Lucky the Hard Way

by Deborah Coonts

  Teddie returned to his cart, both hands on the bar. “Your ability to find trouble amazes me even still.”

  “This time it was easy; I followed trouble here.”

  He didn’t look the least bit chagrined, but he did stop with the personal once-over. Turning to survey my little chunk of Macanese real estate, he looked for a place to set up. “This room isn’t up to your usual standards. I thought you’d have at least a suite.”

  I pointed through the set of large double doors at the far end of the bedroom. “It is a suite. You came though the private entrance. Staff is not allowed in here when the guest is present.” I gestured toward the rest of the suite. “Don’t let me find you in here again. I’ll call the management.”

  “Cute.”

  “You think I’m joking?”

  That wiped off his grin. He turned and pushed the cart into the main living area.

  A bit wobbly on my feet, I padded after his cute ass. “That uniform accentuates your assets. If I ever decide to join the other team, I’ll look you up.”

  He wobbled over on one heel, twisting his ankle, which made me smile. He’d been the one who’d taught me how to walk semi-comfortably in heels. I’d never have his sashay, but after a few lessons, I wasn’t in fear of breaking a bone.

  “Nervous?” I asked.

  “Only if you’ve forsaken your chef fetish and have gone back to hot cross-dressers.”

  “You’re not a cross-dresser.”

  “Today, I am.” His pace slowed as his mouth dropped open. He stopped in the middle of the grand room, doing a slow pirouette, table and all. “Wow.” Fourteen-foot ceilings, extravagant furnishings and finishes, a dining room table that would seat twenty, a one-hundred-inch flat screen on the far wall, and a wall of windows extending the full length of the room.

  Both of us were drawn to the window. Macau in all its incongruity unrolled at our feet. A jumbled, low-slung city of apartments that, to an American eye looked like tenements crawled over the hills, punctuated by a high-rise casino, or a lower office building, but there were few of those. This was a town built on gambling.

  Neon signs flashed their come-ons. Dramatic lighting backlit the ruins of St. Paul’s Cathedral sitting atop the hill in the middle of town—a testament to fleeting sanctity, but maybe I was the only one who saw it that way, perched as it was over this den of iniquity.

  “Just like home,” Teddie whispered.

  The wistfulness in his voice tugged a heartstring. “In more ways than you can imagine.”

  He tore himself away from the window and returned to the table and its mounds of covered plates. He pretended to be absorbed in the various plates, setting the table, arranging everything just so.

  “You didn’t change?”

  “The girls got off work. With one bathroom, finding time to myself is a bit problematic.”

  “You can use mine.” Once we’d shared a soap-on-a-rope…a lifetime ago.

  “I was hoping you’d say that.” He reached under the skirted table and pulled out a backpack, which he tossed on the couch. “Before I forget, I brought some things.”

  Nothing I thought of to say would heal the hurt between us, so, for once, I kept my mouth shut. I didn’t offer to help—Teddie had always insisted on doing the kitchen work. I guess this qualified. As I watched him set the table, arrange plates and fill glasses, I missed the old us. “You wouldn’t happen to have any of your mother’s coconut oatmeal cookies under one of those domes, would you?” I don’t know why I said it, why I gave him an insight, an opening to my heart.

  He paused, taking a deep breath, remembering as well, a distant look in his eyes. “If only.”

  Desperate to get the conversation back on solid ground, I asked the first thing that came to mind. “So, how’d you score the broom closet at the whorehouse?”

  A dramatic pause—Teddie was always great at timing. “The head of customer relations at your place.”

  “Cindy Liu.”

  “Yeah, she took a shine to me right off.”

  “I see.” I always said that even when, as now, I didn’t see. I wondered what her angle was. “And Ming?”

  “Through Miss Liu.”

  “And they know you’re a wanted man?”

  “Haven’t a clue. They just know I’m a guy, which, curiously, isn’t all that unusual here.”

  “The Thai boys.”

  Teddie shrugged but couldn’t hide his frown. “The deeper you dig, the more you discover Macau really is like Vegas.”

