RainStorm

Regardless, a minute ago the issue had caused her
    to lose some of her considerable cool.
    Which created a bargaining chip. I decided to play it.
    "Meet me later," I said. "I'm going to check on a few things in
    the meantime, and then we'll fill each other in. If I'm convinced at
    that point that I've got no chance of finishing this properly, I'll
    walk away."
    "I'm not meeting you again. It's too dangerous."
    "Not if we do it right."
    There was a pause, then she said, "Tell me what you have in
    mind."
    "Where's Belghazi right now?"
    "He's off Macau."
    "Where?"
    "He has meetings in the region. I'm not supposed to know
    where."
    Not being supposed to know and not knowing were quite different
    things. She was afraid that, if she told me, I might try to go
    after him. Not an unreasonable concern.
    "When will he be back?" I asked.
    "He wasn't sure. A day, maybe two."
    "All right. Take a trip to Hong Kong. Tonight. There are lots of
    Caucasians there and it's much bigger than this place. You'll have an
    easier time blending in. If he asks, you tell him Macau started to
    feel small, you got bored, you wanted to do some shopping, take in
    the sights."
    There was a long pause. Then she said, "Where do I find you?"
    "I haven't decided that yet. Give me your cell phone number and I'll call you from a pay phone. Ten o'clock tonight. I'll tell you
    where then."
    She looked at me for a moment, then nodded. I grabbed a pencil
    and a piece of paper from next to the telephone and wrote down
    the number she gave me, in code, as always, so that she wouldn't be
    compromised if I were ever found with the paper.
    She walked to the door. I watched her glance down at the body
    as she stepped over it. She checked through the peephole, opened
    the door a crack, looked through it, and moved out into the corridor.
    The door closed quietly behind her.
    I had to be careful now. I knew there were only two possible
    reasons that she'd agreed to meet me. One, because she was afraid
    that, if she didn't, I might go after Belghazi again and screw things up
    for her. In this sense, I was coercing her, and I was aware that coercion
    is an inherently dangerous way to gain someone's cooperation.
    Two, she wanted another shot at using a little coercion herself.
    I realized that she hadn't even asked what I was going to do
    about the dead guy. I decided to take that as a compliment: she
    knew I would handle it and hadn't felt the need to inquire.
    In the end, it took me the rest of the afternoon to make Elevator
    Boy disappear as he needed to. I could have simply left him in
    the room, but doing so would have undone all my efforts to disconnect
    myself from the other dead Arabs. Hmm, the police would
    be saying, three dead Saudis in Hong Kong, another two near the
    Macau Ferry Terminal, and now this one, in a hotel room? Dumping
    him in one of the Oriental's stairwells would have been a marginal
    improvement, but it would still mean the police would focus
    on the hotel where I had been staying. I didn't want that kind of attention.
    Sure, I'd checked in under an appropriate alias and could
    have just evaporated, counting on the alias to break the connection
    between the perpetrator and the crimes, but I decided that the risk
    of bringing that much heat down on the alias was greater than the
    risk of cleaning up the mess and avoiding the heat entirely.
    Of course, the "cleaning up the mess" option involved a bit
    more than just tidying up after a dinner party. I had to shop for
    proper luggage, in this case a Tumi fifty-six-inch wardrobe, billed as
    "The Goliath of Garment Bags"; sheet plastic to prevent contamination
    of the interior of the bag during transportation; and plenty
    of towels to absorb any leakage. As for the packing itself, suffice to
    say that Elevator Boy, although not a particularly large man, wasn't
    just a couple of suit jackets, either, and I had to make a few unpleasant
    adjustments to get the desired fit. The Goliath worked as
    advertised, though, and I was able to wheel it and its unusually
    heavy load out of the hotel, eschewing offers of assistance from two
    bellhops along the way. Under the causeway a kilometer or so from
    the hotel, I ducked behind a pillar and unloaded the Goliath's contents,
    then continued on my way, wheeling the bag along behind
    me with considerably less effort than before. I left it far from the
    body and the hotel, at the other end of the causeway, where I knew
    someone would quickly and happily "steal"