More Deaths Than One (10 page)

“I wish I could, but buying a ticket to
Thailand, stocking up on supplies, hiring guides, and who knows
what else would take more money than I could earn in a lifetime.
Rats. I would have loved to be able to see it.”

“If all you want to do is see a gold Buddha,
that’s a lot easier to arrange. There’s one in a wat on the edge of
Bangkok’s Chinatown, near the railway station. Interestingly,
stucco covered that one, too, but movers dropped it during a
relocation, and some of the stucco came off showing the gold
underneath. Five and a half tons of pure gold.”

Excitement flared in her eyes, then died. “I
don’t even have the money for a ticket to Thailand. Now that I’m
shucked of the cheat, maybe I can start saving.”

***

Kerry was still in her bathroom when Bob
finished showering and shaving. He pulled on the clean clothes he’d
purchased the day before, and went out to the kitchen.

As he chopped onions, zucchini, and carrots
for a stir-fry, Kerry entered the room. She stopped and stared
wide-eyed at him.

He paused, knife in the air. “Do I frighten
you?”

“No,” she said quickly.

Noting the way she wadded her hands together,
he laid down the large knife. “After you reminded me about the MSG
in American-Chinese food, I went to the Asian market on Alameda and
bought supplies, including a wok and a sharp knife. Whenever I
cooked, my landlady hid behind the kitchen door, peering at me as
if terrified, but I don’t know why.”

Kerry let her hands fall to her sides. “It’s
the way you use the knife, so fast and proficient. I’ve never seen
a blade move so rapidly.”

Bob picked up the knife and slowly finished
chopping the vegetables. “I didn’t realize. Wu Shih-kai always
found my efforts to be hilariously clumsy.”

Kerry watched him a moment. “Is there
anything I can do?”

“Set the table. The food is ready.” He gave a
theatrical shudder. “Minute rice. Shih-kai would be horrified, but
that’s all I could find in the cupboard.”

“This is fabulous,” Kerry said after they
filled their plates and took their first bites. “What’s it
called?”

“No name. It’s just a stir-fry.”

She took another bite and sighed in
contentment. “You can cook for me whenever you want.”

“Maybe next time I’ll make whole pigeon or
whole fish soup.” He gave her a sly smile. “Those are delicacies
you will never forget.”

“Were they on the menu at The Lotus
Room?”

“In the beginning, until I told Hsiang-li
that westerners were squeamish and didn’t like to see eyeballs and
feet in their food.”

“Eyeballs and feet? Oh, ick.”

***

After they ate and cleared away the dishes,
Kerry drove Bob to City Park so he could peek at the boardinghouse.
Each time he’d checked, he’d seen either a new blue Buick or a late
model white Ford parked on the street where the occupants had a
view of both the front door of the boarding house and the French
doors at the side. Today it was the blue Buick.

They strolled around the park.

“Why don’t you call the cops?” Kerry
asked.

“They are more of a problem than a solution,”
Bob said.

“I take it you don’t like cops.”

“My father was a cop.”

Bob hunched his shoulders, remembering how
his father had swaggered about town in his uniform. The people
Edward had dealt with on the job were “low lifes,” as he called
them, and this added to his belief in his superiority. Since he
assumed no one obeyed the law, he treated everyone, from the most
harmless witness to the most vicious criminal, with the same
unmerciful arrogance. Bob had met many like Edward, people who
became puffed with the weight of a uniform’s authority.

“I can’t go to the cops with a story about
far away jungles and gold Buddhas,” he said, “but you’ve given me
an idea. First, I’ll need to get some dark clothes.”

“I have a warm-up suit I bought Pete’s
Porches for his birthday next week. It will probably be too big for
you, but the pants have an elastic waistband, and you can roll up
the cuffs. Will that do?”

“Perfect.”

Her eyes sparkled. “What’s the plan?”

***

At ten o’clock that night, Bob hid in the
dark shadows of a honeysuckle bush, key in hand. He’d left Kerry at
a phone booth on Colfax Avenue. If she followed the plan, she had
called the local police station, claimed to be Ella Barnes
frightened of the suspicious characters parked in front of her
house, and immediately hung up.

