Dead in Hong Kong (Nick Teffinger Thriller)

by Jagger, R. J.

  “I heard about your scare club,” he said. “This isn’t going to work. You’re going to have to find another sucker.”

  Poon looked out at the sea.

  “The tide’s coming in,” he said.

  Chapter Eighty-Nine

  Day Eight—August 10

  Monday Afternoon

  ______________

  THE FOOTSTEPS COMING FROM UPSTAIRS suddenly stopped. Prarie pictured the man with the tattoo staring at the broken window, stopping in his tracks, and listening for someone in the house. She pictured him tiptoeing to get a knife or a gun or a hammer. Instead, the front door opened and then closed. A few seconds later, a car fired up outside and drove away.

  They tiptoed up the stairs, looked around, saw no one and got the hell out of there.

  When they passed the gas station at the crossroads, the small green car was next to a pump. A strong man with a wild tattoo on his neck was filling the tank. He fixated on the women as they drove past.

  “He recognized me,” Prarie said.

  Emmanuelle pushed harder into the pedal.

  “No way,” she said. “Not with your new hair.”

  “No, he did,” Prarie said. “I saw it in his eyes. He recognized me but just couldn’t place it. Once he finds out the house was broken into, he’ll figure it out.”

  The tires squealed.

  The car drifted over the line.

  Emmanuelle brought it back and said, “It doesn’t matter. He’ll never find us.”

  Prarie grunted.

  “He’ll be calling every hotel in Hong Kong within the next half hour,” she said.

  “Relax,” Emmanuelle said. “You worry too much.”

  ON THE DRIVE BACK, Emmanuelle made a phone call to her P.I. friend in Paris and gave him a new assignment. He said, “I’m on it,” and called back in twenty minutes. “Okay, that house is titled to a man named Dick Jin Lin. Just for grins, I ran a preliminary background check on him. Stay away from him.”

  “Why?”

  “You don’t want to know.”

  Yes she did.

  So he told her.

  “Do me a favor and dig deeper,” she said. “I want to know who his friends are.”

  “How am I supposed to find that out from Paris?”

  “I don’t know. I only know that I need you to.”

  WHEN THEY GOT BACK to the hotel, the elderly woman at the reception desk frowned when she saw them.

  They sensed trouble.

  “What’s wrong?” Emmanuelle asked.

  “You were right,” the woman said. “Someone came looking for you.”

  “Who?”

  The woman handed her a black and white printout of a man’s face. “I printed this off our security tape for you,” she said.

  Emmanuelle studied the face.

  Prarie did too.

  It was a man in his mid-thirties, good looking, with a square chin, jet-setter eyes and a refined-slash-rugged look. He’d be right at home dining at the finest restaurant or trekking through the wettest rainforest. He looked like a man who knew what he wanted in life and had figured out how to manipulate the world to get it.

  “Is that Gustave Sevenette?” Prarie asked.

  Emmanuelle shook her head.

  “No.”

  “Who is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Emmanuelle said. Then to the elderly woman, “Did he speak French?”

  “He spoke English but had a French accent.”

  Emmanuelle retreated in thought.

  Then she said, “Is there a back way out of here?”

  The woman pointed. “Down that hall until it ends, then to the right until it ends, then to the left. You’ll be in an alley.”

  Emmanuelle gave the woman another bill, $500 HKD.

  “You did good, thank you.” Then to Prarie, “You go to the alley. I’m going to get our stuff and then I’ll meet you there.”

  “I’ll come with you.”

  “It’s better if you don’t, in case he’s up there.”

  Chapter Ninety

  Day Eight—August 10

  Monday Afternoon

  ______________

  TONIGHT WAS THE NIGHT. Fan Rae and Tanna would set out into the darkness to kill d’Asia. All afternoon, Teffinger kept a normal face and spoke normal words, but it was a major effort. Everything he had built with Fan Rae would shatter and collapse in matter of hours.

  She was a bad girl, a bad girl who made him love her.

  That’s right, he loved her.

