Mafia Kings: Roberto: Chapter 51

After a few hours’ sleep, we got up, showered together, and ate breakfast. Once dressed, we set out on our mission with Mei-ling driving the Bentley.

My clothes were a damp, rumpled mess, so Mei-ling dropped by the Continental. She said she would stay in the Bentley while I went inside and changed.

“Should I wear my hoodie and jeans for this?” I asked.

“Good God, no,” she said in a deadpan voice. “He’ll at least think you’re serious if you wear a suit. In that other get-up, you look like a terrible undercover cop.”

I laughed and asked, “How much money will I need?”

“I have no idea. Half a million Hong Kong, at least.”

Which was about $60,000 US.

“We’ll have to drop by the bank,” I said.

“Alright.”

Back in my room, I quickly changed into fresh clothes. On my way back to the lobby, I dropped my wrinkled suit with housekeeping to be dry-cleaned.

Ten minutes later, we were at the bank.

Ten minutes after that, I walked out with a million Hong Kong dollars in my pocket. I’d withdrawn twice as much as I thought I would need just to be safe.

I was used to handling a lot of money, but strolling around with $120,000 US in my pocket was a bit unsettling, even for me.

Now things were about to get interesting.

We drove into Wan Chai, the seedy nightlife district of Hong Kong. It was crammed to the gills with nightclubs, bars, and general tackiness. According to Mei-ling, Wan Chai also hosted the city’s red light district.

Judging by all the neon signs, Wan Chai probably resembled a small-scale version of Macau at night. But at 10:30 in the morning, everything just looked shabby and grungy.

We parked in a somewhat reputable-looking garage and exited onto the street.

Puddles of rain still lingered from the night before. The air was suffocating with humidity and the stink of garbage and fried food.

Despite the sun being high in the sky, the discotheques and nightclubs were still going strong. Muted bass notes thumped through blacked-out windows and vibrated the air.

The sidewalks were crammed with locals going about their daily business, along with a few Westerners who stumbled out of the clubs, bleary-eyed and drunk.

“This way,” Mei-ling said as she led me down the sidewalk.

“Who are we going to see?”

“A man who can get you almost anything.”

She didn’t offer his name, so I didn’t ask.

“How do you know him?”

“He supplies me with cocaine for some of my richest clients at De Sade.”

“And you think he’ll have what I want?”

“If he doesn’t have it, he can get it. And if he can’t get it, I doubt you’d find it anywhere in Hong Kong.”

We entered a grungy-looking noodle shop. Plastic tables and chairs crowded the dirty linoleum. Locals slurped down bowls of noodles which, despite the shabby surroundings, smelled delicious.

Mei-ling wore a modest cream-colored dress, but she was so beautiful that she still turned heads. I supposed it didn’t help that she was followed by an Italian in an expensive suit.

Mei-ling called out something in Cantonese to one of the cooks behind the counter. He pointed at the rear of the shop, and we walked through a curtain made of strands of cheap plastic beads.

In the back, across from a food pantry full of giant aluminum cans, was a cheap wooden door. Mei-ling knocked on it three times.

A gruff voice called out in Chinese – most likely Who is it?

“Chan Mei-ling,” she answered.

The voice became much friendlier. Come in!

We entered a tiny office with fake wood paneling. The rickety desk was covered with stacks and stacks of credit cards – either stolen or fakes, I couldn’t be sure. An overflowing ashtray sat among the cards, and the stench of stale smoke filled the air.

Behind the desk sat a thin man with a cigarette dangling from his lips, an inch of ash about to fall off. He wore a black long-sleeve shirt, and his shaggy haircut hung down in his eyes. His age was indeterminate – maybe mid-30s, possibly early 40s – but there was a hardness in his expression that I recognized from career criminals back in Italy.

He looked up. When he saw Mei-ling, he smiled and said something in Cantonese.

Then he saw me and immediately started shouting.

Mei-ling yelled back at him, and the man lapsed into sullen silence.

“What was that all about?” I asked.

“He thought you were a cop.”

“No policeman dresses like this.”

“That’s what I told him.”

The man started speaking Cantonese –

“English,” Mei-ling said sternly.

The man glared at her, then scowled at me.

“What you want?” he asked in a thick accent.

“I need a gun,” I said. “A pistol.”

“And a good one,” Mei-ling interjected. “Not the normal pieces of crap you sell.”

“Everything I sell good,” the man snapped.

“Riiiight,” Mei said sarcastically.

“For you I do this,” he said, pointing at her. “Now we even.”

“You owe me at least half a dozen favors,” she replied in a bored voice. “Actually – since I’m sure you’ll overcharge him – now you owe me another one.”

