by Ian Hamilton
“That’s an interesting start,” he said. “I’m just not sure I want to hear the rest.”
“We’re searching for the rest,” Ava said. “We’re here because we need your help to find it.”
“Why would I help?”
“Because the visual record the director thought was destroyed wasn’t. A part remains, and we have it.”
( 37 )
There was always a moment during a negotiation when the outcome became clear to Ava. It could come early or late, it could be positive or negative, but the signs were there to read if one took the time to pay attention to them.
Lau Lau’s first reaction to Ava’s news about the tape was an attempt at defiance. He said, “Fuck off,” and almost rose from his seat. Then he sat down and stared across the table. As his eyes wandered away from her and Fai, Ava knew he was going to co-operate.
“How did Bai Lok approach you?” she asked.
“What do I have to do with that guy?”
“We know he met with you shortly before he died.”
“So what?”
“And we were told he sold you something. We think the tape was transferred to a disk and you were sold a copy of the same disk we have, although I’m quite sure he told you it was the only one that existed.”
“How do I know you have what you claim to have?” he shot back, not quite conceding yet.
“We bought several boxes of films and disks from Bai Jing, Lok’s brother, that Lok had left to him. You and a partner are on one of the disks.”
“How do I know that’s true?”
“We’ll show it to you if that’s necessary, but I would think the fact that we know it exists should be proof enough.”
“Why would you buy anything from Jing?”
“I’m being blackmailed,” Fai said, her voice steady. “We traced the source of the material they’re using to Bai Lok. I assume you can guess what kind of material I’m referring to.”
“That little prick.”
“Did he try to blackmail you too?” Ava asked.
Lau Lau reached into his jeans pocket and took out a pack of Zhonghua cigarettes. Ava was surprised that he was smoking such an expensive brand. Then, as she looked around the room at the non-smoking signs hung on every wall, she was surprised that he would smoke at all. He lit a cigarette, inhaled deeply, and blew the smoke across the table at them.
“Did he try to blackmail you?” she pressed.
“Not directly. He was smoother than that. He called me to say he had cancer and not long to live. He said he needed money and he was selling off some of his possessions. He said he had some things I might be interested in. I told him I doubted that, but he kept pushing and finally I agreed to meet him for a drink.”
“Did you take money with you? Did he bring the disk?”
“I didn’t know anything about a disk, and I didn’t take any money,” Lau Lau said. “I agreed to meet him for a drink, and that’s all. I didn’t expect to get leaned on.”
“So he did lean on you?” Ava asked.
“Eventually, but only in the most roundabout and convoluted way imaginable. He spent the first ten minutes telling me how terrific I am and how my films had inspired him. He said my focus on ordinary people, the way my movies recorded their resilience in the face of hardship and adversity, was the model that future generations of Chinese filmmakers would be measured against. It was excessive.”
“But still more true than not, and well earned,” Ava said. “You have set the standard.”
“Thank you,” he said, searching Ava’s face for any signs of cynicism.
“When did your meeting with him move from praise to pitch?”
“We had a couple of drinks and gossiped about the industry. Then he asked me about my plans,” Lau Lau said. “I told him I was trying to get back into serious contemporary filmmaking, that I couldn’t handle another bullshit historical war drama. At that point he reminded me that I’d been removed from my last film because of ‘health issues.’ That’s how he referred to the fact that I was drunk or on drugs nearly every day I was on set, because that was the only way I could cope with the crap I was expected to film. I told him that I was working hard at rehabilitation. He didn’t point out that we were sitting in a bar drinking. Then he said —he was a bit sly about it — that it would be tragic if I resolved all my ‘health issues’ and then had my reputation sullied in some other way that would make me unemployable.”
“That was clever,” Ava said.
“And of course, without a second thought, I asked him what he meant.”
“Who wouldn’t?”
“At which point he became even slyer,” Lau Lau said. “He told me that four or five years before he’d been hired by a company to make some sex films. He said they were unscripted, that the objective was to make them as real and natural as possible. So he made an arrangement with a friend to set up a secret taping operation in her apartment. He told me that I’d paid a visit to that apartment, and that he had it on tape. That’s all he said, and then he sat back and waited for my reaction. Truthfully, I didn’t handle it very well.”
“Did you hit him?”
“No, the opposite. I kind of fell apart. It was a fragile time for me and I thought I was on the mend. I guess I wasn’t.”
“How did he react?”
“He couldn’t have been kinder. At least, on the surface it was kindness,” Lau Lau said. “He told me he’d never shown the tape to anyone, not even the people who’d hired him. He’d edited it himself and transferred it to a disk that he’d kept locked away for years. He said the disk was the only record that remained. He wanted me to have it. He didn’t want to die and have it fall into the wrong hands. He said he hadn’t shown it to anyone because he wanted to protect me and my reputation, and that he still wanted to.”
“Then why didn’t he get rid of it himself? Why did he even tell you about it?”
