by David DeLee
“I’d like to hear about it,” she said.
Kwon returned his gaze to the sea. “It is a long story.”
Tara downed the last of her drink. “You owe me another.” Dawn and Boston Harbor were a long way off. “I’m not going anywhere anytime soon.”
CHAPTER TWENTY
Two hours after play had begun, Bannon noticed Toi Kwon enter the forward stateroom. Tara with him, her arm around his. Her hair was windblown. Bannon noted she appeared particularly stunning and quickly looked away. Cards weren’t the only thing the T-ray contact lens could see through. Over the course of the evening, the players sharing his table had come and gone and thanks to McMurphy, the waitresses kept Bannon’s thirst sated with a steady supply of Kirin, a Japanese beer.
Bannon’s pile of chips was impressive.
Tara stepped toward the bar while Kwon came over to the table. The Sanu twins a step behind him. He glanced at the stacked chips then looked at the dealer. He arched an eyebrow, asking without speaking if everything was on the up and up. The dealer returned a barely discernible shrug. Bannon’s translation: He’s not cheating as far as I can tell.
Kwon smiled at Bannon. All Bannon saw was cold anger in the man’s dead black eyes.
“It appears you have a talent for Oicho-Kabu, Mr. Bannon.”
“I had a good instructor.”
Kwon grunted. “It’s a shame Mr. McMurphy is not sharing your same good fortune.”
“Not his lucky night?” Bannon asked.
“It seems not,” Kwon said. “But did have the good sense to limit the damage by quitting while he was behind. We left him at the bar, drowning his losses. Is that the phrase? You, on the other hand—”
“Am on a streak,” Bannon finished. “Have you decided to join us, Mr. Kwon?”
The fourth seat at the table was vacant.
Kwon looked at it. “I thought I might.”
Bannon, waved at the open chair to his left. “Please.”
The dealer bowed to Kwon, welcoming the new player as he had with each that had joined and departed over the evening.
Tara returned from the bar. She angled her way between the Sanu brothers, forcing them to step aside while casting annoyed looks at her. She placed a hand on Kwon’s shoulder. She glanced at Bannon who gave her a if-looks-could-kill glare, playing the jealous boyfriend part for all it was worth. He returned his attention to the table.
“Can we deal, please?” he snapped, feigning irritation with his date’s apparent betrayal.
Kwon raised his hand over his head and snapped his fingers. One of the waitresses rushed over. They conversed in Japanese. Then the girl ran off toward the bar.
Kwon nodded to the dealer and play began.
The dealer dealt to the player on Bannon’s right, then Bannon, followed by Kwon, the last player, and then to himself. By putting Kwon on his left, Bannon could not only watch for the most advantageous cards for himself, but using his special lens, he could player spoiler against Kwon’s hand, knowing what cards the yakuza leader had, and what he’d need. He could also read the cards next in the chute. By doing so, Bannon controlled the table, continuing his winning streak or take desirable cards away from Kwon, making winning more difficult for the oyabun.
Double whammy. Which had been the plan.
And so it went.
The hardest part for Bannon was to mix up his winning and losing so he continued his winning streak, while ensuring Kwon continued to get dealt crappy hands, arousing suspicions Bannon was cheating, but without it being too obvious.
An hour and a half into the game, Kwon had twice had to reach into his billfold and pay the dealer to replenish his chips. The bills were pushed through a slot into a steel lockbox affixed to the underside of the table. The lockboxes containing the table’s cash were changed out when they filled, intermittently throughout the night.
As the evening wore on, Kwon became visibly more and more irritated. Bannon noticed the subtle signs he tried to hide; a clenched fist, a tightness in his jaw as he ground his teeth, an almost inaudible hiss after a bad hand.
Bannon noticed something else as well. The dealer, on Kwon’s behalf, had begun to cheat. He was good at it, too. Even with the x-ray contacts it had taken Bannon some time to pick up on it. Using a skilled sleight of hand trick, the dealer would occasionally flick the next card in the chute back up and slid out the card underneath, essentially dealing Kwon the second card in the sleeve.
