Lucky the Hard Way

by Deborah Coonts

  “Vu. Jhonny Vu.” Teddie waited a beat until sure of my attention. “Kimberly Cho’s partner.”

  Ryan Whitmore had mentioned him—but he’d failed to mention he was Kimberly’s law partner.

  What had the two of them uncovered?

  I blew out a breath, launching my bangs skyward. “And the man in the picture? You’ve seen him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “May I keep this?” Anticipating his answer, I took the paper, refolding it.

  “Sure. Shortly after the attack I saw that guy riding the private escalator to the Panda 777 gaming rooms. Hell, he still had the brick.”

  “And?”

  “He hasn’t been seen since.”

  Grabbing my chopsticks, I shoveled some rice into my mouth. “Tell me something good,” I said between mouthfuls.

  “I’ve been promoted.”

  I paused, my chopsticks halfway between the plate and my mouth. “You’ve been here, what, two days?” I smelled a rat.

  “I have proven myself capable,” he said with an air of mystery, as he gave up on grasping a bite of mystery meat, stabbing it instead.

  “I don’t like the way you said that.” Hovering my chopsticks over the plates, I waited for an explanation and searched for my next morsel. I snagged a shrimp. “You going to tell me what you’re up to?”

  “Not yet. But I’m getting closer. I’ve been moved upstairs, to the junket rooms.”

  “Out of the frying pan.”

  Suddenly not hungry anymore, I put my chopsticks down. “It’s too dangerous. I don’t like it.”

  “There’s no other way. It’s not like you can roam around here unnoticed. But, curiously, dressed as a woman, I can.”

  We both smiled at the irony.

  He had a point, but I didn’t have to like it. Worse, I had nothing to counter with. “You don’t know how to play with these lowlifes. You’ll never know they’re onto you until it’s too late. Don’t go being a hero, okay?” Even as I said the words, I wondered who I was trying to make feel better.

  “At the first shiver down my spine, I’ll cut and run and find you or Stokes.”

  The lie tripped off his tongue so easily, which didn’t make me feel better. “I mean it, Teddie. Don’t bullshit me.”

  “I know you do.” He reached across the table, moving a few of the plates so that he could grab my hand and hold it. Staring across at his made-up face, all I saw was Teddie underneath—but that’s all I’d ever seen. “You need to let me make my own choices.”

  “No, I want to control everything; keep everyone safe. That’s my job.”

  “No, it isn’t. And it doesn’t work that way.” He gave my hand a tight squeeze, his skin warm against mine. I’d been cold since I’d left Jean-Charles. “We have to get Gittings.”

  “And Cho,” I reminded Teddie. This whole thing wasn’t all about him although sometimes it felt that way.

  “And Kimberly Cho’s murderer.” Teddie heaped more on our overflowing plate.

  “And therein lays the problem.”

  “Stokes hasn’t proven very trustworthy,” I said, thinking out loud.

  Teddie released my hand then picked up his chopsticks, holding them over the feast like a fisherman holding a spear. “Stokes? My take is he’s above board, but ineffectual.” Teddie made his stroke, stabbing a scallop. He gave me a self-satisfied grin, the old Teddie leaking through. “He’s a Fed.”

  He acted like that explained everything. I hoped he was right.

  “Besides,” Teddie continued, “there isn’t anybody I’d trust in this hotel.”

  I weighed his words, giving them the gut test. My gut told me he was right, except perhaps for one person…I was still thinking about her, wondering if I dared inch out on that limb.

  With dinner cold, our bellies full enough, Teddie abandoned me to my thoughts. He took a shower and donned a hotel robe, then fell asleep on the couch in the living room.

  The comfort of old friends in a land of few.

  I’d retired to my part of the suite and cleaned up, too, choosing loose black slacks, a gun-metal gray silk shirt, and walking shoes. As I shrugged into a light jacket, I checked on Teddie. Standing there, looking at him, innocent in slumber, I resisted reaching out and brushing his cheek. Letting my eyes roam, I felt like I was looking back in time, at a me I used to be.

  A chill raced through me.

  You can never go back.

  Who had said that? The Big Boss? Mona? Then I realized it had been Teddie.

