The Neo-Metropol Heist

32: Edward

Edward looked at the pile of chips that had slowly appeared in front of Zakarias over the past three and a half hours.
The pile was impressive, but not as impressive as it could've been. Zakarias had kept a healthy record but he'd dropped several turns to avoid suspicion, still, there was a sizeable amount of money on the table.
The group that they had started with had slowly shrunk over the last few hours, and now only the elderly woman and one of the men remained.
Even Edward had managed to fix a few games his way, but his was pure luck as opposed to whatever Zakarias called what he was doing.
The doorman had cycled through and now an attractive young woman in a gold-lined dress with decorative Oriental print now watched over the table, acting as the dealer but mostly just pressing the same button at the holographic interface.
Edward did not know how much more Zakarias planned to take, but he'd already tripled their outlay twice over and there would come a point where they were pushing their luck, but Edward had no way to convey his concerns, so he stayed fixed to his seat as another turn came.
He played his role and bluffed again, forcing everybody at the table to do the same to stay in the game.
The elderly woman sat across from him eyed him with squinting, severe eyes like a lizard. Edward would have said that she had an inkling of what was happening, but he decided that the woman was most likely always that way.
The turn ended and in this case, Zakarias scooped the prize and the coins transferred to him. He grinned but didn't brag, the table giving him disgusted looks for the thousandth time.
The elderly woman finally snapped, pulling out her remaining stake and standing up from the table with a scowl, leaving the room.
Her screen reset and disappeared, leaving only the three men sat at the table.
"Another round!" Zakarias laughed, leaning back in his chair.
As the dealer reset the table, Zakarias glanced at the door and then at Edward. As subtly as possible, Edward craned his neck towards the door.
Outside, one of the doormen was stood talking to a tall man in peculiar dress. A broad brimmed cowboy hat and black leathers with a gnarled face in shadow, he could have been in costume for a play, only Edward had a feeling he wasn't.
Zakarias gave Edward a glance that clearly said it was time to go, and Zakarias pulled his stake from the table as Edward fumbled with his display to do the same.
As they stood up to leave, much to the chagrin of the remaining man at the table who was currently in the red, the man in the cowboy dressed stepped into the room with another man in a sharp suit.
"Gentlemen," the man in the suit said. For the first time, Edward caught a glance of the cowboy's face, it was scarred and mottled and in more than one place patched with metal coloured black like iron, most prominently over his left eye.
In its place, a deep red pupil that urgently rushed from side to side, betraying his otherwise still-calm face.
"Is there a problem?" Zakarias asked diplomatically, opening his arms in the same way he'd done when he first encountered Harry Cain in Artem's apartment.
"Would you mind coming with us?" The man in the suit asked, his hands clasped across his stomach. He had a scar across his eye that made him look much older than he must have been. Edward noted that he hadn't answered Zakarias's question, "we have some questions for you."
Zakarias and Edward exchanged glances, they both could tell by the hulking cowboy's presence and the obvious weapons holstered underneath his leather jacket that arguing or even running wouldn't be particularly beneficial.
"Of course," Zakarias replied calmly.
"If you and your grandfather would follow me, please," the suited man said.
Zakarias grinned at Edward and did not show a sign of concern for their lives. Edward remained calm and moved with Zakarias to follow the man.
Behind them, the cowboy stepped to cover their rear and for the first time in a while Edward felt a sense of true foreboding as his leather boots scuffed along the floors.
They continued further down the corridors away from the main casino floor and to an elevator at the back. They were ushered inside and the cowboy pressed a button labelled 'office', the elevator lifting with a quiet grumble.
"You know what I miss?" Zakarias said to anybody in the small space, "elevator music. There is nothing wrong with a bit of music in an elevator. It sort of went out of fashion, didn't it?"
The man in the suit gave him a bemused look but the cowboy didn't even flinch. The elevator rolled to a stop and the door hissed open, revealing a small room with a centre desk and a display of surveillance cameras across one wall, next to a blue door that appeared to lead outside.
At the desk, a small man with thin lips and even thinner hair sat in an extravagant leather chair.
"Gentlemen," he said, "please, come in."
Zakarias and Edward were ushered into the room - in the corner, a light incense burned with a strange, exotic musk.
On the other side of the desk, a man sat in one of the chairs. As Edward stepped closer, he realised that he was not a guest, and instead a prisoner. He was bound to the chair with strapping and his mouth was gagged with a cloth.
The man's face was battered and blackened, and his lip was split. Edward suddenly felt very sick.
"Please, take a seat next to Mr Chen," the man at the desk said, "we were just having a discussion about our current working relationship, you aren't interrupting."
The cowboy nudged Edward in the base of his spine, towards the chair next to Chen. Edward sat down as Chen looked up at him, his eyes wide and his grunts for help muffled by the rag.
They sat down and the man in the suit stood next to them, behind them, the cowboy took a place beside the elevator. The sense of foreboding evolved into a true sense of fear.
"My name is Mr Long," the man with the thin hair said. Edward noticed a tattoo on the side of his wrinkled neck, what appeared to be a half-sunrise in blood red, "I am the owner and proprietor of this casino."