The move was slick. Bannon never would have caught it if he wasn’t able to read through the cards. To make the cheat work, the dealer had to know which cards were which. That meant the deck was marked. Shock and surprise.
Inwardly, Bannon grinned. It didn’t matter. Bannon still had the advantage. He could still control the table. And he did.
After a few more hands, Kwon shot Bannon an angry stare. From the look, there was no doubt he believed Bannon was cheating now. His frustration would be in figuring out how. That would keep the Yakuza boss from making an accusation or stopping the game. His ego would demand he determine how it was being done.
Good luck with that, Bannon thought with a twitch of a smile.
Kwon pulled his wallet out for a third time. He opened it and cursed, pulling a single one-hundred-dollar bill out. He tossed the bill on the table and stood up, returning his wallet to his pocket. With a deep breath he made an effort to calm himself.
“I need…wish to take a break before we continue,” he announced to the table. To Bannon, he said, “The evening is young. I trust you will continue to allow the house a chance to recoup its losses.”
Bannon smiled. “I’m in, so long as the house doesn’t run out of chips.” He raised his bottle of Kirin in toast and drank.
Kwon frowned. To the dealer, he said, “Return in fifteen minutes.”
The dealer closed the table, bowed and hurried off.
Kwon bowed to the table. “Excuse me.”
Bannon came to his feet. The other players did the same. Kwon was already halfway out of the room with the Sanu twins on his tail. Tara deposited her drink on the dealer’s table and rushed after Kwon. Bannon watched and fought back a smile.
As a famous fictional detective once said, the game is afoot.
-----
Tara chased after Kwon the way she’d watched obsessed, subservient women do her whole life. Her gut twisted at having to pretend to be one of them, but it was her job. And she was good at her job. Very, very good.
“Toi. Where are you going?”
The twins had to double-time it to keep up with him as well. The three of them chased after Kwon like a high school mean girl’s posse. In the foyer between the grand staircases on either leading up and down, Kwon stopped. The pachinko machines could be heard from the midsection stateroom, muted by distance.
He touched Tara lightly on the arm. “Accompany me, my dear. Please.”
Kwon took her to a brass-framed glass elevator. He hit the call button and when the elevator came, he stepped in, tugging Tara inside by the hand.
Before the doors slid closed, Kwon said, “Taizai. Stay.”
The twins stopped short and did not look happy at being left behind. Again. Still, they obeyed his orders.
The elevator closed and descended to the lower deck. It opened with a muted ping.
“What’s down here?” Tara asked, although she knew. She got that warm familiar tingle she always felt when a mission was coming together as planned.
At a closed cabin door Kwon turned to face her. He seized her by the elbow and squeezed. “Bannon is cheating. Tell me how?”
“Owwww! You’re hurting me.” She clutched her jaw. Not because of the pain, but at having to fight her instinctive reaction to punch his capped white teeth down his throat.
Kwon shook her arm. “Tell me!”
Tara squirmed, pretending she couldn’t break his grip. “I don’t know. If he is. He’s always been good at cards.”
“Because he cheats,” Kwon insisted.
“If so, I don’t know anything about it. Now. Let. Me. Go.” She pulled her arm from his grasp.
“I need to know how,” Kwon said more to himself than to her.
He took a key card out of his wallet and waved it over the black proximity reader next to the cabin door. The locking mechanism whirled and clicked.
He pushed through the door.
Motion detectors activated the lights as they went in. The room had been stripped of any furnishings one would expect to find in a cabin on a thirty million dollar yacht. Instead, there was a cheap office desk and a metal chair. A single safe that stood seven feet tall and four feet wide and deep against the back wall. He’d chosen an interior cabin to be his vault room. There were no windows.
She walked over to the safe while Kwon checked some papers on a clipboard hung on the bulkhead behind the desk. On the top sheet were several columns, three-digit numbers in a row down the page with what appeared to be signatures next to them. The log sheet of lock boxes used as drop safes and the tables they were assigned to. The signatures were the dealers responsible for the box and money. Behind the desk were several stacks of lock boxes. Probably a mix of filled and empty ones.
