Ian Hamilton - The disciple of Las Vegas

Simmons stared at Ava, her eyes wide and darting. Her face had collapsed. Her right hand reached for the table and she leaned on it for support.

“I’d be sorry if it had to come to that,” Ava said.

“To what?”

“There’s no need for me to say it, is there?”

“What are you trying to do?” Simmons demanded.

“Get my client’s money back. Nothing more than that.”

“With sex tapes?”

“Why not?”

“You’d release them?”

“Could there be a more receptive market for them than the British media? I mean, the daughter of a cabinet minister, a trusted senior officer at one of the country’s most respected private banks? A former Olympian? They would eat it up, no?”

Simmons sat down. “You bitch,” she said.

“Sign the request.”

Simmons didn’t respond.

“I’ve given you all the right reasons to do this and none of them seem to matter to you. So it comes down to this unfortunate one. Sign the transfer request and the tapes will disappear. Your fiance will not go to jail and we can all be spared years of legal wrangling. Ms. Simmons, that money was stolen. This is the right thing for you to do under any circumstances. Tell yourself that and it might seem more palatable.”

“I need to think.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I need time.”

“I don’t have a lot of time to give you.”

“Tomorrow. Give me until tomorrow.”

Ava hesitated. “This can’t drag on.”

“I need to talk to someone.”

“What difference — ”

“Please.”

“Does his approval mean that much to you?”

Simmons turned her head away.

“Tomorrow. I’ll give you until noon tomorrow, but if I don’t hear from you by then — ”

“How do I reach you?”

Ava slid a business card across the table. “My mobile number is the best way.”

Simmons looked at the card, her eyes glazed and watery. “I’ll call you,” she said.

“Yes, you will.”

“Now I would very much like you to leave.”

Ava stood and walked towards the door. Stopping an inch away from Simmons, she said in a low voice, “Tomorrow, by noon.”

It was dark when she left One Canada Square, and a light drizzle was falling. Ava’s shirt and hair were damp by the time she got to the Canary Wharf tube station. The weather matched her mood. She had nearly lost Lily Simmons, and the way she had had to claw her way back depressed her. There were times when she came close to hating her job, and this was one of them. Well, I did what I had to do, she thought.

She reclaimed her bags and then debated whether to hail a taxi or take the subway to her hotel in Kensington. She checked the route map on the station wall. Kensington was just a few kilometres west of the very heart of Greater London, so she took the tube.

The drizzle had let up as she walked up the steps of High Street station and into Kensington. She had been to London before, and although she didn’t know the hotel, she did know the area. On the north side of High Street was Kensington Gardens, and contiguous to the gardens on the east was Hyde Park. The south side was filled with trendy restaurants and upscale boutiques that extended to Knightsbridge and the famed department store Harrods. Ava’s hotel, the Fletcher, was on the south side of the street, directly across from Kensington Gardens. She could see the entrance from the station, its sign lit up red and wrapped around a curved glass overhang.

She checked in and found her way to the eighth floor. Her room was furnished with a king-size bed with a massive wooden headboard built into the wall. There was plenty of space for the fully equipped workstation, settee, easy chair, coffee table, armoire, and flat-screen television attached to the wall facing the bed.

Ava unpacked. She felt like a shower, for more reasons than one, but she had been out of touch for close to fifteen hours and felt the need to reconnect. It was one o’clock in the morning in Hong Kong, normally too late to call Uncle, but she knew he was probably waiting up to hear from her.

“I met the girl,” Ava said after the familiar “ Wei.”

“How did it go?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“So she did not sign,” Uncle said.

“No, she told me she needed some time to think about it. Actually, what I think she needs is talk it over with someone.”

“Who?”

“Her father.”

“You have not mentioned him before.”

“It’s his money that financed The River.”

“Then why is it not his signature that we need?”

“It’s complicated, Uncle. He’s a politician, and his business assets, of which this is one, are in a blind trust. He’s supposed to have nothing to do with how they’re managed.”

“Except?”

“She is his only child and quite devoted to him, and from what I’ve seen she’s also afraid of him. She keeps him updated on everything.”

“And does nothing without his approval?”

“Yes.”

“And do you think he will approve?”

“I don’t know that either.”

“You thought you had some compelling arguments to make.”

“Most of those had no effect.”

“So, what makes you think there is any chance she will sign?”

“I finally found an argument that did impress her.”

Uncle paused. “When do you talk to her next?”

“Tomorrow,” Ava said, relieved that he hadn’t asked about her leverage.

“That is reasonable.”

“I thought so.”

“What is your feeling?”

“I don’t know with any certainty. I think she might sign. It’s too much in her best interest for her to do anything else. But I’ve been wrong before.”

“If she does not sign, I do not know how much longer I want us to pursue this. Your last telephone conversation with Ordonez upset him.”

“He caught me by surprise by calling from an unidentified number.”

“He thinks you were being deliberately rude to him, and certainly not as cooperative as he expects. Of course, he thinks we should all be kowtowing to him. Now he feels he has earned the right to berate me. The sooner we are finished with him, the better.”

“I wasn’t rude,” Ava said, upset that Ordonez had been disrespectful to Uncle.

“I did not say that you were.”

“I’m sorry, Uncle, I wasn’t implying that you did.”

“The man is ignorant and arrogant, and that is a terrible combination.”

“I should have things settled one way or another by tomorrow.”

Uncle went quiet, and she wondered if Tommy Ordonez had said more. “There have also been some developments in Hong Kong today.”

“Jackie Leung?”

“Yes. Sonny met with Sammy Wing and they have agreed to pursue him together.”

“But they haven’t found him yet?”

“Not yet, but soon. I talked to Guangzhou tonight. They still will not cancel the contract. The two men who have been tracking you will not back off until we eliminate Leung.”

“Tracking?”

“They have been using your credit card transactions to locate you. They went to Las Vegas but they thought you were at Wynn’s.”

“Where are they now?”

“Guangzhou did not know.”

“Do I need to worry?”

“No, no. We will get Leung.”

Ava had booked her flight to London using one of her credit cards. She tried to remember if she had seen any suspicious-looking Chinese men at the airport, on the plane, at Gatwick, on the train, in the tube. It was all a blank. “Then I won’t worry,” she said.

“That is best. Just focus on the woman. Call me as soon as you hear from her.”

Ava closed her phone. She still felt a lingering disquiet from the way her meeting with Simmons had ended. Now it was joined by an intense dislike of Tommy Ordonez and the looming threat of Jackie Leung. This job, she thought, is hard enough without all the side complications. However quickly Uncle wanted to end it, it wouldn’t be quick enough for her.