The Goddess of Yantai

by Ian Hamilton

  She went downstairs to the business centre, found it crowded, and had to wait for more than fifteen minutes to get access to a computer and a printer. When she returned to the lobby, Lop was already there, sitting in a chair directly in the centre. He looked calm and composed, and any doubts Ava had about his state of mind evaporated.

  “Hey, xiao lao ban,” he said, and stood up as she approached.

  “We should find a less public place to talk,” she said. “There’s a pastry and coffee shop across from the elevators.”

  “Let’s go.”

  As she led him towards the Kempi Deli, Ava’s phone vibrated. She glanced at the screen and saw a message from Fai. He says he’ll be there at two, and he’s looking forward to it, it read.

  “Mo is still on schedule,” she said to Lop.

  The deli was small but they were the only customers. Taking a table as far as possible from the service counter, they each ordered black coffee and then sat quietly until the cups were in front of them. When the waitress left, Ava opened her notebook, took out a small stack of paper, and slid it over to Lop.

  He leafed through the documents, looked up at her with a blank expression, and then went through them again.

  “Those are for you. I have my own set, and another one for Mo,” she said.

  “You’re sure these are legitimate?”

  “Yes.”

  “Holy shit. I wasn’t sure you’d get anything we could really use, let alone stuff like this.”

  “This is the age of selfies, and given that these websites are banned or blocked in China, they probably didn’t think they had anything to worry about.”

  “Do you think it’s possible the pictures could be a bit too much?” Lop asked carefully.

  “What do you mean?”

  “They might freak him out. It’s one thing to scare Mo, but it’s another to make him desperate. We don’t want him running to his cousin on the Politburo.”

  “Are you worried the cousin might go to General Chik or some other authority?”

  “Chik would support me, and by extension you, but I can’t guarantee there aren’t some pressures that could get to him,” he said. “As for any others, we’d better make sure Mo understands that if anything negative should happen to us, these photos will be released within hours.”

  “That will be part of our message, and it isn’t idle talk. My friend in North America who unearthed most of this stuff knows what to do if there’s suddenly silence from our end, and I’m going to plug in Xu and May Ling Wong as well,” Ava said. “But I don’t want it to come to that, or even close to that. My hope and expectation is that Mo will be reasonable.”

  “And if he isn’t?”

  Ava looked at her set of photos and then slowly slipped them into the notebook. “I don’t know for certain, but this is one bluff I hope I never have to call.”

  ( 17 )

  At one-thirty Ava and Lop went upstairs to the room to wait for Mo. Lop walked directly to one of the chairs by the window, sat down, and took out his cell. While he focused on his phone, Ava sat at the desk and began to review the notes she’d made.

  She assumed Mo would be, to varying degrees, angry, confused, and irrational when Lop bundled him into the room. She would need to calm him down as quickly as she could so they could have a sensible conversation. An overwrought Mo wouldn’t help himself or her. That he would be emotional was to be expected, but it was up to her to bring him back to reality.

  In this kind of meeting, this sort of confrontation, Uncle had always counselled her to lead as strongly as possible. Hit your subject immediately with the worst-case scenario. Let them know how dire and hopeless their situation is, and when that has sunk in, gradually throw them some lifelines, so that by the time you state what it is you want, they feel like you’re doing them a favour. Would that work with Mo? She wasn’t sure, but given the arrogance she’d seen in his office, she didn’t think that tiptoing into the subject was an option.

  Lop grunted, and Ava glanced quickly in his direction. “Something wrong?” she said.

  “Just some Hong Kong stuff. It’s nothing to worry about,” he said.

  Ava’s phone signalled that she had a message. She read it and then said to Lop, “I have a text from Fai. It says Mo is a little early. He’s only about five minutes from the hotel.”

  “He’s eager. That can’t be a bad thing,” Lop said as he stood up.

  “Let’s hope so,” she said, closing her notebook. “We should get prepared.”

  Lop nodded and then walked past her to take up a position to the left of the door. He closed his eyes, took several deep breaths, and flexed his shoulders. Ava imagined that he was picturing how he would handle Mo when the door opened.

  She lowered her head and, without thinking, began to pray to Saint Jude, the patron saint of lost causes. The impulse to do so surprised her. When she worked with Uncle, Saint Jude had been most often invoked when she was facing physical danger. Now there was no such threat, but she could feel her emotions surge all the same, and knew they signalled how important the next half-hour would be for her. Jude was the last vestige of her connection to the Catholic Church. She had been raised in the Church, but its stance on homosexuality had soured her; she no longer wanted any part of an institution that rejected people such as her.

  She left the desk, went towards the door, and peered through the eyehole into an empty corridor. “I hope he’s co-operative,” she said to Lop. “But however he is, we need to be firm without hurting him.”

  “I can handle him,” Lop said.

  Ava knew he could, and silently chided herself for speaking the obvious. It was an indication of how nervous she was, and another reminder that she was more emotionally invested than usual. She became quiet and focused on the corridor. After a minute that seemed longer, she said, “He’s coming.”

