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

by Needham, Jake

  “I need your help, Archie.”

  “Figured you hadn’t called to say you missed me.”

  I told him about being summoned to Macau by MGM and about their suspicions that large amounts of money were being laundered through their casino. I told him about Pansy Ho’s fear that it would turn out to be triad money and how much a revelation like that would damage her. I told him about my guess that MGM was being smurfed and the probability that made whatever was happening a triad deal. I even told him about my initial reluctance to take the job and Pete Logan’s role in getting me to do it. I told Archie everything, because eventually Archie would find out everything anyway and I wanted him on my side. Lying to him, or leaving out something important, would come back to bite me in the ass with a guy like Archie.

  “Why would the FBI be interested in the triads laundering money through a casino in Macau?” he asked.

  “Beats me.”

  Archie didn’t seem particularly surprised at that and he didn’t comment. He picked at what was left of his potato salad, drank the rest of his cream soda, and waited for me to tell him the rest. So I told him about Cindy Cheung coming to my office this morning and about the story The South China Morning Post was going to run tomorrow fingering me as the guy investigating triad money laundering in Macau.

  “So here’s the deal,” I finished. “I need somebody to watch my back.”

  “Bloody oath, I reckon you do.”

  “I don’t know anything about Macau. I don’t know who’s screwing who or who’s stealing what. And now I’m going to have the triads on my ass before I’ve even started. How about I put you on the payroll?”

  “Well fuck me dead, mate! You mean there’s money in this for me?”

  “I told Pansy I might have to bring in some help and she gave me carte blanche. Tell me what your usual fee for a little consulting would be and I’ll add it to my bill. She’s scared to death, Archie. Money isn’t a problem.”

  “Before we go any further maybe you ought to tell me exactly what kind of consulting you have in mind.”

  “I just want you to be available to answer my questions about how things really work in Macau. Make a few introductions for me. Let me run whatever I find out by you before I talk to anyone else about it. Like that. No dramas. No heavy lifting.”

  Archie nodded, thinking about it.

  “There is one other thing,” I added.

  Archie gave me a crooked ‘I-knew-there-was-a-catch’ grin.

  “I’ll need the number of a telephone you actually answer. I don’t want to go through this song and dance of leaving messages around town every damn time I need to talk to you.”

  “Oh, Jacko, that could be a problem. I only give women my real phone number.”

  “Yeah? For what you’re probably going to charge me, Archie, you ought to be willing to throw in their phone numbers, too.”

  FIFTEEN MINUTES LATER I was stepping onto an MTR train at the Tsim Sha Tsui station that would take me back under the harbor to the station beneath Central. From there I could walk over to the Mid-Levels escalator and ride it up to my office in Soho. In my pocket, I had my cell phone and in it was a number that Archie swore he actually answered, at least most of the time. I still didn’t have any telephone numbers for Archie’s girlfriends. I figured that was the real treasure, but he wouldn’t give them up.

  Pansy Ho called while I was walking up Des Voeux Road to the bottom of the Mid-Levels escalator. She was all business.

  “Gerald has brought me the security photographs you asked him to collect.”

  “Was I right about the smurfing?” I asked.

  “Yes. No question about it. But, Jack, I think there’s something a little bit odd going on here.”

  “Odd? How?”

  “You need to see the pictures yourself. I might be wrong. When can you get here?”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Tomorrow’s fine. The suite is waiting for you. Call me when you’re in the hotel.”

  I TOOK A SHORT CUT through the Chong Hing Bank Building and turned north on Queen’s Road.

  The smurfing of MGM was no longer a theory, and tomorrow I would have to head back to Macau and try to figure out who exactly was responsible for it. I had no idea what Pansy meant when she said there was something odd about the security photographs, but I didn’t see what difference it made. If MGM was being smurfed, who else could be running an operation like that in Macau other than the triads? So all I had to do now was identify at least some of the people who had been photographed smurfing money into the casino, connect those people to the triads, and hand everything over to Pete. After that, it would be a law enforcement matter and I was out of it, right?

  There were two problems with that, of course.

  First, Pansy was going to take an awful hit in spite of having no connection with whatever was going on. The mere mention of the triads and her name in the same sentence would be fatal for her. She was carrying too much baggage from her father to shrug it off.

  I wanted to help Pansy, even protect her if it was possible, but I didn’t see what I could do. If the triads were involved, and it was becoming clearer day by day that they were, Pansy was finished. It was a simple as that.

  But there was something else, too, something that was even worse from my personal point of view.

  According to that South China Morning Post reporter who showed up in my office, tomorrow morning the SCMP was running a story that would blow my cover. They were going to tell every triad gangster in Macau that Jack Shepherd was on their tail and looking to nail them for large scale money laundering.

  Not good for me.

  Not good at all.

  Nothing left to do but save the little bastards some trouble and wear a t-shirt with a big bullseye right on the front.

  SEVENTEEN

  THE NEXT MORNING I took the Mid-Levels escalator down to the office exactly like I always did. I was stalling a little, I admit. I had promised Pansy I would go back to Macau today, but I wanted to put my feet up, drink some coffee, and think about everything a bit more before I got on that ferry. I figured I ought at least to have some kind of a sensible plan in mind before I got to Macau and served myself up to the triads. Surely there was something smart I could do here. There was always something smart I could do here. I just had to work out what it was.

