The Scottish Banker of Surabaya - By Ian Hamilton Page 0,104
was leaning against the wall, his face ashen and gaunt. She opened the water and passed it to him. He sipped lightly, no more than wetting his lips. When she gave him a tissue, he patted his sweaty brow. “I’m worried about you,” she said.
“No reason to be. I am just an old man having an old man’s aches and pains.”
“Uncle, you would tell me if it was more than that, wouldn’t you?”
“Of course,” he said.
He held her arm the rest of the way to the hotel. Neither of them spoke until they saw Sonny standing by the Mercedes. “I will go straight home. You call me there after you talk to your Mountie,” Uncle said.
“Okay, I’ll call. Even if I don’t reach him, I’ll let you know.”
“Good. One way or another we need to close this case. We owe it to our clients to do the best we can for them.”
“Yes, Uncle, we owe it to our clients.”
( 39 )
Ava had met Marc Lafontaine on a job in Guyana, where he worked at the Canadian High Commission in Georgetown. He was a sergeant, divorced, with three daughters living in Ottawa. He had made a play for Ava. When she turned him down, he handled it with grace and actually showed concern for her well-being in a country where homosexuality was a crime punishable by a jail term, or worse.
She had met him only briefly but under difficult circumstances. At the time it would have been easy for him to fob her off or pass on her story and situation to local authorities to win their favour. Instead he had been honest, supportive, and steadfast — the stereotypical Mountie of dime novels and movies. None of that meant he would still be in Guyana. None of that meant he would remember her. None of that meant he would be prepared to step outside the normal parameters of his job. And even if he was, none of that meant he would know whom to call or be smart enough to sell what Ava was offering.
But she trusted Lafontaine, and that was the overriding priority. He wouldn’t lie to her. If he couldn’t or wouldn’t do what she wanted, he wouldn’t string her along or misuse whatever she told him. She just wished she hadn’t made it seem so sure to Uncle that Lafontaine was a viable contact. What was worse, she had no backup — it was Lafontaine or no one. And if it turned out to be no one, then the job was over, and she would be left kicking her heels in Hong Kong while she waited for Uncle’s doctor to return.
She went into her computer to find Lafontaine’s number. She opened her phone, removed the Toronto SIM card, and replaced it with a Hong Kong card that would read simply UNKNOWN CALLER on the other end. She phoned Guyana.
“Hello?” a tentative voice said.
“Is this Marc Lafontaine?”
“Yes. Who is this?”
“Ava Lee. I hope you remember me.”
“Under most circumstances you would be a hard woman to forget. Considering what went on here, you can be certain I remember you,” he said.
“I’m not disturbing you, am I?”
“It’s Sunday morning and I’m sitting on my apartment balcony with a beer in my hand, watching the Demerara River sludge by.”
“Some things don’t change.”
“In Guyana nothing ever changes that much. Is that why you are calling? Has the dreaded Captain Robbins resurfaced in your life?”
“No.”
“Good, because right now he’s being particularly nasty, and I wouldn’t like to think you were one of his targets.”
“He and I reached an understanding.”
“I don’t think I want to know the details.”
“I wasn’t going to tell you.”
“No problem. It’s enough to know that someone fought him to a draw.”
“Actually, I think I did better than a draw.”
Lafontaine laughed. “So here it is Sunday morning, and I’m sitting on my balcony with a beer in my hand, and Ava Lee calls me from — where?”
“Hong Kong.”
“I don’t imagine this is social.”
“No.”
“What could possibly be going on in Hong Kong that’s connected to Guyana? Or what’s going on here that’s caught your attention?”
“Neither of the above. I have a proposition to make that involves you on a personal level.”
“Ava, how on earth can that be possible?”
“It’s a bit complicated.”
“Everything about you is complicated.”
“I have to say that in this case, you’re not wrong.”
“Are you going to make me guess?”
“No, because you couldn’t. And until two days ago I couldn’t have thought up this situation myself, even if I were chemically stimulated.”