“If I was Mr. Wan, I wouldn’t stick around for the firing squad. What about you, A-Ma, what do you want?”
She remained silent for so long, I asked, “Tough question?”
“More than you realize. No one has ever asked me that and I am puzzling over the answer. Your question betrays a difference in cultures. You grew up expecting to have choices in life, decisions about where you will live, work, whom you would marry. My life follows a path put out before I was born. My feet will walk the way set out for me. I cannot take the detours that you do.”
I started to tell her that she could do anything she wanted, but I knew that wasn’t true. She wasn’t Wan’s prisoner, but a lovely bird in a gilded cage. She would be helpless outside the cage because she knew so little about the practical matters of life—working a job, paying rent, lights, and gas. I would have loved to take her with me when I left Macao, but she was too young. And Wan would get revenge for his loss of face wherever I took her.
“I’ll make you a promise, A-Ma. I’ll be your friend from now on. If you ever need anything that I can give you, call me, no matter where I am. If I can help you, I will.”
She looked at me, puzzled. “Why would you do this for me?”
“I don’t know.” That was the truth. I really didn’t know. “Maybe because I’m a gambler. We’re a screwy breed, all with lucky charms. Something tells me that you’ll bring me luck someday.”
She was silent again for a moment. “You know that there is a war going on?”
“You mean here in Macao? I figured that on my first day on the job.”
“It reminds me of the warring states period.”
I gave her a puzzled look.
“You don’t study Chinese history in America, do you, Mr. Riordan?”
“I don’t know what they study. I never hung around school enough to study anything.”
“It’s a time when many small states fought to gain control of all of China. Have you ever read Sun Tzu’s Art of War?” She pronounced the name Sun-sue.
“I must have missed that one on the comic book racks.”
“I apologize, Mr. Riordan.”
“Call me Zack.”
“All right, Zack. I was not trying to be condescending. The treatise was written over two thousand years ago, but is well read today by many Japanese and American businessmen, who practice its teachings. Napoleon, the German high command, and even the great Mao Zedong read Sun Tzu. Mao used the tactics to fight the Japanese and defeat the Nationalists.”
“What’s the guy’s pitch?”
“Sun Tzu was a Chinese general for one of the kings in the warring states period. His theory is that one must avoid combat until one is certain to win. He advocated using speed and surprise against enemy forces.”
“Sounds logical.” I didn’t have the faintest idea where the conversation was headed, but A-Ma appeared so sincere about this guy Sun Tzu, I listened politely.
“He taught that a good general plans in secret, never letting his own officers know his plans. He must maintain complete self-control and his face to the world must be unfathomable. And a good general is patient, which is a trait cultivated by my people.”
“Patience is a virtue only to those who already have what they want,” I said.
“Deceit and deception is an art of war, Sun Tzu wrote. The clever general must spread false rumors, create false appearances, employ trickery and deceit. Everyone around him must be expendable, especially the agents he uses to gain information or confuse the enemy. He called them ‘doomed men.’”
She let a fish nibble her fingers for a moment before looking up at me.
“Mr. Wan has studied Sun Tzu carefully.”
I left the party early, keeping a happy face on for Wan when I said good-bye. Rather than returning to my room, I headed for a nightclub I’d gone to before with Chenza and Luís’s sister Maria. The torch singer at the club reminded me of a Chinese Jane Russell, give or take a few bra sizes. I needed to think out what to do about Wan. A-Ma’s message was clear: I was expendable, one of the “doomed men” in the Macao war of the triads. Deception and trickery, that fit nicely with my own appraisal of the devious Mr. Wan. My deep-down suspicion was that Wan had brought me in to throw his triad opponents off while he planned something else.
I was even more sure now that I could get one of those 9mm café coronaries they served in Macao restaurants.
The maître d’ was showing me to a table in the nightclub when I saw Chenza with Luis at a table across the smoke-filled room. She stared across the room at me with drug-glazed eyes, wide and excited. Grinning, she ducked her head into Luis’s crotch. I left as she was fumbling with his zipper.
