Thai Horse (47 page)

He left the
DO NOT DISTURB
sign on the door and walked down two flights of stairs to his own room and entered it. He was already packed, and the room had been charged in advance to a blind account with a Geneva address. He had one small suitcase and the black tool chest when he left the hotel. He went straight to the airport and checked his bag, went to the men’s room, opened the tool chest and took out a pair of overalls and put them on. Then he took another cab to the West German embassy.

He showed the security guard the false credentials identifying him as an electrician, opened his case and lifted the drawer out so the guard could see the tools in the compartment under it. The guard waved him on. He entered by the side door, went straight to the storage room, took the tall ladder and went quickly to the crowded reception room and set it up. A rigid-looking German approached the bearded man as he started to climb up to the towering chandelier. The bearded man held up a light bulb and pointed to the chandelier, and the German shrugged and went away

He removed the drawer of his tool chest, reached under it, and pulled free the bomb that was attached to the underside of the drawer by small suction cups and carefully attached it to the pipe that supported the giant glass
dome.
He set the timer for
6:3
0P
.M.

Five minutes later he had
replaced
the ladder and was gone. He walked four blocks, hailed a cab and returned to the airport, where he retrieved his suitcase and left the tool chest in the same pay locker. He went into a stall in the men’s room and opened the suitcase. There was a small battery-operated makeup mirror and a makeup kit inside, and he removed his wig and makeup, pulled off the overalls and stuffed them in a brown bag with the makeup. He put on a white shirt, blue tie and a sports jacket and closed the suitcase. When he left the stall, he dropped the bag with the makeup in it in a trash can.

The American ambassador was a tall, deeply tanned man, who, although in his sixties, was in excellent physical condition and looked forty-five. And he could be persuasive. Tonight was an extremely important reception, for his mission was to convince the representatives of several European countries that terrorism had reached epidemic proportions. In effect, it was time to declare war on terrorists, although he knew that several of the countries had been spared any terrorist attacks and were reluctant to incur the ‘wrath of the Arab killers by making any overt moves on them.

At six-five, as he was getting ready to leave for the reception, he received an urgent phone call on his red phone. There was reason to believe that an extremely dangerous Libyan terrorist known as Hyena was in Paris, he was told. This was confidential information, but security would be critical and extra precautions were being taken at that very
mome
nt. The phone call went on for ten minutes as a state department under
-
secretary explained in boring detail what was going to be done.

‘Listen here,’ the ambassador said impatiently, ‘I’m going to be late for a very important reception. Can’t we discuss this first thing in the morning?’

The flustered secretary apologized and rang off.

‘God, these officious little pipsqueaks in State drive me mad,’ he complained to his wife. ‘Now we’re going to be late.’

‘Let’s twist its tail tonight, Geoffrey,’ he told his driver as they got in the limousine. ‘We’re running late.’

A block later an accident delayed them another ten minutes. The ambassador glared at his watch.

‘Damn,’ he said to his wife, ‘we’re going to be almost a half hour late. Damn, damn, damn!’

Ambassadors from Finland, France and Holland were in the receiving line when the bomb exploded. There was a moment of deafening sound, of fire and light, as the crowded room was illuminated and assaulted simultaneously. The boom of the bo
m
b was followed almost immediately by shrieks of pain and terror. The chandelier had shimmered and burst, its hundreds of glass ornaments reduced to thousands of gleaming shards.

The deadly glass darts projected by the force of the explosion streaked down into the crowd below. Like chunks of diamond shrapnel they ripped into the dignitaries. Pale women in expensive gowns, their faces suddenly shredded by bits of glass and metal, staggered into one another. Ambassadors in cutaway coats were driven to their knees and assassinated by glittering arrows of death. And in the momentary silence that follows any shock and before chaos breaks out, the chandelier, weakened by the explosion, swung feebly and then its support snapped and it plunged down on top of the dead and wounded in a great splash as the rest of the glass shattered on impact.

‘M-my God,’ the American ambassador cried out as they turned off the main street into the drive of the embassy. Ahead of them in the garish beam of their headlights, people in their evening finery, bleeding and blind, were staggering out of the shattered reception hail into the street.

KLONG GIRL

Sy was in a small park across the street, practicing his moves. He looked good, a quick jabber with good legs. Hatcher reached in the car window, tooted the horn and the driver came immediately.

