Jackpot

29

Bingo went back to his house and finally ate, then took a nap to sleep off whatever was left of the cocktails Billy Barnett had stabbed him with.

The nap didn’t last long. Just as Bingo was entering deep sleep, someone started banging on his door so hard the whole building seemed to shake. Bingo only knew of one person big and stubborn enough to knock like that, and it was not someone Bingo wanted in his house.

Bingo opened the door and found a man he knew only as Gong. It was a name Bingo found offensive, but also appropriate because it referenced how many times the man had been hit in his life. Bingo had hired Gong to attack the Americans’ film set. Now that the work was over, Bingo had hoped he’d seen the last of the man.

“What can I help you with, Gong?”

“I need more work.”

“I told you when you signed on that this was a temporary job.”

“I need to do it again.” Bingo could understand why. Arrow Donaldson paid top dollar. It was hard to let go of a good thing.

“There is no more work. Everyone is gone from the set. There’s no one to attack.”

“That’s not what I saw the other day,” Gong said.

Bingo paused. “At the production office? Tell me what you saw.”

Gong nodded.

“There was a man and a woman working there. The woman had been there before, with the two Americans. This guy was new. American, but older than the others.”

“There are several businesses in that building. It doesn’t mean that they were doing anything with the movie.”

“They weren’t just at the office. They went back to the pawnshop where the other two Americans did their filming. The one you wouldn’t let me go to.”

“Arrow Donaldson said not to attack the pawnshop. It’s important to his business.”

“I don’t care about that. I just want to know if there’s going to be more work now that people are back at the movie office.”

Gong seemed genuinely excited to get back to work harassing the film sets. Bingo wasn’t sure if it was because he hated the American movie people as much as Sonny Ma did, or if he just liked beating people up, and all the better to be paid for it. Either way, Bingo hated to have to tell the imposing man there was no more work on that front.

“That’s just a money guy coming in to close things down,” Bingo said. “The two men you saw earlier have already gone back to the U.S. I am sorry.”

“I can swing a bat at a moneyman, too.”

“There will be more work in the future. Don’t worry. You did a good job, and that will be remembered.”

Gong pushed his way into the house, closed the door behind him, and moved closer toward Bingo.

“I don’t need to be remembered. I need to be paid.”

Bingo nodded and put his hand on Gong’s enormous chest, showing that he wasn’t afraid of the man’s size or threats. He wasn’t afraid, but he also didn’t want to make an enemy of the giant man if he didn’t have to. He thought back to why he’d originally brought in Gong, who was not a part of his regular crew.

“Sonny Ma really hates the American movie people, doesn’t he?” Bingo asked, echoing what he’d told Billy Barnett.

“It’s not just Sonny Ma. A lot of us in the streets hate those monsters and what they’ve done to our city.”

“More than what the casinos have done to the city?”

“They are one and the same to me.”

“You’re part of Sonny Ma’s crew, right? Does he even have a crew anymore?”

“It’s not an organization. But there are those of us on the street still loyal to him.”

“And people know you and Sonny Ma are connected to each other?”

“Yes.”

“Come to think of it, I might need you to take one more ride.”

If an associate of Sonny Ma’s killed Billy Barnett, it would bolster the claim that he was behind the recent crime spree. It would do enough damage to his reputation that Sonny Ma would never be able to show his face in Macau again.

“Do you have any problem killing a man?” Bingo asked.

“I have a harder time not killing them.”