by J. D. Brink
“You are empty-handed,” she states. “Does Felix expect to trade me for good intentions only?”
“No, ma’am. My partner will be along in a moment. I just wanted to check out the room first. I’m cautious.” I scan around and spy the red hardcover on the writing desk, the one Maria told me was a translation dictionary, though Ming just spoke to me in English. Behind the desk are the glass doors to the balcony, the sky darkened to night beyond that. “I would like to inspect the tiles—”
“There will be no inspection!” Poh booms. He crowds me, staring me down. “What is this game you play with me? Where are they?”
“What are you referring to, Poh? The merchandise or certain people?” I speak then to Ming, though I’m still face to face with her boyfriend. “I expected better from one of Felix’s most highly respected associates. But this soap opera shit, Ms. Ming—”
“Enough!” she barks. “I will not be lectured to by an errand boy! Where is my statue?”
My confidence sharpens. Seeing this vulnerability in them both makes me feel like I have an edge here. I stride over and take a seat, next to the book. “It’ll be here any second,” I tell her.
As if on cue, there’s a knock at the door.
Poh answers and I hear Edgar’s mocking voice: “Hey, is this the gin rummy tournament? I brought the gin!”
He swaggers in—loud shirt, jovial face—swinging the duffle bag like it’s a picnic basket full of Granny’s goodies. He brought the wrong mood for this room.
Poh looks up and down the hallway and slams the door. “Where is she?”
I stand. “This isn’t about a woman, is it, Ms. Ming?”
Her face is tense, ready to explode. “No.” It’s a quiet syllable, venomous. “Show me the statue and I will show you the carvings.”
Poh steps into the mix. “No. No deal until—”
Ming spits Mandarin at him.
Edgar and I share a look. He takes the box from his bag, pops its flaps, and pulls out the big wad of newspaper inside. It unravels like a mummy’s head. Underneath is a ten-inch bronze statuette: an angelic figure falling backwards, wings arced skyward, feathers askew. Its mouth is rounded in agony, its arms reaching out, fingers crooked and grasping at something. Edgar does another Vanna White impression: “Your DeFrog, Madam Ming.”
She seizes and examines it, checking the bottom for the signature and production number. A satisfied smile meekly crawls across her face. Why the grin? Does she know that she’s taken us for a ride, that her tiles are crap? Or is she just glad to done with this? Maybe both.
She speaks to Poh in her native tongue. He stands stone-like and silent. She repeats it, her secret glee turning to frustration.
“We will not sell the tiles,” Poh states plainly.
“Yes, we will!” Ming growls.
Edgar cocks an eyebrow at Poh. “Who the fuck are you, her manager?”
Poh turns his glare on him, but Eddie doesn’t flinch. He never does. So the asshole turns to me and repeats, “Where is she?”
There’s a new knock at the door.
Poh darts for it. Edgar and I share another look: Why did she come?
But it isn’t Alma.
Two more guests crowd into the hotel room, preceded by a puff of cigar smoke. The first is a squat, black, potbellied stove.
“Petey Fucking Jackson!” Edgar laughs aloud.
Petey has one hand in his pleather trench coat pocket. His other holds a pistol at waist level.
Ming moves defensively behind Poh. “Who are you?” she demands. “What do you want?”
“Coming for the cards, lady. Even though,” pain scrawls across Petey’s face, “my plans have changed since I got here.”
Behind Petey is a thin Japanese man in a black suit: Nagashi. He strolls in casually with his hands behind his back—a pose I recognize from the beach last night.
Poh seems to know him, too: “You?”
“Of course.” Nagashi gently kicks the door closed behind him. “I know. You were expecting someone else. Sorry to disappoint you.
“And you, Mr. Leopard. You should have helped me when I first offered.”
“What is going on here?” Ming demands.
“This is the customs agent I tried to tell your boyfriend about,” I explain. “At least, that’s who he claimed to be.”
“Customs agent? Is that what he told you, that he was one of the good guys?” Petey shakes his big, square head at me. “And you were my replacement, Blondie? The best old Felix could do?”
Edgar, whose eyes haven’t left his ex-partner for an instant, takes a few steps back, giving himself space to work in this now overpopulated room. “Petey, old pal, how the hell have you been? I heard this trip’s been hard on you. You fallen on rough times?”
Jackson accentuates his words by shoving his gun after them: “Eddie, you’re the goofy fuck that’s about to fall on rough times!”
Edgar grins and flips him off.
The cigar flames. Petey yanks out his other hand and shoves it at Edgar, as if to return the gesture, but he has only a thumb and four taped-up nubs.
Ming yells again: “You will tell me what is going on here!”
I answer. “I think everyone’s here for the same thing, Ms. Ming. Except for Poh. But you already know that.”
“Where is she?” Poh asks Nagashi this time.
“Who?” The word blows from Petey’s mouth on a puff of smoke. “Who the fuck is she?”
“Confused, Petey?” Edgar chides. “Too many people involved for you to count? Try like this.” He holds up a finger. “One,” then a second, “two…”
“Laugh, shithead!” Petey raises the muzzle of his gun up to Edgar’s grinning face. Edgar doesn’t blink. I can see the shine in his eyes. He’s waiting for an opportunity.
