“Something that should last another eight hours or so. We’ll tape and handcuff him anyway to be safe. I wouldn’t want him roaming around or running off in the middle of the night. I’ll give him another dose in the morning.”
“Do you really need him?”
And if I didn’t, Ava thought, what would you do with him? “Did your brother tell you what I have to do at the bank tomorrow?”
“I have a rough idea.”
“Well, until then I don’t know if I need him. If things go perfectly, I don’t. In the meantime, we have to keep him on ice just in case he has to make some kind of appearance.”
The apartment door opened into a white-tiled living room with a couch, two pine chairs, and the room’s main feature, a forty-eight-inch Panasonic Viera television. On the right was the kitchen, with a wooden table, four flimsy-looking folding chairs, and a sliding door that led out to a balcony. There was one bathroom to the left, the sink visible through the open door. There were three bedrooms between the bathroom and kitchen. “Let’s put him in the middle room. If there’s a fuss we’ll be sure to hear it,” Ava said to Robbins.
He looked at her as if she were trying to trick him. “Stick him the middle,” he said to Davey.
Davey wheeled Seto into the bedroom and Ava followed with her Shanghai Tang bag. “Throw him on the bed and take off his pants and shirt,” she said. As Davey undressed Seto, she went into her bag and took out a roll of duct tape. She wrapped his ankles together and then put a strip across his mouth. The handcuffs went back on. “Could you tuck him in now, please?” she asked.
Robbins watched them from the doorway. When they were done, he motioned to Davey. “A quarter to ten. We’ll meet you outside.”
Ava stood in the living room and watched the small man leave. Robbins walked into the kitchen and opened the fridge. “Your boyfriend bought some stuff on his way here. Too bad he didn’t have time to try it.” He took out a Stella Artois and brushed past her on his way to the couch. He spread himself across it and turned on the television.
From where she stood Ava could see bags of chips and nuts on the counter. She hadn’t had any dinner and wasn’t about to ask Robbins if she could go out. She went into the kitchen and picked out a bag of smoked almonds. She didn’t drink beer, so she hoped Derek had bought some soft drinks. To her surprise there was a bottle of Pinot Grigio. She gave silent thanks.
“I want the bedroom with the king-size bed,” Robbins shouted from the couch.
Ava turned. He was staring at her from across the room, looking at every part of her except her eyes. Almost absently, his hand reached for his head and he stuck his fingers into the furrows in his scalp and slid them back and forth, the latex gloves easing the path. Ava turned away, repulsed. She put the wine back in the fridge and left the kitchen with her bag of nuts. She picked up her other suitcase and went into the bedroom closest to the bathroom. Two twin beds. She was about to close the door when he yelled, “Leave it open. I need to be able to see you.”
She dropped the bag on the floor and went back into the living room. Enough of this crap, she thought. “Listen, you fucking jerk. If you heard your brother properly, we’re supposed to be partners. I have a big day ahead of me tomorrow and I need to get organized, I need to get my head in the right space. So I’m going to close my bedroom door until I decide I want to open it again. If you have a problem with that, call the Captain and explain to him just exactly why you need to have it open, and then the Captain can explain to me how that is going to contribute to our getting our hands on some money tomorrow.”
He barely looked at her. “Whatever,” he said.
Ava turned away. She knew she would have to put up with him until the money had found its way to Hong Kong. After that… well, she’d play it by ear.
With the door closed, Ava opened her Louis Vuitton suitcase. She took off her watch, undid her cufflinks, detached the ivory chignon pin, and put them neatly inside their pouch. She stripped down to her bra and panties, carefully folding her slacks and shirt and putting them back in her bag with the jewellery. Then she put on her Adidas training pants and a black T-shirt. She looked in her Shanghai Tang bag and found her notebook and a pen, then saw her computer back staring at her. She did a quick visual search of the room for a computer link and saw none. Even if one was available it wasn’t worth the risk, at least not yet. On the side and near the bottom of the Tang bag was a zipper. She opened it and reached inside. It was still there: a Hong Kong passport in her name. If the Captain was right about Thomas it wasn’t going to do her much good if she wanted to leave the island by air. Not that she was ready to leave anyway. Do the banking; just get the banking done, she told herself.
She picked up the notebook and pen and opened the door. Robbins hadn’t moved from the couch. Ava went to Seto’s bedroom and poked her head in. He was still tucked in bed, his head visible above the covers, looking almost happy.
She closed Seto’s door and turned. “There’s a balcony just outside the kitchen,” she said to Robbins. “I’m going to take a bottle of wine, my notebook, and my pen, and I’m going to sit out there and get ready for tomorrow.”
Robbins pulled himself semi-erect, his belly hanging over his knees. His face was pinched; he started to say something and then stopped.
Ava took that as “I don’t care” and walked to the fridge. She took out the wine, found a glass in the cupboard above the sink, and slid open the balcony door.
It wasn’t a large space: there was room enough for two canvas chairs and a small plastic table between them. She plopped into a chair and stretched her legs towards the railing. It was a beautiful evening. A light breeze was blowing in from the harbour, carrying a mixture of sea air and flowers. The balcony overlooked the water, and there was enough light from the boats and the surrounding buildings for her to see that the harbour was packed with sea craft of every size. Ava knew nothing nautical, couldn’t tell a catamaran from a yacht or a skiff from a sailboat, and was equally lost in terms of the lengths and values of boats. But she was impressed with Road Harbour anyway, because it seemed to have something of everything bobbing on the water. It was soothing, watching the boats, and as she became calmer the reality of her situation began to settle in, moving past shock towards acceptance and from there to dealing with circumstances by priority. The number one priority was Jeremy Bates and Barrett’s Bank. Without success there, Robbins’s threats were irrelevant and Andrew Tam was toast. She needed to focus on the bank.
Ava poured herself a glass of wine and opened her notebook. For ten minutes she reviewed the strategy she intended to use, again looking for weaknesses and antici-pating questions. It wasn’t perfect and couldn’t be, given Seto’s state, but the basic approach she had outlined did make sense, regardless of Robbins’s intrusion. She needed to get the bank to transfer the money, and that was all in her hands, under her control. What would happened afterwards, where and how the money would change hands… well, that was open for evaluation, and that was what she began to think about.
Since landing at Beef Island she’d been in a state of suspended disbelief, going through the motions, trying to keep the surprise of it all at bay. Robbins had done a good job springing it on her, and she had to acknowledge that she was in a bit of a jam. No Derek. No passport. No phone. Jack Robbins parked on the sofa. But how much danger was she really in? Nothing had changed in terms of Seto and the bank except that Robbins wanted a cut of the money. If that was all he wanted, then it was manageable. And she had to assume that was all he wanted. The only question was how to handle it.
She could, of course, do exactly what she had told Robbins she would do. But there were certain problems attached to that, not least of which was whether she could trust Robbins to be satisfied with $2.2 million. What if, once he knew she had moved the money to Hong Kong, he got even greedier? What if he continued to hold her passport over her head and demanded even more money?