All in all, I was beginning to dislike Macao a little more every day. And the town was definitely not liking me. But what the hell, maybe it wasn’t my fault. Maybe it was what A-Ma said: Our lives were set out for us and we had to walk a set path. Maybe that was it.
Maybe it wasn’t Macao that stunk, but my karma.
50
I decided to get drunk in the casino bar when I got back to my hotel. I managed to stagger into my own bed and slept until early afternoon the next day. A message had been pushed under my door and I retrieved it as I was leaving.
LUCKY,
MEET ME AT KUAN’S. I FOUND OUT SOMETHING REALLY IMPORTANT.
No signature, but it was Windell’s almost illegible scrawl and he was the only one who knew my nickname. I had warned him not to use it because I didn’t like it, but that didn’t stop him. He confused being clever with being obnoxious.
Kuan’s was a waterfront joint one step above fast food with half a dozen outside tables. The place was cheap, the fish was fresh, and the beer cold. Windell and I went there to talk because it was the least likely place to run into any of Wan’s entourage. The restaurant was in a warehouse area no one with money in their pockets frequented and that gave us some privacy to talk. To date, I had done most of the talking, questioning Windell about why he hadn’t come up with anything with the computers. What I got from him was a lot of whining and a lot of computer nerd jargon that no one with an IQ below 230 could understand. The gist of it was that he hadn’t found anything. I didn’t have a good feeling about Windell’s work on the computer system, but laid it down to my growing paranoia about becoming a crime statistic.
I left the hotel in good spirits, thinking maybe Windell had found the bug in the system.
It was late afternoon and the humidity could be spooned if anyone had any reason for collecting hot, wet air. There was no one at Kuan’s except a drunk sleeping at one of the tables. Using hand signals and facial expressions, I inquired about Windell from a cook with a dirty apron who I assumed was Mr. Kuan and got a bunch of sing-song and head shakes for my pains.
Just as I was walking away from the greasy spoon, I saw A-Ma in the entrance to a dock ahead. At first glance I thought it was just another Chinese girl but then she pulled back a scarf covering her head far enough for me to see her face. She turned and hurried down the dock. I took the hint and followed after her when I noticed the motor scooter. At the same time the scooter came around a corner behind me, revving after it made the turn. When I looked back my blood ran cold. The rider was wearing black biker leathers. It might have been just another one of the thousands of motor scooters on the streets of Macao, but the hair on the back of my neck told me my number had just come up.
I ran, not walked, to the dock that the girl had just gone down. As I came whipping around the corner of the dock, I glanced back and saw a gun in the biker’s hand. When I raced onto the dock, I came face to face with a bunch of fishermen who charged at me like the front line of the Green Bay Packers. I twisted sideways giving them the shoulder and stumbled through them as they flew around me. The motor scooter rammed down the dock at breakneck speed and went crashing down with screeching metal as it swerved to avoid the crowd.
A-Ma was three-quarters of the way down the dock, standing by one of the dozens of
sampans that were crowded together gunwale to gunwale. I ran like a bat out of hell and followed her aboard. The fisherman at the helm quickly backed the boat up with a small electric motor and turned it toward open water. My breathing came about as fast as the little gas motor pushing the boat along as I lay out of breath on top of fish nets.
“I think I’ve been around this town too long,” I gasped.
“There is an old Chinese expression, Zack Riordan. If you sit by the river long enough, the body of your enemy will come flowing by. Someone has been sitting by the river waiting for you.”
“You knew they were gunning for me. That someone has to be Mr. Wan.”
Her face was inscrutable. I looked back at the fisherman manning the helm. “Can he be trusted?”
“He is an old friend. We once shared a ride across the bay together, when he was a poor fisherman and I was a homeless orphan. He would not do anything to betray me. The men who delayed the killer know nothing, just that a woman paid them to stop the motor scooter.”
