Free THE KING OF MACAU (The Jack Shepherd International Crime Novels) by Jake Needham Page A

risk your life for?”
    Freddy seemed to think about that for a moment. Then he nodded. “Yes, I think it probably is.”
    He nodded again for good measure, turned away, and walked down the steps to Barra Square. I noticed he never looked back.

ELEVEN
    IT WAS A LITTLE after one when I got back to the MGM. I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast other than an ice cream bar, so I went looking for a sandwich and some coffee.
    The area between the MGM’s main tower and its casino is a vast vaulted space the hotel calls the
Grande Praça
. I have no clue how to pronounce that and my guess was almost no one else does either.
    One end of the
Grande Praça
is said to be modeled on Lisbon’s nineteenth century central train station and the other is composed of a vast sandstone staircase rising what looks to be fifty or sixty feet. In between is a tiled area that’s supposed to look like a European village square. It’s filled with park benches and huge potted trees and lined with shops, sidewalk restaurants, and the false fronts of narrow Mediterranean-styled houses. Above it all soars a curved glass dome supported by graceful white arches.
    I walked slowly down one side of the
Grande Praça
and back up the other, stopping to glance at the menus of the restaurants, but everything was far too elaborate to interest me. Surely it was possible to get a sandwich somewhere rather than be required to consume cold lobster flown in from Maine and served with three sauces, so I headed out the south end of the
Grande Praça
and crossed into the casino. The Lion Bar was closed or I might have settled for a beer and some peanuts, and the Chinese cafe in the casino was so jammed with gangs of day-trippers from the mainland that I didn’t even consider it.
    I kept moving and soon I was all the way across the casino and out the other side so I decided to cross the street to the Wynn Macau to try my luck there. I walked past the Wynn’s poker pit, circled a bank of slots, and ran straight into a Starbucks.
    Perfect.
    IT WASN’T A VERY big Starbucks since it was wedged into a small alcove off the main casino floor. A glass display case filled with baked goods, the coffee-making apparatus, and a cash register were up against the back wall and half a dozen small round tables took up the space between them and the casino floor.
    I got myself a large black coffee and a ham and cheese croissant and carried them to the only table that was empty. The rest were filled with other westerners since no Chinese in a casino would even think of wasting time doing anything other than gambling. Certainly not drinking coffee and eating a ham and cheese croissant.
    The croissant was surprisingly good and the coffee tasted exactly like it would in Cleveland. I was polishing off the last of both when a man walked up to my table carrying his own cup of coffee.
    “Would you mind?”
    I glanced up at the sound of the man’s American accent and saw him pointing to the empty chair across from me.
    “I’m afraid there’s no place else to sit,” he shrugged apologetically.
    “Go ahead.”
    “Thanks.”
    While the man pulled out the chair and sat down, I took out my phone and thumbed it on. The contemporary smart phone has become an essential ingredient of modern social intercourse. It is useful for occasionally talking to other people, of course. It is also useful for checking emails, sending SMS messages, or reading the sports pages of the New York Post. But the primary use for the contemporary smart phone is to give us something to do so we don’t have to make eye contact with strangers. In an elevator, on the train, or at a restaurant table, staring at your phone is as effective for avoiding other people as putting a bag over your head. And it’s a lot more comfortable.
    As useful as my telephone might be as an antisocial device, it didn’t keep me from taking discreet stock of my companion out of the corner of one eye. He was a big man, well over six feet