Since her meeting with Antonelli, Ava had been debating how to approach Seto. She had thought of phoning him first, maybe pretending to be a seafood buyer and setting up a meeting on that basis. There were a couple of problems with that idea. First, she didn’t really know enough about the business to survive any rigorous questioning. And second, why would anyone come to Guyana to buy seafood without making preliminary arrangements?
No, her first contact had to be incidental. It hadn’t worked with Antonelli, but he was into ladyboys. Not many heterosexual men could resist showing interest in Ava, so she had to find a way to get next to Seto and take it from there.
She walked down to the lobby and looked for the concierge or the doorman, neither of whom was on duty. She asked the front desk clerk where they were. “They’re on break. Be back around one,” the woman said.
“I need to buy a few things. Is there a mall around here?”
“The best place would be the Stabroek Market. It’s just down the street to the right. You can’t miss it — look for the tall clock tower.”
“Yes, I’ve seen it.”
“I wouldn’t go dressed like that,” the woman said.
Ava was wearing her running shoes and a T-shirt and track pants. “Why not?”
“I mean the jewellery. You should leave it here.”
Ava had on her gold crucifix, her Cartier watch, and a green jade bracelet. “It’s the middle of the day,” she said.
“Don’t matter. That watch — it’s real?”
“Yes.”
“I thought so. It’s a magnet. You’ll get all kinds of unwanted attention, and if they go for the watch they’ll take the necklace and bracelet too.”
Ava took them off and put them in a pocket that zipped closed. “Better?”
“Just be careful.”
Outside the front entrance the heat was brutal and oppressive, and Ava thought about using the hotel Jeep, but she could see the clock tower and figured that Stabroek Market wasn’t much more than a ten-minute walk. She was fine until she had gone about a hundred metres and the ocean breeze had dissipated. The sky was cloudless and the sun beat directly down, radiating off the tarmac; the heat seemed to penetrate through the soles of her shoes. She began to sweat, her eyes burning, beads dripping from the end of her nose, her panties absorbing what they could and then sending the excess down her legs. It was hotter than Bangkok, more humid than a Hong Kong summer. And then there was the smell. She held her breath as she walked past the decaying garbage and dog shit on the sidewalk.
When Ava was about twenty paces from her destination, she heard a buzz in the air, a mixed symphony of voices haggling and car horns blaring. It wasn’t until she stepped onto Water Street that she had a full view of Stabroek Market. The building encompassed a large area of about sixty to eighty thousand square metres; it was, as advertised, completely encased, including the roof, in red iron. To Ava it looked less like a shopping centre than a steel foundry.
The noises she’d heard came from outside the building, where people were hawking goods from tables and stands shaded with tarps to fend off the sun. It was crowded, the stands were jammed close together, and people were milling about as they tried to avoid the bi-cycles and buses that circled the perimeter. Ava pushed her way past mounds of pineapples, plantain, bananas, coconut, okra, sweet potatoes, long beans, and spinach, sides of pigs and goats, and chickens clucking in cages. They were selling clothing outside as well, but not the knockoffs found in most Asian markets. These looked like second-hand garments that had been collected by a charity in the developed world and sold by the pound to some trader. Apparently there was a market for old Toronto Maple Leafs jerseys.
Ava went inside the market building to search for food and air conditioning. There were pockets of cold air here and there, and she lingered while she decided what to eat. She toured the stalls, trying to choose between chicken curry, duck curry, lamb and goat curry, rice and beans, and roti. She was about to give a curry a try when saw a vegetarian stand. She ordered three fried lentil patties with hot sauce and washed them down with mauby, a local soft drink made from tree bark.
After she finished eating, Ava wandered through the market. It was eclectic, to say the least. Most of the fruit, vegetables, and meat available outside were also for sale inside, along with more second-hand clothing, shoes, furniture, dishes, household utensils, fish, shrimp, and a surprising amount of gold. She had read that Guyana had deposits of the metal. And here it was, mined, refined, and then fashioned into some of the crudest jewellery she had ever seen. It was super-bling — large, chunky necklaces and bracelets moulded into zodiac signs and commercial logos for brands such as Nike, Calvin Klein, and Chanel. But crude or not, the jewellery looked to be made from twenty- or even twenty-two-karat gold.
Ava didn’t find what she wanted until she got to the very end of the market. It was dark there; the stalls were pressed closer together and there was no overhead light. She had to work her way around a throng of local shoppers, and as she did, she could feel eyes following her progress. The desk clerk hadn’t been wrong.
