but if that’s what you’re telling me, I believe you.”
He ended the call and looked at the woman. “I just spoke to my friend who knows Tai Toh Lui’s son very well. He has not been kidnapped. He is very much alive and free.”
“Really?” the woman said in disbelief.
“Cover your shorts before the end of the day and you’ll make a good profit. It’s just a vicious rumor, I promise. You may trust your stockbroker, but I’m sure you know there are others out there who are not so honest. They spread rumors just to move the price of the share a few points to make a quick profit.”
“Hiyah, all these people and their rumors! I tell you, this is what’s wrong with the world. People lying about everything.”
Charlie nodded. Suddenly his father’s words from a long time ago echoed in his head. It was one of the many occasions when Wu Hao Lian was in the hospital and thought his time was almost up. Charlie would stand at the foot of the bed while his father issued his final dictums, which went on for hours. Among the various exhortations about making sure his mother never had to move out of the big house in Singapore and that all his younger brother’s Thai ladyboys needed to be paid off was this constant refrain: I worry that when you’re in charge, you’ll run everything I’ve built over the last thirty years into the ground. Stick to the innovation side, because you’re never going to manage on the finance side. You need to make sure management is always stocked with the biggest motherfucking assholes—only hire Harvard or Wharton MBAs—and then get out of the way. Because you’re too damn honest—you’re just not a good enough liar.
Charlie had proved his father wrong when it came to running the business, but what he’d said was true. He hated being dishonest, and his stomach would feel like it was being put through a vise whenever he was forced to tell an untruth. He knew he was still feeling sick because of the lies he had told Astrid.
“Finish your drink—it’s expensive ginseng I gave you, you know!” the woman admonished.
“Yes, auntie.”
After braving the rest of his medicinal drink and paying the stall owner, Charlie returned to his office and sat down to compose an e-mail:
From: Charlie Wu
Date: June 10, 2013 at 5:26 PM
To: Astrid Teo
Subject: confession
Hi Astrid,
I don’t quite know how to begin this, so I’ll just go for it. I haven’t been completely honest with you. Isabel is furious at me. She called me up in the middle of the night screaming bloody murder, and then she had our daughters taken over to her parents’ house. She refused to listen to my explanations, and now she won’t return my calls. Grégoire told me that she’s conveniently sailed away on Pascal Pang’s yacht this morning. I think they are heading for Sicily.
The truth is, Isabel and I were not able to patch things up even after that Maldives second honeymoon. Things between us have been worse than ever, and I’ve been back at my Mid-Levels flat for a while now. The only agreement we’ve had is that I not do anything that would publicly embarrass her, anything that would give her a loss of face. Unfortunately, that happened last night. Her image of being happily married was shattered in front of Pascal Pang, and you know whatever he knows the rest of Hong Kong will soon know. I’m not sure I even care anymore.
You have to understand something, Astrid. My marriage to Isabel was a mistake even before it began. Everyone thinks I was sent to Hong Kong to take over my family’s operations there, but the truth is I fled. I was devastated after our breakup and depressed for months. I was a complete failure at business, and my father ended up shoving me into a role in our R&D department just to get me out of the way, but that’s where I began to thrive. I got lost in developing new product lines rather than just being a copycat contractor that steals from the best Silicon Valley tech firms. As a result, our business grew exponentially. I have you to thank for that.
I met Isabel at a party on a yacht that was thrown, coincidentally, by your cousin Eddie Cheng and his best friend Leo Ming. Eddie was one of the few people who actually took pity on me. I have to confess—I initially