The Goddess of Yantai

by Ian Hamilton

  Half of the boardroom table was covered with neatly arranged rows of paper. “These are for signing, initialling, and chops,” said Suki. “I reviewed them again this morning and everything seems to be in order, but you might want to read through them yourself.”

  “You and our lawyers are satisfied?” Ava asked.

  “We are,” Suki said.

  “Then there’s no need for me to do it. Where do I sign?”

  “You can work from left to right along the table,” their lawyer said. “The red tabs are for the Suns, yellow is for you and Suki, and blue is for you alone.”

  “Mr. and Mrs. Sun, why don’t you start and we’ll follow,” Ava suggested.

  And so began a slow and laborious process. After thirty minutes Ava had lost track of how many pieces of paper she’d signed. It wasn’t that there were so many; it was that Mr. and Mrs. Sun took forever to sign each one. As the time drew close to twelve o’clock, Ava’s impatience began to show. She knew part of it was the anxiety she was feeling as she waited to hear from Fai, but that wasn’t something she could explain to the others in the room. Anyway, the Suns were oblivious. It was Suki who caught on to it and who, almost exactly at noon, tapped Ava on the hand and motioned for her to join her at the far end of the table.

  “I know they’re being very slow,” Suki said. “But we need to remember that they’re signing over their entire life’s work to us. It isn’t just another deal for them. They want to make an occasion of it, a ceremony. We have to let them take as much time as they need.”

  “Sorry. I’m waiting for a really important phone call.”

  “Just step outside when you get it. No one will object.”

  “And Suki, if this goes on much longer, I might have to skip lunch.”

  “Lunch isn’t a big thing. The dinner the other night was, and Pang Fai made it completely memorable. Anything else will be anticlimactic.”

  “Okay, let’s go back to signing,” Ava said.

  At twelve-twenty the last document was signed and the company chops were affixed. There was a round of handshaking and then Mr. Sun went to the door and yelled to someone in the hallway. A few minutes later one of the assistants arrived with a tray holding seven cognac snifters, and behind him another man carried a bottle.

  “Do you remember this cognac?” Mr. Sun asked Suki.

  “No.”

  “It is Louis XIII by Rémy Martin. I bought it in Shanghai four years ago, when we came to visit you and your husband. It cost three thousand U.S. dollars. He joked with me and asked what occasion in my life would justify drinking something so expensive. Well, this is it.”

  The entire room smiled, and Ava felt a touch of guilt at having wanted to rush them through the signing. Mr. Sun opened the bottle, poured a tiny amount into one of the glasses, swirled the golden liquid, and then put his nose into the glass and sniffed. “If it tastes as good as it smells, that was money well spent,” he said.

  Seven glasses received a moderate portion of cognac. Seven heads dipped noses into the glasses and made appreciative noises.

  “To a deal very well done,” Mr. Sun said, raising his glass. “We’re especially pleased that you’ve decided to keep the company name as it is. You can be sure that we’ll follow your growth and success with as much interest and pride as if we still owned it ourselves.”

  Ava took a sip, fully expecting the cognac to burn her throat. There was no sensation, until a few seconds later a warm glow rose from her stomach. She was about to compliment Mr. Sun on his selection when her phone rang. It was Fai. “Excuse me, but I have to take this call,” Ava said.

  She stepped out of the boardroom and into the hallway, closing the door behind her. “What have you heard?” she asked.

  “The blackmailer just called,” Fai said. “They didn’t release the video, but now they want ten million renminbi within the same deadline.”

  “That’s good news,” Ava said.

  “How is ten million good news?”

  “Right now, time is a lot more important to us than money.”

  ( 43 )

  Under normal circumstances Ava wouldn’t have bothered to change her clothes, but the way she was dressed couldn’t have been less appropriate for the artist’s co-operative. Her running shoes, training pants, and jacket — especially with the front slashed — were better suited to making her look like she belonged.

  When she’d gotten back to the hutong, Fai met her at the door, and five minutes later they were walking to the taxi stand carrying umbrellas and holding hands.

  “What made you decide to see Lau Lau first?” Fai asked.

  “If we can believe Ding Fa, and given what we found in Bai Lok’s boxes, there are only two videos that Tiger Paw didn’t buy. Lau Lau is the only definite connection we have to either of them. I have to assume that if Bai Lok told him about one, he also told him about the other. I know that isn’t necessarily true, but it does make rough sense, and we don’t have much else to go on.”

  This time their driver knew where they wanted to go and dropped them off directly in front of the warehouse complex. They crossed the parking lot to the co-operative and walked through the front door into a lobby that was quieter than the day before.

  They climbed the stairs to the fourth floor, encountering few people as they went. When they reached the fourth, things changed. The hallway was crowded, and both bathrooms had lines waiting outside. Inside, Ava saw more lines of people waiting for sinks and toilets. At the far end, the dining room didn’t have many empty seats.

  “People tend to start their day a bit later here,” Fai said.

  No one gave them a second glance as they walked to Lau Lau’s room. Ava knocked. A few seconds later a groggy voice said, “Fuck off.”