She wandered into one of the stalls and was greeted by an East Indian woman wearing a sari, rolls of flesh cascading over her waistband. She seemed surprised to see Ava, and turned away as if she expected her to leave again. When Ava didn’t go, the woman finally acknowledged her with a raised eyebrow.
“I want one of those,” Ava said, pointing to a selection of knives locked in a glass case.
“Which one?”
“I can’t tell. Could you open the case for me?”
The woman struggled to her feet and took a key from a drawer. She looked around suspiciously as she unlocked the case. When it was open, she motioned for Ava to come closer.
They were nearly all automatic switchblades, and it was a surprisingly good collection. She recognized Heckler and Koch, Blackwater, Schrade, Buck, and Smith and Wesson. Ava took her time appraising them and then asked the woman to pass her a Schrade. The blade was bit too short. “I prefer stilettos,” she said.
The woman lifted the felt-lined tray; underneath was a row of Italian stilettos. “Everything from six inches to fifteen inches,” the woman said.
“I think eleven inches will do just fine.”
The woman passed her the knife. It was lightweight and fitted easily into her palm. She touched the button and the beautifully crafted blade hissed into view in a microsecond. “How much?”
“One hundred and fifty American.”
“One hundred.”
“One twenty-five.”
“One hundred.”
“One twenty, final.”
“Done,” Ava said.
It was hotter than ever when she exited Stabroek. A taxi with its windows open sat at the curb. She got in and told the driver to turn on the air conditioning and take her to the Phoenix.
“I don’t have air conditioning,” he said.
“Drive anyway.”
“It is too close. You should walk.”
She passed him ten dollars. “Drive.”
At the hotel the doorman was back on duty. He was leaning against a wall, looking out at the empty lobby. She hadn’t seen any other guests coming or going and was beginning to wonder if she was the only one staying there. He acknowledged her arrival with a nod. She nodded back and walked over.
“Is Jeff back from the airport yet?”
“No, but he should be here soon enough.”
“When he does get back, could you please ask him to call my room? Tell him I’d like to use the Jeep this afternoon.”
She stripped off her clothes when she got to the room. There was a full-length mirror on the back of the closet door, and she caught her image in it. She was proud of her body and worked hard at maintaining it, but not to excess. No powerlifting for her; she liked her leanness. She liked even more her proportions, which were just about perfect. She had a thing about girls with thick ankles or long torsos — they weren’t for her.
Ava’s sense of well-being disappeared when she stepped into the shower. The water spewing from the showerhead was a light chocolate brown. She waited for it clear. It didn’t. She sniffed the water and detected a chemical odour. She waited for another minute, and when the colour still didn’t change, she left the bathroom and phoned the front desk. “The water in my shower is brown,” she said.
“Yes?”
“Did you hear what I said?”
“The water is always brown. We get it from the Demerara. We have our own purification system — the water is perfectly safe, but we can’t do anything about the colour.”
Ava hung up and climbed back into the shower. She closed her eyes, shut her mouth, and tried not to breathe through her nose, soaping and rinsing herself as quickly as she could. Getting to Jackson Seto was becoming more urgent.
When she got out of the shower, she put on a fresh T-shirt and track pants and waited for Jeff in the rattan chair. She passed the time reading a copy of the Guyana Times, which had been at her door when she came back from the market. The lead article was about some club owners who were complaining about police raids. The clubs were indeed illegal, but the owners maintained that the police were being too heavy-handed during raids and were driving away tourists. What made it even stranger was that the minister of culture and tourism was quoted as saying that the club owners had a point. The next page was one giant police blotter: a list of crimes committed over the past twenty-four hours. Arrests for drug dealing, robbery, mugging, and physical assault were pretty common.
Ava heard a knock at the door. She opened it to see Jeff standing there. He had changed his clothes and was now wearing jeans and a tank top. On his right shoulder was a tattoo of a lightning bolt.
“I called but no one answered,” he said.
“I guess I was in the shower.”
“You want to go somewhere?”
“Yes. I mentioned Malvern Gardens earlier and you said you know where it is.”
“I do.”
“That’s where I want to go.”
“It’s a housing estate.”
“I know.”
“Do you have an address?”
“No, we need to find that out. The guy who lives there is named Jackson Seto.”
“Wait a minute,” he said, and squeezed past her into the room. He opened the bottom drawer of her dresser and pulled out a phone book. “He lives at number eight.”
As they rode the elevator to the ground floor Ava said, “Before we go, there are a few things we need to make clear. For starters, I’m probably going to be sitting in the car with you for a while, and I have no idea how long. I’m looking for this guy Seto, and all I know is that he lives at 8 Malvern Gardens. When he does appear, we’re going to follow him and see what happens. Are you okay with that?”
