Thai Horse (26 page)

One of them was Tollie Fong, Lee Fong’s son. Now, twelve years later, he was the Red Pole of the White Palm Triad, and was about to become its leader. As the White Palm assassin, Tollie Fong was perhaps the most dangerous man in the world. As
san wong
his power was awesome. And his Number One in Hong Kong was Joe Lung, the last remaining member of the Dragon’s Breath, the only one to escape Hatcher’s guerrillas.

Both had sworn to kill Hatcher on sight.

They operated out of Macao.

And all Hatcher’s clicks told him that if this Varney knew he was in Hong Kong, the White Palms probably did too.

hijacking their goods,’ Varney was saying. ‘Beg your pardon?’ said Hatcher.

‘I said, apparently they still hold
it
against you, hijacking their goods, I mean.’

The secret had been well kept. As far as Varney or Hong Kong or even Interpol knew, Hatcher had been a bad-ass who was now cooperating with the government. Hatcher knew Varney wasn’t there just to offer the ‘courtesy of the Crown.’ He was there to size up Hatcher, decide whether he was one of the good guys or still potentially a bad guy. That was okay, too.

Sergeant Varney was smart enough to realize that Hatcher did not welcome his help or his interest. This was a dangerous man.

‘I suggest you be extremely careful while you’re in the colony,’ Varney said, walking to the door. ‘You are still high on Tollie Fong’s death list. If either he or Joe Lung finds out you are in Hong Kong, they will stop at nothing to kill you. Needless to say, as a police officer I would prefer to prevent that.’

‘I appreciate your interest,’ Hatcher said. ‘As I told you, we’ll both be out of here in a day or two. I’ll try to keep a low profile.’

Varney handed Hatcher his card. ‘If you should need help, just call. My night number is on the back. I assure you, we will respond as quickly as possible.’

The sergeant marched stiffly to the door and left with a short bow.

Hatcher was suspicious and annoyed by the intrusion.

‘I got things to do here, Harry,’ Hatcher said. ‘I definitely don’t need this Limey ramrod crawling up my back.’

‘Just don’t go snooping around Macao, okay?’ Sloan said.

‘Don’t worry about me—’

‘Keep away from Tollie Fong and the triads.’

‘I don’t want to run into Fong a
n
d his buddies.’

‘You’ll end up floating in the bay. I’d hate like hell to have to explain that.’

‘That’s really sentimental of you.’

‘You know what I mean.’

‘I know exactly what you mean. And I’m not going to end up floating anywhere.’

‘Start messing with the White Palms, you’re as good as dead.’

‘That’s not the way it happened last time.’

‘Don’t get cocky either,’ said Sloan softly. ‘Tollie Fong is
the
man in the White Palm Triad now and Joe Lung is his number one boy in Hong Kong. And they both have sworn to dust you. You’re not in Bangkok by Saturday, I’ll have the dogs out after you.’

‘I’ll meet you at the Imperial,’ Hatcher whispered. ‘The D’Jit Pochana for breakfast
Saturday
morning, usual time.’

‘Sure.’

‘One other thing. Get that whiz kid you got in the States, Flitcraft, to check his computer. See if there’s anything on a Vietnam POW camp that was a floater. It moved around. I’m guessing it was a temporary holding camp near the Laotian border. It might have been called the Ghost Camp or something like that.’

‘I’ll see what he can turn up. I’ll have him call you direct.’

‘I’ve got his number. I’ll call him.’

‘All right,’ Sloan said after a moment’s thought. ‘Just be careful.’

‘I’ve never stopped being careful,’ Hatcher answered.

Hatcher turned, went back into his room and closed the door behind him. He didn’t bother to shake hands.

He stepped out on his balcony and looked across the bay at Victoria Peak and Cohen’s mountaintop fortress. A lot of things had changed in the last hour. Now he knew he
had
to see Cohen.

Every man must pay for his sins, 126 had once said.

The question in Hatcher’s mind was, Who was the sinner, who had been sinned against, and who was going to have to pay?

OPTIONS

Hatcher’s clicks were working overtime. Sloan would have the police version of what happened and background on Wol Pot by the time Hatcher got to Bangkok, so there was no need worrying about that now. If they had lost Wol Pot, Hatcher had to take his other options. But they were risky and they were long shots. T
h
e question he asked himself was, Should he trash the project and go back to Georgia? Suddenly the Cody job had taken a bad turn. The complexities were growing. One man had been murdered and now the Hong Kong Triad Squad appeared to be involved. Varney’s ‘social’ call
h
ad immediately fired more danger signals in Hatcher’s head. This was no longer a simple trace job. It had turned lethal.