And it comes. Ming cracks. “Then just take the damn things!” She breaks away, but Poh grabs her arm and tugs her back, hard. The sudden movement spooks Petey and draws the attention of his gun. Edgar springs into action in the same moment. In a flash, he has both the girls drawn, centers his weight back, and fires. The sparks follow their bullets and nearly reach into Petey’s belly. The fat man’s gun goes off, firing three times in a wild arc on his way down, and he nearly falls almost on top of Nagashi, but the thin man steps aside.
I throw myself backward—hopefully out of the bullets’ paths—banging against the desk and landing on the floor. Cigar smoke and gunpowder wisps cloud the center of the hotel suite. Time slows as the world gathers its senses again.
Petey lies motionless, a dead walrus spreading red into the carpet beneath him.
Ming is slumped in Poh’s arms. She breathes her last into his face as death takes her.
Edgar stumbles backward and drops just short of the chair behind him, landing next to me.
“Eddie...?”
He looks down at himself. His expression is more surprise and disappointment than fear. “He got me. That fat son of a bitch got me.” I can see the little yellow islands on his shirt flooding dark from underneath.
“I’ll call an ambulance,” I tell him.
“Guess I won’t make that flight...” His words are braver than his expression.
But this isn’t over. Nagashi steps out from the shadowy foyer, where he’d been momentarily forgotten. He walks over his dead henchman, hands still calmly behind him.
Ming’s body slides limply from Poh’s arms. He barely notices.
“Here.” Edgar shoves Lavern, his .38, into my hand. “Get the fuck out of here. I’ll finish this mess.”
I get to my feet, a little bewildered at the whole scene. Neither Nagashi nor Poh seem fazed by what just happened. They look at each other, then at me. And there’s no fear in their eyes whatsoever.
“Get out!” Edgar croaks. “Take care of her for me, Jack.
“And the gun, too.”
I spin. The book’s on the desk. Beyond it, the glass doors of the terrace.
I snatch the dictionary with on
e hand and fire into the glass with the other. The big pane spiderwebs. I hurl myself through it and over the railing, Shirley firing behind me.
Part Three
The Abyss
Nineteen
The ground comes hard and fast. My left shoulder hits first and everything breaks away from me, tossed everywhere on impact. I lie there for a second, stunned but not in pain. There’s too much adrenaline in me for that.
I get to all fours. The book is here, still unopened, even by the fall. That’s when I notice a tiny metal latch keeping it closed.
I was right.
Lavern lies a few feet ahead of me. I scoop her up and look around. It’s dark and quiet. There are no more gun shots sounding out above me. Either Edgar’s out of ammo or both of his targets are dead. Or he is.
Hide, my inner voice tells me. Someone heard those gun shots, the alarm will be raised. That’s good, though, in that Edgar might get medical attention. It’s bad in that they’ll be looking for whoever went through the glass.
Several yards ahead of me is a short wall of bushes. Past it is the swimming pool. I can see its lights from here.
I charge through the brush. One twig among many finds a tear in my jacket and rakes into a shoulder wound that I didn’t know was there. No time to worry about it now, though.
The pool is wide with a concrete beach and lawn chairs. Floodlights are posted around the perimeter but the scene is still gloomy, the water dark.
Water above, water below: the Abyss.
To one side is a small structure labeled “Beach Shack.” Its big service window is rolled shut and locked. So is the door.
My lock picks are shaky with fear, pain, and adrenaline. It’s taking me too damn long to do this.
Voices. And the static mumbling of handheld radios.
Calm down, I tell myself. Work fast, but true.
“You go that way,” someone calls.
Shit.
Click. The door opens.
I slip inside, close and lock the door behind me. A shadow passes by the tiny Plexiglas window, followed by a man in a red blazer, radio in one hand, gun in the other. I crouch down to the floor.
The feeble glow of the shack’s window gets smothered by something outside. The door knob jerks back and forth and a face presses against the glass, then disappears. He’s gone.
Darkness is thick in here, leaving only rough shapes and soft colors visible. I see shelving, white towels, floats and big rubber duckies. I stay near the door for the light, setting down my things and taking off my jacket.
Pain.
Now that I’m out of danger, my adrenaline buffer is fading. My body is stiffening from the fall and cuts sting where the glass door bit me on my way through it. The biggest cut, where the bush stuck its fingers inside, is in my left shoulder. My shirt is wet and dark there, but it’s not bad. Not as bad as Edgar.
Take care of her for me, Jack. And the gun, too.
No, I’m not ready to make that decision yet. Right now, I need—
There, a big white box mounted on the wall. Is that it?
It is: the first aid kit. I collect a handful of items, take them back to the light of the small window, and patch myself up as best I can. No suture kits here, but enough gauze and medical tape to fill the biggest wound and staunch the bleeding. The discarded evidence—my torn shirt and a couple of blood-stained towels—I stash behind other things. I pat my accomplice, an inflatable duck, on the head. “Okay, Howard, don’t tell anyone I was here.”
The pain’s still there, but I’ll learn to live with it. The poolside med kit doesn’t come standard with morphine.