  But that doesn’t mean you can’t move forward. He’d said that, too.

  I pulled my jacket close around me, grabbed a scarf and my purse, then headed for the door. I’d made my decision. I had to find someone to give me a boost, a hint, to start me on the trail. That’s all I needed—I could take it from there.

  I needed to find Cindy Liu.

  And nobody could know.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CINDY LIU lived in Coloane.

  Once I’d gained access to the Guest Services Office, a trip through the secure intra-hotel system and I had her address with no one the wiser. Bypassing the public areas of the hotel, I took the rabbit warren of hallways reserved for the staff, eventually working my way to the employee entrance. Before pushing into the night, I tucked my hair behind my ears, then wrapped the scarf to hide it and as much of my face as I could. When I pushed through the door, the guard didn’t give me a second look, just a nod as he went back to the small book he was reading, something graphic…very graphic from the glimpse I caught.

  The air held a damp crispness, the night sharp and clear. Hands in my pockets, my head down, I stayed out of the lights as I covered ground with long strides. My destination, the Grand Lisboa, was a few blocks away. Its full rainbow of neon lit the night sky, but, like a mountain in the distance, its proximity proved elusive. I needed a cab, but hailing one in front of my own hotel would show up on our video feed, and right now, I wanted to run under all the radars, especially our own.

  The rhythm of the city changed as night pressed on toward morning. The wee hours where only saints or sinners were about, each trying to rescue the other from a fate worse than death. My time of night. Never sure which side I could claim as my own, saint or sinner, I felt comfortable either way. I rewrapped the scarf, pressing its warm folds into crevices to keep out the chill. My hair and my height drew attention. One, I covered; the other I couldn’t do anything about. Despite Macau being a gaming destination, most of the travelers here came from this part of the universe…in other words, I could run but I couldn’t hide.

  As if I knew what I was doing, I cut through several side streets to make sure I wasn’t followed. Circling through a park, a man in a trench coat pulling a small wagon caught my eye. He didn’t look dangerous…in fact, he looked hungry. I stepped behind a tree and watched him for a moment. Staking out a spot in what would be a high foot-traffic area when folks actually rolled out of bed, he started setting up in the light of the streetlamps. The wagon unfolded into a small table. Then he began to pull out his wares, arranging them on the table.

  A knockoff man.

  Again an unsettling analogy, but this one made me smile. What was China without cheap knockoffs?

  Content that he was after only my wallet, I left the comfort of my tree, ducked my head, and charged off.

  I’d almost made it past him when he called out. “You look like a Louie girl.”

  The Siren call of normalcy. “I must look stupid, too,” I said as I slowed, giving his table a once-over. “Although these fakes are really good.”

  “My fakes are the real deal.” He honed in on my nanosecond of weakness like a hawk sensing movement in the grass below. “I get you anything you want and nobody will know it’s not from the manufacturer. You like Louie, Prada, Jimmy Choo?” He reached for the lapel of his coat, tugging it open. “Only the best. I have Rolex, Patek Phillippe?”

  I raised both my hands, a meager defense against his high-powered tactics
. “No, no. I’m in a hurry. Thanks, though.”

  “You come back,” he called after me. “I always here.”

  Chuckling, I shook my head. A businessman honest in his dishonesty—something about that intrigued me. Back on one of the main roads, lost in the conundrum, cocooned in the noise of the steady stream of cars and scooters, I didn’t recognize the sound of a small motor at max RPM until it was almost too late.

  Behind me, bumping up the curb, throttle open.

  I dove to the left into a row of bushes. He screamed by, so close. My ankle connected with metal. I yelped as I rolled. Back on all fours, I craned to follow the scooter. A hooded figure, all black. A foot out, taillights blinking, he slowed, then wiggled through the traffic and turned for another pass. Riding low, his chin on the handlebars, he accelerated toward me.

  A wall loomed in the darkness behind the row of bushes, blocking my escape. With no way out, I turned to fight. Frankly, I welcomed it.

  Bring it on, asshole.

