The pilot straps us in before returning to his seat, pressing, flicking, and twisting buttons on the console. My hands are sweaty, my heart batters against my rib cage. It was bad enough flying in a plane, but I can tell this is going to be worse, especially with the windows surrounding us in the confined space.
And when we take off, I realize I was wrong: it is much, much worse than a plane.
As the chopper continues its stomach-dropping ascent, I squeeze my eyes shut and clutch Ying’s arm in a vise-like grip.
“Exciting, right?” she yells in my ear.
“Yeah, if your idea of fun is having your guts turned inside out.”
She laughs. “At least it’s quick. And it sure beats sitting in a ferry for more than an hour.”
I’m not the greatest fan of boats either, but compared to this hell ride, it sounds like heaven right now.
Still gripping Ying’s arm, I venture to open my eyes a touch. To my relief, it’s dark around us: we’re crossing the water. In the distance, the lights of Macau come into view. It looks like skyscrapers also dominate its skyline, but at a much smaller scale than Hong Kong. As we approach the gambling paradise, Ying points at the gigantic billboards that flash the names of casinos: The Sands, The Venetian, The Grand Lisboa.
“Did you know that Macau’s gambling industry is already seven times bigger than Vegas?” she says.
“I’m not surprised. Isn’t this the only place in China where gambling is allowed?”
Ying nods. “You know how much the Chinese love the casino. Looks like you’re no exception.”
I lift the corners of my mouth into an acrid smile. “I guess not. I can’t wait for the money to roll.”
We start our descent, and I’m so captivated by the sight below us that my anxiety about the chopper ride is all but forgotten. As we approach the city, the abundance of lights reveals the massive scale of the glass-and-concrete gaming resorts.
My heart rate shoots up. This is where Ryder’s fate will be decided. By me.
But when I come face to face with the huge Asian palace that is Heavenly Macau, any sliver of hope I had of making it big, falls away. My mouth falls open as I tip my head back to take in its towering walls that soar into the night sky, shiny golden turrets adorning each corner. I feel so small, so insignificant.
Ying is clearly less impressed, hardly granting the behemoth a glance. Yet the glimmer in her eyes tells me she is excited to be here.
“Do you want to look around before we go into the casino? You’ve got to see the wave pool and the beach, with real white sand imported from some tropical island.”
A brief pang of curiosity wells up inside me, but the doors to the casino slide open, revealing a mass of people crowding around a water feature.
I’m not here to have fun, I remind myself. I’m here to make money. To save Ryder.
Shaking my head, I force a smile. “No, let’s just go in. I can’t wait to strike it big.”
Determined, I step through the sliding doors into the main lobby. It is hard not to notice what is holding people’s attention: a two-tiered waterfall with a sparkling crystal chandelier suspended above it from the domed ceiling. Soothing tunes pulse in rhythm to the changing colors of the cascading streams of water.
Just beyond it lies the gaming area. Only when we step inside does the cacophony of the slot machines assault my ears. There are hundreds of them, in curved rows, fanning out from us from both sides on our left and right. It is mainly Asian women who occupy the machines, spellbound. The only evidence of their mortality is the mechanical movements of their arms as they insert coin after coin.
A loud ring, followed by the continuous clanking of coins, alerts me to a white-haired woman, a black designer bag dangling from her arm. Her face is beaming, her mouth open in what would be a scream of delight, if the noises from the machine didn’t muffle it.
Bile rises up my throat. My mom must have been like that—the thrill of that one win keeping her going, filling up the machines with more and more of our insurance money. I avert my eyes, trying to suppress my thoughts, and march down the aisle into the table area.
If I thought the slot machines were impressive, nothing prepares me for the hundreds and hundreds of tables that stretch in every direction. The atmosphere is tense—a strained silence broken only by game play, dealer announcements, and the clicking of chips as fortunes are won and lost around these tables.
A crowd has gathered around a glass-topped, rectangular table that lights up once in a while. Ying stands next to me and points at it.
“That’s sic bo. You bet on the roll of the dice, whether the total score is odd or even, below or above ten, or a certain number.”
