Justice Denied

Chapter 13

Chapter 13

We finished up early having had the go ahead from all concerned and after the usual handshakes and congratulations, Chan advised me that he would have the contract sent over to me before I left the following day for Bangkok.

That night Chan and I celebrated my victory, although, not taking anything away from my presentations, I was sure it had been in large part due to Chan’s intervention and maybe even manipulation.

But whatever had got me past the finish line, I wasn’t about to look a gift horse in the mouth.

So, again we decided to hit the town hard and this time, I told Chan, it was all on me. Whatever Chan wanted it wouldn’t be too much.

After all, with the business I had secured, the fees would bring in over 15 million US Dollars this next year alone.

We went to a few bars, unusually tame for Chan’s normal tastes and he was disturbingly quiet.

He was still very polite and amiable, but he seemed distracted and around 8.30 pm, Chan called it a night unexpectedly.

I asked, “Is everything ok Mike?” fearing I had upset him somehow. The last thing I needed now was for the horse to fall at the last hurdle.

“No Frank, all is fine.” He said much to my relief. “It’s been along week and I guess I’m getting a little long in the tooth also.

“I just need to make a few calls to tie up some loose ends, that is all.”

And with that he had his driver drop me off at my hotel and then sped off in the direction of Collier Quay, one of the popular entertainment districts, where he’d told me he kept an apartment.

Nevertheless, I was still over the moon with the result and in fact I was in fact totally heady with the excitement of it all, my head spinning with plans of expansion.

I went to the bar on the ground floor of the hotel first and ordered a small beer before heading back to my room, feeling both elated and exhausted at the same time.

I sat on the bed and taking off my shoes, I noticed the flashing red light on the bedside phone, indicating that there was a waiting message.

I decided whatever it was it could wait for a few hours and drifted off into a blissful sleep, without even bothering to undress.

I slept well and woke at 9AM to the vibration of my mobile phone.

It was Maurice, eager to hear news on the outcome of my negotiations, but also to apprise me of a proposal he had received from a new client.

I was feeling a little nauseous after such a long week, so I said I would call him back in a couple of hours, once I’d had a chance to make myself feel more human.

Besides, I wanted to call Perry and then Lynne and the kids first and give them the good news.

Lynne was over the moon, but my ever cautious wife always had an eye for spotting the pitfalls in any great design.

“Frank, that’s great. But how will you fund the expansion? The bank already said it wasn’t able to go any further because of the current climate.”

“I worked it all out Lynne. We still have fees coming in from our current work. So that is our day to day supply of cash.” I carried on. “The total funding we need is just over a million US dollars, so, I figure that as we have just on a million US in the offshore company account we can utilize this until fees start coming in from Singapore.”

Lynne was concerned.  “Frank, if you use all of that money and if you lose it, we have nothing else!”

She was right, of course, but I asked her how else was I going to get it done?