Dead and Kicking (17 page)

The beagle stopped at my feet, sniffed my shoes and then wagged his tail. I gave his shoulders and neck a brisk rub and he flopped on his back, offering his chest for a pat.

‘What a bloody tart,’ Jack said.

Breakfast was on the table five minutes later and gone ten minutes after that. My night with Nhu had also left me hungry.

‘After you headed off to bed last night, Nhu filled us in on your adventures on the way to the Foreign Correspondents Club. Looks like Crockett’s people aren’t giving up, so you might want to be a bit careful.’

‘That puts us in the same boat,’ I said.

‘VT and I can take care of ourselves and we keep a low profile anyway. We’ll just raise the drawbridge and hunker down until all this blows over.’

‘When do you reckon that might be?’

Jack shrugged. ‘Maybe when someone makes the American Ambassador an offer he can’t refuse. Another cup of coffee, Alby?’

As I sipped my coffee I was wondering what kind of offer that might be. I was also wondering how Miss Hoang knew I was heading for the FCC from the ferry, as I was certain I hadn’t mentioned it on the boat ride to Macau. How she’d managed to be in Central at such an opportune moment was a whole other ball of wax.

A few minutes later Mr Rayes walked out onto the terrace holding a silver tray. ‘This was just delivered by messenger,’ he said.

There was a letter opener on the tray and a heavy envelope, hand addressed to me care of the hotel.

‘So much for me keeping a low profile,’ I said.

Mr Rayes put the tray on the ground and Jack whistled for Biggles. The beagle gave the envelope a cursory sniff and walked away.

‘It’s okay, you can open it now,’ Jack said. ‘All deliveries get X-rayed and then Biggles gives them the once-over. He’s a retired explosives sniffer dog. We thought about putting in one of those electronic devices, but I’d much rather have something that likes having its tummy rubbed.’

‘Paranoid, Jack?’

He nodded. ‘And still breathing, so it’s working for me.’

I slit the envelope open and unfolded a sheet of heavy paper. The letter featured expensive printing, embossing, gold leaf and some extremely elegant calligraphy.

‘Apparently, the Manchu Palace Hotel & Casino requests the pleasure of Mr Alby Murdoch’s company at seven this evening for some fine dining at the chairman’s table in the Eight Banners restaurant.’

‘Very nice,’ Jack said. ‘The Eight Banners does some excellent nosh. Who’s doing the inviting?’

I handed him the invitation. ‘It doesn’t say.’

Jack frowned. ‘If it’s the Manchu Palace Hotel & Casino and the chairman’s table, it has to be Playford Peng.’

‘But how the hell would Playford Peng know I was in Macau?’ I was starting to get really pissed off that everyone else seemed to know more about what I was up to than I did.

‘Beats me, Alby,’ Jack said. ‘But aren’t you supposed to be getting on a plane back to Oz? You said that Gwenda person was threatening to have your guts for garters if you kept dicking around.’

‘Gwenda might have to wait. I know there’s some connection between Peng, the Manchu Palace Casino, Peter Tranh and the missing fish, and maybe I can find out what it is. The problem is, it says tonight is formal.’

‘Don’t worry about a dinner suit, Alby, we can fix that,’ Jack said. ‘The real problem is that when you’re dealing with the Peng family, formal means a bow tie, no firearms over 9mm and gentlemen will use silencers. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.’

Modern Macau is a Special Administrative Region of China, and one schizophrenic little city. The former Portuguese colony was Europe’s first foothold in Asia, and pretty much a sleepy backwater when compared to Shanghai or Hong Kong. The colony’s Portuguese and local Chinese casually intermarried and intermixed their culture and cooking, producing the handsome Macanese and the world’s first fusion cuisine, with dishes like sweet curry crab or my favourite,
galinha à Africana
, spicy African chicken.

The sleepy backwater part was jettisoned when the decision was taken to open the place up as a gambling mecca with multiple casinos. Macau’s low-rise colonial architecture dating back hundreds of years was now overshadowed by high-rise casinos springing up in the city and along the waterfront strip on land reclaimed from the sea. I guess you could describe that part of Macau as looking like Las Vegas, only without its understated good taste, elegance and sophisticated charm.

