Grit & Shadows Boxed Set

by J. D. Brink

  “And I thought you were just here having fun,” I say at last. “I apologize.”

  “That’s okay. Poor little Eddie, always misunderstood and underestimated. Won’t be the last time.”

  Then he tells me about his top three candidates for our mysterious Ms. Ming. One is young and attractive and struts around the casino followed by a handful of young suitors. The second is an elderly, wealthy-looking woman with her aged husband, neither of whom speak much or show any emotion at all. The third is middle-aged and attractive, escorted by a tall, grey-haired man. “Real tall for a Chinaman,” he adds. This one is gambling in the Princess Room. “For Richie Rich and friends only,” Edgar says. “You have to be invited to play with those guys.”

  “Yeah, I saw the sign.”

  “Well,” he gestures at his colorful attire, “I obviously ain’t been invited.”

  “I’ll wander around and look further into the Princess Room. You do what you do, but be ready if I need help. And by the way, Eddie Money, thanks for lunch.”

  Fourteen

  I leave the roped-off restaurant before he can hit me up for my half of the bill and head to the cash cage. There, I get some chips, trading in the pink roulettes Edgar gave me for wider use ones, plus another three hundred bucks worth.

  My first task here is the same as last night: check out the environment and get a feel for the place.

  So, I casually make my rounds, observing the dealers and gamblers, winners and losers, a couple hands of cards here, a few rolls of the dice there. Demographically, there are about three times as many men here as women, the majority being of one Asian people or another. Probably quite a few of the non-Asians are American sailors who have washed over to this island just like the ones I saw last night.

  I spend a good forty-five minutes like this, watching games and making casual conversation, losing more chips than I’m winning, but not breaking the bank yet. I share some laughs with three Japanese gentlemen at a poker table with no idea what we’re laughing about. Chitchat with a retired couple from Colorado, who say they wanted to try something other than Vegas this year. And they find me being an art dealer “fascinating.”

  My survey also includes checking out Edgar’s candidates for Ms. Ming. The young beauty is at a craps table, her suitors all trying to impress her with their dice skills. She’s confident and self-important… but as a prom queen, not a criminal monarch.

  The eldest of the three seems to be just a wife who’s got more money than spirit left. She and her unexciting husband play poker and both do quite well. Having no emotion left for life gives them impenetrable poker faces.

  If those two candidates are out, that just leaves the woman holed up in the Princess Room.

  My glass needs a refill and I need a plan, so I stop at the bar for another gin and tonic. My chosen seat also affords me an angle from which to peek inside the elite gambling den.

  The bartender fixing me up is a tall black man with hooked sideburns, and I’m about to ask how he ended up slinging booze on a remote Pacific island when someone else speaks to me first:

  “Ah, the prowling leopard pauses for a drink at the river bank.”

  I turn to find a thin Japanese man in a black suit, resting his elbow on the bar rail. A steaming cup of coffee sits in front of him.

  “Excuse me?” I ask. “Did you say ‘leopard’?”

  “Your jacket,” he says with a casual smile. His face is friendly, but I’m getting a tense vibe from his eyes: a powerful shade of grey, like storm clouds ready to loose thunder.

  I try not to let it distract me. “Oh, the spots, you mean? Suede ruins so easily.”

  “It suits you,” he says. His gaze is trained on mine, holding my eyes and probing for something. “I’ve seen you stalking the floor. Did you find what you were looking for?”

  Luckily my drink comes. “Yes, I did,” I tell him, taking my glass and turning away. “Blackjack.”

  Another person trying to get involved on this simple working vacation? Or simply a con artist trying to charm money out of me? Focus on the task at hand, I tell myself.

  An open stool at the nearest blackjack table affords another view into the Princess Room. There are two other men playing here and, based on their expressions, I’d say they’re both losing. The dealer, an aging blonde with teeth yellower than her hair, doesn’t seem much happier. The minimum bet for this table is only five bucks, so I can milk it and take my time.

  I play a few hands while stealing glimpses into the forbidden chamber, my eyes taking quick notes that my brain then processes a second later. There are about ten players inside on two games, and two members of the wait staff coming and going, eager for the big tips. Plus the man guarding the door. Among them, Eddie’s third choice for Ms. Ming: a middle-aged Asian woman in a traditional Chinese dress, red silk tight around her thin figure and high at the collar. Standing behind her is a tall, grey-haired Asian gentleman. He wears a stern expression and is usually touching her in some way: an elbow, a shoulder, the small of her back. Looks like more than a professional relationship there. And he doesn’t appear to be too interested in the game: his eyes wander outside the Princess Room as much as mine wander in. We even make eye contact once, for the space of a blink.

  Who is he looking for? Us maybe, expecting Felix’s boys to make the trade?

  A hand reaches in front of me and rakes away my chips. I called for a hit without really paying attention and went bust on a twenty-five.

  “Tough break.” Alma, Edgar’s roulette girl, has sat down next to me. “I guess you like cards better than the wheel of fortune, huh?”

  I give her a weak smile but say nothing, trying to be polite while giving her the idea that I could do without company.

  She doesn’t take the hint.

