Choke Point (2 page)

“I know you know, but you look a bit short on patience.” She gave him a teasing smile, the kind that could still make his old heart giddy-up and gallop. “So, I’m
reminding
you.”

“Well I don’t need
remindin’,
” he whispered back, though they both knew that wasn’t true. “But if I hear
bad joss
one more time, that boy’s gonna be wearing one of my boots up the backside of his fundament.”

She chuckled and patted his knee as Li Quan began his fashion parade. Though Jake smiled and nodded to each team as they paraded past the table, nothing registered, his mind struggling to find some way to speed up the construction process. He wanted to pick up a hammer, do something with his own hands, but that would look desperate, and all it would take for the press to unleash their bloodhounds. That’s the way it worked—one minute he was that loveable Vegas cowboy, and the next just another dumbass cowpoke from West Texas—but either way, up or down, Big Jake Rynerson made good copy for the tabloids, and their minions were always watching. So he was stuck, hoping Mother Nature would turn her wrath elsewhere, hoping the contractor could finish before anything else went wrong, hoping the press…

“What do you think?” Billie asked as a casino hostess in a micro-short dress of shimmering gold stepped forward.

He felt like a lecher just looking at the girl, who couldn’t have been more than eighteen, with perfect golden brown skin and sparkling black eyes. “About what?”

“The dress. You think it’s too flashy?” Billie pointed toward the heavens and made a circling motion with her finger. The girl executed a graceful pirouette, her pixie-cut black hair spiking outward as if charged with electricity.

Jake tried to concentrate on the dress but couldn’t move his eyes beyond the hemline. “It’s awful damn short.”

“These girls don’t have breasts, Jake, and they’re not very tall. They need to show some leg.”

“I got no problem with legs, Billie. We just don’t want ’em flashing their fannies around, that’s all.”

Billie tilted her head, a look of amusement. “Jake, honey, you’re blushing like a schoolboy.”

And feeling like one.
Embarrassed, he pushed himself back from the table. “It’s almost nine o’clock in Vegas. I promised Caity I’d call before breakfast.”

“What about the dress?”

“Whatever you think.” He grabbed his cellular and started toward the back of the room, but before he could punch in Caitlin’s number, the tiny unit began to vibrate. The number on the display, a Macau prefix, was not one he recognized. “Hello.”

“Mr. B. J. Rynerson, this I presume?” Despite the awkward syntax, the soft feminine voice was both confident and seductive, with only a hint of Cantonese accent.

Jake hesitated, moving deeper into the room. Only three women knew his private number, and this was not one of them. “And who is this?”

“My name Mei-li Chiang. Perhaps you have heard this name?”

“It’s possible,” he answered cautiously, though he knew the woman by reputation: a well-known power broker, and one of the few Macanese who had managed to maintain influence in the new Special Administrative Region—the SAR—that guaranteed Macau a “high degree of autonomy” when Portugal turned the province over to China in ’99. “What can I do for you, Madame Chiang?”

“It is more what I can do for you, taipan.”

He hated the title—
big boss
—and tried to discourage its use. “Please call me Jake.”

“Jake,” she repeated, turning his hard-edged name into something soft and provocative. “I understand you are having problems.”

Was she guessing—he knew the Macau grapevine was healthy and well entrenched—or did she really know something? “The usual construction delays.”

“Not so usual, I am told.”

He wanted to know exactly what she had heard and who had said it, but was positive she would never divulge a source or any details of what she knew. That was the crux of her power—
secrets
—and she would know how to keep them and use them. “Nothing we can’t handle.”

“That is most gratifying to hear, taipan. I thought perhaps I could be of some small service…” She paused, her voice a teasing mixture of promise and provocation.

He could already feel her hand in his pocket and knew he was being sucked toward a vortex of Chinese graft and corruption. Given a choice, he would have told her to take a flying leap off the Taipa Bridge, but if she did know something, he needed to quash the story before it spread. “Yes, it’s true, we’ve had a few unfortunate accidents.” Nothing, he was sure, she didn’t already know.

