“I imagine you’re eager to inform Hong Kong of your success?”
“You know I am.”
“I’ve told my brother that you’re free to use your computer. Please show him the transfer requests you did before and then follow the same model.”
“The only difference, obviously, is that I’m going to ask our accountant to fax and email you directly a copy of our bank’s wire transfer to your Cayman account.”
“That’s understood. I must say, Ms. Lee, it’s a pleasure doing business with someone who values efficiency as much as I do.”
“Well, speaking of efficiency,” Ava said, “while I’m on the computer I wouldn’t mind booking a flight out of here for sometime late tomorrow.”
“I guess that won’t do any harm,” Robbins said slowly. “But until things are concluded, you understand, our current working arrangement will remain intact.”
“I didn’t expect anything different.”
“Good. Now let me speak to my brother again.”
Jack Robbins listened for a minute, closed his phone, and said to Davey, “Take us back to the apartment.”
“Hey, I need to eat,” Ava protested.
“We’ll have something delivered.”
(38)
Ava really did have to eat. the memory of the fish and chips was long gone, and the rice crackers and hummus she’d snacked on during the afternoon hadn’t done much to fill the void in her stomach, a void that had expanded as the tension of doing business with Jeremy Bates and the bank subsided.
She wanted Chinese. Robbins told her there wasn’t any in Road Town, and when she said that was impossible he turned to Davey. “Tell her, will you?”
“There ain’t none.”
“How about Italian?” she asked.
“You like pizza?” Davey asked. “The Capriccio is good,” he said to Robbins.
“Drop us off at the apartment and then head over there. Better get three large, with sausage, mushrooms, and olives. That okay with you?” Robbins said to Ava.
“Thin crust?”
“Two regular, one thin crust. Call when you get to the building. We’ll come down and get the food.”
As Ava and Robbins walked back to the Guildford she could feel that he was less tense now as well. She wondered if his brother had said anything in particular to him. When they got into the apartment, he said, “Where do you want to set up the computer?”
The cable connection was in the kitchen, next to the phone. While Ava got her computer and notebook from her bedroom, Robbins went into the fridge for a Stella. He was sitting at the kitchen table, the bottle already half empty, when she came back and started to get set up.
The connection was good and Ava quickly got online. “I’m going to sign into my email account now,” she said.
He came over to her side, his head almost touching her shoulder. “Don’t crowd me, please,” she said. He pulled back about six inches.
Her inbox had more than thirty messages. “I have to open that one from your brother. It has his fax number in it,” she said, ignoring the others. She opened her notebook to the Guyana page where she’d recorded the Captain’s bank account information, and wrote the fax number underneath. Then she hit the messages sent tab, scanned down, and found her first email to Uncle with Robbins’s bank information.
“There, that’s what I sent before,” she said to Robbins, not remembering exactly what she had written in addition to the bank details. Not much, it turned out. At least no editorializing, nothing negative about the Captain.
“Okay,” Robbins said.
Ava clicked on the compose button, typed in Uncle’s email address, and then copied the email she had shown Robbins, changing only the amount of money to be wired and adding a request that a copy of the confirmation be emailed and faxed to Captain Robbins at the address and number provided. When she had finished, she said, “Here, read this and make sure it’s all right. In fact, why don’t you call your brother and read it to him? That way neither of us has to worry about being accused of screwing up.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” he said.
“Good. While you do that, I’m going to the bathroom,” she said, standing up. He pulled back to let her pass. She didn’t know which she needed more, to pee or to get out from under the hovering Robbins. Even in mute mode he was still oppressive.
Ava was about to sit on the toilet, skirt pulled up and panties around her knees, when the copy of the second wire transfer fell to the floor. God help her if she hadn’t remembered it back at the bank. She would have been hard-pressed to talk her way around that problem. It would have cost her more money at the very least, and more important, it would have destroyed any trust the Captain had in her. She picked it up and tucked it back into her underwear.
When she came out of the washroom, Robbins was at the table again, a second beer freshly opened. “Did you reach your brother?” she asked.
He nodded. “You can send the email.”
“I want to change first. I don’t feel like eating pizza in these clothes.”
“Whatever.”
She took off her jewellery first, putting everything neatly away. Then she slid off her skirt and reached into her panties for the folded piece of paper, which she put in the pocket of the Shanghai Tang bag that held her Hong Kong passport. She unbuttoned her shirt, thinking that with any luck she was done with dress shirts for a while, and reached for her last clean T-shirt.
“Your brother did tell you that I can stay online and book a flight after I send this email?” Ava asked as she re-entered the living room and walked towards the kitchen.
Robbins nodded and then got to his feet to stand behind the chair where she’d been sitting. Ava resumed her place. The email was still exactly as she had drafted it. She hit the send button. “There we go — the easiest two million dollars Captain Robbins ever made,” she said.
The apartment intercom sounded. Davey’s familiar voice said, “Pizza man.”
Robbins went to the door and pressed the button. “Can you get in?”
“Not without a key.”
“Okay, I’m coming downstairs,” he said and then looked at Ava.
“I’m looking for flights. I’m not going anywhere,” she said.
He hesitated.
“What am I going to do, for God’s sake, jump off the balcony?”
“Be back in two,” he said.
Ava found an American Airlines flight to San Juan. From there she could catch the midnight flight to Montreal or any one of a number of connections to Toronto through Miami, Chicago, or Newark. She did a rough calculation. If they moved fast in Hong Kong, Robbins would have his copy of the wire by morning — the middle of the night, actually. That might allow her to get a morning flight to San Juan, an early afternoon flight to the U.S., and a connection that would get her into Toronto in the evening. Why not? she thought, as she signed off on that itinerary.
Just as she finished, Robbins was back with three large pizza boxes in hand. He put them on the counter, the aroma filling the small kitchen. He opened the top one and put it aside. “That’s yours,” he said.
Ava salivated as she took a plate from the cupboard. As she did, Robbins took her place at the computer. He hit the messages sent tab. The email to Uncle was top of the list. He switched to deleted messages. Nothing. Ava
