Thai Horse (55 page)

He had time for one shot. He swung the rifle up and fired from the waist straight into the tiger’s face.

Old
Scar
felt the heat of the explosion, was blinded by the white light, and a millisecond later felt the bullet explode just above his good
e
ye, cracking the skull, burning into his head, searing his brain and snapping his head back.

His forelegs collapsed and he went down, rolling over, snapping off a path of
ba
mboo one after another. They came showering down on top of Hatcher and Wonderboy. The tiger lay five feet away, its enormous mouth still open. A pitiful cry-growl escaped from its throat and it shuddered and began to stiffen.

Beneath him, Hatcher could feel Wonderboy trembling. He got to his knees and looked down at the musician, who seemed to be trying to dig a hole in the ground.

‘It’s over, kid,’ Hatcher whispered. ‘It’s okay.’

‘No, no,’ Wonderboy cried,, all legs and hands in a tight little pile.

Another shower of bam
b
oo stalks fell around Hatcher, and he heard one
of
the elephants trumpet almost on top of him. He tur
n
ed, and stared straight into the muzzles of two guns
—
Early’s and Earp’s. Nobody moved. Nobody bre
a
thed. Almost as if he could perceive in slow motio
n
, Hatcher saw Early’s finger tightening on his trigger.

My God, he’s going to shoot me! Hatcher thought as he spun away and ducked and heard the rifle boom.

Behind him he heard the tiger scream again and, spinning around, saw it, half n its feet, take the shot high in the shoulder. It screamed once more and fell dead.

‘Told you not to go for the head shot,’ Early said.

THAI HORSE

Early’s small house was at the end of a narrow, hard-packed dirt road. The road wound through dark, verdant foliage, which choked its shoulders, casting it in deep shadow. Rainbow-streaked macaws and parrots, startled by the van, had insulted the men with angry squawks and shrieks as they returned from the hunt. The thatch-roofed house had a wide porch around three of its sides. The sweet odor of cassava from nearby fields permeated the air.

The big cat had been strung upside down by its legs from a small tree. Several women from the village the animal had terrorized had gathered at Early’s house to celebrate Hatcher’s kill with dancing and a feast. An elderly Oriental man was stooped over a large pot of Thai stew cooking on an open fire.

Hatcher had been coldly quiet since the end of the hunt. He sat alone on the porch watching the locals celebrate the end of the old rogue. The women portrayed the hunters in the impromptu dance while one woman played Old Scar. Lithe, her face painted yellow, she danced on all fours, darting about as the hunters pursued her.

Infuriated in the tense moments after the kill, Hatcher had snatched the bolt out of the 375 H&H and tossed it to Early.

‘Next time you loan a gun to someone maybe you ought to make sure it works,’ Hatcher had snapped angrily.

Early had turned the bolt over in his hand, carefully examining it before looking back at Hatcher.

‘The bloody firing pin’s cracked,’ he had said with genuine surprise, thinking it was an act.

‘Is that a fact,’ Hatcher growled sarcastically.

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ Early said edgily. ‘It worked fine this morning, I test-fired the piece myself.’

‘Wonderboy and I could both be dead right now because of that weapon.’

‘I’m sorry, okay? You think I wanted you to
miss
the cat?’ Early said. ‘Hell, that’s ridiculous, how could I have known you would get the kill shot?’

‘You’re being paranoid, Hatcher,’ said Earp.

‘Yeah,’ said Riker. ‘If we wanted to kill you, you’d be dead.’

Having reacted with more passion than was his custom, Hatcher had shut up and now he sat alone deep in thought. He did not see Wonderboy approach him from the side of the house.

‘Mr.
Hatcher?’ he said. ‘It
is
Hatcher, isn’t it?’ The musician, who had repaired his streaked face with fresh paint, stood against the wall of the house with his hands in his pockets.

‘That’s right,’ the whispering man croaked.

