The Disciple of Las Vegas (21 page)

I'm losing her again
, Ava thought. “You're angry with him, and no one can blame you for that,” she said. “But let's be rational. Sign that piece of paper and then you and he can sort out your differences without all the legal baggage.”

Simmons spun away from the table. In two steps she was at the window looking out at the Isle of Dogs. “I talked my father into financing this business,” she said. “He was reluctant. I used every bit of persuasion I could. In the end he did it because I virtually begged him to.”

“Yes, Jeremy told me that your father's money was behind it.”

“Did he also tell you that my father detests him?”

“No.”

“He's so self-absorbed he may not even realize it.”

Ava felt another layer of leverage being stripped away. “I see” was all she could say.

“All he cares about is himself and his needs. He thinks that because I've never had much luck with men he can do with me as he wants. But there are limits to what I will do for him,” she said, and turned to look at Ava. “He has no idea what he and that partner of his have put me through.”

“I know this must be difficult —”

Simmons waved Ava to silence. “The River has been losing money from the day it started, and every fiscal quarter I've had to go to my father and give him the numbers, and whatever explanations I can come up with for them. More than once he'd had enough and told me to get out. I'd go to Jeremy and he'd tell me they were just around the corner from turning a profit. Always just around the corner. And I believed him . . . At least, I wanted to believe him, because if I didn't and I told my father, the business would have been shut down in a heartbeat and Jeremy would have left me.

“Then, six months ago, Jeremy comes to me with a profit, a real profit. And every week, every month after that, the profits keep rolling in. I waited until the first full quarter was over before I gave my father the numbers. He was relieved, and when he got the second-quarter numbers, he was ecstatic. Quite suddenly Jeremy wasn't such an idiot and I wasn't such a fool for standing by him. In fact, I'd carried the day — he even said that. My father, I mean. He would have cut and run ages ago, he said. It was my judgement that got us out of the red . . .”

It was dark outside, and the interior light had turned the window into a murky mirror in which Ava watched Simmons speak. She was partially in shadow but Ava could see the intensity in her face and hear a growing determination in her voice. She knew where Simmons was heading, and there was nothing she could say to stop her from going there.

“There's no way you could be held responsible for any of this,” Ava said.

“You don't know my father.”

“I'm sorry.”

“No, you're not. All you care about is your bloody money.”

“It's my job. I take no pleasure in some of the things I have to do.”

Simmons turned from the window and lunged towards the table. She moved so quickly that Ava jumped in surprise. The other woman stopped just short of physical contact, both hands resting on the table, her head thrust forward. “Well, you'll take no pleasure from what I have to say, because there's no way I'm going to sign that piece of paper.”

“Ashton?”

“What about him?”

“You'd let him go to jail?”

“Do what you want with him,” Simmons said. “I can defend a badly thought-out and badly run business, but I can't explain away a liar and a thief. Oh God, when I think about the things I said to my father about him, and how pleased my father was.”

“Speaking of your father,” Ava said gently, “Ashton or no Ashton, if you don't settle with us there will be legal proceedings against the company — against you, in all likelihood — and your father's name will be dragged into it.”

“My father knew nothing. His assets are in a blind trust. I was responsible for administering it.”

“That's not what you said earlier. And it isn't what Ashton told me.”

“Not that anyone can ever prove it.”

“But he did know.”

Simmons shrugged. “You won't be able to discredit my father with this fiasco. I won't let you. I'll take full responsibility. So sue me, sue the company — I don't care. Put Jeremy in prison. I don't care about that either, and I won't raise a hand to help him. But when it comes to the money, I'll fight you every inch of the way. I have enough of a bankroll in Cyprus to keep this going for years.”

Ava glanced down at her notebook, at the talking points she'd crafted in Las Vegas and on the plane. They had looked good on paper but were ineffective in practice. She felt a lump return to her chest, the same one she'd felt when Maggie Chew first told her about her father. “This won't go away,” she said, closing her notebook and slipping it into her purse.

“Here, take this too,” Simmons said, throwing the transfer request across the table.

“No, you keep it. You still might decide to sign it.”

“There's no chance of that,” Simmons said. She stood to one side. “Now, if you don't mind, I would like you to leave. And if there's anything else you want to communicate, please use your legal representatives.”

Ava didn't move.

“I will call security if I have to.”

“I have sex tapes,” Ava said.

“What?”

“You heard me,” Ava said, her eyes locked on Simmons.

The woman tried to hold Ava's gaze but gave way. “That's not true,” she said, her voice breaking ever so slightly.

In that second Ava knew that Simmons wasn't sure. “I got them from Ashton.”

Simmons blinked and then threw her head back. “That's not true. There are no such tapes.”

“I didn't know anyone could enjoy a spanking quite so much. Jeremy filmed you over and over again. You hear about these things, of course, but until you actually see it — and all the peripheral sex play that goes along with it . . . Well, I found it rather lurid and upsetting. It didn't do anything for me, though I'm sure there are people who enjoy watching that kind of thing.”

Simmons stared at Ava, her eyes wide and darting. Her face had collapsed. Her right hand reached for the table and she leaned on it for support.

“I'd be sorry if it had to come to that,” Ava said.

“To what?”

“There's no need for me to say it, is there?”

“What are you trying to do?” Simmons demanded.

“Get my client's money back. Nothing more than that.”

“With sex tapes?”

“Why not?”

“You'd release them?”

“Could there be a more receptive market for them than the British media? I mean, the daughter of a cabinet minister, a trusted senior officer at one of the country's most respected private banks? A former Olympian? They would eat it up, no?”

Simmons sat down. “You bitch,” she said.

“Sign the request.”

Simmons didn't respond.