“I wasn’t thinking that clearly. And besides, we both knew, just like you do, that it wasn’t about a tape or a disk. It was about money.”
“How much did he want?”
“He didn’t say at first. He said he was worried about paying for living expenses during his last months, and that he wanted a respectable funeral. I told him I’d be pleased to help and offered him ten thousand renminbi. He said that wouldn’t even look after the funeral, and asked if I could find fifty thousand to help him. We settled on thirty; that’s about all I had.”
“Five thousand U.S. dollars. That’s a lot less than Fai’s blackmailer wants.”
“She’s still a star. I’m not even on the radar anymore.”
“What did you get for your thirty thousand?”
“The disk.”
“What if there were others?”
“It had been four or five years since it was made. I figured if there were others, they would have surfaced by then. Besides, I didn’t have a lot of choice.”
“So you paid him the money and you got the disk.”
“Yes,” he said, throwing the cigarette on the floor and grinding the butt with the heel of his shoe.
“And you never heard from him again?”
“No.”
“And no one else contacted you about the video?”
“Not until now. I’m sure you understand that I’m not happy it still exists.”
Ava saw Fai tense and suspected she was about to tell him that all they had was a snippet. She reached out and touched her arm. Fai nodded and said nothing.
“We have no reason to do anything with the one we have,” Ava said.
“Then give it to me.”
“Eventually, I imagine, that’s what we’ll do,” Ava said. “For now it’s the only motivation you have for speaking to us, so we’re not going to do anything with it until we know exactly how things stand for Fai.”
>
“I’ve told you everything I know.”
“So you say, but it would be foolish of us to take the risk that you might have forgotten something.”
“Like what?”
“Like, what did Bai Lok tell you about Fai?”
“He never mentioned her.”
“I have trouble believing that.”
“That’s the way it was.”
“Even before I met Fai, I was never involved in any discussion about Chinese film where your two names weren’t linked. If someone spoke about what a great director Lau Lau was, someone else would mention Fai’s contribution to your success. And vice versa, of course,” Ava said. “It’s hard to believe that someone in the movie business in China, someone who knew you both, wouldn’t make some kind of passing reference to her.”
“He might have asked me if I’d seen her.”
“That’s a mention.”
“I thought you meant something more serious.”
“What do you mean by ‘serious’?”
“Nothing,” he said, taking another cigarette from his packet.
“Did he tell you he had a video of Fai with a partner that she might not want people to know about?”
“No.”
“You are absolutely sure about that? He didn’t even hint or suggest it in some sly way, like he did with you?”
“Why would he? Everyone knew that Fai and I were done. Why would I care about what he had on her?”
“But if he had something on her, why didn’t he use it?” Ava asked. “Until a few days ago she didn’t know the tape had been made. Then, out of the blue, it’s dropped on her with a huge blackmail price tag attached to it. If Bai Lok needed money so badly, why didn’t he go to Fai at the same time he approached you? He had to know that she had more money than you.”
“Don’t ask me to explain why a dying man did what he did. I wasn’t inside his head. All I wanted to do was resolve the problem I had.”
Ava turned to Fai. “I’m just about done. Is there anything you want to ask him?”
Fai shook her head but then leaned forward abruptly. “Are you happy here?” she asked Lau Lau.
He shrugged. “I have somewhere to live. I have admirers — and you know how much I love attention. I’m surrounded by young, creative, energetic people that I can feed off. But I can’t help thinking of the co-operative as a halfway house, as a place where I can recharge my batteries. Because all I really want is the chance to make films again,” he said.
“I pray you get that chance.”
( 38 )
It was dark when they left the warehouse to walk back to Xisi Street. On one level Ava thought the meeting had gone well, since they now knew what had gone down between Bai Lok and Lau Lau. On another level it had been very disappointing; it shed no light on the source of Fai’s disk, other than that she was now absolutely sure it had originated with Bai Lok. But what had he done with it? Had he sold it the way he had sold Lau Lau’s? If so, to whom? And why had it taken so many years to surface?
“What did you think of him?” Ava asked as they left the complex.
“He’s a shell of the man I knew.”
“It’s sad. I’d be surprised if there’s a road back to filmmaking for him,” Ava said. “But what I really want to know is whether you believed him.”
“I did.”
“Me too, I think he told us the truth. The question is, did he tell us everything he knows?”
“Do you doubt that?”
“Yes, but I have nothing to base that on except my instincts,” Ava said. “I had this feeling when he was talking to us that he was holding something back.”
“He was always a bit secretive. It’s second nature to him. I wouldn’t put too much emphasis on it.”
“Still —” Ava said as her phone sounded. She looked at the screen and hit the answer button. “Sonny.”
“Ava, is this a good time to talk?”
“Not really. I’m on my way to catch a cab. Is this urgent or can I call you back in twenty minutes?”
“Call me when you get settled.”
“Will do,” she said, pleased that there wasn’t any urgency.
“There’s a cab now,” Fai said, rushing to the sidewalk and flagging it down. “Where do you want to go?” she asked Ava as they climbed in.
