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

REACHED THE FIRST Palace of the Holy Mountain and paused to look through the big round latticework window at the Chinese tourists frantically shaking incense sticks and praying for wealth. The man smiled to himself. Every westerner tourist did that. The drifting incense, the flickering candles, the murmured prayers for prosperity. It was everything they had heard about the mysterious east, all in one room.
    When Shepherd rubbed at his eyes, the man smiled again. He couldn’t stand incense either, and the incense here was particularly unpleasant. It had a musty, old wood smell with something peppery in it. He tried to hold his breath when he walked by without being too obvious about it. If he didn’t, he would taste the foul stuff in his mouth for the rest of the day.
    Shepherd reached the top of the next set of steps and walked directly to the front of the Hall of Benevolence. He stopped and turned all the way around to see who might be watching him. The man felt Shepherd’s eyes slide over him, but they didn’t stop. He was anything but surprised at that. He knew that people didn’t notice him. Even when they were looking for him, they didn’t notice him. He had that kind of face and that kind of body. He was just one more middle-aged Asian guy. A little chubby, losing his hair, not important, not a threat to anyone. It wasn’t very flattering but, under the circumstances, it was usually for the best.
    Shepherd, on the other hand, did stand out, and not only because he was white. He stood out because he looked like a man who had everything under control. He looked like someone you went to for directions when you were lost. Which, now that the man thought about it, was exactly what he was doing. He was lost, and he needed Shepherd to show him the way home.
    The man walked past the Hall of Benevolence without stopping and began to climb the next set of steps. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Shepherd sit down to wait on a big rock at the end of the walkway. Shepherd wasn’t going to wait there forever. He had watched Shepherd eat his ice cream, dump the wrapper into a trash barrel, and start into the temple after only a few minutes of checking out his surroundings. Shepherd was not a particularly patient fellow.
    The man figured he had about five minutes to decide. After that, Shepherd would get annoyed with waiting for him and leave. Probably call Raymond before he got to the bottom of the steps and chew him out for wasting his time.
    It was now or never, wasn’t it?
    Now or never…

TEN
    I HAD NEVER REALIZED how much sitting on a rock hurt your butt, and I’d about had enough of it when I spotted the man climbing slowly down the steps from somewhere above the Hall of Benevolence. Since his eyes were locked onto mine, I was anything but surprised when he turned and walked straight toward me. I was clearly about to meet Freddy.
    Something about him seemed vaguely familiar. He looked like someone I had seen before, not personally maybe, but perhaps in the newspapers. The idea scratched at me, but I couldn’t bring it into focus.
    The man was a middle-aged Asian who was round-shouldered and carried more weight than he should for his height. His hair was thinning and what was left of it was cut extremely short. He wore plain, rimless glasses and was dressed in a black, long-sleeved shirt, black chinos, and black loafers. The weight and the glasses made the man appear soft. He made me think of a very large stuffed toy. He looked exactly like the fat kid in elementary school everybody made fun of during recess when the teacher wasn’t looking.
    Was Freddy Chinese? I couldn’t quite decide. The guy certainly wasn’t Japanese. Korean? That was a possibility.
    It always embarrassed me a bit that I wasn’t able to distinguish one Asian nationality from another with any certainty no matter how long I lived in that part of the world. It wasn’t that Asians all looked alike. Well, the truth was they do look a little bit