  I didn’t want to know about his brushes up against the male prostitution world. As a female impersonator and the assumption people made as to his sexuality, I’m sure his stories would turn this semi-pacifist into a fully automatic gal.

  He continued with dinner preparations. “The worst part is the bathroom thing. But on the upside, they’re really great about finding me clothes.”

  “Is ‘that’s great’ an appropriate response? I’m a bit at sea.”

  “That’ll do.”

  “You sure they don’t know who you are?”

  Teddie sighed and gave me a look; this one I could read loud and clear. “No. I’m not sure. I’m not sure of anything anymore. But I got this. Quit worrying.” He gave me his patented cockeyed smile. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

  I knew a rhetorical question when I heard one.

  Finished, he dusted his hands together then pulled back a chair, holding it for me. “Dinner is served. I won’t ask if you’re hungry; I can tell by that feral look in your eyes.”

  Three lifetimes ago, I’d picked at the food on the airplane...with Romeo. Knowing Jean-Charles had prepared it made it difficult for me. On the other hand, the kid had wolfed his as if it was his last meal. I swallowed hard—my analogies of late needed some work. But Teddie was misreading a bit. I was feeling feral, all right—hungry to rip the necks out of the men who had Romeo. And what little patience I’d had evaporated.

  With heaviness hanging between us, the only thing to do was to fall back on my cocktail party inane chatter skills. “Life on the lam looks like it agrees with you. And I see you still have a pair of my shoes.” I took my place. Teddie pushed in my chair, then took the chair next to mine.

  “In swiping them, I saved them. Funny how things often turn out differently than you expect.”

  Everything else had gone up in the fire. I still hadn’t dealt with the grief of a vanished existence yet. I could feel it moving, shifting inside, like that alien baby Sigourney Weaver had to fight. “You don’t have to rub it in.” I breathed deeply, trying to identify what might be for dinner. “You didn’t answer me before. How’d you get in here?”

  He smiled a tight smile. “From my time at the Babylon, I know a few back-hall tricks. I placed an order through room service, then strong-armed the waiter into letting me in. I told him you had called for me as well. We exchanged a wink or two and voila!”

  “There are so many things I don’t like about that, but at least you brought food.” The ease between us returned as if nothing had happened—as if Teddie hadn’t left, Holt Box hadn’t been killed, and I hadn’t fallen in love with Jean-Charles. But he had, and he had, and I had, making promises in the process, and there were rules about that. And there wasn’t a moment I didn’t wish Jean-Charles was here.

  “Food and Champagne.” Teddie pulled the bottle from its ice bath. Knowing me as he did, he tackled the cork first before uncovering the plates. I tried to read the label—Laurent-Perrier, famous for their rosé bubbles. He poured for both of us then lifted his glass. “To friends.”

  As I clinked my glass with his, I resisted the urge to fall into the camaraderie of old. Teddie had fooled me once. Fool me twice, then shame on me. And, I was tired of letting myself down, so I kept my guard up.

  With a flourish befitting a fancy waiter, Teddie uncovered the dishes one by one, releasing aromas that had me snapping up morsels with my chopsticks before his performance was over.

  “You kn
ow the set of brown chopsticks is for serving. The ones you’re using are for eating.” Teddie smiled at me over a plate of something delicious but not quite identifiable.

  I popped a morsel into my mouth then dug in for more. “Your point is?”

  “I get it. Who wants to waste time with transferring the stuff when we can eat it out of the dish?” He poked around at the meat I was ladling into my mouth. “What is this?”

  “Some kind of shredded pork with something fermented in it,” I said through a full mouth. “We probably are supposed to put it in those little sesame pockets, right?” I pointed at the pile of dainty circles of bread that looked like a very thin pita pocket, one side covered with seeds.

  “Haven’t a clue.” He gave me the grin that used to melt my heart.

  I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel mine crack.

