LAUNDRY MAN (A Jack Shepherd crime thriller) (31 page)

Captain Tom didn’t answer my question immediately. He kept his eyes fixed on the road and didn’t speak again until we had crossed the bridge and were rolling steadily down the divided highway on the other side.

“
Monsieur
Emmanuel told me to take you to the Phuket Yacht Club,
Professeur.
My instructions are that you’re on your own from there.”

We slammed through a pothole and Tom fought to keep the jeep moving in a straight line. Slowing down didn’t seem to cross his mind as an option.

“The man you’re looking for is in a villa on the southwestern tip of the island. It’s a few miles east of the Yacht Club.”

Tom glanced over to check out my reaction. I tried not to give him one.

“I’m leaving
mon
bébé
here with you. That map you have has a route marked out from the Yacht Club up through the ruins of an old tin mine and then onto a four-wheel track that circles above the main road and intercepts it just north of the villa.”

“Can’t I just use the regular highway?”

Captain Tom looked at me like I had just ridden in with a bunch of tourists, which in a manner of speaking I guess I had.

“That’s what they’d expect. Nobody would think you might be coming in from the east, and that could be worth something to you. Besides, the track takes you down on the compound from a little above it so you can see what you’re getting into before you get there.”

“Are you sure Barry Gale is there?” I asked.

“Not absolutely,” Tom admitted with what I thought was undue good cheer, “but we figure he must be. There is a guy there who meets the description. And we know there’s a tall Chinese woman with him.”

“What would it take to make sure?”

Captain Tom took both hands off the wheel and rubbed the back of his neck without slowing down. The muddy jeep wobbled along on its own for a moment.

“Well, somebody could go up there and ring the doorbell, I guess.”

I hoped the rest of the ideas Tom had were better than that.

“Do you know how this guy got to Phuket?” I asked, changing the subject.

Captain Tom looked at me strangely. “Is that a joke, too?”

“No. Why should it be?”

“That was how we found him so fast. I thought you knew.”

“Knew what?”

“That he flew down from Bangkok on a Thai Airways flight three days ago.”

“Why would I know that?”

“His ticket,” Captain Tom smiled. “It was in the name J. Shepherd.”

I chuckled and nodded as if I was appropriately amused.

What in God’s name was that crazy bastard up to? He was just daring me—or somebody—to come and get him.

The highway was largely deserted except for swarms of motorcycles and an occasional pickup truck. Off to our right I caught glimpses of the ocean through thick stands of rubber trees. Over the noise of the jeep I could hear the surf slapping against the rocky cliffs. The road suddenly dipped and then emerged from the trees and we were barreling along next to a crescent-shaped beach that was deserted except for a small frame building near the surf line that I took to be a restaurant. Just past the building, whatever it was, Captain Tom swung the jeep off the road and headed inland, bumping straight across a rocky, gently rising field as if he had driven it many times before.

We bounced in and out of rolls of black rock terraced like layers of icing on a birthday cake. Avoiding the worst of the gaps between the terraces, Tom guided the jeep at an angle across the rising ground until we had climbed a few hundred yards from where we had left the highway. When we reached a gap between two hillocks, he swung the jeep around until it was pointed right through them and then he stopped. From there we had an unobstructed view down the coast.

Pushing his seat back, Captain Tom stood up and rested his forearms on the top of the jeep’s windshield. With his forefinger he pointed off in the distance and I stood up next to him and shaded my eyes with the palm of my right hand. I followed the line of surf and rock south until it turned east, twisting back on itself and disappearing from view, but I saw nothing out of the ordinary.

“What am I supposed to be looking for?”

“See that house?” Captain Tom pointed again. “Right there on the end of the point?”

All I saw was a lot of rock.

“Try using the glasses,” Tom prompted.

I sat down and pulled the field glasses out of my bag, then stood up again.

“Look just where the coast seems to end right in the middle of that last gap,” Tom said.

I lifted the binoculars and slowly scanned the area to which Captain Tom was pointing, but I still couldn’t find a house.

“I see something that looks like a big wall.”

