softly.
“Ms. Lee is quite right. We do have business to discuss, Mr. Lafontaine,” Robbins said, wiping tears from eyes. “This is no place for you.”
Lafontaine started to say something but Ava cut him off. “I’ll call you if I need you.”
They watched him leave, the three men still chuckling. Robbins said, “When I heard this story, how could I send Patrick to meet you alone? What if he offended you?”
“Don’t make fun of me or the situation I was in. They were going to rape me. I dealt with them, that’s all.”
“Apologies,” Robbins said. “Sit, please.” Robbins sat down as well; his two men stood on either side of his chair. “I have daughters, as you know, and I am sensitive to the situation you found yourself in this afternoon. I’d like to think that anyone who tried that with my girls would be equally indisposed. Except I can’t imagine my girls inflicting that kind of damage. You are an amazing young woman, Ms. Lee. That’s why I wanted to meet you in person. I thought you would be built like a shot putter, yet here you are, not much more than a hundred pounds soaking wet.”
“I appreciate that you came,” she said.
“I’m drinking beer. What can I get you?”
“Nothing, thank you. I’m quite sated.”
“You speak like a Havergal graduate.”
“I am one.”
“I believe you. So what is this business you’re involved in? It doesn’t sound like something a Havergal grad would pursue.”
“I’m a forensic accountant. I find money that has been misappropriated and try to return it to its rightful owner.”
“And there’s misappropriated money in Guyana?”
“No, the money is in the British Virgin Islands, but the thief is here.”
“Name?”
“Jackson Seto.”
Robbins’s eyes showed no sign of recognition, and she felt a surge of optimism. If he didn’t know the name, Seto couldn’t be all that high in the food chain.
“Boys, do you have any information for me?” Robbins asked.
Patrick leaned forward and whispered in Robbins’s ear.
The Captain looked at her and said, “Could you excuse us for a moment, Ms. Lee? We need to chat amongst ourselves.”
She left the lounge and sat in the lobby, her back deliberately turned to them. In what seemed like less than a minute there was a gentle tap on her shoulder. Patrick was looking down at her. “The Captain will talk to you now.”
Now it was just the two of them; the men had moved to the lobby.
“Seto is a friend of a friend,” Robbins said.
“I want to be a better friend.”
The Captain put his fingertips together, placing them against his nose. “To whom?”
“That’s your decision.”
“Tell me what your plans are for this Seto.”
“I have to convince him to give the money back.”
“Using logic?”
“Yes.”
“And if that fails?”
She shrugged.
“And what would we be expected to do?”
“Stay out of it. Keep everyone out of it.”
“That sounds simple enough.”
“That isn’t to say that I might not need active assistance at some point.”
His eyes glittered, and she wondered why he seemed so amused.
“There is a substantial difference between turning a blind eye and becoming actively involved in whatever it is you have in mind,” Robbins said.
“Everything has a price.”
“You are a mercenary, Ms. Lee.”
“I am an accountant,” she said.
“Exactly.”
“Obviously I can’t be sure what kind of help I might need until I can actually get to Seto and spend some time alone with him.”
“Give me an idea, though, will you?”
“I’d like all the information you have on him. You must have a dossier somewhere.”
“That’s not difficult.”
“He has a Vietnamese bodyguard. I would like to have him put out of circulation for forty-eight to seventy-two hours.”
“Go on.”
“Seto seems to go to Eckie’s Club every night. I’ll try to talk to him there. If he isn’t cooperative I’ll need a place to take him. I can’t very well bring him back to the hotel. His house would be ideal but I’m not sure that will be doable, so I want to have a backup plan.”
“This is getting more expensive. You know that, yes?”
“If I do need to start moving him around I’ll need some physical assistance, so you might have to assign someone to me.”
“Is there more?”
“Not for now.”
“Those are a lot of ifs.”
“I always think it’s better to plan for the worst.”
“You do know that he pays a fee to some friends to look out for his interests?”
“I’ll pay more.”
“But you’ll only pay once. He pays annually. Then there are all those ifs. How do we factor those into the equation?”
“I want you to assume that I’ll need all the help I’ve outlined here and to give me a figure that accommodates them and makes everyone happy about upgrading friends.”
He put the beer bottle to his lips and drank delicately. “I’m not good at numbers,” he said.
Ava was not going to be the one to put the first offer on the table. It was Uncle’s primary rule of negotiation: let the other party start. Not that she needed that advice. Her mother had practised that her entire life, in every transaction, big or small, that she had ever made. Even at the Chanel store in Toronto, her mother regarded the sticker price as merely an opening bid in the negotiation process. Ava had absorbed that life lesson. She turned her palms upward, as if helpless to know where to start, caught his eye, and let him know she was waiting for him.
He breathed deeply, a sigh of exasperation. She could almost see him calculating. How much money was she here to get? How much could Seto have gotten away with? He was in Guyana, after all, not the Cayman Islands, so it couldn’t be a fortune. What percentage of it could he claim?
“Two hundred thousand will get you all the assistance you need,” he said.
She had expected a larger sum. “That’s too much, Captain. My clients would never agree to pay that amount.”
“Then…?”
She couldn’t insult him. They had paid for help before, sometimes up to ten percent of the amount owed. But that had been based on a successful recovery. This was a payment with no guarantees attached. All she knew was that without the Captain she probably had zero chance of success.
