The Scam (19 page)

“My pleasure,” he said.

Trace walked Kate to the elevator. “We should do this again soon.”

“I can't imagine how you'd top the fork,” Kate said.

“Try,” he said. “I'd like to hear any ideas you come up with.”

She stepped inside the elevator, faced him, and slid her key card into the slot. “They could hurt.”

“I hope so,” he said, and then the elevator doors closed.

“I'm sorry I missed the hand stabbing,” Nick said into Kate's ear. “Next time we'll have to strap a GoPro camera to your head so I get the video with the audio. This guy is freaking nuts.”

“He stuck the fork into his hand, and I almost threw up. It was sick.”

“Are you okay? Would you like me to come to your suite?”

“You want half of my steak, right?”

“No, sweet cakes, I want all of
you.
”

Kate took a beat to steady herself. “I need time.”

“The ball's in your court.”

N
atasha was waiting at the door when Trace returned to the suite.

“Mr. Ould-Abdallah and Mr. Blackmore have arrived,” Natasha told Trace. “We have eyes on them both. Mr. Ould-Abdallah is visiting an opium den near the harbor and Mr. Blackmore is in the casino playing pai gow.”

“What's Alika doing?”

“He's entertaining three prostitutes in his room,” Natasha said. “He just had six bottles of champagne sent up.”

“Alika has big appetites,” Trace said. “I can appreciate that.”

“Earlier tonight, he gorged himself on four lobsters and had drinks at the bar with this man.” Natasha showed Trace a security camera picture on her iPad of a wiry Japanese man in a tight black turtleneck and black slacks entering the casino. “The man is not staying with us, but our facial recognition system got an ID. He's Richard Nakamura, a sales representative for a Japanese auto parts company that's owned by a senior Yakuza member. He usually gambles at the Galaxy.”

“So he came here specifically to meet Alika. That confirms your intel that Alika is a pipeline to Yakuza's money and therefore a man we should make very happy. Make sure he has all the lobsters, champagne, and hookers he desires.”

Trace untied the napkin from his deformed hand and examined the puncture wounds. The bleeding had stopped, but the skin was beginning to bruise from the impact of the fork.

“Does it hurt?” Natasha asked, taking his hand in hers.

“I'm feeling no pain.”

“Neither am I,” she said, squeezing his hand hard, making the wounds bleed again.

“Let's change that,” he said and led her toward the bedroom.

Kate walked into the eighth-floor VIP gambling suite in the morning to find an enormous breakfast spread that included an array of Chinese, Portuguese, and Hawaiian dishes. There was also an assortment of Tim Hortons donuts, kettles of his coffee, and stacks of his signature paper cups.

Nick, Boyd, Billy Dee, and Alika were already gambling at the baccarat table, and Luisa was once again dealing cards. Natasha stood behind the dealer and tracked the wagers on an iPad. Birgita stood at the bar, ready to serve the gamblers whatever refreshments they wanted.

Alika was in his usual attire, from the wraparound shades on his head to the sandals on his huge bare feet, and he was the player being dealt the cards. Billy Dee was at the far end of the table, looking groggy.

“Good morning, gentlemen,” Kate said. “How is your luck running this morning?”

“I got lucky last night an' it's still wit' me t'day,” Alika said, sharing a leer with Boyd that conveyed the kind of luck that he was talking about.

“That's a different kind of luck,” Boyd said. “And you paid for that.”

“Dey was on da house, but I still got da luck,” Alika said, flipping over his cards to prove his point. He had a five and a four. “See? Try beatin' dat rippin' poundah.”

It was the dealer's turn. She flipped over her cards. She had a three and a seven.

“Ho!” Alika pounded his fist on the table and rattled everyone's chips. “We pumpin', brahs!”

Boyd nudged Billy Dee. “Wake up, Sheik, you won.”

“I'm not sleepy,” Billy Dee said. “I'm carefully considering my next wager.”

He was also stoned, Kate thought, and set a cup of coffee in front of him.

“There's nothing to consider,” Boyd said. “It's all about seeing which way the winds of luck are blowing.” Boyd licked his right index finger and stuck it in the air. “It's blowing toward the Big Kahuna.”

“Ass right,” Alika said. “I plenny lucky.”

Kate helped herself to a donut and coffee and joined Birgita at the bar. “What are the chances of getting one of those Matsuzaka steaks with a couple of eggs, over easy?”

“It's no problem,” Birgita said.

Nick looked over his shoulder at Kate. “It's one of the best steaks in the world. Why bother with the eggs?”

“That's what makes it breakfast,” Kate said. “Plus egg yolk is nature's steak sauce.”

“You're going to dip a Matsuzaka steak in egg yolk?” Nick shook his head. “Sacrilege.”

