The Disciple of Las Vegas (26 page)

At ten after five Ava left the Ford Street office and climbed into the waiting limo. “Can you take me to Heathrow?” she asked.

When they got to the international departures drop-off, Ava got her bags from the trunk, gave the driver a hundred-pound tip, and went directly to the Federal Express office to send the transfer request to the bank in Cyprus. As soon as she had the tracking number she called Hong Kong. It was just past one o'clock in the morning there, but she knew Uncle would be waiting.

“It's done.”

“She signed?”

“Yes.”

“Any complications?”

“I almost lost my temper when they asked me to sign a document stating that I'd lied about what Simmons said about Ordonez.”

“Did they change it?”

“No. I signed it.”

“You did not have to,” Uncle said.

She knew he meant it. He never second-guessed her. That was part of the burden she carried — no matter how expedient she had to be, no matter what it cost them, even if she recovered nothing, he didn't second-guess her.

“Yes, I did have to. It was the cost of doing business. He's probably sent it to the Prime Minister's Office already.”

“Not that that will do him any good; he already has a black mark next to his name. They may leave him where he is, but he is not going any further up the political ladder.”

“I can only hope that's the case.”

“Where are you now?”

“I'm at Heathrow. I've just sent the transfer request via FedEx to the bank in Cyprus. I'll give you the tracking number to pass along to our bank. Have them follow it from their end; they should call the Cypriot bank to make sure the money is moved as quickly as possible.”

“I will look after it.”

“Thank you. I leave here at eight o'clock. I'm looking forward to getting home.”

“Ava, I know this was hard on you, doing two jobs back to back and then having Jackie Leung to deal with.”

“Uncle, I really don't want to talk about it right now. I just want to get home.”

“There are times when you push yourself too hard.”

Ava had already begun to feel the truth of that statement on the limo ride from Ford Street to Heathrow. At first she had felt a sense of relief that it was over and that she'd recovered her client's money. But that feeling was quickly overtaken by bone-aching exhaustion. The adrenalin that had driven her from Hong Kong to the Philippines to San Francisco, Vancouver, Victoria, Las Vegas, and London now gave in to too many flights, too many time zones, too much stress. She hadn't thought about those things when she was on the hunt because she wouldn't let herself. The focus was on getting from A to B, connecting the dots, pushing and driving, putting together the pieces until the final one fell into place.

“I did what I had to do,” she said.

“I should call Chang,” Uncle said. “He will want to tell Ordonez about your success.”

“Yes, you do that. I need to check in and make some calls too. Bye, Uncle.”

She sat in the Star Alliance lounge with her notebook open on her lap. It was eleven o'clock in the morning in Las Vegas and Vancouver and two in the afternoon in Virginia and Cooper Island. She thought about calling David Douglas, Maggie Chew, Jack Maynard, Martin Littlefeather, and Chief Francis. She thought about it, but she didn't.
Tomorrow
, she said to herself.
Or maybe the day after
.

She went to the ladies' washroom to change her clothes for the flight. In a cubicle with a full-length mirror, Ava stripped down to her underwear and looked at herself. The marks on her neck and shoulders had faded but the bruising on her hip and torso was a garish purple. She unwrapped the gauze on her arm and examined the cut. It had stopped bleeding, but she might need stitches.
God, what a mess I am
, she thought as she slipped a black Giordano T-shirt over her head.

Back in the lounge, she turned on her computer and connected to her email server. She sent brief messages to her mother, Marian, and Mimi, telling them she'd be back in Toronto the next day. As she scanned her other emails she saw one from Maria Gonzalez, inviting her out for dinner and dancing.

Dear Maria
, she wrote,
I'm looking forward to meeting you, but I think we should go for a coffee or something more casual. I'm flying back into Toronto tonight. We can discuss it in the next few days.

Ava had gone through the rest of her emails and was about to shut down the computer when one arrived from Mimi.
Dim sum tomorrow?

Yes,
Ava wrote back, just as a reply from Maria came through.
What time does your flight arrive?
she asked.

Ava hesitated, then wrote,
10:30, Air Canada from London.

Can I meet you at the airport?
Maria wrote back a minute later.

I look like hell and I ache all over
, Ava replied.

I'll bring a hug.

Am I ready for this?
Ava wondered. Then she read over their correspondence again and smiled.
I can use a hug
, she wrote.
See you there.

Coming Soon
from House of Anansi Press
in February 2012

Read on for a preview of the
next thrilling Ava Lee novel,
The Wild Beasts of Wuhan

Ava Lee sat on a bench on the Otrobanda side of Willemstad, the capital city of Curaçao, watching ships from China, Indonesia, Panama, and the Netherlands come and go. The crews stood by the railings, waving down at the onlookers as their vessels moved almost rhythmically in and out of St. Anna Bay. Ava waved back.

It was mid-afternoon. She had arrived that morning on a cruise ship that was moored about a kilometre away, at a fort that had once guarded the entrance to the harbour. The fort had been converted into a tourist spot with restaurants, shops, a hotel, and a casino.

She was on vacation with her family: her father, her mother, and her older sister, Marian, who had also brought her husband, Bruce, and their two daughters. They were eight days into the trip, with six to go. Ava wondered if they would survive the long journey back to Miami.