If over-the-top opulence, blindingly bright lights and cross-cultural train wrecks are what you’re looking for in an evening out, you can’t go past Peng’s Manchu Palace. Speaking for myself, I wish I had. Within thirty seconds of strolling into the glittering foyer, my teeth started to ache. The joint was packed with goggle-eyed mainland Chinese visitors and featured an atrium tall enough to house a Saturn Five moon rocket. Surprisingly, that was exactly what it held, all 110 metres of it, with an Apollo space capsule seated on top for good measure. About thirty metres above me, two men in silver spacesuits bounced around on bungee cords in a jerky simulated space-walk.

A beautiful girl wearing a see-through spacesuit over a silver-mesh bikini handed me a leaflet explaining that in honour of the Lunar New Year it was Moon Month at the casino, and various luminaries and retired astronauts from NASA’s Apollo space programme would be in attendance. There were also actual moon rocks from the actual moon on display, and Moon Burgers served with Space Fries and a complimentary glass of orange Tang – the Astronauts’ Drink – were available in the six 24-hour snack bars.

I rode a smooth-as-silk escalator up twenty metres to the restaurant level, where a maître d’ in a dinner suit was standing behind a small desk. I handed over my invitation. The maître d’ ran his eyes down a list on a clipboard, frowned momentarily, checked the invitation again and then smiled.

‘Mr Murdoch,’ he said, ‘we are deeply honoured to welcome you to the Manchu Palace Hotel and Casino.’ He handed me a small black lacquer box embossed with the casino logo. ‘With our compliments, should you wish to spend some time at our tables.’

Inside the box were ten poker chips. Ten one thousand US dollar chips.

‘And should you wish to avail yourself of any of our other facilities,’ he continued, ‘please feel free to simply sign for them.’

He handed me another embossed black lacquer box. This one held a fountain pen. A gold Mont Blanc, with the hotel’s crest engraved on it.

‘Your pen, Mr Murdoch, is solid silver with 24-carat gold plating. It is part of a limited edition specially handcrafted for the Manchu Palace as a gift to its most honoured guests.’

‘I’m touched and moved,’ I said, ‘and I’m glad I decided to dress up.’

Jack and VT had done a great job arranging suitable attire for the evening. Mr Rayes took some measurements, and a quick phone call produced a salesman with a dozen dinner suits, a range of dress shirts and several boxes of shoes. The salesman brought along a tailor for any adjustments that might be needed, a barber stopped by to trim my hair and scare the crap out of me with a cutthroat razor, and by six-thirty I was looking good enough to be critically assessed by two gay men and a straight comprador. Even Biggles had given me a yelp of approval.

‘Please follow me,’ the maître d’ said.

The restaurant in the Manchu Palace made the State Dining Room at Buckingham Palace look like my local McDonald’s. It was the kind of over-the-top opulence where you wouldn’t be surprised to find fifty-grand Tang Dynasty ceramic horse statuettes used as doorstops. The place was packed, but most of the action was centred on a massive round table that seemed to have three waiters for each of the fifteen diners. Everyone at the table had one of the black lacquer boxes and a pen in front of them. As I approached, I saw a couple of familiar faces amongst the guests.

One was Fysh Rutherford, twin brother of Graeme Rutherford, a former D.E.D. field agent retired from active duty after his cover was blown and he’d undergone some nasty interrogation sessions. While Graeme had gone into the espionage business, Fysh, who had a short attention span and a somewhat tenuous grasp of spelling and grammar, had become an advertising copywriter and made a bloody fortune. On a dollar return per word basis, advertising copywriting has been described as one of the most lucrative forms of writing there is, coming second only to ransom notes.

‘No camera tonight, Alby?’ Fysh yelled. ‘I wanted a snap of me and the missus.’

All Fysh knew about me was my photography work for WorldPix. I shook my head. ‘I’m having an evening off, mate,’ I said, bending down to give Fysh’s gorgeous wife, Jacqueline, a kiss on the cheek. The bloke was a serious foodie so I asked if he was here as part of Jezebel’s Gourmet Asia tour but he shook his head.

‘Nah,’ he said, ‘just flew up to meet with a new client. We won the pitch for the Fischer Aquaculture business and we’re going to have Jezebel blanketing the media to launch this de’lish new wonderfish, barrana, which we’ll be marketing as JezzaBarrana if she gets her way.’

‘Jezebel always gets her way,’ I said. ‘How much background have they given you on the product?’

‘Not a lot, mate. It’s still in the development stage, and we’ve signed one of those non-disclosure agreements, but it’s apparently some sort of fast-growing crossbreed they’re farming somewhere in the Top End.’

I was starting to wonder what people thought the non-disclosure part of non-disclosure agreements actually meant.

