Big Mango (9786167611037) (27 page)

“I did tell you the truth.”

“If you did, you didn’t tell me all of
it.”

Eddie dropped into a big chair across from
Bar and hauled one leg up over the arm. He let his eyes drift
across to Lek, but she was looking at the wall just above his head
and apparently didn’t notice. His eyes wandered down her bare brown
legs, folded together and tucked at a graceful angle under her
chair, until they came to rest, as they had at the embassy, on her
trim ankles. What was it about Lek’s ankles that kept giving him
this little tweak? Surely he wasn’t that unaccustomed to the sight
of smooth calves and slim ankles; or was he?

“What really put you onto Harry Austin?” Bar
asked, interrupting Eddie’s musings.

Eddie forced his eyes away from Lek’s ankles
for the second time that night and back to Bar. “I already told
you. I was hired to find out what happened to him.”

Bar’s face was perfectly still and in his
eyes Eddie could see a decision being made.

“If you tell me the whole truth, I can help.
If you don’t, I’m just going to get up and walk out of here.” Bar
lifted his eyebrows, raising ridges of skin over his forehead that
looked like ripples of sand spreading over a beach. “I want to help
you. I really do. Especially after what happened tonight. But I
can’t do it unless you tell me everything.”

The long silence that followed Bar’s
pronouncement wasn’t broken until the doorbell rang. Winnebago
opened the door and a waiter in a starched, white jacket wheeled a
room service table into the room with a flourish.

The four club sandwiches were elaborately
quartered and arranged under glass domes with sprigs of greenery.
The heavy silver coffee pots looked like they had recently been
stolen from the Louvre. The young waiter started fussing about
unfolding the table and gathering chairs, but Eddie grabbed the
check off the table, signed it, and hustled the boy out as quickly
as he could without flinging him bodily into the corridor.

As soon as the door closed, Bar started in on
Eddie again. “Your story sucks, Eddie. If anyone actually did hire
you to dig up Harry Austin’s past, it’s for some reason you haven’t
told us. Or maybe no one hired you. Maybe you have reasons of your
own. Either way, if you don’t tell me, I’m out of here.”

Eddie passed out the sandwiches and poured
coffee. He took his own over to a chair by the window and ate the
first quarter in silence.

“I think we ought to tell them,” Winnebago
finally said in a low voice.

Bar and Lek picked at their sandwiches and
watched Eddie think about Winnebago’s advice. Eddie was trying to
work his way logically through all the different scenarios that had
developed over the past few days, but all the possible combinations
of interests and alliances were just too confusing and
contradictory to rationalize into a coherent whole; or maybe he was
just too tired to see how it all fit together.

Sometimes you just had to throw everything up
in the air without knowing what you were doing, he thought to
himself. Just throw it up and see how it all comes down.

Eddie took another sip of coffee, wiped his
mouth with a napkin, and leaned back in his chair. Then he swung
his legs up on the coffee table, put his hands behind his head, and
began to talk.

He told Bar and Lek about Operation Voltaire
and the ten tons of currency and gold taken from the Bank of
Vietnam; about the Secret Service investigation that first led to
Harry Austin and then to him; about Marinus Rupert hiring him to
search for the money; about Rupert’s transformation into someone
called the general; about Lieutenant Sirapop and his mention of the
Little Princess; about the German who had seen Austin’s body
dragged inside; about Reidy and Sanchez at Nick’s Kitchen showing
him the black and white glossies of the general in the slinky black
dress; and finally, about their claim that Vietnamese Intelligence
was behind the general, and the Secret Service’s offer of one
percent of the Voltaire money to double-cross the Vietnamese and
deliver it instead to them.

Eddie watched Bar and Lek intently while he
talked. It seemed to him that Lek looked stunned by his story,
although she hid it fairly well, but he didn’t think that Bar even
looked all that interested.

“I get the feeling you’ve heard all this
somewhere before,” Eddie said to Bar when he had finished.

“Not exactly the same story, but a whole lot
of others exactly like it,” Bar yawned. “Look, Eddie, Bangkok’s
full of crap like that. About twice a month some hustler turns up
here hot on the trail of the lost treasure of the Czars or waving a
map to a stash of Japanese gold from the war. I don’t get too
excited about it anymore.”

“I’m not a hustler,” Eddie responded quietly.
“And this isn’t crap.”

“That’s the first thing they always say.”

“This time it’s different.”

Bar’s eyes flickered for a moment, opening
and closing, and then they met Eddie’s. “And that’s the
second.”