Now, time to see if my gamble paid off.
Ming’s book is heavier than you’d expect. I turn a brass stud and thumb back the latch. The inside is a wooden block, balsa wood instead of pages, with a rectangular well carved in the middle. Resting inside that well are the I Ching tiles, individually wrapped in tissue paper, two-by-two and two deep. They’re like large dominoes, marked with thick lines rather than dots. I pluck one out, unwrap it, hold it up to the light, and rub its surface between finger and thumb.
The old scholars were right, at least about this set: wooden, eight of them, each with three lines of yin or yang carved into their faces, and petrified with age. Old enough to be the real thing, but not made from any precious material. Is that why Ming was willing to give them up? Or was it more about Poh and his obsession with Alma? Did she think she could keep the man for herself once these were out of the picture? Didn’t look like that was going to work out, even if she wasn’t dead. She got herself killed and that scary bastard Poh didn’t even blink.
Edgar might be dead by now, too.
These fuckers better be real.
Now what do I do? I have the items we came for, our contact is dead, and security’s hot. And even if Eddie’s not dead, there’s not much I can do for him by myself. I should just go, find my way to the ferry or a plane, make the airport, and leave all this behind. That’d be the sensible way to go.
But the thought of abandoning him hurts more than the cut in my shoulder.
And then there’s Alma.
But, I have to ask myself, what would be the point of that? Going back in for a woman I hardly know? I am the Jack of Spades, after all, the one-eyed knave. The Traveler, the Wanderer. Cutting the past loose and moving on—that’s my modus operandi.
And it’s done wonders for me so far.
Jack the Dark Stranger—that’s what Felix called me, all pissed at me being so full of myself.
I’m no mysterious anti-hero. I’m a coward who plays too much solitaire. And when I get bored with the game, I just reshuffle the deck and play a different hand, with no intension of winning or losing.
I don’t even care enough to win.
I have no commitment to anything. Or anyone.
I’m wasting my fucking life.
But the I Ching is the Book of Changes.
What was it Swan said about the Wanderer? Without true purpose, chances for success are few.
Is the Jack of Spades a noble rogue, or just a piece of shit?
Years and “lives” spent, and I’m just now thinking this way? Of course, I’ve never taken a dive through a second-story window and left a friend to die before.
But I can still save her.
It’s time one of these lives had meaning.
The med kit scissors slit the lining of my jacket and I slip the eight wooden cards in between the layers. Holding her in the light, I crack open Lavern and get four glints from the magazine: four rounds left. I tuck her into my pants, pull my lucky, spotted jacket over my bare back, and check the window for any sign of security.
I’m going back in.
Twenty
I stick to the shadows and make my way back to the main building. On my earlier tour of the place, I found a rear entrance next to the loading docks. It’s easy enough for me to find again. But when I get there, someone’s outside, smoking. He wears black slacks and a white shirt, the uniform of dealers and wait staff.
I cling to the corner, back against the wall.
The silhouette finishes, tosses its red spark to the ground, and disappears back inside.
I sneak up to the same door. The smoker’s standing on the other side, so that much of my view through the glass is of his back. What I can see looks like a staff lounge: a table edge and empty chair, Coke machine in the corner, one end of a couch. And he’s talking to someone on the couch, though I can’t see who. Finally, he flails his arms in an effeminate way and walks out, leaving a dark-haired woman there alone.
It’s Maria, the Princess Room waitress.
I rap my knuckles on the glass and side-step out of view. After a moment of hesitation, she comes to the door, every bit the fearless adventurer I knew she would be. Her crimson lips and heavy mascara appear between door and jamb, and light up when she sees me.
“You!” Maria slips out and closes the door behind her.
“You reme
mber me,” I say, returning a friendly grin.
“I should have known. It’s you, isn’t it?” Her dark eyes narrow suspiciously and she pokes me in the stomach, almost discovering the gun tucked in my waistline. “You’re the one they’re all after, aren’t you? Tell me, did you kill somebody?” This last part purrs forth from her lips. She isn’t afraid in the least—instead, she’s turned on by the idea.
I hear Suzy’s voice from last night in my mind: Are you bad?
“No,” I tell her. “I didn’t kill anyone.”
“You killed somebody, sexy man, ‘cause security is going nuts. Hey, you need to make your escape? You want a getaway car? A hot driver?” She rubs up against me, her face close to mine. “Let’s go. Right now. You can hide out at my place until everything cools off.”
“Very tempting, my dear, but—”
Our lips meet. It’s a soft kiss, and very nearly convinces me.
I step back, snatching a few of her fingers and holding on to them. “—but, no thanks. I need to get back inside.”
“Inside? Are you crazy?” She yanks away from me. “That’s stupid. The worst thing you could do. We need to go,” she says, grabbing my jacket and trying walk away with me. But I don’t move.
“Maria, I need your help. I still have friends inside.”
She stops, looks me up and down. An impish grin crawls across her face. “The dangerous type, huh? Okay, sexy, I’ll help you. Then after the shootout and daring escape, we go back to my place and lose our clothes. Wait right here.” She goes back into the lounge.