The King of Shanghai

KING

OF

SHANGHAI

AN AVA LEE NOVEL
THE TRIAD YEARS

IAN HAMILTON

Copyright © 2014 Ian Hamilton

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

This edition published in 2014 by
House of Anansi Press Inc.
110 Spadina Avenue, Suite 801
Toronto, ON, M5V 2K4
Tel. 416-363-4343
Fax 416-363-1017
www.houseofanansi.com

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, and events are either a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Hamilton, Ian, 1946–, author
          The King of Shanghai : the triad years / Ian Hamilton.

(An Ava Lee novel)
Issued in print and electronic formats.
ISBN 978-1-77089-246-0 (pbk.).— ISBN 978-1-77089-247-7 (html)

I. Title.  II. Series: Hamilton, Ian, 1946– . Ava Lee novel.

PS8615.A4423K55 2015          C813’.6          C2014-902736-2 
C2014-902737-0

Cover design: Alysia Shewchuck

We acknowledge for their financial support of our publishing program the Canada Council for the Arts, the Ontario Arts Council, and the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.

For Robin Spano and Karen Walton,
two good friends and two exceptional people.

( 1 )

Ava Lee’s plan was to go back to work after four months. She thought that would be enough time to get over the death of Chow Tung, the man she called Uncle. For ten years he had been her business partner, mentor, friend, and the most important man in her life. Then cancer took him. Ava was in her mid-thirties now, wealthy, had friends and family who loved her, and was a partner in a venture capital company called Three Sisters. But she was emotionally adrift, still mourning the passing of Uncle.

She had left her downtown Toronto condo only once during the first month back from Hong Kong. She went to the neighbourhood bank where she had a safety deposit box that contained Moleskine notebooks detailing every job that she and Uncle had undertaken together. They had been debt collectors. Their clients were desperate people who had exhausted all legal and conventional means of recovering the money that had been stolen from them. It was a business fraught with peril — it was one thing to find the money, but it was entirely another to convince the thieves to return it. Over the years Ava had been shot, knifed, kicked, hit with a tire iron and a baseball bat, kidnapped and held for ransom, and survived assassination attempts. Without Uncle, she would never have survived. Now she was determined to relive every single case, every adventure.

She put away her computer and new iPhone, closed the condo curtains, and spent her days sitting at the kitchen table, reading the notebooks and filling her head with memories. But she didn’t disconnect her land line or cut herself off completely from the outside world. Her mother, Jennie, called and visited several times. Her girlfriend, Maria Gonzalez, came by with food.

Maria wanted to stay but Ava wouldn’t let her, and she refused to have sex. “I’m not ready,” she said. Maria was forlorn. It was only after two more rejections that she stopped asking and came to accept that Ava had to find herself again.

It is Chinese tradition to wear white for ten days after the death of a loved one. Ava wore white every day for the entire month. There was no plan; it just felt like the right thing to do, until one morning it wasn’t. She had finished reading the last notebook the night before, and when she woke and went to her closet, she found herself reaching for an orange T-shirt. That afternoon she went for a long run.

The next day, she ran again. When she got back to the condo, she phoned Maria. “I’d like to go out for dinner, and then maybe you can come back here and spend the night with me,” she said.

Connecting with Maria was her first step back. A few days later she drove to Richmond Hill, a suburb north of Toronto, and had dim sum with her mother. Then she called her best friend, Mimi, and arranged to visit her and the baby. After a week of running, when her energy level felt close to normal, she walked to the house of Grandmaster Tang. She hadn’t seen her instructor in more than two months, but he welcomed her as if they’d been together just the day before. For two hours they practised bak mei, the martial art that he had been teaching her one-on-one — as was the custom — since she was a teenager. Her body ached when she got back to the apartment, and it did so for the next week after her daily visits. When the aching stopped, another piece of her well-being had fallen into place.

