WHEN I burst through the front door of Tigris everything seemed…normal. I didn’t like it. First, I tried Ming. She didn’t answer. I didn’t want to call Jeremy—he needed his phone to talk with Jerry and Chip.
So I did the only thing I could—I hit the elevator and headed up to my suite.
The door was unlocked. I palmed my gun and eased it open.
Laughter filtered out. Then the pop of a cork.
Jeremy, Miss P, and Ming stood in a circle. Everyone had a glass out for Jeremy to pour.
Miss P had two. “Oh, Lucky, there you are.” Jeremy filled one of her glasses and she held it out to me. “Come, let’s celebrate.”
I set my gun on the table by the door, then accepted her glass as I joined the group. “Glad to see you guys aren’t beating the bushes looking for me. Weren’t you worried?”
Jeremy scoffed. “Hell, no.”
Miss P rolled her eyes. “Worried sick. Bruno, here,” she tilted her head toward her hubby, “was ready to scour the city. But Frank called, told Ming what happened.” Her grin faded. “Teddie’s okay?”
“He was standing when I left. Frank said he’d take him to the hospital. We probably ought to check on him in a bit. I did leave Frank with a bit of a mess and some explaining to do.”
“Should we go help?”
Normally I’d be the one to bound off looking for a windmill to tilt. “No. His fight. His city.”
Miss P looked relieved as she sipped the Champagne Jeremy had poured for her.
I seconded that emotion. “Where’s Romeo?”
“On his way,” Jeremy said, holding up the transmitter for me to see. “I told him he was missing the party. Of course, he couldn’t reply.”
“But we know he’s okay?” I pressed.
“Yes,” Ming said. “I was hiding where you said. I saw him. He was not far behind me, and I walked in right before you.”
“And Sinjin?”
“Disappeared.” Disappointment tugged the corners of her mouth into a frown.
Despite local custom, I gave her a quick hug. “Don’t expect people to live up to your expectations.”
She looked like she understood, but I also could tell the next time the two of them met, Sinjin was in for an ass whipping. I’d like to be in on that, but I wanted to go home—and really, I had no expectations for him to not live up to. He didn’t owe me a thing. Now for the big question—the answer to which would seal my fate. “The watches?”
Faces fell, followed by uncomfortable glances all around.
So not good.
I was just starting to imagine what jail would be like when a voice sounded behind me. “The watches? Got them right here.” Romeo strode into the room, holding the bag aloft.
I rushed over to him, spilling my wine. “The real ones?”
Romeo had a raised bump on one temple, and his smile looked a little wobbly.
I grabbed his arm and led him over to the couch. “Sit. Did he hit you?”
“You told me he probably would. I was prepared for it, but he still caught me by surprise. The fakes you had Ming stash in the pedestal of the last watch—I was just able to make the switch right before. I thought maybe he was onto me. But we got all the way to the hall leading outside. That’s where he hit me. When I came to, the bag was gone, and so was he.”
“So these are the watches you went back for?”
“Yeah.”
“How do you know they’re the real ones?”
“I did like you said: I took a flower in there and then put it in the bag as we were stealing the watches.” He opened the bag and held it out to me. “Dig down under the boxes. You’ll see the flower is still there. I didn’t put it on top because I thought maybe Sinjin might be smart enough to look.”
I reached in, pawing through the priceless watches, and pulled out a battered rose. And then it hit me, “It’s really over.”
“You haven’t asked about the money,” Jeremy reminded me.
“I know this sounds odd, but the money was the least important part. Stolen goods. But tell me about the money.”
“We took half—well, your buddy Chip took half out of Irv’s account as you asked and left half there.” When I opened my mouth, he held a hand up. “Chip wired the money into that offshore account I told you about that I have for, well, cases like this. I took a screen shot and sent it to Stokes, who rather gleefully said he’d show it to Mr. Cho, who was his guest in the back of a patrol car.”
“So you made it look like Irv had already taken half the funds?”
“Just as you said. Brilliant, by the way.”
“With Irv dead, we don’t really need Mr. Cho after him.”
“On the contrary,” Jeremy countered with a shit-eating grin. “We’ve stolen a lot of money from some very bad men. If we put them on Irv’s trail, so much the better.”
“They might come sniffing around, though,” Romeo said, ever the detective.
I jumped in. “I’ve thought of that. So, if you guys don’t mind spending one more day, that will give me time to take care of a few things, and get Teddie stable enough for the long ride home. What do you say?”
