Macau (2)
“By any chance, do you two have a favorite game?”
Inside the elevator on the way up to the VIP room, Tony Jung struck up a conversation.
Since following him, Kang-hae had kept his mouth shut the entire time.
He didn’t know a single game, so he had no idea what to say.
Even baccarat was something Seong Ha-yeong had taught him before they came to the casino.
“If you’re talking cards, isn’t poker the one that matters most?” Seong Ha-yeong said instead, rubbing her palms together.
She did it so naturally she could have passed for a seasoned gambler.
“What kind of poker do you enjoy?”
“I play Omaha or Stud sometimes, but if you’re talking cards, it’s Texas Hold’em.”
“So you like the classics.”
“Nope. I like K-pop.” Haha.
Even with Seong Ha-yeong’s ridiculous joke, Tony Jung never lost his smile.
And Kang-hae couldn’t help wondering where, when, and how Seong Ha-yeong had learned to gamble.
But more urgent than that was why on earth she had come all the way to the VIP room in the first place.
Before long, the elevator doors opened and they arrived at the VIP floor.
Rough-looking guards stood scattered everywhere, but every time they met someone’s eyes, they broke into bright smiles.
“Right this way, please.”
Tony Jung spoke with impeccable courtesy.
“Hold on. We need to talk for a minute.”
Kang-hae pointed at himself and Seong Ha-yeong as he spoke.
“Of course. We have a separate lounge where smoking is allowed. I’ll take you there first.”
Tony Jung led them to the lounge.
A large leather sofa and big planters filled with fresh flowers stood out at once.
“I’ll wait outside, then.”
As soon as Tony Jung left the lounge, Kang-hae lowered his voice and asked, “What exactly are you thinking?”
“The people who come to the VIP tables are definitely the kind who have real influence in Hong Kong or Macau. It might be faster to get information from them.”
“……”
It did seem better than waiting around for loan sharks who might never show up.
But that wasn’t the real problem.
“But do you actually know how to play poker?”
“You’ll see.”
Seong Ha-yeong answered in a confident voice.
Just where on earth did she learn all this…
Kang-hae had a hundred questions, but decided to leave them for later.
The two of them left the lounge and, under Tony Jung’s guidance, headed for a private room.
At the poker table inside, three people were seated.
They were a Japanese couple well past middle age, and a man in his thirties who was obviously rich at a glance.
Judging by the man’s clothes and hairstyle, he was clearly from the Chinese-speaking world.
The man smiled at Kang-hae and Seong Ha-yeong and greeted them.
“Nice to meet you.”
“Oh, hi.”
Kang-hae returned the greeting with a halfhearted nod.
The man’s expression twitched for a moment, but he quickly recovered his smile.
“Aigoo, honey. It’s the VIP room, after all~”
Seong Ha-yeong slipped her arm through Kang-hae’s and spoke in a coaxing voice.
Everyone thought it was affectionate skinship between lovers, but her true meaning was that he should play along differently.
Kang-hae understood what she was saying.
“Nice to meet you. I am Jane. From South Korea.”
Seong Ha-yeong smiled at the man as she greeted him.
“Welcome. I am Miki Ho.”
He smiled and introduced himself as Miki Ho.
At that moment, something flashed through Seong Ha-yeong’s mind.
Maybe this man named Miki Ho…
Could be blood related to Stephen Ho, the so-called king of Macau!
Stephen Ho.
The king of Macau.
Born in 1921 to a prominent Hong Kong family, he had enjoyed a privileged childhood.
But in middle school, his family was ruined by his father’s reckless stock investments.
His father fled overseas, and his mother was forced to scrape by in poverty, drifting from one pawnshop to another.
But Stephen Ho was unlike his siblings, many of whom had given up on life and ended it by suicide.
He had a brilliant mind.
Even in those difficult circumstances, he entered the University of Hong Kong, and after graduating, he landed a job at a Japanese trading company.
With his exceptional intelligence, Stephen Ho became chief executive officer just two years after being hired.
After that, he founded a construction company and built immense wealth.