“I owe you my life.”
“Only if you leave Macao now. We can take you directly to the Hong Kong ferry. I don’t have to listen at keyholes to know that your life line will be very short if you don’t get out of the city.”
“You’re right, of course, getting out of town is the only thing I can do. But wouldn’t you know it, I left my toothbrush back at Wan’s. I have to go back and get it.”
“That’s insane. Wan brought you to Macao to intimidate Luís. He knows Luís bribed the British experts to cheat him with their computer.”
“Wan couldn’t accuse Luís of stealing from him, that wouldn’t go with the way honorable Chinese treat each other. So he brought me in to let Luís know not too subtly that he was on to his scheme,” I said.
“You have served his purpose.”
“And now I’m expendable, so it’s okay for Luís to save face by rubbing me out. There’s only one thing wrong with the whole damn picture.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“No one asked me if I wanted to play the game. Can your friend here keep this boat afloat until after dark?”
“Of course.”
“When it’s dark, I want him to drop me off onshore as close to the casino as he can get me. I’m going to pay an old friend a visit.”
“You’ll be dead in an hour.”
I pulled a jagged-edged fisherman’s knife from a leather holder. “Ask him if he’ll sell this to me.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Skin a skunk.”
I went into the casino along with a busload of tourists who sounded like Germans and made my way up to the computer room. I still had my passkey to the place with me and used it to open the door to a room that was off-limits for most of the employees.
Windell was in front of a computer playing a porno serial rapist game he claimed to have invented himself and sold in adults-only stores back in the States. He and the British nerd Jerry were updating it in their spare times. They were both sick minds.
“Jerry, I—” He started to turn around when I grabbed his hair and put the fish knife to his throat.
“Hi, Windell, old buddy.”
His response was a gurgle. Anything more would cut his throat.
“I got your message. I came by to get that really important information you uncovered.” I let up the pressure on the knife. It came away from his neck with blood on it. I showed him the blood. “I’m going to cut off your fucking head if you don’t unload everything you know.”
“Zack—”
The knife went back to his throat and cut in a little further. “Next time you miss a beat, your head’s gone. Tell me what’s going on with the computer system. Now.” I eased the knife back so he could talk.
“It’s bugged. Remember how I did the weigh scales at Halliday’s where I programmed false weight? That’s what those limeys are doing. The computer’s programmed to give false results from the gambling take. It’s really clever, it mixes up the numbers in such a way that doing a random check would never reveal it.”
“I’m glad it meets your high expectations of cheating. So why doesn’t Wan just knock off the limeys and trash the system?”
“Luis is protecting them. Some kind of territorial thing with these Chinese. Wan knows the stealing is going on but can’t do anything without starting a war with Luis. And even if he buys out Luis, he’s got another problem—everything is tied into the system. The limeys destroyed the hard copies of all Wan’s records when they fed the data into the computer and threw in a poison pill. They’re pulling half a mil a month from the club.”
“What’s a poison pill?”
“A timed computer virus. They have to put the antidote code in every twenty-four hours or there’s a complete wipeout.” Windell stared up at him, his face glowing with pride, his neck wet from blood. “I uncovered it all myself—Jerry never told me anything. Now they need me around here. I changed the antidote code and blocked it so it would take ’em a year to figure it out.”
“How do you block it?”
“With another code.”
The knife went back to his throat. “We’re going to play a game, Windell. You’re going to access the codes and we’re going to change them. Only I’m going to use my own codes, something only known to me.”
“They’ll kill me.”
“I don’t think so. I’ll give you a head start to the Hong Kong ferry—which is more than you gave me. If you run fast enough, you’ll have a fifty-fifty chance of making it. If you don’t help me change the codes, you’ll be throwing snake eyes.”
I watched him access the antidote code and poison pill. His first code was Pussy. The second Galore. I had forgotten he was a James Bond fan.