‘You saved my life,’ Wonder boy said. ‘And I, uh don’t know how to thank you. But I want you to know nobody was out to get you.’

‘You’d have done the same f
o
r me,’ said Hatcher. ‘No, no,’ Wonderboy
said
, shaking his head. ‘I choked, man. It wasn’t just tha
t
I was scared, I couldn’t pull the trigger,’

‘Did that ever happen before?’

Wonderboy stared off at the dead tiger from behind his mask, and after a few seconds he nodded.

‘So forget it,’ said Hatcher. ‘You can live forever without ever touching another gun.’

‘That isn’t it.’

‘Then, what is it?’

Wonderboy took his hands out of his
p
ockets. He wrapped them around his chest, hugging himself as if he were cold.

‘Survival.’

‘Survival,’ Hatcher repeated flatly.

‘Hell, if it ain’t one war, it’s another.’

‘You won’t have to go to any more wars, Wonderboy.’

‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I don’t know how you thank someone who’s saved your life. The Japanese have a word for it, but I don’t remember what it is.’

‘Ongaeshi,’
Hatcher said.

‘Yeah, that’s it. It means, yo
u
know, like a big debt.’

‘It means an obligation to repay,’ said Hatcher.

‘Yeah. Well,
ongaeshi
,
Mr. Hatcher.’

Hatcher stepped closer to Wonderboy and leaned against the wall beside him. ‘Would you like to try?’ his hoarse voice asked.

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Who is Thai Horse, Wonderboy?’

Wonderboy stared off at the other regulars on the other side of the yard. ‘What’s a Thai Horse?’ he asked, still watching the dancers.

‘Ongaeshi,
Wonderboy.’

‘Don’t say that.’

‘Let’s try another one. Is Murphy Cody alive?’

‘Who?’

‘Murph Cody.’

‘What do you want with him?’ Wonderboy asked. ‘What’d you say his name is?’

‘Cody,’ Hatcher said softly.

‘Yeah, Cody.’

‘I have a message for him.’

‘A message?’

‘That’s all there is to it.’

Wonderboy nodded slowly and, moving away from Hatcher toward the rest of the group and not looking at him, said, ‘Well, if I should run into somebody by that name I’ll tell him you’re looking for him.’

Wonderboy walked away. The dancers had finished their musical drama and were fawning over the regulars. Earp was chatting with the dancer who had portrayed the tiger, and Wonderboy leaned over and spoke softly into his ear. Earp looked over at Hatcher and then, taking the yellow-faced dancer by the arm, led her across the yard to Hatcher.

‘This is Namtaan,’ Earp said. ‘She wants to meet the great white hunter. Namtaan, this is Hatcher.’

‘How do you do,’ Hatcher said.

‘It is a pleasure,’ she said. ‘So you are the tiger killer.’ ‘We all had a hand in it.’

‘And did everyone have a hand in saving Wonderboy’s life? You are too modest, Mr. Hatcher.’ She looked up at him with penet
r
ating eyes.

‘It’s not modesty,’ Hatcher said, looking at Earp. ‘Everybody here depends on everybody else. It’s something I missed in the war. My job was a very solitary one.’

‘That is very sad,’ she said.

‘Uh-huh,’ he growled with a shrug. ‘Well, we Westerners have a saying, “You’re never too old to learn.”

‘There’s the other side of that .com,’ said Earp. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

Hatcher smiled. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘take your pick.’

‘He says you asked him about an old Thai legend.’

‘Oh? What legend was that?’

‘The legend of the Thai Horse.’

‘He was only partly right. I wasn’t talking about the old Thai Horse legend, I was talking about the new Thai Horse legend.’

‘The
new
Thai Horse legend?’

‘I’m looking for one who calls himself Thai Horse,’ Hatcher replied, staring straight into her dark brown eyes.