  “This is Ava Lee. Fai is with me. We need to talk to you again.”

  “Oh, for god’s sake, go away.”

  “We can’t.”

  “I don’t want to see you.”

  “Do we have to go through this nonsense again? You know you don’t have any choice, because we’re not leaving until you come out and talk to us,” Ava said, and then pressed her ear against the door. “I hear more than one voice,” she said to Fai. “I think he’s with someone.”

  “And he sounds different. He’s probably on something,” Fai said. “This could be difficult.”

  “You try talking to him,” Ava said.

  “Lau Lau, please don’t make this so hard,” Fai said. “Do you know what we did last night? We went home and watched The Air We Breathe. Please show us even a little bit of the dignity and courage of the man who made that film.”

  “Go away.”

  “Let’s make this easier on all of us,” Ava said. “I’ll pay for your time. Give us fifteen minutes and I’ll give you ten thousand renminbi.”

  “My time isn’t worth that much.”

  “It is to us.”

  “I have nothing to say that could be of any value to you.”

  “Then it will be an easy ten thousand.”

  Ava heard what sounded like someone approaching the door, and stepped back. The door opened and a young man dressed in boxer shorts and a white T-shirt walked past them. She looked inside and saw Lau Lau sitting on a single bed, wearing only a pair of jeans.

  “The two of you are psychotic,” he said.

  “The dining room is jammed. It might be best if we talked in here,” Ava said.

  “Be my guest, but there’s only one chair.”

  “I’ll stand,” Ava said.

  “And I want my money before you come in.”

  Ava reached into her bag and took out a stack of notes. “Please put on a shirt,” she said.

  Lau Lau reached under the bed and pulled out a black T-shirt. He slipped it over his head with a grunt and then held out his hand.

  Ava stared at hi
m. His eyes were glassy and not really focusing. His hand trembled. Fai was right about him being high, she thought, as she gave him the money.

  “What can’t I tell you?” he said with a smile.

  “There isn’t anything funny about this,” Ava said.

  “That’s because you’re not sitting where I am.”

  “Do you really care so little about what happens to Fai?”

  He shrugged and reached for his pack of cigarettes.

  “Is that why you phoned your contact when we left here yesterday?” she said. “You should know they sent some thugs to Fai’s house last night to threaten and intimidate us.”

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said, lighting a cigarette. “And by the looks of you two, it couldn’t have been much of a threat.”

  Ava took several steps into the room. “My past is littered with the bones of men who thought they could step on me. If our conversation keeps going like this, you’re going to be one more.”

  “Fuck off, woman,” he said, waving at her as if shooing away a fly.

  “Who did you call?” she said, moving closer to him.

  He shook his head. “You don’t know shit.”

  Ava sat on the bed, her leg touching his. He recoiled.

  “Lau Lau, they’ve doubled their blackmail demand, and I don’t have that kind of money,” Fai said.

  “And you seem to be forgetting that we still have the video of you with a boyfriend,” Ava said. “You seemed to care about that yesterday.”

  “I thought about that last night. I decided that I won’t believe you have it until you show it to me,” he said. “Bai Lok wouldn’t have had the nerve to bullshit me.”

  “But you now think he might have been bullshitting you when he told you he had only one copy of Fai’s video as well?”

  His head snapped towards Ava. He was about to say something when he stopped. His eyes dropped away from her, and in that second she knew he was lying about Bai Lok.

  She placed her hand on his knee. “You need to understand that I don’t care that you bought the video of Fai from him. I can believe you did it with the best of intentions. But what I really need to know is who you gave it to.”

  He lifted a shaking hand to his mouth and took a deep drag on his cigarette. His eyes blinked rapidly, and Ava knew the after-effects of whatever drug he’d been taking were kicking in. “Who did you give it to?” she repeated.

  He glanced at Fai and then at Ava’s bag, which sat next to her on the bed.

  “I’ll give you another ten thousand,” Ava said.

  He lowered his head. “Fifty.”

  “I don’t have that much with me. I can give you twenty now and the rest later.”

  “How do I know I can trust you?”

  “Really? You’re really asking that question of us?” Ava said. “Tell me what we need to know and you’ll get your money tomorrow. And you’ll get our copy of your video. I’ll gift-wrap them for you.”

  He put his cigarette butt into a half-glass of water on the bedside table and then lit a fresh one. Smoke was starting to fill the small room, but if smoking helped him talk, Ava was willing to put up with a lot more of it.

  “Where’s the twenty?” he said.

  She reached into her bag. “There,” she said, throwing two stacks of bills onto his lap.

  He stared down at the money but didn’t touch it. Ava wondered if he actually cared about the transaction.

  “All you want is a name, right?” he said.

  “Yes, but before we get to that, I’d like to clear up a few things,” Ava said. “For example, Bai Lok sold you two videos. Is that correct?”

  “Yeah.”

  “One with you in it, and the other with Fai?”

  “You know that already.”

  “Lau Lau, I want to hear you say it. There can’t be any confusion about this.”

  “Yeah, I bought two videos from Lok — one with me in it and the other with Fai.”