  He probably still would, even when everything was over.

  God, what a mess.

  Late afternoon, he made an excuse to get out for an hour, rented a blue Honda Accord, and parked it where he’d be able to follow Fan Rae when she left tonight.

  He thought about confronting her but knew only bad could come of it.

  She’d deny everything.

  She’d abort tonight.

  Then she’d kill d’Asia later when he wasn’t around.

  No, words wouldn’t work.

  He needed to catch her in the act.

  He needed to stop her in the act, to be more precise.

  That was the only way to save d’Asia.

  And that’s what he came here for.

  HIS PHONE RANG. The incoming number belonged to Sydney Heatherwood.

  He didn’t answer.

  She was probably calling with bad news.

  He didn’t need it, not right now.

  Chapter Ninety-One

  Day Eight—August 10

  Monday Afternoon

  ______________

  JACK POON SAT DOWN in the sand next to Vance Wu’s face, patted the man on the top of his head, and stretched his legs out. A cool breeze rolled off the ocean. Three seagulls flew over and landed ten steps away. “Humans mean food,” Poon told Kong. “That’s why they just came over here, the birds. Every living thing on the planet is looking to survive.” He chuckled. “Not me, though. I’m way past surviving. I have enough money to survive a thousand lifetimes. Now I’m a man of taste and culture. But that’s not without its own set of problems. Taste and culture can get you in trouble. Do you want to know how?”

  Kong nodded, curious.

  “Sure,” he said.

  Poon looked at him.

  “You’re going to go far in my organization,” Poon said. “You have the qualities I’ve been looking for. You’re moving up, even as we sit here, you’re moving up. Is that what you want?”

  Yes, it was.

  “Good,” Poon said. “Anyway, getting back to taste and culture, a man approached me a while back, a man by the name of Guotin Pak. Have you ever heard of him?”

  No, Kong hadn’t.

  “I hadn’t either at the time,” Poon said. “He said he was an artist and had a proposition for me. He said he could paint exact replicas of some of the old impressionistic paintings in Musee d’Orsay in Paris, France. Have you ever heard of that museum?”

  Yes, he had.

  “Everyone has,” Kong said.

  “That’s what I like about you Kong,” Poon said. “You’re got education. Anyway, he said he could paint these replicas and that they could be hung in place of the originals and no one would know the difference, if someone could figure out how to get the originals out and get them in. I said, That’s interesting, and that was basically the end of it.” Poon smiled. “That brings us to that taste and culture problem I was telling you about. I started to think how cool it would be to own a few priceless pieces from the old masters. You see, that’s the kind of thing you can’t buy. And I came up with a plan to get the originals out and the replicas in.”

  Kong was stunned.

  “You did?”

  Poon nodded.

  “IT WAS PRETTY SIMPLE, REALLY,” he said. “One thing you’ll learn as time goes on, Kong, is how to delegate. In this case, I delegated the problem to a man named Jean-Didier Dubois, who worked in the restoration department of the museum. His daughter—a yo
ung lady named Prarie Dubois—was attending the University of Hong Kong, which was a coincidence but not really relevant. She could have been going to school in Rome or London and it wouldn’t have made any difference. Anyway, to get to the point, I had her abducted. I told her father, Jean-Didier Dubois, that he’d get her back when and if he switched the paintings. You see, he was in a position to do it because he had access to everything in the museum. He thought about it and told me he wouldn’t be able to do it without the cooperation of the security department. The head of that department was a man by the name of Yves Blanc. Luckily, he also had a daughter, a young lady by the name of Dominique Blanc. We didn’t actually have to kidnap her. Just the threat of doing that was enough to get Yves on board. The two of them, meaning John-Didier and Yves, then figured out how to get the exchanges done.”

  Poon paused.

  He picked up a handful of sand.

  It fell through his fingers onto the top of Vance Wu’s head.

  “Vance, I’m telling the truth about all this, right?”

  Silence.

  Poon laughed.