As soon as Bob saw the police car stop behind
the Buick and two cops get out and approach the vehicle, he stole
across the yard. With one fluid motion, he put the key in the lock,
turned it, opened the door, and slipped through. Crouching in front
of the heavy drapes, he yanked out the thread he’d used to tack the
hem, and removed his passport and traveler’s checks. He glided from
the room and strolled to the end of the alley where Kerry
waited.

“How did it go?” she asked.

“Fine. I got what I needed.”

“It’s a shame you had to leave your paintings
behind.”

He shrugged. “Can’t be helped.”

“How did you know your things would still be
where you hid them? And why did you hide them in the first place?
Oh, right. Your nosy landlady.”

“I didn’t know my things would still be
there,” Bob said. “I had a hunch. They called me a nothing.”

Kerry looked at him out of the corner of her
eyes. “Do you know why I needled you that first day?”

“You didn’t needle, you challenged, and yes,
I do know why. You were upset with your boyfriend and wanted to get
back at the whole male gender. You picked me because you thought I
was a ‘mousy little fellow’ who wouldn’t fight back.”

She smiled sheepishly. “It’s scary how well
you read me.” She drove back to the house in silence. As she
stopped to let him out before continuing on to work, she said, “I
don’t imagine many people see you as you really are.”

***

Bob woke at dawn, did his stretches, sit-ups,
and push-ups, then went out for a run. Feeling fall in the air, he
was glad he’d worn the warm-up suit Kerry had given him. He didn’t
even care that it bagged; he hadn’t been so comfortable since he’d
left Bangkok, where he’d dressed like the Thais in baggy,
lightweight cotton clothes. Not only were those garments best
adapted to the climate, while wearing them, especially with the
ubiquitous lampshade-style straw hat, he’d melted into the crowds
on the teeming streets.

When his work visa expired along with his
job, he’d purchased western-style clothes, which he’d worn on the
flight home, but he couldn’t seem to get used to them. Maybe he
needed a closet full of warm-up suits.

He covered the blocks in an easy lope and
soon ran along Seventeenth Avenue at the edge of City Park. Passing
the street where the boardinghouse stood, he noticed that a dark
green Ford had replaced the blue Buick and the white Ford.

He could see two heads bobbing as if to
music. Were the surveillance teams getting lax? Maybe he could
sneak past them, jump into his car, and drive off.

Deciding it wasn’t worth the risk, he
continued his run, circling back to the church where the Vietnam
vet support group met.

He found Scott Mulligan outside, cutting the
grass.

Smiling warmly, Scott turned off the mower
and extended a hand. “Good to see you, Bob. Just last night Rose
mentioned how much she enjoyed having you over for dinner.”

“I enjoyed it, too,” Bob said.

“How about if we do it again—say, tomorrow
night?”

Bob hesitated. “I’m staying with a
friend.”

“Great. Bring her along. Or him.”

“That would be nice. I’m sure she’d like
meeting you.”

Scott gave him a shrewd look. “What can I
help you with?”

“Do you know anyone I could hire to tail a
car, see where it goes? It seems my place is being staked out, and
I’d like to know who’s behind it.”

“I have a friend at the police department.
He’d run the plates for me.”

“I’d prefer to keep the cops out of it.”

Again that shrewd look. “Are you in trouble
with the cops?”

“Not that I’m aware of.”

Scott nodded thoughtfully. “I know a couple
of Lurps, guys from the Long Range Reconnaissance Patrol, who are
bored with civilian life. They might be willing to do the job,
probably wouldn’t charge a lot. How much are you willing to
pay?”

“Whatever they ask. At the moment, I only
have traveler’s checks, and whoever’s looking for me might be able
to trace them and connect your friends to me, but I’ll try to get
some cash.”

“If you can’t, we’ll work something out.
Where’s the car you want tailed?”

Bob gave him the address, described all three
cars, and apologized for not knowing the license plate numbers.

“I never got close enough to get a good
look,” he said.

Scott wrote down the information. “Maybe I’ll
have something to report when you come to dinner tomorrow
night.”

***

Bob was preparing another stir-fry when Kerry
came home from work.

Her eyes lit up at the sight of him. “I
thought maybe you went back to the boardinghouse.”

“I can’t. The place is still being
watched.”

“So the cops didn’t scare those guys
away.”