‘I am looking for a girl named Sukhaii who works on the Phadung
Klong
near New Road,’ Hatcher said.

‘Is she a whore?’

‘Yes,’
Hatcher replied, repeating the girl’s description from the police report. ‘Five two, sixteen years old, ninety pounds. A real princess, they say.’

‘Of course she is a real princess,’ Sy said with a shrug. ‘Who would go with an ugly whore?’

‘That’s very philosophical,’ Hatcher said.

‘It may take a little time to find her,’ Sy said, ‘the water babies do not stay in the same place on the
klong
.’

‘While we’re at it,’ said Hatcher, ‘I’m also looking for these two people.’ He showed Sy the photograph of Cody and Pai taken in Vietnam fifteen years ago.

‘Is this old picture?’ Sy asked.

Hatcher nodded. ‘Fifteen years,’ he growled.

‘They change a lot,’ Sy said.

Hatcher nodded again. ‘I’m sure of it,’ he said.

‘This is American and Thai girl?’ Sy asked.

‘No. The man was an American flier, but the girl was Vietnamese.’

‘Ah,’ Sy said. He stared at the picture for at least a minute and then nodded and passed it back to Hatcher.

As they drove through the crowded streets, Hatcher reflected on his plan. First, try t find the girl, since she was the only person who had actually seen both Wol Pot and Windy Porter’s killers. Then he would start checking out Porter’s surveillance locations to see if that produced anything. Near the
top
of the list was the section called Tombstone and the Longhorn Bar. The subject of Thai Horse was touchy, since it involved street gossip. Was there really a Thai Horse, and if so, was it a gang? A man? Wol Pot or Cody? Or someone new? Because Hatcher could not tie it directly to Cody, he would play that by ear.

The trip to Phadung K
l
ong took only a few minutes; the intersection was a few blocks away, just past the sprawling produce market now almost deserted for the day and across a short arched bridge at the k
l
ong. It took Sy three stops and the better part of an hour talking to river people to get a lead on the girl.

‘They say she works closer to Rama Four Road,’ he said returning to the car. ‘We find her,
mai pen rai,’

They drove parallel to the k
l
o
n
g, separated from it by thick banyan trees, flowering orchids and shacks built on stilts over the banks of the river. At Rama Four, Sy parked the car and disappeared. down the bank of the Hong. He was gone for another fifteen minutes.

‘She has moved to K
l
ong Ma
h
achai,’ he said when he got back. ‘But it will be difficult to locate her until tonight. We should find her near the Maharaj Road crossing close to the Thieves’ Market in Chinese Town.’

At dusk they drove to Maharaj Road, and Sy once again scouted the banks of the k
l
ong. He was gone only a few minutes this time.

‘We have luck,’ he said proudly. ‘Come.’

He led Hatcher along the edge of the k
l
ong, past several boats.

‘You be careful, okay,
pheuan?’
Sy said. ‘Sometime the girl boss he looks to steal your money, watch, you know? But I be behind you,’ he said, pointing down the row of snakeboats and houseboats that were tied to the bank and to one another. There were many young women sitting in the bows of the boats, smiling, appraising, inviting a bid from the crowds along the canal. Hatcher followed Sy as they threaded through the crowd of gaping tourists that was already beginning to gather on the bank and past several boats until the little Thai stopped a man who was heading upstream with a fishing pole.

‘Sukhaii?’ Sy asked ‘You know which is her boat?’

The old man smiled gleefully, nodding vigorously, and pointed over Sy’s shoulder to a long boat practically at their feet.

‘My trip,’ Hatcher said and walked uncertainly across the first
hang yao
and past a muscular Thai, who stared at his chest as he passed but did not look at his face. He scrambled aboard the second boat as a young girl, no more than sixteen, came from under the thatched hooch at the rear. Lowering her head slightly, she stared at him over her nose. Her eyes got dusky brown. She had it down to a science.

‘Sukhaii?’ Hatcher asked.

‘You know my name?’ she said, surprised.

Hatcher nodded.
‘Chai,’
he said.

‘You want do some
sanuk?’
she asked in shattered English. She pulled him close and rubbed against him, still smiling. She was warm an
d
soft to the touch and had a sprig of jasmine behind
her
ear. For a moment Hatcher thought about having little
sanuk
with her. He gently took her by the arm s
o
she wouldn’t bolt and held up an American fifty-dollar bill.

