“If they helped that much — ”
“Without them I wouldn’t be in Vegas.”
“Who are you in Las Vegas to see?”
“A man named David Douglas. He’s a professional poker player.”
She could hear barking in the background and the sound of traffic. He was walking the dog. “Do you need any assistance?” he asked.
“I don’t know yet. I need to locate him and then figure out how to approach him. There’s another man involved, a partner in his business named Jeremy Ashton, but I think Douglas will be my first priority.”
“Keep me up to date. Chang has called several times today. Ordonez is acting crazy where his brother is concerned. He thinks Chew’s attempted suicide was just another way for him to avoid taking responsibility. Chang is not sure how long he can keep Ordonez from doing something rash. The only thing holding him back is fear of losing face.”
“Things won’t work on my end if he blows up.”
“I have been telling them that.”
“And?”
“Chang agrees, but Ordonez is a man who needs to be in control and needs to be doing something. He is not accustomed to being made to wait.”
“I need time.”
“I will do what I can.”
Ava knew he would. Anything more she had to say would be redundant, if not insulting. “I’ll call tomorrow around the same time,” she said.
“Just a second,” Uncle said. “Jackie Leung — I found out that he is back in Hong Kong. Sonny is looking for him, and knowing Sonny, he will find him soon enough. In the meantime, I have been talking to Guangzhou. They do not want to unilaterally cancel the contract. They feel they have made a pact with Leung that they need to honour.”
Ava felt a tiny knot of anxiety in her stomach. “What does that mean, that they don’t want to unilaterally cancel the contract?”
“As long as Leung is alive we have to assume they will continue to look for you.”
“And if he’s dead?”
“No Leung, no contract.”
“And in the meantime what am I supposed to do?”
“Be careful. I cannot imagine they will find you before Sonny finds Leung. Leung is in Hong Kong, and not many people know Hong Kong better than Sonny.”
“How hard are they looking?”
“They are professional,” Uncle said.
Ava shook her head. She didn’t need this distraction, not now, not ever. “I’ll be careful,” she said.
(21)
By 9 a.m. Ava was running along Las Vegas Boulevard. It was as if she were in a different world than the one she had arrived in nine hours before. The sidewalks that had been clogged with tourists and locals the previous night were now blissfully vacant. She ran south, retracing the route the limo had taken from McCarran Airport.
The desert air was crisp and clean. The streets had been washed and cleared of the beer bottles, empty cigarette packs, and other debris that the drunken revellers left every night. The casinos, so gaudily lit at night, now looked almost naked to Ava’s eyes.
She ran for close to an hour, starting on the west end of the Strip, past the Bellagio, with its man-made lake set before the facade of an Italian village nestled in mountains; on to the Luxor Hotel, which was shaped like a pyramid; and past the Paris Las Vegas with its Eiffel Tower and the Venetian, where gondoliers were now stationed in the canal. Vegas brought the world to America.
Back at Wynn’s she showered, put on a black Giordano T-shirt and her Adidas training pants, and then made herself a Starbucks VIA instant coffee. She opened the drapes, sat at the dining table, and turned on her computer. The golf course offered a pleasant view: ribbons of green punctuated by pale white bunkers and man-made ponds.
Ava’s plan for the day was low-key. She wanted to find out a bit more about The River, Ashton, and Douglas. Online she found The River’s website and its office address, which was on Korval Lane, the first street south of Las Vegas Boulevard. Then, using the information Martin Littlefeather had provided, she located Ashton’s residence, a condo near the Hard Rock Hotel, and Douglas’s house, in what looked like a ritzy neighbourhood southwest of the city called The Oasis. With time to kill, she decided to take a look at all three.
Ava left her room and took the elevator to the hotel lobby, then walked outside and joined the queue for a taxi. There were ten people ahead of her, but with typical Vegas efficiency she was in a cab in less than five minutes. With the luck of the draw, she got a driver who was Chinese. She spoke English to him at first, but when he answered haltingly, she switched to Cantonese. His Cantonese was as rough as his English, so Ava changed to Mandarin. The driver smiled at her in his rear-view mirror and introduced himself as Au.
“Could you take me to Korval Lane?” she asked.
The River’s office was only a few minutes away. They drove a kilometre south from Wynn’s to Flamingo Avenue and then turned left and drove towards Korval, which was at the next intersection. Even though they were only a block away from the Strip, the neighbourhood was decidedly plain in contrast. They passed small office complexes, low-rent motels, and several rows of townhouses that rented by the week or the month. The River was in a three-storey brown stucco building whose walls were starting to peel. A sign outside listed two dentists, an accountant, a chiropractor, and a podiatrist. There was no mention of The River. She had Au stop outside, just as he was telling her that he was from Beijing and his wife was from Hong Kong. She got out of the car and walked into the lobby. A tenant board listed the same occupants on the first and second floors and, in smaller letters, The River on the third. Why such a dumpy building? Ava thought. Why so inconspicuous a presence?
Ava got back in the cab and directed Au to Ashton’s condo. They drove west along Harmon, past low-rise apartment buildings, strip malls, and gas stations to Paradise Road, and then turned south. Ashton’s condo was close to twenty storeys high and one of several in a row just beside the Hard Rock Hotel. It was set back from the road, with no security at the driveway entrance. Au drove up to the front door and Ava got out.
The door to the building required a code. Through the glass door Ava could see inside, where a security guard sitting behind a desk was eyeing her. Another guard appeared from a side door and glanced in her direction. Ava knew there would be security cameras as well.
“Do you know where The Oasis is?” she asked Au when she got back into the idling taxi.
“It’s about a thirty-minute drive beyond the Strip,” Au said.
“Take me there, please.”
They wormed their way through the suburbs, stopping at nearly every intersection until they reached the desert. Ava knew that distances in the desert were deceptive; the complex came into view at least five minutes before they got to the gated community. The Oasis was essentially in the middle of nowhere, a sprawling mass of houses whose roofs peeked above a ten-foot-tall brick wall crowned with razor wire. Across the entranceway sat a lonely looking service station.
“Drive slowly past the entrance,” she said. When they were just past it, she asked him to pull over and park.
Ava noted the double-barrelled security system. First there was a security gate with a barrier activated by a card and a speaker set up for visitors to identify themselves. A car drove past them and into the complex; the driver waved a plastic card in front of the box and the barrier rose. Two guards were manning a security checkpoint about fifty metres past the barrier. When the driver got to the checkpoint, one of the guards came out of the hut to look inside the car. The guard was young, fit, and alert. Ava noticed he carried a gun on his hip in an open holster.
“Let’s go back to the hotel,” she said.
As they drove back to the Strip, Au continued to chat, but Ava’s mind was elsewhere. It wasn’t until they