"Mr Long, it is a pleasure to meet you," Zakarias said, extending an arm out, only for the man in the suit to slap it back down with a firm hand. Undeterred, Zakarias adjusted the sleeve of his shirt and smiled, "my name is Sam Shepard, and this is my father, John."
The man in the sharp suit scoffed behind them.
"Please, Zheng, do not be so rude to our guests," Mr Long said, "we know who you are, Mr Maythorn."
Zakarias leaned back and exhaled.
"And we know you, Mr Helten," Mr Long said, leaning forward in his seat, "to ensure that further proceedings go without issue, I would prefer it if you refrained from lying to me again."
The man used large, unusual words in strange formations in the way that people without English as their first language did to over-compensate, Edward realised.
"That seems quite fair," Zakarias said, still smiling with perfected warmth.
"Mr Chen," Long said to the bound man, who fidgeted in frustration and fear, "we will return to our discussion momentarily once I have dealt with this new business. You understand?"
Chen narrowed his eyes and Edward decided that the man would have cursed had his mouth not been gagged.
"My wait-staff appear to believe that you have been cheating at Zhu's March, Mr Maythorn," Long said, examining his hands as he did so, "why would they say such things?"
Zakarias shrugged.
"I couldn't say," Zakarias said.
Long gestured at the surveillance screens on the far wall, a few of which switched to footage of the Zhu's Hope game earlier on.
"You appear to have had quite a lucky streak in the past few hours," Long said, still calm.
Zakarias shrugged.
"I am very lucky," he said. Edward was impressed at his ability to maintain his confident front without wavering.
"This is very true," Long said, "in fact, this streak seems to have been running for quite a long while. You have been seen at many other casinos across the city, by my reports, with a very similar kind of luck."
Zakarias flinched but his mask didn't slip.
"Some might even say that you have too much luck," Long said slowly, "that your winning streak could only be accomplished by, say, cheating."
Mr Long leaned forward and Edward saw his blood-flecked eyes. Next to him, Chen struggled against his bindings and tried to shout.
"I will ask you now, Mr Maythorn, and I would expect the courtesy of the truth," Long said through a smile like a knife edge, "have you been playing unfairly inside my casino?"
Zakarias smiled back and met his gaze.
"My father instilled in me from a very young age how to act in an ethical manner," Zakarias said, "I would never dream of doing such a thing."
Long leaned back into his seat and sighed.
"I was very polite in my request that you not lie in my presence, Mr Maythorn," Long said, every word a dagger. Edward felt sick as Long gestured to his henchmen, "Zheng, Blackjack, please show Mr Maythorn how we reward liars and cheats."
The two men stepped forward and surrounded Zakarias, who didn't resist. Zheng pinned him to the chair and the cowboy, the man named Blackjack, grabbed the index finger of his right hand, snapping it backwards with a single motion.
Zakarias cried out in pain for a moment as the men released him as Edward gasped in shock.
Clutching his broken finger, Zakarias hunched forward as the cry became a laugh.
"That certainly is," he coughed, "a severe and harsh punishment. Why would anybody dare to lie or cheat in your presence, Mr Long?"
Mr Long sat back, both impressed and obviously annoyed at Zakarias's resilience. Edward, meanwhile, was horrified at how Zakarias simply brushed off the pain and masked it with confidence as though it was nothing.
The two men stepped back to their marks.
"I appear to be getting ahead of myself," Long said, "how can I devote my attention to you two gentlemen whilst I still have business to deal with? Will you excuse me for one moment?"
Long stood up and Edward chanced a glance at Zakarias, who gave him a reassuring look back. Still clutching his finger but grinning as though he was out for a drink with friends and one of them had spilled a drink.
"Liars are one thing I cannot abide, you see," Long said, edging round the large table and towards Chen, who was now visibly terrified, "but worse than that, is those who actively abuse my trust. Who take my gifts to them and do not appreciate them."
Long crouched next to Chen, who met his eyes defiantly as a man tied up can, and put his hand on his head.
"Mr Chen here was welcomed into the fold, given a place at my table and provided with all that he needs by my men," Edward, for the first time, noticed the matching tattoo on the man's neck. Chen's was faded and half-gone, apparently fake, "he took this trust, and these gifts, and spat on them, as though they were nothing."
Long stood up and crossed the room towards Zheng, who didn't flinch as Long opened his jacket and removed something that Edward couldn't quite identify.
"There is, in my view, only one punishment that befits this crime," Long said.
Edward could feel the fear that Chen felt as Long crossed the room back to them again. He could only struggle and cry, but he was a fly in the spider's web. Edward could do nothing to help him, a frail old man with no weapons, who could only sit and watch.
"And it is a great shame," Long said, taking a place behind Chen and revealing the item that he took from Zheng to be a modified handgun with a silencer modification, "because it is always quite messy."
Long raised the gun to the back of Chen's head as the man writhed and gasped against the rag in his mouth.
"Thank you for your service, Mr Chen," Long said, pulling the trigger.