In the middle of the second month, Ava began to chat with May Ling Wong and Amanda Yee, her friends and partners in the new business. Three Sisters had already taken ownership positions in a furniture manufacturing business in Borneo and a warehouse and distribution company based in Shanghai, managed by Suki Chan, a long-time associate of May Ling. Ava knew that her partners were actively seeking other investments, but when she called May Ling and Amanda, she made it clear that she wanted to be the one to initiate contact with them, that she had no interest in discussing business matters just yet.

Shortly thereafter she received her first phone call from Shanghai, from the man she knew as Xu. When she saw the Chinese country code, she assumed it was May Ling. She answered at once, thinking something terrible must have happened if May Ling was calling against her wishes. Instead she heard the soft, confident voice of Xu. He spoke to her in Mandarin, and she had never heard anyone speak it better, each word carefully pronounced as if it had a value that set it apart from the others.

“I hope you are well and I apologize if I am inconveniencing you. I think often of Uncle, and whenever I do, you come to mind. No two people could have had a better mentor.”

“I am well enough,” was all Ava could say, flustered by the unexpected call and by the way he was linking them through Uncle.

She hadn’t known that Xu existed until the day before Uncle died, and she had met him exactly once — at Uncle’s funeral. Any doubts she had about the depth of the relationship between the two men had been put to rest when she went through Uncle’s papers. The men had indeed been close. What alarmed her was that most of their correspondence concerned Xu’s management of his Triad gang in Shanghai.

During the course of their first conversation, Xu focused solely on his memories of Uncle, and Ava found herself sharing some of hers. It was cathartic for her, and when he asked if he could call again, she said yes. He phoned her regularly. Xu was well-read, and they shared an interest in Chinese films and good food. And then, of course, there was Uncle: every call involved at least one story about him.

One time Xu veered off into a discussion about his business and Ava had to pull him back. “I don’t want to talk about how you make your living,” she said.

He retreated, but not without saying, “My business is in a constant state of flux. What it is today could turn into something entirely different tomorrow. When things are settled in your life, I would like you and Madam Wong to visit me in Shanghai. We may have some areas of shared interest,
mei mei
.”

At Uncle’s funeral he had made the same request, but Ava had put it down to politeness. Now it had more import, but not enough that she wanted to pursue it.

“Tell me more about that young female film director from Yantai you mentioned last week,” she said, changing the subject.

In her third month at home, Ava felt the urge to travel. Maria took a week off from her job as assistant trade commissioner at the Colombian consulate in Toronto and they flew to Aruba. Four days into the trip, Ava felt the first touch of guilt about being idle. By the end of the week she’d had enough of beaches and dining out and was ready to go back to work.

She called May Ling as soon as she got back to Toronto. “I want to step into the business,” she said.

“This is sooner than you thought,” May said.

“I think I’ve worked through enough of the pain.”

“Are you sure? We can wait.”

“There will always be a hole in my heart where Uncle was, but I can’t let it paralyze me. He wouldn’t want that either.”

“Well, in that case, how about meeting Amanda and me in Shanghai in a few days?”

“Shanghai?”

“It’s year-end for Suki Chan. I’ll be going over her numbers and looking at her plans for the coming year. She tells me she has some ideas she wants us to consider. I could use your input.”

“How about Amanda?”

“She has her own project there, some mysterious investment proposal that she tells me has to be seen.”

“Seen?”

“I’ve asked for the business plan. She says she’ll give it to me when we’re in Shanghai.”

“That isn’t like Amanda.”

“I know, but she’s quite giddy about it, and I was going there anyway. She’ll be even giddier knowing that you’re coming.”

“Yes,” Ava said softly.

“Ava, is something wrong?”

“Why do you ask?”

“You don’t sound particularly enthusiastic.”

“It’s Xu,” Ava said.

“What about him?”

“He’s been calling me.”

“What does he want?”

“We share memories of Uncle. It’s helped me get past some things.”

“And he lives in Shanghai,” May said. “Is that the problem?”

“Yes. He asked me at the funeral, and again over the phone, if you and I could meet with him there.”

“Both of us?”

“He hints that he has some business interests that could be mutually beneficial.”

“Why on earth would we ever do business with a Triad gang leader? I know he’s sophisticated and doesn’t look like your typical gangster, but he didn’t get to be as successful as he is without a very sharp cutting edge.”

