The King of Shanghai (3 page)

“And the garden belongs to the hotel?”

“No, it’s a public garden. It used to belong to the British Consulate.”

“Very nice view.”

“Many of our guests prefer rooms in this part of the hotel to those that look out onto the Bund and the river.”

“I can see why,” Ava said as she gave him a tip.

When the bellman left, she took the notes from her pocket. The first was from May:
Hope you had a nice flight. We’re meeting Xu at seven for dinner. The restaurant is within easy walking distance from the hotel. I’ll be with Suki until five thirty and back at the hotel around six. If you’re up to it, meet me in the Compass Bar downstairs. Amanda may join us if she’s back from the factory in Pudong.

The next was from Xu:
I spoke with May Ling and she has the dinner details. Looking forward to seeing you.

Ava looked at her watch. It was four thirty. Her body felt stiff from the flight, and her head was muddled from jet lag. Ideally she would have loved to go for a run, but then she remembered the air quality and discarded the idea. Instead she went into the bedroom and unpacked her bags.

When that was done, she went back to the living room and stood by the window. She closed her eyes, breathed in deeply, and began to fill her mind with images of bak mei, slowly allowing her body to respond to them. The martial art was designed to cause damage, with kicks that never went above the waist and short, pile-driving hand thrusts that attacked the opponent’s most vulnerable body parts: eyes, nose, ears, and areas with sensitive nerve endings. The phoenix-eye fist was bak mei’s most famous move; it concentrated all the muscle power from the shoulder, back, and abdomen into the first knuckle of the right hand. Strength and speed were generated by the legs and hips so that the knuckle became a lethal weapon. For half an hour she followed a routine that hadn’t varied since she’d begun to learn the art. Bit by bit her body loosened and then came back together in a different form — fighting form. She went through her exercises: the
kata
for the tiger, for the dragon.
Bam!
Her right fist shot forward, almost too fast for the human eye to track.
Bam, bam, bam!
She stopped, closed her eyes again, and resumed deep breathing. When the tension had left her body and her mind could focus on where she was, she was done.

Ava stripped and went into the bathroom. She adjusted the shower nozzle to its most powerful setting, set the water temperature to as hot as she could bear, and stepped into the stall. She let the water batter her for at least five minutes before reaching for the shower gel and then the shampoo. She dried herself with a thick, fluffy towel, slipped on a Peninsula terry cloth robe, and dried her hair.

Back in the living room, she sat at the desk and opened her laptop. There were three emails from Maria, full of love and longing and already bemoaning her absence. For the first time in her life Ava was in a relationship that she felt was going to last. She wasn’t ready to share a house, and she certainly wasn’t ready to get married, but she loved Maria and wanted to hang on to her. Where it went, only time would decide.
I miss you too, and I’ll be careful, and I’ll be good,
she wrote back.

The room phone rang.

“Yes,” Ava said.

“It’s May.”

“You’re early.”

“Just a bit. How was the trip?”

“Not bad. How was your day?”

“So-so.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing too dramatic, just Suki pushing us to help her expand faster than we planned. We can talk about it when we meet.”

“That’s fine with me.”

“You ready for a drink?”

“I need to get dressed.”

“That usually takes you about five minutes.”

“I just stepped out of the shower.”

“Seven minutes, then.”

( 4 )

The Compass Bar was off the hotel lobby, and May Ling was already there when Ava arrived. Ava was wearing a black skirt, a pink shirt with the cuffs fastened by green jade links, and her black Cole Haan pumps. Her hair was pulled back, fastened by her ivory chignon pin, and she wore a light touch of red lipstick and black mascara. In the right light, she looked as though she was in her mid-twenties.

May Ling sat at the bar turned sideways, her legs crossed. She was wearing a sleeveless black linen dress that fell to just above the knee, its square neckline exposing just the top of her generous bust — one of the things that Ava and May had in common. Ava was five foot three and weighed 115 pounds; May was the same height and maybe five pounds lighter. Ava’s bak mei and running regimes had toned her muscles over the years. May lifted nothing heavier than a glass of wine but had a lithe, feminine figure. She was fine-boned — like a Chinese Audrey Hepburn, Ava had always thought. Her hair was cut in a short bob. She was in her mid-forties but looked as if she was in her early thirties.

When May saw Ava, she slid from the stool and stepped towards her. The two women hugged each other tightly, heads pressed into shoulders.

“I’m so happy to see you,” May said.