Then he won a 40-year monopoly on casino operations from the Portuguese colonial government that ruled Macau at the time.
That was how he became the king of Macau.
Hotels.
Roads.
Casinos.
Ferry terminals.
Macau International Airport.
Any major business in Macau had to pass through his hands.
Thanks to that, 70 percent of Macau’s tax revenue came from companies that Stephen Ho directly or indirectly controlled.
But even an empire that seemed eternal eventually met its crisis.
In 2001, the Macau government—or more precisely, the Chinese Communist Party—revoked the casino monopoly that had belonged only to Stephen Ho and opened the industry to competition.
American casino giants such as the Las Vegas Sands Group, Wynn Resorts, and even Hong Kong property tycoons and Australian media barons rushed into Macau.
They built their casinos there.
Stephen Ho didn’t just sit and watch, either.
He joined forces with the American casino giant MGM Resorts International to build MGM Grand Macau and the 228-meter-high Grand Lisboa, the supertall casino hotel that became a Macau landmark, proving his mettle once again.
His former status was gone, but Stephen Ho’s influence was still very much alive.
Then, after his death in 2020 at the age of 98, a fight broke out among his children over his legacy.
During his lifetime, Stephen Ho had four wives, and he left behind seventeen children.
Forbes estimated his fortune in 2018 at around $6 billion—about 8 trillion won.
But that was only an estimate, and Stephen Ho owned far more than that.
His children went to war over the inheritance.
And that war was still ongoing.
“Shall we begin?” the dealer asked, looking at Kang-hae and Seong Ha-yeong.
“Honey. You should take a break and rest.”
Seong Ha-yeong looked at Kang-hae as she said it.
“Won’t your husband be playing?” Tony Jung asked from nearby.
“Ah, our darling already used up all the universe’s energy at baccarat earlier. I’ll be the only one playing Hold’em.”
“Understood.”
Tony Jung placed a chair behind Seong Ha-yeong’s seat.
Once Seong Ha-yeong and Kang-hae were seated, the dealer dealt the cards, and the game began.
After the chips on the table changed hands several times, Miki Ho found himself interested in the young Korean couple.
Or rather, more precisely, in the woman who had introduced herself as Jane.
When he first saw Kang-hae, Miki Ho had assumed he was just one of the rich sons of nouveau riche families often seen in casinos.
And he had assumed the woman, Jane, was of roughly the same breed—or the sort who dated men for money.
But as he spoke with Seong Ha-yeong, Miki Ho realized his assumptions were completely wrong.
She never stumbled, whether the topic was society, politics, religion, culture, art, or sports.
These weren’t things you picked up from a surface skim; they were things you had to study for a long time to know.
More than anything, her manner carried refinement.
The way she thanked the server who brought drinks and snacks.
The natural way she handed over a tip.
The motion of her hand when she held a knife and fork.
The way she met the eyes of whoever she was speaking to.
They were things most nouveau riche people never learned.
Things you could only acquire through very long practice.
As they played poker, Miki Ho found himself sneaking glances at Kang-hae more than once.
And each time, he thought the same thing.
Why is she with a man like that…
* * *
At a baccarat table on the first floor of the Benxian.
Please, please, please, please…
Ha Seok-jun carefully turned over the two cards in front of him.
They were both aces.
A short curse slipped from his mouth.
“Fuck…”
In baccarat, an ace counted as one point, and two aces were worth a measly two points.
In a game where you had to get as close to nine as possible to win, winning money with two points was statistically close to zero.
An hour earlier, Ha Seok-jun had watched from a distance as Kang-hae sat at a baccarat table and won eight straight hands.
His own money wasn’t even on the line, but his heart had been pounding anyway.
After Kang-hae and Seong Ha-yeong disappeared, Ha Seok-jun had sat down at a baccarat table as if possessed.
He’d won two hands with a beginner’s luck, but after that it was a steady downhill slide.
Just get back to even.
So Ha Seok-jun had gone to the ATM three times.
Two months’ salary had vanished before his eyes in the span of an hour.