“That’s it. That’s all you can see from here. The wall goes all the way around the compound. There are several buildings in there, a main house and a couple of smaller ones. You’ve got to get above it to see down inside. Some people around here call it the Berghof
.”

I lowered the field glasses and slowly tilted my heard toward Tom.

“What did you say?” I asked.

“Some people here call that house the Berghof
,”
Tom repeated. “It’s the name of a place in Germany where Hitler used to—”

“I know what the Berghof was,” I interrupted.

It was also the password Dollar had used to encrypt his files. What in the world did
that
mean?

I lifted the glasses again and swept them back and forth over the area, but there really wasn’t all that much to see. The wall was built of black lava rock that had been smoothly mortared together into a grim-looking barrier at least fifteen feet high. It appeared strong enough to stop tanks.

“Do you know who owns the house?” I asked.

Tom shook his head. “There’s been a lot of talk, but I don’t think anybody really knows.”

He thought for a moment longer.

“Somebody once told me it was owned through some chain of paper companies in different countries. That kind of thing.”

“Could you find out what the companies are?”

“Probably. Why, does it matter?”

“Maybe it doesn’t, but I’d like to know.”

I had noticed a pad and a pencil in the jeep’s storage box, so I sat down, pulled it out, and wrote down the number of my cell phone. I ripped the sheet off and handed it to Tom.

“Call me when you find out.”

“Certainement.
”

We slid back into our seats and Tom turned the jeep downhill. Within a few minutes we were back on the hard surface, traveling south at a good clip. Several miles passed before either of us spoke again.

“How did you end up here,
Professeur?”
Captain Tom eventually asked. “If I’m not being too personal.”

“You mean in Phuket? Today?”

“No, I mean in Thailand. It’s none of my business, I know, but you don’t seem the usual type.”

Captain Tom glanced over at me, then tossed out a real classic of a shrug, contorting his whole body into a dismissive gesture.
“Ça ne fait rien.
I was just making conversation.”

I always told people I had taken the teaching job at Sasin so that I could live the quiet life, but if that was true what was I doing in Phuket riding in a drug syndicate’s jeep with a loaded .45 at my feet chasing after a guy who had bought a Philippine bank for the Russian mob and used it to launder money to bribe Chinese politicians? Nobody had asked me to do it. As a matter of fact, the closer I got to Barry, the more people demanded that I
not
do it. So how could I answer Tom’s question? What in the world
was
I doing here?

“I don’t know, Tom,” I finally said. “I really don’t know anymore.”

Captain Tom nodded slowly as if he had been expecting me to say exactly that.

“Well, anyway,” I added for no particular reason, “I
am
here.”

“No, you’re not.” Captain Tom waggled his forefinger at me and grinned. “Ike wasn’t here. You’re not here. Shit, I’m probably not here either,
Professeur.”

The jeep suddenly hit another hole in the road and Tom fought the steering to keep control as one front tire skidded down into the hole and back out again.

“But sure as Christ that motherfucking hole is here all right.”

Tom started to laugh and as his voice rose and fell I joined in, too. It felt damn good.

TOM STOPPED THE
jeep at the bottom of the long narrow driveway that sloped steeply upward to where the Phuket Yacht Club commanded a flamboyant view over the deep cove that sheltered Nai Harn Beach. Its white, futuristic-looking rooms were cantilevered into stacks across the cliff face and they glistened dazzlingly in the Phuket sun.

In spite of its name, the Phuket Yacht Club isn’t a yacht club, nor for that matter is it any other kind of club either. It is instead a lavish hotel whose doors opened readily to anyone with sufficient cash or the right kind of plastic.

“You’d be a little conspicuous if I drove you all the way up to the front door,” Tom said.

Oh, right. And just strolling into the kind of world-famous resort where you might stumble over Madonna shacked up with Prince Charles won’t make me conspicuous at all.

Tom got out of the jeep and flipped me the keys. I caught them in the air. Then he held out his hand and we shook.

“Good luck,
Professeur.”

“Thanks, Tom. Don’t forget to get me a run down on the company that owns that house.”