The Lees were not a traditional family by Western standards. Ava's mother, Jennie, was the second wife of Marcus. Following tradition, he had married her without divorcing his first wife. They had lived in Hong Kong until Ava was two and Marian four, when Marcus had taken on a third wife. The new family dynamic had caused friction between Marcus and Jennie, so she and her daughters had been relocated to Canada. It was an arrangement that suited them both. He looked after all his families financially, spoke to Jennie every day by phone, and visited her for two weeks every year. Although Ava and Marian had grown up without the physical presence of their father, they knew that Marcus loved them. So, traditional or not, their time together was enjoyed, if only because everyone knew the rules and had the appropriate expectations.

This cruise, though, was a first. Marcus's visits usually consisted of a stay at Jennie's house north of Toronto, lunches and dinners with her and Ava, and a two-day trip to Ottawa to see Marian and the girls. The extended holiday had been Marcus's idea; the cruise, Marian's. In hindsight, Ava thought they should have known better. It hadn't taken long for discord to surface.

The main combatants were Jennie and Bruce. Bruce was a
gweilo
, a Westerner, and a
senior civil servant with the Canadian government. But the fact that he wasn't Chinese wasn't the issue; it was the kind of
gweilo
he was — uptight and anal. The kind of person who got up early to secure deck chairs for the day. The kind who pre-organized a full day of activities at every port of call. The kind who made sure to use every facility and perk offered by the cruise. The kind who had to be in line at five forty-five for a six-o'clock dinner.

Marian and the girls were used to Bruce's ways and didn't think twice about it. Marcus and Ava had rolled with the punches for the first few days before politely begging off some of the group activities. But from the moment she stepped on the ship, Jennie Lee had refused to fall in line. She declined to go on any of Bruce's planned excursions, and she arrived later and later for every lunch and dinner. She never came to breakfast, being too tired from late nights at the gaming tables.

By day three, Bruce and Jennie had stopped talking. He had taken to glaring at her and she pretended he didn't exist. It was hard on Marian, and Ava felt sorry for her. Marian had always had a more difficult relationship with their mother than Ava did.

“Why did she come?” Marian demanded.

“What choice did she have? Daddy wanted to take us on a family holiday and you talked him into booking the cruise without discussing it with her first. Did you expect her to stay in Toronto for the two weeks of the year she has with her husband?”

“I thought it would be different.”

“It's never different with her, or with Bruce,” Ava said. “So don't make it one-sided. Neither of them is easy.”

When they berthed at Willemstad, Bruce had organized a tour of Curaçao; a driver was waiting for them at the dock. Jennie didn't show. Marcus went on the tour, grudgingly. Ava had said she wanted to spend a quiet day in town.

She shifted on the bench and gazed at the Queen Emma Bridge, which connected the Otrabanda and Punda quarters of the city. Willemstad was a busy commercial port — Curaçao was a major oil refiner and exporter — and the bridge was in constant motion, opening and closing for vessels coming in and out of the harbour. She looked across the bay, admiring the rows of two- and three-storey stucco buildings painted in pastel blues, greens, and yellows, all of them topped with red slate roofs. The slate had originally served as ballast on the ships that had brought Dutch settlers to the Caribbean in the seventeenth century. Ava felt as if she were in Amsterdam, in one of the old neighbourhoods built on the canals.

The cruise had come after a two-month break from chasing bad debts halfway around the world. Chasing bad debts was what Ava, a forensic accountant, did for a living, and after back-to-back jobs that had taxed her both physically and emotionally, she had needed some time off. She had spent time with friends, danced at salsa clubs, eaten more than she should, burned off the extra calories by running, eaten some more, and gone to her regular bak mei workouts. She had also been exploring a growing relationship with a Colombian woman named Maria Gonzalez.

Maria was an assistant trade commissioner at the Colombian consulate in Toronto, a newcomer to the city. Ava's best friend, Mimi, had met her at a function and done some matchmaking via email. The two women had connected while Ava was travelling, and when she flew home, Maria was waiting for her at the airport. The physical attraction had been instantaneous. Emotionally, Ava was still feeling tentative. She and Maria had vacationed in Thailand for two glorious weeks, and they had managed to end every day wanting to see each other the next. When they got back to Toronto, Maria had begun to hint that they move in together. Ava was relieved that the cruise would give her some breathing space.

The sun was higher in the sky now and the pastel buildings glistened in its light. She got up and walked towards Kura Hulanda, a hotel, conference centre, and museum complex that Dutch businessman and philanthropist Jacob Gelt Dekker had created out of what were originally the city's slums. The original street layout, including the cobblestones, had been kept intact. The old housing had been demolished, and colourful new stucco and wooden houses had been built that now functioned as stand-alone hotel units.

Ava headed for the Kura Hulanda Museum, which was famous for a collection that described the history of the slave trade. The museum was made up of several low-lying buildings linked in an L shape; its dark painted walls and small windows made the edifice look gloomy.

