The Thai Amulet (19 page)

Still, that was just so implausible. It was much more likely that Will had just made up the story on the spur of the moment to impress Tatiana. If Praneet was right, though, he didn’t need to do that. Tatiana was the one on the prowl, not him. Was it possible that it was not Will but Tatiana herself, with an eye to a career in film, who had invented this story as a way to help sell her idea?

I decided the only thing to do was to pay her a visit. In fact, I was going to pay all of them—Fitzgerald, Rowland, and Tatiana—a surprise visit to see if their memories had improved since last we’d talked. But first I had to have a chat with the people at Keene Lyon Press, the company I was betting was also known, in Will Beauchamp’s world, as Key Lime Pie.

The distinguishing feature of the office, the defining motif, was fish. There were photos of fish, drawings of fish. There were fish with teeth, pretty ones with gorgeous coloring, scary ones that peeked out from behind rocks under the sea. A rather large aquarium built into the wall featured the live version, in contrast with the stuffed ones mounted on the side table. In a corner, a video ran on a loop. It showed, what else? Fish. There were magazines about fish, a fisherman’s newsletter, and even a fish cookbook—at least that is what it looked like—on the coffee table. The fish in the aquarium were very soothing to watch, but why, I had to ask myself, so many fish? I was not to wonder for long.

I was greeted within a few minutes by a pleasant young man called Mr. Nimit, who told me he was the senior editor. He ushered me into the back office where he sat at a desk piled high with papers. Two other workers, both women, were working at their desks, one of them with slides on a light table, which she used a magnifying glass to look at from time to time, the other with what looked to be galley proofs. There were a lot of fish photographs on the walls in here, too.

“I see you are admiring our photographs,” he said, after the formalities had been taken care of. “We take great pride in them. These are from our books,” he said. “Given you are here, you no doubt know all about our books.”

“I’m afraid I don’t,” I said.

“We are the largest publisher offish books in Bangkok,” he said proudly. “It is a very big business now. Our founder, Mr. Lyon,” Mr. Nimit said, indicating a framed photo above his desk, “was very smart. He knew this would be a very good selling item for us. Mr. Lyon died a few years ago, and unfortunately did not know how successful his company would become. It is now Thai-owned, of course. By my family,” he added just a little smugly.

“What other kind of books do you do?” I said, on the assumption that Will didn’t know any more than I did on the subject offish.

“No other books,” he said. “We work all year on fish books. We do a newsletter, we have a web site, all about fish. Now, how can I be of service?”

“I’m trying to get in touch with one of your authors,” I said. I was starting to have a bad feeling about this. “William Beauchamp.”

Mr. Nimit looked startled, then wary. “We do not have an author by that name.”

“But I think you know the name,” I said with just a touch of irritation in my voice. I was getting really tired of people not telling me things, despite my therapy session with the monk in Chiang Mai. But in Thailand, showing your irritation is a bad idea that gets you nowhere fast. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I do apologize. Mr. Beauchamp is a colleague of mine from Toronto. He has not been seen for several weeks, if not months. His wife is worried about him. I was told you were his publisher.”

“Mr. William was here,” Mr. Nimit said, somewhat mollified. “He came to introduce himself. He said he was one of our authors. We were all very surprised. I showed him the books we publish. You are also most welcome to look. I believe Mr. William was very upset. We were sorry we could not help him. He said his agent had given him an advance for this book. He showed me a photocopy of the check, but it was from an agent, not from us. Perhaps a colleague was making a joke of some kind, but if so, it was not in good taste, was it? Not very funny.”

“No, it was not very funny at all,” I agreed. “Now when was this that Mr. William came in?”

The man thought about it for a moment, and then spoke in Thai to the two women, who were pretending to work while they listened to our conversation. One of them replied.

“We believe it was exactly July two,” Mr. Nimit said. “It is the birthday of Miss Peroontip,” he said, gesturing to the woman who had spoken. “She remembers the day exactly therefore.”

“And you didn’t see him again?”

“No,” he said. “There was no reason. Mr. William said his book was not about fish.”

“You’ve been very helpful,” I said.