  As I kept my eyes on the approaching scooter, I felt around me in the darkness for anything I could use as a weapon. Under a bush, my hand closed around what felt like a two by two. I pulled it out and brushed it off. A remnant of the massive building in Macau, the board was surprisingly solid. A small gift.

  But a two-by-two was perfect. About three feet in length, it was more than adequate, although another foot would’ve been nice. The scooter guy throttled back. I hazarded a peek. A hundred feet or so, but he was idling now.

  Crouching, bouncing on my toes, my weapon at the ready, I calculated the closure rate.

  Standing on the pegs, he peered into the bushes. For once the Fates had given me an opening, a slight advantage, but it was all I needed.

  My breathing settled and confidence returned…until the kid pulled out a pistol and started shooting randomly into the darkness. Muffled pfffts, and a ping or two off the brick. Of course, the Fates would give him a gun and me a puny bit of wood.

  Better odds than I was used to.

  One shot pinged over my head, one to my left. I flinched and braced against the inevitable pain to come as I forced myself to take deep breaths.

  No matter how strong my flight response, I couldn’t run.

  Running would give him a target.

  Fight not flight, a fitting epitaph.

  But if the shooter got me, he was going to have to work for it.

  Pressing back, I kept still, hoping my little spot wasn’t one of his random ones. By the time he neared, he was barely moving as he peered into the darkness. Even though I knew he couldn’t see me, I felt exposed.

  I forced myself to remain still.

  Closer. I could hear his engine clearly now—the timing was off slightly; the engine ticked like a drunken clock. I almost thought I could hear him breathe. But hearing anything that subtle above the pounding of my heart and the rush of blood pulsing in my ears was impossible.

  Emboldened, he raised up, peering into the bushes as he eased along. Maybe he thought he’d shot me already. Maybe he knew I didn’t have a gun.

  Twenty feet.

  Stay still, Lucky.

  Breathe.

  With both hands, I gripped my bat, gauging its length, testing its heft, measuring the clearance I would need. This could work; it had to work.

  Wait, Lucky. Wait.

  Calm flooded through me. My brain cleared. The moments slowed.

  You got this.

  A shot hissed to my right. I felt a sting. Focused, I didn’t flinch.

  Five feet.

  He pulled abreast.

  Now!

  I stepped out of the shadows, both hands gripping the end of the two-by-two that I held down against my right leg. Bracing on my right leg, I coiled.

  Surprised, he reared up and back.

  Stepping into my left leg, I swung like Alex Rodriguez with the home-run record in sight and the season dwindling.

  I caught him right across the bridge of his nose. He tumbled off the back of his scooter, which wobbled for ten feet or so then fell over on its side, its engine still humming. Before anyone noticed, I grabbed the guy by his hoodie and pulled him into the bushes.

  Asian. Male. Tough. Like a bad movie. Should I feel bad for racial profiling? Not.

  Out cold.

  A broken nose that gushed blood. Tomorrow he would have two shiners and a lot of explaining to do.

  But tonight he’d solved my transportation problems.

  And my weaponry problem. His handgun was a new Sig .40 S&W—perfect for concealed carry. I’d counted five shots, so I had at least five more. In too much of a hurry to check, I eased the slide closed, stuck it in my Birkin, and tried not to think about all the laws I was breaking. This wasn’t Vegas. I couldn’t throw myself on the mercy of the court and expect the DA to save my ass.

  Just having a gun here could get you into big trouble.

  Unless you were law enforcement…or you had paid someone off…or you didn’t care about getting caught.

  But I wasn’t, so the swashbuckling needed to go. If I was going to be a felon, I needed to be more careful.

  Quickly, I checked the guy for any ID, not that I expected to find any. I was wrong. His angry mug stared at me from a local driver’s license. I couldn’t read his name nor even pretend to pronounce it—not that it mattered.

  I’d seen his face before.

  The guy in the photo Teddie had shown me.

  The guy who’d killed Jhonny Vu, Kim Cho’s partner.

  A thought gripped me—the idea so strong, so powerful, so compelling I knew what it must feel like to try to resist an addiction.

  His gun. I could shoot him right now. Eliminate one horror from the gene pool. Murder wasn’t that big a deal here—hadn’t I been told that a thousand times?

