parents, any siblings you have, your in-laws, and anyone you’re doing or have ever done business with. My experi- ence is that Americans, particularly Americans in the South, and Baptists at that, are slightly less liberal about matters like this than Thais are.”
He closed his eyes. A good sign, she thought. He was imagining the worst. He was calculating the odds. “How do I know — ”
“You don’t,” she interrupted. “But I am in the habit of keeping my word. Just help me find Seto and the photos will be burned.”
“Fuck.”
“I’m sorry it had to be like this, I really am. If I could have found him any other way this wouldn’t have been necessary,” she said.
“What will you do if you locate him?”
“Get the money back.”
“What if I direct you to him and you can’t get the money back? What will happen to the photos?”
“Just get me to him. Do that and you’re completely off the hook, I promise.”
He chewed a fingernail while he thought. “You got a pen?”
She took out her notebook and Mont Blanc. “Go ahead.”
“I’ll give you his email address. He rarely checks it and normally doesn’t answer directly. I email him and tell him I need to talk, and he phones me. But you can try. You never know.”
“All right.”
“Right now he doesn’t have a North American or Asian phone number that works. You’ll have to call 592-223 -7878.”
“What area code is that?”
“Guyana.”
“He’s in Guyana?”
“Obviously.”
“Why Guyana?”
“We used to buy bangamary and sea trout there. We’d ship it to Atlanta, tray-pack, and sell it to the black and Hispanic markets. It was a good business for a while. Jackson has a house there, and a kind of wife, and he knows enough of the right people that he feels safe there. Whenever things get tight, he always fucks off to Guyana.”
“You’re sure I’ll find him there?”
“He was there yesterday.”
“Why does he feel safe there?”
Antonelli smiled. “Guyana is a shithole, filled with people who either helped make it a shithole or people who thrive in shitholes. Even for me — and I’ve seen a lot of shitholes — it’s more shithole than I can stand. And Jackson has surrounded himself with the nastiest bunch of shitholes he could find. As long as he pays them, they’ll do what he wants.”
“What about the police?”
“Most of the people he’s paying are the fucking police.”
“Do you have an address for him?”
“Malvern Gardens. I don’t know the number but there are only about ten houses in the subdivision. It’s fucking grand by Georgetown standards, and he’s the only Chinese there.”
“Georgetown is the main city?”
“Yep. A shithole.”
“I get the picture,” she said.
“You think you do,” he said. “Wait till you get there. However bad you think it is, it will be that much worse.”
“If I get there and it turns out that Seto knows I’m coming — ”
“I won’t tell him.”
“I mean it. If he has any clue — ”
“Look, I don’t want those photos in the wrong hands. You know that. You are a hundred percent fucking sure about that, aren’t you? So I’m trusting that you will honour your word. That’s all. Do I think you’re going to be able to ambush Seto and get him to fork over the money? No, I don’t. I don’t think you’ve got a fucking chance in hell. So with that thought in my mind, why would I risk screwing you over? I’ll not say a word to him. Nothing. You go and do whatever the hell you want. You just can’t blame me if it doesn’t work out.”
“Give me your phone.”
“Why?”
“Just do it, please.”
He tossed his cellphone to her. She caught it and flipped it open. “I’m going to call the Guyana number you gave me,” she said. “I’m also going to put the phone in speaker mode.” She checked her watch. “It isn’t too late there. Hopefully he’ll answer. If he doesn’t, then what? Voicemail?”
“Yeah.”
“Either way, just tell him you’re going away for a long weekend and that you’ll be out of touch until the middle of next week. Is that plausible? Would you do that under normal circumstances?”
“I have.”
She hit the numbers, put the phone in speaker mode, and placed it on the table between them. It rang four times before a muffled voice answered, “What the hell do you want, George?”
“Jack, just wanted you to know I’m heading down to Phuket for some R and R. I’m not taking my laptop, so you won’t hear from me till next week.”
“Whatever. Have fun.” The phone went dead.
She was surprised to hear that Seto still had a trace of Chinese accent. His brother spoke flawless English and she had expected the same of him.
“Okay, you happy?” Antonelli said.
“One last thing,” she said slowly. “Money. Do you have access to the money?”
“No,” he said. “That’s all Jackson.”
“Has he sent you money?”
“He sends me money every month, but just enough to cover my overheads, my expenses.”
“You don’t profit-share?”
“We have a seventy-thirty split, and you don’t have to guess who gets the seventy. Normally we wait till year-end, around Christmas, before we dip into it. By then we know how much we actually have. You know, there are a lot of fucking ups and downs in our business.”
“So it seems.”
“And you could be one big fucking down.”
“Let’s hope,” she said, standing. She put the notebook and the envelope back in her purse. “Thanks for your help.”
“What I hope is that I never hear your fucking voice again,” he said.
“The feeling is mutual.”
(14)
Antonelli’s description of Guyana began to fade the moment Ava went online to find a flight to Georgetown. The most obvious carrier, she thought, would be a national airline. Every country has one. Except Guyana — theirs had gone bankrupt in 2001. And then there had been another, quasi-national one that went broke as well.
The predominant carrier that flew to Guyana was Caribbean Airlines, and all its inbound flights originated in Port of Spain, Trinidad. The best way to get to Port of Spain was through New York or Miami. She knew that Thai Air had a direct flight from Bangkok to New York. It left at midnight and got into New York in the late afternoon. There was a flight to Port of Spain at 7 p.m. She would have to overnight in Port of Spain and catch a morning flight
