The Red Pole of Macau by Ian Hamilton Page A

years,” she said, sidestepping the rest of his question.
    “Michael found it alarming.”
    “Michael hasn’t had to do business with men like Wu and Lok before. I have, more often than I care to remember.”
    “You need to be careful.”
    “I always am.”
    His voice became indistinct and Ava wondered if there was a problem with the phone line. “Excuse me, your mother just came into the kitchen and I was speaking to her. Do you want to say hello?” he asked.
    “No, tell her I’ll call later when I have more time to talk.”
    “All right.”
    “Daddy, I have some work to do here. I’ll meet with Michael tomorrow and we’ll see what we can sort out.”
    “Do you really have some ideas?”
    “I do,” she said before ending the call. What she didn’t want to tell him was that the only one she thought was viable was to put her own money into Michael’s company so he could get off the hook at the bank.
    She opened the envelope Michael had given her the night before and re-explored the financials. They were bare-bones; she was going to have to see more detailed numbers before putting together a final offer. There weren’t going to be any more deals done on a handshake if she was involved.
    If the numbers did hold up, though, it looked as if the company could be valued at between US$12 and $15 million, based on a price of eight to ten times earnings. She wanted at least a third of the company, so she figured she could put in $5 million for share purchases and then loan the rest of what they needed at a reasonable rate of interest. She would want their shares pledged to her as collateral, as well as personal guarantees. They’d have to sign non-­competes, and there would have to be financial controls in place that gave her comfort.
    She didn’t have all the cash on hand, but when she got her share of the Liechtenstein money she’d have more than enough. Investing it in her brother’s company had been the furthest thing from her mind when she came to Hong Kong, and it wasn’t ideal in terms of how she saw her own financial position. The thing was, she didn’t know what other options were available. If she did nothing then Michael’s business would be destroyed by the bank, her father’s business would come under attack, and the whole underpinning of the family’s security — the extended family’s security — was going to be threatened.
    Ava had enough money to look after her mother, but that wasn’t the point. Her mother’s life was tied to her relationship with Marcus Lee. However strange outsiders found it, her mother had a husband and a structured family life. If Marcus became unable to sustain it and she was forced to rely on her daughters for support, the loss of face, the humiliation would be catastrophic. Ava loved her mother too much to let that happen, and she loved her father too much to watch him go through hardship that was not of his making. The way she saw it, it came down to a choice between family and money. She had only one family. And there were lots of ways to make money.
    She sat in the M Bar for another hour writing in her notebook, trying to detail as much as she could the proposal she’d put to Michael and Simon at lunch the next day. It was difficult to find a balance. She needed to be fair, but it was her money and there had to be checks in place to make sure it wasn’t squandered.
    Just after seven she closed the book, thought about food, and left the bar. Man Wah or Pierre? She had often eaten at Man Wah. Their dim sum were superb, but they wouldn’t be serving dim sum at this time. Dinner would be good, she knew — some shark fin soup, a steamed sea bass. She had never tried Pierre, though, and realized she felt like meat.
    The restaurant shared the same view of Victoria Harbour as the M Bar. Night was descending and the Hong Kong skyline had begun to light up. She tipped the ma î tre d’ one hundred Hong Kong dollars and asked for a table near the window. If there