  Alma gets comfortable, in on the next game, and starts making small talk. And despite my efforts to ignore her, it’s hard not to oblige. I expect her to be overly flirtatious, so I can dismiss her as wanting something from me, but she isn’t. Instead, she seems pretty comfortable and relaxed. If she’s flirting at all, it’s with her eyes, which almost glow with a soft, brown fire.

  On the next hand, I get a two and the queen of diamonds. Alma taps the face card with an unpainted nail. “Watch that one, Jack. She’s after your wallet.”

  “Don’t touch the cards, please!” the dealer snaps.

  Alma withdraws like her finger was nearly bitten off.

  I can’t help but smile, her giving the queen a personality similar to what I do. But just her bringing it up also raises my suspicions again. “I imagine a lot of the women around here are on the lookout for loose wallets,” I say.

  “I’m sure they are,” she says, waving off the offer for more cards. She’s sitting on a seven and a jack of spades.

  I point to her cards, careful not to enflame the dealer. “That guy, on the other hand, you can trust.”

  “Oh, I can trust the jack, Jack?”

  “Jack of Spades, yes.”

  “He’s a mysterious character,” she says with a contemplative expression, “but I think I like him.”

  “Just don’t get too attached,” I tell her. “He’s a bit nomadic.”

  “Trustworthy but untrusting,” she says. “So am I. And nomadic, to boot.”

  The dealer’s staring at me, waiting for my decision. I take another card: the queen of hearts, and she busts me.

  Alma shakes her head, clicking her tongue. “Can’t have two ladies, Jack. But if you’re going to pick one, the queen of hearts is the keeper.”

  The dealer started with fourteen and had to take another hit—the house always does with anything under sixteen. She gets an eight and goes bust. Alma wins, as does one of the gentlemen down the table.

  “Told you,” I say.

  Alma accepts her winnings and leaves her next bet on the table. “Yup, that Jack is a lucky bastard.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t go that far…”

  We keep playing, and talking. To m
y great surprise, it quickly becomes the most meaningful conversation I’ve had in a long time. Which, I suppose, isn’t a real big feat, given the company I keep. But Alma and I seem to have a lot in common. She even tells a familiar story about moving from place to place, not sure what she wants to do, what she’s looking for in life. I can’t help but relate.

  “I think of it as living separate lives,” I tell her, the gin having made me, perhaps, a little too comfortable with her. “When one life ends, I die. Then I’m reborn somewhere else, as someone else.”

  “You die and are reborn? Like the Phoenix?” She grabs my arm with an excited squeeze. “I knew I’d like you, Jack! Though that’s just the Western phoenix that does that, you know. Chinese mythology is different.”

  I try to tell her that I do, in fact, know that, but she doesn’t give me a chance.

  “Say, Jack, that’s an awfully messianic idea for an art dealer, don’t you think?”

  Messianic? Damn, I am starting to like her. I turn away and tap my cards for another hit. She’s starting to see through my flimsy disguise, though I’m not sure I mind.

  We sit there together a while longer as other players come and go, talking and laughing as we win and lose. She starts to pat my hand every other deal—blessing me with luck, she says. The first time, it works: the queen of hearts comes up again, this time holding hands with an ace of spades. Blackjack. I do it once for her and it works again: a ten and a nine, with the dealer stopping at seventeen. For a while I forget about watching the Princess Room and just watch Alma. Her inviting eyes are easy to get lost in.

  Time flies. An hour and three more drinks pass by before I notice the world around me again. I’m down more than a hundred bucks. Alma is up fifty. I ask the dealer for the time.

  “Almost five o’clock,” she says. “Thank God. Almost shift change.”

  According to Felix’s instructions, we were to make contact with Ming by five.

  I focus past Alma now, into the Princess Room. The woman I suspect to be Ming is hunched in a chair, no longer standing but still playing the game. She looks tired.

  Her tall, grey-haired companion raises his glare from the table and fixes it right on me. Even from here, I can see how terribly dark his eyes are.

  I flinch, and refocus on Alma.

  “What is it?” she asks.

  “Here.” I take fifty dollars in chips and place them in her warm hand. “Win some of my money back, will you? I’ve got to take a break.”

  “A break? But we’re just getting started!” She gives me a hurt look. It isn’t easy to shake off.

  “Later,” I tell her. “Promise.”

  Fifteen

  Halfway to the bar, I check out the Princess Room again. The bodyguard, or boyfriend, is still staring on with that intense glare, but his eyes haven’t followed me; he’s focused on the blackjack table.

  The bartender recognizes me. “Another gin and tonic?”

  “I better not,” I say with a joking grin. “I think my judgment’s been clouded enough. Just a coffee, please. Black.”

  Across the bar is the Japanese con man in the ebony suit. He’s standing in the same spot with his own cup of coffee, seemingly untouched, though fresh steam rises from its surface. I give him a nod and turn away.

  One of the waitresses working the Princess Room comes up and sets down some used glasses, waiting for the bartender’s attention. She’s in her late twenties, I’d say, nice looking with exotic features that I find hard to place. Her name tag reads “Maria.” I let her order a Long Island ice tea before asking her for a napkin and pen. She watches, curiosity building, as I write a note for Ming on the napkin, using the very tray in her hand as my writing surface. When I finish, she smiles expectantly at me and turns the tray around, looking the note over for herself.

