Springboard (35 page)

“Just keep on truckin’,” she said.

He smiled again. He was a fan of the great underground cartoonist R. Crumb, and he had managed to buy a vintage poster with that funny walk by the man. He also had a small statue of Crumb’s Catholic School Girl, which had set him back a week’s pay ten years ago. She was right. Sometimes that’s what you had to do—just keep on truckin’. . . .

Only, from now on, he would do it more carefully. He wanted his son to have a father when he grew up.

In that moment, Jay remembered that he had an appointment with Chang at Net Force HQ that afternoon.

He pulled his virgil from his belt. He had Chang’s number; he probably wouldn’t have left for the meeting yet. He could call and cancel it. No, wait, Chang was in the District—why not meet him somewhere? Or even have him come here?

“Babe? I was supposed to meet the Chinese guy at the office this afternoon, and I forgot. Would it be okay if he came by here? We could stay in my office and do some VR there.”

“The place is pretty messy,” she said.

Jay looked around. “Looks fine to me.”

She laughed. “You wouldn’t notice a dust bunny until it was big enough to trip over. But, okay, bring him by. I’ll run the vacuum cleaner.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

“You must have never been a housekeeper in any past incarnation,” she said. “Of course I have to do that.”

Jay shook his head. “Call Chang,” he told the virgil.

Jack Locke walked out of the casino, slightly lighter in the wallet than when he had arrived two hours earlier. He had played blackjack, small bets, winning for a time, then losing. It didn’t matter. Gambling was not the point, familiarizing himself with the place was. Knowing where things were, how many steps it took from the front doors to the men’s toilets, where the gift shop was, the number of stools at the bar, all these were minor details.

Locke had been around long enough to know it was in the minor details where the devil lived, and if you didn’t pay him proper attention, he
would
mess up your plans. Today, it was the Palace of Prosperity; tomorrow, he might stop by the Golden Wheel, or the Diamond, or the Sands, the Kam Pek, the Lisboa. He could lose at baccarat or boule or fan-tan, or play the slots. And if he dropped a few thousand MOP or HKD? Nothing.

Locke’s cell phone rang. Although they weren’t supposed to, some of the casinos, and that included the Palace of Prosperity, used phone jammers. Nothing like a big base station that would be easy to spot, but guys walking around with tiny ones disguised as pagers or pens or calculators that would kill digital phone signals coming or going within twenty or thirty meters.

There were a couple of reasons the casinos did this. First, they didn’t want customers thinking about the outside world as long as they still had money to lose. That was why there were no clocks in casinos. If a man on a losing streak gets a call from his wife, he might decide to cut his losses and go home if she got demanding enough. But if his phone didn’t ring, that possibility wasn’t there.

Second, there were players who would use every angle they could to beat the house. Card-counting, for instance, wasn’t illegal, but it was prohibited by all casinos, and if you got caught doing it—and winning—you’d be banned from play. The house always won in the end, but it hated to lose anything anytime.

Counters sometimes worked in teams, talking via tiny wireless phones with earplugs so small nobody knew they were there. Jamming those signals made it harder for teams to communicate. Some of the blackjack counters were pretty good. There had been a group from some American school a few years back—MIT?—that had hit Las Vegas and Atlantic City, and even a few European casinos, for millions before a security man finally figured it all out.

The casinos were smart enough not to kill all phone calls. If you were in the lobby or waiting for a table at one of the restaurants, your phone might work just fine. There were dead zones all over, and if there were a few more than usual in a casino, at the tables? Who could prove anything?

“Locke,” he said into his phone.

“You have a problem,” said the voice. No names, but Locke knew who it was. Leigh.

“Do tell.”

“Not on a phone.”

“Our conversation is protected.”

Leigh laughed. “Right. And I’m the King of England. I can probably decrypt your phone program, and I’m not particularly good at it. Come to my place.”

Leigh disconnected.

