Kylie Chan - Hell to Heaven

‘Not a single one,’ I said. ‘I’m just a teacher. Nothing special.’

‘A foreign woman who teaches martial arts is something special,’ the waiter said with humour. He bowed to me. ‘My name is Jimmy, ask for me next time you come.’

‘I’ll be sure to,’ I lied.

I rose and Venus did as well, and we shook hands. ‘Lovely to catch up with you, Venus. I’ll have my people arrange something next month; sooner if something major turns up.’

Venus bowed slightly to me. ‘My pleasure, ma’am. You’d better hurry and go rescue poor Leo.’

I picked up my bag. ‘Poor little Leo. Scared of the big bad bank.’

I took the escalators from the enormous open area under the bank building up two storeys to the general banking hall. Leo was parked in his wheelchair next to one of the flat, square leather waiting seats, holding a stack of papers in his lap.

I sat on the chair facing him. ‘What’s it all about?’

‘They say I can’t open an account without proof of residence.’ He waved his documents. ‘These are all in your name. I have nothing that shows that I live here.’

‘Stone, can you do something about this?’ I said.

‘Let me talk to Lok about it,’ the stone said.

‘I forgot how annoying the racism here can be,’ Leo said irritably. ‘The teller took one look at me and frowned. Then, when I started talking to her, she actually turned away.’

‘It might be the speech impediment too, mate, it makes you a bit hard to understand the first time.’

‘Bah. Do you have any idea how much concentration it takes to get rid of that?’

‘Enough that it’s not worth it and people will have to learn to deal.’

‘Pain in the ass.’

‘I have some documents for you; I’ve put them into Emma’s bag,’ the stone said.

I opened my tote and pulled out some freshly printed and folded papers: electricity, gas and phone bills for one of the apartments at the Old Folly, all in Leo’s name and backdated six months. I scrunched the documents a few times to make them appear older, then handed them to Leo. ‘Here you go.’

He flipped through them and nodded. ‘Okay, let’s try this.’

He turned in the wheelchair and rejoined the queue to speak to the tellers. I stood beside him. A few people openly stared at him as we waited, but we ignored them. Finally we reached the end of the queue and a light indicated a free teller. Leo wheeled himself to the window, which was too high for him to comfortably see over. He raised himself on his arms to speak to the teller.

‘Can we talk to someone about opening an account?’

She stared at him, uncomprehending, then glanced at me.

‘You do speak English?’ he said.

She continued to look blank.

‘I want to open an account,’ Leo said more slowly and clearly, trying to work around his speech impediment.

The teller spoke to me, ignoring Leo. ‘What account type you want to open?’

‘My friend wants to open a savings account,’ I said.

The teller pushed some forms across the counter to me. ‘Ask friend to fill in forms.’ She leaned back and waited for us to leave.

Leo raised the documents he was holding and put them on the counter. ‘I’ve already filled them in. The account is for me .’

The teller took the forms and skimmed through them, then looked at me. ‘He needs proof of Hong Kong residence.’

‘I’m right here,’ Leo growled, frustrated.

I gestured towards Leo. ‘Talk to him then. Like he said, he’s right here.’

The teller stared at me.

‘This is for me ,’ Leo repeated. ‘I have all the documents and I want to open an account.’

The teller jumped up from her chair and quickly walked away.

‘What the hell !’ Leo said.

‘No, it’s fine. She’s rushed off to get help.’

‘Why didn’t she say something?’

‘It’s considered politer to rush off and do it for you, rather than dither around telling you that they’re going to do it,’ I said. ‘They’re used to being chastised for wasting time.’

Leo rested his hands on the arms of the chair. ‘Well, that’s stupid.’

The teller came back with a young man in a suit. He leaned over the counter to speak to me. ‘You want to open a new account?’

‘No, I do,’ Leo said.

The young man appeared to see Leo for the first time. ‘Wait here, please,’ he said and walked away.

Leo thumped the arm of his wheelchair.

The teller retook her seat and pressed the button to indicate that she was free. A local man came over and leaned around us to talk to her in Cantonese, so we were forced to move to one side.

‘Let’s just go to the other bank next door,’ Leo said, and wheeled himself around to leave.

The young man opened a door near us and nodded. ‘Please, come this way.’

Leo hesitated, then shrugged and wheeled himself through the door, with me following. The young man led us to a small, glass-walled meeting room with a tiny round table. He sat and pulled out a pen, then gestured for us to sit.

‘So sorry. Yes, we have all the documents here. Do you have your ID and proof of residence? Rent notice, electricity, phone bill …’

‘Here,’ Leo said, and passed his passport, Hong Kong ID card and the new documents across the table.

The young man flipped through the documents, checking them against the forms that Leo had filled in, and nodded. ‘Thank you, sir, this is all in order. How much were you looking to deposit to start the account?’

Leo opened his mouth to answer but I tapped his hand. Tell him to say a million dollars , I said to the stone.

‘Uh … one point three million dollars,’ Leo said. Geez, let’s make it something more believable than just a round mill , he added silently to me. Besides, if you’re gonna foot the bill, I’d better make it worthwhile, eh?

‘One point three million Hong Kong dollars?’ the young man said, his eyebrows raised.

Leo grinned evilly. ‘No, American dollars. Will I have to convert it?’

The young man looked down at the papers, then up at Leo. ‘We can provide you with a Premier account for that, sir. With a platinum credit card, priority service and special offers. If you have two million, we can provide you with private banking, which has a range of extended services.’

‘No, Premier is fine,’ Leo said.

‘Normally I would move you to the Premier Banking office floor,’ the young man said, ‘but in this case it would probably suit you better to do it here, and I can show you through when we’re done. Is that suitable?’

Leo relaxed. ‘Quite suitable.’

The young man nodded. ‘We will give you a multiple currency account, but you will need to deposit one million Hong Kong. The rest you can keep as US.’

Leo waved one hand airily. ‘No, convert it all to Hong Kong dollars, I live here now. Let’s go ahead.’

The young man nodded, took a business card holder out of his breast pocket, rose and held out a card to Leo with both hands. ‘Leave it with me for a moment, sir, and I will return shortly with the account information for you, and show you where your Premier Banking service centre is.’

‘Fine,’ Leo said, and the young man went out.

‘Money talks,’ I said.

‘He’s googling you,’ the stone said with humour. ‘He couldn’t find “Leo Alexander” so he’s now looking for … oh, this is funny.’

‘What?’ Leo said.

‘He thinks you’re Mike Tyson,’ the stone said. ‘He’s looking up photos of Mike Tyson.’

‘Humph,’ Leo said. ‘I am ten times uglier than that mother.’