‘I do not understand,’ she said_

‘I think Mr. Earp does,’ Hatcher said.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Earp. ‘Why don’t we stop kidding each other,’ Hatcher said bluntly. ‘I was told that a man named Murphy Cody calls himself Thai Horse.’

‘Cody was killed in the war,’ Earp said, almost too casually.

‘Maybe not,’ Hatcher answered.

‘And why would he do this? Call himself Thai Horse?’

‘Because he buys and sells heroin. He kills others and steals it from them. He buys babies and kills them and smuggles dope in their bodies.’

Namtaan looked at Hatcher for a few moments, then turned abruptly and entered the house. Earp followed her, stopping at the door.

‘C’mon,’ he said to Hatcher. ‘She won’t bite.’

The interior of the small house was dark and cool. The windows and shutters were cl
o
sed against the early afternoon sun and an air conditioner purred softly somewhere. Sunlight slanted through the slats in the shutters, casting harsh slivers on the plank flooring. She sat down on an ancient, battered sofa.

‘Sit down,’ she said.

Earp leaned against a table sipping his drink. Hatcher sat down on the opposite e
n
d of the couch.

‘Who is this Cody?’ she asked.

‘Why are you so interested?’

‘Please, cooperate with me for a few minutes,’ she said almost plaintively.

As Hatcher and Namtaan talked, the other regulars started drifting into the room. Prophett and Melinda sat quietly in a corner, Prophett sprawled loosely in a chair, making aimless little marks on the floor with the toe of his good foot. Riker leaned in the doorway, drinking a beer, and Gallagher sat on the ar
m
of a chair with his arms folded across his chest. Hatcher tried to ignore them.

‘Murph Cody is the man I came to Thailand to find,’ he said emphatically. ‘I’m only interested in Thai Horse as it relates to him.’

‘Why do you seek him?’

‘It’s personal.’

‘Do you know him?’

‘We were friends a long time ago.’

‘Is that why you are looking for him?’

Hatcher thought about the question for a moment, then said, ‘That’s part of it.’

‘Who told you Cody called himself Thai Horse?’ Earp asked.

As Hatcher’s eyes became more accustomed to the room he became aware that there was another person there. The old Chinese who had been attending the cook pots had also entered the room. He was a dim figure, an old, stooped man sitting in the darkest corner of the room.

‘A man named Wol Pot, a North
Vietnamese
POW
commandant during the war. His real name was Taisung and he ran a camp called the Huie-kui in Laos.’

‘And how did he know Cody?’

‘I think Cody was one of his prisoners.’

‘I told you,’ Earp repeated, ‘Cody was killed in a plane crash in 1972.’

‘And how would you know that?’ Hatcher asked.

‘I read it somewhere,’ Earp snapped back.

‘A common misapprehension, said Hatcher.

‘Misapprehension?’ Namtaan said.

‘A lie.’

‘Why do you think so?’ she asked.

‘Because it was to Wol Pot’s advantage to turn up Cody. He wanted a visa to the
United
States. Cody was to be his trade.’

‘And why would Cody be that important?’

‘His father was general of the army during the war.’

‘Perhaps this informant was p
la
ying a game.’

‘Perhaps.’

‘But you don’t think so?’

‘No.’

‘You give such quick answers, Mr. Hatcher, I hope you don’t feel like I am interrogating you,’ she said with a smile.

‘You
are
interrogating me,’ he said.

‘This is all a lot of bull,’ Earp piped in suddenly. ‘I don’t think so,’ said Hatc
h
er. ‘I think Murphy Cody is alive.’

‘Because of what that greasebal
l
told you?’

‘That has something to do wit
h
it.’

‘I don’t believe a word of this,’ said Earp. ‘He’s Sloan’s man.’

‘I’m not Sloan’s anything. He hired me to do a job.’

‘Christ, he admits it!’ said Earp.

Hatcher tried to ignore them. ‘What have you got against Sloan?’ he asked.