“Oui.
I’ll call you.”

Captain Tom snapped me a little salute and strolled away in the direction of an open-air beer bar at the edge of the beach.

On my own now, I slid into the driver’s seat and started the jeep. By the time I had reached the top of the driveway, parked in the lot, and walked into the lobby of the Phuket Yacht Club, I was already in trouble. I had forgotten who I was supposed to be.

Fortunately it came back to me. I walked over the desk and gave a smiling girl in a yellow silk sarong the name Benny Glup, stumbling over it a little when I did. She seemed very young to me, but then most Thai women seemed very young to me. Either they really were, or I wasn’t, and I didn’t like to dwell too much on which explanation was the more accurate.

The girl’s smile briefly changed to puzzlement, as I suppose any sensible person’s would when confronted by a man stumbling over his own name. She tapped a few keys on her computer terminal, puckered her lips into a little frown, tapped again, and then her smile quickly returned.

“Oh, Mr.
Glup,”
she sang out happily, as if she had personally been waiting for me most of her life.

“Yes, indeed I am.”

I made the claim decisively and noted with some satisfaction how convincing I sounded. Maybe I was getting the hang of this stuff.

“You already registered in room 324, Mr. Glup. It very nice suite. Very good ocean view.”

The girl tapped a few more keys. There was a gentle whirring sound and a card key popped out of a flat box next to the computer. She passed it over with another bright smile.

In spite of what Tom had told me, I held out Benny Glup’s gold American Express card. The girl shook her head.

“Your suite complimentary, Mr. Glup. Like always. Welcome back to the Phuket Yacht Club.”

Like always? Welcome back?

“I call boy for luggage?”

I held up my duffle bag and shook my head.

The young girl gave me another dazzling smile. “Have nice day, Mr. Glup.”

Gee, thanks for arranging everything so discreetly, Manny. But maybe next time a couple of high school bands marching around the lobby would be nice.

The suite was lovely, of course, decorated in muted colors with irritatingly perfect taste. This was a five-star resort after all, and I wondered what it cost people who paid actual money to stay here. I kicked off my shoes and lay back across the king-sized bed. Now that I apparently knew where Barry Gale was, I had to admit to myself that I wasn’t all that sure what to do next. Did I just go over there and demand to know what the hell he had gotten me into, or was there a better strategy?

I had been assuming I would have plenty of time to decide about that while I was searching for Barry, but it hadn’t worked out that way. Manny’s people seemed to have fingered him without breaking a sweat, although it looked like Barry had hung out enough signs to get himself found by Helen Keller.

Did that mean Barry wanted to be found, or had he just gotten careless? Either way, I supposed, the problem for me was essentially still the same.

What do I do now?

I stood up, lifted the duffle bag, and dropped it on the bed. Unzipping it, I dumped everything out. There wasn’t much. If I was going to hang around Phuket very long, I was going to have to do some shopping. Maybe Benny Glup’s American Express card would come in handy after all.

My dirty jogging clothes went into a drawer, my running shoes into the closet. I turned on my cell phone in case Tom called and it and the field glasses went back in the bag along with the map of Phuket, the driver’s license and the Amex card. The .45 I held in one hand for a moment, bouncing the extra clips around in the other hand. Finally I shoved them into the duffle, too, rolled up the blue FBI windbreaker, pushed it in on top, and zipped the bag.

A slight rumbling in my stomach reminded me that I’d had nothing to eat all day so I slipped back into the Topsiders, slung the bag over my shoulder, and went downstairs, wandering around the hotel until I found a round pavilion open to the ocean that I took to be a café. Since it was the middle of the afternoon the place was empty, which was just fine with me. I took a table near the rail where there was a spectacular view of the beach, ordered a club sandwich and iced tea from a smiling teenaged boy in a starched white jacket, then pulled out of my bag the map Tom had left me.

The red line somebody had drawn on it appeared to leave the paved roadway less than half a mile inland from Nai Harn Beach. Then it snaked back and forth across what looked like mostly open country and headed generally westward until it ended at a point near the sea, marked with a circle.