“We can go out on the town,” Romeo said, sounding not really that enthusiastic.
“How about you lay low. Order a feast from room service, anything you want. Then get some shut-eye and we’ll head home tomorrow?”
“I’ve got to get this equipment back to the bloke I borrowed it from,” Jeremy said.
“I need to get seriously wasted,” Romeo added. Tonight had probably taken years off his life, but from the look on his face, it was worth it.
I turned to my assistant. “Miss P, what’s your pleasure?”
“I think I just need to sit for a bit.”
“Offer up some thanks for me, would you?”
She smiled at my soft tone.
“Would you be so kind as to get the plane moved to Macau?”
“It will be here in the morning stocked for the flight, the pilots rested and ready.”
“Thank you.”
“And, Romeo, if Minnie is able to talk, you might have one of your guys at home go talk to her. She’s got a story and it’s important.”
He looked like he understood as he rose and stepped away from the group and pulled out his phone.
“Where are you going?” Ming asked.
“If you’ll come with me, there’s someone I’d like to introduce you to.”
Vito Morgenstern lived in a rather unassuming apartment halfway up one of the many hills dotting the city. He had a view, but he didn’t advertise it—just that fact alone made me inclined to like him.
My father’s faith in him guaranteed I would trust him.
When I pulled into the drive and up to the front door, Ming put a hand on my arm. She hadn’t said one word the whole drive. “Are you sure about this man? He is very powerful.”
“Yes, and when I leave, you will need powerful friends.”
“You do this for me?” She seemed taken aback.
“For you, and Pei, and the other women, most of whom I’ll never know. For Miss Liu. But you have to promise me something.”
“Yes?”
“If Ryan Whitmore gives you any trouble, you will shoot him for me.”
“Oh, I will do it myself.”
“Good.” I opened my door. “Come on, let’s do this. I need to stop in at the police station, then go bust an old boyfriend out of the hospital. Maybe then I’ll get to go home.”
Ming hung back as we approached the massive wooden door. “Why no guards? No guns?”
“Real power means you don’t need any of that.”
The door opened before I could find the bell.
Vito was exactly as I expected, a short, wizened Jewish guy with a firm handshake, a bald head, a big smile, and intelligent eyes. He met us at the door himself, wearing a silk robe and slippers.
I was surprised to realize it was still early. Time had lost all meaning.
Except I needed to get home.
“Lucky!” Vito bellowed, his voice much larger than his body. “He pumped my hand up and down. “When your father called, I was so excited to get the chance to see you again. Of course, the first time I saw you, you were much shorter.” He grinned up at me.
“You knew?” It seemed a lot of folks knew the Big Boss was my father long before they shared the secret with me.
“We helped each other out back in the day.” He herded us into a large great room with expansive views and comfortable furniture. A grand piano was tucked into the far corner. Photos graced the wall next to it—eight by tens, seven by fives, all framed in black with a white mat and hung in a mosaic of memories from waist-high to almost the ceiling.
I paused to drink in some of old Vegas. Vito lurked at my elbow. He pointed to a photo. “There’s your father and myself when we were young and mean enough to think we could make something of ourselves.” He pointed to another. “Here’s one with your mom.”
They looked so young, so ready to tackle the world, so sure the future held only greatness.
We all pass through that phase.
We sat in a comfortable sectional. When everyone was settled, I opened the conversation. “Vito, this is my friend Ming. She’s a very fine young woman, but, like most of the fine young women in this city, she needs your help. Here’s the deal. I’ve got eighty million U.S. I managed to reroute from Mr. Cho and his friends. I trust those men were no friends of yours?” I asked Vito pointedly. I was pretty sure I knew the answer—the Big Boss wouldn’t steer me wrong—but I wanted to see what he’d say.
“On the contrary. They make life very difficult for an honest businessman like me.” Vito managed that with a perfectly straight face.
“Really?” I must’ve sounded skeptical.
“Yes, didn’t your father tell you? After he pulled my ass out of the fire back in Vegas, I decided to make it as a legit businessman. Oh, he was chapped when he found out I’d crawled into bed with the Wiseguys.”
“He was?”
“Yeah, we used to call him Prince Valiant. So incorruptible your father was. He made it his way, though. Never compromised.”
So that was the secret my father didn’t want me to know? Or Vito was shining me on for my father’s benefit. I didn’t really care which was true. The truth was what I believed—at least when it came to my father.