  Then to Kong, “You’ll have to excuse Vance, it appears he’s not in a very good mood right now. We made the exchanges, five in all, over a week’s period. I now had five original priceless paintings in my possession.”

  Poon sighed.

  “Art is nice, but money is nicer,” he said. “By that time, I had already decided to sell them once I got them. They were worth roughly $80 million each, in U.S. dollars. Pak had a friend—namely this man right here, Vance Wu—who had spent his life brokering rare archeological treasures. He had the contacts in place to sell the paintings on the black market. I decided to use him for the sale. Are you following me so far?”

  Yes, he was.

  The seagulls flew off.

  “THAT’S WHEN VANCE HERE, and his artist friend Guotin Pak, came up with a brilliant twist,” Poon said. “Pak would paint a second fake of one of the paintings. The original painting would be shown to the buyer—who, of course, would have someone there to confirm that it was in fact an original. After it got confirmed, Vance would switch the two, and the buyer would leave with a fake. Then he’d bring the original back to me together with the purchase money.”

  Poon nodded at Vance.

  “That took guts,” Poon said. “Vance was hanging out. If he got caught, he would have been killed on the spot. But that’s what we did. For one of the original paintings, namely Van Gogh’s ‘Self Portrait,’ Pak painted a second fake. The original was shown to a potential buyer in Paris by the name of Jacques Girard. He brought two people with him who confirmed that the original was in fact the original. The painting was out of the frame but still on the stretchers at that point. Vance put it in the adjacent room, with a bodyguard, while he counted the purchase money. The bodyguard brought the fake out when the transaction was done and that’s what the buyer left with.”

  Kong nodded.

  “Tricky,” he said.

  “Tricky and lucrative,” Poon said. “Pak, of course, got another million for painting a second fake. Vance, for his part, got a 10% bonus, on top of his 10% commission, meaning 20%, which came to $16 million, U.S. dollars. I then got the balance of the sales proceeds—roughly $64 million—and still had the original painting. No one even knew who I was. That worked so well that we also did it a second time, with Claude Monet’s ‘Poppies.’ A fake of that painting got sold to a man named Sam Yamid in Cairo, Egypt.”

  “So it all worked out well,” Kong said.

  Poon nodded.

  “For the other three, we simply sold the originals,” Poon said. “We didn’t want to press our luck.” He smiled. “You can’t get greedy, Kong. Always remember that. Greed will kill you.”

  “Right.”

  “I’m serious,” Poon said.

  “I understand.”

  “ANYWAY, TO CONTINUE,” Poon said, “Vance here had to go underground. Obviously, sooner or later, these two buyers would figure out what happened. Vince couldn’t be around at that point in time.”

  “Understood.”

  “But no biggie,” Poon said. “He had enough money to live on comfortably for the rest of his life, right Vance?”

  “I don’t understand what’s going on,” Vance said.

  Poon patted him on the head.

  “You will in a minute,” he said. “What happened next is unfortunate,” Poon said. “The buyer in Paris, Jacques Girard, figured out he’d been duped. He went looking for Vance—at least I assume he did, that’s what I would have done—but couldn’t find him. So what he did was take Vance’s daughter, a young lady by the name of Syling Wu. Then he left a phone message for Vance to call him. Vance suspected something like that happened when could no longer get in touch with Syling. He called Jacques Girard, to feel him out. That was an ugly conversation. Mr. Girard not only confirmed that he had Syling, but also reported that he had killed Syling’s friend, as an example of how serious he was. The friend was named Nuwa Moon. Mr. Girard said he carved a K’ung chia symbol into the girl’s stomach and slit her throat. He said that the same thing would happen to Syling unless Vance produced the original painting.”

  “Wow,” Kong said.

  “Things can get dicey when the stakes get high,” Poon said.

  “Apparently.”

  “Extreme measures follow big money around like parasites,” Poon said. “That’s why I need someone like you in my organization. I guess I should ask you at this point if you’re still interested in the job, now that you know some of the stuff that’s going on.”

  Kong flicked his hair.

  “No problem.”

