The Disciple of Las Vegas (20 page)

The plane landed at Gatwick five minutes early. Ava cleared Immigration and Customs in less than twenty minutes, then phoned Lily Simmons from the station platform while she waited for the express train to Victoria. Simmons's mobile went directly to voicemail. Ava hung up and then tried the office line, expecting to get an automated receptionist. Instead she heard, “This is Lily Simmons.”

Her voice was full of cheer. Ava noticed that her accent was soft and rounded, the S's prolonged like a hiss.

“And this is Ava Lee.”

“Ms. Lee, you are in London?”

Thank God she remembers
, Ava thought. “I'm at Gatwick, waiting for the express train to Victoria Station.”

“From Victoria, you know, you can catch the Jubilee line directly to Canary Wharf.”

“Yes, I saw that.”

“Your intention is to do that, to come directly to me?”

“It is.”

“Excellent. Our offices are in One Canada Square; it's the tallest building in the complex. Come to the forty-fifth floor. I'll let our receptionist know you're expected.”

“That's perfect.”

“Well, I'll see you then. Looking forward to it.”

“Me too,” Ava said, as the train arrived.

She got off at Victoria Station, where she jostled her way through a crush of people to the subway platform. When she arrived at Canary Wharf, she placed her luggage in a locker and exited the station, her Chanel bag slung over her shoulder.

The air was cool and damp, and the sky was the colour of steel. She shivered, wishing she had a jacket with her. She was grateful that it wasn't windy and hoped that the rain would hold off. She had never been to Canary Wharf, but she knew that Toronto's Reichmann brothers had conceived it as Europe's financial epicentre. Although they had gone broke turning the barren and deserted West India Docks into a massive complex of office towers, others had realized the dream. Ten skyscrapers within immediate view housed more than a hundred thousand workers. One Canada Square was the tallest, with fifty storeys of office space topped by a pyramid-shaped roof.

At ten to five Ava entered the cavernous marble lobby. During the elevator ride to the forty-fifth floor, she checked herself in the full-length mirror on its back wall. At first glance she thought she looked graceful and elegant in her powder-blue shirt and tailored black slacks. At second glance she saw a woman dressed for battle, an avenging angel come to rain misery on Lily Simmons's life.

The reception area was small, not much larger than her room at Hooters. A young man wearing a white dress shirt and matching white tie was sitting at the front desk, focused on his computer screen. The only other furniture in the area was three chairs off to one side. Ava guessed that Smyth's occupied more than one floor, and that the forty-fifth was not the corporate floor.

Ava introduced herself to the receptionist. He turned away from his computer and greeted her with an annoyed look. She glanced at the screen and saw that he was playing Hearts. “Oh yes, Ms. Simmons has booked a conference room for you.” He stood up abruptly. “Come with me.”

She followed him down a narrow corridor in which every door was closed. Near the end of the hall he stopped, swung open a door, and showed her in. “I'll tell Ms. Simmons you're here,” he said.

The conference room was as plain as the reception area, furnished with just a round wooden table, four chairs, and a small credenza with a phone on it. The walls were bare and the room had only one small window. Ava had thought Smyth's Investment Bank would be swankier.

At five o'clock on the dot, Lily Simmons walked into the room. Ava stood to meet her and was immediately overwhelmed by the woman's size. She was long and lanky, her height accentuated by her bony frame. She wore a plaid skirt that fell just below the knee, and Ava could see a smattering of freckles on her shins. Her white silk blouse was buttoned to the neck; her chest was almost completely flat. Her face was gaunt, full of hard lines, and her auburn hair, streaked with shots of ruby red, fell to her jawline in a mass of wild curls.
She is striking
, Ava thought.

“Hello, I'm Lily Simmons,” she said, offering her hand.

Ava looked into green eyes that were friendly, if not entirely engaged. “I'm Ava Lee.”

