World of Trouble (9786167611136) (45 page)

I didn’t much like the sound of that. The
last time I had heard that phrase it had been closely followed by
two guys I knew pretty well getting shot.

“
From who?” I asked anyway.

“
The Prime Minister.”

“
Which prime minister?”

“
The Prime Minister of Thailand, you shit
head. You know any others?”

“
A few.”

Pete ignored me, as well he might have.

“
She wonders if you could do her a little
favor.”

“
What kind of a favor?”

“
I really don’t know. She just said she
hopes you might be willing to look into something for her. She
asked me to tell you to call her. She said that you have her
number. Do you? Have her number, I mean?”

I didn’t take the bait.

“
It’s going to be a little hard for me to
do much for Kate while I’m enjoying the hospitality of the embassy,
Pete. I wasn’t aware you had a work furlough program or I would
have already applied.”

“
Oh, didn’t I tell you?” Pete said.
“You’re free to go. You can leave anytime you want.”

“
I’m not under arrest anymore?”

“
Under arrest? Good Lord, Jack, why would
anyone want to arrest you?”

“
I see.”

Pete said nothing. He even managed to keep
his face straight.

“
Does my sudden release have anything to
do with that?” I pointed to the television monitor on which I had
just seen the pictures of Charlie’s house in flames and heard about
the two bodies the US was trying so hard to help the Thais
identify.

“
I’ve got no idea what you’re talking
about, man.”

Pete pushed his chair back and stood up.

“
Stay in touch,” he said. “Don’t be a
stranger.”

Then he just gave me a little wave and
walked away.

***

WITH MY ESCORT gone, I was left to find my way back
to my room on my own. But then it occurred to me there really
wasn’t any reason to go back there so I just walked straight out to
the embassy’s front entrance and right up to the marine guard post
in the lobby. The young marine on duty collected the visitor’s
badge from around my neck, tapped briefly at a computer keyboard,
and then tossed off a snappy salute. I walked through the main
doors, crossed the lawn between the embassy building and the high
concrete wall surrounding the compound, and pushed out through the
revolving security gate to the street.

It wasn’t until I was standing at the curb
on Wireless Road that it occurred to me that I had no idea where I
was going. I was still trying to make up my mind when a taxi pulled
to a stop and the driver leaned over and rolled down his
window.

“
Taxi, boss?”

I looked at the man, but I didn’t say
anything.

“
Where you want go?” the driver
persisted.

Having no better idea, I opened the back
door and got into the taxi.

“
Where to, boss?”

Animal and man share the same instinct. Hide
when you’re hurt. Go to ground. Find a place where you’ll be safe
until your wounds heal.

“
You know the Grand Hotel?” I
asked.

“
Sure thing, boss.”

The driver floored the accelerator and shot
into traffic.

***

I SLUNK OFF to the Grand to recover from my wounds
when Anita left. I had lived there for nearly six months back then
and found it to be a pretty good place for mending. I had a
different kind of mending to do this time, of course. Maybe it
would be harder. But then again, maybe it would be easier.

I was still wearing the clothes the embassy
had given me and now that I was out on the street again I wasn’t
certain I looked my best in an oversized Hawaiian shirt, jeans, and
black Nikes. The last place I had seen the suitcase with my own
clothes in it had been at Keur’s apartment on Soi Thonglor.

Fuck it. Just one more lost bag in a
lifetime of traveling.

First, I’d find a place to buy some clothes.
Then after that, maybe I would try to reach Kate. I wanted to thank
her for keeping me out of a Thai jail. And naturally I was curious
about the message Pete had given me.

Of course, I had no intention of getting
involved in whatever Kate wanted me to do. None at all. I’d had
enough of Thailand to last several lifetimes. There was no way in
the world I was going to let Kate talk me into having any more to
do with this screwed up little country, even if she was the prime
minster now.

What I had to do was to get serious about
looking after myself for a change. My only client was dead and what
kind of a lawyer doesn’t have any clients? Maybe it was time to go
home and think about doing something new.

But where was home? I no longer had a wife.
And I didn’t have a girlfriend. Or a dog or a goldfish or even a
house plant. Come to think of it, I didn’t have a house plant
because I didn’t have a house. I was a middle-aged man living in a
borrowed apartment with absolutely nowhere to go and nothing to
do.

It was time for me to figure out what I was
going to do with the rest of my life. That was what was important
now. Not chasing around Thailand after some nonsense for Kate. Even
if I did owe her a favor.

Still, I knew I really ought at least to
give Kate a call before I left Thailand. That was only simple
courtesy to an old friend, wasn’t it? And, to be absolutely honest,
I really was a little curious about what it was she wanted me to
look into for her. Even if there was no way in hell I was going to
get involved. Absolutely no way.

Honestly, I was just curious.

THE END

The book that introduced Jack Shepherd

You can buy the full version of LAUNDRY MAN
here

Smashwords

LAUNDRY MAN

IT BEGAN EXACTLY
the
way the end of the world will begin. With a telephone call at two
o’clock in the morning.

“Jack Shepherd,” I croaked.

“Hey, Jack, old buddy. How you been?”

It was a man’s voice, one I didn’t recognize.
I sat up and cleared my throat.

“Who’s this?” I asked

“I’m sorry to call in the middle of the
night,” the man said, ignoring my question, “but this can’t wait.
I’m really in deep shit here.”

I was still struggling to place the voice so
I said nothing.

“I need your help, Jack. I figure I got about
a week here before somebody cuts off my nuts and feeds them to the
ducks.”