  Good.

  Very good.

  “WE’RE GETTING NEAR THE END of the story,” Poon said. “Vance came to me and told me how Syling had been abducted. He wanted me to give him the original panting back so he could give it to Girard and get Syling back. I told him I had already sold it.” Then to Vance, “By the way, Vance, that was a lie. I had it at that point in time and still do. I just didn’t want to give it up.” Back to Kong, “What I did do, though was hire a P.I. by the name of Brittany So Kwak to see if she could figure out where Syling was being kept, so I could launch a rescue mission. So far, however, she hasn’t come up with anything.”

  “Ouch,” Kong said.

  Right.

  Ouch.

  Poor Syling.

  “Are you ready for the end of the story?” Poon asked.

  Kong nodded.

  He was.

  “This is fascinating,” he said.

  “Wait until you hear the last part,” Poon said. “It’s going to interest Vance, too. Here it is. All this activity got me refocused on the two original paintings that I had in my possession. They’re hanging in my penthouse, by the way. Just for grins, I had a third party take a look at them, just to confirm that they are the originals. The answer surprised me.”

  Vance squirmed in the sand.

  Poon chuckled.

  “To my surprise, they turned out to be fakes,” Poon said. “Both of them. Of course, I started to wonder how that could possibly be true. Then I figured it out. Vance and his little buddy, Guotin Pak, came up with yet another new twist, only this one they didn’t share with me. Their plan was simple and brilliant. Pak would actually paint a third fake of each of these two paintings. Then, when the originals were supposed to come back to me, it would actually be two fakes coming back.”

  Poon looked at Vance.

  “So tell me Vance, did I get it right?”

  THE MAN’S FACE CONVOLUTED IN TERROR.

  “I still have one of the originals,” Vance said. “It’s all yours. I’ll get it for you.”

  “Where’s the other original?”

  “Pak has it.”

  “So that was your conspiracy with him then?” Poon asked. “That you would each keep one?”

  Silence.

  Then Vance said, “Yes, but it was Pak’s idea, not mine. In fact, the more I think ab
out it, I think that was Pak’s plan all along from the very beginning—not to just get paid to paint a few fakes, but to actually end up with an original.”

  Poon considered it.

  “Wow, I never saw that coming, but it makes sense,” he said. “If that actually is the case, the man is brilliant. But back to you, my friend. Which original did you keep?”

  “The Van Gogh.”

  “The ‘Self Portrait?’”

  “Yes.”

  “Where is it?”

  “If I tell you, will you let me go?”

  “Of course,” Poon said. “This is all just business. You’ll need to return all the money you got from me too.”

  “Of course.”

  “Do you still have it?”

  “Most of it.”

  “Good. So where’s the original Van Gogh?”

  Vance told him.

  It was in a storage locker.

  The key was in Vance’s desk.

  “Good,” Poon said. “See how easy that was?”

  “So let me out now,” Vance said.

  “Of course,” he said. “That was the deal.”

  Chapter Ninety-Two

  Day Eight—August 10

  Monday Afternoon

  ______________

  POON STOOD UP.

  He shoveled sand away from Vance’s head.

  Then he paused.

  “Wait, there is one more piece of business.”

  Vance sensed danger.

  “What?”

  “You had the original painting when Jacques Girard asked for it,” Poon said. “You could have used it to free Syling. But you didn’t.”

  Silence.

  “Instead, you kept it, and tried to see if I, or a P.I. hired by me, could get you out of your mess,” Poon said. “You could have freed your daughter the whole time but didn’t. What kind of father does a thing like that?”

  Poon looked at Kong.

  “That’s the greed part I was talking about before. Remember when I said to not be greedy? That greed will kill you?”

  Kong nodded.

  He remembered.

  Poon squatted down and looked Vance Wu in the eyes. “You’re not going to stay here because of what you did to me. That I could forgive. In fact, I admire your cunning. But you are going to stay here because of what you did to your daughter. A man who does something like that to his own flesh and blood doesn’t deserve to live.”