Lucky the Hard Way

by Deborah Coonts

  Sinjin approached the helicopter with practiced efficiency surprising me. No driver apparently meant no pilot either.

  “I’m assuming you know how to fly this thing?” He ignored me, focusing instead on opening ports and shining a penlight inside, so I answered myself. “Stupid question.” Fear made me babble.

  Finally, with the preflight done and both of us buckled in Sinjin fired the machine up. The rotors circled slowly, gaining speed with each revolution until they whirled with a vibration that pulsed through my chest and rattled my teeth. In the right seat, Sinjin motioned for me to don the headset. Once I had it settled, he said, “Ready?”

  I tugged at my five-point harness, then nodded. Ready as I’ll ever be.

  He eased up on the collective and we levitated—a fact that always amazed me. Physics and its laws had confounded me, but, even though ignorant, I appreciated the magic. Once high enough to clear any obstructions, Sinjin lowered the nose slightly, then stepped on the left rudder, swinging us around toward Hong Kong.

  Only forty-five miles or so as the helicopter flies, the ride was brief, the conversation nonexistent. I was sorry night hid the scenery—the islands in the South China Sea were beautiful. We landed on a building, one in the sea of high-rises and a forest of cranes that ringed Victoria Harbor. Thankfully, a crane wasn’t part of the décor of this particular building. A key got us in, and an elevator took us down one floor to the one-hundred and twenty-third.

  Hong Kong always worried me with all its buildings stretching to the sky and endless construction on reclaimed land. The city had been on a 24/365 land reclamation project since the changeover from the British to the Chinese in 1997. I wondered what they’d do when they reclaimed all of Victoria Harbor.

  Of course, one good earthquake. I wasn’t an engineer of course, but the combination was enough to make me queasy.

  The elevator put us in a small vestibule with one desk, a very large jade dragon, and no signage.

  “Where are we?” I asked.

  Sinjin stepped to a door, placing his thumb on a glass plate to the right. Another plate above it opened, exposing a retinal scanner. He waited for the machine to do its work, then stepped back and motioned me through, just as the door hissed open. “My office.”

  “Business or pleasure?” I stepped through and instantly felt like I had walked into Security at the Babylon. “You’ve tapped into our security feed at the Tigris?”

  “I’ve been studying and timing how the feed rotates.”

  Finding the dark spots. “I used to do that at every property. A good thing to know.”

  He gave me an appreciative glance.

  I felt the glow of student satisfaction when a teacher bestowed a quick compliment, which made me ashamed. Get a grip. He’s just another pretty face. But he wasn’t, not really. He was smart and manipulative, too. The triple whammy. The question was, was he a sociopath, too? “Were you going to tell me about the account you opened for Irv Gittings?”

  Even though my words held the sharp point of a condemnation, he didn’t even flinch. “At Mr. Cho’s request. Purely business. A conduit for Gittings to invest some of Cho’s money overseas.”

  Despite sounding legit, the whole thing stunk royally. “And you weren’t going to tell me because…?”

  “It’s irrelevant.”

  I grabbed his upper arm, getting his attention. “You don’t get to decide what is relevant and what isn’t. My ass is on the line just like yours.”

  “Point taken.” He shrugged my hand off. “My apologies.” He spoke the words so easily, as if by rote.

  “For the record, I don’t believe you fund all this fancy office space, your impressive boat, and technology that would make Q quiver with lust with a bit of pirating and hedge-fund fees. You’re as dirty as they are, in a way.”

  His eyes narrowed giving him a feral, hungry look. “How do you figure?”

  “You launder the money coming out of China, the stuff that doesn’t flow through the casino. You have to. Any crook worth his salt is diversified.”

  My not-so-veiled insult hit home, and he puffed up a bit. “I know what you’re thinking, but it seemed an easy way to fund the fight against them. Nobody in the international market wants Yuan. So, I receive them here and deposit them into accounts denominated in Hong Kong dollars. I use the proceeds for purposes you’d approve of.”

  “No doubt.” I kept my voice flat—no sarcasm, no approval.