“This is where all the money’s kept?” she asked, trying to sound impressed.
Kwon glanced at her. “Yes.”
He returned his attention to the pages he was going through.
With him distracted, Tara leaned against the safe. She pulled the hem of her dress up and walked her fingers up her thigh until she felt the small device affixed to her gun holster. The size and shape of a thick quarter with a thin antenna, she slipped it from the elastic band that secured it to her black lace harness. It had a magnetic back. She surreptitiously stuck it to the wall of the safe.
It made a metallic snapping sound. A noise Tara hadn’t anticipated.
Kwon looked up. His forehead furrowed. “What was that?”
Tara flitted her eyes left and right. “What was what?”
Kwon stepped toward her. “That sound.”
She snapped her chewing gum. “What sound?”
He made a face and recoiled. “Disgusting.”
She pushed off the safe and extracted the gum with her fingers. “Got some tissues?”
Kwon frowned.
Tara crossed over to the desk and pulled a post-it note from a dispenser. She stuck her gum to it and threw it into an empty waste paper basket. It hit the bottom with a thunk.
“Why are we here?” She rolled her eyes, faking boredom, taking in every detail of the room. Including the small surveillance camera in the corner. Damn it.
McMurphy swore there were no cameras on board. Guess Kwon had upgraded his security since McMurphy’s last visit. She sure hoped nothing else had changed.
Kwon stepped around her. The safe had two doors. The one on the left had a large circular keypad. He glanced over his shoulder at Tara. “Look away.”
He blocked her line of sight with his body. He keyed in four numbers. Each keypad digit he hit emitted a tone. Tara smiled at hearing the pad’s final beep.
“Can I turn around now?”
She did, not waiting for permission. As she turned, Kwon inserted his right thumb into the biometric lock. There was a wave of electric blue light and another metallic click.
Kwon spun the safe wheel until it banged to a stop then pulled the two heavy doors open.
Inside were several shelves. Over his shoulder, Tara counted seven stacks of bundled cash. On other shelves were four small tin boxes. On the bottom shelf were two old pistols; an eighteenth-century flintlock and a Sugiura pistol. She knew the rare Japanese made weapon well, having seen one in a museum. They’d been manufactured during the Second World War. It was a small weapon. .32 caliber with a four-inch barrel and an eight-round magazine. This one had a salt-blue finish with checkered walnut grips.
Tara whistled. “How much money is in there?”
“Enough.” Kwon grabbed three stacks of bills and stuffed them into his jacket pockets. He slammed the safe doors closed and spun the wheel, resetting all the locks. “Now we finish this.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
With play at the Oicho-Kabu table suspended, McMurphy returned to the stateroom and spent time chatting up the two lovely Japanese waitresses he’d spoken with earlier. He learned they were exchange students from Nagoya, Japan’s fourth largest city. They were in the States attending Boston University. One was pursuing a career in education, the other was part of the engineering program.
They giggled behind their hands and smiled with their eyes.
He wanted to warn them away from Kwon and his gambling boat, afraid of what might be in store for them knowing the Yakuza were heavily involved in both prostitution and human trafficking, but he couldn’t. Not yet. Instead, he ordered another drink and renewed his vow to put Kwon out of business before he could hurt anyone else.
Bannon had retreated to the outside balcony to get some fresh air while they waited for Kwon to return. There he smoked a cigar, creating an outward appearance of casual confidence.
Kwon re-entered the stateroom with a purposeful stride. Tara still with him. His expression was as grim as ever, but McMurphy noted an expression of concern in Tara’s eyes. Kwon searched the room with his eyes. His gaze fell on McMurphy at the bar.
“Where is your friend, Mr. Bannon?”
McMurphy nodded toward the balcony. Bannon had his back turned to the windows. He puffed smoke and stared out over the expanse of black ocean water. A self-assured man content with the world, enjoying his place in it.
“Play is about to resume,” Kwon said. “He committed to giving the house a chance to recoup its losses.”
McMurphy downed the last of his drink. “I’ll get him.”
