THE KING OF MACAU (The Jack Shepherd International Crime Novels)

by Needham, Jake

  THE HYDROFOIL WALLOWED AT its dock as the gangway was cranked away and the boarding door down on the lower deck slammed shut. The engines started and I heard the shouts of the Chinese sailors casting off the mooring lines.

  The Super Class seats up on the second deck were mostly empty as they usually were. The Chinese went to Macau to gamble. Wasting good gambling money buying a more comfortable seat in order to get there wasn’t all that popular.

  I was sitting by a window and had the pair of seats in the second row entirely to myself. For that matter, there was no one else at all sitting within sight of me and I was looking forward to catching a nap on the way to Macau. I reclined my seat and closed my eyes. I heard footsteps coming up the stairs from the lower deck and felt rather than heard someone walking forward up the aisle behind me. Whoever it was stopped at the seat right next to me and sat down. Naturally I turned my head and opened my eyes to see what kind of a jerk would choose that seat to sit in when almost the whole damn cabin was completely empty.

  Archie Ward smiled at me and gave me a little nod.

  “I don’t suppose,” I said, “I should look on this as a remarkable coincidence.”

  Archie said nothing. But he smiled some more.

  “How in the world did you know I was on this jetfoil?” I asked.

  “Did we have lunch yesterday?”

  “We did.”

  “And did you hire me to watch your back in Macau?”

  “I did.”

  “And did you do that because your old mate Archie has ways and means of knowing things that transcend the abilities of mere mortals?”

  “I see your point.”

  “I thought you would.”

  The cabin attendant was a young-looking woman with short dark hair wearing a blue jacket and matching blue slacks. She looked like she could have been Indonesian, but was almost certainly Chinese. Without a word, she released our tray tables from the seats in front of us and slapped down two plastic-topped boxes that appeared to contain some facsimile of sandwiches. After a moment she returned with a tray with some clear plastic bottles of water and a few red cans of Coca-Cola on it and thrust it toward us. Archie took a Coke while I chose water.

  “Thank you,” I said.

  The woman regarded me curiously for a moment, examining me the way you might examine a dog that had suddenly spoken up to wish you a nice day, and moved away without a word.

  “Service with a smile,” Archie said as he popped the top on his Coke and took a long pull. “I wonder if it’s true that Hong Kong is the friendliest city on earth?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Archie belched slightly and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “Me neither.”

  WE SAT IN SILENCE as the engines rumbled to life and the screws churned the greasy waters of the harbour. The jetfoil gradually edged away from the dock while I watched the towers of Kowloon through the window. Today the pilot chose to cross the harbour and go north of Lantau Island rather than take the more usual route to the south. Maybe it was the weather. I eyed the swells building in the brown water and wondered how rough the crossing was going to be.

  On the other side of the Yau Ma Tei Typhoon Shelter we slipped by Stonecutter’s Island and passed under the Tsing Ma Bridge that connected Kowloon to Lantau Island and the Hong Kong International Airport. When we turned west toward Macau and the pilot pushed the engines to full power, our jetfoil rose gracefully above the sea on its hydrofoils and I felt our speed increase as we skimmed over the surface above the chop. Maybe it wasn’t going to be so rough after all.

  “WHY ARE YOU HERE, Archie?’

  “Thought I might be of some help to you, mate. Figured you’d be happy as Larry to see me.”

  “The SCMP didn’t run that story this morning.”

  “I know.”

  “You don’t happen to know why they didn’t run it, do you?”

  Archie made a face and scratched at his ear, but he didn’t say anything.

  “So how’d you do it?” I asked. “You going to tell me what you promised them to get them to hold the story?”

  “I promised them a better story, of course. That’s what you always promise an editor to get them to kill something.”

  “And what’s the better story?”

  “Well crikey, mate, do I have to do everything? I figured you’d come up with something.”

  “They’re going to be pissed with you when you don’t come through, Archie.”