  “Not legal by any stretch, but I figured it would be a short-term association.”

  “I see.” I’d learned one thing by his admission—he was better than most of us at justifying bad behavior. Good to know. “How do they get the cash out of China?”

  “Smuggling, the junket dealers, and sometimes they just ship it to me.”

  “Ship it?”

  “Yeah, the shipping companies don’t check packages under one kilo. So they box up a bunch of bills in high denominations. They make sure it doesn’t exceed the weight—they call it an American pound.”

  “Slightly less than a kilo.”

  He picked up a mechanical pencil and started working it through his fingers as he leaned one hip against the desk. “We rotate shipping addresses so we don’t trigger some unwanted attention.”

  “Like shipping drugs but without having to worry about the dogs.” Leaning there, his arms crossed casually as if he was debating the merits of various single-malts, he looked cool and collected. Just the man I’d want on my side in a firefight.

  But was he on my side? I had a feeling if push came to shove, he’d feather his own nest and leave the rest of us out in the cold. “Will you give me Irv’s account number?”

  He eyed me for a moment, then bent over a computer, working through the pull-down menus. He scrawled some number on a pad, tore it off, and handed it to me.

  He had questions, but he didn’t ask them, so I gave him a few answers. “Personal between me and Gittings. And, if I can pull this off the way I think I can, I can leave him holding the bag.”

  “And we walk?”

  I knew what he implied. “All of us, yes.”

  He accepted that, or at least pretended to. He had no choice. For that matter, neither did I. Uncomfortable bedfellows for sure. “Have you come up with a timeline?”

  With a hand barely touching my elbow, he moved me over to a drafting table. Sheets of schematics and construction plans covered the surface.

  “These are our security schematics.” I lifted a sheet. “And the architectural plans for Tigris.” Feeling violated, I let my anger run loose in my words. “How dare you?”

  He waited me out. “No time for that, Lucky. Tomorrow night, just after midnight. The casino will be full and Security will be busy watching that. A perfect time to steal the watches.”

  “So soon?” Instantly sober, I swallowed hard.

  “Your people are ready?”

  “Yes.” One advantage to the time difference—the middle of the night here would be in the middle of day at home, and everyone would be running at full-throttle and hopefully on top of their game. Everything hinged on that.

  He motioned me closer. “Then this is what I need from you.”

  Once back at Tigris, the pulse of adrenaline ebbed and fatigue flooded through me. Time for sleep, if I could. Tomorrow would be a very big day. My bedroom was empty when I let myself in. Not that I expected otherwise. I kicked off my shoes and fell on the bed, folding the heavy quilt over me.

  The day was full-bore bright by the time I stirred. Someone had left a pot of coffee by the bed. Moving back so I was propped up on the pillows, I poured myself a cup full. The tiny coffee cups here in China were a travesty that made becoming fully-caffeinated a fill it, then slug it, then fill it again affair. I’d downed four of the things before I felt my blood pressure get off the peg.

  After a long, hot shower, clean hair, clean clothes, and the last of the carafe of coffee, I felt more myself than I had in a long time. Stuffing my feet in the sl
ippers that came with the room, I went to find Romeo. He was where I thought he’d be—setting up on the dining room table.

  Two twenty-seven-inch screens angled together. I could hear the soft whir of the CPUs as lines of code marched down the screen, a new line added every few seconds. Romeo sat leaning back in his chair; thankfully he’d kept his feet on the floor and not on the table. But I did fear for the two thin legs of the chair he balanced on. He had a keyboard in his lap.

  “That’s quite a setup.”

  “After we talked, I got Jeremy out of bed. Good idea rolling him into this—he can procure anything. Truly amazing. I learned a thing or two.”

  “Not sure I want to know.” The guilt of exposing my young knight to those whose values were a bit more…expedient…would weigh heavy. Of course, he hung around with me, so he didn’t have much farther to fall.

  “Probably not.” My Defender of the Free World didn’t look upset at all about most likely taking a ten-finger discount or buying hot stuff for pennies on the Pataca.