“Me too,” Ava said, feeling an unexpected surge of emotion.

“I’ve missed you.”

Theirs was a friendship that had begun with lies, mistrust, and betrayal. Ava and Uncle had been hired by May Ling and her husband, Changxing, to find out who had sold them fraudulent art. When Ava found the perpetrators, May Ling sent killers to slake her husband’s need for revenge. Ava had reacted with fury, threatening to destroy the more than sixty million dollars she had recovered. Less than a month later, she had found herself in the middle of a crisis that threatened her entire family’s financial health, as well the life of her half-brother’s partner. May came to her aid, and a relationship was forged.

May was Taoist, as Uncle had been. The first time she met Ava, she had felt
qi
, the Taoist life force, pass between them. They were two kindred souls, she said, bound in ways they could never understand. Ava may not have bought into the
qi
part, but she had to admire May for what she had accomplished. And she listened to Uncle, who told her that friends with
guanxi
were friends to be treasured.

Now when Ava thought of May, her
guanxi
was irrelevant. She was simply a good friend, and someone she trusted as much as she had trusted Uncle. She had never said this to May. But then she had never said it to Uncle either; it had always been understood that there was nothing they wouldn’t do for each other. She sensed that whatever flowed between her and May was just as pure.

Ava looked around the bar. The carpeting was purple with a black line running through it. One wall was purple, along with the leather bar stools. She would never have imagined the colour as a design choice for any Peninsula Hotel, but somehow they had managed to pull it off.

“I’d call this stylishly garish,” she said.

“I know you love the Mandarin Oriental, but I have to tell you, the Peninsula is not day-old noodles,” May said.

There was a half-empty glass on the bar. “Martini?” Ava asked.

“Of course.”

Ava climbed up onto the stool next to May’s. The bartender was in front of her in a flash.

“Prosecco,” she said.

“And another martini,” May said.

“Will Amanda be joining us?” Ava asked.

“No, she can’t get away from Pudong. She said they’re putting the final touches on the pitch they’ll make to us tomorrow. I have to say, it’s all quite mysterious.”

“It has certainly piqued my curiosity.”

“Me too.”

“And your day with Suki was just so-so?”

“It was mainly positive. The money we invested in Suki’s business is already reaping dividends. Our timing was good, I think. She’s very aggressive. She’s opened a couple of new warehouses and she’s added to the truck fleet. She tells me that we now have the largest privately owned storage and distribution business in Shanghai. Not that she’s satisfied with that.”

“What do you mean?”

“She wants to get bigger and better. A cold-storage facility is the next thing on her horizon. They aren’t cheap to build, but there’s a shortage. We’d fill it to capacity the day we opened.”

“How much more money would we have to put up?”

“For the cold storage, or for everything else she wants to do on top of that?” May said wryly. “I’m afraid we’ve unleashed a bit of a tiger in Suki. For years she was strapped for cash, and her husband’s lack of ambition didn’t help. Since he died and we gave her the money, she’s seen what she’s capable of.”

The waiter placed two drinks in front of them. May finished her first martini and picked up the fresh one. “
Gan bei
,” she said.

“Cheers.”

“The thing about the cold-storage warehouse,” May said after they had each taken a sip of their drinks, “is that we can pay for it by reinvesting our profits. We don’t have to put up any new money.”

“I like your idea.”

“Me too, and it isn’t mine — it’s Suki’s. She’s quite driven, that woman, very intense, and she keeps right up to date. She’s installed every new system she can find to make the business more efficient,” May said.

“So you’re obviously comfortable with her cold-storage proposal.”

“Yes, but that isn’t her only idea.”

“So you said. What else does she have in mind?”

“She wants to expand the Shanghai business and extend her reach to Beijing,” May said.

“The cold storage isn’t enough?”

“No. She says we have to keep growing to keep pace with the economy. Pudong is booming, and Shanghai has come roaring back. There are more than twenty million people living in this immediate area. The need for logistics — for trucking and warehousing and distribution networks — has never been greater. The manufacturing sector keeps expanding, and the more products that are made, the more need to be warehoused and shipped. Changxing and I experienced the same phenomenon in Wuhan and Hubei, but it was a more manageable growth. Here it’s crazy, and the costs are greater.”

“From what I’ve read, she already has the largest operation in Shanghai.”

“I know, but she wants to get bigger yet. And she’s not wrong. If you stand still you’ll get run over by the competition.”

“Let her continue to invest our profits.”