The man grumbled, then looked at me.

“You want revolver? Semi-automatic?” A smirk spread across his face. “Automatiiiic?” he asked in an insinuating voice like he was offering me something particularly naughty.

“A revolver or semi-automatic is fine. What do you have?”

The man divided the credit cards on his desk with his forearms like Moses parting a miniature plastic Red Sea.

Once he’d cleared off a spot, he opened a drawer and began placing pistols one by one on the desk.

The first was one I’d never seen before: a pistol with a five-point star stamped into the grip.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Black Star pistol. Chinese military. Good gun.”

He pulled out a Glock 17, a Sig P226, a Colt 1911, and a Colt Python revolver. All excellent guns, all in fairly good shape despite a few nicks and scratches.

“How much?”

“Fifty,” he said, pointing to the Black Star. Then he pointed at the others in the order he’d laid them out. “Sixty, sixty, sixty, seventy.”

“That’s Hong Kong dollars?” I asked.

“Yes.”

Sixty thousand Hong Kong was about $7500 US.

A Glock 17 sold for around $300 in the United States. I could have gotten it on the black market in Italy for 2000 euros – roughly $2100 US.

But he wanted me to pay three-and-a-half times that.

“Sixty thousand is expensive,” I said.

“Expensive?!” the gun merchant snapped. He pointed at the guns one by one. “Fourteen years. Fourteen, fourteen, fourteen, fourteen. That expensive.”

He meant fourteen years in jail if he was caught with them.

“Point taken,” I said.

I reached for the Glock, but Mei-ling grabbed my hand.

“Gloves,” she said testily to the merchant.

The man smirked, reached into his desk, and pulled out two latex gloves – the type a nurse would use in a hospital.

“If you don’t buy it,” Mei-ling told me, “you don’t want your prints on a gun he ends up selling to a street thug.”

Smart.

I put on the gloves, picked up the Glock, and ran through the tests that Lars had taught me when I was training with our family’s foot soldiers.

I pulled out the magazine and racked the slide, ejecting the round in the chamber.

“It’s dangerous to store it like that,” I said.

The gun merchant shrugged. “Life dangerous.”

I peered into the chamber for any sign of rust; there was none.

I checked the firing pin, which seemed fine.

I pulled the trigger several times to check the gun’s action. Everything seemed to be functioning properly.

I reloaded the magazine, pushed it back into place, and jacked a round into the chamber.

Everything seemed good.

“I’ll take it,” I said.

“Good gun, yes?” the man asked with a smirk.

“Very nice.”

The man looked at Mei-ling like Told you so, then held out his hand to me. “Sixty thousand.”

I pulled out a small number of bills from my pocket so he couldn’t see everything I had. Once I counted out 60 individual thousand-dollar bills, I handed them over and pocketed the remainder.

He grinned as he shoved the money in his desk. “Nice doing business with you.”

“I need something else,” I said as I stowed the Glock inside my jacket.

“What?”

When I told him, his eyes got big as saucers.

“You serious?” he asked, stunned.

“Yes.”

He looked at Mei-ling and asked her something in Cantonese.

“Yes,” she replied in English. “He knows what he’s asking for.”

“Don’t have it,” the man said gruffly.

“Can you get it, though?” I asked.

“…yes.” A crafty smile spread over his face. “But very expensive.”

“How much?”

He paused like he was trying to figure out how much he should gouge me.

“800,000 Hong Kong,” he finally said.

$100,000 US.

Jesus.

However, considering that a pistol cost $7500, it was probably a reasonable amount of money. Once you factored in his fee as the middleman, anyway.

I figured if I accepted the first bid, he would take me for a sucker and try to wrangle more money out of me later. Unexpected costs, unforeseen obstacles, etcetera, etcetera.

“600,000,” I offered.

“800,000!” he barked.

“700.”

He looked at me sideways. “750. Final offer.”

“Fine,” I snapped, pretending to be irritated.

He smiled in self-satisfaction, then held out his hand. “Need money now.”

“No. You’ll get the money when I have the product.”

He started yelling at Mei-ling.

She snarled back at him in Cantonese, then turned to me. “He’ll need at least 500 upfront.”

“And the rest is your finder’s fee,” I said sardonically.

“Know right people cost money,” he shot back.

I couldn’t argue with that.

I pulled out the rest of my cash.

He watched greedily as I counted out 500 bills and placed them in his palm.

“Come back two hours, I have it.”

“Thank you.”

He and Mei-ling exchanged words in Cantonese, and she led me out of the office.

“That went well,” I said.

“Moderately well,” she agreed. “We’ll see what happens in two hours, though.”