Free FEARLESS FINN'S MURDEROUS ADVENTURE by Mike Coony Page A

the time flew by, and my usual thirty minute breakfast stretched to an hour. The ideas he has make my scams look puny – this guy knows how to make real money. He’s talking the sort of dough I used to see passing through Uncle Angelo’s hands.
    Considering my family background – close-knit New York Sicilian if you get my drift – I naturally live on suspicion autopilot, and thoughts of IRS or FBI entrapment sprang into my head. I decided right then and there that I’d arrange a little insurance. So Nico made sure to get Earl laid by Inga the gymnast – a newly arrived six foot Russian hooker from Saint Petersburg – just in case. Now I have a few erotic photographs on file, a little blackmail insurance. Why not? After all, we’re in the business, aye!
    Life is good. So good that I can’t help thinking how having to babysit Finn Flynn might screw things up for me. I hope Uncle Sui isn’t thinking of letting the Mick in on our nice little extracurricular earners.
    It’s not that I don’t have the spare time to babysit. I work the ports and the casinos every night, and the dog track twice a week, so I have plenty of time. But there’s something about any guy who can sit with strangers at a meal and watch them ignore their food but still eat his. He’s not intimidated, that’s for sure. I can’t use my insurance plan with this Finn guy…no, not with the Irishman. I guess I won’t ask if he’s related to those little green leprechauns with pots o’ gold they got over there.
    To be fair, I don’t even know the guy yet, and I suppose I’m kind of looking forward to getting to know him. He doesn’t say a whole lot, and that’s good, I like that. He’s not from a privileged background – I figured that out when he cleaned his plate at the Mandarin Oriental’s Man Wah restaurant. He’s not greedy though, and he’s got manners.
    Maybe it’s no big deal if Uncle Sui wants me to babysit the giant Irishman with the crazy name. I guess it won’t be any skin off my teeth showing Finn Flynn the ropes around here. And if that’s what Uncle Sui wants – like always – that’s what Uncle Sui gets.
    But I sure wouldn’t mind knowing the connection. How is it that a Triad boss gets the illustrious job of finding a babysitter for an Irish giant?

9

    HONG KONG

    I awoke to the smell of freshly brewed coffee. I had a shower, put on my monogrammed Mandarin Oriental bathrobe and walked into the sitting-room.
    Mister Ling’s prepared a breakfast tray. It’s resting on a trestle table he set up near the balcony.
    “I made both coffee and tea, Mister Flynn, as I don’t know which you prefer. I will squeeze the oranges now…I already know you enjoy fresh juice. There are smoked bacon rashers, Wiltshire sausages and black and white pudding from Harrods of Knightsbridge in the pantry, and a selection of cereals from Fortnum and Mason if you prefer. The eggs are from the Roman Catholic Trappist Monastery on Lantau Island, as is the milk, sir,” he informed me.
    “Thank you Mister Ling…tea, scrambled eggs, and three rashers of bacon please. Oh yes, and two slices of toast with Kerrygold butter if you have it.” The way I’m behaving, you’d never think I’d spent the last few months under canvas, smelling of camels and goats, and smearing God only knows what on lumps of flat bread. Now, here I am telling a butler to get me Kerrygold butter!
    “I’ll send to the kitchen for the butter, if you don’t mind waiting five minutes, sir.”
    Feeling quite the English toff , I took my glass of orange juice out to the balcony and waited for my Kerrygold to arrive. It feels like an early spring day back home, maybe a bit clammier. I peered down on Statue Square and spotted two Hong Kong Telephone kiosks alongside each other.
    I ate my breakfast, dressed and headed down to Statue Square. Hong Kong is seven hours ahead of England; it’s eleven a.m. here, so it’s four o’clock in the morning there. Mac should be in