He formed his plan quickly, based on logic. If the Vietnam ghost camp described by Schwartz did exist, there were people upriver in Chin Chin land who would know about it. That meant he wou
l
d need Cohen’s help. Hatcher decided to make contact
with
his old friend, then wait and see if Flitcraft turned up anything interesting.

He stared up at the top of Victoria Peak, at the house he knew was Cohen’s, wondering whether the years had changed him. Was he still as p
o
werfu1 as he had once been? Hatcher wondered. And what of Daphne?

Could he still trust any of his old friends?

He dialed a number he still remembered after all the years. A high-pitched voice answered in
Chinese:
‘Jo sahn.’

‘Cheap bastard,’ Hatcher growled. ‘Still too cheap to spring for a secretary after all these years. And that phony Chin soprano of yours doesn’t fool ne.’

There was a long pause, then an awed voice almost whispered, ‘Christian?’

‘Ah. You haven’t forgotten,’ Hatcher whispered in return.

‘Christian!’ Cohen shouted. ‘C
h
rist, I heard you were dead.’

‘That’s what you get for listening to rumours.’

‘My God, I can’t believe this. Are you here?’

‘Over at the old standby.’

‘What’re you whispering for, you in trouble?’ Cohen asked in a very confidential tone.

‘It’s a long story and, no, I’m not in trouble
—
at least not yet.’

‘Get your ass over here now! God, wait till I tell
Tiana
. I can’t believe this, man, I ca
n
’t fucking believe it! Hatcher, back from the dead!’

China Cohen’s excitement seemed genuine, and Hatcher felt better after he hung up. In his heart, he believed that Cohen was still a loyal friend. But this was Hong Kong. Allegiances changed a quickly as the wind.

Joe Lung never got up before noon. He spent his evenings in Monitor’s casino or doing his rounds of the various nightclubs. If the pickings were slim, he usually ended the night in one of the
va
rious whorehouses in Macao. Lung rarely got to bed before three or four in the morning, and he rarely changed the routine unless there was a job to do.

He lived in one of the new co
n
dos that were already beginning to destroy the centuries-old beauty of Macao, the tiny city at the gateway to China.

He stirred and reached over, touching the woman beside him. She was a blonde, a beauty he had picked up the night before in the Fire Duck Club. Lung liked the
gwai-lo
women, and this one was wilder than usual. She moaned and turned over on her back, still asleep, and he rolled over on his side and pressed against her, sliding his hand across the top of the silk sheet. He began to stroke her awake.

The phone began to ring. Annoyed, he turned away from the woman and gruffly answered it.

‘Hatcher is here. Room 512, the Peninsula,’ the voice on the other end said in Chinese.

Lung sat straight up in bed. ‘No mistake?’ There was urgency in his voice.

‘No mistake. It is Hatcher.’

‘Is he there now?’

‘Hai,
but who knows for how long.’

‘Mm goi,’
Lung said and hung up. Lung’s pulse was racing. Lung long ago had given up any hope of avenging the murder of his partners by Hatcher. Then Tollie Fong had sworn to kill him, and since Fong was his boss, the possibility of revenge became more remote. He lay back on the bed and stared at the ceiling, smiling, for Tollie Fong was out of town. What a sweet surprise it would be, thought Lung, to stick the
gwai-lo
before Fong got back. Otherwise Tollie Fong would perform the execution himself.

The girl responded to his overtures. She was fascinated by the green dagger tattooed on his forearm, aroused by his muscular body, and she found his faulty attempts to speak English attractive. It was a new experience for her, making love to someone whose culture was so totally alien to hers. At first she was frightened by his gruff manner, afraid that perhaps he was into some strange Oriental sex rites and would hurt her. But it was just his manner, and it had turned out to be one of the most satisfying sexual experiences of her life. She leaned over and began to stroke the inside of his thigh. He slapped her on the rump. ‘We will have again later,’ he said in English. ‘I do business now.’

After he had sent her back to the hotel, Lung took an ice-cold shower. He toweled off, opened a chest in the corner of the bedroom, and slid a long, narrow dagger out of its soft calfskin sheath. He tied the sheath to his left forearm, covering the tattoo, then got dressed in traditional Chinese workingman’s clothes, black sateen pants and a shirt with wide sleeves. He studied himself in the mirror, shifted his gaze to the reflection of a dart board behind him on the wall.

Lung folded his arms across his chest, then whirled, lashing out his right arm, pulling the dagger and snapping it across the room. The silver blade flashed in the morning sun, hit the board dead center and stuck there, its handle quivering.

Lung smiled and uttered a tight little grunt of satisfaction. What was it the
gwai-lo
said? Practice does perfection?