After the players place piles of chips on the various areas of the table, the dealer lifts a small transparent dome containing three dice, and tosses it. She lifts the dome, and reveals the dice. A cheer goes up in the corner of the table, and the dealer rewards them with piles of black-and-gold chips. The game reminds me of roulette, but played with dice.
Ying leans over and whispers, “It’s extremely popular because of its high pay-outs, but hard to win.” She puts a finger on her chin. “I take that back. Impossible to win.”
She walks over to the string of tables deeper into the cavernous room that seem to be just as popular as sic bo. I count eighteen people around a table, and three dealers behind it handing out cards.
“Baccarat,” Ying whispers.
I look on, intrigued. Players are concentrated on their game, staring at their cards. Two gray-suited men are on their cell phones, no doubt to place bets for their clients. Unlike the casinos in the US, where gambling is seen as a form of entertainment, here it is serious business.
“How about this? Is it easy to win?”
Ying shrugs. “Depends. My strategy is to piggy-back off the winners.”
A shred of hope surges in my chest. Ying pulls a stack of bills from her purse and puts them on the table. From the chips the dealer hands her, she picks a pile with two fingers. She then places it on the square marked “Player”, next to the chips that belong to a heavy-set man with what looks like his twenty-years-younger mistress beside him.
The fat man rapidly curls and uncurls the very edge of his cards, so they’re invisible to anyone but him. He then tosses the curled cards to the dealer, who shows his cards before dealing another card to him. All eyes are on the dealer, who draws the last card.
Ying’s face drops. The banker wins, she loses, and her chips disappear into the dealer tray.
So much for her strategy—and the possibility of me using it to my advantage. The little hope I have deflates like a punctured tire. What the hell am I thinking? I don’t have a plan, I can’t even play any of these games, for God’s sake. I’d be lucky to leave this place with a dollar left.
Ying ignores my frown as she swoops her hand into her purse to retrieve more chips. I turn away from her, and through the throng I spot a much smaller and quieter table. I squeeze myself through the mass and exhale a relieved breath when I reach the semicircular table, which hosts another type of card game.
Two seats are free, and the remaining three are occupied by Asian men, cigarette smoke twirling up between them. Surprisingly, the air in the casino smells clean. It must be some type of air freshener, for almost everyone at the tables seems to be smoking.
I step forward to watch the players up close. One of them is Chinese, round faced with a shiny bald patch. Next to him sits a strikingly good-looking dark-suited Eurasian, and at the end a thin, Japanese-looking man with horn-rimmed glasses. They’ve already put in their bets in front of them: piles of green and black-and-gold chips.
The dealer swiftly distributes the cards on the green felt—two each—as the players look on without expression, almost bored. His own card is a nine. What happens next goes by like a whirlwind. Cards are dealt, split into two piles, extra chips placed on the felt, cards dealt again, and finally, a mountain of chips slide to the Eurasian pl
ayer, who seems unaffected.
Only after watching a few hands it dawns on me: I know this game.
My grandfather, on my mother’s side, lived with us for a year when I was fourteen. I called him Ah Gong, or gramps in Chinese. We spent a lot of time together when my sisters were at their music lessons. And that’s when he taught me to play cards.
I’ve always had great fun learning from him, never realizing he was really teaching me maths. I learnt to add and multiply at rapid speed while we were playing the game of what he called ‘Twenty-One’. We used nickels and dimes to put in our bets, and the loser got to buy the winner ice-cream.
Most of the time it was Ah Gong who bought me the ice-cream—I never found out if he let me win, or if I was any good. I’d like to think the latter was the case. My near-photographic memory helped me perfect the form of card counting he taught me, and that’s when the coins came rolling in.
‘Blackjack!’
A queen of hearts and an ace of spades land in front of Mr Bald Patch, confirming what I suspected: Twenty-One is the game of blackjack.
And I know how to play it.
I step closer till I am in between Bald Patch and Dark Suit, studying their every move. It has been a long time since I’ve played the game, and I have a lot of catching up to do. The basics are the same, but I am learning new rules, like splitting and insuring a hand, and betting with chips.