  My hunger surprised me, of course I really hadn’t thought about food that much. The image of Kim Cho flashed through my synapses almost ruining my appetite…almost. I’d never been one to be thrown off my feed, not even by murder. Not a fact to be proud of, but hey, lately I’d vowed to embrace my imperfections. So I ate, my chopsticks tangling with Teddie’s as we grappled for food.

  When I felt a bit sated, I leaned back, set my chopsticks down, grabbed my flute of Champagne, and gave Teddie my best flat stare. To be honest, it was a bit disconcerting having dinner with a man in a dress and full make-up. Teddie and I had always kept business and pleasure separate…before.

  “What’s with the get-up?” I asked, even though I thought I knew the answer.

  “For one, they’re not looking for a female—I told you that.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m running on fumes and Mona…” I started to go there and decided against it.

  “No need to explain. Mona! I understand,” Teddie said, and I knew that he did. “I am a man on the run,” he continued. “At least, according to the mug shots I’ve seen salted around on various media outlets.”

  “Not good.”

  He pursed his lips and shrugged. “Maybe not, but I’m getting a lot of attention, which means I’ve stepped on the toes of some powerful folks.”

  “Bait.”

  “And switch,” he gave me a grin that lacked his normal hint of jaunty. “I hope.”

  “Not a bad plan, only one minor snafu.” The reality of losing Romeo and Frank Cho came crashing back, sucking the air out of my lungs. “I’m assuming you think we’re going to exchange Frank Cho for you?”

  “Wasn’t that the plan?”

  I wondered how he knew that, but not for long. He had a mole in my office…or my family. “Have you been talking with Mona?”

  “No,” he gave me a blank stare that didn’t begin to hide the lie.

  “I figured.” My parents’ pillow talk—Mona had to have found out from the Big Boss. Empires fell from within, if history was any lesson. “Well, then,” I took a sip of my Champagne, “I guess you know the punch line, then.”

  “What?”

  I filled him in on Frank…and Romeo.

  When I was done, Teddie refilled our flutes then leaned back. “Shit. They got the kid?”

  I took a slug of my Champagne. “I didn’t keep him safe. To be honest, I never saw it coming. Taking Frank, sure. I figured our odds at getting him here and keeping him here were fifty-fifty at best. But Romeo?”

  “Why?” Teddie seemed genuinely concerned. I’d always liked that about him. “Why’d they take the kid? He’s not a part of this, is he?”

  “Not until now. He wasn’t even supposed to come. At the last minute, the Sheriff insisted.”

  “Is that odd?”

  “I have no idea. This is my first inmate transfer, but I suspect other forces were at play.”

  “Who?”

  “The Big Boss, and perhaps a friend of his here.” I eyed the bottle of bubbles. Anticipating my need, Teddie beat me to the bottle, wiping the water off, then refilling my glass. “You make it impossible to have any self-control.” I winced at my choice of words—fact of it was, the words were true…in all aspects. As part of my heart, Teddie was so wrong, but, oh, so right. “In taking Romeo, they effectively pulled off a two-shot swing. We not only lost our advantage, but they also gained one. Now they have something, or someone, to trade.”

  “But what for? They got Frank Cho.”

  “Exactly. And the fact they felt they needed Romeo makes me think there is much more at stake here than I realize.” Or than the Big Boss had told me, but I didn’t air that bit of family dirty laundry. “That’s what I need to find out. I need to know what it is they really want.”

  “And they left you alive so you could give it to them.”

  “Lucky me.” I trotted out my lame whine, but this time it was actually true. “Anything of interest you might be able to tell me?” I tried to give Teddie my serious face, but damn, I was so happy to see him, laughing, talking walking, living, breathing.

  “It’s not easy being a woman.”

  “Tell me something I don’t know.” I raised an eyebrow. “Every man ought to be required to spend a few months living as a woman—male/female relations would improve dramatically.”

  “That’ll never fly,” Teddie scoffed.

  “Unfortunately, there are probably several Constitutional constraints, but with a viable female candidate running for president, you never know.”

  He looked like he took the unspoken threat seriously.

  “Can you tell me what you’ve been doing since you got here? Why the getup, really?” I settled in for his story with the fresh glass of bubbly.