‘I am not here for fun,’ he said in Thai.

The girl look startled and t
r
ied to pull away from him.

‘Look,’ he said, ‘fifty dollars Americ
an
. That’s one thousand bahts, two purples. Y
o
u want this?’

The girl stared at the fifty an
d
Hatcher dropped her arm.

The muscular Thai in the ot
h
er boat stared casually across the deck at them but said thing.

‘What for?’ she asked cautiously.

‘There was a man here the other night when the killing occurred in the next b
o
at. He jumped overboard.’

‘Chai.
.

‘What did he look like?’

The girl thought for a mome
nt
and held her hand
o
ut
,
about five and half feet above the deck.

‘This tall. Very brown eyes. Black hair. Thin face. About like you heavy.’

‘Built like me but shorter?’

‘Chai.’

‘Any scars
—
uh, marks on his
f
ace or body?’

Sukhaii’s eyebrows rose. ‘Ah
chai, chai
. . .
he
has dragon. Here.’

She laid her hand on her chest

‘A tattoo of a dragon?’

She nodded.

‘Now, this guy, he was in a big
hurry, yes?’

She nodded her head vigorous
l
y. ‘He was afraid.’ ‘I’m sure. Now, the way I see it, he didn’t have time to get dressed before he wen
t
swimming,’ Hatcher whispered.

She looked at him
suspiciously
but did not answer.

‘He probably didn’t take his clothes with him—’

‘Chai, chai,
took clothes—’

‘Mai,’
Hatcher said, shaking his he
a
d. ‘No time.’

‘I told police—’

‘I am not the police. I don’t care .what you told the police. And I do not tell the police anything.’

‘I tell police
eve
r
ything,’
she said defiantly.

‘I think perhaps he may have left hi
s
pants behind—’

She shook her head frantically..
‘Mai, mai.
No wallet.’

‘I didn’t say anything about a wa
ll
et,’ Hatcher said softly.

The young girl was beginning to panic. She looked past Hatcher at the Thai on the other boat.

‘Look here, I’m not from the
po
li
ce,
I am
Amehricaan,’
Hatcher said. ‘All I want are
t
he ID papers that were in the wallet. I don’t care about anything else, you can keep the money or anything el
s
e of value. I just want the papers, understand?’

Her eyes shifted behind him agai
n
. He turned. The Thai stood near the port side of th
e
boat but did not come aboard. He was dressed in a purple
pakoma,
a kind of man’s sarong-pants and a white cotton tank shirt. There was a large tattoo of an
o
rchid with a snake entwined around it on his right f
o
rearm. He smiled briefly at Hatcher and then looked at the girl.

‘What does he want?’ the man ask
e
d Sukhaii in Thai.

Hatcher interjected. ‘I was offerin
g
the young woman fifty American dollars for the identification papers in a wallet left here the other night. No
q
uestions asked. I’ll forget I was ever here, okay? No p
ol
ice. It is personal. All I want are the papers.’

The Thai came aboard and walked close to Hatcher. He was two or three inches shorter— but his body was hard and veins etched his biceps.
He
studied Hatcher’s face for a full minute through eye the color of mud. Behind him, Sy stepped on the othe
r
boat, waving away the water babies and vendors who s
q
uawked at him.

The tattooed man lowered his eyes and said, ‘You wallet?’

Hatcher shook his head.
‘Mai.’

‘You friend’s wallet?’

Hatcher did not lie. He shook his head again.
‘Chai.’

‘Huh,’ the Thai said. He stepped past
H
atcher and whispered to the young prostitute. She stared up at him for several moments and nodded. ‘How much?’ he asked and she whispered, ‘Ten t
h
ousand bahts.’

Five hundred dollars,
thought
H
atcher,
and the girl was probably holding back anot
h
er hundred or two. Wol Pot did okay.

‘Why did you keep it from the police?’ the Thai whispered.

‘I thought he might come back,’ she lied, and he said, ‘Then get it and
I will
deal with the
farang.’

He did not say the word for foreigner with any contempt and he was perfectly at ease and relaxed, as if he and Hatcher were old friends. If his whore’s swiping the wallet upset him, it didn
’
t show. He motioned Hatcher inside the hooch, so the other river people could not see them. Nervously Sy moved closer.