When Dark Suit wins his hand, a small cheer involuntarily escapes my lips. The dealer looks up, straight at me, and motions to the empty seat with his head. I finger my clutch. Am I ready to do this?
I wobble to the empty seat and sit down next to Bald Patch, causing the other players to briefly look up. Dark Suit throws me a wink as the orange glow of his cigarette lights up. The dealer extends his palm to me, and I scramble into my clutch to retrieve a handful of crumpled notes. In a blink of an eye, two piles of chips appear in front of me.
“Here on holiday?” Dark Suit places four black-and-gold chips in front of him—four hundred local dollars, which is around fifty bucks. As he does, his jacket sleeve shifts up, revealing a stretch of colorfully tattooed skin.
Eyebrow raised, I match his bet. “Yeah. First time to Macau. You?”
“I’m here all the time. Almost feels like I live here. Isn’t that right, George?”
The dealer looks up while dealing the cards, a grin lighting his smooth baby face. “It wouldn’t be the same without you, Mr Henley.”
Dark Suit flashes me a smile that causes panties to drop, judging from the girls around the table drooling at his movie-star looks.
“You can call me Lance. And who do I have the pleasure of—playing with tonight?” As his gaze shifts up and down, I narrow my eyes at him.
“Elle.”
“A lovely name for a lovely lady.”
I roll my eyes, his flirty player routine turning me off. He’s handsome all right—most would say hot—with his brown mussed hair, striking green eyes, and chiseled features, but he doesn’t do anything for me. Unlike Ryder, who, with one glance, can reduce me to a nervous, stuttering mess—a feat no other guy could ever pull off.
Turning my attention back to the game, I glance at the dealer’s card—a ten—then at mine: a four. My heart sinks. Against a ten, it’s unlikely I’ll win.
My second card arrives: a nine, making a total of thirteen. A quick glance at the other players’ cards shows a ten, a nine, and a sixteen.
The dealer turns to me, eyebrows raised. Trying to ignore him, I let my chips slide through my fingers. If I get a card that’s a nine or higher, I lose. But I have to try.
I tap my fingers on the felt for another card, as I’ve seen the other players do. The dealer immediately slides it to me, and I let out a breath of relief: an eight, making my total twenty-one.
“She’s lovely as well as lucky,” says Lance as he draws a nineteen. Bald Patch ends up with seventeen, and Japanese Glasses with fifteen. The dealer turns his second card: a six. Then he draws another card—a king—producing a total of twenty-six: a bust.
Which means… we all won!
The dealer slides four black-and-gold chips to me—I doubled my initial bet. A surge of adrenaline rushes through me, making me feel lightheaded.
A clammy hand lands on my bare shoulder. “You lucky for table,” says Bald Patch as he stacks up his next bet.
Lance nods in agreement. “Told you so. Looks like she’s gonna smash it tonight.”
“You betcha.” Unable to suppress a huge grin, I stack up my chips for my next bet. Perhaps this Lance isn’t so bad after all.
The dealer hands out the cards. My first card is a ten, and my fellow players also draw high numbers. But when I get the second card, I blink. Could I be so lucky? A slap on my back confirms it—I have blackjack!
A waitress offers a tray of champagne and I take a flute, sipping the cool, bubbly liquid.
Perhaps this will work out after all.
Ryder
The door opens.
Thank God I’ve made it to the bed—just in time. But then I realize: the wooden slat! I didn’t have time to put it back; it’s still on the floor. Anyone looking towards the window is sure to spot it. I have no choice: I’ve got to distract them somehow.
I yell, “Hey!” as I get up from the bed. The light flickers on, and I’m eye to eye with Flat Face, who looks at me with an odd expression. If I didn’t know better, I’d say it would be one of amusement.
I’m so focused on keeping eye contact with him that it takes me a few moments to realize Flat Face is carrying a tall glass. Stepping forward, he places it on the table in the middle of the room and points at it with his ever-present knife.
