Simon turned. The man was the biggest of the group, heavier by forty pounds, a head taller, beady eyes, arms as thick as an oak.
“No,” said Simon. “You’re being an asshole.” He threw a jab, knuckles extended, and struck the man squarely beneath the jaw. It was a lightning strike, delivered with half of what Simon had. Half was enough. As the man collapsed, Simon spun and grabbed the hooligan, Mötley Crüe T-shirt gathered in his fists, and brought his forehead down on the bridge of the man’s nose. The crunch of collapsing cartilage was audible. Still clutching his shirt, Simon chucked him to one side, if only to avoid the blood spouting from the man’s ruined nose. That one was full strength, thought Simon. He didn’t want to show any disrespect.
“Leave,” said Simon. “Scram. It’s how we Yanks say ‘Get lost.’”
The remaining four turned tail. Two backed away cautiously. The smarter two ran.
Simon reached his car before the wiper thief could react. The purloined blade lay on the hood. Simon dragged the man off the car by his waistband. The thief threw an elbow. Simon grabbed the offending limb and twisted it behind the man’s back, ignoring his own discomfort, giving it a powerful upward thrust, dislocating the man’s shoulder, tearing a tendon or two.
The scream brought a smile to Simon’s face. It wasn’t a humorous smile, and part of him had an urge to use the wiper blade for an entirely different purpose than what the manufacturer had intended. Reason prevailed. Simon kicked the man in the ass as he fled.
He needed a minute to replace the blades on his wipers.
A minute after that he was driving west toward his shop.
Chapter 6
Singapore
In the Lion City of Singapore, it was seven o’clock in the evening, and London Li was beginning to think she’d been stood up. Seated in the Renku Lounge of the Marina Bay Sands hotel, London scanned the lobby using her well-honed instincts to select who her contact might be. Dozens of people walked past in every direction. To the casino, to the luxury shopping mall, to their hotel rooms. Was it the crooked, balding man in the gray suit or the muscular bearded man with the bowling-ball belly? The Indian with the shaggy gray hair or the elderly Chinese man who looked as if a strong wind might blow him clear across the Straits of Malacca.
The problem was twofold. First, the lobby was enormous, a hundred meters at least, running the length of the hotel’s twenty-three-story atrium. And second, she didn’t know who she was looking for. The email she’d received had simply instructed her to be seated at the rear corner of the lounge adjacent to the piano bar at six p.m. It had been signed “R.” For all she knew, R could be a woman.
London Li was not anxiously awaiting the arrival of a date. She was here on business. Thirty-one years old, staunchly single, London Li worked as a reporter for the Financial Times, the newspaper printed on pink paper. Her beat was white-collar crime: fraud, corporate malfeasance, insider trading. And not your garden variety either. The big stuff only. Front page, above the fold. She’d exposed an African dictator who’d emptied his national treasury, a Scottish banker who’d manipulated the LIBOR to the tune of twenty billion dollars, and a Colombian drug lord who’d purchased a chain of U.S. banks. If half of what R claimed was true, she might be on to her biggest scoop yet. The files he’d sent painted a picture of theft on a monumental scale. Scratch that. A gargantuan scale.
Or, in the journalist’s vernacular, a “Pulitzer.”
London Li was ambitious. Like a shark is hungry.
An attractive Western man approached. Well-dressed, black hair, wolfish good looks. She perked up, sitting taller. He looked the type. I-banker, trader, salesman for a hedge fund. Dark suit. Open collar. AP Royal Oak. Definitely something to do with money. The man stopped at her table, appraising her a little too frankly. For a year she’d had a column in a local paper with a dreadful picture of her. Maybe he’d seen it.
“Hello,” she said.
The man stood a few feet from her table, sizing her up.
“Looking for someone?” she asked.
“I think I’ve found her.”
Maybe too “wolfish.” Alarm bells sounded. “Pardon me?”
“I’ll bet we could have some fun. I’m a generous guy. I’m in town for a few days. What do you say?”
French. Of course.
With a sly smile, London beckoned him closer. He placed a