“I've given you all the right reasons to do this and none of them seem to matter to you. So it comes down to this unfortunate one. Sign the transfer request and the tapes will disappear. Your fiancé will not go to jail and we can all be spared years of legal wrangling. Ms. Simmons, that money was stolen. This is the right thing for you to do under any circumstances. Tell yourself that and it might seem more palatable.”

“I need to think.”

“Yes, you do.”

“I need time.”

“I don't have a lot of time to give you.”

“Tomorrow. Give me until tomorrow.”

Ava hesitated. “This can't drag on.”

“I need to talk to someone.”

“What difference —”

“Please.”

“Does his approval mean that much to you?”

Simmons turned her head away.

“Tomorrow. I'll give you until noon tomorrow, but if I don't hear from you by then —”

“How do I reach you?”

Ava slid a business card across the table. “My mobile number is the best way.”

Simmons looked at the card, her eyes glazed and watery. “I'll call you,” she said.

“Yes, you will.”

“Now I would very much like you to leave.”

Ava stood and walked towards the door. Stopping an inch away from Simmons, she said in a low voice, “Tomorrow, by noon.”

It was dark when she left One Canada Square, and a light drizzle was falling. Ava's shirt and hair were damp by the time she got to the Canary Wharf tube station. The weather matched her mood. She had nearly lost Lily Simmons, and the way she had had to claw her way back depressed her. There were times when she came close to hating her job, and this was one of them. Well, I did what I had to do, she thought.

She reclaimed her bags and then debated whether to hail a taxi or take the subway to her hotel in Kensington. She checked the route map on the station wall. Kensington was just a few kilometres west of the very heart of Greater London, so she took the tube.

The drizzle had let up as she walked up the steps of High Street station and into Kensington. She had been to London before, and although she didn't know the hotel, she did know the area. On the north side of High Street was Kensington Gardens, and contiguous to the gardens on the east was Hyde Park. The south side was filled with trendy restaurants and upscale boutiques that extended to Knightsbridge and the famed department store Harrods. Ava's hotel, the Fletcher, was on the south side of the street, directly across from Kensington Gardens. She could see the entrance from the station, its sign lit up red and wrapped around a curved glass overhang.

She checked in and found her way to the eighth floor. Her room was furnished with a king-size bed with a massive wooden headboard built into the wall. There was plenty of space for the fully equipped workstation, settee, easy chair, coffee table, armoire, and flat-screen television attached to the wall facing the bed.

Ava unpacked. She felt like a shower, for more reasons than one, but she had been out of touch for close to fifteen hours and felt the need to reconnect. It was one o'clock in the morning in Hong Kong, normally too late to call Uncle, but she knew he was probably waiting up to hear from her.

“I met the girl,” Ava said after the familiar “
Wei
.”

“How did it go?”

“I don't know yet.”

“So she did not sign,” Uncle said.

“No, she told me she needed some time to think about it. Actually, what I think she needs is talk it over with someone.”

“Who?”

“Her father.”

“You have not mentioned him before.”

“It's his money that financed The River.”

“Then why is it not his signature that we need?”

“It's complicated, Uncle. He's a politician, and his business assets, of which this is one, are in a blind trust. He's supposed to have nothing to do with how they're managed.”

“Except?”

“She is his only child and quite devoted to him, and from what I've seen she's also afraid of him. She keeps him updated on everything.”

“And does nothing without his approval?”

“Yes.”

“And do you think he will approve?”

“I don't know that either.”

“You thought you had some compelling arguments to make.”

“Most of those had no effect.”

“So, what makes you think there is any chance she will sign?”

“I finally found an argument that did impress her.”

Uncle paused. “When do you talk to her next?”

“Tomorrow,” Ava said, relieved that he hadn't asked about her leverage.

“That is reasonable.”

“I thought so.”

“What is your feeling?”

“I don't know with any certainty. I think she might sign. It's too much in her best interest for her to do anything else. But I've been wrong before.”

“If she does not sign, I do not know how much longer I want us to pursue this. Your last telephone conversation with Ordonez upset him.”

“He caught me by surprise by calling from an unidentified number.”

“He thinks you were being deliberately rude to him, and certainly not as cooperative as he expects. Of course, he thinks we should all be kowtowing to him. Now he feels he has earned the right to berate me. The sooner we are finished with him, the better.”

“I wasn't rude,” Ava said, upset that Ordonez had been disrespectful to Uncle.

“I did not say that you were.”

“I'm sorry, Uncle, I wasn't implying that you did.”

“The man is ignorant and arrogant, and that is a terrible combination.”

“I should have things settled one way or another by tomorrow.”

Uncle went quiet, and she wondered if Tommy Ordonez had said more. “There have also been some developments in Hong Kong today.”

“Jackie Leung?”

“Yes. Sonny met with Sammy Wing and they have agreed to pursue him together.”

“But they haven't found him yet?”

“Not yet, but soon. I talked to Guangzhou tonight. They still will not cancel the contract. The two men who have been tracking you will not back off until we eliminate Leung.”

“Tracking?”

“They have been using your credit card transactions to locate you. They went to Las Vegas but they thought you were at Wynn's.”

“Where are they now?”

“Guangzhou did not know.”

“Do I need to worry?”

“No, no. We will get Leung.”

Ava had booked her flight to London using one of her credit cards. She tried to remember if she had seen any suspicious-looking Chinese men at the airport, on the plane, at Gatwick, on the train, in the tube. It was all a blank. “Then I won't worry,” she said.

“That is best. Just focus on the woman. Call me as soon as you hear from her.”

Ava closed her phone. She still felt a lingering disquiet from the way her meeting with Simmons had ended. Now it was joined by an intense dislike of Tommy Ordonez and the looming threat of Jackie Leung.
This job
, she thought,
is hard enough without all the side complications
. However quickly Uncle wanted to end it, it wouldn't be quick enough for her.