“Our profit margins are healthy, and they’ll get even stronger if we can throw up the cold storage quickly, but she still wants more money.”

Ava finished her Prosecco and passed the glass to the bartender. “I’ll have another.”

The bartender looked at May.

“No, we’re going out to dinner and I want to be able to walk to the restaurant.”

“What’s this about Beijing?” Ava said when the bartender left.

“There’s a warehouse and distribution company on the outskirts of the city that a friend of hers owns. He’s ready to retire and he wants to sell the business to someone he knows, someone who values the effort he’s put into it.”

“How much money would that entail?” Ava asked.

“Three hundred million renminbi.”

“Fifty million dollars?”

“More or less.”

“We don’t have that kind of cash,” Ava said.

“Suki thinks she can find a bank that might give it to us if we pledged the Shanghai assets.”

“We agreed when we set up our business that we would avoid highly leveraged situations. None of us likes debt, right?”

“I agree. Expanding in Shanghai and also adding a Beijing location would amount to close to a hundred million dollars. We have thirty million available, and the girls are looking at some other investments that are attractive. I don’t want to put too much into one basket.”

“Then we won’t.”

“Fine. I wanted to discuss it with you before telling Suki she’ll have to make do with the cold storage.”

“Will she be upset?”

“No, she knows she’s pushing the envelope. She just can’t help it. She sees the potential and wants to grab it.”

May’s cellphone rang. The noise sounded especially shrill in the quiet bar. “
Wei
,” May said, then smiled and passed the phone to Ava.

“How was your flight?” Amanda asked.

“Just fine.”

“Sorry I couldn’t make it back for a drink. I’m still at my meeting, and it doesn’t look like I’m getting back to the hotel anytime soon.”

“Is there a problem?”

“No, just some details that have to be worked out. Let’s meet for breakfast in the morning.”

Ava turned to May. “Amanda won’t be back till late. She wants to meet for breakfast.”

“Tell her eight o’clock.”

“I heard that, and eight is fine,” Amanda said. “Now I have to get back to the people here. See you tomorrow.”

Ava handed the phone back to May. “She sounds excited.”

“I’ve had enough excited conversation for one day,” May said. “Let’s hope that dinner with Xu is calmer.”

The phone rang again. May looked concerned as she answered, and Ava wondered if Changxing was on the line. Instead, May once again passed the phone to Ava.

“Ava, welcome to Shanghai,” Xu said.

“You could have told me that when we meet.”

“That’s why I’m calling. Something has come up that needs my urgent attention. Can we possibly do dinner tomorrow night? I’m sorry to ask at the last minute, but I have a crisis of sorts.”

Ava covered the microphone with her hand. “He wants to postpone dinner until tomorrow night. Are you okay with that?”

May nodded.

“Yes, that’s fine. And truthfully it will probably be better for me to have a good night’s sleep behind me,” Ava said to Xu.

“It will be the same place and the same time.”

“I’ll tell May.”

“Thank you for being understanding. I’m anxious to speak with the two of you.”

( 5 )

It turned into a short evening for Ava. After her second glass of Prosecco, jet lag began to take its effect. Her mind was clouded, and despite the bak mei workout her limbs felt heavy. May wanted her to come to the Yi Long Court restaurant across the hallway for dinner, but Ava had started to yawn and knew there was no way she could last. She excused herself just after seven o’clock and headed upstairs to her room.

She began to take her clothes off the second she had closed the door behind her, and slid into bed in only her underwear. Sleep took her instantly. She woke twice, the first time to pee and drink a glass of water. It took her a while to get back to sleep, her body clock insisting that it was mid-afternoon.

When she finally nodded off, she found herself immersed in a recurring dream. She and her father were in a hotel trying to check out and get to the airport to catch a plane. As always, hotel rooms disappeared, bags were nowhere to be found, and transportation to the airport proved to be unreliable. They reached the airport with only minutes to spare. She left her father at the curb as she rushed inside to the check-in counter. When she looked back, he was gone. She was at the back of a long, snaking check-in line. Her frustration at its slow movement was compounded by the anxiety of having lost sight of her father. Then she heard her name and the dream took a twist. Uncle was standing at the front of the line, dressed as always in a black suit and white shirt buttoned to the neck. He waved at her. “Join me,” he said. She hesitated, worried that her father might not find her.

As she was weighing her options, she woke. The room was entirely dark except for the light thrown by the bedside clock. It wasn’t quite six o’clock. She lay quietly, the dream still with her. Had it been one dream, or had Uncle’s presence signalled the start of a second dream?

