The Water Rat of Wanchai (37 page)

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 forgot about any growing notion that Robbins trusted her, even in the slightest.

She watched until he was finished. When he stood up, she leaned down and turned off the computer.
It’s almost over
, she thought, as she put three slices of pizza on her plate, poured a glass of sparkling water, tucked her notebook under her arm, and headed for the balcony.

( 39 )

AVA DIDN’T SLEEP WELL. SHE HAD GONE TO BED EARLY
, way too early. She hadn’t been tired, just bored. With Jeremy Bates out of the way, the money sent to Hong Kong, and the Captain at least half managed, her mind was now purring along in low gear. Robbins had parked himself in front of the television and she wasn’t about to join him. She had no phone and didn’t want to have to ask permission to turn on the computer again. That left the view of the harbour from the balcony, but bobbing boats have their limitations, especially in the dark. Around nine she went to check on Seto. He was still sleeping, but she figured the chloral hydrate would wear off soon, so she taped his ankles and mouth again and reapplied the handcuffs. Then she went into her bedroom and opened the James Clavell novel.

She had been reading for no more than ten or fifteen minutes when her eyes began to close. The first time she woke it was just past midnight, and she was on top of the bed with the lights on. She opened the bedroom door and saw that Robbins had fallen asleep on the couch, the television still running, four empty beer bottles on the coffee table. She made a quick bathroom run, turned off the lights, and crawled under the top cover.

Sleep was now more difficult; thoughts about the day ahead kept intruding. She pushed them aside, only to have Tommy Ordonez slip in through the gaps. She hoped she wouldn’t have to spend any time in the Philippines. Guyana had offered enough hardship to last her for a while. And then Captain Robbins intruded on her consciousness. Had she overplayed her hand with him? No, she thought, his greed aside, they had connected at some level. He was a man who understood how things really worked, what motivated people to do things they wouldn’t normally consider voluntarily — the right things for the wrong reason, although his definition of what was right might differ sharply from hers. Still, they had connected. They had some measure of mutual respect, respect that had nothing to do with approving what the other actually did. It was more for the manner in which each operated. Style points, Ava thought — they gave each other credit for style points.

The next time she woke it was two thirty. For ten minutes she fought to get back to sleep and then gave up. She turned her light on and picked up James Clavell again. She read for more than an hour before sleep encroached enough for her to turn off the light and give it another try.

It was dawn when she opened her eyes. She looked at her watch: ten minutes past six. She closed her eyes and began to pray to St. Jude. She had barely started when the tones of the
William Tell
overture interrupted. It went on and on and then cut out. She went to her door and opened it a crack. Robbins was still asleep. The volume on his cellphone was louder than she remembered, but not loud enough to wake him.

She started her prayer from the beginning, only to have
William Tell
start up again. “Answer the phone,” she said under her breath. As if on cue, the tune ended and she heard him say, “What is it?”

She was almost finished when he knocked on her door.

“Yes?” she said.

“My brother needs to speak to you,” said Robbins.

Ava thought about the time, and an immediate feeling of disquiet crept through her. Why would he call so early? Had something gone wrong on the Hong Kong side? No, she thought. Uncle never failed her. “I’m coming,” she said.

A few last words to St. Jude, the name Robbins in her prayers for the first time, and then she went to the door.

“Here,” Robbins said, handing her the phone, and then turned and walked to his bedroom.

Ava went to the kitchen and sat facing the balcony, the harbour glittering in the morning sun. “Good morning, Captain.”

“Good morning, Ms. Lee.”

“It’s rather early for a phone call.”

“Well, I’m too perturbed to sleep.”

Ava felt a surge of worry. “How so?”

“The Hong Kong wire.”

“You didn’t get it?” she asked, her disquiet expanding.

He paused. “I got a copy of a copy. I got it by email and fax.”

“Was the amount wrong? The date? Did they make a mistake with the bank information?”

He said, slowly and carefully, “You know, Ms. Lee, I don’t know which annoys me more, the fact that you tried to play me for a fool or the fact that, even though you’ve been caught, you keep trying to play me for one. At this very moment I think it’s the latter, and I warn you not to persist along those lines.”