“Let's sit, shall we,” Simmons said, and then looked at the table. “Oh, they haven't offered you anything, have they? How rude. Coffee, tea, water?”

“Nothing, thank you.”

“I come empty-handed, as you can see,” Simmons said. “I normally bring paperwork with me to a meeting, but frankly I had no idea what it was you wanted to discuss. You are quite the mystery woman, you know.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“When my fiancé called last night to pass on your name, I was asleep. Rather neglectfully, I didn't take the time to ask him more about you. This morning I reached out to our offices in Asia — we're everywhere — and inquired if any of them knew of a woman named Ava Lee attached to what Jeremy described as a substantial Asian interest. None of them did. I called Jeremy several times today, hoping he could fill me in a bit more, but I haven't been able to connect with him. So there you are, Ms. Lee — I come unprepared, and I apologize for that.”

“I'm representing the Ordonez Group in the Philippines.”

“Yes, I have heard of them,” Simmons said, shifting in her chair. “Cigarettes and beer, correct?”

“Among other things.”

“At the most economical end of the market?”

“That's one way to put it.”

“And they — what? They think there might be a market for those products in the U.K.?”

“My reason for being here has absolutely nothing to do with the normal business of the Ordonez Group,” Ava said, opening her Chanel bag.

“Jeremy did mention that you might have an interest in investing in The River.”

“No, we have no interest whatsoever in doing that.”

“The mystery continues,” Simmons said with a slight smile.

“Although The River is why I'm here,” Ava said, taking the transfer request from her bag. She turned the document around and slid it across the table. “I would like you to sign this.”

In Las Vegas, and then on the plane, Ava had mentally tested various strategies for broaching the topic with Lily Simmons. She had kept returning to this one. Uncle called it starting at the end: make it clear what you want up front and then work your way back. He thought the strategy saved time, eliminated questions and doubts, and softened resistance.

Simmons picked up the paper. Ava watched her green eyes shift from mild curiosity to utter confusion. “Just who are you, and what kind of game is this?” she said, throwing the request back onto the table.

Ava took out the confession. “This may explain things.”

“I'm not sure I have any interest in reading anything else, or continuing this discussion. You're obviously here under some kind of false pretence. I think you should leave the premises,” Simmons said, standing.

“Ms. Simmons, I understand that this is difficult — and truthfully, it isn't going to get any easier — but you do need to read this document. It's signed by both your fiancé and his partner, David Douglas. It's an admission of their guilt in orchestrating a scheme that defrauded my client, the Ordonez Group, and others of the $65 million I'm asking to be returned. This transfer request will allow that to happen.”

Simmons looked down at Ava, who was holding out the confession for her to take. She reached for it, read the first few lines, and then sat down. She read to the end of the page, glanced at Ava, and then read it again. “This is absurd,” she said.

“You don't say that with much conviction.”

Simmons rose to her feet again. Holding the confession in her right hand, she crumpled it into a ball. Ava saw that her left hand was shaking and her cheeks had turned crimson. “Is this enough conviction for you?” Simmons shouted. Then she threw the ball of paper, which sailed past Ava onto the floor. Ava spun around to retrieve it, and when she looked up, Simmons was gone, the door slammed shut behind her.

Ava straightened out the paper, smoothing it with the palm of her hand, and put it on top of the transfer request. She sat back in her chair, her eyes on the door. In a matter of a few minutes she had lost control of the meeting.
What misjudgement
, she thought.
What a mess
.

Five minutes passed, and then five more. Ava tried to stay calm. She had been escorted from buildings before; there were worse kinds of exits. It was closing in on fifteen minutes when the door finally opened.

“I've just tried to call Jeremy. I can't reach him,” Simmons said from the doorway.

“He won't speak with you,” Ava said, trying not to show relief.

“What have you done to him . . . with him?” Simmons asked, taking two steps into the room.

