The Scottish Banker of Surabaya - By Ian Hamilton Page 0,11

problem?”

“Food poisoning, he says.”

“Again? Didn’t he have that just a few months ago?”

“And several times since then.”

“Has he seen a doctor?”

“He won’t go.”

“What are the symptoms?”

“He gets feverish and then the chills, throws up, has the runs. I’ve been making him sip warm water to stop from getting dehydrated.”

Ava hadn’t detected anything different about him, but then she hadn’t seen him since Macau. He initiated all the telephone contact, and he seemed the same man to her. “Have you talked to Sonny?”

“No, not yet, but I’m going to.”

“Well, tell Uncle I called, and if he’s up to it, to call me back.”

Ava walked to the bathroom to get ready to go out. As she brushed her teeth and then her hair, she thought about Uncle. He had been in his late sixties or early seventies when they met, and even adding on the years they had spent together, she thought of him as ageless. It depressed her to think he might not be.

Her run took close to an hour. She went north on Avenue Road, around Upper Canada College, where the children of Canada’s elite were now back in school. The kids were still arriving when she ran past, through part of the affluent neighbourhood of Forest Hill, and then turned east. She trekked over to Mount Pleasant, the western edge of Leaside — Mimi and Derek’s new home — and then ran south, dodging around prams and Filipina yayas. When she got to Bloor Street, she turned right and headed back to Yorkville.

It was nearly ten o’clock when she walked into her condo. The message light on her phone was blinking. She checked the last number and saw that it was Uncle. Ava debated for a second about showering first, then picked up the phone and called his Hong Kong apartment.

“Wei,” Uncle said.

“It’s Ava.”

“Is everything okay?” he asked.

“I was going to ask you the same question.”

“I’m fine. It is just that you usually do not call unless there is something pressing.”

“Sorry if I alarmed you,” she said, pleased to hear his voice sounding robust. “It’s just that we have been offered a sort of a job, and I wanted to discuss it with you and get your opinion.”

“Sort of a job?”

“A small one, for a Vietnamese woman who knows my mother. She and her family are out of pocket for about three million Canadian dollars.”

“Tell me about it,” he said.

His request surprised her. She had expected him to reject it out of hand because the amount was so much smaller than the jobs they normally took on. Ava began to explain Theresa Ng’s dilemma and Uncle listened without interruption. When she was finished, she said, “I feel obliged to give her an answer today or tomorrow. I don’t want her hanging on to false expectations.”

Uncle was so quiet Ava wondered if he was still there. Then he said, “The total scam is for about thirty million, you think.”

“Yes, that’s the number she used.”

“Recovering thirty million interests me.”

Ava wondered if he had heard her properly. “Uncle, Theresa has lost three million, not thirty.”

“I know, but all those other people who lost money, you do not think they want it back?”

“I’m sure they do, but they haven’t approached us, have they.”

“Maybe because they do not know who we are.”

Where is he going with this? she thought. It wasn’t like him to complicate matters. “Uncle, I’m not about to start chasing down these people one by one to ask them to hire us.”

“But there is nothing to stop Theresa Ng from contacting them, is there? Let her do the work. Tell her to get hold of them and persuade them to sign on with us, organize a meeting if she has to. Three million is of no interest, of course, but if she can deliver commitments for anything over twenty million, then let us take the job.”

This was not what she had expected, and it took her a minute to process Uncle’s suggestion. On the surface it made sense, at least if her intent was to stay with Uncle. How could she tell him that wasn’t entirely where her head was? How could she tell him she was seriously weighing other options? Sure as hell not in this phone conversation, she thought. In fact, in any phone conversation. When and if the day came for her to part ways with Uncle, she’d tell him face to face. “Okay,” she relented. “I’ll call Theresa and see if she is willing to do this.