Ava closed her eyes.
Why did I try it? How the hell did he catch on so soon?
She wished him away, wished away her attempt to keep the money, but she was not yet ready to concede a single thing. “I can’t even begin to respond to that until you tell me what the problem is.”

“There is no money.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“And there you go again with your bullshit,” he said, his voice harshening.

“I don’t understand,” she persisted, glad he couldn’t see her, the sweat beading her upper lip.

“You didn’t send the money.”

“Captain —”

“My relationship with my bank is as strong as the one I imagine you have with your bank in Hong Kong. They give me twenty-four-hour service, something I never thought I needed — until I started doing business with you. Well, when I couldn’t sleep this morning, I called them, gave them the wire transfer number, and asked them to check its progress. Ms. Lee, they had no record of the wire, nothing anywhere in their system. Nothing, absolutely nothing.”

Ava drew a deep breath, struggling to keep her voice even. “I can’t understand how that’s possible unless there was a glitch during the transmission process. Let me contact Hong Kong and check it from that end,” Ava said. “I assure you —”

“— that it is shit. The only thing you can assure me of is that every word you’ve said to me is shit.”

“Captain —”

“My bank called your bank,” he said with finality.

God
, she thought,
surely no one actually told them about the dummy wire?

“A very friendly young woman on the international desk at your bank told the friendly young woman from my bank that there was no record of the wire on file. No record, no wire. Simple enough, I think.”

That wasn’t the worst thing he could have been told
, she thought, her mind spinning, searching for an explanation, any explanation, that would at least buy her a little time. “Given the nature of the transfer, my people may not have used standard procedures,” she said. “You need to let me call or email Hong Kong.”

Robbins went quiet.
He’s thinking
, she thought, with a glimmer of hope. “Yes, I think we both know that you need to contact Hong Kong, and this time to tell them to actually send the money,” he said slowly. “The one thing I grant is that you know how to stick to a story. The thing is, the more I listen to it, the angrier I get.”

“Captain, please —”

“What? You thought this would actually work? You thought so little of me as to try something this stupid?”

Oh God
, Ava thought. When was the last time she had misjudged a situation quite so badly? When was the last time she had misjudged a man so badly? “I can fix this,” she said, still not wanting to admit culpability, not wanting to bring up Plan B.

He ignored her, and Ava felt him slipping away. “You know, you shouldn’t have tried this. We had an arrangement and I was fully prepared to honour my end. Now you’ve changed all that, and I have to decide what I’m going to do.”

“I can fix this,” she said.

“Yes, I have no doubt you can fix it, but the details may change. I’m not going to rush into anything with you, so have no fears about my being rash. I’m going to take some time to think this over. In the meantime, you need to do some thinking about what you’ve done. I think you need to make penance. You need to be punished, Ms. Lee. You need to be taught a lesson.”

“Captain, I can’t even begin to tell you how bad I feel about the way this process has been mangled. Just give me the chance to get it fixed.”

“That half-hearted apology doesn’t quite make up for the transgression,” he said.

She knew what he wanted, but she just couldn’t give it to him. It was one thing for him to be ninety-five percent sure of what had happened and another for him to be one hundred percent certain. She had to leave a shred of doubt. She couldn’t prostrate herself. “I’m sure that as we talk this through —”

“No, we’re finished talking for now. I need to think and you need to reconsider your position and your attitude towards me. I have spoken to my brother and asked him to help you rethink everything. His ways may be a little rough but I expect you to take it like a big girl, and when he’s finished we can look at this again through fresh eyes.”

“That is —” she began, but he was gone, the phone line dead. She put Robbins’s mobile on table, her mind in a muddle.
What the hell is he talking about?
she thought. Then she screamed as the back of her neck and her right shoulder exploded. The pain brought her to her feet, but before she could turn her left leg collapsed and she fell forward against the kitchen wall.

He was behind her, a thick leather belt in one hand, a baton in the other. How had he managed to move so quietly? she thought. She twisted to press her back against the wall. She knew it was the belt that had hit her shoulder and the baton that had jabbed into the soft flesh behind her knee. For some reason the details became important. He held the belt by the buckle so that he could hurt her without scarring her flesh. The baton was close to a metre long, longer than any she’d ever seen, and it was made of fibreglass, a high-tech innovation hardly necessary for the purpose it was meant to serve.