“I’m not suggesting we do business with him, May,” Ava said. “I just don’t think I can go to Shanghai and not meet with him. If you’re uncomfortable with the idea, then I’ll go alone.”

“Is this about both of you being tied to Uncle?”

“It’s partially that, of course, but I also can’t forget that I owe Xu my life. We both know I would have been killed in Borneo without him,” Ava said. The memory of being kidnapped and held for ransom by a local Triad gang was still fresh. Uncle had been in Shanghai with Xu when it happened and had prevailed upon him to send men to rescue her. Ava was saved, but ten men died as Xu exacted revenge for reasons that had nothing to do with her.

“He did what he did for Uncle. I’m not sure you owe him anything.”

“That could be true, but I can’t deny that a connection runs between us, and that an obligation — if not a debt — must be recognized. Meeting with Xu, especially socially over dinner or lunch, would be a trivial thing for us, and it’s the only thing he’s ever asked of me. So I can’t go to Shanghai without telling him, and I can’t be there and refuse to see him.”

“All right, I’ll go along,” said May with a sigh. “I’ll ask Amanda to build a meeting with him into our schedule. Which do you prefer, dinner or lunch?”

“I think dinner shows more respect.”

“Dinner it is.”

“When Amanda forwards me the complete schedule, I’ll call Xu and make sure the time works for him.”

“From what you’re telling me, I’ll be surprised if he doesn’t make any time work,” May said.

“Perhaps, but regardless of when we end up meeting with him, I don’t want Amanda there. He was quite specific about its being me and you. Do you think she will be offended by that?”

“She isn’t that sensitive. In any event, I’ll tell her it’s strictly a social thing.”

“Okay.”

“Ava, do you have any idea what he wants with us?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“I don’t have a clue.”

( 2 )

After Ava ended her call with May, she felt an incredible surge of energy. It was as if she had pulled down the last brick in the wall she had built around herself after Uncle’s death. In rapid succession she phoned her mother, Maria, and Mimi to let them know she was going back to work. Then she put on her running gear and headed outdoors.

The weather was still vacillating between winter and spring, but there was warmth in the air, buoying her spirits even further. Over the past couple of weeks she had worked her way up to ten kilometres a day. Today she ran sixteen, and would have gone farther if her route hadn’t taken her back to the front door of the condo.

She showered, dressed, and went to the computer. An email from Amanda had already arrived.

I’m so excited that you’re coming to Shanghai. This is what I propose as a schedule,
it read.
Both May and I arrive early Thursday morning. I checked the flights and it looks like the earliest you can get there is Thursday afternoon. May intends to spend the day with Suki. I’m going to be tied up all day and into the evening with the young couple whose business proposal I’ve been looking at, so I’ll meet you at the hotel on Friday morning and the three of us can go to their office to hear their pitch. May says you want to have dinner with Xu. Friday night will work, or any night after that, depending on how long you want to stay. So looking forward to seeing you. Love, Amanda.

The sign-off
Love
wasn’t uncommon among the three partners, and Amanda was more than just a partner. She was married to Ava’s half-brother Michael, and Ava had been a bridesmaid at their wedding. Michael was the eldest son of Ava’s father, Marcus, and his first wife, Elizabeth. Ava’s mother was Marcus’s second wife, and a third wife lived in Australia. Marcus still lived with Elizabeth and his other marriages weren’t legal in the formal sense, but it wasn’t unusual for wealthy Hong Kong men to have more than one wife. Ava had been raised in keeping with the multi-family tradition.

She checked her watch. It was one in the morning in Hong Kong. Ava imagined Amanda sitting at her desk in the living room, looking out at the harbour view. Amanda and Michael’s apartment was in the Mid-levels of Hong Kong. Their suite was not so far up Victoria Peak as to cost millions of dollars, but it was high enough that at night they had a sliver of a view of Victoria Harbour. She dialled their number, and Amanda answered on the first ring.

“I just got your email. Why aren’t you in bed?” Ava asked.

“Michael is travelling with Simon To. They’re in Guangzhou, looking at some possible sites. I’m waiting for him to get home.”