Even with the silencer, the noise was piercing and awful, like a car door being slammed shut. Edward didn't see the bullet through the flash of light, but he saw a spray of red in front of Chen's face and a dent appear in the fine wood of Long's desk.
Chen slumped but the binds held him in place, so his head merely lolled to the side listlessly, a stream of blood dripping onto the carpet.
"Well," Zakarias said quietly, only for the sentence to trail off.
Long flicked the gun back into safe mode and handed it back to Zheng before taking his seat again.
"I am sorry you had to see that, gentlemen," Long said, "but I could not have given a better demonstration of the limit of my tolerance for those who do not return my favour."
Edward felt cold. Of course he'd seen men die before, in the courtyard when the kids in gangs got a little out of hand, but never from two foot away. He realised that he had some of Chen's blood on his shoes.
"Now that the matter is resolved, though, we may return to our business," Long said.
At that moment, the surveillance screens switched to an alarmed red and trained themselves on the front and back entrances of the casino. Chinese characters flashed in a warning strobe and Long looked up at them.
"We have visitors," he said.
On the screens, Edward saw two groups of what appeared to be patrol officers bursting through the two entrances to the casino.
The one group forced their way into the kitchens, passing through scared kitchen staff who simply lay down and allowed them to pass. The other group, led by a slender woman who wore half the patrol uniform, her head free and her hair pulled back into a ponytail.
"Blackjack," Long said, "I'm afraid you will have to inform them that I will be unable to receive them."
The cowboy nodded silently, removing an antique revolver from his holster and readying it without a flicker of emotion. He stepped into the elevator and was gone.
"We will have to move our meeting elsewhere," Long said, "Zheng, move them."
On the screens, a group of Long's henchmen met the group that had come through the kitchens with a spray of bullets. The front team moved swiftly across the casino floor and would be at the office in moments, if they knew their way.
Zheng stepped forward with his gun drawn and gestured for Zakarias and Edward to stand up. Deciding it was best to obey, Edward stood up, with Zakarias following.
Then, Zakarias turned to the man and pointed to the far wall behind him.
"Hey, what's that?" He said, only to receive a disappointed look from Zheng.
"Do you really believe I would fall for such a trick?" The henchman asked, still pointing his gun at Zakarias's abdomen.
"No, I didn't think you would," Zakarias said, punctuating the sentence by slapping the gun away and striking Zheng across the face with his damaged hand.
The suited man fell to the ground as his gun fired aimlessly, the loose bullet striking the surveillance screens and shattering one of them. He dropped to the floor and stayed quiet.
Zakarias shook his hand and sucked in air through his teeth.
"That never stops hurting," he said.
Long snarled, all pretense evaporating in a swell of rage.
"You will not defy me," the man shouted, his face burning, "I will not be disobeyed and insulted in such a way in my casino. I will have you destroyed."
"Oh, do be quiet," Edward said, swapping his cane between his hands and swinging it with as much force as he could muster into Long's jaw.
The man went quiet and fell against his desk and finally to the floor in an awkward fashion, but didn't immediately get back up again.
"Thank god he's finally quiet," Zakarias said, moving round to his side of the desk. From somewhere close a spray of gunfire could be heard, but Edward could not determine whether it was from the surveillance cameras or from outside the room.
Zakarias tapped away at Long's terminal and the surveillance screens went blank, a red 'no input' warning flashing up.
"Security footage from the last three hours wiped, just to be safe," Zakarias said, calmly. For a moment, Edward felt regret and how difficult it would make it for the police to pin Chen's murder on Long without the video footage, but they couldn't risk getting embroiled in it.
Zakarias slid open the desk drawer and his face lit up as he found a spare fob for a jumpcar and held it up, "jackpot," he said.
The light on the elevator suddenly pinged into life to indicate that it was on the move, so they wasted no more time in making their escape. With one final glance at the lifeless body of Mr Chen, they opened the external fire door and stepped out into the night air.
They found themselves on a metal catwalk that became a stairway down the five or so storeys to the ground, a small opening between the building and the building next to it.
Inside the casino, even through the walls, the gunfight between the patrol officers and Long's men could be heard.
"Over here," Zakarias said, locating a jumpcar tucked away in the darkness. A sleek, silver luxury extravagance designed to be driven by a driver for the passenger to enjoy. Zakarias opened the doors and they climbed inside as torchlight appeared somewhere further down the alley.
Zakarias scanned the fob and the car kicked into life, the thrusters on the underside lifting it into the ground and Zakarias's untrained control causing the car to judder and eventually fly vertically upwards, out of the alley and away from the torchlight, the gunfire, Mr Long and Chen's corpse.
Realising he was out of breath and gasping for air, Edward leaned back into the comfortable leather-woven seats and tried to catch the air that escaped him.
When he finally did, he turned to Zakarias, who could not have been calmer or more collected.
"So," the man said with a glint in his eye, "same time next week?"
As the car banked to become anonymous amongst the flow of traffic high above Little Wuhan, Edward decided not to justify the statement with an answer.