Lucky Break (27 page)

“Easy to say, hard to do.”

Man, I knew that song and could sing it myself.
 
“Right.
 
Hang in.
 
Let me know if I can help.”

“Your dance card seems a bit full.”
 
Jeremy hadn’t asked about my father.
 
He probably didn’t know.

I didn’t feel the need to add to the boulder he was already shouldering.
 
“What else is new?”
 
I grabbed the door handle and eased the door open.
 
“Wish me luck.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

M
ISS MINNIE must’ve seen me coming.
 
She met me at the door, barricading the entrance with her tiny body.
 
Tonight she wore a silk kimono and enough jewelry to have every cutpurse salivating.
 
Her face, clownish with makeup, her dark hair swirled and lacquered on top of her head, even in five-inch platforms she didn’t make my shoulder.
 
Still, she wasn’t one to be underestimated.
 
Even though a small package, she packed a big punch.

“You not wanted here.
 
Go away.”
 
Her voice could cut glass.
 

“I need to talk to Kim.”

Her face turned to stone.
 
“No know Kim.
 
She not here.”

I adopted a posture of exaggerated patience, which really wasn’t all that exaggerated, my well bone dry.
 
“Minnie, I know, okay.
 
I know.
 
You want to leave me out here to air your dirty laundry, or are you going to invite me in to talk with your daughter?
 
If she’s in some kind of trouble, I need to know.
 
I can help.
 
And I can also cause trouble;
 
I think you know that as well.”

Minnie made her bank on not attracting unwanted attention from Vice.
 
To have survived and not ended up on the front page of the RJ being carted to jail spoke volumes about her savvy and cunning, two things I was counting on.
 
She’d also been around long enough to have the dirt on well over half the players in the state, from high government officials to casino bosses.

“You be quiet.”
 
She stepped aside, allowing me past, but she didn’t look happy about it.
 
Still, I thought I caught a hint of relief; although, with all the pancake, it was hard to tell.
 
“Men don’t like big bossy woman.”

“Unless they have a whip and are wearing leather,” I muttered.

She gave me a haughty look.
 
“What kind of place you think this is?”

“I know what kind of place this is.
 
It’s a Vegas kind of place.
 
Everything is negotiable.”

She narrowed her eyes. “You think you so smart.”

“Far from it.
 
But I’ve been around long enough to know how to play the game, just like you.”

Miss Minnie caved.
 
Things must really be bad.
 
“She in the back.”

Kimberly was curled up on a cot in the storage room in the far end of a hall that had doors to smaller rooms down each side.
 
She bolted to a seated position, her legs bent in front of her, her arms encircling them.
 
A defensive posture.
 
She eyed me as I grabbed the back of a chair and spun it around to face her.
 

Minnie looked between us for a moment.
 
“She help.
 
You listen,” she said to her daughter, then bowed and shut the door.

“How did you know I’d be here?” Kimberly’s voice shook with fear or fatigue, I wasn’t sure which.
 
Probably both.

“I’ve been a part of Vegas for a very long time.
 
Even though almost two million people live here, it’s still a small town.”

She didn’t look surprised—she’d parlayed the same kind of access and info into a six-figure income and, she’d sat at the feet of her mother.
 
“Macau, it is that way.”

“Even more so.
 
Much like Vegas in the past, a high-stakes game with no rules and no oversight.
 
Money talks, and when somebody doesn’t listen, bad things happen.
 
Am I right?”

She brushed her hair back with a shaking hand.
 
“The rules of the street are still more trusted than the rules of the law.”

“So, you want to tell me how you ended up between an assassin and a Chinese diplomat?”

Her eyes dipped.
 
“My father, he is old school.”

“The diplomat who won’t talk to me, the guy who’s in town on the QT?
 
He’s your father?”
 
I knew he was a player in Macau; and with the last name Cho, it would’ve been easy to jump to conclusions, although Cho was as common a name in China as Smith in this country.
 
I’d considered the possibility, so I wasn’t surprised as much as amused.
 
Miss Minnie and a diplomat, the stuff Hollywood or at least those tawdry tell-all shows would salivate over. This could be good, or really, really bad … like international incident bad.

“Yes, and he is not happy.
 
I have shamed him.”

Shame.
 
Keeping face.
 
Esoteric concepts for us Americans who tend to cover ourselves with ignominy to feed the insatiable appetites of reality television.
 
But for the Asian cultures, appearance really was everything.
 
“Can you give me a hint?”

Her face colored, her eyes sought the floor.
 
“I have been very stupid.
 
And with a married man.”

“You’re pregnant?”

Still staring at the floor, she nodded.
 
“It is worse.”

And I had an oh-shit moment.
 
“And Holt Box is the father.”
 

More nodding.
 
She seemed to shrink away from me, as if I was beating her with a cane or whatever horrible thing it was they did to “sullied” women in the Dark Ages and still in the not-so-Dark-Ages in far horrid corners of the universe. “That’s why Holt left Macau and broke his contract?”

“My father threatened to kill him.”

I eyed her.
 
She was scared.
 
“How did he know any of this?”
 