  “Not likely. I told them you had a better story that you’d give them if they killed this one and that I was making the call as a favor to you since their publisher knew me personally.” Archie turned his head and cut me a huge wink. “So you better come up with something, Jacko, or those ratbags are going to be up you like a rat up a drainpipe.”

  Archie yawned and bent forward to examine the little plastic box the cabin attendant had put in front on him. He removed the lid and poked with one finger at the spongy piece of white bread, underneath which I could see the edge of a single leaf of limp lettuce.

  “I’m hungry,” he said, “but not that hungry.”

  Archie waved at the cabin attendant and when she shuffled over he made little pushing gestures at the box on his tray table. She scooped it up and looked at me. I nodded and she collected mine, too.

  “Get me another of these, will you, sweetheart?” Archie asked wiggling his empty Coke can at her. She didn’t acknowledge hearing him, but a couple of minutes later she brought him another can of Coke. When she put it on his tray table, she even smiled. Sort of. Then she walked away without bothering to ask if I wanted another bottle of water.

  “You old charmer you,” I said.

  “Treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em keen.”

  “You going to tell me why you’re really here, Archie?”

  “Would you believe a fortune teller told me to take a long sea voyage?”

  I didn’t say anything. I just waited. Archie sighed and popped the tab on his fresh can of Coke.

  “When you told me about Pansy, I wasn’t entirely honest with you about something. Probably I should have been.”

  I waited some more. When it became clear I wasn’t going to say anything else until he did, Archie started talking again.

  “I’ve known Stanley Ho for a long time,” he said. “I like Stan. He’s pretty much at the end of his life now. I don’t want to see any mud stick to him.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “If this money laundering operation you’re trying to nail down has anything to do with the triads, it will come back on Stan like it’ll come back on Pansy. He’s an old man. He deserves better now.”

  “Does Stanley Ho have anything to do with the triads?”

  Archie cut his eyes quickly at me then away again, but he didn’t say anything.

  “If this is triad money, Archie, it is. I’m being paid to find out where it came from. I got nothing to do with the comeback or who gets hurt. That’s not on me.”

  “You don’t want Pansy hurt, do you?”

  “No, I don’t. And it would be unfair for her to have triads hung around her neck only because they’re laundering money through the MGM. Assuming she has nothing to do with it, which I’m certain she doesn’t. But I don’t know how to protect her. People will say what they will. I can’t stop them.”

  “It would be just as unfair for it to be hung on Stan if he has nothing to do with it either.”

  “Maybe. But I don’t see what you can do about that either. Facts are facts. If it’s the triads doing this, it is. What other people make out of it is way beyond our control.”

  Archie nodded slowly. He tilted up the can and finished the Coke. Then he tossed the empty can in the seat across the aisle and folded away his tray table.

  “I’ll do what I can to help you,” he said after a moment. “And I’ll do what I can to help Pansy, too, but I want to be honest with you here, Jack. Above all else, I’m going to be looking out for Stan. Li
ke I said, I want him to go out a winner. You understand?”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  “I thought you would.”

  With that, Archie tilted his seat back and closed his eyes. I did the same thing, and it was not very long before the steady drone of the jetfoil’s big engines took full control of my consciousness and lulled me into a brief and fitful sleep.

  NINETEEN

  WHEN I GOT TO the MGM late in the afternoon, the suite was waiting for me like Pansy had said it would be. I thought the security photos I asked for might be waiting for me, too, but they weren’t.

  I had suggested to Archie that he stay at the MGM as well, but he told me he had already made other arrangements. He didn’t volunteer exactly what those arrangements were, and I didn’t think I ought to ask. I figured he would tell me if he wanted to. So we shook hands at the ferry terminal and agreed to talk the next day.

  I unpacked, which didn’t take long. The few clothes I had brought with me went into the closet and the top drawer of the chest, my laptop went onto the desk, and the case holding the Ruger went into the room safe. I didn’t really want a maid to stumble over it and blow the whistle on me.