“I’m not going to start guessing,” I said.
“Who is this?”

“Oh, man, that’s so sad. You mean to tell me
you even don’t recognize your old law partner’s voice?”

“I’ve had a lot of—”

“This is Barry Gale.”

That stopped me cold.

“Surprised, huh?” the man chuckled.

“Who are you?” I repeated.

“I just told you who I am, Jack. This is
Barry Gale.”

I hit the disconnect button and tossed my
cell phone back on the nightstand.

WHEN IT RANG
again,
I silently cursed myself for forgetting to turn the damned thing
off.

I sat up and retrieved the phone and this
time I looked at the number on the screen before I answered. All it
said was unavailable. I thought fleetingly of just hitting the
power button, but I didn’t. Later, of course, I would wish I
had.

“It’s not nice to hang up on old friends,
Jack.”

“We’re not old friends.”

“Sure we are.”

“Look, pal, Barry Gale’s dead. I know it and
I’m sure you know it. So unless you’re Mickey the Medium with a
message from the other side, you can cut the crap. What do you
want?”

“What makes you think I’m dead?” the man
asked.

“Barry made a pretty flashy exit. It got a
fair amount of attention.”

“You talking about the body they found in
that swimming pool in Dallas?”

That was exactly what I was talking about. I
said nothing.

“As I remember, and I’m pretty sure I
do
remember, that body had been in the water nearly a week
before anybody found it so they couldn’t get fingerprints. Also I
hear the guy’s face was too badly smashed up to recognize. Nobody
thought it was worth bothering with DNA, and the ID was made from
dental records.”

“So what? The dental records matched Barry’s,
didn’t they?”

“Of course they did. They would, wouldn’t
they?”

“Are you trying to tell me the body in the
swimming pool in Dallas wasn’t Barry Gale’s?”

“Not likely, Jack. Not likely at all.
Particularly not as we’re talking to each other on the telephone
other right now.”

I tried it another way.

“Look, buddy, I’m a reasonably approachable
guy. Why don’t you just tell me who you are and what you want and
then I can go back to sleep?”

There was a brief silence and then the man
started talking again in a tired voice.

“Your name is Jonathan William Shepherd, but
your father started calling you Jack when you were a kid to keep
your mother from calling you Johnny and it stuck. You graduated
from Georgetown Law School and you’re admitted to the bar in the
District of Columbia and in New York. Stassen & Hardy recruited
you right out of law school and it’s the only place you ever
practiced law. You and I made partner the same year.”

I said nothing. The man apparently didn’t
care.

“Your home address was 1701 Great Falls Road.
It was a big white house out in Potomac, Maryland. Regrettably your
happy home dissolved when your wife, the lovely Laura, took up with
that proctologist out in Virginia. Dr. Butthole, you called him.
How am I doing?”

“Very impressive,” I said.

“I’m an impressive guy.”

“Is that it?” I asked. “You recite a few
things you’ve found out about me somewhere and now I’m supposed to
believe you’re Barry Gale risen from the dead?”

“Hell, Jack, I could go on all night. How
about this? Your office at Stassen & Hardy was about as far
away from the reception area as it was possible for you to get and
still be in the same building with the rest of us. You had a big
glass table that you used for a desk. Goddamn, Jack, I’m sure you
were the only lawyer in the world with a glass desk. It was like
you were trying to look purer than the rest of us. Was that it,
Jack? Was that what the glass desk was all about? And, oh yeah, you
had that big yellow couch with the deep cushions where you took
naps in the afternoon.”

“Look, I still don’t know what this is all
about, but—”

“We had a part-time receptionist, a little
Vietnamese girl who was going to law school somewhere and worked as
the relief girl on weekends. Remember? You fucked her right on that
yellow couch one Saturday afternoon and then you admitted it to me
a couple of weeks later after you’d sucked up an extra martini one
night at the bar in the Mayflower Hotel. You seemed to be all cut
up with guilt over it and said you hadn’t told anyone else. Had you
told anyone else, Jack?”

In the silence I could hear the guy breathing
and I was sure he could hear me, too, except I was probably
breathing a lot louder.

Because he was right.

I hadn’t told anyone else.

The man went on before I could figure out
what to say.

“You like living in Bangkok, Jack? I hear
you’re a teacher now. In some business school. That right?”

“Yes. I teach at Chulalongkorn
University.”

“No more lawyering? No more of that big-time
stuff we used to do?”

“I don’t practice law anymore if that’s what
you’re asking me.”

“Do you miss it?”

“Not particularly. I still do a little
consulting sometimes.”

“Consulting, huh? Is that right?” The man
barked an abrupt laugh. “You want to consult with me, Jack?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Still a fucking hard-on, are you?”

“I just don’t particularly like being the
butt of some clown’s crappy little joke.”

“Oh, this is no joke, Jack. I wish to Christ
it was, but it isn’t.”

I said nothing.

“Do you know that place called Took Lae Dee?”
the man eventually asked. “The little food counter up in the front
of the all-night Foodland on Sukhumvit Road?”

“Yeah. I know where it is.”

“Meet me there tomorrow, around midnight.
Just grab a stool and I’ll find you.”

“Midnight?”

“Is that a problem for you?”

“Yeah, that’s a problem for me. What makes
you think I’d even consider coming to some damned supermarket at
midnight just because a wacko pretending to be a dead guy calls me
up and tells me to? I don’t know how you found out all those things
about me, but if you think that’s enough—”