The Scottish Banker of Surabaya - By Ian Hamilton Page 0,41
potential information source.
It was well into the morning in Toronto and Ava knew her friend Johnny Yan would be at his Toronto Commonwealth Bank desk. They had gone to school together and were part of a network of young Chinese professionals who had graduated from York University and who helped each other to advance their careers. They thought of it as guanxi, Canadian-style. She sent him an email, knowing that he was in his office, the computer would be on, and he would be monitoring his emails on an ongoing basis. I need to talk to you, she wrote.
In less than a minute he replied. Call my cellphone.
He picked up the phone halfway through the first ring. “Hey, long time, no hear. Where are you?”
“Ho Chi Minh City.”
“Thanks for that last piece of business,” he said.
Johnny’s information had helped her with the Tommy Ordonez case. In fact, without him, she wasn’t sure it would have been resolved, or at least resolved so quickly and so well. When the case had been put to bed, she asked Uncle Chang, who functioned as the effective CFO of the Ordonez empire, to divert some business to Toronto Commonwealth and to be very specific that Johnny Yan was to handle their account.
“Did it get you a promotion?”
“Not yet, but it sure as hell got me the right kind of attention in the right kind of places.”
“I have another one I’m going to throw your way in a while,” she said, thinking of May Ling Wong.
“Is that a prelude to being asked a favour?”
“Of course.”
“Then ask away.”
“Bank Linno — ever heard of them?”
“Not that I can remember.”
“It’s Indonesian, out of Surabaya. They had an office on College Street until a few months ago that they closed in a real hurry.”
“Still doesn’t ring a bell.”
“It was private, evidently.”
“A near-bank?”
“I think so. It had only the one office and it was on the eighth floor of an older building, so they weren’t pandering for business.”
“What else do you know?”
“I have two names. A guy named Aris Muljadi, who was the president or something and could be Indonesian, and a Canadian named Rocca.”
“First name for Rocca?”
“Don’t have one.”
“That’s helpful.”
“Johnny, don’t get lazy on me.”
He laughed. “When do you need the information?”
“In an hour or two?”
“Of course you do. You always do.”
“Exactly, and you always come through for me.”
“You’re lucky. I don’t have my first meeting until ten, so I have some time to work on this now. I’ll call Henry Pang — remember him?”
“Vaguely.”
“He was two years behind us. He’s at the bank now, in the international marketing division. He should know something.”
“Thank him for me.”
“No, I won’t. If he knows you’re involved, he’ll expect a favour. I’ll keep that for myself and throw him a bone of a different kind.”
“Your call. Just get me some information.”
“I can reach you on your cell?”
“Yes, but if you have problems I’m staying at the Park Hyatt in Ho Chi Minh.”
She returned to her computer and emailed her travel agent, Gail, asking her to look into flights to Surabaya and a hotel. She also asked her to hold a seat for her on the next day’s Cathay Pacific flight to Toronto. It would be one destination or the other, Ava knew, because there was no way she was going to Costa Rica.
Ava poured herself another glass of wine and eased onto the bed. She scanned the channels, looking for something to kill time. One of the Chinese-language stations was airing Election. The movie detailed an election for overall chairmanship of the various Triad societies, and the violent and treacherous tactics used by the candidates. The film was fictional, but that didn’t dampen the horror of watching the winner — who until that point had been reasonable and conciliatory — cave in the skull of his opponent with a rock. The act took place on the bank of a river while they were fishing, being watched by the opponent’s wife and the winner’s young son. It was all the more repellent because of that, and because it was so sudden and so unexpected. Ava shuddered as the scene played out, and she thought of Uncle, who had been society chairman for four consecutive terms. It was a fact that was difficult to equate with the man she knew.
She changed channels before the violence escalated even further, and was just getting into a Hong Kong comedy show when her cellphone rang.
“I made a mistake,” Uncle said quickly. “The Indonesians were waiting for me