‘We think he hired you to turn up Cody and kill him,’ said Earp. ‘Do you deny that?’

Hatcher was stymied. What Earp said was true.

‘No, I don’t deny it,’ Hatcher said.

The honesty of his answer obviously surprised everyone in the room.

‘But,’ he went on, ‘I didn’t accept the job on those terms.’

‘What were your terms?’ Earp said with a sneer.

‘That I would find Cody
—
if he was alive
—
and deliver a message to him.’

Earp turned away in disgust and shook his head. ‘Jesus!’ he said.

‘Listen to me, Wyatt. This started out to be a simple job. Find Murphy Cody and deliver a message, that’s all. In Bangkok, Sloan changed the signals on me.’

‘Earp whirled to face him. ‘How?’

‘He wanted me to make a judgment call. If Cody was mixed up in something
—
embarrassing, he implied I should get rid of him. Sloan
n
ever says anything directly. He’s a master of innuendo. And incidentally, I have as much right as anybody to hate Sloan. He framed me and I spent three years in a Central American scum hole called Los Boxes.’

‘And you still took this job?’

‘That’s right. I figured if anybody could find Cody I could.’

‘And you accepted those terms, right?’

‘I had to make a choice: stay with the mission and try to find Cody, or take a walk, in which case Sloan would have brought in some cold-blooded bastard to do the job.’

‘What makes you different? Yo
u
once killed for him on a daily basis.’

‘Just like you did in CRIP, right?’ said Hatcher angrily. ‘I was a soldier just like you were. I did what I was ordered to do.’

The remark shut Earp up for a moment. He looked away.

‘You know I’m not stupid,’
H
atcher said, sweeping his arm around the room. ‘If I wanted to kill Cody, I sure as hell wouldn’t do it when I’m outnumbered ten to one.’

‘You seem pretty convinced that Cody and this baby-killing dope smuggler are one and the same.’

‘I’m not sure what I belie
v
e about Thai Horse,’ Hatcher said. ‘What I do believe is that Wol Pot, or Taisung as you call him, knew Cody was alive.’

‘Anything else?’

‘The rest is all conjecture. What I call the equation.’

‘The equation?’ said Gallagher.

‘Like a mathematical equati
o
n, except that you use information instead of numbers.

He looked around the room at the rest of the regulars.

‘For instance, I know Wol Pot was really a Vietnamese prison commandant named Taisung. I know Wol Pot claimed that Murph Cody is alive in Bangkok. And I also know that Wol Pot was probably telling the truth.’

‘Why?’ asked Early.

‘Another part of the equation. Eventually Wol Pot would have had to produce C
o
dy to get his visa. To reveal himself was risky because the U.S. could have found out about his past. But he was on the run, and his only chance was to produce C
o
dy. Without him, he didn’t have anything. It would have been like offering to produce
—
Elvis Presley.’

‘Anything else?’ Riker asked skeptically.

‘Yeah, there is something else. I also know that Johnny Prophett’s real name is Paget, and that he and Gallagher, and Benny Potter,
R
iker, and Max Early were all reported missing in action at about the same time in roughly the same area of Vietnam. I’m not sure, but probably Wonderboy and Corkscrew could be included on that list.

‘So, the equation tells me that it’s possible all of them were captured by the VC and were in Wol Pot’s prison camp. And since Wol Pot knew Cody, I assume he was there, too.’

Riker snorted. ‘You got a lot of guts,’ he said.

‘Any more to that equation?’ Corkscrew asked.

‘One more thing. Wol Pot also claims that Cody is a killer and a dope smuggler who calls himself Thai Horse. I also heard from a source in the government that there’s a rumor on the street this Thai Horse is a drug dealer.’

‘And what’s the old equation tell you about that one?’ Riker asked.

‘Perhaps I should take you off the spot, Mr. Hatcher,’ said Namtaan, tapping her breast.
I
am the one known as Thai Horse.’