She pulled herself out of bed and went to the window. The first morning light was creeping across the gardens below, the larger plants’ leaves moist and glistening in the sun. She turned back to the room, turned on the coffee machine, found her running gear, laid it on the bed, and then went to the bathroom to brush her teeth and hair. Fifteen minutes and two coffees later, she walked into the lobby of the Peninsula.

“I would like to go for a run on the Bund. How is the air quality this morning?” she asked the concierge.

“As good as it has been in weeks,” he said. “I don’t think you need to worry.” Ava thought about pressing for details but let it pass.

Even at that time of the morning the promenade was busy. There were stretches where she had to reduce her pace or swerve to avoid collisions, but the run was magnificent all the same. The air was fresh, with a slight saltwater snap to it, and there was no visible trace of yellow fog. The river seemed to be flowing with more vigour, although it still reflected shades of green, blue, and black from the oil slicks. The historic buildings were coming to life. A steady stream of workers walked across the plazas that fronted the buildings along the Bund, and lines of cars were sliding into underground parking garages.

She ran six kilometres, three times up and then back along the Bund. When she got back to her room, the
International Herald Tribune
and
Shanghai Daily
were at her door. She made another coffee and spread the
Tribune
over the massive desk. The Middle East was in turmoil, the European Union seemed to be in danger of falling apart, and another American investment guru had been caught running a Ponzi scheme. She turned to the
Daily
. The front page almost exclusively covered economic news: the forecast for next year’s growth in GDP had been reduced from nine to eight percent, and new housing starts were projected to grow by only fifteen percent. These numbers were a cause for concern in the new China — numbers that would have caused glee anywhere else.

At five minutes to eight she took the elevator to the breakfast room in the lobby. Amanda and May were already there, sitting side by side, a sheaf of papers in front of Amanda. This was the first time Ava had seen them together like this, and it jolted her. She was in a new business and they were her partners — it wasn’t just theory anymore.

They both stood as Ava neared the table. Amanda was the smallest at just a little over five feet and weighing perhaps a hundred pounds. Her shoulder-length hair hung loose, framing her fine features. When Ava first met her, Amanda had been into heavy makeup; now it was just mascara and lipstick. She was wearing designer jeans and a black silk blouse. Ava stared into Amanda’s face, searching for any lingering effects of the attack in Borneo, and found none.

“Excuse all this paper,” May said. “I wanted Amanda to see Suki’s final numbers.”

Amanda took a few quick steps forward and threw her arms around Ava’s neck. “It’s so good to see you,” she said. They hugged fiercely, each of them understanding the pain the other had suffered. Over Amanda’s shoulder, Ava saw May wipe a tear from the corner of one eye.

“And it’s wonderful to see you.”

“Amanda was waiting for you to get here before she gave a briefing on what we can expect today when we see her mysterious investment proposal,” May said.

“You certainly have our interest,” Ava said.

Amanda smiled. “Then let’s start.”

Ava sat across from them and poured herself a coffee from the carafe. A platter of muffins and croissants was pushed off to one side of the table. They appeared not to have been touched. “No one’s eating?” she said

“I’m still stuffed from last night,” May said.

“And I’m too excited,” Amanda said.

“Is the deal you’re looking at that thrilling?” Ava asked.

“Well, it has that potential,” Amanda said.

“I don’t like the word
thrilling
when it’s attached to a business,” May said.

“I’m joking, or at least partly joking,” Amanda said. “In about an hour you’re going to be meeting Clark and Gillian Po. They’re siblings. He’s a fashion designer.”

“I’ve never heard of him,” May said quickly.

“That’s because he’s never designed under his own name.”

“I see.”

“He’s spent the past ten years designing clothes for other people’s labels, mainly retailers in Europe and North America. It’s a business their father started with their uncle about thirty years ago. The company was originally based in Hong Kong, but when it became too expensive to operate there they set up shop here.

“The brothers were very sharp businessmen. They leased a factory in Pudong, but it’s only about two thousand square metres. It’s what’s called a sample factory. They have about a hundred workers involved in designing clothes and making samples for the salesmen and agents. If they get an order, they outsource production to a real garment factory somewhere else in China or Asia.”

“So they don’t actually make anything themselves?” Ava asked.

“Just the samples. The production is jobbed out.”

“So no big overheads.”

