“Did you hear what I said?”
“The water is always brown. We get it from the Demerara. We have our own purification system — the water is perfectly safe, but we can’t do anything about the colour.”
Ava hung up and climbed back into the shower. She closed her eyes, shut her mouth, and tried not to breathe through her nose, soaping and rinsing herself as quickly as she could. Getting to Jackson Seto was becoming more urgent.
When she got out of the shower, she put on a fresh T-shirt and track pants and waited for Jeff in the rattan chair. She passed the time reading a copy of the Guyana Times, which had been at her door when she came back from the market. The lead article was about some club owners who were complaining about police raids. The clubs were indeed illegal, but the owners maintained that the police were being too heavy-handed during raids and were driving away tourists. What made it even stranger was that the minister of culture and tourism was quoted as saying that the club owners had a point. The next page was one giant police blotter: a list of crimes committed over the past twenty-four hours. Arrests for drug dealing, robbery, mugging, and physical assault were pretty common.
Ava heard a knock at the door. She opened it to see Jeff standing there. He had changed his clothes and was now wearing jeans and a tank top. On his right shoulder was a tattoo of a lightning bolt.
“I called but no one answered,” he said.
“I guess I was in the shower.”
“You want to go somewhere?”
“Yes. I mentioned Malvern Gardens earlier and you said you know where it is.”
“I do.”
“That’s where I want to go.”
“It’s a housing estate.”
“I know.”
“Do you have an address?”
“No, we need to find that out. The guy who lives there is named Jackson Seto.”
“Wait a minute,” he said, and squeezed past her into the room. He opened the bottom drawer of her dresser and pulled out a phone book. “He lives at number eight.”
As they rode the elevator to the ground floor Ava said, “Before we go, there are a few things we need to make clear. For starters, I’m probably going to be sitting in the car with you for a while, and I have no idea how long. I’m looking for this guy Seto, and all I know is that he lives at 8 Malvern Gardens. When he does appear, we’re going to follow him and see what happens. Are you okay with that?”
“What if you don’t see him?”
“Then we’ll go back tomorrow and do it all over again.”
“Is this legal? I mean, are you a cop or something?”
“It’s perfectly legal and I’m not a cop.”
“Can I ask why?”
“No.”
He gazed down at her. “Well, I can’t say you look like much of a threat to anyone.”
The Jeep had been left idling at the hotel entrance. Jeff started up High Street and then cut left. The road was littered with potholes, and one was so big it could have swallowed the front end of the vehicle. “Don’t they ever fix those things?” Ava asked.
“No.”
“Do they try?”
“Not so you’d notice.”
When they reached the end of the street, they were confronted by a structure about six or seven storeys high made entirely of corrugated iron. Ava could see rows of razor wire along the top. The building had no windows, just a door barricaded by a semicircle of concrete pillars. Standing to the left of the door with their backs pressed against the wall was a line of women.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Camp Street Prison,” he said.
“It must be an oven in there.”
“No one much cares.”
“And the women?”
“Waiting for visiting hours.”
As they moved away from the city centre, the mix of retail stores gave way to rows of stucco, stone, and even brick houses, most protected by tall concrete walls with rolls of razor wire glinting fiendishly across the top. “I’ve never seen so much razor wire,” she said.
“It’s the choice of the budget-conscious middle class, who can’t afford a personal guard or a security service. Ever come in contact with it?”
“No, of course not.”
“It’ll rip you to shreds.”
They had left the city proper and were driving through countryside when a housing development, as isolated as an oasis in the desert, appeared on the right. From a distance all Ava could see was a brick wall and red tile roofs; she thought, Gated community. But as they drew closer she saw that the road leading into Malvern Gardens wasn’t barred. Jeff stopped the Jeep between two stone pillars at the entrance to a cul-de-sac. There were five houses down each side and two at the end. The two-storey brick-and-stone homes were enormous, reminding Ava of high-end suburban developments in Toronto. Each sat on a one-acre lot surrounded by a stone wall about 2.5 metres high that was crowned with large shards of glass and razor wire. The only way into each compound was through heavy metal gates with sharp points at the top and more razor wire strung through them.
“This is Millionaires’ Row,” said Jeff.
The house numbers went up by fours. Seto’s house was the second on the left. It had a latticed gate, and as they drove past Ava saw an old Mercedes and a Land Rover parked in the driveway. Someone was home.
She pointed back towards where they had turned off the main road. “If we park behind one of those pillars we can see everyone coming and going from the house,” she said. “And if they turn left to go to the city, we’ll have a clear view.”
Jeff turned the Jeep around and parked behind the pillar. From that angle they could see Seto’s gate and the end of his driveway.
“Now what?” he asked.
“We wait.”
“Do you mind if I sleep?”
“Go ahead.”
Jeff got out and climbed into the back seat to lie down. “I sleep lightly, so don’t worry about having to wake me if we need to move.”
She had kept her watch in the zippered pocket of her pants. She pulled it out and put it on. It was 3:30 p.m.
Jeff slept until just past five, when he woke with a start.
“Nothing yet,” she said.
“I need to piss.”
“Be my guest.”
He went behind the car, his back turned to the Jeep.
“What time does it get dark?” she asked when he climbed back in.
“Six.”
At five thirty Seto’s gate swung open. Ava drew a deep breath. The Mercedes backed out onto the road and then crept towards them. Ava saw that the driver was a young East Indian woman, heavily made up, with lots of jewellery on both wrists and at least three gold chains around her neck.
“That’s a disappointment,” she said.
The gate remained open. Somebody else is going to leave, she thought. After a couple of minutes a wiry Asian man in jeans and a black T-shirt ambled out onto the road. He took a quick look around and then motioned