She walked through the galleries, admiring the sculptures, masks, weapons, and descriptions of the societies and cultures of West Africa. All the exhibits were drawn from Dekker's private collection. The final section of the museum presented the two-hundred-year history of the Dutch slave trade. Curaçao had been an auction centre for slaves sold into the Caribbean and all of South America.
Kura hulanda
was a Papiamentu term meaning “Dutch courtyard.” As Ava walked out the front door of the museum, she found herself standing in just such a courtyard, on the very spot where hundreds of thousands of enslaved people had been bought and sold. She shuddered.

She walked back into the bright sunlight and crossed the Queen Emma Bridge over the harbour to Punda. There she found an outdoor Italian restaurant and ordered a glass of Pinot Grigio and a plate of spaghetti
aglio e olio
.

She recognized an elderly couple from the cruise sitting at the next table. The woman kept looking at her until Ava finally said hello. They introduced themselves as Henry and Bella from Singer Island, Florida, via New York. “I've seen you on the ship with your family. So attractive, all of you,” Bella said.

Ava smiled. “Thank you.”

“Your mother's name is Jennie, right?”

“It is.”

“I thought so. Such a pistol! She and I close the casino most nights,” Bella said. “What are you doing this afternoon?”

“I don't have any plans,” Ava said, digging into her spaghetti, which had just arrived.

“Henry and I are going to the Snoga Synagogue. It's the oldest synagogue in the Western Hemisphere.” She turned to her husband. “Henry, when was it built?”

“Sixteen something.”

“In the sixteen hundreds. Crazy, huh?”

“Sephardic Jews from Amsterdam,” Henry said. “They modelled it after the Esnoga Synagogue there.”

“It's not far from here,” Bella said. “Would you like to join us? It'll be interesting.”

Ava was in theory a Roman Catholic. She had been raised in the Church and her mother and sister were still devout. But in her mind the Church had rejected her with its views on homosexuality. She now preferred to think of herself as a Buddhist — live and let live. But she couldn't explain why she still prayed to St. Jude in times of crisis and wore a gold crucifix around her neck.

“Sure, why not?” Ava said.

They paid their bills and left the restaurant. After walking past stores, cafés, and small office buildings, they stopped outside a bright gold stucco building. It was three storeys high, with a red slate roof; the windows and double doors were painted white. Henry and Bella led her into an inner courtyard, where they were greeted by a woman seated at a table.

“The synagogue is there to our right,” the woman said. “It was built in 1692, and some additions were made in 1732.”

Henry and Bella walked tentatively towards the entrance, Ava trailing behind them. As they stepped inside, she heard them gasp. Ava peered over Bella's shoulder and saw an almost perfect jewel box of a building. A straight line from the doorway led to a wooden pulpit at the opposite end; along either side of the aisle were rows of dark wooden benches. Just above, balconies ran down both sides, and four marble columns extended upwards to an arched ceiling from which hung three huge chandeliers.

They took several steps into the synagogue. As she entered, Ava noticed that Henry and Bella's eyes were transfixed by the floor. She looked down and saw that it was covered entirely in thick white sand.

She watched as Bella and Henry pressed their feet into the sand. Then Bella began to cry. Henry put his arm around her shoulders and started to sob as well. Ava didn't know why they were crying, but she felt their emotion all the same.

“The sand is the Sinai Desert,” Henry said. “They brought it here to remind them of Sinai.” He kneeled, picked up a handful, and pressed it to his lips.

“This isn't common?” Ava asked softly.

“There's maybe one other synagogue in the world with a floor like this,” he said.

Ava was about to follow Henry and Bella farther into the synagogue when her phone rang. She apologized and excused herself, stepping outside. “Ava Lee,” she answered.

“Ava, it is Uncle.”

Uncle was her partner and mentor; they had been in the debt collection business together for more than ten years. He was in his seventies, but he showed no signs of slowing down and still maintained a massive network of contacts that provided them with business and support. It was a common rumour that in his past life he had ties to the Triad. Ava didn't know for certain; she had only the deepest respect for the man she knew.

“Uncle,” she said, glancing at her watch. It was 2 a.m. in Hong Kong, and he was usually asleep well before that. “You're up late.”

“Am I disturbing you?”

“I'm in Curaçao. I'm sightseeing.”

“Still on that cruise?”

“Yes.”

“Can you talk?”

“Sure.”

“Are you ready to come back to work?”

She took a deep breath. “That depends on what you have. I have no interest in chasing after some scumbag from General Santos City who cheated people with tuna sashimi that's been gas flushed twenty times.”

“So you are ready.”

“What do you have?”

“How soon can you get to Hong Kong?”

“Uncle, is it that important?” she asked, knowing already that it probably was.

“Wong Changxing.”

“The Emperor of Hubei?”

“He hates being called that. Even if it is said respectfully, he worries that it is offensive to the government and military officials whose support he needs.”

“I'm sorry. Do you know him from Wuhan?”

Uncle had been born in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province. He had escaped the Communist regime and fled to Hong Kong when he was a young man, but he still maintained close ties there and had built a big enough reputation that his Wuhan roots were a source of pride to many people who lived there. “He knows me from Wuhan,” Uncle said.

“Ah.”

“He has a problem.”

“What is it?”