Sukhaii went to a chest, took out a snakeskin wallet and gave it to the Thai, who opened it, took out a handful of purple bahts, and stuffed them in his pocket.

‘I am sorry,’ she said repentantly. He shrugged and said casually,
‘Mai pen rai,’
motioned her to leave and then leafed through the wallet
a
nd found a small gold amulet in one of the compartments. It joined the money. He looked back at Hatcher.

‘Sixty dollars American,’ he said. His smile grew a little larger. Hatcher had forgotten that in Thailand the first price was never the final one.

‘Khit waa phaeng pai,’
Hatcher answered, as was expected of him. ‘Fifty-five,’ he countered.

The Thai’s smile grew larger still and he shrugged. ‘Fifty-seven, if it is what you want,’ he said with a broad, broken-toothed grin and handed the wallet to Hatcher to check, and Hatcher leafed quickly through the contents.

‘Good,’ he said, handing the Thai the fifty-seven dollars.
‘
Khop kun
. Sawat-dii.’

‘Now, one more thing,’ Hatcher said to the girl, taking out a twenty-dollar bill, ‘another twenty American if you will tell me what the man with the knife said to you.’

‘He said nothing!’ she cried out quickly.

But the Thai was eyeing the twenty. He looked at the bill and then looked out of the hooch at the river for several seconds. ‘Tell him.’

‘But they said
—,

‘Tell him!’

The girl was almost out of breath with fear. ‘They said they would cut my face until I looked like a grandmother,’ she said weakly, staring at the floor.

‘Why would they do that?’

‘If I told the police anything abo
u
t them.’

‘What else?’

‘They asked if I knew an address’

‘Whose address?’

‘It did not make sense. It was the horse in the myth.’

‘Thai Horse?’ Hatcher asked eagerly. The girl nodded. The Thai reached out slowly and plucked the twenty from Hatcher’s fingers. The seventy-seven dollars joined the rest of the booty. Then the Thai reached to the back of his belt and brought out a teak billy club a foot long. He stood four or
fi
ve feet in front of Hatcher and smacked the club in the palm of his hand.

‘Maybe you give me rest of money or maybe you gold Rolex, hey?’ the Thai said, still smiling.

Hatcher backed up a foot or so
.
His body began to tense up and his eyes narrowed.
N
ot another
sa
t
eng,’
Hatcher whispered hoarsely.

The smile stayed, but the Thai’s eyes got a little crazy. He spread his feet and stood with the club held out at his side.

‘I hurt you,’ the Thai pimp said.

The words were hardly out
o
f his mouth when Sy jumped on the boat behind him. The Thai spun around and took a hard backhand swipe at Sy but it was wide, and before he could swing agai
n
, Sy kicked him twice, hard kicks, one in the chest, one on the point of his jaw. The Thai fell back against Hatcher but jabbed the stick underhand into Hatcher’s stomach. Though the blow glanced off Hatcher’s side, it caught him off guard, and the Thai broke loose and charged Sy. The little man hit him with three hard jabs straight from the shoulder. The Thai’s head bobbed, but the punches did not stop him. He kept coming. He grabbed Sy in a bear hug and lifted him off the deck. Before he could throw him overboard, Hatcher reached out and dug iron fingers into the Thai’s shoulder. He dug deep, found the nerve he was seeking and ground it against the Thai’s shoulder blade.

The Thai was temporarily paralyzed. His arms dropped, the club clattered on the deck and Sy twisted loose, stepped back a step and
hit
him in the face with a double combination:
whip, whip whip, whip.

The Thai staggered backward clutching a bleeding nose and fell against the side
of
the hooch. The small shack collapsed, and he toppled to the deck covered with bamboo strips and lay dazed for a moment. Hatcher stooped over him, picked up the billy and tossed it into the river. The Thai wiped the blood off his surprised face.

‘I am boxer,’ Sy said and motioned to Hatcher to follow him off the
hang yao.

Hatcher looked down at the stricken Thai and smiled.
‘
Sawat dii
,’
he said with a half-assed salute.

They went back up the bank of the klong with Sy strutting ahead of him, brushing aside the roving vendors and prostitutes. When they got to the car, he held the door open for Hatcher.