Hatcher’s surprise was genuine, so much so that Namtaan broke into a smile for the first time since they had entered the house.

‘I did not mean to shock you,’ she said.

Hatcher quickly recovered his c
o
mposure. He started to laugh. ‘I don’t believe a word of that,’ he said.

‘Nevertheless, it is true,’ she said.

‘I gave her the name, Hatcher,’ Johnny Prophett said.

‘Yeah, everybody knows that,’ said Gallagher.

‘I don’t know it,’ Hatcher said ho
a
rsely.

‘You don’t know a helluva lot, soldier, but you sure do a lot of guessing,’ Earp said.

Hatcher stared down at Pai. His recognition of her had come gradually. At first
he had thought she was someone he had met before, someone from the past. He wanted to see her without the facial makeup
—
unlike Wonderboy, whose painted face was his reality.

‘Okay, I’ll try one more,’ Hatcher said, staring at Namtaan. ‘I’m guessing your name is Pai.’

‘My name is Namtaan.’

‘Sure. But it was once Pai. Fifteen years ago in Vietnam. You were Cody’s lady fair.’

‘That is a nice way of saying it.’

‘I have a picture of you taken in 1972. It was obvious you were devoted to him, and I’m sure you still are.’

‘Why are you looking for him, Mr. Hatcher?’ she said, quite earnestly.

‘Like I said, I have a message f
o
r him.’

‘You have come all this way to deliver a message?’ she said with disbelief.

‘That’s right.’

‘And Cody was your friend?’ said Namtaan.

‘That was a long time ago.
B
ut old friendships die hard.’

He stopped, and she continued to stare deeply into his face.

‘And if Cody was this baby killer, what would you do then?’ she asked.

It was a question that had gnawed at Hatcher since his last conversation with Sloan, a decision he had wanted to avoid. Now he had to make it.

‘I didn’t come here to judge Murphy Cody,’ Hatcher said. ‘I’ll admit the thought I might have to kill Cody has crossed my mind a lot in the last few days. But no matter what he’s done, I’m through playing judge, jury and executioner. I’ve had enough of killing. Somebody else can do the dirty work from now on. I came to deliver a message, period, and that’s what I intend to do.’

In the gloom of the dark room, the regulars were all quiet. There was no doubting the sincerity with which Hatcher had spoken.

‘And who is this message from?’ Namtaan finally asked.

‘That’s between Cody and me.’

‘There are ways we can find out,’ said Earp.

‘Not from me,’ Hatcher growled.

Riker chuckled at the remark. ‘Son of a bitch, I’m beginning to believe that,’ he said.

‘You feel that responsible to this Cody, do you?’ Namtaan asked.

‘The message is very personal. I’ll make it face-to-face or not at all.’

He suddenly turned toward the old figure in the corner, squinting his eyes and peering through the gloom at him. The last time Hatcher had seen the old man, he had been backing away from him in an alley in Bangkok after killing Wol Pot.

‘This old gentleman killed Wol Pot. He also had a clean shot at me, started to take it, and changed his mind. I’ve been asking myself why ever since.’

‘And what did you decide?’ Johnny Prophett asked.

‘Aw, c’mon,’ Hatcher whispered, staring across the dark room at him. ‘None of you would’ve let a stranger do your dirty work. Whatever reas
o
n you had to kill Wol Pot, and I can think of a lot of the
m
, if it was to be done, one of you would have done the trick. It’s not your style to give the job to an old man.’

‘That’s very astute,’ Earp said.

‘So the answer is, he’s not an
o
ld man. He’s one of you.’

He turned back to the old man.

‘Right, Polo?’ he whispered.

The stooped Chinese stared across the room at Hatcher. Then he started to chuckle. He stood up, and then he stood erect, adding another three inches to his height. He limped across the room toward Hatcher.

‘Well, I’m sure as hell older. I haven’t heard that nickname since the academy, Hatch,’ said Murphy Cody.