“And you?”
“An honest businessman selling gaming equipment to the casinos.”
Honest meant different things to different people, but I wasn’t in a position to quibble. One thing I knew about him for sure—he didn’t run girls for other men’s pleasure, and that was what mattered.
“Okay,” I continued, anxious to make sure the doctors on the small spit of land didn’t kill Teddie. “Actually, I misspoke before. I don’t have the eighty mil; my friend Ming does.”
She looked at me with large eyes, blinking rapidly. “She will use this money to better the lives of all the young women here who need to get out of their present circumstances, if you follow?”
Vito smiled and shook his head. “You are your father’s daughter.”
So many people had said that I was starting to believe it…and like it. “Ming will need your wise counsel and your protection. I don’t need to tell you there could be Triad trouble.”
“No. I have my own ways of dealing with the Triad. They do not scare me.”
“Well, you are old, but Ming is not. Nor am I, although I feel old at the moment. And, the Triad scares both of us.”
Vito threw back his head and laughed. “You have nothing to fear. I will offer you both my protection.”
I leaned over and patted Ming on the knee—she still sat ramrod straight like a statue. “You can’t do anything better than that. Are you up to this?” I should’ve asked her first, but I didn’t want her to say no before she met Vito. “You can get out, but now is the time. After this, I don’t think it will be possible.”
She gave me a steady stare. “For the girls.”
“For the women.”
Then she smiled, reminding me how young she was. “Yes, this.”
“May I leave you two to work out the details?”
Vito and Ming looked at each other. “Tea?” he asked her.
Her courage kicked in. “Please.”
Still too early for the house staff to be awake, Vito excused himself to go find the kitchen.
I eyed my young pupil. “You make a hard bargain with him.”
She nodded.
“He is a man of honor. He will do as he says.”
Vito returned. “I rousted the butler. He will bring tea shortly.”
I rose. “I’ve a plane to catch.” I turned to go. “Oh, Vito, one more thing. Watch Ming, she has a pirate friend who is a bit shifty.”
I caught up with Detective Uendo at the steps leading up to St. Paul’s. With daylight breaking, the place looked totally different than it had a few hours ago. Much less sinister. The bodies had been carted off. Probably not good for tourism to leave them around.
“When are you leaving?” he asked as I approached. He was standing in almost the exact spot I had been standing when I’d pulled the trigger.
“We can’t leave without your clearance.”
“I heard the FBI rounded up a bunch of our upstanding citizens early this morning. Waves are being felt all the way to Beijing.”
“Really? How clever of them.”
“I also heard the watches at your exhibit had been stolen.”
I pursed my lips. “If you check them, you’ll find that is not true.”
“Not now.” He gave me a sideways look.
He turned to look out over the stairs leading up to the cathedral ruins. “So, if someone stood right here, do you think it would be possible to shoot someone up there,” he pointed to the top of the steps, “narrowly missing an innocent man. Then turn and drop an armed man over there.” He pointed where the brick guy had fallen.
“They’d have to be really lucky.” I managed that without even the hint of a smile. Yes, my luck had turned. And, curiously enough, I liked Uendo.
“That’s what I’m thinking,” he said, patting the pockets of his coat like Columbo before him.
“So the guy up there was shot?” I pointed to the top of the steps.
“Before someone planted a knife in his chest. The same knife used to kill Kim Cho.”
“Wonder how that knife came to find its way here?”
“Bad police work. I will find who was responsible.”
Yes, I liked Uendo a lot.
“Will you let us go home?”
“Yes, with a proviso.”
That raised my eyebrows. From his tone, I thought perhaps a prison sentence might still be in my future. “What?”
“Frank and I will clean this up.” He swept his arm to include all of Macau. “But, if we call…”
“I’ll come running.”
He grabbed me in a hug, surprising us both.
Romeo’s text caught me on the way to the hospital, rerouting me to the airport.
I found my gang huddled in a small building at the Macau airport, watching through the window as the G-650 taxied up. The adrenaline in all of us was waning. Miss P leaned on Jeremy, safe in his hug. Romeo held up a pillar in the corner, and Teddie lounged on a sofa that had seen better days, his leg, bound in white gauze and tape, rested on a chair he’d pulled around in front of him.
I sat down next to him. “How’s the leg?”