Something's changed
, Ava thought. Simmons seemed more confident, or maybe just less fearful, than when she had left. There was an edge to her voice, and her body thrust aggressively forward as if she was ready to charge at Ava. Before she had been reluctant to make eye contact; now her green eyes bore into Ava's, the colour heightened and glinting.

“Not a thing. We have an understanding, nothing more than that,” Ava said. “Both he and Douglas have agreed to return the money they put into the holding company's account in Cyprus. In exchange, we won't pursue legal action against them and we will permit The River to keep functioning as a business. I asked Jeremy, as a courtesy, not to communicate with you until matters were resolved at this end. Now, you can try to call again if you wish, but I don't think you'll reach him.”

“I'm not sure I want to talk to him anyway,” Simmons said, picking up the confession, her eyes darting between the paper in her hands and Ava. When she had finished reading it again, she held it against her hip and closed her eyes. When she opened them, they were full of rage. Simmons raised the paper in front of her chest and, with her eyes locked on Ava's, ripped it into shreds.

She's on something
, Ava thought. “That won't make it go away,” she said.

“I don't believe anything you're telling me.”

Ava reached into her bag and pulled out the paperwork that Jack Maynard and Felix Hunter had prepared for her. “Jeremy and David Douglas, as the confession states, manipulated the site's software so they could see all the cards at the table — so they could cheat. These are statistical analyses that detail the process and prove that it was indeed done,” she said as softly as she could while still being sure she was heard. “The Cooper Island Gaming Commission, which regulates and administers your site, has this same data and agrees that it's proof positive. You can call them if you wish. They'll confirm it.”

“Then why is the site still running? Why haven't they shut it down?”

“The Gaming Commission, like the Ordonez Group — and, I'm sure, like you — don't want the firestorm of negative publicity this information would generate if it was broadly known. The Commission has agreed to let us pursue our own course of action first. Mind you, if we're not successful, then both they and the Ordonez Group will be forced to seek other avenues.”

“Such as?”

“Well, the Gaming Commission would certainly shut down your site, and the Ordonez Group would take legal action.”

“The site hasn't been profitable until —”

“Until your fiancé and his partner started stealing,” Ava said.

“If it isn't profitable, why should we care if they shut it down?” Simmons said.

She's not listening
, Ava thought. “Shut down or not, if the money isn't returned there would still be legal action.”

Simmons took another step forward. The only thing separating her from Ava was the small table. “That's rather a stupid threat to make. You know as well as I do how long and complicated a process that would be. God, with all the jurisdictions involved, who would know where to begin? It could take years to sort things out.”

Whatever she's taken, it hasn't dulled her mind
, Ava thought, and then tried to switch gears again. “True enough, at least from the civil side. But the Americans move more quickly when criminality is involved, and believe me, we would be seeking to have criminal charges brought against Douglas and Ashton. And you must know, Ms. Simmons, how harsh the American courts have been lately on white-collar crime. If Jeremy went to jail for less than five years I'd be surprised.”

Simmons closed her eyes, and Ava sensed she was finally beginning to get through to her. “I thought it was too good to be true,” Simmons muttered.

“What was too good?”

“The profits.”

“They weren't profits.”

“We'd been losing money for years until . . . until this started,” Simmons said, slapping her hand on the transfer request still lying on the table.

“I have another copy of the confession if you need it. In fact, I have copies of everything,” Ava said. “The only thing I want back is the transfer request with your signature on it.”

Simmons shook her head. “That's not going to happen.”

“You do have signing authority?”

“You obviously know that I do.”

“So sign. Pick up a pen and write your name.”

“It isn't that easy.”

“Ms. Simmons, you don't seem to be grasping the consequences.”

Simmons glared at Ava. “You don't have any idea about consequences,” she said, saliva flying from her mouth.

Ava saw her hand tremble. “You're prepared to send your fiancé to jail?”

“Well, he is a thief, isn't he.”

“Yes, he is.”

“And he's betrayed the faith I put in him.”