Locke snapped his phone shut and tapped it against his chin. Leigh wouldn’t have called if the problem was something piddly. He could still walk away from everything if an unsolvable problem cropped up. The plan had not progressed to the point where he was committed, where retreat was not an option. So, they would reach that point, and pass it, but not yet.

Best to find out what Leigh had come across before they reached the point of no return.

Locke waved at a taxi. He wasn’t worried about being followed, but he would change cabs at least once. No sense in taking foolish risks.

The cabbie pulled over, and Locke entered the vehicle.

Chang arrived at Jay Gridley’s condo, feeling most pleased with himself. He had something to bring to the table. No way was he Gridley’s equal, but at least he came with information that he felt the Net Force operative did not have.

Of course, Gridley had not told him the particulars of his business to the point were it would be considered a breach of security; still, Chang had not just fallen off the rice cart. Gridley had dropped enough hints for him to be pretty certain he was chasing a Chinese player of more than passing cleverness and skill, for some reason of major importance. And Chang had an idea as to why.

Perhaps the tidbit he had would be but a small morsel against the sumptuous feast at Gridley’s table. Maybe it was no more than a little seasoning. Still, it was better than coming up empty-handed.

A beautiful woman answered the door. “Mr. Chang?”

“Yes.”

“I am Saji—Jay’s wife. Won’t you come in?”

He inclined his head in a slow bow. “My honor to meet you,” he said.

She led him past a sleeping baby to a room where Jay Gridley was powering up a VR system. “Hey, Chang. Come on in. I have something to show you.”

“And I, you,” Chang said. He smiled.

After meeting with Leigh, Locke went directly to another meeting with Wu. Locked had called this meeting, on his cell in the cab from Leigh’s place.

He hadn’t even bothered changing cabs. This was important, and there was little time for games.

Wu, in his uniform, answered the door. Locke nodded and followed Wu into the kitchen.

“Nice place,” Locke said.

“Which we both know you have seen before,” Wu said. “Along with the occupant.”

Locke smiled, one man of the world to another, and didn’t bother to try and deny it. “Is that a problem?”

“No,” Wu said. “It doesn’t affect our business. What she does on her own time does not matter to me.” This was not strictly true, but better Locke should think so. One did not show the chinks in one’s armor to an armed man, even if he was an ally.

Alliances changed.

Locke bowed his head.

Wu gestured at one of the two chairs next to the small table. There were two glasses set upon the table, along with a bottle of very good Australian red wine. Locke sat, picked up the bottle, read the label, then poured, filling Wu’s glass first before his own.

After they had both sipped at the wine, exchanged a few meaningless pleasantries, and remarked upon the hot and wet weather, Wu leaned back in his chair.

“We have a situation,” Locke said.

“Which is . . . ?”

“Shing.”

Wu raised one eyebrow. “Shing?”

“He’s a gambler.”

“This I already know. I have been supplying him with money.”

“Not enough money, apparently. He has . . . incurred debts.”

Wu frowned. “How much? And to whom?”

“About forty-five thousand British pounds, to Water Room; another twenty thousand to Flexible Bamboo.”

“To triads? He owes this much money to criminals?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know this?”

“I have dealings with another computer expert. He has access to Li Ho Fok’s accounts, as well as those of the loan shark Firecracker Jiang. These accounts are private and there would be no reason to show Shing in them if he did not owe this money.”

Wu’s frown increased. Why did he not know of this? Could Shing have kept such information from Mayli? If so, he was not as stupid as Wu thought.

As if reading his mind, Locke said, “Maybe the boy has more on the ball than we figured, keeping this from us.”

Wu sighed. “Yes. Go on.”

“The gambling debts began several years back, before Shing’s association with us. He started losing money in college. He has added to these losses lately, but according to my source, most of these are bets on sporting events, through Fok or Jiang Wei’s bookies. A call on a cell phone would be enough. I don’t expect Mayli would have any way of knowing about them.”

