to the hotel to wait for Ava to decide what they were going to do next. They decided he should also call General Chik to give him a heads-up in case Mo tried to make an issue of the General’s supposed involvement. Lop was confident that he would find it amusing rather than worrisome, since people of his rank in the PLA were typically immune to the anger of bureaucrats and politicians unless they meddled in politics directly.
; “Did Chen really use the word ‘crawl’?” Fai asked when Ava finished.
“Yes, but he was quite emotional and might not have meant it literally.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it. He has so much at stake that I can’t think of many things he wouldn’t do if Mo insisted on it,” Fai said. “Five years ago I represented probably fifty percent of his business income. Now I doubt I’m as much as twenty. He’s got Tsang and at least one other good director, plus five or six talented young actors.”
“Well, whatever he chooses to do, he can do it alone. You don’t have to watch him debase himself.”
“But if I don’t do anything, where does that leave me?”
“That depends on you, Fai. You need to make a decision about what it is you want most and what you’re prepared to do to get it.”
“I want to continue my career and have Mao’s Daughter released, but not at the cost of my dignity or our relationship,” she said, and then paused. “The night before last we talked about options.”
“We still have some. All we’ve done is exhaust one, and it would have been naive to think our first effort would be successful. Think of it as a trial run, as a chance for my friend Lop and me to size up Mo.”
“What else do you have in mind?”
“Well, we tried a subtle approach by invoking General Chik and his business interests. It was worth the effort, because if nothing else if gave us some insight into what Mo thinks is important,” Ava said. “For example, when we dangled the idea that there was a lot of money involved, Mo didn’t bite. Lop says he doesn’t know many other senior officials who would be so blasé; most of them would have been negotiating some kind of payday the moment money was mentioned. We think that Mo has all the money he needs and is now more turned on by power and control.”
“Ava, I have no idea what you’re trying to say.”
“We need to remove his sense of control from a part of his life that he cares deeply about. We need to make him feel vulnerable.”
“How is that possible?”
“He has a son that he worships. He’s at university in the U.S., and I’m sure Mo’s planning the brightest imaginable future for him. We’re going to make that future seem much less certain.”
Fai recoiled, her eyes blinking and her lips tightly clenched. She began to rub her forehead. “You’d harm his son?”
“Of course not. But we have to create the illusion that his son’s future is at risk in other ways,” she said quickly. “Remember what I told you about people doing the right thing for the wrong reason? My friend Derek found out some things about Mo’s son that he would hate becoming public. Threatening to disclose that information might give us the leverage we need.”
“What kind of things?”
“We’re still collecting details. I don’t think it’s worth discussing any further until we have everything pulled together.”
“Ava, how do you even start to come up with ideas like this? And how do you have the nerve to see them through, to take on people like Mo who scare everyone else around them?”
“I’ve led a life that’s developed incrementally, bit by bit, experience by experience,” Ava said, surprised by Fai’s question. “I didn’t start out being who I am today. The debt-collection business made self-preservation a necessity, and there wasn’t much room for doubt or inaction. The bottom line was that I had to make the effort to succeed or there was absolutely no chance of winning. And when I made the effort, I put aside all thoughts about losing.”
“Was there violence?”
“Sometimes. I tried to avoid it, but there were times when it was inevitable and necessary.”
“One of the models in London, a girl from Hong Kong, said she heard that you’d saved Carrie Song’s brother’s life. Is that true?”
“Yes, but that makes it sound more dramatic than it was.”
“How could it possibly not be dramatic?”
“It was a spur-of-the-moment reaction to a situation that was messy and out of control. There was nothing heroic about it; it was all about survival.”
“But you did it, and you’ve done other stuff like that?”
“I was in the business for more than ten years. You couldn’t avoid confrontations if you wanted to be successful.”
“How did you get so close to Xu?”
“I think I told you before that we were both mentored by Uncle, but we weren’t aware of that or each other until Uncle died. Then we met and we bonded.”
“And the things Xu must have done don’t bother you?”