‘They’re supposed to taste bloody Jezza-licious,’ he continued. ‘We’re pushing that for our tag-line by the way, so watch out for it.’

‘If I see it coming, I’ll run a mile,’ I said. ‘And speaking of the lovely Ms Quick, is she here tonight?’ I asked.

I was wondering if she’d arranged for me to be invited, and then I spotted her.

Jezebel was on the other side of the table, seated between two men – no surprise there. One I recognised from his photograph as Detlef Fischer, and the other was a rotund Chinese guy about the same age or a bit younger. Jezebel saw me at the same time.

‘Alby, you old bastard!’ she yelled, her voice carrying over the din of the packed room. ‘What the hell are you doing in Macau? Get your pasty white butt over here.’

That appeared to take Jezebel off the list of people who might have invited me. When I finally reached the other side of the table I bent down to give her a kiss on the cheek.

‘Sorry about missing you for drinks last night,’ I said, ‘but I was tied up.’

‘What drinks?’ she said. ‘I was stuck having a farewell dinner at Felix for my dickwit foodies.’

Felix is the elegant Philippe Starck-designed restaurant and bar on the 28th floor of the Peninsula Hotel Tower. It’s popular with the Hong Kong glitterati, and besides the designer food and ambience, one of its many talking points is a men’s room where patrons piss into jade urinals in front of floor-to-ceiling windows, showing their willies to the whole of mainland China.

But if Jezebel had been at Felix last night, who had sent me that text?

‘Jesus, mate,’ Jezebel said, looking at my outfit, ‘if I’d known you could scrub up this well I might not have given you the arse.’

‘I do kind of miss those romantic days we spent tripping hand-in-hand through flower-strewn meadows with packs of gambolling puppies.’

‘Screw you, Alby,’ she said. ‘Let me introduce the boys. On my left here we have Mr Detlef Fischer, who runs a couple of fish and chip shops, and this is our gracious host, Mr Playford Peng.’

Fischer smiled and I was almost blinded by what had to be thirty thousand dollars’ worth of cosmetic dentistry. He looked as big awanker as he did in the photograph Cartwright had shown me, and he gave me one of those ‘I’m a good bloke, you can trust me’ bone-crushing power grips.

‘Nice to meet you,’ I said to Fischer, ‘any friend ofJezebel’s is … probably quite exhausted.’

I bowed slightly to Playford Peng. ‘I have to thank you for the warm welcome to your wonderful casino, Mr Peng,’ I said, ‘and the generous gifts.’

Stick me in a dinner suit, wash my face, comb my hair and you can take me almost any place.

Playford Peng was staring at me with a fixed smile. It was the kind of stare that makes you want to check that your fly is zipped up. Or maybe it was the stare you get when you show up at dinner and the host is wondering exactly who the hell you are and what you’re doing there lowering the tone of the festivities.

Playford made a quick recovery and smiled as we shook hands. Compared to Fischer’s vice-like grip, Peng’s handshake was soft and pasty, like one of those Chinese custard tarts.

‘Any friend of our Miss Jezebel Quick is most assuredly a friend of mine,’ Peng said sincerely, sincerely not meaning every word.

Peng’s tuxedo must have cost a bomb and it was cunningly tailored to disguise the fact that he was a short, fat little man. It made him look like a short, fat little man in an expensive tuxedo. His mouth made a shape roughly approximating a smile but his eyes were cold, hard and calculating.

‘As to the gifts,’ he continued, ‘the Peng family, under the sage guidance of my beloved father, believes that generosity is a virtue.’

‘Your father is well?’

He shook his head. ‘Sadly, since his stroke he is confined to a wheelchair. I have been forced to see to the day-to-day running of the family enterprises.’

‘You have my best wishes for your father’s speedy recovery.’

Playford smiled that insincere smile again and snapped his fingers.

A chair was placed between Fischer and Jezebel, bowls and chopsticks appeared and a cup was filled with tea for me. Peng waved to a man who had the look of a bodyguard pretending to be a waiter, and whispered in his ear. The man nodded and hurried away. I sat down and smiled at Fischer.

‘Chip shops, eh?’ I said. ‘You a classic beer-batter man or do you lean towards something in the way of a light tempura?’

He smiled politely. ‘It has been some little while since I worked the deep-fryer, Mr Murdoch, and fish retailing is only a small part of my business,’ he said. ‘I’m actually a fresh fish importer and wholesaler. ANL Fischer Seafoods, you may have heard of of it.’