I approach the table, somewhat wary at his insistence. Why doesn’t he just leave it on the table and let me drink it in my own time? I flick my eyes to the glass. Its contents are yellow—is it orange juice or something less innocent? But when I lift the glass and my fingers encircle its coolness, I forget any reservations I may have had.
My mouth waters at smelling the liquid—orange juice, as I had guessed—, and I raise it to my parched lips. While I’m downing the cool, sweet-sour liquid, I maintain my gaze on Flat Face, who stares at me without any expression. I finish the juice all too quickly, and I can’t help but let out a sigh. It’s so damn refreshing.
Smirking, Flat Face grabs the empty glass from me and stomps back out the door, locking it behind him. I turn around, my eyes falling on the slat on the floor. Thankfully he didn’t notice it.
In a few swift strides, I’m back at the window and replace the slat, carefully covering it with the curtain. After switching off the light, I return to the bed, lying on my back with my hands behind my head.
If they’re getting me food and drinks, their intentions can’t be too bad. Without anything to drink, I would dehydrate in a short period of time, especially in this unbearable heat. It’s clear they want to keep me alive, perhaps to make sure that Elle will come up with the ransom.
I suppose I’m lucky—it could have been a lot worse. Apart from being locked up and occasionally threatened with that goddamn knife, their treatment of me hasn’t been too bad. All I need to do now is trust in Elle, that she’ll come through. And I do trust her. I bet on my life she’ll do anything in her power to free me. My only worry is her safety. What will those bastards do to her if she doesn’t come up with whatever they want? I wish they could keep her out of it—this is about me after all. I don’t care a damn about my own life. They can do anything to me, as long as she remains unharmed.
Sighing, I close my eyes. My head starts throbbing—an oncoming headache. I should really try get some sleep. I’m sure I’ll feel better after getting some rest.
It doesn’t feel like I’ve nodded off, but I must have, for a noise wakes me up. I groan as my hands fly to my head. It is now pounding—the headache has become worse. Sitting up slowly, I realize that’s not all I have to contend with. A wave of nausea overcomes me, threatening to expel the cont
ents of my stomach. To top it all, my nose is stuffy, impeding my breathing.
It’s that damn heat. My whole body feels sticky; beads of sweat are rolling down my back. I open my eyes and notice the room is no longer pitch black. The bathroom light is on and the front door is ajar.
I bolt upright. Is there a chance for me to escape?
But as I’m about to make my way to the door, I notice a small figure standing next to it. I stand and take a couple of steps toward the person, who remains motionless. Another step, and I stiffen.
“Is that you? Meifen?”
A slight nod of the head confirms my suspicion—it is her. She is barefoot, wearing a short spaghetti strap dress.
“What are you doing here?” Edging forward, I look into the crack of the front door, but no one seems to be guarding it. That’s weird. Is this some sort of trap?
As my gaze shifts back to Meifen, I watch her lift her hands to undo her ponytail. She shakes out her long, straight hair and lets it cascade down her shoulders. Hesitantly, she takes a couple of steps toward me until the light from the doorway illuminates her features. From up close, I notice how young she is, despite the thick layer of make-up she is wearing.
I open my mouth to ask her to help me escape, when she pulls her dress over her head, letting it drop on the floor. Arms by her side, she stands before me in a strapless lacy bra with what looks like a matching thong. What the hell is going on here?
Holding up my hands, I take a step back and say, “Meifen, what are you doing?”
Her big, dark eyes show a spark of fear. Even so, she moves closer to me while I continue stepping backward until my calves hit the edge of the bed. My heartbeat quickens. What is she trying to pull? She isn’t seriously thinking of getting into bed with me?
Clearly she is. For she takes a big step forward, her arm shoots out, and her small hand lands on my groin.
“Hey!” I grab her wrist and shove it away from me, trying to put her at a safe distance. But to my shock, my body is already responding, with a rock-hard erection that borders on painful. I’m not attracted to her at all—she’s a child, for God’s sake. And the overpowering perfume she’s wearing makes the intensity of my headache and nausea increase a hundredfold.
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