  I stopped at the Pacific Coffee Company for my usual black coffee and Danish, and this morning I bought a copy of The South China Morning Post to go with them. I seldom read the SCMP, and I really wasn’t at all anxious to read it today, but I had to find out what was in Cindy Cheung’s story sooner or later. And sooner was better.

  When I got to the office I drank half the coffee while I ate my Danish and checked my email. After I was suitably caffeinated and well on my way to a sugar high, I decided I was at last amped up enough face Cindy’s story. I tilted back in my chair, swung my feet up onto my library table, and unfolded the paper.

  Nothing on the first page. Nothing on the second or third pages either. Thank God, I told myself, at least the story was buried in the back somewhere.

  I drank some more coffee and kept turning pages.

  When I found nothing at all in the first section, I unfolded the business section and went through it page by page. Nothing there either.

  Was it possible the SCMP hadn’t run the story?

  I checked the date on the front of the paper just to be certain I hadn’t picked up an old one by mistake. No, I had this morning’s paper all right. I laid it flat on my table and slowly turned through every page again, checking both the heads and the bylines. No stories by Cindy Cheung, no mention of Macau, no mention of money laundering, and – best of all from my point of view – no mention of Jack Shepherd.

  I had dodged a bullet.

  But how had I dodged a bullet?

  I didn’t want to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth, but I didn’t really believe in gift horses. Cindy had the story dead to rights, and allega
tions of large-scale triad money laundering at the MGM in Macau should have been big news locally, if for no other reason because of its impact on the price of casino stocks. Yet The South China Morning Post hadn’t run Cindy’s story.

  Why not? What were they up to?

  Was it possible they held it today because they had something even bigger and better coming?

  Perhaps this wasn’t such good news after all…

  I THOUGHT ABOUT ALL that while I answered some emails and drank the rest of my coffee, but I didn’t come up with any answers. If the SCMP did have something bigger, I didn’t have a clue what it was. When I finished with the email I closed my laptop and, having nothing better to do, reached over and scooped up the pile of mail I had dumped unexamined on my worktable when I had returned to the office several days ago. It all looked like junk, of course. Even bills seemed to come mostly online these days. Still, flipping through the envelopes and one by one sailing them unopened into the garbage can was in its own way a curiously exhilarating experience. About halfway through the pile, however, I stopped flipping envelopes into the trash, sat up abruptly, and swung my feet to the floor.

  The plain white envelope was addressed to me in blue ink in what appeared to be a feminine hand. It bore no return address, but the stamps were from the UK and it felt lumpy, as if it contained something other than a letter. Did I know any women in the UK who might be sending me something? No one came readily to mind, and who wrote personal letters these days anyway?

  I slid my finger under the flap and tore the envelope open. Inside was a single piece of stationery wrapped around another envelope, this one small and ivory-colored, the kind of envelope in which people sent party invitations or thank-you notes. Written on the second envelope was a single word: Jack.

  I recognized the handwriting immediately. I was in no doubt at all.

  I laid the small envelope on the table and unfolded the sheet of paper that had been folded around it. It was fine, expensive stationery that had the texture of money. Across the top was printed SALLY KITNAROK.

  My stint as a lawyer for Sally’s famous husband Charlie had not been my finest hour, but Sally and I had remained friends through it all. And now that I thought about it, someone had told me a few months ago that Sally had moved back to London.

  The note was short. I read it slowly and with a degree of trepidation. I could not imagine it contained anything I would be happy to hear.

  It didn’t.

  Jack, I don’t know if I am doing the right thing here, but I bumped into Anita quite by accident yesterday. She asked me if I could tell her how to reach you. I didn’t feel I should do that, but I told her I could get a message to you. She sat right down and wrote something and sealed it in the envelope I have enclosed. I hope by sending it to you I am not reopening wounds and causing you pain for no reason. I just didn’t know what else to do. Fondly, Sally

  I GOT UP AND walked over to the windows and stood there for a long time staring out into Gage Street.

  The rain was hammering down again, spraying the walls of the buildings along the narrow road. The gutters were little rivers rushing downhill to the harbor, and the umbrellas wielded by pedestrians covered both sidewalks like black toadstools wobbling on a riverbank. I watched the fat globs of rain run slowly down the windows, form into narrow rivulets, and drip over the sills onto the umbrellas below. Sometimes rain in the city looks cleansing. Sometimes it seems to scrub the city of all its accumulated grief and sweep it clean of sorrow. Sometimes it feels as if it is announcing a new day.

  This wasn’t that kind of rain. This rain looked grey and tired, as if it could barely be bothered to fall. I knew exactly how it felt.

  ALL OF A SUDDEN I was ready to go to Macau. To be completely honest, I would have gone most anywhere right then. Getting myself into motion seemed a good thing to do and Macau was as good a destination as anywhere.

