Teddy was out of the office by then, wielding a metal curtain rod inspired by Dale’s baton. He took on the giant man while Dale took on the other riders. The other motorcycle was circling back toward Dale, and as the bike came at her, she stepped to the side just enough to avoid being hit and grabbed on to the rider in the back. She used his body to pull herself onto the motorcycle, while pushing him off like an old-time movie cowboy.
Dale reached around the waist of the remaining rider, grabbed the handlebars over his hands, and squeezed the brakes, aiming the motorcycle directly at the other two riders. The collision knocked them all to the ground, but Dale was prepared for the impact. With an agile twist she launched herself away from the bike and tucked her body into a roll, popped back up, and dusted herself off to go help Teddy with the giant.
The big man was strong and stubborn and could take a hit well. Teddy knew how to box, but those moves weren’t working against a man who didn’t seem to feel pain. Teddy wondered if he was high on drugs or adrenaline. He tried a variety of martial arts moves that had more of an effect, but not enough to bring the big man down.
Out of violent options, Teddy found his greatest success with a series of ballroom dance moves. Along with the lethal training the CIA provided, they also provided social training to help their operatives blend into any situation. On one mission, Teddy had been sent into an east African country run by an enormous female warlord who loved to dance. One of the Agency’s instructors had taught Teddy how to lead a dance partner twice his size and still look graceful. The skills translated almost exactly to maneuvering this giant man into enough walls and sharp objects to keep him from beating Teddy to death. He was giving Teddy everything he could handle when Dale joined them.
While Teddy continued attacking from the front, Dale snuck in a few nasty shots to the big man’s kidneys and gonads from behind. She finished by jumping on the man’s shoulders like an aggressive toddler, swinging her belt around his neck, and pulling it tight. When the giant finally fell to the ground unconscious, Teddy checked to make sure the giant was still breathing. Then he looked to see who else was left. All the other punks had run away scared, but not before lighting the office on fire.
Teddy and Dale rushed into the building to try and put out the flames, but the massive stacks of papers in the office and the age of the building itself caused the conflagration to spread. They quickly made the decision together that they didn’t want to be around to answer questions about what they’d been up to when the fire services and police arrived. So after yelling as much as they could for everyone to get out, they walked away.
31
As they walked back to the casino from the production office, Dale was quiet and contemplative. Not one to pry into anyone else’s feelings, thus minimizing the risk he’d be asked about his own, Teddy kept quiet, though he assumed the same thing was bothering them both. There was more than just a protection racket going on.
He recognized the motorcycle attack as the work of amateurs rather than a triad. And someone with Dale’s skills, and likely experience, would have to be blind not to have come to the same conclusion. Mixed with what he had heard from Millie about Li Feng, and the fact that Bingo’s midnight trip to his hotel room for the “antidote” seemed staged, Teddy suspected it was all related. Knowing that there were extra layers to whatever trouble was brewing in Macau, Teddy thought the time had come for him to find out who Dale Gai really was.
“You’re obviously more than a secretary,” Teddy said after several blocks.
“I never said I wasn’t.”
“You haven’t really said anything.”
“No more and no less than you.”
“Point taken,” Teddy said. “But I know who I am, and I know what side I’m on.”
“Do you? A man like you, a man who is more than a movie producer, likely only cares about one side: his own.”
“My side right here and right now is the side of Peter Barrington and Ben Bacchetti and Centurion Studios. They’re good men doing good work and they’re being punished for it. That doesn’t sit right with me.”
“It doesn’t sit right with me, either. That’s why I’ve been helping.”
Teddy slowed his walk and looked her over. She seemed genuine. But, of all people, Teddy knew how much appearances could deceive.
“There are so many unknowns and so many moving pieces in this game that I find myself looking for the simplest answers, the easiest explanations,” Teddy said. “And the simplest explanation is that you’re a spy for Arrow Donaldson and you’ve been assigned to keep an eye on me and make sure I don’t get in the way of what’s really going on.”
“You disappoint me, Billy Barnett.”
“I don’t live my life defined by disappointments, my own or anyone else’s.”
“You know life isn’t simple. Answers aren’t simple. You aren’t simple.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I know you as much as you think you know me,” Dale said. “Everything you think I am, I used to be. I was a spy and a killer, and I was good at it. But I got out. I wanted to travel without having a target to kill, and I wanted to spend some of the money I earned.”
“Then why are you here, working at the casino?”
“I like to gamble. It’s fun. And I like the Golden Desert. It’s my home. And my home is rotten.”
“Arrow Donaldson?”
Dale nodded.
“He let the CIA in to do their spying, to identify powerful Chinese nationals with gambling problems, who they could turn. And he’s made deals with criminal organizations to shore up his funding during the economic slowdown. I just want to clear it all out.”
“Seems like pretending to be a secretary is a terrible way to get anything done.”
She shrugged.
“Maybe it’s just my cover until I find a way to rob him from the inside.”
“That might be the most honest thing you’ve said to me so far,” Teddy said.
“If that’s what you think, I’m not sure we can keep working together.”
“Pardon?”
“I’m not going to tell you everything about me. And I already know you haven’t told me everything about you,” Dale said, letting that last part hang in the air for an uncomfortable amount of time. “But I’ve done what I can to show you what side I’m on. You’ll have to make up your own mind about whether or not I can be trusted.”
32
Teddy was in no mood to talk when he got back to the Golden Desert, but there were two police officers waiting for him who wouldn’t take no for an answer. He didn’t want them sniffing around Stone Barrington’s suite, so he agreed to answer their questions down at the police station.
The police station in Macau was a bunker-style building that looked like someone had decorated a military barracks with gingerbread trim around the top. The officers led Teddy through the building as casually as possible and dumped him in a beige brick room that could have easily been an interview room from any suburban American police department. Teddy didn’t have to wait long for a lanky detective wearing an ill-fitting suit to join him. The detective started talking to Teddy in fractured and awkward English before Teddy assured him he could understand questions in the man’s native language.
“I don’t speak it as well as I understand it, but I’m sure we’ll find a way forward,” Teddy said.
“Tell me about what happened at the production offices,” the detective said.