“I read that he’s a cabinet minister in the U.K.”
“He is, and when he gets a few drinks in him and he’s with friends or family, he doesn’t mind telling you he’s only one step away from becoming prime minister and saving the country from ruin.”
“His assets must be in a blind trust or something like that, no?”
“That’s true.”
“So his daughter is obviously empowered to manage the money.”
“In theory.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s still his money. He keeps his eye on every pound. Lily may officially administer the trust and sign all the documents, but nothing happens until she clears it with him. He jokes about it. He says just because his money is in a blind trust, it doesn’t mean he’s also deaf. They’re careful, I give them that. Nothing is ever in writing, not even an email. It’s strictly verbal.”
“But she has the authority. She doesn’t actually need his approval.”
“She won’t do anything that might upset Daddy, and not many things in life upset Roger Simmons more than losing money.”
“He doesn’t have to know.”
“You aren’t listening to me. She won’t do it without him, and I’m trying to tell you he’ll be a hard man to convince.”
Lily Simmons seems to have issues with men, Ava thought. “I appreciate your candour. I assume this is your way of making sure that if she won’t sign, it won’t come back to bite you.”
“She’s an only child and she’s her father’s daughter. The bonds are incredibly tight,” Ashton said.
“I didn’t want you to have unrealistic expectations,” Douglas added.
“I see that, and I appreciate it,” she said.
“So how about the deal you mentioned? Is it still on?” Douglas asked. Then, for the first time since she had entered the house, he stared directly into her eyes. It was a hard, questioning look, the kind she imagined he had perfected at the poker table when trying to decide if his opponent was bluffing. She stared back, unwavering, until he turned away.
“If Lily Simmons refuses to sign and I believe you haven’t interfered in the process, then I will return half of your personal money, but none of The River’s.”
Now Ashton looked at her with something other than hatred. “If Lily signs, you’ll return our personal money and all of The River’s. If she doesn’t, we get half of our own money.”
“That’s what I just said.” The offer to return the money both bought her time and acted as a sweetener. It was a lesson she had learned from her father, and one that had been reinforced time and again by Uncle. If you push people into a corner and give them no way out, they attack. It’s human nature. She wanted them to cooperate — for her sake, not theirs — and offering them some of their own money back gave them a positive and compelling reason to do so. She had figured out that both cared more about their money than their reputations, and the interest her offer had sparked was proving her right. She knew she had an agreement.
“This isn’t so hard, gentlemen,” Ava said, holding out her hands, palms up. “Choice one: don’t cooperate or pretend to cooperate, and lose your reputation, your business, your money, and your lives. Choice two: do as I say and keep them all.”
“You have a deal,” Douglas said.
“How about you?” she asked Ashton.
“I’m in,” he said quickly.
“I thought you might be,” Ava said. “Now, I do need to stress one thing — there’s no time limit on our agreement. It doesn’t expire in a month, a year, or ten years.”
“That’s clear,” Douglas said.
A noise erupted from the kitchen. Carlo and Andy were hauling in the man who had been shot in the leg. They stood on either side of him, holding his arms, as he hopped in. Douglas looked at him with disgust.
It took fifteen minutes to get everyone double-taped and lying in separate rooms. When they were settled, she said to Carlo and Andy, “Take their wallets and go through the drawers. Make it look like a robbery. You can keep whatever you find; just don’t use their credit cards. When you’re done, come outside to the car.”
As Carlo and Andy started going through Douglas’s things, Ava went outside to join Martin. “We’re just finishing up,” she told him as she slid into the passenger seat.
“And?”
“Here is a confession signed by both of them,” she said, passing him a copy. “It could be useful if the Chief ever has an issue with them.”
“What are you going to do with it?” Martin asked.
“It’s a bargaining chip.”
“Why do you need one?”
“I only got back a little of the money they stole. The bulk is sitting in an account in Cyprus and it takes three signatures to release it. I have only two.”
“Who is the third?”
“Ashton’s fiancee, and she’s in London. I’m going there tonight.”
“What about them?” he asked, pointing to the house.
“They’re tied up and will stay that way until I can get Carlo and Andy and you out of Las Vegas.”
“And they’ll stay quiet?”
“Yes, I think they will. Neither of them is stupid.”
The front door opened and Carlo and Andy emerged, each of them carrying his paper bag.
“You can open the trunk,” Ava said. “We should leave the same way we came in.”
They climbed back into the trunk in the same order. The smell of baby powder was gone, replaced by a faint odour of sweat.
They drove out of the complex without any complications, and two minutes later Martin pulled the car over to the side of the road. He popped the trunk, held out his hand to Ava, and pulled her out. She felt stiff, and the right side of her torso was throbbing. The boys climbed out after her.
“Wipe your prints off the cleaver and the gun and then toss them,” she said.
As she watched them walk out into the desert to get rid of the weapons, she muttered, “Ninety-five.”
“What?” Martin said.
“I’m ninety-five percent of the way to getting that money back.”
“That’s amazing.”
“No, unfortunately, it isn’t. Unless I can close, it doesn’t mean a thing,” Ava said. Half of her brain was making a list of all the things she had to do before she left Las Vegas; the other half was already in London.
(33)
Ava stripped as soon as she got to her hotel room. She could smell sweat, car trunk, and dog urine. She packed the clothes she had been wearing in a plastic laundry bag and tied it tight. Then she went into the bathroom and showered.
When she came out a half-hour later, she put on a clean black Giordano T-shirt and track pants, then packed the rest of her clothes for the trip. She buried the laundry bag in the bottom of her Louis Vuitton suitcase and put a powder-blue Brooks Brothers shirt and a clean pair of slacks in her “Double Happiness” bag. If she went directly from Gatwick to Lily Simmons’s office, she would need to change on the plane.
She sat down near the window with her Moleskine notebook in her lap and began to organize her thoughts. With the money she’d moved that day, her worst-case scenario was that they would recoup a bit more than six million dollars, and that factored in what she had promised to give back to Douglas and Ashton even if she failed with Simmons. It was lot of money — more than what they went after on many jobs. But compared to the sixty-five million that was sitting in Cyprus, it was insignificant. All she had to do to get that jackpot was convince Lily Simmons to sign a piece of paper.
Ava checked the time. It was almost five o’clock — eight o’clock in the morning in Hong Kong. She needed to call Uncle.
“ Wei.”
“We’re back and it went well.”
He listened without interruption as she described how the afternoon had gone. When she finished, his first question was, “How soon can you see this Simmons woman?”
“Late tomorrow. I’m flying to London tonight.”
“And the woman doesn’t know that Ashton and Douglas stole the money?”
“No.”
“Could that be a problem?”
“The opposite, I would think. It has a certain shock value that I can embellish. Although, you know, that doesn’t mean she’ll react the way we want.”