  After I was done with my housekeeping I called Pansy’s office to check in, but her secretary said she was away and wouldn’t be back until tomorrow. I left a message that I was in the hotel and ready to go to work, then I headed out in search of a drink. It was nearly six o’clock, and I thought I damned well deserved one. Maybe two.

  I LEFT THE MGM by the main entrance on Avenida Dr. Sun Yat-Sen and turned east toward what I remembered was a strip of local bars famed for their enthusiastic Filipino bands and equally enthusiastic Filipina waitresses. But it was early, way early by Macau standards, so all that enthusiasm was in short supply.

  The first bar I came to was a narrow shophouse with rough plank floors. It was open across the front, and battered wooden chairs that had an unobstructed view of the passing parade surrounded most of the wooden tables. Of course, that meant the passing parade would also have an unobstructed view of me, so I kept walking.

  The second place was called the Moonwalker Bar and appeared considerably more promising. The main room was softly lit and had a high-ceilinged industrial appearance to it. At the back was a bar with half a dozen stools that faced an immense display of liquor bottles backlit in soft white that rose all the way to the ceiling. A pair of middle-aged westerner men deep in conversation occupied two of the stools. The rest of the place was empty.

  Perfect.

  I picked a table off where I could see the television set suspended from the ceiling on which the BBC news service played silently. A tall Chinese girl who didn’t seem to be a day over sixteen came over with a menu, but I waved it away and asked for a gin martini with a twist. Ordering a martini almost anywhere outside the continental United States was always a gamble against strong odds, but Macau was the land of gambling so what the hell? No guts no glory, right?

  While I waited for my drink I sat, tried to keep my mind as empty as possible, and counted the bottles tiered up behind the bar. That turned out to be a happily vacant and slightly soporific way to pass the time. Like counting sheep, but with a little more kick.

  Around the time I ran out of liquor bottles to count, the tall Chinese girl returned with my martini. I lifted the tall v-shaped glass and examined it with suspicion. It looked authentic enough, which was at least a step in the right direction, so I took a tentative sip. To my surprise, it was really pretty good. Not as good as it would have been in New York, of course, but pretty darn good for China, I had to admit.

  I spotted an abandoned newspaper on a nearby table and laid claim to it out of sheer desperation for something to do while I drank my martini. It turned out to be that day’s Wall Street Journal Asia. I would have preferred the New York Post, but that was a little too much to hope for in a bar in Macau.

  I folded the Journal open on the tabletop and while I sipped at my martini I read two stories about the most recent meeting of the United States Federal Reserve Open Market Committee without having the slightest idea what either one of them said. The martini really wasn’t bad and the truth was I was paying more attention to it than I was to the Asian Wall Street Journal, but I folded it over to the front page and started skimming the main news stories anyway.

  The headline was at the bottom on the right.

  NORTH KOREANS SAY AMERICAN SPY

  SHOT WHILE TRYING TO ESCAPE

  I blinked when I saw it. For a moment I even wondered if I was imagining it, but I looked away and looked back and the headline was still there.

  I lifted the paper and read slowly through the story, but there wasn’t really much more information in it than the headline had already conveyed. The North Koreans had made an announcement that morning that they had discovered an American in the country as a journalist who was actually a spy, but when they attempted an arrest the suspected spy tried to escape and had been shot. That was it. There was nothing about who the accused spy was, even whether it was a man or a woman, and no mention of what news organization this supposed spy claimed to work for.

  Freddy – or whoever he really was – had told me a week ago I would read in the newspapers about an American spy being shot in North Korea. Now I was sitting in a bar in Macau where I had just unfolded a newspaper and here was the exact story he had told me a week ago I was going to read.

  Was it only a coincidence? That was a little hard to believe, no matter how much I might want to think so. The details of the story were all perfect. They suggested foreknowledge, not coincidence. Freddy knew about the announcement before it was made. Simple as that.