“Let’s go home.”
Fai gave the driver directions to the hutong and then turned to Ava. “So what do we do now about that disk?”
“We still have some mysteries to resolve. Who has it? How did they get it? And why did they take so long before contacting you? We should take some time to think about our day, about what Ding and Lau Lau have told us. Maybe something will pop into our heads that will be useful or that we can follow up on. I also want to talk to Bai Jing again.”
Fai took Ava’s hand. “We only have a few days left. I’m starting to think that we’re not going to resolve this before we have to pay that creep.”
“Pay him or not, the problem won’t go away, so I don’t believe paying him is a realistic option.”
“Maybe not, but it might be the only option we have.”
“You say that so calmly.”
“Well, as weird as it seems, given everything at stake, I don’t feel any sense of panic. I’m concerned, of course, and I have moments when I feel really afraid, but I think I’ve come to grips with the reality of it,” Fai said. “Que sera, sera.”
“I don’t buy into that que sera shit,” Ava said. “The future is what we make it, not what we let be imposed on us.”
“I wasn’t suggesting we give up,” Fai said. “I think the fact that we’ve been working to find a solution is the reason I’m so calm, and I don’t want to stop until we reach the deadline. I’m just saying, regardless of how this ends, I’ll know we’ve done all we can.”
“I didn’t mean to sound dismissive,” Ava said.
“I didn’t take it that way.”
“It’s just that I hate losing. I hate losing at anything, and this is important to me. I don’t want anyone taking away your power to make decisions about your life and career.”
“I know, and I feel the same,” Fai said. “But if I have to pay, I will, and then hope that we can find a way to do it that will force the creep to honour his word.”
It began to rain again and the wind seemed to have picked up. “When this is over, I want us to go somewhere warm — where it’s not raining,” Ava said.
Ten minutes later they arrived at the hutong entrance, got out of the cab, opened their umbrellas, and made a dash for Fai’s. As they stood inside the door shaking off the rain, Ava said, “I should phone Sonny in Hong Kong.”
“If you’re ready for dinner, I have some of my mother’s dumplings left.”
“I’m ready, and that sounds perfect.”
Ava went into the living room, stepping around the boxes of films and disks, and sat on the couch to call Sonny. He answered instantly.
“Hey, boss.”
“How was your day?” she asked.
“I spent most of it in Tai Wai New Village waiting for your father, but when he was in his meetings I had the chance to make some calls about that thing we discussed,” Sonny said. “I spoke to some old friends in Sha Tin who’re retired but keep their ears to the ground, and I talked to a guy in Tai Po that I trust. He referred me to another guy, in Kwai Chung. Tai Po and Kwai Chung border on Sha Tin, so I figured they were close enough to hear things.”
“And have they heard anything?”
“There are some rumblings. Nothing specific, but there’s definitely some noise.”
“What kind of noise?”
“The kind that would be easy to ignore if you weren’t looking for it. A lot of complaining mainly, but it seems to have picked up since Carter Wing took over Sha Tin.”
> “Carter is Sammy’s nephew?”
“Yeah, and according to my guys he’s really aggressive and ambitious.”
“That’s not unusual for a Mountain Master.”
“But he’s been running things there for only a few months. Normally there’s a period of settling in. He’s not showing that kind of patience.”
“What are the complaints about?”
“There’s a lot of talk about Lop. You know, about him not being local, about whether he’s really Triad,” Sonny said. “It’s all based on jealousy. They hate the fact that he controls distribution of all the knock-off software and devices that Xu makes.”
“They’re still bitching about that? That’s why Xu and Sammy went to war in the first place. I thought that was resolved.”
“As long as Sammy is still in Wanchai, I can’t see it going away.”
“Lop runs Wanchai. Xu let Sammy stay there as a figurehead, out of respect and as a way of keeping peace. If he starts causing trouble, Xu will remove him entirely.”
“Leaving him in place even as a figurehead may have been a miscalculation,” Sonny said. “Uncle used to say that when you humiliate a strong man, all he ever thinks about is revenge. You should never expect him to be loyal.”
“How would Uncle have handled Sammy?”
“Sammy would be dead.”
“I don’t think —” she began to say, and then stopped. There was no point in arguing with him about something hypothetical. “Sonny, these rumblings you’re hearing, is it possible it’s just talk?”
“Well, there’s still a lot of resentment that a Shanghai-based gang runs Wanchai, and then there’s the grumbling about the software and devices. And Lop isn’t the easiest guy to get along with,” Sonny said, and then paused. “But even with all that in play, I think it probably is just talk, just bitching. It goes on all the time. Even when Uncle was running Fanling, there were guys who did nothing but complain.”
“I think you’re probably correct, but I’d still appreciate it if you could dig a little deeper,” Ava said. “Lop seems to think that the Carter-Sammy connection is strong and that there’s some plotting going on. I’d like to be able to tell him and Xu otherwise.”