“I like da way you eat,” Alika said to Kate, then shifted his gaze to Birgita. “Make dat fo' two.”

The gambling went smoothly the rest of the day. Billy Dee, Boyd, and Alika established a friendly rapport as they gambled and gorged on the constant supply of food and top-quality liquor. Nick and Kate took turns at the baccarat table, keeping the game moving.

Billy Dee and Boyd each started the day with $5 million, Nick and Kate with $3 million, and Alika with $2 million. By the end of their eight hours of gaming, Billy Dee's slow and thoughtful approach had paid off. He broke even, while Alika was down $175,000, Nick and Kate had lost $500,000, and Boyd was out $1 million. It was a winning day for everyone. The casino was happy to make money. Boyd and Billy Dee were happy to gamble with someone else's money. Alika was happy to launder his illegal profits for a reasonable transaction fee, taken as gambling losses, while indulging all of his desires. And Kate was happy that no one had been killed.

Alika rose from the table and clapped Nick hard on the back. “Dat was to da bomb, bruddah, to da max. Tanks, eh?”

“Glad you had a good time,” Nick said.

“How do I cash out?”

“Any way you like,” Nick said. “You can trade the chips in with us for cash in any currency or we can wire the money to any account, or to anyone, anywhere in the world.”

“What if I want to give some chips to a friend here in Macau?” Alika asked. Kate noticed he'd dropped the pidgin act and wondered if he was even aware of it.

“These chips have no value outside of this room,” Natasha replied. “But we'd be glad to exchange them for chips of equal value that can be played, or cashed, in the casino downstairs by your friend.”

As if on cue, there was a knock at the door, and Birgita led a lithe Japanese man into the gaming room. He was dressed in all black, including a black onyx ring and a black-faced Rolex Cosmograph Daytona watch.

“My name is Nakamura,” he said. “I'm here to see Alika.”

Alika lifted the bottom of his tank top to create a pouch, swept a little more than half of his chips off the table into his shirt, and carried the chips over to Nakamura.

“Dis fo' you,” Alika said, stopping in front of Nakamura. Alika shook his shirt, making the chips rattle. “Unreal, yeah?”

The Japanese man stared at Alika as if the Hawaiian had asked him to reach into a latrine.

Natasha quickly brought a silver tray and held it at Alika's waist. “If you'll give me the chips, Mr. Alika, I'll escort your friend to the cashier's window downstairs and exchange these for new chips or for cash, whatever is Mr. Nakamura's preference.”

“That would be much appreciated,” Nakamura said.

“ 'K'den, whatevah,” Alika said, emptying the chips onto the tray.

Nick offered his hand to Nakamura and flashed his most winning smile. “I'm Nick Sweet. I organized this game. Perhaps you'd be interested in joining us next time.”

“Perhaps,” Nakamura said.

He declined the handshake and walked away with Natasha to the elevator.

Alika had just successfully laundered $2 million in cash, for himself and the Yakuza, Kate thought. The whole thing took less than two minutes. The FBI had not only let it happen, they'd enabled the unlawful transaction. Jessup wasn't going to like it. She wasn't thrilled about it, either. If the truth ever came out, it would be a huge scandal that would land them both in front of a Senate subcommittee and end with them in a federal prison.

Nick watched Nakamura walk away. “Friendly guy.”

“You should see him when he isn't so relaxed,” Alika said. “You can cash da rest of my chips an' wire da money to my Cayman Islands account.”

“Will do,” Nick said.

Alika leaned close to Nick. “Let's talk soon about doing dis ting again, brah.”

“Anytime,” Nick said. “Would you like to join me, Kate, and our other guests for dinner? I've got us a table at a five-star restaurant in Taipa that usually has a three-month wait.”

“No, tanks, I'm going back to my crib an catch da next wave.” Alika turned to Birgita, who stood nearby. “I'd like da same kine room service as last night, only one more of everyting.”

“It will be our pleasure,” Birgita said. “And with our compliments, of course.”

Alika shot a grin at Boyd. “My lucky day.”

N
ick and Kate returned to Nick's suite after dinner. Nick switched off the transmission on their earbuds so they could hear Billy Dee and Boyd, but the two men couldn't hear them. Billy Dee was snoring and Boyd was singing in the shower.

“Things couldn't have gone better today if I'd scripted every moment,” Nick said.

“The FBI laundered two million dollars in drug money for the Hawaiian mob and the Yakuza,” Kate said.

“A key part of the con. We had to do it to draw in a real mobster and create a genuine threat.”

“I know, but I still don't like it.”

“I've corrupted my principles, too,” Nick said.

“You have no principles.”

“Not true. I was a criminal, running cons and stealing things for fun and profit. Now I'm doing it to put people like me in jail. I've betrayed the whole notion of honor among thieves,” he said.

“Honor among thieves is a bunch of baloney.”