  Oh, I wanted to. So bad I could almost taste the victory, the satisfaction…the revenge.

  But I couldn’t.

  Some lines even I was afraid to cross.

  A quick pat down of the guy. He wasn’t wired, so if he was working with a team, someone had to have eyes on him.

  I stuck my head out of the bushes looking for more bad guys, or cops alerted to gunfire by a concerned citizen. But nothing. No movement. No one rushed in my direction. No one hurried toward the fallen scooter. No one slinked between the shadows.

  A lone wolf?

  Last time he’d underestimate a woman.

  A lesson forcefully delivered. I could live with that.

  Before I left, I checked his pulse, then dragged him further back into the bushes.

  Anybody could’ve sent him to hassle me, and right now I actually welcomed it. Bring it on, assholes. At least fighting felt like doing something, no matter how unproductive defending myself might prove to be.

  After stuffing the shooter’s ID back in his pocket, I changed my mind. It could come in handy later, so I transferred it to my purse.

  Save Romeo first. Then my hotel.

  Nothing mattered until I had Romeo safe and back in Brandy’s arms.

  The scooter was as light as it looked. The first twenty feet or so, I wobbled a bit, but then I found my balance and opened the throttle. Bending low over the handlebars, I stayed tucked in tight to the traffic, which, to my delight, was mostly trucks at this hour. If anyone was looking for me, I wanted to be hard to find.

  Macau, like its sister, Hong Kong, was a maze of bridges that connected the outer islands with each other and with the mainland. The key was finding the right bridge. As I followed the red line on my phone’s GPS, I prayed Siri was fluent in the nuances of the back streets of Macau—a leap of faith, since that woman could get me lost on the major arteries in my own backyard.

  The truck traffic was heavy through the Cotai Strip. The hotels, large hulking edifices, sat back from the road. Nothing about this place drew me in. Good thing I wasn’t their prime demographic. Trucks peeled off and chugged up the long drives, then around to the loading docks of various properties.

  So the tr
affic had thinned to almost none as I gunned the engine out of the Cotai Strip toward Coloane. A few miles past government housing that looked pretty posh, and which had one of the best views on the island, then winding through neighborhoods of houses along the coastline—real houses on an island where few could afford five hundred square feet in a pre-war building to call their own, and I arrived at the outskirts of the tiny village of Coloane. Amazingly, Siri actually got me within spitting distance of where I wanted to go with only two wrong turns that were somewhat my fault—reading a map upside down is not a skill I’d perfected.

  Once in Coloane, the streets turned dark, the street lamps were weak and the distance between them great, so much so that I traveled from one pale pool of light through darkness to the next. The large lighted expanses in front of the garish casinos of the Cotai had given way to tight row houses. The few businesses were still shuttered at this hour.

  All but one.

  Where the main street bent hard to the right at the water, lights shone through the front of Lord Stow’s Bakery, drawing me like a beacon in a storm. Baking was an early business, Lord Stow’s, a legend. And, for once, luck swung my way.

  In a two-story stucco building with turquoise shutters bracketing windows on the top floor, and tile roofing, the bakery looked, if not ready for business, then at least welcoming to the weary traveler with its steel shutters pushed back and the storefront open.

  Figuring it wouldn’t hurt to be extra careful, I parked the scooter across the street behind a little park area. After hiding it behind a couple of trash cans that had taken some abuse, I pocketed the keys. Ignoring the scurrying sounds in the dark corners, I paused under the lone tree’s large canopy and scanned the streets and alleys. Minutes passed while I stood still, waiting, watching for movement. After several minutes, nothing looked out of the ordinary—in fact, there was no movement I could detect, so I stepped into the open, strolled across the street, and into the small shop.

  The baking was done at the back of the long narrow space. Ovens lined the back wall, their maws open, belching steam, begging for the next tray of yeasty goodness. In front of the ovens, several white-clad people worked over a dough table. Long glass cases set out from the wall to my left, the space behind them defining the selling area. Taller cases lined the wall to my right, the shelves laden with pastries and breads. One machine held cold drinks, its motor laboring. A short maze of velvet ropes zigzagged in front of the counter and across the store. Apparently, this place could draw a crowd.