“Trying to get to the bottom of a private matter, actually. It concerns my family.” Lam spears him with a calculating look, from one shark to another. Designed to make him wonder whose teeth are sharper.

Vidal smiles. “My lips are sealed. Go on.”

“You were once connected to a Three Phoenix boss named Jimmy Fang. You worked for his law firm, in fact. That is, before he fled the city. We need to know if any of his associates are still here.”

Vidal doesn’t miss a beat. “That’s what it takes to get your family to back the Chinatown development proposal?”

“If I’m happy with the information, yes.”

“As much as I’d love to make you happy, I don’t know anything about Three Phoenix. Fang, I met. And yes, he was a client at my firm when I was still practicing law. But I have no intimate knowledge of his operation.”

Peter Vidal lies so well it’s impressive. I’m about to say something to remind them I’m still in the room, but he continues speaking before I can get a word in.

“I do know that before he left the country in a rather scandalous fashion, I saw him a few times with Michael Acosta.”

“Acosta’s company just bought a two-hundred-million-dollar mine in Indonesia,” Lam says to me, suddenly remembering my existence. “But they’re into casinos, as well.”

Vidal nods. “Acosta has stakes in mines and casinos all over Southeast Asia. On this side of the Pacific he’s been more into entertainment, including a major film studio.”

This makes me think of something Krista Dennings had said. When she’d been running down Jimmy Fang, she lost him in the Philippines. And had said that he’d disappeared in Indonesia.

The conversation draws to a close shortly after. Vidal and Lam discuss what the Lam family support might entail. They are speaking French to me. I can pick out a few words but don’t understand much. Underneath his soft voice, Vidal is more excited than I’ve ever seen him.

When Vidal leaves, Lam turns to me. “Dao used to work for Ray Zhang, as you know.”

I nod. When I met Lam for the first time, this was the piece of information he gave me. At that time, I was looking for Ray Zhang because of his connection to Bonnie’s disappearance.

“The official story is that Ray Zhang died in Hong Kong last year from a stroke. His son, Kai, is dead. So is his daughter-in-law, Jia, as well as their son. Zhang-Wei was a family company. After Ray’s death, Zhang-Wei Industries was in trouble, and Mike Acosta’s Nebula Corporation took over whatever Zhang-Wei international assets they could get their hands on. Zhang-Wei was into mining and real estate all over the world.”

“You think Dao tipped him off? That they knew each other?”