Point of Contact

The table was located in front of a line of pallets, each stacked six feet high with boxes of DVD players wrapped in thick cellophane. One of the pallets had been torn open, and several of the boxes were stacked on the floor. Each box was big enough to hold several DVD players. One of them had been opened, and a unit removed from its packaging and tossed on the floor. Next to them, an electric lift table extended halfway up.

What’s going on here? Jack rubbed his face, frustrated. It didn’t make any sense. Had he gotten the address wrong? Or was this just a goat rope?

Damn it.

He decided to head back home to regroup. He’d turned to leave when he heard a shout.

“Hey! Hey!”

Jack saw Cigar Man smiling and waving him over, his face shrouded in tendrils of smoke. The other two men turned around. They were younger — one was in his thirties, the other about Jack’s age. They smiled, too.

Cigar Man shouted something to Jack in Chinese, then turned back to the card table, studying the tiles in front of him. Probably something along the lines of Join us in the game.

Jack felt the weight of the crescent wrench tucked at his waist. He was glad he hadn’t pulled it out like a weapon. If he turned and ran, these guys might call the cops, mistaking him for a thief. Better to come on in and play dumb.

Jack stepped out of the storm and into the warehouse, shaking off the rain from his jacket onto the concrete floor as one of the men shouted, “Mah-jongg!” Jack glanced up. The thirty-something guy punched his fists in the air in victory as the older man laughed and the younger one cursed.

Jack approached the table and saw the familiar tiles. He’d had a Taiwanese girlfriend in college who’d taught him the game — along with a few other things. The Cigar Man blew another plume of smoke as he and the others swiftly turned the tiles facedown. Fond memories of midnight mah-jongg games in the dorm flooded his mind. He wasn’t very good at it, but it was a lot of fun, especially when he was drinking PBRs. He’d played the game a hundred times if he played it once.

The three men laid their hands on the overturned tiles and mixed them up together, a communal act of security. The thirty-something shot Jack a quick glance and a faint smile. He wondered if he was the ace in the group.

Group?

Mah-jongg takes four players—

Jack spun right on his heel and ducked, sensing more than seeing the bat swing past his left ear. He didn’t move fast enough. The heavy lumber smashed a glancing blow just below his shoulder, bouncing off his upper arm and crashing into the flimsy card table, scattering tiles in every direction. Cigar Man had already leaped to his feet and receded, while the two others pulled knives and jumped aside.

Jack pulled the wrench out of his belt as he spun on his heel, ignoring the bruising bat blow, and whipped the steel around in the long reach of his arm like he was throwing a Frisbee. The wrench broke the smaller man’s neck just as he was lifting the bat for another strike. Jack stepped past the falling corpse and the bat clattering on the floor as he spun through the momentum of his swing.

Against the three other men he had almost no chance of winning, even if he had already dispatched their friend. His only chance was speed — and sheer audacity. In the time it took to spin and strike the bat man, the twenty-something was charging with a long blade, lunging forward like a fencer, driving the point of the knife straight into Jack’s gut.

* * *

It happened so fast Jack didn’t have time for déjà vu — he just had time to lift the wrench above his head and smash it down on the man’s confused face, caving in his skull right between the eyes. Blood gushed hot on Jack’s hand as the sharp end of the extended wrench jaw sank into the bone.

Behind him, Jack heard heavy steps charging toward him. Without looking, he thrust his elbow back as hard as he could, aiming it shoulder high. His aim was perfect. The hardest bone in Jack’s body cracked into the soft cartilage of the lunging man’s nose. The Chinese man screamed as his body flung backward, feet high and flopping, like a man running full speed into a clothesline. His skull hit the concrete with a sickening thud.

Jack turned to face Cigar Man, smiling and puffing, his broad back against a pallet. He wrapped his thick fingers around the cigar stub, took one last puff, and flung it aside. In the same instant he reached behind his shirt and pulled out a razor-clawed karambit.

Of course.

Jack shuddered at the sight of it. Amador had shown him all too clearly what that blade was capable of in the hands of a man who knew how to use it. Cigar’s confidence with the weapon was obvious.