The Scottish Banker of Surabaya - By Ian Hamilton Page 0,46
you I called the apartment earlier, before I went to the airport?”
“She did. I thought it was for the same reason.”
“No, I need some cover and I’d like to use the business card from Dynamic Accounting. Please call them for me and let them know I’m going to be in Surabaya trying to meet with Andy Cameron at Bank Linno. My story is that we represent a Hong Kong investor who is looking at putting some money into East Java and we thought it might be wise to hook up with a local bank. You never know, Cameron or someone from the bank might call them to confirm.”
“It won’t be a problem.”
“Great.”
“Is that all?”
No, she thought, I’d like to know what you were doing this morning. “Yes, that’s all,” she said.
“Be careful over there.”
“I’m trying to meet a banker, that’s all.”
“That is what Lam started off doing.”
“Enough said. I’ll be careful, and if I need Perkasa I won’t hesitate to reach out for him.”
“He is waiting.”
“That’s good to know.”
“Keep me up to date on things.”
“As always,” she said.
As Ava ended the call she thought about phoning Sonny and then decided against it. He’d said he would call her when he knew something. There was no need to pester him.
The Cathay lounge had a noodle bar, and Ava ordered a bowl of rice noodles with har gow. As she waited, she listened to her mother’s message. Marcus had called her with the news about the wedding, and Jennie could barely contain her glee. Ava’s presence and role at the wedding would be more public validation than their second family had ever received. “You may be the one standing next to the bride, but everyone at that wedding is going to know that you are my daughter. I might as well be standing there myself,” she said. Her father had obviously done a good selling job.
The voicemail from Maria was shorter. “I love you so much and I miss you so much. Hurry home.”
It was the middle of the night in Toronto, safe enough to call them both and leave messages without worrying about their answering. “Mummy, I am very proud to be your daughter, and when I’m at the wedding I’m going to make sure everyone there knows that.” Then, to Maria, “I miss you too.” Embarrassed by her display of sentiment, Ava said under her breath, “That’s enough of that for this trip.”
The flight to Indonesia was four and half hours, landing her at Juanda International Airport on time at seven thirty-five. It was another new airport, built for efficiency, and Ava could have cleared Customs and Immigration and been in a taxi within fifteen minutes if she hadn’t needed to buy a visa. Unlike most other countries, Indonesia made visitors buy visas when they arrived. It was a slow process but thankfully a short line. Still, it took twenty minutes before she had a seven-day visa stapled into her passport for a cost of ten U.S. dollars.
She stepped outside the terminal into a beautiful evening, temperature in the mid-twenties, a light breeze. She got into the taxi line and found herself surrounded by smokers. The smell of cloves wafted from their cigarettes — she had forgotten about that Indonesian habit. Ava bypassed one taxi when she saw the driver was smoking, and got happily into the next, which had a big no-smoking sign on its rear window.
“The Hotel Majapahit,” she said. “How long?”
“About thirty minutes.”
She waited for the usual caveat about traffic but there wasn’t any, because there wasn’t any need. The cab drove the entire distance at the posted speed. Ava began to wonder if she was actually in an Asian city.
She knew Surabaya had more than three million people and was the second-largest city in Indonesia. It just didn’t feel like it. First there was the relative lack of traffic, and they seemed to be driving through quiet residential areas. Ava kept waiting for the downtown skyscrapers to appear, for the wall-to-wall shops, the big hotel complexes. It wasn’t until twenty-five minutes into their drive that they began to appear, though in more modest forms than in many other major cities she’d been to.
The driver pointed out the hotel before she saw it. “The Majapahit . . . It’s a hundred years old,” he said.
It was already dark, and the floodlit hotel front, all white marble, glass, and dark wood, shone like something out of a dream. As they eased into the driveway, the sprawling gardens became