The Red Pole of Macau Read Online Free

aggressive, and it seemed to be targeting companies that could take on a licence for a province. To Ava he didn’t come across as trustworthy, but then she couldn’t count the number of deadbeats she’d met who looked entirely the opposite.
    It was time to call. It didn’t take long for a receptionist to patch her through to Michael. In their last two conversations he’d been tentative and nervous. If anything, he was even worse now. He stammered a bit as he said he was happy she’d arrived in Hong Kong.
    “How do you want to handle this? Do you want me to come by the office?” she asked.
    “That would be a good idea.”
    “I know where you are. I can be there in about twenty minutes.”
    “That’s fine,” he said.
    She hung a left when she exited the hotel and then continued on uphill. In Toronto it would have been a ten-minute walk, but pedestrian traffic in Hong Kong was a different animal. The sidewalks were crowded, and people were bunched at every corner. Ava had no choice but to go with the flow, stopping and starting like a car on a freeway during rush hour.
    Des Voeux Road in Central was a great address if you were near the Bank of China or the DBS Bank. Millennium wasn’t. It was in a smaller office building, with only one elevator serving ten floors. Ava took one look at the crowd already waiting in the lobby and climbed the stairs to the sixth floor.
    The hallway had linoleum on the floor, cheap acoustic ceiling panels, and walls that were beige or green, depending on the light. Ava walked through a large plain wooden door that was flanked on either side by the company name, stamped in brass and mounted on a plastic plaque. She had seen the office entrance in their video and it had looked more impressive then.
    Michael sat in the tiny reception area, a cellphone stuck to his ear. He turned to look up at her, his face visibly distressed. In two weeks he’s aged five years , Ava thought. He was beautifully dressed in a grey designer suit, a crisp white dress shirt, and a tightly knotted red tie. She looked at him and saw her father from her earliest memories: the same pointed chin, long, thin nose, and large, almost round eyes.
    “We won’t do that,” he said to whoever was on the other end of the line.
    Ava leaned against the wall, studying Michael. He was barely in control of his emotions.
    “You need to talk to Simon; you need to talk to him or our lawyers. They both tell me we have no further liability, so I don’t know how you can make those claims,” he said, and gave her a weak smile.
    She thought about backing out the door and leaving Michael to his call, but he suddenly stopped talking and looked at the phone. “Those sons of bitches hung up,” he said to her.
    “What’s the issue?” she asked.
    “They’re squeezing the hell out of us. They want us to put up another eighty million or walk away from the money we’ve already put into the project. We can’t do either.”
    “How far along is the project? I know you’re behind schedule, but by how much?”
    He grimaced. “The land hasn’t been touched, not a spade in the ground. It’s been more than twelve months. I’m beginning to think they have some zoning or government permit issues, although everyone denies it.”
    “I didn’t realize it was quite that bad,” Ava said slowly.
    “Well, it is, and now they want more money.”
    “Why?”
    “They claim one of the other investors pulled out and now we have to make up the difference. They say construction won’t start until all the money is in place.”
    “Do they have a legal right to ask for the money?”
    “No, no.”
    “And you’ve told them that?”
    “They don’t care. They keep asking for the money anyway, and not nicely,” he said. “They say Simon verbally agreed to put in extra money if they needed it, right after the deal was signed.”
    “Did he?”
    “He says no.”
    “What does your lawyer say?”
    “He says we don’t have to.”
    “What does