51
Wan was in his office and didn’t flick an eyelash when I walked in, but his shadow, Ling, pulled a gun. Wan waved him away. “I can see from Mr. Riordan’s face that he has news for me. Let’s listen to him … first.” He leaned back and put his hands up the wide sleeves of his robe.
I sat down and stretched my legs out. “You know, Mr. Wan, I thought the Jews and Italians in Vegas had a wrap on crime, but your style of Oriental skullduggery makes them look like chippies.”
“Thank you.” He gave me a little bow. “I imagine it’s because we Chinese are a culture more ancient than yours in the West. While you have surpassed us admirably in technology, we are still richer in things of the spirit. We first experienced the West with their gunboat diplomacy, taking Macao and Hong Kong, forcing the sale of opium to our people. Now we are being invaded by computer technology. One has to fight with the weapons in hand when faced with superior weapons of destruction.”
I shook my head. “I hate to tell you this, but you’re up against another case of gunboat diplomacy.” I told him about changing the codes.
“Has it occurred to you, Mr. Riordan, how simple it would be for us to get the codes from you? I could turn you over to my friend Ling,” who smiled widely, “or Luis Kang. I can assure you that you would be disclosing the codes after they apply their persuasive techniques.”
“Yeah, I thought about that. That’s why I also had the time frame changed. Instead of applying the antidote code every twenty-four hours, I have to do it every hour.” I pulled a small black device from my pocket. “Windell planned to use this to keep your system for ransom no matter where he was in the world.” I grinned. “He also planned to get out of Macao. With this, he could dial up the computer from any phone and tap in the code.”
Mr. Wan nodded. “Very ingenious. Your friend, of course, is a genius with gimmicks and toys but he has the personality of a worm.”
“I’m also offering you something else. Once you have the codes and get rid of the bug in your system, you can send the British packing … or wherever else you plan to send them. Luis will lose his leverage—and face. Right now you’re losing five or six million a year to the computer scheme. Luis is taking much more than that controlling the V
IP room in your casino. From what I’ve seen in this town, the minute Luis shows a weakness and loses face, the junkyard dogs will jump him and rip out his liver.”
“I see, I see.” Wan stroked his chin. “Naturally, I must impose upon you a financial reward. Shall we say that I double your salary?”
“Shall we say you wire-transfer five million to my Vegas bank? That’s about a third of what Luis and his pals take from you every year.”
Wan’s eyes turned to black ice. “I will cut out your eyes, cut off your nose, chop off your arms and legs, before I will pay you five million dollars.”
“I thought you might feel that way, so I had Windell fill some disks with your financial records. The ones you turn into the governments here and in Hong Kong—and the ones you don’t. I don’t know what the British would do to you in Hong Kong for tax fraud, other than seizing all your assets, but I’ve heard that when someone’s a particular problem in Macao, the police have been known to take him to the city limits and hand ’em over to the Red Chinese. If that should happen, I guess you can renew some of your old civil-war acquaintances.”
Wan suddenly smiled and clapped his hands. “Mr. Riordan, you have the mind of a Chinese. I salute you.”
I took the public jetfoil to Hong Kong and went directly to the airport. Wan had wanted Ling to accompany me to the airport and have me give him the codes as I boarded the plane. I told him no way. Instead I insisted on one of his good-looking croupiers, a Chinese-Portuguese babe whose dress was so tight she couldn’t have hidden a butter knife under it least of all a gun. I would have asked for A-Ma’s company, but that would have clued Wan in on who helped me get away from the wharf gunman.
At the airport, I purchased a ticket for Paris. Chenza had reminded me on our flight to Hong Kong of what an uneducated clod I was, referring to herself as a “globetrotter” because she had traveled around the world. I decided I that I was going to check out Europe, especially the casinos in London and Monte Carlo, then hit the Caribbean venues, getting some culture and new ideas about the gambling business at the same time. Macao had been a real education for me, not just about skullduggery but about their way of gambling and the layout of a casino.
Sin City Page 22