“What if you don’t see him?”
“Then we’ll go back tomorrow and do it all over again.”
“Is this legal? I mean, are you a cop or something?”
“It’s perfectly legal and I’m not a cop.”
“Can I ask why?”
“No.”
He gazed down at her. “Well, I can’t say you look like much of a threat to anyone.”
The Jeep had been left idling at the hotel entrance. Jeff started up High Street and then cut left. The road was littered with potholes, and one was so big it could have swallowed the front end of the vehicle. “Don’t they ever fix those things?” Ava asked.
“No.”
“Do they try?”
“Not so you’d notice.”
When they reached the end of the street, they were confronted by a structure about six or seven storeys high made entirely of corrugated iron. Ava could see rows of razor wire along the top. The building had no windows, just a door barricaded by a semicircle of concrete pillars. Standing to the left of the door with their backs pressed against the wall was a line of women.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“Camp Street Prison,” he said.
“It must be an oven in there.”
“No one much cares.”
“And the women?”
“Waiting for visiting hours.”
As they moved away from the city centre, the mix of retail stores gave way to rows of stucco, stone, and even brick houses, most protected by tall concrete walls with rolls of razor wire glinting fiendishly across the top. “I’ve never seen so much razor wire,” she said.
“It’s the choice of the budget-conscious middle class, who can’t afford a personal guard or a security service. Ever come in contact with it?”
“No, of course not.”
“It’ll rip you to shreds.”
They had left the city proper and were driving through countryside when a housing development, as isolated as an oasis in the desert, appeared on the right. From a distance all Ava could see was a brick wall and red tile roofs; she thought, Gated community. But as they drew closer she saw that the road leading into Malvern Gardens wasn’t barred. Jeff stopped the Jeep between two stone pillars at the entrance to a cul-de-sac. There were five houses down each side and two at the end. The two-storey brick-and-stone homes were enormous, reminding Ava of high-end suburban developments in Toronto. Each sat on a one-acre lot surrounded by a stone wall about 2.5 metres high that was crowned with large shards of glass and razor wire. The only way into each compound was through heavy metal gates with sharp points at the top and more razor wire strung through them.
“This is Millionaires’ Row,” said Jeff.
The house numbers went up by fours. Seto’s house was the second on the left. It had a latticed gate, and as they drove past Ava saw an old Mercedes and a Land Rover parked in the driveway. Someone was home.
She pointed back towards where they had turned off the main road. “If we park behind one of those pillars we can see everyone coming and going from the house,” she said. “And if they turn left to go to the city, we’ll have a clear view.”
Jeff turned the Jeep around and parked behind the pillar. From that angle they could see Seto’s gate and the end of his driveway.
“Now what?” he asked.
“We wait.”
“Do you mind if I sleep?”
“Go ahead.”
Jeff got out and climbed into the back seat to lie down. “I sleep lightly, so don’t worry about having to wake me if we need to move.”
She had kept her watch in the zippered pocket of her pants. She pulled it out and put it on. It was 3:30 p.m.
Jeff slept until just past five, when he woke with a start.
“Nothing yet,” she said.
“I need to piss.”
“Be my guest.”
He went behind the car, his back turned to the Jeep.
“What time does it get dark?” she asked when he climbed back in.
“Six.”
At five thirty Seto’s gate swung open. Ava drew a deep breath. The Mercedes backed out onto the road and then crept towards them. Ava saw that the driver was a young East Indian woman, heavily made up, with lots of jewellery on both wrists and at least three gold chains around her neck.
“That’s a disappointment,” she said.
The gate remained open. Somebody else is going to leave, she thought. After a couple of minutes a wiry Asian man in jeans and a black T-shirt ambled out onto the road. He took a quick look around and then motioned towards the house. He looks Vietnamese, she thought.
“Get out of the car,” she said to Jeff. “Go around back and pretend you’re still peeing.”
He went without question.
The Land Rover emerged from the driveway. It stopped and the Vietnamese man climbed in. As it turned the corner both passengers took a hard look at Jeff. Ava was slumped down in her seat but was able to get a clear view of them. Jackson Seto was driving.
Jeff waited until the Rover was well down the road before getting back in the Jeep.
“Now what? Do you want to follow them?” he asked.
“I’m not sure. Where do you think they’re going?”
“A hundred to one they’re headed for the city.”
“It’s just about dinner time. Is there a restaurant district?”
“Nearly all the decent places are in a four-square-block area.”
“Any of them Chinese?”
“A couple.”