“If I wanted to live in the past, they might. I prefer to take people as I find them. Like I said the other night, we’ve all done things we’re ashamed of, or are at least not proud of — me included. But we’re all governed by circumstances, some of which we can’t control. We do what we need to do to survive, like me with Carrie Song’s brother. Once it’s done, there’s no point in reliving it. Xu has been honest and supportive since the day I met him, and I trust him completely. Why should I let other people’s opinions about actions he may have taken in the past colour my view of the man I see and know now?”
“Is that why you were so accepting of everything I told you about Lau Lau, and about what I did with Mo and the others?”
“Would you prefer me to have a different attitude?”
“Of course not,” Fai said quickly. “I just find it hard some days to escape my past. I find myself fixating on things I’ve done that make me ashamed, or I think about things that have been done to me and I feel such . . . hate.”
“I’ve never carried grudges,” Ava said. “If I have an issue with someone, I’ve always taken it to them directly. Then, once it’s out of my system, I move on.”
“And now you want to take my issue directly to Mo?”
“I do, but I can’t do it without you.”
“What do you need me to do?”
“We need to meet with him alone, and we think that’s unlikely to happen unless you can persuade him.”
“How do you propose I do that?”
“Chen says that if you call Mo and ask him to meet with you, he might do it,” Ava said.
“I’m sure the word ‘beg’ was used instead of ‘ask,’” Fai said.
“It was, but it doesn’t have to be like that. You can tell Mo that you made an offhand remark that the PÖ people misinterpreted, and that they contacted him without your knowledge or approval. Tell him you want to make amends, that you want to restore the relationship you have with him personally and with the Syndicate.”
“If he says yes?”
“Then arrange to meet him somewhere private. We don’t want him making a fuss in public that might draw attention to us. We want to talk to him alone, and we need his undivided attention.”
“Do you actually want me to meet with him?”
“No, that won’t be necessary. Lop and I will be there waiting for him. We’ll handle it.”
Fai’s eyes wandered from the table towards the small window that faced the courtyard. “In the past we met at the Kempinski Hotel,” she whispered.
“A hotel room is perfect.”
“He always had the Syndicate book the room.”
“This time tell him you’re going to do it as a way of saying sorry.”
“What if he says no?”
“To which part of it, meeting you at the hotel or you making the room reservation?”
“Meeting me.”
“You have to be as persuasive as you can, but if it doesn’t work, we’ll figure out something else.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know yet, and I actually don’t want to go there, because it implies you’ll fail. Let’s keep things positive.”
“Okay, I can do that,” she said.
“If he agrees, I’ll make the booking in my name,�
� Ava said. “I’ll go to the hotel, check in, and phone you with the room number, and then you can pass it along to Mo.”
“What if he calls the hotel and asks for me? What if he has to change plans and needs to contact me?”
“You’re jumping ahead again,” Ava said quickly, and saw Fai flinch. “I don’t mean to sound impatient. If you can get him to agree to come to the hotel, tell him to call or text you if things change. I’m quite sure he can understand why you would want to be discreet.”
“You’re right, he would. I’m not thinking clearly. When do you want me to call him?”
“As soon as possible.”
“I’ll do it now, but I don’t want you to be here when I talk to him. I don’t want you listening to what I’ll have to say in order to get him to the hotel.”
“And I don’t want to hear it,” Ava said. “I’m going for a walk.”
( 13 )
Ava had seen the hutong only in the early morning or late in the day, and given that she had been with Fai or distracted at those times, she hadn’t really paid it much attention. She’d also only seen the half of the hutong that ran between the entrance Fai used and the house. Now she walked in the opposite direction, past small shops selling food, clothes, and tobacco. She stopped in surprise when she came across doors with signs that indicated they led to public bathrooms and toilets. She opened one door and saw a full bathroom. She could only assume that not all the homes in the hutong had washroom facilities.
She turned away to see an elderly man staring at her from the other side of the hutong. He was sitting at a table inside a place called “The Little Tea Room.” The sign didn’t lie. Five tables were squeezed inside a space that could accommodate only them and a glass case that contained a variety of buns and tarts.
“Let me buy you tea,” the man said.
Ava hesitated, not quite sure if he was talking to her.
“I live in the same courtyard as Pang Fai. I’ve seen you coming and going,” he said. “If you’re going to be a regular visitor, we should get to know each other.”
What the hell, Ava thought, and in four strides was across the lane. “I’m Ava Lee,” she said.