“Please,” he said. “A copy of our newsletter, and a catalog of our books. We also offer videotapes.”

“Thank you so much,” I said. It had been a discouraging conversation for me, but not nearly as bad as it would have been for Will. Bent Rowland was apparently even more of a sleaze than I thought. He and I would be having a chat shortly, but on the way, there was Tatiana Tucker to be seen.

“It’s too late,” she said, as I walked through the agency door.

“Too late for what?” I said.

“To return my call,” she said.

“Oh,” I said. “I am so sorry. I completely forgot!”

“Well,” she said. “At least you didn’t say you didn’t receive my message.”

“Thaksin Chaiwong died,” I said, trying to explain.

“Who’s Thaksin Chaiwong?” she said. “And what has this got to do with returning phone calls?”

“A very wealthy man,” I said. “Jennifer and I found him. Dead, I mean. It rather put other things out of my mind.”

“Oh,” she said. “I guess finding a corpse will do that for you. But it’s still too late. I’ve unfortunately lost the papers you were looking for.”

“The m—?” I said. She shook her head almost imperceptibly. I stopped midword. The two other women in the office tried to look as if they weren’t listening.

“I’m going home, by the way,” she said.

“Home?” I said.

“The States,” she said.

“For good, you mean?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“Tomorrow morning. I’m just here to clear out my desk.”

“Isn’t this rather sudden?”

“I’m like that,” she said. “I make decisions, and I act on them.” She hadn’t looked at me once during this conversation. The other women in the office were assiduously pretending to work.

“Please let me buy you lunch, a drink, a coffee, whatever you have time for,” I said. “As a send-off. And as an apology for not returning your phone call.”

“That’s not necessary,” she said.

“Please,” I said. “I feel terrible.”

I could see she was thinking about it, and in the end her better nature gained the upper hand. “Okay,” she said. “I could use a drink.”

“You lost the manuscript!” I exclaimed as soon as we sat down at a table in a nearby bar.

“Shh!” she said, looking about her carefully and speaking in virtually a whisper. “I didn’t lose it. I destroyed it. And it wasn’t the whole manuscript anyway. It was just the introduction.”

“But why?” I said. “What happened to the movie?”

“It didn’t pan out,” she said, but I could tell she was lying.

“That’s too bad,” I said, trying to keep my irritation and curiosity out of my voice. “It sounded interesting. I guess that means you don’t need the sword anymore. Too bad. I spoke to the soon-to-be owner, and he seemed interested. There’d have to be insurance and everything, but he was willing to at least discuss it.” If there was a contest on to tell more lies than anyone else in Thailand, I intended to be part of it.

“That was nice of you,” she said. “So few people these days do what they say they will.”

I felt like a worm.

“I think you should just forget about what I told you about the sword,” she said. “It was pure fabrication.”

“Did you invent the story?” I said. “You obviously have a vivid imagination. No wonder you work in film.”

“Too vivid,” she said.

I said nothing.

“I’ve been getting phone calls,” she said. “Nasty ones. Telling me to go home.”

“From whom?” I said.

“Don’t know,” she said. “But they are really scary. Obviously I’ve stirred up something with this movie idea. I wish I hadn’t. Probably they’re watching me right now. They said they were. You shouldn’t even be here with me.”

“There’s nobody in here but us,” I said, looking around. “It’s too early for anybody else.”

“They seem to know what I’m doing. They said if I went back to the States right away, nothing would happen to me. That’s what I’m doing. If I were you, I’d go back home, too.”

“And you’re convinced these calls have something to do with the film about Helen Ford?” I said.

“Of course they do,” she said. “I work for a travel agency, for God’s sake. Do you think people call in death threats because the airline I booked them on ran out of the chicken entree before they got to them? What else would it be?” Her hands were shaking badly as she spoke.

“These were death threats? Really?”

“Yes,” she said. “They started out as ‘Go home, you don’t belong here,” to ’If you stay around, you could get hurt,“ then on to ‘If you don’t leave you’ll die.” “

“These calls,” I said. “Man? Woman? Thai? English?”