Simon To was Michael’s partner in a chain of noodle restaurants. Ava had helped them out of a difficult situation in Macau more than a year ago, saving their business — and Simon’s life.

“Their business is still good?” she asked.

“It must be. They’ve been using Sonny almost constantly to run them here and there.”

Sonny Kwok had been Uncle’s bodyguard and chauffeur, and it had fallen to Ava to keep him employed and out of trouble. She couldn’t use him in Toronto, so she had made him available to her father, Michael, and Amanda. It was understood — and by no one more than Sonny — that he was, ultimately and always, Ava’s man.

“I got your schedule,” Ava said. “It looks fine, except I think I’d like to have dinner with Xu the day I arrive. I don’t really have to see Suki unless May thinks there’s a need.”

“That works just as well. I assume you’ll contact Xu directly?”

“Yes. Let’s leave it to May to figure out Suki. You must have enough on your plate with that proposal you’re looking at.”

“It has been hectic,” Amanda said. “Ava, I’m so happy you’re ready to come back to work. We can get things moving in full gear now that we’ve got Borneo sorted out and Chi-Tze is working with me in Hong Kong.”

“She doesn’t miss Borneo?”

“She couldn’t wait to get out of there. Ah-Pei isn’t involved in the business anymore but she didn’t leave Kota Kinabalu, and Chi-Tze kept running into her. Every time she did, she couldn’t sleep for days. May agreed that Chi-Tze should join me here. The Chiks are running the business now. Chi-Tze keeps in touch with them and is available whenever they need her, but that dependency should ease up over time. I hope so, because I need her full focus. Now that people know we have money to invest, proposals are arriving every other day, and to go through them properly takes quite a bit of time. Chi-Tze is a superb analyst. When we were at business school together, she always had the better marks.”

Chi-Tze Song and her sister, Ah-Pei, had owned a Borneo furniture business that Three Sisters invested in. Their involvement in the firm had not resulted in a smooth transition.

“I’m so happy she’s in a better place, both physically and emotionally,” Ava said.

“It sounds like you are as well.”

“Well, I am ready to work again.”

“Are you really over Uncle’s death?”

“He was in his eighties. He lived a long and productive life, and he was ready to go.”

“But how are you feeling?”

“I miss him every day. Every time the phone rings, some part of me thinks it’s him. I don’t know when I’ll stop reacting like that.”

“He was a marvellous man.”

“He would have died for me.”

“And you for him.”

“I like to think that I would.”

“Ava, I know we’ll never be able to replace what you and Uncle had, but hopefully this business of ours will give you as much satisfaction as working with him did.”

“I keep telling myself that it will be nice to invest in something long-term, something that we can grow. Every job Uncle and I did was one of a kind and had a short lifespan. It was get in, get the money, and get out, then sit around and wait for the next job. Whenever I had to describe what I did for a living, I said it involved months of boredom interspersed with days of stress and excitement, and sometimes punctuated with minutes — or even hours — filled with terror.”

“I can handle boredom, or at least predictability,” Amanda said.

“I’m not so sure about either of those,” Ava said, laughing. “Now go to bed. I’ll see you in Shanghai.”

After hanging up, Ava sat quietly by the phone for a few minutes. Amanda and May Ling were loyal friends, and Ava felt as tightly bound to them as she had been to Uncle. It would be good to reconnect in person, and to be in Shanghai. That thought reminded her of Xu. She opened the contact list on her computer and found his email address.

Something has come up and I have to be in Shanghai at the end of this week. I arrive Thursday. If you want to meet, May Ling and I will be available that evening for drinks or dinner. We’re staying at the Peninsula Hotel. If you can’t reach me beforehand, leave a message there. Regards, Ava.

She went to the kitchen to make a cup of Starbucks instant coffee. When she got back, there was already a reply.
Dinner it will be. I will make the reservation and contact you at the hotel with details. Thank you, Xu.

It was an hour later in Shanghai than in Hong Kong, past two o’clock in the morning.
Doesn’t anyone over there sleep?
she thought.