  Okay, so Freddy did have some connection with North Korea, but that didn’t necessarily prove that he was a North Korean intelligence officer, did it? Still, it proved something, I had no doubt about that. Now all I had to do was work out exactly what it was…

  I FINISHED MY MARTINI, dropped enough money on the table to cover my bill, and walked back to the MGM with the Wall Street Journal Asia tucked under my arm. Up in the suite I opened my laptop and checked the major news sites: CNN, BBC, Fox, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Everybody had the story. I even checked the South China Morning Post and the story was there, too. Had I missed it when I searched through the SCMP this morning for the story fingering me as digging into a money laundering operation at the MGM? No, of course I hadn’t. I would have spotted it in a moment. The story must not have hit the wires until after the edition of the SCMP I had read was closed.

  All the major news sources had the same story, but none of them had any more details than had been in the Journal. Which is to say, no details at all.

  So now what? Was I going to call Freddy like he had asked me to and get sucked into whatever was going on with him? Or was I just going to do the job Pansy had hired me to do and spend my idle hours ducking triad soldiers pissed at me for outing their money laundering operation?

  I fished around in my briefcase until I found the white card on which Freddy had written the number to what he said was a clean cell phone. It was nestled right next to the little ivory envelope with Anita’s handwriting on it. I took out both the card and the envelope and laid them beside each other on the desk.

  Picking up the white card, I walked back over to the sofa and sat holding it and looking at the number for a long time. I told myself I was trying to decide whether I was going to get involved with Freddy, but I wasn’t really. I knew perfectly well that my curiosity was in full control of my good sense and I was helpless to do anything else.

  I dialed the number on the card from my cell phone. When a robotic voice answered and announced I was connected to voice mail, I left this message: “Hello, my friend. Just letting you know I’ll be back in Macau at eleven o’clock tonight. Perhaps we can catch up while I’m here. Call me. Bye.”

  If I had correctly understood what Freddy told me, he would interpret that to mean we would meet in front of the Hall of Bene
volence at the Ah-Ma Temple at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning. And if I hadn’t correctly understood what Freddy told me, I wouldn’t meet anybody when I went back to the Ah-Ma Temple tomorrow at eleven o’clock. I could live with either outcome.

  AFTER I HUNG UP I sat on the sofa for a while doing absolutely nothing, thinking absolutely nothing. Eventually I took a Montecristo out of my briefcase, cut it, lit it with a wooden match, and stood in front of the window looking out at the sky and smoking quietly. I tried my best to keep on thinking nothing, but it didn’t work. Sooner or later I was going to have to decide sometime what to do with that damned envelope with Anita’s handwriting on it. It wasn’t going to disappear.

  It had occurred to me that the envelope looked a little like a wedding invitation, but I didn’t really think it was. It was too small and, besides, Anita might be many things but she was not a cruel person. Sending me a wedding invitation would serve no purpose other than to inflict pain, and surely Anita knew that.

  I walked over, picked up the envelope and propped it against the big crystal ashtray on the coffee table. I sat down, leaned back against the thick cushions, and idly flipped a box of cigar matches around in my left hand while I drew on my cigar.

  What could be in the envelope? A bill for something? No, of course not. Anita’s key to our old apartment in Bangkok? Now I was getting silly. A note asking me to contact her? That really seemed the only reasonable possibility, didn’t it?

  I thought for a while about where Anita might be living, and who she might be living there with. Back when we were married Anita and I had lived in one of Bangkok’s tonier apartment buildings. I had been teaching at Chulalongkorn University and Anita had been painting. Her large and colorful canvases had made her modestly famous in some European art circles. Surely she was still painting, I thought, but of course I didn’t really know.

  Sally had said she bumped into Anita in London, but that didn’t mean Anita was living in London, did it? A lot of people visited London. Anita had been born there, which made it likely she might be visiting there.