“Man,” she said. “They’re in English, or I wouldn’t understand them, I don’t think. My Thai isn’t that great, yet.”

“But do you think it’s a Thai man calling you?”

“Maybe,” she said. “Not sure. I’ll bet they follow me right to the airport and see I get on the plane.”

“It’s a big airport,” I said. “And that’s hard to do these days.”

“You think this is a joke!” she said.

“No, I don’t, but I like to think these are idle threats. Have you thought about calling the police?”

“No,” she said. “I’m going home. I don’t know whatever made me think I belonged here.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. I meant it. “Look, could you at least tell me what it said, the manuscript, I mean?”

“That’s the ridiculous thing about this,” she said. “There was nothing in it that you couldn’t read in the
Bangkok Herald
archives. Helen Ford killed her husband, or had him killed, depending on which version you prefer, then his body was chopped up and disposed of. The torso was buried near the Chao Phyra, the head and limbs were burned. Her child was never found, but there was an assumption he, too, was killed. Helen was charged, convicted, sentenced to die, appealed, won the appeal, and then disappeared.”

“Nothing about corruption, scandal?”

“No,” she said. “Scandal, of course. The whole story is scandalous, but other than that, there were only hints of corruption in high places. Nothing specific. It ends with something about this being the story they didn’t want you to know. All rather melodramatic, but not very exciting when it came right down to it.”

“Who is they?”

“No idea.”

“When you spoke to Will, did you get the impression he’d finished writing the book?”

“Yes,” she said. “Or just about, anyway. He said he might have more work to do on it, that the more he looked into it, the more he learned, and that in a way, it would never really be finished. But yes, I got the impression that at least the first draft was done.”

“So why do you think that someone would be threatening you over something everyone could read in the archives?”

“Good question. I don’t plan to hang around to find out.”

“Did you invent the story about the sword and Helen Ford?” I asked her again.

“No,” she said. “I didn’t. Will told me.”

Robert Fitzgerald was next on my list. The first thing that struck me as I cut through the hole in the hedge was how untidy the grounds around the tree had become. On the previous visits, the grass and gardens had been immaculate. Now there was litter everywhere. A breeze caught a piece of paper, and it swirled across the yard. The tree house itself looked a little more welcoming than it had the first time: the stairs were down. That might have meant he was expecting someone, but he certainly hadn’t felt the need to make me feel welcome the first time I came. Still, when I’d come back to purchase the carvings for David Ferguson’s spirit house, he’d left them down for me. Nothing like being a paying customer to improve relations with someone, even someone as crusty as Fitzgerald. The stairs also might mean he already had a visitor, which, if so, was going to put a crimp in my line of questioning. Still, I decided to haul myself up, to use his expression.

I called out his name a couple of times as I ascended, but again there was no reply. That left a third option, which was that he had gone out and left the stairs down for his return. That certainly seemed to be the case. The sala was empty, but I could see he was working on the chess set, which warmed my heart. I stopped for a moment or two to admire them. He’d done one complete set of pieces in a black wood. The little pieces were really lovely, and he’d used tiny Thai houses for the castles. The king and queen were in traditional Thai dress, seated on elephants. Rob was going to be thrilled.

It was then I heard the faintest of sounds. It was difficult to identify, a wounded animal perhaps, a moan. It could have been the wind in the leaves of the trees, or the house merely creaking. Still, I felt I couldn’t ignore it. I tiptoed along the passageway to the other side of the house. There was no one in the kitchen, but the hall was littered with books and papers. I heard the moan again.

Cautiously I peered into the studio/bedroom. Fitzgerald sat on the floor, propped up against the side of the bed, legs straight out in front of him like a large rag doll. There was blood pouring from a wound on his head. His father’s diaries were everywhere, scattered about the room.

“Are you all right?” I exclaimed, kneeling beside him. It was a stupid question.

“You’re late,” he barked.

“What happened?” I said. “And how could I be late if you didn’t know I was coming?”

“Yes, I did,” he said. “Someone told me. That’s why I put the stairs down.”

“Who?”

He looked baffled for a moment. “I don’t seem to recall,” he said, after a pause. “They didn’t get it, though.”