  She reads with an accent: “‘The cat wants to play in your yard, but he needs to be invited first.’ Boy, you’re a real sicko, aren’t you? Do you really think—?”

  “I’m sorry, Maria,” I explain, “but this isn’t meant for you. I have a friend inside the Princess Room.”

  “You have a friend in there?” She chuckles rudely. “And she’s turned on by this shit?”

  “Not that kind of friend. It’s an inside joke.”

  Her expression softens to a playful smirk. “Well then, what are you doing out here, dear pussycat?”

  “They arrived here early. A woman in a red dress and her overprotective boyfriend.”

  “I think, if you had friends in there,” she says, “you’d already be in there. Not out here, wearing a jacket you obviously picked up at a homeless shelter, or off a dead man.” Her harsh, dark eyes blink at me, and her ruby lips twist into a sly, challenging smirk. She’s playing with me.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I concede. “Maybe I don’t have many friends and I need all I can get. But I can’t make new ones from out here.”

  “You can’t make friends with these people?” She gestures around the room with her tray. “Too good for them? You and your ratty jacket?” She tugs at it, open in front, and sneaks a look at my body.

  “I’m very picky about my friends,” I tell her. “You, for example.”

  “Me?”

  “Certainly.”

  She opens my jacket again, this time nudging the weight of an inside pocket. She wasn’t checking out my body after all, but was scouting out my wallet. She’s nudging at my lock picks now, but I don’t tell her that.

  I place a twenty dollar chip next to the napkin. “And maybe I can buy you a drink later,” I add.

  “Sorry.” She covers my note with another napkin, then grabs the ice tea from the bartender and sets it on top. “But I only date guys from that room.”

  With her smug, teasing grin, she walks away, looking back at me once with the same expression. I’m not sure at this point if my note is going to get delivered or not, nor if she and I are now friends.

  My coffee waits for me on the bar. So does the man in black with the storm cloud eyes, leaning against the brass bar rail. “The leopard returns. How was your hunt?”

  “My hunt?” Time to give this guy the cold shoulder. I don’t need any more players in this already complicated game.

  I look around. Alma’s still playing blackjack. Maria flirts with the red-coated guard at the Princess Room, then takes her Long Island inside.

  The stranger slides along the rail and into my peripheral vision. “Do you know her?” he asks, sipping his coffee.

  I answer without turning: “She claims she only dates rich men, but the night is young.”

  “I don’t mean the waitress. I mean the woman at the blackjack table.”

  That gets my attention.

  “Did you find your prey, Mr. Leopard, or did it find you?”

  No more cold shoulder. “What do you mean?”

  He chuckles to himself, then gestures to the highball glasses Maria left behind: two stacked up with ice melting in them. “Ever read the I Ching?” he asks.

  The question is too close to the mark to be coincidental.

  “One could read that as ‘water above, water below.’ In the Book of Changes this equates to Darkness, the Abyss.”

  “That doesn’t sound good,” I say, feigning disinterest and hoping my face hasn’t flushed with guilt.

  “No, it isn’t good. It’s the sense of being in a bad situation, of falling. But not drowning. Not yet. If one were to keep one’s head, act responsibly, they might yet be saved.”

  “You sound like a friend of mine,” I say. “A restaurateur.”

  “I’m no restaurateur. My name is Nagashi.” He offers his hand.

  I reluctantly shake it. “Jack.”

  “Nice to make your acquaintance, Jack the Leopard.” He lowers his voice, so as not to be heard by anyone else. “I’m an agent with Japanese customs.”

  I steel myself, look defiantly into those deep, storm cloud eyes, and try to show no sign of disturbance.

  “That must be interesting
work. I’m an agent, too, of sorts. From Hollywood.”

  I don’t like to mix lies, but art dealer isn’t something I want to pitch to a customs agent. Safer to ride on Edgar’s bandwagon.

  “Really?” His calm, casual smile again. “How interesting. What brings you to Saipan, Agent Jack?”

  “Just trying to get away from it all. You have no idea how stressful it can be catering to celebrities. They’re all like spoiled children.”

  “I can imagine,” he says. But he knows better, he’s not buying it. I can hear it in his voice. “As for me, Mr. Leopard, I’m on a hunt of my own. Some very old artifacts were smuggled through Kyoto back in February. I have reason to believe your blackjack partner there may be involved. What did she say her name was?”

  “She didn’t.”

  He nods, sips from his coffee. “Well, I could certainly use your help in finding out. You seem to be friendly with her. Perhaps you could go back and play some more—”

  “No.” My voice is flat.

  Nagashi shrugs. “It could be a nice change of pace for you. Something to make a movie about one day, and make those spoiled brats in Hollywood jealous. You know, in ancient times, the leopard was a symbol of bravery.”

  “I don’t remember the leopard being one of the Chinese zodiac animals.” Maybe I can derail this conversation.

  “You’ve studied Asian mythology?”

  “No, just the placemat at the local Chinese buffet.”