The Scam (14 page)

“That was an amazing performance,” Nick said once they were clear of the VIP salon and strolling casually through the casino toward the elevator.

“I was going to say the same thing to you,” Kate said.

“I had the easy part,” Nick said. “I just told them the truth with a lie or two thrown in. You had to intimidate them into folding.”

“That's not so hard when you're holding a gun,” she said.

“It wasn't the gun that sealed the deal,” he said. “It was how you got there and what it revealed about you. I wouldn't want to get on your bad side.”

“You have been on my bad side,” she said.

Nick broke into a grin. “That's right, and it was a lot of fun. I kind of miss it. And by the way, did you notice you gave Trace a stiffie?”

“That wasn't me,” Kate said. “He had it when I came in.”

T
race sent everyone away except Garver and Dumah.

“I'm surprised that you let Sweet and Porter just walk out of here,” Dumah said. “They're playing you.”

“I'm a reasonable man and they made a convincing argument,” Trace said. “Griffin was fair game, a swindler who got swindled. There's nothing wrong with what Nick and Kate did to him. In fact, I admire how they did it. It shows that they're smart and daring. The fact is, those two have done nothing to me but make me richer.”

“It's just a part of their plan,” Dumah said.

“I really like that part. But now it could be over because I let my curiosity override my good judgment,” Trace said. “I have to find a way to apologize and win back their business.”

“You don't want to do that,” Dumah said. “They're liars and crooks.”

“My best customers are liars and crooks. I can live with that. But do you know what I can't live with?” Trace stepped up to Dumah. “Underlings who question my decisions.”

“I'm sorry, Mr. Trace.” Dumah lowered his head. “I'm just trying to serve you better than I did Griffin.”

“No, you want to avenge your honor,” Trace said. “So listen to me very closely. If anything bad happens to Nick and Kate while they are in Macau, I will hold you personally responsible. If Nick stubs his toe and breaks it getting out of bed, it's on you. If Kate gets bitten by a mosquito and has an allergic reaction, it's on you. And the consequences for you will be extreme and disfiguring. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir,” Dumah said.

“You can go now,” Trace said.

Dumah nodded and walked out.

Trace watched him go. He would never admit it to Dumah, but he had taken the bodyguard's warning to heart. He wasn't going to act on it the way Dumah, or even Nick and Kate, would expect him to act. He was going to follow Nick and Kate's example instead. He'd swindle the swindlers.

Garver joined Trace at his side and gestured to the chair with a swing of his mallet.

“This wasn't a mistake,” Garver said. “Now you know who they really are.”

“And they know me,” Trace said.

“That's a good thing,” Garver said.

It certainly was. Because the next time one of them was in that chair, and Trace believed it was likely that one of them would be, they'd know that they deserved their suffering and that he had every right to thoroughly enjoy it.

Kate went back to her room to change her blood-splattered clothes, making a mental note to do more sucker punches to the throat and hand out fewer broken noses. She discarded the clothes, showered in steaming hot water, and dressed in an indigo cap-sleeved cashmere pullover and white slacks that were like a second skin thanks to a large percentage of spandex. She swiped on some lip gloss and mascara, pulled her hair into a ponytail, and returned to the VIP suite.

The woman who opened the door to the suite introduced herself as Birgita.

“Natasha has fallen ill,” Birgita said. “It hit her very suddenly, but she'll be fine tomorrow. May I offer you a cocktail?”

Kate declined and went into the living room, where the game was still in progress. Billy Dee and Boyd were still seated at the baccarat table. They'd each bet $150,000 against the dealer. Nick had joined them.

“You're missing out,” Boyd said to Kate. “Birgita makes an amazing lemon-drop martini.”

He held up his empty glass to Birgita, who took it with her to the bar. “Another one, Mr. Blackmore?”

“Absolutely,” Boyd said. “With lots of sugar on the rim.”

“That's a manly drink,” Billy Dee said. “Maybe you'd like some whipped cream on it, too? And a little umbrella stuck into it.”

Boyd turned to Birgita. “Make sure the martini is shaken, not stirred.”

“Now it's manly,” Kate said.

The four of them shared a smile. It was an acknowledgment that they were glad to be together again, alive and well.

They could have stayed at Côte d'Argent for dinner, but Billy Dee was eager to explore Macau and see what remained of the dangerous port city he once knew. Kate, Nick, and Boyd were glad to join him after being cooped up in the suite all day. They'd gone from the chopper to the car to the hotel without really stepping outside. They were in Macau, but they could have been anywhere.

They left the casino and followed the tiled sidewalks along Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro toward Senado Square, the heart of the old city. The sidewalk was a uniquely Portuguese mosaic of black and white stones, known as
calçada portuguesa,
that had been painstakingly laid by hand to depict the fish, boats, and sunshine that had been vital to Macau's economy before the casinos came along.

The tiles in Senado Square had a wave pattern that became dizzying, almost animated, when it was revealed in glimpses beneath the feet of the hundreds of Chinese tourists and Macanese locals in the wide plaza. Kate kept her eyes up, taking in the pastel-colored neoclassical buildings around her, each one filled with history and one with a crowded McDonald's.

Billy Dee shook his head with disgust as they passed the McDonald's. “There used to be a terrific whorehouse in there.”

“This is better,” Boyd said. “They have a dollar menu.”

“They had a dollar menu at the whorehouse,” Billy Dee said.

“Do we have a destination?” Kate asked.

“Lorca's Hideaway,” Billy Dee said. “Hopefully it hasn't been taken over by a Gap. Back in the day, it was run by a one-eyed fisherman and opium addict. Fabulous Macanese food upstairs and the best opium den in the city in the basement.”