  “Did you watch the one with Fai or did you just take Lok’s word for it?”

  “I watched it, or as much as I could stomach.”

  “Did you recognize the other woman in the video?”

  “She looked a little familiar. I can’t remember now.”

  “Try harder.”

  “She was an actress, maybe, a bit player, no one important. Her name might have been Mak something or other.”

  Ava nodded, pleased with that confirmation. “Yesterday you told me that you paid Lok thirty thousand renminbi for your video. What did you pay him for Fai’s?”

  “The same.”

  “You also told me that you only had about thirty thousand. How did you manage to pay him sixty?”

  “I wanted to protect her,” he said, seeming distracted.

  “We’re sure you did, and that’s why you cut the deal with Lok,” Ava said. “But how did you come up with the other thirty thousand?”

  “I sold the video with Fai in it.”

  “For how much?”

  “Two hundred thousand.”

  “To whom?”

  He looked at the money in his lap and then at Fai and Ava. “I didn’t phone anyone,” he blurted. “After you left yesterday I didn’t talk to anyone, except for the guy who just left here.”

  “That wasn’t my question.”

  “But I want you to know that I didn’t. It would be crazy of me to piss you off, knowing that you might have that video of me. I didn’t do it.”

  “Okay, we believe you didn’t phone anyone,” Ava said. “Now, who did you sell the video to?”

  “Xia Jun.”

  ( 44 )

  At first mention, the name Xia Jun didn’t register with Ava. Fai must have seen her confusion, because she quickly said, “He’s an agent. He’s Chen’s competitor. I mentioned him to you before.”

  “Why in hell would you sell the video to him?” Ava said to Lau Lau. “Fai had no connection to him.”

  “He was my agent at the time,” he said.

  “Yes, but what possible interest could he have had in that video, beyond some kind of kinky or morbid curiosity?” Ava asked.

  “There’s nothing kinky about Xia,” Lau Lau said. “He’s one of the most conservative guys I’ve ever met. That’s one of the reasons we split. He couldn’t handle my issues.”

  “Was he still working with Chen then?” Fai asked.

  Lau Lau looked slightly confused.

  “I think Xia might have been connected with Chen’s agency when Lau Lau sold him the video,” Fai said to Ava. “He went out on his own just over three years ago, which was right around the time Bai Lok met with Lau Lau.”

  “Didn’t someone tell us that Xia was Lok’s agent as well?”

  “Yes.”

  “So how does this make sense? Why would Lok go to Lau Lau and not directly to Xia?”

  “Maybe Lok and Xia weren’t connected any more. Maybe Lok thought Lau Lau was more likely to buy the video.”

  Lau Lau was slumped to one side, and Ava could see that his energy and interest were waning. She grabbed his arm and turned him to face her. “When you mentioned the video with Fai in it to Xia, how did he react?”

  “What do you mean? He bought it.”

  “Yes, we know he bought it, but did you have to convince him to, or was he eager to get his hands on it? Or was his reaction something in between?”

  “Once I told him what it was, he was interested right away. He wanted to see it, though, before buying it. After he watched five minutes of it, he asked what price I wanted and I told him. He agreed to it without any argument,” Lau Lau said. “I probably could have gotten double the price.”

  “So he was anxious to buy it?”

  “I guess.”

  “Why?”

  Lau
Lau looked at Fai and then nodded. “I think Fai’s right that Xia was still working for Chen then. She was the agency’s biggest client and money-maker, so it made sense they’d do anything to protect her. That was my reasoning, at least as best as I can recall.”

  “Why didn’t you go directly to Chen?”

  “He and I had stopped talking. He’d handed me off to Xia, so all my day-to-day business was with Xia.”

  Ava turned to Fai. “Is it likely that Lau Lau was managed by Xia? Is that the way it worked within Chen’s agency?”

  “Yes, that’s exactly how it worked, and still works. Chen only has time for the A-list clients. The others are handled by juniors. It’s a flexible arrangement, because you can move from the A list to the B list to the C list to out the door in a matter of months. You can also move up, of course, but that’s rarer,” Fai said. “Lau Lau was in the middle of a very rough patch around that time. If he says Xia was his agency contact, I believe him. Chen wouldn’t have wanted much to do with him.”

  “Assuming that’s true, and assuming that we believe everything Lau Lau has told us, that leaves us with some large questions to answer,” Ava said. “Did Xia pass the video to Chen or did he keep it and not tell Chen he had it? Or is it possible that he sold it to someone else?”

  “Chen would have told me if something like that had been given to him,” Fai said. “It’s also hard to believe that he would have sold it to someone else and it’s just surfacing now.”

  “I agree with you that it’s unlikely some unknown third party was involved, but are you certain about Chen? Maybe he didn’t want to worry you. Maybe he thought he could look after it better on his own.”

  “He would have told me,” Fai insisted.

  “If that’s true, then we have to believe that Xia kept the video,” Ava said. “But if he did keep it, why did he hold on to it for so long? I remember you telling me that Chen and Xia hate each other. Why wouldn’t Xia have used the video ages ago, to damage you as a way of damaging Chen and his business?”