  “Is he alone?”

  “Yes.”

  She took a couple of steps back from the door and waited. When he knocked, she stepped forward and stared through the eyehole again. He looked shorter and bulkier than he had in his office, and Ava wondered if the glass was distorting his appearance. She pressed down the handle and then moved out of sight as she opened the door.

  Mo was two steps inside the room when Lop grabbed his left arm, pushed it up towards the middle of his back, and propelled him forward. Mo stumbled, and for a second Ava thought he was going to fall on his face, but Lop straightened him up. “I want you to sit in the chair in the far corner,” he said. “And please don’t argue with me.”

  “What’s going on?” Mo shouted.

  Ava closed the door. “Keep your voice down, or we’ll have to help you do that,” she said.

  Mo looked at her and Lop as if he was seeing them for the first time. “Whatever it is you think you’re doing, you won’t get away with this,” he said in a voice that was a mixture of anger, apprehension, and fear.

  “Get away with what?” Ava said. “All we want to do is finish the conversation that we started in your office.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “Sit,” Lop said, shoving Mo towards the chair.

  “I don’t know what you think this will accomplish,” Mo said.

  “If nothing else it will make our respective positions much clearer,” Ava said.

  “I already know your position, and unless you’re stupid — and I don’t think you are — you know mine as well,” Mo said. “So unless you intend to abduct me or torture me or kill me, nothing is going to change.”

  “Our only intention is to finish our conversation,” Ava said. “Now why don’t you sit so we can do it properly.”

  Lop was standing between Mo and Ava, and now he moved a step closer to the man. “Sit,” he said, indicating the chair.

  Mo started to say something but stopped when Lop laid his right hand on his sh
oulder. He sat, then watched as Lop slowly lowered himself into the second chair, leaving Mo separated from Ava by Lop at his side and the bed directly in front of him.

  Ava went to the desk and picked up a manila folder. She sat in the desk chair and rolled it towards Mo. It came to a stop at the bed. She opened the folder, took out a photo, and put it on the bed in front of him. “This is a photo of your son, David, with his boyfriend, Mark Simmons. Like David, Mark is a student at UCLA. His father is a bank executive but, ironically, Mark is in the film studies program. They make a nice couple, don’t you think?”

  Mo’s head was lowered and Ava couldn’t see his eyes, but she saw that his mouth was open and there was sweat on his upper lip. Then he turned away from them.

  “I have other photos if you’d like to see them, although some are much coarser and more graphic than the one I showed you.”

  Mo stiffened, and for a second she thought he was going to stand up and do something stupid like try to leave the room or lunge at them. Instead he closed his eyes and shook his head.

  “Not looking at the photos won’t make them go away. Besides, this one is kind of sweet.”

  He leaned forward and reached for the photo.

  “I assume you didn’t know that David is gay,” she said. “In Los Angeles it isn’t a big deal, and the fact that Mark is black wouldn’t bother most people there. They’ve been a couple for six months, and their friends tell us they’re thinking of getting married.”

  She passed him another photo. In it, the smaller, wirier David was sitting on his partner’s lap with his arms around his neck. Both men were fully clothed, their cheeks pressed together as they grinned at the camera. “In case you’re wondering, we’ve been told that Mark is the dominant partner in the relationship. There are some pictures that demonstrate that, but I’m not sure we have to look at those right now.”

  “What do you want?” Mo said, the words squeezed from his throat.

  “I’ll tell you what I don’t want,” Ava said. “I don’t want these photos to fall into the wrong hands. I know how prejudiced and harsh and cruel some people in China can be towards homosexuals, especially to one who is openly committed to a same-sex partner of a different race. I also understand that as someone who is charged by the government to uphold a standard of public morality, David’s relationship and the photos could cause you tremendous loss of face. If your cousin Zhang supported you, you might survive it, but at what cost to you and him? And perhaps more important, at what cost to your son?”

  “You would do this to David?”

  “Please believe me, it’s the last thing I want to do.”

  “But you’re prepared to?”

  “Yes, but I would prefer that you not make that necessary.”

  “By agreeing to release that fucking film and by supporting that fucking bitch Pang Fai?”

  “I’m pleased to hear that you remember what we were discussing when you left your office yesterday, but I have to say that a hostile attitude won’t help us reach a reasonable agreement.”

  Mo looked at Lop. “Does General Chik know what you’re doing here? Did he approve this?”

  “General Chik knows absolutely nothing about this, at least not yet. We thought it would be more prudent — for your sake more than ours — to keep it that way for now,” Ava said.

  “So what’s the deal? I authorize release of the film and commit to supporting Pang, and you make these photos disappear?”

  “You can have a set of the photos if you want them. I’ll be keeping one, and so will Lop. There is another set with a colleague in North America, and two more with friends in China who have agreed to act as our agents in the event that something strange or unexplained happens to either of us or Pang Fai.”

