“You’re right on time,” said Robbins, pulling himself up the stairs. His head just cleared the doorway, and when he stood inside, it skimmed the ceiling. His frame seemed to fill the front end of the plane. Maybe it was his proximity to her or the close quarters, but to Ava he seemed even more physically imposing than his brother. Maybe not quite as fit, not quite as agile, but certainly just as impressive. His plain white short-sleeved cotton shirt draped like a tent over his gargantuan belly and baggy blue jeans, and his feet were spilling out of unbuckled leather sandals. He glanced at Seto. “Is that the cargo?”
“Yes,” Ava said, her eyes now drawn to Robbins’s hands, which were covered by clear latex gloves drawn tight around his wrists.
Robbins had to turn sideways to get down the aisle. Ava stepped back, keeping out of his way. He reached down, grabbed Seto under the armpits, and lifted him in the air as if he were a small child. Ava half expected him to carry the man on his hip or over his shoulder. Instead he held him out at arm’s length, Seto’s head level with Robbins’s chest and his feet dangling just above the ground. “Let’s get him out of here,” he said, turning and walking towards the door.
Ava reached for her bags and for Seto’s. She didn’t know what else to do. She had no idea what to think. Her confusion was so obvious that the pilot said, “Is everything okay, Ms. Lee? Because if it isn’t …”
If it isn’t, then what? she thought. You’ll take me back to Guyana? “Just fine,” she said.
As she started down the stairs, Robbins was putting Seto none too gently into the wheelchair. The other two men, who were wearing uniforms with the insignia of Customs and Immigration, looked up at her without much interest. “I’m Ava Lee,” she said to them. “Is one of you Morris Thomas?”
“Thomas sent them to help. He’s in his office. That’s where we’re heading,” Robbins said.
They walked across the tarmac. One of the men pushed the wheelchair while the other chatted to him quietly. Ava was next to Robbins. His face was passive and he was completely silent.
When they neared the terminal, the wheelchair was swung to the left, away from the main entrance. About twenty metres along they came to double glass doors that read CUSTOMS AND IMMIGRATION. EMPLOYEES ONLY. Ava felt her spirits lift slightly.
They walked into a large open office that was deserted and then past a row of desks to the back. MORRIS THOMAS was stencilled on a grey steel door. “Leave the wheelchair outside. One of you stay with it,” Robbins said to the men. He reached for the handle, twisted, and swung the door open. “After you,” he said to Ava.
A thin black man in a blue shirt sat behind a desk that further diminished his size. He has to be sixty, Ava thought, taking in his wiry grey hair, a face lined with worry, and red-tinged eyes with pouches the size of tea bags. “This is Ava Lee,” Robbins said to him.
Thomas glanced up at her, his eyes filled with pity, or at best some form of weary resignation. Ava knew immediately that things would not go as planned. “A pleasure,” she said.
“Can I have your passport, please?” Thomas said.
There were two chairs in front of the desk. Robbins lowered himself slowly into one as Ava rooted through her bag. “Here you go,” she said.
She put her bags on the floor, took the chair next to Robbins, and watched Thomas make a show of turning the pages of her passport. It held forty pages, the largest the Canadian government issued; she’d already filled thirty-two pages and was going to need a new one before the expiry date. “A world traveller,” he said, closing it.
“It’s the nature of my business,” Ava said.
Thomas looked at Robbins, pursed his lips, and reached down to open a desk drawer. Ava watched him slip the passport into the drawer and close it. “You have a friend who arrived here earlier this evening, a Derek Liang,” he said.
“Yes,” Ava said, struggling to maintain her composure. “Captain Robbins told me he had made arrangements with you for Derek to land. I had expected to see him here.”
“There were some problems with his paperwork,” said Thomas slowly. His eyes avoided hers and Robbins’s.
“What kind of problems?” she asked.
Thomas rolled his head from side to side. “His papers weren’t in order. We couldn’t let him stay. We picked him up at the apartment he had rented and put him on a plane headed back to Puerto Rico.” He looked at his watch. “He left about fifteen minutes ago. And just so we’re clear, we notified the Puerto Rican authorities that he shouldn’t be allowed to stay there either. I believe they intend to put him on the first flight back to Canada, which should leave around midnight tonight. To Montreal, I think.”
Ava glanced at Robbins. His eyes were half closed, a slight grin tugging at the corners of his mouth. “This wasn’t what was agreed upon,” she said.
Thomas raised his right hand and motioned to Robbins, his part in the proceedings done.
The big man checked his watch, a Patek Philippe that was lost in the folds of flesh around his wrist. Ava wondered if it was real. Then she saw the back of his hands for the first time: red splotches of skin interspersed with black and green scabs. She turned her head away quickly.
“There’s been a change in plans, Ms. Lee. My brother is scheduled to call here any minute now, so if you will be patient I’d appreciate it.”
“Do I have another option?” she asked.
“No.”
“Jack, you don’t need me anymore, do you? Because if you don’t mind I’ll take myself home,” Thomas said.
“Say hello to Betty for me.”
“I will,” Thomas said, rising from his chair.
“Leave one of the men, will you?”
“I’ll leave both.”
“Only need the one.”
“Okay. Just close the door when you go. It locks itself.”
When Thomas left, the room seemed suddenly empty. Ava shifted in her chair, and then to her shock Robbins’s gloved right hand shot out and grabbed her upper arm. He squeezed, his fingers digging through her flesh until they reached bone. She flinched, more from surprise than pain. “My brother warned me about you,” he said. “I’m just telling you it would be stupid to try anything with me.”
“I had no intention-” she began, only to be cut off by the sound of a cellphone ringing to the tune of the William Tell overture.
“It’s me,” Robbins said. He listened for a few seconds. “No, it went well. She’s sitting next to me.” He paused and then passed the phone to Ava.
Ava wiped the mouthpiece against her shirt. “This is Ava Lee.”
“Before anything else is said, let me immediately apologize for this untimely departure from our plans.”
She heard the clink of ice against glass. He was at home. Drinking. “Captain, what exactly is going on?”
He laughed, or coughed; she wasn’t sure which. “I felt it necessary to make some changes to our arrangement.”
“So your brother told me, though he was somewhat lacking in detail.”
“The thing is, Ms. Lee, you didn’t play fair with me.”
She sensed at once where this was headed, but she wasn’t going to go there first. “As I remember, Captain, I paid you $100,000 for services rendered, and then another $200,000 for services that so far have been unfulfilled. So in terms of being fair, I think I’m the one who should have be complaining.”
“You aren’t the least bit curious as to why I feel aggrieved?”
“We have an agreement, one that I’ve completely honoured. I don’t need to know any more than that.”
“The thing is,” he said again, slurring the s, “I’ve found out that you’ve been less than forthcoming with me.”
Ava closed her eyes. Had this been his plan all along? Had he arranged to get her and Seto to the British Virgin Islands just so he could squeeze her? Had the note with his daughters’ names and phone numbers just been theatre? “Captain, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Ice clinked. “I stopped by Seto’s house on the way back from the airport tonight and had a chat with his woman,” he said slowly. “Don’t know why I did it, actually; it just came to me that it was the thing to do. Anyway,