His pupils were already half unfocused, and he had no life left in him.
Ha Seok-jun got to his feet to head back to the hotel.
He wanted nothing more than to lie down on the bed and do absolutely nothing.
But that feeling lasted only a moment.
As soon as he saw the ATM, his heart started racing again.
Still, he couldn’t bring himself to withdraw more money right away.
He paced in front of the machine like a dog desperate to crap.
That was when he heard someone’s voice by his ear.
“Hey there, boss~?”
He turned his head, and a man in a flower-patterned shirt was walking toward him with a smile.
He looked about the same age, and wore gold jewelry around his neck and wrists.
“Are you Korean, by any chance?”
“What if I am?”
“Do you perhaps need some money?”
At that moment, Ha Seok-jun’s mind lit up.
It had to be the loan shark Kang-hae had mentioned before coming to the casino.
I, Ha Seok-jun, am a major in the Republic of Korea Army…!
The baccarat tables and chips that had been haunting his mind a moment ago fled in an instant.
He decided he would show Kang-hae and Seong Ha-yeong something.
So he asked back in a haughty tone, “How much can you lend?”
* * *
“It’s okay. I’ll stop here for today.”
Seong Ha-yeong looked at the dealer who was about to hand over the cards and said it.
Miki Ho felt a twinge of disappointment.
Talking with Seong Ha-yeong had been far more enjoyable than playing poker.
Thanks to that, he’d lost half his money, but he didn’t care.
“How long will you be staying in Macau?”
“We’ll probably head back the day after tomorrow.”
“Then shall we play again tomorrow?”
Seong Ha-yeong looked over her shoulder at Kang-hae, as if asking what he wanted to do.
At that moment, Miki Ho felt that same inexplicable jealousy again.
“Why not? We might as well come again tomorrow.”
Kang-hae answered carelessly.
“Great. Then let’s meet here again at this time tomorrow.”
“Your boyfriend should come along tomorrow too.”
Miki Ho said, looking straight at Kang-hae.
His eyes and his tone were both challenging.
Kang-hae knew Miki Ho was feeling competitive toward him.
And in that instant, Kang-hae was seized by a competitiveness of his own.
For some reason, he wanted to press the man down.
“Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”
After saying that, Kang-hae naturally slipped his arm around Seong Ha-yeong’s waist.
It had been only a brief moment, but Miki Ho’s face stiffened.
And Kang-hae saw it.
Seong Ha-yeong was startled by Kang-hae’s unexpected touch, but she didn’t show it on her face.
Tony Jung escorted them to the elevator.
Even then, Kang-hae kept his arm around Seong Ha-yeong’s waist.
But the second the elevator doors closed, he snatched his hand away in a hurry.
An awkward silence filled the elevator.
“Ahem…”
Seong Ha-yeong cleared her throat.
Kang-hae stared up at the ceiling for no reason at all.
The awkward air pressed down on them both.
To break the tension, Kang-hae opened his mouth.
But Seong Ha-yeong was thinking the same thing.
“Um…”
“Um…”
The words burst from both their mouths almost at the same time.
Their voices overlapped.
“You go first, Kang-hae.”
“No, you please speak first.”
“Well… today wasn’t bad, I guess.”
“Me too…”
“……”
The air grew even more awkward than before.
At that moment, Kang-hae’s phone rang.
Bzzzzt—
He hurriedly pulled it from his pocket.
It was Ha Seok-jun calling.
For once, there had never been a more welcome call.
Kang-hae answered at once.
“Yeah.”
But no voice came through the phone.
Normally he would have hung up right away, but this time he couldn’t.
“Hello?”
Kang-hae called to Ha Seok-jun.
After a moment, a voice came from the other end.
But it wasn’t Ha Seok-jun’s.
“Boss~? I think you’d better come over here~.”
The tone was full of sneering mockery, and the accent sounded slightly off.
Kang-hae had a sudden, sinking feeling that something bad had happened.
And Seong Ha-yeong, seeing the look that hardened on Kang-hae’s face, realized it too.
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