FIVE TO EIGHT. THE TELLERS WERE AT THEIR seats: four heads and torsos framed by steel windows. The afterlife consultants, stationed in grey booths, sat erect and motionless, like terra-cotta warriors in red jackets.
Raymond inspected the rows of empty red chairs in the waiting area, on the lookout for anything that shouldn’t be there: lint, dirt, loose threads, scraps of paper. When he couldn’t find anything to fault, he fussed over his own appearance, smoothing his shirt, straightening his tie, brushing a lock of hair from his forehead. Then he paced near the entrance in an attempt to burn off some of his nervous energy.
In the corridor beyond the closed door, a group of tourists from the mainland wheeled large suitcases, presumably stocked with baby formula or some other crap. The bank was deep in the bowels of a shopping mall, sandwiched between a coffee shop and a ladies’ fashion store.
A few seconds later, he stopped pacing and turned around. His gaze swept the width of the branch: the reception, waiting area, teller counters, grey consultation booths, a white door marked “FOR STAFF ONLY” and behind it, an entire back office working away, hidden from view. For a moment, it was hard to believe this was actually happening because ten days earlier, it didn’t look like it would.
The first uniforms that arrived from Shenzhen were the wrong color. The software had crashed while testing; turned out it had more bugs than a bed in Chungking Mansions. And then nearly a third of the staff quit, citing bouts of conscience.
Yet they’d made it. The new uniforms were ready the previous night. Raymond collected a few speeding tickets driving across the border to Shenzhen to pick them up. The software was quickly patched, following threats of bodily harm from Lim Wei. And Yau managed to find fresh recruits and train them.
This pretty much summed up the story in the last three months. When one door shut, they had to find another. If there were no doors, they had to look for a window. And if there were no windows, well, they just had to find another way out.
Just coming this far felt like an achievement. The end of a grueling marathon. Except they were nowhere near the finish line. The finish line was fifty-three million dollars away. Fifty-three million dollars that meant the difference between life and death.
Raymond gulped and looked at his watch.
One minute.
Still time for another disaster. He stiffened as he imagined everything around him collapsing: the branch, the back office, the surrounding shops, the spiderweb of corridors in the mall. Everything knocked over like a film set bulldozed by a gust of wind. And standing in the midst of the debris, the short, dark silhouette of Wu, gleefully stroking his meat cleaver.
Fortunately, nothing of the sort occurred. The branch stood intact. As did the mall. And instead of Wu, Lim Wei’s barrel-chested figure appeared in his vision, dressed in a white shirt and olive-green trousers. Their eyes met. Lim Wei’s were dark and puffy. Raymond imagined his looked the same. Like two soldiers who’d shared many a cigarette in a trench, they conversed without saying a word.
A few seconds later, Lim Wei walked up to the double doors, stood on his toes and undid the bolts. Then he glanced over his shoulder at Raymond, who nodded.
The doors were thrown open.
Bank of Eternity was officially open for business.