“Maybe, but fear of reprisal is real. I'd be a dead man if the people I used to work with knew what I am doing now.” He looked out the floor-to-ceiling window. In the distance, beyond the hills of Taipa, he could see the glow cast by the casinos on the Cotai Strip, lighting the sky. “You're still basically doing the same thing that you've always done, arresting people who break the law, only now you're being a bit of a crook to do it.”

Kate nodded. She knew this to be true.

“At least we're having some success,” Nick said. “Alika is already itching to come back and he hasn't even left yet. As a bonus, we've snagged a Yakuza soldier. After a shaky start, everything is going according to plan. A week from now, I'll run off with all of Alika's money, and the Yakuza will be screaming for blood. All you'll have to do is flash your badge at Trace and he'll run into your arms. Côte d'Argent will be finished, and so will Alika.”

They went silent when through their earbuds they heard Boyd abruptly stop singing “Camelot” in mid-chorus. Someone was knocking on his door.

“Hold on, I'm coming,” Boyd said. “Be right there.”

Nick and Kate heard footsteps, and then a door opening.

“Evan,” Boyd said. “What a surprise.”

Trace had a bandage wrapped around his hand and held a bottle of Evan Williams Single Barrel whiskey by the neck.

“I hope I'm not disturbing you, Mr. Blackmore, but I wanted to have a private chat with you before you leave tomorrow. May I come in?”

“I'm always glad to see a man at my door with a bottle of fine whiskey.” Boyd was in his Côte d'Argent terry cloth bathrobe, which was cinched tight, but he cinched it even tighter as he stepped aside and let Trace in.

A new performance had begun, this one pure improvisation, unless Nick and Kate started giving him direction in his ear, which Boyd hoped they wouldn't. He wanted to let his character guide his artistic choices, to live in the moment, to be a trapeze artist walking on a razor's edge.

Trace went to the bar, opened the bottle, and poured out two glasses. “It's a cheap whiskey, only about twenty bucks a bottle, but it's my favorite. Straight out of Louisville, Kentucky. I won't drink any whiskey that doesn't come from the bluegrass state.”

He handed Boyd a glass. Boyd took a sip and smacked his lips with pleasure. “Goes down nice and smooth, like caramel with a kick. But you didn't come here to talk whiskey with a bootlegger.”

“You're a bootlegger, too?” Trace said. “I didn't know that about you.”

Boyd didn't know that about Shane Blackmore, either, until that moment. It was exciting, making it up as he went along.

“I'm sure you know everything about me, right down to the brand of deodorant I use.” Boyd sat down on the couch and put one arm up on the backrest, owning the space and showing how relaxed he was. Body language was an important part of his performance.

Trace took the armchair across from him, set his whiskey on the armrest, and ran a fingertip contemplatively around the rim of the glass.

It was bad acting, Boyd thought. Trace wasn't contemplating anything. It was for dramatic effect and it was amateurish, straight out of community theater.

“I have a business proposition for you,” Trace said. “I'd like to invite you to come back to Côte d'Argent in a week or two and lose millions of dollars gambling. A colossal loss of ten to fifteen million dollars would be nice.”

Boyd laughed. “I can see how that might be good business for you, but how does that benefit me?”

“Because your losses will actually be an off-the-books investment in the Monde d'Argent project that I'm building on the Cotai Strip,” Trace said. “Over the next ten years, I guarantee that you'll reap ten times or more whatever amount you invest with me.”

“So I get to launder my cash as gambling losses,” Boyd said. “And right into a secret moneymaking ownership stake in a Macau casino.”

Trace smiled. “Sweet, isn't it?”

Nick stood ramrod straight and absolutely still, as he listened to the conversation over his earbud. Kate thought he looked like a man in a minefield. And from what she was hearing, he'd already stepped on one and was obliterated.

“We're finished,” she said. “Our whole con was built on our gamblers losing all of their money and Alika going after Trace for it. Now he's
asking
them to lose everything as an investment in his new casino.”

“It's a brilliant scam,” Nick said.

“He's just destroyed our entire operation! This is no time to be impressed.”

“Let's not overreact. I want to know more about Trace's scam,” Nick said and used his key fob to activate the transmitter in his earbud. “Boyd, get us the details.”

“If the profit potential is so great, why share the pie with a Canadian mobster?” Boyd asked. “Why do you need my measly investment?”

Trace shifted in his seat. He was in the difficult position of admitting weakness while trying to demonstrate strength. It was an acting challenge, and Boyd was curious to see how Trace would overcome it.

“I'm a small casino operator and my pockets aren't nearly as deep as my competitors',” Trace said. “Opening Monde d'Argent is my biggest gamble yet but also a necessary risk if I'm going to succeed. The new Chinese president has launched an anticorruption campaign as a publicity stunt. It won't last, but for now, it has made mainland China's high rollers, the titans of industry and leaders of government, reluctant to gamble and draw attention to their wealth. It has hit the bottom line of all the casinos in Macau very hard.”

