Epilogue: Part 4

(Flashback)

Tien peeked around the doorway to watch the men hunched over the small table.  They were so absorbed in the tile game they didn’t even notice her.  From this position, she could see the faces of the Block B members.  B-Bomb and P.O, she reminded herself. 

Mai had been right, as usual.  Block B couldn’t stay away from the game with stacks this high.  Tien had to wonder how they planned on getting away though.  Did they seriously think they had fooled anyone with the fake story about them being businessmen looking to invest in Vietnam?  She nearly sighed. 

She took a moment to watch the man at the far end of the table.  B-Bomb.  He wasn’t the first man she’d met that had been entranced by her blue eyes.  Most of the people she met were, it was a brief interest until she lied and explained them away as colored contacts.  She did wear contacts, but for her sight, not for eye color.  The blue was totally natural, albeit rare for an Asian. 

She watched silently as P.O won.  She had to check her impulse to run in and rescue them when the gun was pulled.  She reminded herself that she had carefully removed all the bullets from it earlier.  She breathed a sigh of relief when B-Bomb and P.O took off, but it was short lived. 

When PD Tran’s men took off after them Tien reached for the room’s sole phone.

“You were right, again,” Tien said softly when Mai answered.  “Our boys won, but Tran’s men aren’t going to pass up a chance for the price on their heads.  B-Bomb and P.O got away but they’re being chased.  They have the real case with the cash.”  She looked down at one of the fake cases that sat at her feet. 

“Can you track them down?  Do what you can to keep them out of trouble,” Mai ordered and then sighed.  “Zico and Taeil have men on their tail, too.  How that idiot has managed to stay alive pulling these half-planned schemes, I will never understand.” 

Tien hid a smile out of reflex even though Mai couldn’t see her.  She wasn’t sure, but the way Mai talked about Zico sometimes had her wondering if they actually knew each other.  “I’ll follow B-Bomb and P.O,” she told Mai.  “I’ll do what I can, but no promises.”

“I can’t ask for more than that when Block B is involved,” Mai answered. 

“I found her and B-Bomb on the floor together, Mai,” Zico said.  He and Mai sat close together now, their backs leaning against the back of the boat’s superstructure.  “She was straddling him.  Please don’t tell me that was part of your plan.”

Mai laughed.  “I had planned on the fact that we’re women to blind you to the fact that we were working a job, but not to that extreme.  Though, from what I heard, you guys are lucky she was there.  If she hadn’t been, what were you planning on doing about the guys following you?”

“I am a firm believer in not playing the ‘what if’ game.”

“If you don’t review your mistakes and different possibilities how to you expect to get any better at your job?”

“So if womanly wiles weren’t part of your plan, why did I find Jaehyo at a bar with Lan?” Zico asked, changing the subject. 

Mai watched him for a moment, trying to decide whether or not to push the issue.  But in the end, she went with it.  “Lan is a different story.  Her womanly wiles are her best asset.  The original plan was for her to coax away whichever of you had a case so she could switch it out.  When things started going wrong, I sent Lan to back up Ying who was tailing Jaehyo and U-Kwon from the trophy room.  But that didn’t quite work the way it was supposed to.” Mai said pointedly as Lan walked by them. 

Lan had been listening to their conversation and smiled.  “I got bored,” she said with a shrug of her shoulder as if that explained everything.