He shrugged. “I didn’t expect them to. I just
needed a diversion.”

“Do you know what we should do?” She flicked
the hair off her face. “Stake out the people who are staking you
out and follow them when they leave, see where they go.”

“I’ve already arranged for that.” He told her
about his conversation with Scott Mulligan, ending with the
invitation to dinner.

“That sounds like fun,” she said. “I probably
ought to get someone to cover my shift in case we get back
late.”

She went into the other room to make the
call. “I traded days off,” she said on her return, “so I have to
work tonight instead of tomorrow. What are we going to do after we
eat?”

“Don’t you need to get some sleep?”

“No.” She yawned. “Well, maybe I could use a
nap. Then what?”

“I need to go shopping, replace some of the
things I had to abandon.”

“Shopping! Why didn’t you say so? I can
always sleep afterward.”

***

Kerry drove them to Bear Valley Mall in west
Denver. They went to several stores, buying one or two items at a
time. Bob paid for each small purchase with a large traveler’s
check. Since he wouldn’t be returning to the mall, it didn’t matter
if they found out he’d been there, and he needed to get as much
cash together as he could; he’d need plenty for motels after
Kerry’s roommate returned, and enough to pay Scott’s friends.

Kerry shot him a curious glance when he added
a child’s watercolor paint set to his purchases, but she made no
comment. She did remind him, however, that a bottle of wine would
make a nice hostess gift for Rose Mulligan, and she even picked it
out herself.

***

While Kerry slept, Bob painted a picture of
his garden in Bangkok.

Soon after his arrival in that city, he
happened to notice a narrow lane leading to a cul-de-sac containing
several charmingly ramshackle teak houses with corrugated tin
roofs, surrounded by shrubs, unpruned rosebushes, and oleander. In
a window of one of the houses was a placard, written in English,
advertising a room for rent.

A cadaverous Englishman answered Bob’s knock
and led him up a creaking staircase to a sparsely furnished room
with stained walls and a scuffed wooden floor. A warped door opened
onto a balcony where a rickety stairway descended into a garden
with more shrubs and bushes, and a wild profusion of tropical
flowers—jasmine, frangipani, orchids. Red-blossomed bougainvillea
climbed the walls, purple wisteria dripped from the balcony, and a
bushy ebony tree provided shade.

As Bob inhaled the glorious scent wafting
through the inhospitable room, he realized he could be content
there.

Since the Englishman seldom stepped outside,
the garden had been Bob’s alone until three months previously when
the man’s recently divorced daughter had moved in with her many
offspring.

Bob did not have to contend with their
invasion of his garden for long; shortly afterward, Hsiang-li had
announced he was closing his restaurant.

***

Bob stepped back and studied his painting.
The bright, translucent tints of the watercolors had been the
perfect choice. The garden looked so vibrant, the fragrance seemed
to swirl out of the paper, and he thought it might be the best
thing he’d ever done. Perhaps the thin paint, unlike the heavy
opaque acrylics and fast-drying oils he generally used, allowed no
place for menace to hide.

“It’s lovely.”

Bob turned around. A sleep-tousled Kerry
gazed at the picture, a smile gracing her lips.

“Is it a real place?”

He nodded.

“The hand is interesting,” she said. “It
makes the garden seem like a living creature.”

“What do you mean?” Bob glanced back at the
picture, and for the first time noticed the clawed hand reaching
out from the mass of blooms.

As if sensing his disquiet, Kerry put an arm
around his waist and rested her head against his shoulder.

After a moment, she lifted her head and
looked at him. “It just dawned on me. There are no people in your
paintings. Don’t you ever paint people?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

He hesitated, then spoke in a low voice. “I’m
afraid of what my fingers would see.”

Chapter 9

Kerry stepped out of her bedroom, stopped,
then turned around slowly. “What do you think?”

Bob swallowed. She looked stunning. She’d
brushed her black hair off her face and loosely bound it at the
nape of her neck, making her dark eyes appear enormous. The
long-sleeved dress that he had last seen in the shop window at
Buckingham Square skimmed her body, flared out at the hem, and
bared enough of her breasts to tantalize. The deep rose color made
her skin seem luminous and put a blush on her cheeks that no
cosmetic could duplicate.