The Dragon Head of Hong Kong Read Online Free

her tone. This was how many of the conversations between them ended — Ava declaring her independence; her mother acting hurt; Ava saying, “I’m sorry, I know you love me”; and Jennie replying, “I know, and I also know you will do exactly whatever you want to do regardless of what I say.” This time Ava added, “I do promise that if I run into any serious problems, I’ll call Daddy.”
    Ava had taken a limousine to Pearson International Airport to catch the Cathay flight. It departed at ten thirty in the evening and, after crossing the international dateline, would land her in Hong Kong at six in the morning two days later. She spent most of the day of her departure fussing about what to take with her. Her travel experience was limited to holidays, when she packed casual clothes, and major upheavals such as moving from Toronto to Wellesley, when she took just about everything she owned. This was her first extended business trip and she was unsure about what to pack. She finally decided to restrict herself to business wear and her running gear. Four Brooks Brothers shirts, two pairs of black slacks, a pencil skirt, two pairs of pumps, slippers, underwear for a week, and her cosmetics bag filled a suitcase. She stuffed her running shorts, socks, and T-shirts into a carry-on and wore her running shoes, track pants, and jacket to the airport.
    Because it was a last-minute booking, Ava was assigned a window seat in the rear of the economy section. She shared the row with an elderly Chinese couple, who told her they were going back to Hong Kong for Chinese New Year in March. Ava asked why they were going four weeks before the actual event.
    “To visit with friends,” the woman said in Cantonese. “Our children are in Toronto, but we still miss our Hong Kong friends.”
    Ava was fluent in Cantonese. It was the language spoken in her mother’s house six days a week. Mandarin was Sunday’s language, and Ava spoke it passably after ten years of Saturday classes and Sunday practice.
    The flight took sixteen hours. After learning everything she could about her seatmates in less than an hour, Ava retreated to the video programming and then fell asleep. She woke somewhere over the Pacific with a burning need to pee. The Chinese couple had fallen asleep with their legs stretched out. The seats in front were pushed back as far as they could go. Ava would have to be part contortionist to slip between the seats and the couple and get to the aisle. She was five feet three inches tall and weighed about a hundred and fifteen pounds. If she’d been larger or less lithe, she wouldn’t have made it out and back without stepping on the elderly couple.
    When she had settled back into her seat, she tried to sleep again, but it was already morning in Toronto and there was no convincing her body that it was otherwise. She reached into her bag and pulled out the paperwork that Lo had given her. There were multiple addresses and phone numbers for Kung Imports. Disconcertingly, the purchase orders didn’t have a company address on them, other than “Mong Kok.” There were phone and fax numbers and an email address on the POs, but Ava had tried them before she left Toronto. No one answered the phone or responded to her fax or email. She checked the wire transfers that Kung had sent to Lo. They had been issued by a bank in Shenzhen, not Hong Kong. Why hadn’t she noticed that before? Well, for one thing, her job had been to make sure the money added up. It was Lo’s responsibility to make sure he wasn’t getting cheated.
    The last thing she looked at was two pictures of Lo with the man he said was Kung. They were in a nightclub or karaoke bar. The men were sitting on a couch in front of a small round table that held several glasses and a bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue Label Scotch. Ava was no expert on Scotch, but she knew that Blue Label was the premium brand. Two women in evening dresses were draped over the men’s shoulders; one of