“Flesh wound. Amazingly it just tore through muscle but missed everything that would hurt worse.”
“Or kill you.”
He looked wrung out without even the hint of sparkle he usually had. “Are we really going home?”
“No. Somewhere over the Pacific I’ve asked the pilots to pull over so I can throw you out.”
He sighed and let his head fall back against a pillow someone had stuffed behind it. “Wow. Home.”
I patted his hand resting on the couch between us. His skin was cold. “It really is over.”
“You believe Frank?”
“I don’t have any idea what he said or what his story is. The police should be talking with Minnie, I hope. We’ll piece it together.”
“You put everything on the line to get me off.”
“It’s what friends do.”
I left him sitting there, not sure what he was feeling or how I felt about any of it. Well, happy that everything had turned out okay, but totally clueless as to how I felt about Teddie.
We’d always been best as friends. I’d like to get back there…if we could find the new normal and start over. Who knew? But there’d always be a place in my heart for Teddie.
I wandered over to Romeo. “I assume you gave the watches to…”
“Miss Liu and the police. They were headed to reinstall them in the exhibition hall. Dear God, I thought she’d never let me go.”
“Why?”
“She thought she’d be fired, and then you gave her the grand poobah job. She was beside herself.”
“Yeah, I’ll talk to her when the dust settles. I just didn’t have any more corporate in me, you know? Been coloring outside the lines for a few days. Need to remember what it’s like to live in the real world.”
He got a glazed sort of faraway look. “I know what you mean,”
I leaned into him and whispered, “So, how did it feel to steal them?”
He glanced around to make sure no one was listening then leaned in closer. “Hell of a rush.”
“Awesome, right?”
“You and me,” he said as he looped an arm around my shoulders, “we push the boundaries. Always will.”
Miss P and Jeremy took one bedroom. We put Teddie in the other and gave him a pain pill. Romeo and I were stuck with the chairs in the main cabin—they unfolded to lie flat, so it wasn’t a horrible hardship. Besides, at this point I felt I could sleep standing up if someone just propped me in the corner.
We’d reached cruising altitude, the pilots had dimmed the lights, and Romeo had poured us some of the Twenty-Five—we’d put a dent in the Big Boss’s stash.
It was déjà vu all over again when Romeo plopped down across from me in the club seating area. “You talk to JC?”
He always called Jean-Charles that, which chafed my formal chef a bit. “Yeah, he said he’d be waiting.”
“I’m a bit whacked, but, by my calculations and with the pilots’ complicity, we just might make it in time for the fireworks.”
“Fireworks?”
“It’s New Year’s Eve—well, it will be when we cross the date line again. Right now, it’s New Year’s Day. Happy birthday, by the way.”
I leaned back. I’d forgotten. “Been a birthday to remember.”
“Even though you didn’t remember it was your birthday.”
“Grasshopper, you should show a bit more respect for your elders.”
We clinked our glasses and I thought it had been a damn great birthday. “Were your guys able to talk to Minnie?”
“Yeah, she’s still singing, but the gist is that your father was the target. Sam Cho wasn’t even there, it was the guy you shot, the brick-wielding dude.”
So that’s why he looked familiar. “Wow.”
“I know, right? Anyway, Teddie wasn’t supposed to be there. He interfered, and Holt Box took the blow meant for your father.”
“So how did Ol’ Irv figure into that?”
“He was stepping on Sam. Sam reached out to his Mr. Cho, who sent the assassin guy. Then Irv shot Sam because he could link him to the murder. And killing a country-and-western icon garnered a bit more heat than Irv could handle.”
“Wow. Holt Box was collateral damage?”
“Yeah. Minnie has Sam’s story on tape. He gave it to her in case anything happened to him.”
I took a slug of whiskey. “Poor Sam, he just wanted his brother back.”
“Irv promised Sam he’d spring Frank if Sam killed your father.”
“In the end, Sam couldn’t do it.”
“No. And, according to Minnie, he was beside himself that Holt got in the way and then up and died.”
“I’m not quite sure I believe Sam was as innocent as Minnie would like us to believe. But, if she’s got his tape and it exonerates Teddie, that’s all I care about. Why do you think he confessed like that?”
Romeo sipped his whiskey. “He probably knew Irv would try to take him out, and would probably succeed, it being Irv’s home turf and all. And he wanted Irv to fry if that happened.”
Sounded good to me. At this point I didn’t know which way was up.