“It would be a shame to visit Macau and not sample the opium,” Boyd said. “It would be like going to New York and not having a hot dog.”

There were several narrow roads spiraling off from the square. Billy Dee started to go up one of them, then abruptly doubled back, choosing to go on a different one. The road that he picked was crammed with people and weaved up through a tangle of side streets and dead-end alleys, toward the ruins of St. Paul's Cathedral. Both sides of the road were lined with
pastelarias,
open store fronts that sold cookies, candies, and sheets of meat jerky that were stacked like reams of paper. The competition between the
pastelarias
was fierce. Shopkeepers cut samples from the jerky with scissors and used tongs to thrust pieces of meat out at the passersby. Other shopkeepers held out baskets and platters of cookie pieces. It created a bottleneck. People bunched up as they stopped to grab samples or avoid colliding into someone.

When Billy Dee doubled back Kate caught three men in her peripheral vision who doubled back with them. She couldn't see their faces, but she had a fix on their clothes and their size. The men were doing their best to stay close but were hugging the walls to avoid being caught behind in the bottleneck or, worse, being shoved up against their quarry.

Kate sampled the thick boar fillet from one
pastelaria,
the top beef filet with black pepper from another, then zigzagged across the street for a taste of spicy pork with abalone sauce. Along the way she managed to steal a pair of greasy scissors from a shopkeeper's apron pocket.

“Where is Lorca's?” Kate asked Billy Dee.

“On Travessa da Fortuna,” he said. “It's a side street that's coming up.”

“You keep going,” Kate said. “I'll catch up with you.”

Nick kept his gaze focused in front of him as he navigated through the crowd. “You're worried about the three guys following us.”

“When did you spot them?” she asked.

“When Billy Dee changed his mind about which street to take,” Nick said.

She wasn't surprised that he'd noticed the tail when she did. He'd been a con man and a fugitive for years, so looking over his shoulder for the police or someone that he'd swindled had become instinctive.

“I picked up a pair of scissors, if you'd like them,” Nick said.

That didn't surprise her, either. He was a gifted pickpocket. “Already got my own, thanks.”

“I've also got tongs and an entire sheet of pork neck jerky wrapped in paper.”

“Now you're just showing off.”

They turned right onto Travessa da Fortuna, a tight, dark alley that dead-ended at a retaining wall with a mossy concrete staircase cut into it that went up the hillside. The only light in the alley was cast by the windows of a small restaurant in a lopsided old stone building that seemed to be leaning against the retaining wall for support.

Billy Dee, Boyd, and Nick went on ahead toward the restaurant, but Kate slipped into a dark alcove, pulled out her scissors, and waited. On the stoop beside her, there was a smoking stick of incense in a small bucket of ashes. The bucket was on a decorative platter with a lemon, dried flower petals, and several small cups of tea. It was a shrine, left for good luck by whoever lived or worked behind the closed door. Kate put the scissors in her back pocket and picked up the bucket of ashes. She said a small silent prayer, asking forgiveness from whoever or whatever was in the bucket. And as the three figures passed the alcove, she heaved the ashes on them. She leapt out while they were blinded and coughing, smacked one across the face with the bucket, hit another in the groin, then whirled around, taking out the third with a spin kick. She whipped the scissors out of her pocket and jammed them against the throat of the guy she'd hit with the bucket. His head was covered with ash, but she recognized him. It was Dumah.

“Did Trace send you, or is this personal?” Kate said.

“No, you've got it all wrong,” Dumah said, coughing on the ash.

“You boys weren't just out for an evening stroll.” Kate looked over at the other two men, who were getting slowly to their feet. One was the man she'd fought in the Côte d'Argent stairwell, the other was the guy who'd been guarding the door to Trace's dining room. They all had good reason to want her dead. “Were you looking for an opportunity to kill me or just give me a good beating?”

“We're here to protect you,” Dumah said. “Mr. Trace has put us in charge of your safety. If anything happens to you in Macau, we'll be held accountable.”

“So do us a favor and stay out of dark alleys while you're here,” the stairwell guy said, slightly pitched forward, his hand cupping his privates.

This was the second time she'd assaulted him today. She almost felt sorry for him.

“And please watch what you eat,” the other guard said. “Make sure the egg tarts are fresh and avoid oysters.”

“You're in trouble even if we get food poisoning?” Kate asked.

“We don't want to find out,” Dumah said.

Kate saw the fear in his eyes and didn't think it was from the scissors at his throat. “Have you ever considered a different line of work?”

“Not until today,” he said.

The dining room décor and the menu at Lorca's hadn't changed since Billy Dee's day, but everything else was different. The one-eyed opium addict who'd established Lorca's had died, and the restaurant was now run by his grandson Ernesto, who'd honed his culinary skills in the finest kitchens in Lisbon and Hong Kong. The opium den downstairs had been turned into a coffeehouse and performance space used mostly for poetry readings. The customers appeared to be clean-cut and middle-class. The only pirates, con men, and thieves in the room, as far as Kate could tell, were the four of them.

They ate pork-stuffed squid, grilled sardines, deep-fried salted cod balls, and
minchi,
a bowl of minced meat, onions, cheese, soy sauce, and a fried egg. Kate thought the food was incredible. It was a tasty fusion of Portuguese and Chinese flavors, unlike anything she'd had before. Billy Dee remained sour faced throughout the meal.

“What's wrong with you?” Boyd asked him.

“Macau has lost its charm,” Billy Dee said. “All of the danger is gone.”