“Accidents,” she repeated, as if the word amused her. “I think it is more than that, taipan.”

“And you could help?”

“Perhaps. I have some small experience in these matters. There are people I could speak with about these…
unfortunate accidents.
”

“And what’s this here ‘small experience’ going to cost?”

She made a little sound, a disapproving exhale of breath, offended that he should be so blatant and boorish. “This is not about money, taipan.”

He knew better. Once a person acquired that ludicrous title of
businessman and billionaire,
it was always about money. “Please excuse my ignorance, Madame Chiang. I’m just a simple
qai loh,
and a cowboy to boot.”

“A foreigner, yes, but we both know you are neither ignorant nor simple, taipan. You misunderstood my offer.”

“Which was?”

“To welcome a new friend into the colony. To provide assistance. Your problems are my problems.”

He didn’t believe a word of it. “That’s much appreciated, ma’am. Sure is.”

“We should discuss these problems.”

Or more accurately, the cost of eliminating them, a situation he could see no way to avoid. If he went to the police—who cared nothing about the problems of a rich
qai loh
—the story would leak out; and if he didn’t pay, the
accidents
would continue. The only question was the amount it would take to make the problems go away. “Yes, ma’am. I’m listening.”

“These are not matters to be discussed over the phone.”

Right,
you don’t discuss bribes and offshore bank accounts over the airwaves. “What do you suggest?”

“A private meeting.”

And you don’t discuss such matters in front of witnesses, which was perfectly fine with him. “When and where?”

“I am at your service, taipan.”

He glanced at his watch—4:51—realized the day was rapidly slipping away, and the Alliance that much closer to dissolving. “Is today convenient?” He tried not to sound as desperate as he felt, but could hear it in his own voice. “Say nine o’clock?”

“Ten,” she answered instantly, obviously aware she had him on the hook, and could reel him in at will. “You are familiar with the
Leal Senado
?”

“The old senate building?”

“
Hai.
From there you must walk.”

He pressed the
RECORD
button on his smartphone. “Give me directions, I’ll find you.”

Billie leaned forward over the white tablecloth, her whispered voice as tight as the string on a new guitar. “This isn’t like you, Jake. You’ve never paid a bribe in your life.”

He shrugged, trying to keep it casual, nothing he couldn’t handle. “I’ve never done business in China.”

“It’s too dangerous,” she snapped back, her voice rising, the words echoing through the dimly lit bistro. “Forget it, Jake. Please.”

He gave her his best good ol’ boy smile, trying to dampen the fire in her eyes. “You sure do look spectacular when you’re angry, darlin’.”

“Don’t you try and sell me with that cowboy bullshit. Don’t even try. I’m too old to buy, and too smart to believe.”

“I mean it, Billie.” And he did. She might have acquired a few wrinkles around the eyes and mouth, but it was a face built on a magnificent superstructure of bones that didn’t depend on makeup and perfect skin. “You look as good as the day we got married.”

She frowned in mock disgust, though her eyes sparkled with affection. “Like that’s a big whoop. We’ve only been married two years.”

“I meant the first time.”

“You’re so full of bullshit, I’m surprised those baby blues haven’t turned brown over the years.” She dropped her voice another notch. “What else did he say?”

She assumed it was a man and he saw no reason to say otherwise. That would only exacerbate the problem, her thinking he was meeting some Chinese seductress in the backstreets of Macau. “That was it. The person who called was just a go-between.”

“You don’t know that.”

No, but he believed it. Mei-li Chiang was a political parasite; she didn’t create problems, she lived off them. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It does matter. You’re one of the richest men in the world; you can’t start paying bribes to everyone who tries to shake you down. For all you know it’s the Triad.”

“The Triad hasn’t operated in Macau since ’98. These are just some local yahoos trying to score a few bucks from the newest
qai loh
wanting to play in their sandbox.”

“I don’t think so.”

That was the problem with Billie, too damn smart. They both realized the
accidents
were too severe for a bunch of local yahoos. “Why?”

“If this was just about money,” she answered, “they would have made a try after the escalator got trashed and before a bunch of innocent people got killed.”