“Did you ever hear from Sinjin?” Romeo asked.
I pulled out my phone and showed him the text I’d gotten as we were boarding. It said simply, “Well played.”
“You think that’s the end of it?”
I stared out at the inky black sky and the Milky Way slashing across the sky. A lightness on the horizon illuminated the curvature of the earth. We were indeed flying high. “Oh, I have a feeling this isn’t the last we’ve heard from Sinjin Smythe-Gordon. Bad pennies always have a habit of turning up.”
“For the record,” Romeo said as he got up to root through the candy basket, tossing me a pack of peanut M&Ms, “I liked him.”
When he again took his seat, he poured the candy onto his tray table and sorted it by color.
“Grasshopper, you have learned a thing or two.”
“Sometime you feel like a nut… Regardless, Sinjin was a cool guy.”
“Yeah, I liked him, too. The lure of the dark side. But I didn’t trust him, and that saved me a prison sentence and my company one hundred million U.S.” I pulled up the map function of my phone, the one that had tracked my helicopter ride with the pirate. “And, I know where he lives.”
Everyone slept most of the way home, me included. My dreams had been vivid and full of adventure, pirates, and the color red. The sun had set, and the brightness of the day stayed behind us as I felt the pilots pull the engines back, drifting down in a final approach to Vegas.
What would home feel like?
The last few days had been spent in another world and I’d almost forgotten my reality—not the heart of it, but the pace, the smells, the normalcy of it. And I felt energized, but more at peace than I’d ever been.
I waited until everyone disembarked before I made a final check of everything. Perhaps I was looking for the me I’d left behind. But she wasn’t here anymore.
Travel, it changes a person.
And it dawned on me that I’d never called my father.
Jean-Charles waited for me at the bottom of the stairs, as he’d promised. In fact, he’d never made a promise he hadn’t kept. Just the sight of him took my breath. Christophe waited next to him. When he saw me at the top of the stairs, he launched himself up toward me. Jean-Charles smiled over the boy clambering toward me. I crouched and caught him as he reached the top. Drawing him tight, I breathed him in. Baby soap and mischief. And I was right back to being me. “I have missed you so much!” I whispered in his hair, afraid to let him go.
He clung to me like a tiny human monkey, his hand fisted in my sweater. “You came back. You promised. And you did.”
I leaned back as I tickled him just a bit.
He rewarded me with a giggle.
“Of course, I came back. You doubted me?”
A serious look darkened his eyes, and I knew he thought of his mother. I couldn’t take that hurt away, but I could show him people didn’t always leave, especially not when they made promises.
“I will never leave you.”
We both fell into Jean-Charles’s embrace.
“You are home,” he said simply, but his voice reverberated with emotion.
“Home.” I thought I understood the full breadth of the word for the first time.
Jean-Charles stepped back. He tried to take Christophe, but the boy would have none of it.
“He’s good.”
“You okay?” my Frenchman asked me.
“Way more than okay.”
“Good,” he clapped his hands, and Christophe started giggling. “It is someone’s birthday, and there is a very big party, with fireworks, and fancy food, and handsome men.”
“The hotel?”
“It is more perfect than you dreamed. That Brandy, she has saved the day with your father and all.”
“My father?”
“He has driven us all mad wanting the most perfect birthday for his daughter. Have you spoken with him?”
“Not yet.”
Jean-Charles looked like he understood.
“Papa!” Christophe wiggled so much I thought I’d drop him. “You forgot to say the presents.” Then he clapped a hand over his mouth. Clearly, he’d been instructed not to say anything.
Jean-Charles tried to look stern and failed miserably. “Yes, there are also presents.”
“Well, good. You know how much I love presents.”
The first whistle of a firework launching drew our attention. Fired from the top of Cielo, it burst in an explosion of colors and light.
Jean-Charles took my elbow. “Come, my love, the party is starting.”
“What did you wish for for your birthday, Lucky?” Christophe asked.
“To be home. Right here. Right now. With my two most important men.”
“So your wish came true.” Christophe seemed to accept that, as if this kind of magic happened all the time.
As I looked at them, their faces alive with excitement and love, I thought perhaps he was right.
Magic happened all the time. And that was the best present of all.
NEVER THE END, ONLY THE BEGINNING….
Thank you for coming along on Lucky’s wild ride through Vegas. If you enjoyed the book please consider leaving a review at the outlet of your choice. It would make Lucky’s day!
