and observed me through slightly narrowed eyes. “I notice you do not laugh. The name means nothing to you?”
“It’s long, but I can’t say it tickles me.”
“Good. Some people smile when they hear it. Luis da Silva Mouzinho de Albuquerque existed long ago. He was a man of many facets, and had one of those tangled lives that great people in those days lived. He was no relation to me, none that I know of, but it amused my father, who was Macanese, to name me after this man. My mother, a Chinese woman of strong opinions, was not so amused. Worse, there was never room in the space provided for ‘name’ on all the applications necessary for one’s journey through life. Believe me, it was not always a pleasure. It is also, I realize, not as easy to remember as ‘O.’ Please call me Luis.” He extended his hand. “I appreciate your invitation. It is very kind of you, but I fear I can’t accept. It would be against all regulations, in force and contemplated-part of our anti-corruption drive, our fourth in as many years. I cannot go into a casino unless in pursuit of a suspect, I cannot be in the presence of any gaming authority unless there are three other people present, no two of whom can know each other, and I cannot accept a meal if it means sitting down.”
We shook hands warmly. “You have to remain on your feet when you eat?”
“Yes, if someone else buys the meal. Standing is less corrupting, apparently. I can nibble tiny sandwiches by the plateful. I can heap on lobster, eat caviar with a shovel. But only if I stand.”
“Perhaps, Luis, there is a restaurant where we can stand at the bar?”
He bowed, with more grace than the first time. “I have heard of such a place. In fact,” he said as he straightened his tie, “I have heard it is nearby.”
“How did you know my name, incidentally?”
“This is Macau, Inspector.”
5
The bartender was a woman with a neck as thick as her head. All the more surprising that she had a voice as sweet as the spring breeze across a field of wildflowers. She and Luis exchanged a few words in what I took to be Portuguese. It sounded like Russian, but it was too wet around the edges.
“If you heard her on the radio,” Luis said in English to me, “you’d fall in love, as I already have.” He kissed her hand. “This is Lulu,” he said. “She can do no wrong.”
Lulu blushed, which must have put a strain on her heart. “And what would Senhor Police Captain like to start off with?” she asked. The room was suddenly a meadow in the glories of May. Exactly as Luis had said, the ficus trees rustled in a breeze; the colors of the day flowed through the darkened glass of the long front window.
“A leg, my dear Lulu. Surrender it to me or I shall go mad.” Luis’ voice was low and dreamy.
Next to this woman, Luis appeared frail; the thought of her leg worried me. “I thought you had to remain standing,” I said.
Lulu turned to me. “And you? What can I offer?” She leaned her arms on the bar top and began to remove my clothing with limpid eyes. “You prefer white meat, perhaps?”
I coughed politely. What a voice! It could make a man weak in the knees. “I’ll have what Luis has,” I rasped.
“Good, then it’s settled.” Luis looked around the bar. “I’ll have a drumstick, and so will the Inspector. We’ll hunt for the rest of the chicken another time, eh? Some wine, Lulu.” He clapped me on the back. “See what I mean about lunch?”
6
“This is completely against regulations, Inspector, taking you to the crime scene.” We were walking through the hotel lobby, a gargantuan, stomach-churning place not conceived for loitering or watching the passing parade. Whenever a parade did pass, it was into the open maw of the casino, where attendants in blazing orange coats kept the money moving in one direction. Most of the state security people positioned around the edges of the cavernous space were easy enough to spot. They might as well have been wearing signs. This wasn’t the result of sloppiness or inattention. It was deliberate, designed to breed confidence in anyone looking to avoid the MSS. The principle at work was simple and well proven-confidence bred contempt, and contempt bred the tiny mistake that led, without exception or mercy, to a quick trial and then a bullet in the back of the head. Some of this effort was aimed at Chinese officials gambling with money they weren’t supposed to have; some of it was a normal screen. You know there are insects, so you put up a net. Some of them you get before they come in the window; the rest you squash when the opportunity arises.
In truth, it didn’t much matter how many security officers were standing around. Every employee and every hotel worked for them in one way or another, sooner or later. A few of those employees also worked for the triads. A few more fattened their paychecks by working for a foreign “friend” who didn’t ask for much and then only once in a while but always had an extra envelope waiting for them. The old man at the Nam Lo’s front desk probably worked part-time for all three. By now, each of his employers knew an unusual guest had checked in. Even if he had waited to tell them, the bored immigration official would have already raised a flag that all three would have noticed.
“The elevator is around the corner.” Luis was several steps ahead of me. “Don’t gawk, Inspector, or it will make you dizzy. Nothing in this lobby fits with anything, so everything seems to be whirling around and repelled by everything else. The place is an abomination, I agree.”
The elevator took us smoothly to the thirty-fourth floor. As we stepped out, Luis took a key card from his pocket. “Room Thirty-four Twenty-seven, to the left. This is the executive preserve, but I don’t know if there are any executives awake yet. In any case, we’ll tread softly.”
Treading proved to be no problem. The hallway carpet was thick and the walls were completely soundproofed. Every room would be an isolated world in the middle of nowhere. Luis paused at a door and read the number. “Don’t touch anything; don’t take notes; just look. Regulations.”
“You have a lot of regulations, it seems.”
“We do. That happens in warm climates, have you noticed?”
“But you don’t follow them all.”
Luis shrugged and opened the door. “I do what I can.”
7
As soon as we stepped inside, I realized that the middle of nowhere was exactly what had been on the mind of the interior decorator. Room 3427 was a place where nothing led to nothing, shapes blurred, and colors blended, with the exception, perhaps, of one particularly noxious square chair, bloodred leather that looked about to leap screaming from the window. The living room was considerably longer than it was wide, which was perfect for an executive used to working in a tunnel. The bedroom was not much better, and because of the odd shape of the building it was a tunnel sliced by a large angled column necessary to bear the weight of the twenty floors above that hung out from the building in a series of steps. The effect was to remind anyone trying to sleep that their life was dependent on this column and that the construction company that put it up had no doubt scrimped on materials in order to pay off the building inspector who at this very moment was in the casino downstairs, one small step ahead of the MSS. Outside the bedroom window the view was obstructed by steel framing with no obvious purpose. It couldn’t possibly be structural, I thought. If it was, I wanted to get to a lower