  “Where’s everyone?”

  “Sleeping. We all had a very late night.”

  “Did you get any sleep?”

  He ducked under the table, pulling on some cords. “A bit. Spent a good bit of time talking to Brandy.” He reappeared from under the table. “I’ve gotten used to falling asleep next to her. Not that comfortable when she’s not there.”

  “I understand. Is she all right? Any word on how things are going at Cielo?”

  “A-okay. She’s got everything under control. Don’t worry.”

  “But if I didn’t worry, I wouldn’t have a job.”

  “But you might have a life.”

  “The grown-up version of you is getting irritating.”

  He gave me a knowing smile. “Makes you appreciate what I’ve had to live with dogging you this past year.”

  “Cute.” I picked up the phone on the sideboard and ordered more coffee while I watched Romeo work. He didn’t look twelve anymore, but I would never tell him that.

  Room service assured me the coffee would be here in twenty minutes. I wondered if I could wait that long. The effects of the first pot were already waning, but I didn’t think throwing my weight around for coffee would be a good use of my limited resources.

  I pulled a chair close to Romeo and perched on the edge. “You got everything on the list.”

  “Yep. China, the land of reverse engineering and feigning ignorance of patents. Amazing place.”

  “Not if you’re the patent holder.”

  “Sometimes the price for doing it the right way is too high.” He gave me that enigmatic spiritualist expression he’d been perfecting.

  “Who the heck told you that?”

  “You did.”

  “A philosophy not to be practiced by the…inexperienced.”

  “I’m not as stupid as most people my age.”

  “Since you look all of twelve, I’m not comforted by that.” I leaned forward, focusing on the screens. “Are you tapped in to Jerry?”

  “Yeah. Worked seamlessly. It’s amazing how these kids can hack into stuff.”

  I tried not to think about it, but I knew we had some work to do when I got home. “What are you watching?”

  “The feed that Chip is watching. He doesn’t know it, though. At least I hope not. He actually did all the heavy lifting, getting through the security into the hotel here. Amazing stuff, really.”

  “You worry me, Detective. So impressed with lawbreakers.” I was only half-teasing. It’s a fine line between criminals and those who catch them—the good guys have to think like the criminals. Just a slight dip in standards and one became the other.

  “Even Jeremy said you gotta think like one to catch one. I know you feel the same—I’ve watched you work.”

  Men, reading me like a book.

  “Don’t do as I do, Grasshopper.” Using my hands to help me up, I stood on creaky knees and tired legs. “Keep me posted. I want to know if any of the money moving into the account Sinjin gave us starts to move elsewhere. If it does, tell Jeremy to shut it down. He can do that, right?”

  “That’s what he said.”

  And it had come down to who hired the best criminal.

  Oh, joy.

  I settled in the deep comfort of the couch in the main room.

  Time to check in with my lawbreaker. Chip and I went through the plan and timing five times, then three more after he’d hacked the security system and programmed the rolling takedown of the various cameras and security lasers. He also recorded a couple of loops, then prepared to have them run in place of the real-time feeds.

  All this seemed so incredibly rushed to me. I wanted a run-through or ten, but there was no time. Make it or break it. Pass Go or go directly to jail. All in, everything on one roll of the dice. Unable to decide which analogy I liked the best, I corralled my thoughts and tried to focus. “You got it?” I asked the hacker.

  “Sure.”

  He sounded far too casual for my nerves. “This is serious, Chip.”

  “Cool your jets. I got this. Done it before a bunch of times.” He didn’t sound like he’d seen us spying on him.

  Was it a crime to hack into my own network to spy on a guy who I’d let into another network to spy on criminals? That one thought threatened to make my brain explode.

  Chip. He was the key, actually. Well, he and Romeo. If they both did what they said, I might pull this off.

  Romeo I trusted. Chip, not so much. Threatening prosecution to someone who broke the rules with alacrity didn’t seem like much of a threat to me. Hence the back door, Jerry and Romeo.

