Jackpot

55

Teddy was pleased to find Dale Gai still at the safe house where he’d left her. He was less worried that the police would have tracked her to the off-the-books cabin and more worried that she might have left on her own, deciding she didn’t need Teddy’s help.

Dale was having tea and reading a book. She looked more relaxed than Teddy had seen her in their short time together. If he’d been a different person, he might have felt bad for dragging her back into the mess he was in. He sat down and had water instead of tea and gave Dale a brief summary of his meeting with Sonny Ma and the film festival organizers. When he was done, she was smiling mischievously.

“So, it seems the men in Macau continue to fail miserably,” she said.

“A harsh judgment, but not wrong,” Teddy said, somewhat abashed.

“And now you expect the women to come in and fix everything?”

“Not all the women, no, just one. You.”

“What about your friend from the CIA?”

“How do you know about her?”

“Such a silly question to ask,” Dale said. “It makes me wonder if you are as smart as I once thought you might be.”

“I’ve been mistaken for a lot of things over the years, but smart isn’t usually one of them.”

Dale Gai cocked her head to the side and sipped on her tea. Teddy suspected she was trying to figure out what to make of him, and how much of herself and her life in Macau to risk to help him.

“Do you know Sonny Ma?”

“We are acquainted,” Dale said

“Does that mean you’ll help me fake his death in front of an audience?” Teddy asked.

Teddy remained silent while Dale contemplated her options.

“You need this to wrap everything up, don’t you?”

“We all benefit, yes. Including you if Li Feng agrees to testify against Arrow Donaldson to the U.S. government and they send him away.”

“I don’t need this as much as you, but I would be in a better place with Sonny Ma owing me a favor. I’m in.”

“Li Feng is not likely to try and kill Sonny Ma herself,” Teddy said. “She had the perfect opportunity when she was alone with him at his mother’s house.”

“With her influence and family connections, there was no shortage of people she could have chosen from to carry out the job. But she can’t use those connections now.”

“That leaves hiring someone through the street scene grapevine. We should start at the pawnshop by Arrow’s casino where Bingo followed me.”

“Lunch first, then the pawnshop,” Dale said.

Lunch was pork chop bun sandwiches with iced lemon tea at a shop that looked like someone had opened a bodega in an abandoned maintenance shed. The pork chop bun was one of the greasiest and most delicious things Teddy had ever tasted.

When they arrived at the pawnshop, Teddy noticed the conversation was easier and less hostile than the last time he was there. Looking back on that interaction in hindsight, Teddy also suspected someone, probably Bingo, had been in the back room watching their interaction, which had probably been a source of stress for the man behind the counter.

Teddy wrote down an untraceable phone number that forwarded calls to the phone in his pocket. He slipped it across the desk, on top of a few large bills. “If Li Feng comes to you asking for someone to be a killer, you give her this number. That’s all. You know Li Feng?”

The man nodded. Teddy waited for him to glance back toward the room behind him, maybe indicating that someone was watching, but the man kept his eyes on Teddy and Dale as he took the paper and the money, and discreetly placed them in his pocket.