  “Like I said, the whole dress-up thing was to get out of one country and into another. The authorities weren’t looking for a woman.”

  “Travel documents?”

  “From your friend Freddy the Finger, Easy Eddie V’s partner?” He looked to me for confirmation that I understood. Apparently, I didn’t give him what he was looking for. “You know, up on Rancho in front of the big market?”

  “You are so hangin’ with the wrong crowd.” And he’d been learning the wrong lessons from me. Teddie and Romeo, both. How could I be such a bad influence?

  “All depends on what you’re looking for. I scored a license and a passport, the ink dry and everything, inside of two hours.”

  “I’m supposed to give you an attaboy? Seriously? You do realize running was probably the stupidest thing you could possibly do?”

  He glanced out the window, the lights painting his face in garish hues. “It certainly limited my possibilities to only two: win or lose.” His gaze shifted back to mine, his blue eyes all dark and smoldering. “But I’ve always been an all-in kind of guy.”

  Ah, the play. I was wondering how long he’d wait. I brushed it aside. “Okay, so you got out of the U.S. and into Macau and presumably Hong Kong. What did you do then?”

  “Got a job here.”

  “How?”

  “Your recommendation carries a lot of weight.”

  “My recommendation?” I was too tired to be mad.

  “Forged on your letterhead. I always could sign your name better than you could.”

  The Force was strong in this one, Obi Wan. But he’d gone to the Dark Side. “I’m not even going to address the breach of trust that was.” I raised my finger as he opened his mouth. “And that letter could make me an accessory after the fact, as guilty as you are.”

  He shrugged. “Then you’re safe.”

  “Proving your innocence has been a bit problematic.”

  “If it makes you feel any better, I am sorry. But desperate times and all of that.”

  That sounded like one of my lines. “And what position did I recommend you for?”

  “Well, I put down dealer and that almost blew my cover. The HR lady knew you would know that foreign nationals can’t work as dealers in Macau. Dealers have to be Macanese.”

  “Which causes a huge employment issue for the casinos. Steve Wynne tried to solve that problem. He went to the government a
nd asked if for every Macanese promoted, he could hire a foreigner to fill the spot vacated, but no dice.”

  Teddie looked at me, wide-eyed.

  “Never mind.” I waved a hand excusing my trip down a side street. “Of interest only to someone like me who actually has responsibility for thousands of employees. So, exactly how did you become one of my responsibilities?”

  Starting to answer, he snapped his mouth shut. Clearly switching tacks, he began again. “A bit of histrionics and she relented, probably to get rid of me and to not risk insulting you. I left her office as a newly minted roving server. Finding a uniform that fit was a bit of a struggle.”

  I could identify with being the largest woman in the room—just another thing we now shared. “I’m so proud. Crying to get a job—you probably set womankind back twenty years or more. And what have you learned?”

  “The Japanese tip the best. Men can be pigs. High heels are excruciating. And I really want to get upstairs to the junket rooms, one in particular.”

  I leaned forward, crossing my arms on the table, my glass empty. “Which one?”

  “Panda 777.”

  “Ah, Mr. Cho’s room.”

  Teddie looked like I’d stolen a bit of his thunder as he reached down his décolletage and extracted a folded bit of newsprint. Moving a few now-empty dishes, he cleared a place, then pressed the newspaper open between us, turning it so I could read it.

  A photo, grainy. A man half-turned from the camera. The headline was in Cantonese.

  Teddie gave me the gist. “This guy was seen fleeing the scene of an attack. He beat a guy senseless with a brick, right on the street in broad daylight.”

  “A brick?”

  “An unassuming weapon that most wouldn’t take notice of.”

  Like a baseball bat.

  “He looks familiar.”

  “He does?” Teddie flipped the paper around to take another look. “You know, you’re right. He does. Any idea where we might have crossed paths with him?”

  “No. Must’ve been here.” I flipped the photo back so I could memorize his face—evil and remorseless, his was one to remember, and steer clear of. “Who did he attack?”