“I don’t know.” Crossing her arms, she tried to keep eye contact but couldn’t.
 
“I didn’t even know he was my father until a few years ago.
 
My mother, she worries.”

“Is that why your father is here?
 
To kill Holt Box?”

Tears leaked down Kim’s face.
 
“It is possible.
 
My father has diplomatic protection.”

“But Sam, or whatever his name is, does not.”
 
I bolted to my feet and began pacing.
 
Three strides across the small room, pivot, three strides back.
 
As I tried to think, I made several circuits.
 

Kimberly remained a mute statue, but she couldn’t muffle totally her quiet sobs.
 

I paused in front of her.
 
“Why is your father still here, and why does he want my father dead, assuming he does?
 
Is signing Holt Box really enough to warrant death?”

“You do not know my father.”

I resumed my pacing.
 
“I’d really like to know the shooter’s real name.
 
I’ve been told he worked for Holt Box.”

She raised her head, swiping at her eyes with the back of her hand.
 
A tissue was in desperate order, but I was fresh out.
 
Scanning the shelves, I found a fresh box amid the bottles of antiseptic and sanitizer, boxes of condoms, latex gloves, and cases of massage oil and handed it to her.
 

“His name is Sam, Sam Wu.”
 
She dabbed her eyes as they followed me back and forth across the small room.
 
Who told you he worked for Holt?”
 
Her voice hiccoughed.
 

“Holt’s wife.”

“She is lying.”
 

Now that was an interesting little tidbit.
 
I so wanted to believe it that I had to caution myself to keep on a rational plane.
 
“How do you know?”

“Do you know her?” she asked, her feelings showing.

“Instant dislike.” I said without thinking, but not regretting my honesty.
 
At her slight brightening, I added, “But that doesn’t mean she’s lying.”

“She is.
 
I was with Holt a lot.
 
I helped him with his business, like I do for you.
 
Macau …”

“Takes an inside man, I know.”
 
Tired, my brain completely out of sugar and alcohol, its fuels of choice, I couldn’t think anymore, and didn’t want to.
 
With thinking came feeling.
 
“That’s all you know?”

“My father’s business is not known to me.”

“The shooter was just here.
 
Did he come to see you?”

Her eyes grew wide with fear as she tucked into herself.
 
“Sam Wu was here?”

“Yes.
 
He spoke with your mother.”

That seemed to rock her a bit.
 
“Kim, if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I can’t help you.”

“Nobody can help me.”
 
She sounded like she believed it.

“Please, out-of-wedlock children are all the rage these days.
 
Your family will get over it.”

“You don’t know my family.
 
My brother—”

A sharp word from the doorway stopped her.
 
“Kim!”
 
Miss Minnie had been listening.

Kimberly once again stared at the floor, her dark hair hanging like a curtain shrouding her face.
 

“Minnie.
 
There is bad business going around.
 
You need to tell me who that man is who came to talk to you.
 
The one in the yellow Lambo.
 
The one who shot my father.”

“He shot Albert?”
 
Her voice cracked.
 
“He okay?”

I nodded.

“Albert, he made things right for me.
 
Long time.”

Sounded just like him.
 
“Now you make things right for him.”

Miss Minnie sat next to her daughter and pulled her close.
 
“Kim my daughter.
 
Sam, he also my child.
 
Sam very bad.
 
That man you look for?”

“Irv Gittings?”

“Him.
 
He pay Sam lots of money to do bad things.”

“How do you know this?”

“Sam tell me.”

“Why would he tell you?”

“He try scare me.
 
Scare Kim.”

“Do you know what Irv is after?”
 
I got the whole Cho family saga, but where and how did Irv inject himself in it?

“I know you both know Irv Gittings.
 
Did either of you pull him into this?”

“No.”
 
Miss Minnie dropped the word like a bomb.
 
“We no stupid.”

Kim nodded in agreement.
 
“I did some PR work for him a long time ago.
 
I was just getting started; he was a pretty big player.

I remembered that version of Irv, the façade I’d needed time to see through.

Kim finally met my eyes.
 
“But, if you learned my heritage, it would be possible for Irv Gittings to learn it as well.”

And it’d be just the sort of info he’d leverage to his advantage.

Lost in a fog of hatred and frustration, my heart hurting for everyone and my trigger finger itching for an opportunity, I left Miss Minnie’s through the back door.
 
Jeremy was about as functional as I was, but danger was his business.
 
Flash was ill-suited to handle herself against the Sams of the world.
 

I felt sure Flash was keeping her eagle eye on the back door, probably recording the comings and goings for a future exposé, so all I had to do was walk through the door to get her attention.
 
Minnie hadn’t said anything more as I left.
 
She and Sam had argued—she’d been a bit vague as to over exactly what, leaving me with the impression that what she had told me was only part of the story.
 
She didn’t even hurl one of her ubiquitous insults.
 
Pain lurked under all that makeup. And desperation.

 
Her kid was hurting; she thought I could help.
 
The burden of her expectations rested heavily on my shoulders.
 
A lot of folks seemed to think I could untangle some of these Gordian knots.
 
A case of misplaced confidence, I feared.