Hatcher had checked his main bags through to Bangkok, so he had only an overnight bag with a change of clothes and the usual overnight
n
ecessities in it and his Halliburton case. He took both wh
e
n he left the room. He went first to the wine store in the lobby of the hotel, a connoisseur’s shop, and bought a
b
ottle of wine, a Lafite Rothschild
‘72,
that seemed to fit the occasion. When he left the hotel, he walked around th
e
corner from the hotel and strolled up Nathan Street, win
d
ow-shopping while he checked behind him in the
window
reflections. By the time he reached Kowloon Park four blocks away he had spotted the car.

Two men. One in the car, the other on foot. One Oriental, one Occidental. In five
blocks
they switched off twice. Pretty good.

Hatcher was sure these were Varney’s men, and now he became even more suspicious of the Hong Kong cop. It was possible that a computer had turned up Hatcher’s name. But after all these years, it did not make sense for them to be
this
interested in him. Cops throughout the world were overworked. It was highly suspect for them to be ‘protecting’ Hatcher without his request.

He walked across the park, doubled back down Kowloon Drive to the Star Ferry slip and boarded the ferry, standing near the stern, staring out over the bay. To Hatcher’s surprise, the two men did not follow him. The man on foot got in the car; they drove off up Salisbury Road as the ferry pulled out.

They were very good, Hatcher thought to himself. By now they’ve alerted their people on the island. The new tail would be waiting for Hatcher
when he got there. He would have to play the game again when he got to the island. He did not want Varney and the Triad Squad to know he was going to visit the Tsu Fi.

Joe Lung entered the hotel through the servants’ entrance. Because of his dress, he was easily mistaken for one of the laborers that worked around the hotel. Lung went straight to the fifth floor and quickly, silently, picked the lock on Hatcher’s door. He let the door glide open, standing alert as it did, then jumped inside and closed it just as silently. He entered the room cautiously, checked it thoroughly.

Hatcher was not there, nor was his luggage.

Lung stood in the middle of the room thinking. Had Hatcher left the city? Perhaps he was on the way to the airport at that moment.

Lung went to the lobby and checked the desk from the house phone. Had Mr Hatcher in 512 checked out? No, the desk answered.

The temporary setback had no visible effect on Lung. He was a patient man accustomed to setbacks. They were easily overcome. But he might have to change his plan. Obviously the job was going to require different tactics.

When the ferry docked, Hatcher strolled off and turned right, heading west on Connaught Street toward the downtown section. There was a cool breeze blowing, and he was surrounded by the sounds of Hong Kong, by music and taxi horns, laughter and ship’s bells, by the rustle of banyan trees and the constant und
e
rtone of conversation.

He acted like a tourist, strolling past the nightclubs of Wanchai, where Suzie Wong had fallen in love with an American GI and died for her sin. American music blared from loudspeakers outside the doors of the clubs, and the girls wore American jeans and had had their eyes straightened.

As he got closer to the
business
district the crowds increased, until he had to thread his way along the street, stopping occasionally to check behind him. There were two men assigned to him again, using the same routine. By the time he reached the shabby gate that marked the beginning of notor
io
us Cat Street he was trapped in the steamy crowd of tourists heading up the steep, winding street choked with shops, seeking bargains.

Hatcher turned into the crowde
d
thoroughfare, moving along with the shoulder-to-shoulder crowd. He approached the acupuncture parlo
r
where he had first met Cohen, thought about the dusty office with the uncomfortable chairs, and considered cutting through it to throw off his tail. No, he thought, too obvious.

Instead, Hatcher leaned over and bent his knees slightly, making himself shorter so that his head was below the level of the rest of the crowd. He continued to walk in that fashion for nearly a city block until he came to a tiny clothing store jammed between other shops. The store was so cluttered with goods Hatcher could not see beyond the display window. He dodged quickly inside.

The tail lost Hatcher in the Cat Street crowd. Then he thought he saw Hatcher dodge into a shop. He rushed ahead, elbowing pedestrians out of the way.

The tiny store was crammed with racks of jeans and sport clothes. Shirts and blouses were stacked from floor to ceiling and shoppers stood elbow to elbow looking for bargains. Hatcher had gone straight through the store out the back door, had turned back in the narrow alley to Connaught Street and jumped in the first ricksha
w
he saw. He leaned back in the seat, out of view.

‘To the tram, and hurry,’ he told the ricksha
w
boy in Chinese. He didn’t look back.

Back up Cat Street, the man following him stepped out the back door of the clothing shop and looked both ways. There was no sign of Hatcher. He pulled out his walkie
-
talkie and pressed the button.

‘He ditched me,’ he said with disgust.

The ricksha
w
boy trotted rhythmically down Connaught Street to Garden and turned up to the entrance to the Victoria Peak Tram. Hatcher paid him and got out, looking back down the street. Just the
u
sual traffic.

So far, so good, he thought and entered the tram.