Wu nodded. A man who would brag to his woman about winning money on a soccer game might not be so quick to tell her that he had lost his shirt betting on others. No man liked to lose face in such a way.

“And your source is not only reliable but . . . trustworthy?”

“Yes, though of course he knows nothing about our plan,” Locke said.

Wu nodded again. He was not surprised that Locke had his own ways of tracking important information. He would have been surprised if he did not.

Wu considered the datum. What did it mean to his plans that his computer genius owed the tongs money? Sixtyfive-thousand pounds was serious business. Shing would have to pay it, one way or another. If things went as planned, Shing would have no trouble covering his debts. He might be holding them off with promises. And how much would he have to tell them to get them to believe these promises?

Wu didn’t like it.

Locke said, “It’s a complication.”

“Yes. We still need Shing. Not for much longer, but for the moment he is necessary.”

Locke nodded. “Yes. I considered bringing my man in, but without Shing’s help, he wouldn’t be able to do the job right.”

“Shing could be persuaded to help,” Wu said.

“Too risky. If my man flubbed, it might be a problem for us. Maybe not, but I wouldn’t want to chance that.”

“No.”

“We could pay off Shing’s debts.”

Wu said, “Yes. I could manage that. But that would do nothing against what he might have already revealed to the triads. If they had the slightest clue what we intend, they would see that Shing’s debt was but a drop in the bucket. They would want to be involved. Too many people would know.”

“Loose lips sink ships,” Locke observed.

“Exactly.”

“So, what do you think we should do?”

Wu sipped from his wine again. Australia was the new France when it came to such things. “I am open to suggestions.”

Locke said, “One comes to mind. What if the triads suddenly found themselves the object of major law enforcement attention?”

Wu permitted himself a small smile. Locke was clever, too clever by half, but in such a venture, a man with a sharp wit was much better than one whose blade was dull. “A distraction? As is being done to the U.S. military and CyberNation?”

“Why not? A wolf running from a forest fire doesn’t stop to catch mice. If we give the wolves something else about which to worry, Shing becomes a mouse. Even if they think he might be something bigger someday, survival comes first. And pretty soon, we won’t need Shing. He could disappear.”

Wu allowed the smile to increase a hair. “Then go and start a forest fire and drive the wolves before it.”

Locke raised his glass. “Muddy roads to our enemy’s army,” he said.

Wu raised his glass. “And a great pox upon their generals.”

Jay stood in the middle of the sampan while Chang worked the long oar at the rear, sculling the wooden pole back and forth in a machinelike rhythm. The little boat was twelve or fifteen feet long, weathered wood, with a cloth-and-bamboo-covered hoop that formed an arc-roofed cabin running most of the boat’s length. They were going with the current, and Chang’s efforts were more to keep it lined up with the flow than to drive it.

The water did have a yellow color to it.

“Comes from the Loess Plateau,” Chang said. “The earth there turns this shade when it becomes sediment in the water. Half as big as Texas, that plateau. Haung Ho—the Yellow River—is also called ‘China’s Great Sorrow.’ ”

Jay looked at him, squinting against the bright sunlight.

“From all the misery the river has caused over the years,” Chang said. “Floods, destruction, so many deaths. Chinese civilization began here on its banks, you know. All the major dynasties.”

Jay nodded.

Ahead of them, behind them, other boats floated on the muddy water, small sampans like the one they were in as well as ones that were larger, with sails. A few were so tiny that they seemed like children’s toys, probably made from sheepskins. The smell of fish hung in the damp and warm air. Some of the boats held bamboo cages with big black diving birds in them. Cormorants, Jay knew, used to catch fish.

“We’re not far from the ruins of Banpo Village,” Chang said. “More than six thousand years old. In Xi’an, that’s the capital of this region, there are other ancient wonders—the Goose Pagoda, the Forest of Stone Tablets, the Qin Terra-cotta Warriors and Horses.”