  I dumped my laptop and charger into my briefcase and thought about what else I might need while I was away. Nothing immediately came to mind. It was not so many years ago that preparation for a business trip was a tedious process for a lawyer. You had to gather up piles of case files and locate all your notes and diaries and address books so that you would be prepared to cope with whatever issues might arise while you were traveling. No more. Now all that information is stored away on your laptop, and probably for good measure on your tablet and your phone, too. Nobody carries around paper anymore, just like nobody writes letters anymore.

  Or almost nobody.

  I picked up the little ivory envelope with Anita’s handwriting on it and I dropped it into my briefcase without opening it.

  My eyes flicked over The South China Morning Post lying on my table and I thought again of the story that wasn’t in it. Whatever the reason they hadn’t run Miss Cheung’s story today, they surely would run it tomorrow or the day after. It was too good a story for the SCMP to pass up. And when they did run it, every triad soldier in Macau would be on the lookout for me.

  That caused me to think of something else it might be handy to take to Macau.

  I went to last filing cabinet on the back wall and opened the heavy padlock holding the security bar. The bar thunked against the floor as I pushed it down and freed the cabinet’s drawers. I opened the bottom one.

  Hong Kong has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the world. With very few exceptions, private citizens simply aren’t allowed to own guns and the possession of firearms is restricted to law enforcement agencies, the military, and some private security firms. Any private citizen who is found with a firearm pulls a long stretch in prison. No excuses, no argument.

  I lifted the case out of the filing cabinet and pushed the bottom drawer closed with my foot. The case looked like a briefcase, but was slightly smaller and slightly squarer and made of highly polished aluminum that glinted even in the dull light of my office. I put it on my library table, snapped open the catches, and raised the lid. I stood for a moment looking down at the Ruger LC9 9mm held in place with foam inserts. Three pockets cut into the inserts held two boxes of hollow points, an Osprey sound suppressor, and a black nylon belly holster.

  The Ruger is an ugly little handgun, barely six inches long. Its blued-steel frame is chunky and square. Aesthetics aside, the Ruger is a weapon with a couple of decided advantages. It’s small enough for easy concealment, and it has a laser sight built into its trigger guard. The little red dot that it projects onto a target gave even a lousy shooter like me a fighting chance to hit whatever he’s aiming at.

  This particularly Ruger was properly licensed to Charlie Kitnarok, my former client. It might be impossible for private citizens to own guns in Hong Kong, but this was Asia. The impossible is always possible, if you know the right people and have the right amount of money. Charlie easily qualified on both counts. He had carried the Ruger occasionally when he was in Hong Kong, mostly in the winter when he wore jackets that concealed it. I couldn’t think of any good reason for him to carry it. Charlie had never been in any danger in Hong Kong, at least not that I heard about. I figured he just liked the idea of knowing he was armed when nobody else was.

  The thing was, Charlie hadn’t been in Hong Kong in a year and wouldn’t be coming back again. He had left his gun with me, his lawyer, for safekeeping. So here it was, sitting on my desk now all perfectly legal and proper. But if I closed up the case and took the Ruger with me to Macau, that would be the end of legal and proper. I wasn’t licensed to carry it, Charlie was. And wherever Charlie was hanging out these days, it wasn’t anywhere near Macau.

  There was no security check on the ferry between Hong Kong and Macau, and I had never even seen a customs agent when I entered Macau. I could take the Ruger with me if I really wanted to and nobody would ever be the wiser, probably. Still, was it worth even a tiny risk to have it?

  Back when I lived in Washington, DC, I had a friend who was a DEA agent and he had taken me out to the DEA range a few times and given me some tips on handlin
g a handgun. Something he said then came back to me as I stood in my office in Hong Kong, looking down at Charlie’s Ruger nestled in that little aluminum case.

  Better to have a gun and not need one, than to need a gun and not have one.

  I closed the case, snapped the locks, and shoved it down into my briefcase next to my laptop.

  I LEFT THE OFFICE about midday. I had booked a seat on the three o’clock jetfoil for Macau and I needed to go back to the apartment and pack some things first. As I squished my way up the wet sidewalk along Hollywood Road toward the Mid-Levels escalator, there were a lot of things I should have been worrying about. The SCMP story that wasn’t there, the MGM smurfing operation, and the security pictures that were waiting for me in Macau were three of those things. But none of them were on my mind at that moment. All I could think about was that ivory-colored envelope with Anita’s handwriting on it I had tucked into my briefcase.

  It had stopped raining, and that disappointed me. When I left the office I had thought I would be walking home in the rain, which seemed to me to be a romantic gesture entirely appropriate to the circumstances. Now I was being deprived of even that.

  I had not seen or spoken to Anita since the night she left our apartment in Bangkok. What did we have to talk about? Anita had found somebody she liked better, she had left me, and we had gotten divorced. She broke my fucking heart. That pretty much covered everything.

  But now this.

  Old bones. Bones buried so deeply I had been certain no one would ever find them again, not even me. But now, here they were. Rising up out of the past right at my feet.

  Nothing is ever really over, is it? The clock ticks and nothing changes. Whether you remember the past or not, it remembers you.

  William Faulkner said that this way: The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.

  I rubbed at my eyes and walked on.

  EIGHTEEN