  “You exaggerate my importance and my influence.”

  “But not your cousin’s.”

  “What makes you imagine for one second that I’d want my cousin to know about this?”

  “I don’t know the nature of your relationship, and besides, I’m sure you could come up with many other reasons for him to come after us.”

  Mo wiped the sweat from his upper lip and brow. “I need to go to the bathroom,” he said.

  Lop looked at Ava questioningly.

  “Search him,” she said. “Take his phone and anything else you think might cause us a problem.”

  “Stand,” Lop said to Mo.

  Mo struggled to his feet, reaching for the photos on the bed.

  “Leave those alone,” Ava said.

  “What harm can it do —”

  “Leave them,” Ava said.

  “And put your hands in the air,” Lop said.

  Mo shrugged but did as he was told. Lop quickly patted him down, removing a cellphone from his jacket pocket and tossing it onto the bed.

  “Don’t let him close the door entirely, and stay close by it until he’s finished,” she said to Lop.

  She stood and moved away from the bed and the desk to give them room to pass. As they did, she saw Mo tense, and she flinched, half expecting him to take a swing at her. Instead he walked straight by, with Lop at his heels. She waited until he’d entered the bathroom before she sat again. The meeting was going well enough, she thought. Mo hadn’t overreacted, although she imagined he was still in a state of shock. If he was going to present her with any problems, they would emerge as the shock wore off and his natural character began to reassert itself. Were the photos strong enough to deter him? Did he love his son more than his own sense of himself? She sighed and reached for the folder that held the photos. Had she said enough? The idea of piling on even more details about the private life of David Mo repulsed her, and she hated that she’d had to go there in the first place. But what other leverage did she have?

  Her attention was drawn by a noise from the bathroom. Mo emerged and slammed the door shut behind him. As he walked towards her with Lop close behind, she noticed that he held his head higher and his lips were pressed tightly together. Were those signs of resignation or defiance?

  Mo took the same chair and waited for Lop to take his before he leaned in Ava’s direction and said, “I’m wondering if you haven’t manufactured that story about my son.”

  Ava opened the folder, leafed through the photos, and passed one to Mo. In it a naked David was sitting on a bed next to a naked Mark. Neither man could have been more fully exposed.

  “I don’t need to see any more,” Mo said.

  “Good, but you should know that Mark has been very active on several blogs and websites that cater to gay men. His relationship with David has been well documented.”

  “Okay, I get it.”

  “Even if you didn’t, and even if the photos were false, even if David were actually dating a woman, what difference would it make once what I’ve shown you is in full-blown circulation? Who would believe anything else? You should know as well as anyone that most people love gossip and dirt and are always inclined to believe the worst. That said, the photos are real, and so is the relationship.”

  Mo nodded. “So what’s the deal?”

  “You voiced it earlier. We want you to authorize the release of Mao’s Daughter and to do nothing to inhibit its distribution and promotion.”

  “And?”

  “Treat Pang Fai — both personally and professionally — with the respect that she deserves as one of this country’s finest film actresses.”

  “By approving every project she or Chen brings our way?”

  “No. All we can expect is for you and your organization to be professional and judge each project fairly on its own merits,” Ava said. “And, of course, you have to understand that the days of demanding personal favours in return are over.”

  “And if Chen or Pang believes we’re not being fair, what then?” Mo said, sliding around her last comment.

  “I’ll talk to t
hem and draw my own conclusions.”

  “That doesn’t bring me much closure, much certainty.”

  “It’s the best I can offer.”

  Mo glanced at Lop, then at Ava, and stared down at the photos in front of him. “I thought it was Lop who was calling the shots, but it’s you.”

  “Lop and I are partners. Think of us as being interchangeable.”

  “But he’s connected to General Chik and, I assume, he’s ex-military. But who are you, where are you from, and why do you care what happens to that film and Pang Fai?”

  “As you were told in your office, our business has a relationship with Fai and we have investments we need to protect. You’re threatening them.”

  He shook his head. “There has to be more to it than that.”

  “I happen to think that’s enough,” she said. “Do you want to question that?”

  “Would it do me any good?”

  “No, and no more questions. You have a deal on the table. Do you accept it or not?”

  “What do you think?”

  “I believe your son means more to you than any film or any actress could.”

  “Then you have your answer.”

  “I need to hear you say it.”

  He shook his head. “This doesn’t come easily for me . . . I guarantee the film will be released and promoted. I’ll also give Pang Fai every courtesy as far as her career is concerned.”

  “Thank you,” Ava said.

  “But what kind of guarantee can you give me that those photos will never be made public?”

  “You have my word, just as I have yours.”

  “Two strangers exchanging promises?”

  “We’re not strangers anymore.”

  “Except you know who I am and where I am, and I know nothing about you.”

  “I’m sure you can correct that soon enough if you choose to,” she said. “But I can tell you, the results probably won’t be worth the effort.”