“No, but that’s getting us off the point. I have no interest in that business,” Amanda said. “I just want you to understand Clark and Gillian’s background. The two brothers were named David and Thomas. David was their father. Thomas had no children, so Clark and Gillian were encouraged to join the business. She’s a friend of a girl I went to Brandeis with, and she has an MBA from an Australian university. Clark went to a prestigious institute of fashion design in the U.K.”

“So you’re saying that the two children went into the business,” Ava said.

“Yes, they did, and they’ve made quite a success of it.”

“And now they want out?” May asked. “They’re prepared to walk away from the family company?”

“This is where it gets complicated. The two brothers were equal partners, and in their original agreement they had the right to buy each other’s shares if one of them left the business for any reason, including death. David Po died two years ago. Thomas bought his shares at a price that was set out in their agreement, but the agreement hadn’t been updated in ages and he paid a fraction of their real worth. Now, both Clark and Gillian are quite clear that this did not change the operating arrangements, and they were happy enough to continue working with their uncle. They thought — naively, maybe — that he would eventually retire and pass along the business to them,” Amanda said, and then paused. “Instead, he sold it a year ago to one of their biggest customers.”

“Lovely,” May said.

Amanda nodded. “As you can imagine, this did not go down well with the siblings. But they weren’t independently wealthy and didn’t have the money to set up their own business, so they stayed on as employees.”

“And now they want to leave and they want us to finance — what, exactly?” May said.

“The Po fashion line. They want to launch their own label.”

May shook her head. “Amanda, one of the founding principles of Three Sisters is that we won’t invest in start-ups until we have built a solid and self-sustaining base in existing businesses.”

“I know, and I told my Brandeis friend who approached me exactly that. But she was very insistent that I meet Clark and Gillian, and eventually I gave in. After spending many days with them, and hours on the phone doing due diligence with customers, I formed the opinion that Gillian is highly organized, efficient, and a tremendous manager. Clark . . . well, Clark is a genius.”

“
Genius
, I’ve learned, is used far too often to describe someone who has talent. There is a wide gap between genius and talent,” Ava said.

“That isn’t my word,” Amanda said. “It’s what I’ve heard over and over again from the sample factory’s customers. I called them as part of the due diligence — I pretended I was a buyer for a Hong Kong retail chain — and they were surprisingly open with me. Most of them told me that Clark is the best designer they have ever worked with, and that it’s a shame — a crime, even — that he’s never had a chance to design his own line.”

“Why didn’t they give him the chance?” May asked.

“Those customers don’t want originality. They want to copy the best new clothes from well-known designers, dumb them down, and stick their own label on them. They don’t have time for anything else. They’re on a private-label treadmill, one buying season just rolling into the next.”

“So we’re the chosen ones?”

“May, I wouldn’t have asked you and Ava to meet with them if I didn’t think there was an opportunity for us to do something very special from a business standpoint. We’re going to leave here in a few minutes and go to the factory. If you don’t want to take the jump after their presentation, then we’ll move on.”

“How old are they?” May asked.

“I think Gillian is in her mid-thirties. Clark is younger.”

“And how much money do they want?”

“There’s a considerable amount of flexibility, but I don’t think we could start the business with anything less than ten million dollars.”

“U.S.?”

“Yes.”

“And you said
start
?”

“I won’t soft-sell this. If we want to do it properly, the amount we’d eventually have to invest could be ten times that. The operative word, though, is
eventually
. I think we can ease our way into it. The first and most important thing is for you two to meet them and understand what they want to do. I haven’t made any other commitments.”

“And what do we get for our ten million?” May asked.

“Forty-nine percent of the business.”

“You know we don’t like to be in that kind of position.”

“I know, May, but I’ve told them we would need to have sign-off authority on every budget and that a cheque larger than ten thousand dollars couldn’t be issued without our approval. With rigorous financial controls in place, we can leave them with fifty-one percent and still maintain control. The point is — and you’ve said this to me many times already — if we have control of the money, we have control of the business.”

“And they’re okay with that?”

“I wasn’t that blunt with them. The fifty-one percent is almost symbolic.”

“And you mentioned that we would absolutely insist that they couldn’t sell any of their shares without our approval?”

“I did, and they were okay with that as well.”

“So, structurally, the deal does make some sense.”

“It does.”

“And if nothing else, it will be a change from discussing trucks and warehouses and logistical challenges with Suki Chan,” May said. She turned to Ava. “Are you up for this?”

“I’m game for anything,” Ava said.