  I’m not sure what made me more uncomfortable with Chip, his weird seventies vernacular or the fact this was far from his first hotel invasion. Clearly, I needed to improve the quality of folks I consorted with. First thing I’d do when I got home…okay, the second thing. Thoughts of my Frenchman warmed parts that would only derail logical thought, so I doused them with a splash of cold reality. “You do know that if you screw this up, a bunch of folks, including yours truly will most likely never be heard from again.”

  “Sure.”

  I wish he’d quit saying that. “Easy to say sitting in the relative sanctity of Vegas.”

  “Irony?”

  “Sarcasm. You screw this up, and I will make sure that a memory is the only thing left of you.”

  A text beeped. Your father is awake and bellowing for you. Even I could feel the curare tip of Mona’s jealousy in her verbal arrow.

  I’ll call in a few. I texted in reply.

  Texting and talking at the same time—and I thought technology was supposed to free up time, not require us to double-down. “Did you get into the wire transfer department here?” I continued peppering the kid, hoping to find the gaping hole in our plan.

  “So easy you guys are either incredibly stupid or clever beyond the norm.”

  I felt like arguing for clever, even though I knew better. For once, I didn’t open my mouth and sink my ship, letting him continue.

  “Been watching the inflow and outflow, recording all origins and destinations. Anything in particular I’m looking for?”

  “Yes, but I can’t tell you what it will be. Like pornography—”

  “—I’ll know it when I see it.” He finished my tired old quote, punctuating it with a derisive snort.

  Everybody’s a critic. “I’ll call you later. I’ll be blind, so you’ll be my eyes.” I tried to not let that terrify me.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  “WE’VE got a problem,” Miss P announced as she strode into the room, brandishing my second pot of coffee on a tray with two cups. At my raised eyebrow, she said, “I relieved room service of it down the hall.” She speared me with a serious look. “We have a problem.”

  I took the pot and poured us both a cup. “And this is a surprise because?”

  “No surprise. I simply wanted to make sure I had your attention.” She dropped into the chair across the coffee table f
rom me and kicked off her shoes, then she reached for the cup of coffee I held out to her.

  “Apparently, not only do owners start to look like their dogs, but assistants begin to act like their bosses.” I remembered the days when she would perch on the edge of a chair, nervously plucking at imagined lint on her clothing like a sparrow pecking at empty kernels.

  She seemed nonplussed—another of my coping strategies, a second cousin to fake-it-‘till-you-make-it. “I’ll worry about it if we are alive tomorrow.”

  Another pessimist, just what my guardian angel ordered. My stomach growled, demanding attention. “What meal is the next appropriate one? I haven’t a clue as to the time.”

  “Dinner.”

  “Good to know. Do they have an In-N-Out close by?”

  “You’re not taking this seriously.” Miss P seemed in a lather.

  “Life is too important to be taken seriously. So what problem, among the thousands we are dealing with, has your panties in a bunch?”

  “Your Miss Liu had a very emotional private chat with Ol’ Irv.”

  Taking a moment to distill that, I realized I wasn’t surprised. Disappointed for sure, but surprised? Nope. Kim had warned me—a dying gift I refused to ignore. “Any idea the subject matter?”

  “One of Teddie’s girls told me that Miss Liu is sweet on Mr. Whitmore, and she feels that Ol’ Irv is a bad influence.”

  Teddie’s girls threw me for a minute, but my ship righted pretty quickly. I had no more a claim on him than he did on me—his fault, my choice. “Wise, but how does Ol’ Irv have any pull on Mr. Whitmore?”

  “Now that’s the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question, isn’t it?” Miss P looked ready to erupt.

  Unwilling to give her the satisfaction, I waited, feigning patience.

  Finally, she caved. “Apparently, Ol’ Irv is staying at Mr. Whitmore’s.”

  “His house on the road to Coloane?” I checked my watch, calculating the time for a round trip and a bit of breaking and entering. My skills rusty, I added a fudge factor.

  “No, his condo at the hotel next door.”

  A smile split my face. “Even better.”