“Let’s give it fifteen minutes and then we’ll head into town. We’ll cover that area and see if we can find their cars.”
“And if we can’t?”
“That’s my problem for tomorrow.”
The sun was setting as they were driving back to Georgetown. Jeff hit a couple of potholes, and Ava was sure they were going to lose a tire.
Georgetown had taken on a different look. It took Ava a minute to realize that it was because only part of the city was lit while the rest was blanketed in almost total darkness. “Is there a power outage?” she asked.
“I guess you could call it that, except it happens every night. They only have enough power for half the city. So they alternate between east and west on a nightly basis. Tonight the east end gets electricity and the west end has to make do with candles. Most of the businesses have their own backup generators.”
“What a place.”
“Yep.”
“The area we’re going to, will it have power tonight?”
“Yeah, we’re lucky,” he said, and then turned towards her. “I hope you don’t mind me asking, but I’ve been curious all afternoon. Just what is it we’re doing, following this guy?”
“It’s just business.”
“What kind of business?”
Ava stared at the road. “I think it’s better if I don’t share that with you.”
“Better for who?”
“Me.”
Jeff shrugged. “We’re getting close to the restaurant district. I’ll circle.”
It took less than five minutes to find both cars, which were parked outside a restaurant called China World. “The Chinese are so predictable,” she said. “You could drop them in Paris on a street lined with three-star French restaurants and they’d still go looking for something Chinese, even if it was a hole in the wall.”
“Are you going in?”
“No, we’ll wait for them to come out.”
They waited for an hour. The girl exited first. She was big, about five ten, and was wearing jeans that showed off muscular thighs and a high, firm ass. A tank top accentuated her large, round breasts, and Ava could see that she didn’t need a bra. She blew a kiss towards the restaurant door, got into her car, and drove off. “That’s a body,” Jeff said.
The Vietnamese man came out next, with Seto a few steps behind. He’s Seto’s bodyguard, she thought, or some kind of bumboy who doubles as a bodyguard. He was small, but she knew that didn’t mean anything. His type could be tough, vicious, and fearless to the point of stupidity. He was a complication she didn’t need.
Seto too was a thin, reedy shadow. He was maybe six feet tall, but he slouched when he walked, making him look shorter than he was. He was wearing a pair of high-waisted black slacks secured by a belt that was on its last notch. Ava thought he looked almost emaciated; she could see that his chest was concave beneath his white dress shirt. His face was alive, though, his dark brown eyes darting here and there like a rat’s, his mouth drawing hard on a cigarette.
They climbed into the Land Rover and drove away. “Let’s follow them for a bit,” she said.
They had barely gotten the Jeep in motion when she saw the Land Rover pull into a parking spot no more than two blocks away. The neon sign over the door read ECKIE ' S ONE AND ONLY CLUB. Seto got out by himself, walked past the bouncer, and disappeared through the door.
“You know this place?” she asked Jeff.
“Everyone knows Eckie’s. It’s the best club in Georgetown, one of the few places that doesn’t need cheap beer and sluts. They import some good DJs, and it’s where the high-priced girls — amateurs and pros — go. Tourists and locals with money are the target.”
“Who owns it?”
“I have no idea.”
“Who is Eckie?”
“Don’t know. I’ve been there a few times and I never met anyone called Eckie.”
She sat quietly, weighing her options while watching the Vietnamese bodyguard smoke. The few approaches she could think of were flawed. Confronting him in the bar wasn’t much of an option. No one knew her, and if there a fuss they would likely support the local — and that was without his bodyguard jumping in. If she tried to talk to Seto outside, Vietnamese involvement was a certainty, and it was too soon for her to trigger that kind of response without knowing more about to whom and how Seto was connected. Antonelli had said that Seto had strong ties with the police in Georgetown; she needed to find out how far up the chain those ties went. Still, doing nothing wasn’t an option.
“Could you get me a local SIM card?”
“Yeah. Tomorrow morning okay?”
“That’s fine.”
“You’re not going into Eckie’s?”
“No, there’s nothing for me to do tonight.”
“So now what?”
“I’m going back to the hotel.”
When they got to the Phoenix, Ava climbed out of the Jeep and turned to Jeff. “Call me when you have the SIM card. I assume you’re free tomorrow if I need you.”
“The day is clear so far.”
She passed seventy dollars through the window.
“Thanks.”
“Jeff, I don’t want you to discuss any of this with anyone. Not a word. The name Jackson Seto doesn’t exist for you.”
“You didn’t have to say that.”
“It’s always better to make things clear,” she said, and threw another twenty-dollar bill onto the passenger seat.