Kwon stood behind his chair at the Oicho-Kabu table to wait. He snapped his fingers at the waitresses and shouted in Japanese. They jumped to fill his drink order. The dealer scurried over, returning to his position.
McMurphy went outside. The night air was still cool and crisp. The moon still reflected brightly off the dark water. But dark clouds had begun to move in. The forecasters had been calling for rain. Eyeing the sky McMurphy thought, no. It’ll be overcast for a few days. Cold, dreary, and gloomy, but no rain. He joined Bannon at the railing.
They kept their backs to the big stateroom windows. “Kayla picked up the audio from the vault room, no problem,” Bannon reported. “She’s deciphered the tones and has the safe combination. You’re good to go.”
“Kwon’s back,” McMurphy said. “He’s fidgety as a caged tiger.”
Exactly how they wanted him. There was just one more thing they needed.
The plan now was to introduce Bannon to a losing streak. While McMurphy was in the vault, they hoped to ratchet down Kwon’s suspicions, have him chalk up Bannon’s earlier good fortune on a simple lucky streak. If all went well, Kwon would remain at the table, taking delight in putting Bannon back in his place, securing his dominance over the table, and thus remain distracted. If their luck really held, Kwon wouldn’t discover the safe had been compromised until after dawn, until after they’d returned to dock in Boston Harbor.
That was the plan anyway. McMurphy checked his watch. Six hours until then.
“You better get in there,” he said.
Bannon extinguished his cigar.
“And hey,” McMurphy said without turning. “Be careful. Blades looked worried coming back in. Something might be up.”
Bannon nodded and returned to the Oicho-Kabu table.
McMurphy gave it a minute, then reluctantly returned to the stateroom, too.
Bannon had taken his previous seat. The other two seats remained unoccupied while Kwon stood behind his chair. Several people lined the bar. The stateroom had become crowded, word of a showdown between the two men had spread around the yacht. A chance to see the night’s big winner challenge Kwon on his own boat, at his own game, was too much to pass up.
A buzz coursed through
the room. The atmosphere was electrifying.
McMurphy joined Tara at the bar and ordered a drink.
“Before we begin,” Kwon said. His voice loud. “I wish to state, it has been my great honor to host these games on the Bakuto for several years now. Many great players have won—and lost—at these tables. But in all that time, I have seldom had the privilege of facing an Oicho-Kabu player whose skills are as great as I have encountered here tonight.” He bowed in Bannon’s direction.
“Here we go,” McMurphy said.
Kwon removed the bundles of cash he’d taken from the safe and slapped them down on the table in front of the dealer. A hushed murmur spread through the crowd. The dealer pulled them forward, exchanged them, and pushed the piles of chips to Kwon’s spot. Stacks that nearly matched Bannon’s accumulated pile.
Kwon took his tuxedo jacket off, placed his wallet in one of the pockets, and draped it over the back of his chair.
“I’m also pleased Mr. Bannon has agreed to continue to honor us by continuing to play.”
“As long as the house still has chips, I’m in.”
The crowd responded with nervous laughter.
“I assure you,” Kwon said. “You’ve nothing to worry about in that regard.”
“Good to know,” Bannon said.
“There is one more thing.” Kwon uncuffed his shirt sleeves and untied his bow tie, slipping it off. “There is a tradition among my associates.” He began to unbutton his shirt. “One that is taken serious when we play Oicho-Kabu. Really play.”
He stripped off his shirt to reveal his reedy body. Kwon’s entire torso and both arms to his wrists were covered in intricate, flamboyant tattoos. Done in bright, colorful ink; images of an angry Asian face, his black hair tied in a knot and a curved knife in his mouth, a red dragon’s face with smoldering yellow eyes, a flaming samurai helmet, and other angry looking motifs set upon a kaleidoscope of floral and predatorily sinister patterns.
The crowd gasped.
Called irezumi in Japanese, they required special ink and were done by hand using wooden handles and metal or bamboo needles. A long, expensive, and very painful process. One that took hundreds of hours to do and many years to complete.