“How much has Macau's gambling revenue dropped?”

“Forty-nine percent from the same month last year,” Trace said. Before that bad news had a chance to sink in, he leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees, with an excited smile on his face. “But you have to look at it from a global perspective, Mr. Blackmore. Macau's gambling revenue last month was three billion dollars, and while that's a big drop, that's still half of what all the casinos in Las Vegas combined generate in
an entire year.
We're sitting on a gold mine. I can't let a temporary slowdown in my cash flow stop me from building Monde d'Argent and reaping decades of enormous profits.”

Boyd admired the way Trace used his own enthusiasm and body language to mask the dire position he was actually in. Perhaps Trace wasn't as much of an amateur at acting as he thought.

“So because of these temporary, troubled times, you're willing to explore alternative funding options,” Boyd said.

Trace grinned, leaned back in his seat, and took a sip of his bourbon. “I like the way you said that.”

“It does take the stink off of it,” Boyd said, twirling his mustache. “It makes what you're proposing almost sound legitimate.”

“I'm going to Billy Dee's room,” Kate whispered to Nick. “If Trace is making this offer to one of our players, he's going to make it to all of them. I want to record his conversation with Billy Dee.”

“What good is recording the offer going to do us?”

“It's a crime,” Kate said. “He's asking them to participate in an illegal conspiracy.”

“What
we're
doing is an illegal conspiracy. Whatever you record is worthless as evidence.”

Kate was already at the door. “Don't care.”

“We need you to buy us some time,” Nick said to Boyd. “String him along.”

“I'm intrigued,” Boyd said to Trace. “It's an ingenious and yet simple scheme.”

“Thank you,” Trace said.

“But I have some questions.”

Trace opened his arms in a welcoming gesture. “Ask whatever you like.”

“How would I lose?” Boyd asked. “Are you going to rig the games?”

“I would never do that. I believe in an honest game because the odds are tipped in our favor anyway. Play long enough and you're bound to lose.”

“And if I don't?”

Trace shrugged. “You'll come back and lose it tomorrow. When you go home with some of our money, we know you're only taking a high-interest loan because you'll eventually return with what you've won and more. Our biggest profits are from winners, not from losers.”

“Where do Nick and Kate fit into all of this?”

“The same way they do now. I don't want to lose their business or their access to potential under-the-table investors like you,” Trace said. “Come here next time without them just to gamble…and lose big.”

“If I make this investment, what's to stop you from reneging on the deal?”

“You'll kill me,” Trace said.

“You
do
know me.”

Billy Dee answered his door on the second knock.

“Trace is coming over any minute now to make you an offer,” Kate said, “and I want to get a video.”

The suite consisted of a living room, a small kitchen, a large bedroom, and an opulent bathroom. She stood for a moment, looking around for a place to put her phone that would provide a good angle for filming the discussion, but not draw Trace's attention.

She spotted Billy Dee's phone charging on the kitchen counter. Go with the obvious, she thought, swapping out Billy Dee's phone for her own, tipping her phone in such a way that it faced the living room.

“After you invite Trace in, I want you to sit in one of the easy chairs,” Kate said. “Trace will want to sit across from you, not beside you. If you take a chair, that will force him to take the couch. If he does, he'll be facing the kitchen.”

Kate didn't have the slightest idea yet how they would be able to use the recordings. The recording would be worthless as evidence in a court, but it might give them an upper hand in other ways.

Nick spoke up in both of their ears. “Trace just left Boyd. You can't leave now, Kate. If he's heading to see Billy Dee or Alika, he'll spot you in the hall.”

There was a knock on Billy Dee's door.

“I'll hide in the bedroom closet,” Kate whispered.

Billy Dee waited a couple beats before opening his front door to Trace.

“Sorry to bother you at this late hour,” Trace said. “But I'd really appreciate a word with you.”

“It's your hotel,” Billy Dee said. “So make yourself at home.”

Trace made the same pitch to Billy Dee that he had made to Boyd, almost word for word. Kate heard it clearly in the closet, thanks to the earbud.

“I like the idea of having a stake in Monde d'Argent,” Billy Dee said. “I'm getting too old to hijack ships, and I want to protect what I've earned. But I'm a pirate by nature. I take things. I measure my wealth by what I've got in my hands. What are you going to give me so I know I've got a piece of your casino?”

“For obvious reasons, I can't give you any paper that shows you've invested in Monde d'Argent. No offense, but you're a known criminal and that could cost me my gambling license in the United States,” Trace said. “What I can do is sign over deeds to you for condos in the new tower, equal to the value of whatever funds you give me.”