“We don’t like to get mixed up in things like this,” he said.
“I know, but sometimes it’s difficult to avoid people like Seto.”
“Never again. I’m closing his account as soon as I get off the phone with you.”
“Oh no, don’t do that,” she said quickly. “Please leave it alone. I need you to call me at once if Seto comes back to the bank or contacts you in any way.”
“Ms. Cohen, you do know there was a second wire as well?”
Ava couldn’t help being surprised. “No, I didn’t.”
“Yeah, for just over a million dollars, from Safeguard, a retail food chain in Portland, Oregon. We sent it to the same account in the British Virgin Islands.”
“When?”
“Two days ago.”
It looked as if Seto had cleared out the inventory. That was a good thing. Money was easier to repossess than goods, and she wouldn’t have to worry about selling it if she got her hands on it.
“You’ve been terrific, Mr. Goldman. Let’s hope I don’t have talk to you again.”
It was just past two o’clock and Ava hadn’t eaten anything all day except a bowl of congee for breakfast. There was a Chinese restaurant on Bloor Street that served dim sum till three. She looked out her window at the street below. It wasn’t snowing but it was cold and blustery, and the few pedestrians who had ventured out were wrapped up tightly and walking as quickly as they could, chins buried in their chests. She called the Italian restaurant where she had eaten the night before and ordered a pizza for delivery.
Then she called the travel agent she always used to book her trips. Most of her friends booked online, but she preferred having a buffer between herself and the airlines in case she had to make schedule changes, which she often did. She told the agent to book her on a flight to Seattle and to reserve a seat from there to Hong Kong and then on to Thailand.
Ava called her mother and her best friend, Mimi, to let them know she was getting out of town. The winter was wearing her down, she said, and she was heading to Thailand for ten days or so of fun and sun.
“Are you going through Hong Kong?” her mother asked.
“Yes.”
“Will you call your father?”
“No.”
She heard disappointment in her mother’s voice. “So, you are just seeing Uncle?”
“Mum, I’ll be in transit in Hong Kong. I probably won’t see anyone.”
Ava travelled light. It took her less than half an hour to pack her Louis Vuitton monogrammed suitcase and her Shanghai Tang “Double Happiness” bag. The suitcase was where she packed her business look: black linen slacks, a pencil skirt, Cole Hahn black leather pumps, two sets of black bras and panties, and three Brooks Brothers shirts in powder blue, pink, and white — one with a button-down collar, the other two with modified Italian collars, and all of them with French cuffs. She chose a small jewellery case to hold her Cartier Tank Francaise watch, a set of green jade cufflinks, and a simple gold crucifix. She then went through the leather pouch that held her collection of clasps, pins, barrettes, headbands, and combs and took out an ivory chignon pin she especially loved, adding it to the jewellery case. Ava wore her hair up nearly all the time and liked to accentuate it. Nothing did so better than the chignon pin.
Her toilet kit was always packed and ready to go: toothbrush, toothpaste, hairbrush, deodorant, shampoo, Annick Goutal perfume, one lipstick, and mascara. The shampoo was in a hundred-millilitre bottle, as required by airport security. She had four such bottles neatly packed in the plastic bag that was also required. Only one of the bottles held shampoo; the other three contained chloral hydrate.
The contents of the Shanghai Tang bag were more eclectic: the Moleskine notebook, two fountain pens, her computer, running shoes and shorts, a sports bra, socks, three Giordano T-shirts, a Chanel purse to take to meetings, and two rolls of duct tape. Ava went to the kitchen, took thirty Starbucks coffee sachets from a container, and tossed them into the bag.
At eight she called Uncle.
“ Wei,” he answered.
“I found the money,” she said.
“The shrimp?”
“No, the shrimp have been sold already. I’ve located the money.”
“How much?”
“About five million.”
“Where is it?”
“British Virgin Islands.”
“That’s not a surprise,” he said. “Half of Hong Kong has bank accounts there.”
“I’m heading for Seattle tomorrow morning to see if I can find Jackson Seto and persuade him to give the money to Andrew Tam.”
“What do you think?”
“I have no expectations. I get into Seattle tomorrow morning around eleven. Both his office address and supposed home address are downtown, within a couple of blocks of each other. Who knows, I might get lucky.”
“If you don’t?”
“I’m booked on Cathay Pacific tomorrow night into Hong Kong.”
“Are you staying?”
“Maybe a day or two. I want to check out Seto’s Hong Kong address in Wanchai, and I might meet with Tam. I also want to talk to the guy who introduced Seto to Dynamic Financial Services.”
“Let me know how it goes in Seattle. I don’t care what time you call. If you come to Hong Kong, where do you want to stay?”
“The Mandarin.”
“I’ll book it for you just in case.”
“Thanks, Uncle.”
“And I’ll meet you at the airport.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know, but I want to.”
She usually slept well. Her sleep mechanism was bak mei, the basic moves played and replayed in slow motion. That night was a little different. The core form was the panther, but this time she had a target: a tall, skinny Chinese man with a scrawny moustache and five million dollars in a bank account in the British Virgin Islands.
(5)
Seattle was a bust. The office was closed, empty. Seto had moved out of the apartment the month before.
Ava was back at Sea-Tac Airport four hours before her flight was scheduled to leave, so she killed some time getting a full body massage in the Cathay Pacific business lounge. She called Uncle just before boarding. He again insisted he’d meet her at the airport and she again told him he didn’t have to. She knew how much he hated the new Hong Kong International Airport at Chek Lap Kok. He lived in Kowloon, no more than ten minutes by car from the old airport, Kai Tak.
Kai Tak had been theatre and drama, the planes approaching Hong Kong precariously through mountains and skyscrapers, crossing Kowloon Bay, their wing tips almost touching the lines of laundry on the balconies of the apartment buildings that pressed in on the airport. Then there was the bus ride from the tarmac to the tired old terminal, which had been built for l950s levels of air traffic, and the long lines at Customs before one emerged into a small, cramped Arrivals hall where hundreds, if not thousands, of people lined the corridor, waving and yelling at the incoming passengers.