He shook his head, but that was exactly his thinking. There was something else going on, something he didn’t understand. “There’s no reason to worry, they just want to be sure nothing is being recorded. They’ll give me an amount and the number of some offshore account and I’ll be back at the hotel in less than an hour. Besides—” He glanced around, making sure no one was eavesdropping on their conversation. “—I don’t really have a choice. If these accidents continue we’ll never get the place open in time. The Alliance will fail.”

“That’s not your problem.”

“The President made it my problem. I gave my word.”

“Don’t do it, Jake.” She reached out and clutched his hand, the way a person does at thirty thousand feet in bad weather. “Please, I’ve got a very bad feeling about this.”

“I’ve got to, honey. You know I do.” He gave her fingers a reassuring squeeze. “I’ll be careful.”

She cocked her head toward the three-man security team near the door. “At least take one of them.”

“Can’t do it. The instructions were very specific. Private. If I don’t show up alone there’ll be another accident tomorrow, you can bet on it.”

She released his hand and slumped back into her chair, resigned.

Ten minutes later he was on the Avenida de Almeida Ribeiro, the main thoroughfare dividing the narrow southern peninsula from northern Macau. Despite the late hour and the rain, there was still an abundance of foot traffic, a combination of tourists and locals. Jake pulled the collar of his Gore-Tex jacket up around his neck and hunched over, trying to conceal his massive frame, but it was hopeless, like trying to hide Paul Bunyan in a land of midgets, and he gave up the effort. Guided by street names etched onto azulejos—the distinctive blue-enameled tiles of Portugal—he turned north on Rua de Camilo Pessanha, then west toward the inner harbor, moving deeper into old Macau: a maze of narrow, cobbled streets offering a colorful mixture of shops, churches, and small cafés.

After twenty minutes of back and forth and around, he was thoroughly confused, blindly following Madame Chiang’s directions into the hodgepodge of alleyways and backstreets, away from the tourists and pedicabs. From time to time he had the feeling of being watched, eyes following his every move, but saw nothing and dismissed the apparitions as the fruit of an over-stressed imagination.

Another few turns and he found himself in a dimly lit area of closed shops, the foggy street empty of people. Though the rain had eased to a drizzle, the humidity was thick enough to chew, and his shirt was now soaked with sweat. He stepped into the covered entryway of a Chinese apothecary and checked his notes in the reflected glow of his cell phone.
Almost there.
He leaned into the misty rain, checking the street for any sign of activity.
Nothing,
but he could feel something, or someone, and didn’t like it. The place was too dark and remote, the whole scenario too much like an old Charlie Chan movie the moment before everything went bad. But what choice did he have? If he didn’t show up, there would be another accident, more innocent people dead. And that’s all it would take, one more accident and they would miss that magic feng shui timetable; and then the dominos would fall, Taiwan would blame Beijing, Beijing would blame the United States, and the President would have no choice but to blame that dumb ’ol West Texas cowboy.
Shit.

He stepped back into the narrow street, moving cautiously toward the hazy glimmer of a streetlamp about a hundred yards ahead. It was like moving underwater, the fog softening the harsh lines of the shops into muted shades of gray, the sound of his own footsteps muffled and distant. At exactly ten o’clock a woman stepped out of the fog and into the yellow cone of light beneath the streetlamp. She was dressed in a shapeless silk chemise, as garishly colored as a macaw, a cream-colored shawl draped over one arm. “Good evening, taipan.” Her soft, sensual voice dissolved into the heavy air, barely spanning the short distance between them.

“Nei ho ma?”
he answered, the standard
Hello, how are you?
greeting of the province. She was a short woman, not more than five foot, early forties, with black hair pulled back into a bun at the back of her head, and thick black eyebrows that arched together like bat wings over sharp, black eyes—ugly as a Komodo dragon. “Madame Chiang?”

She smiled coquettishly and dipped her head.
“Hai.”

He returned the bow and stepped forward into the light. He wanted to get straight to the point, the money—the how much, the when, and the where—but that was not the way of business in China. “It is generous of you to meet me on such a night.”