“Think about it, Bar. The Secret Service
spends a year chasing this story around and then ends up offering
me a deal to help them find the money. The Vietnamese organize an
elaborate plot to trick me into helping them find the money. Why
would they do that unless there was something there? They can’t
both be that stupid.”

“Don’t forget the pictures,” Winnebago
added.

“Yeah, those sure as hell didn’t come from
the Secret Service or the Vietnamese. Whoever sent them to the
three of us—”

“Four,” Lek interrupted and everyone looked
at her. “Don’t forget, Harry got them, too.”

Eddie let his gaze linger briefly on Lek
before turning back to Bar. “Whoever sent those photographs thinks
I know something, and they’ve gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to
warn me off. That means there are at least three separate crowds
tracking the Voltaire money and they all have one thing in common:
they’re all looking at me. If this is all just bullshit, why the
hell do you think that is?”

Bar took a deep breath and rolled his tongue
slowly around in his cheek. When he spoke, he measured his words
carefully, like a man doling out medicine.

“You’re telling me there really is ten tons
of money out there somewhere?”

“Looks like it. Maybe not ten tons anymore,
but probably still one hell of a lot.”

Bar rubbed at his face with one hand while he
tried to grasp the concept of hundreds of millions of dollars just
lying around in Bangkok. “Even if it’s true, Eddie, why does it
matter anymore?”

Winnebago looked at Bar like he had belched
in the middle of the Lord’s Prayer. “I don’t know about you, you
old fart, but a few hundred million dollars matters a lot to
me.”

“Look, whether Austin was murdered or it was
an accident,” Bar said, “the man’s still dead. If he knew anything,
you’ll never find out now what it was. Not unless…”

Bar trailed off into silence.

“Unless what?” Eddie asked.

“Unless you’ve already guessed what it
is.”

“I haven’t.”

There was a short silence and then Lek
collected her purse and stood up. “Could I use the bathroom?”

“Try the one in there.” Eddie pointed to the
door across the suite that led to his bedroom. “It’s probably
cleaner than Winnebago’s.”

As soon as he heard the door click shut,
Eddie leaned forward, rested his elbows on his knees, and looked at
Bar. “What do you know about Lek?”

“Don’t go paranoid on me, man. You heard what
Chuck said. You know as much as I do.”

“Then what do you know about Chuck
McBride?”

“Don’t worry about Chuck. The DEA guys out
here are solid.”

“Yeah? How do you know that?”

“Know that the DEA guys are solid?”

“Know that McBride is DEA.”

“Of course, he’s DEA.” Bar looked at Eddie in
exasperation. “What are you talking about?”

“He knows too much about Harry Austin and
he’s too interested in him. Don’t you think that’s a little odd if
he really
is
just a drug cop?”

“I’ve been to Chuck’s office at the embassy a
hundred times. He’s got a sign on his door.”

“Oh, right. Because he has a little sign on
his door at the embassy that says so, he must be DEA.”

“Come on, Eddie. How the hell do you know who
your daddy is? Because your mamma told you so.”

Bar’s nose twitched and he sat toying with
his coffee spoon. Although he didn’t say anything else, a look of
discomfort crossed his face before he could chase it away.

Lek came back from the bathroom and settled
onto the couch.

“What can you tell us about Captain Austin?”
Eddie asked her as soon as she sat down.

Lek tilted her head to one side and studied
Eddie for a moment before replying. “What do you want to know?”

“Start with the obvious, I guess. How about
his finances?”

“Three years ago he had term deposits at
Bangkok Bank that were just over fifteen million baht, about half a
million US dollars. And he had a couple of savings accounts,
regular day-to-day accounts with small balances. After I left the
bank, I don’t know what happened to them.”

“Where did that money go after he died?”

“I don’t know.”

“Did you find any trace of it at all? Deposit
books? Bank certificates? Anything like that?”

“No.”

“I’ve got to tell you that something bothers
me here.” Eddie looked evenly at Lek. “You sound pretty cold about
your husband’s death. You talk about his money, but you never say
anything about him. Why is that?”

“I’m sorry I don’t meet your California
standards of grief,” she snapped. Her face was taut. “Harry was
just—”

“He didn’t really trust you, did he? He never
told you very much.”

“Harry was a peculiar man in many ways,” Lek
said, and then lapsed into silence.

Eddie thought she looked like someone walking
through a minefield. Something worked at him, but he couldn’t
figure out exactly what it was.

“He just kept some things to himself,” she
added after a moment. “You had to know him to understand.”

“I did know him.”

“Maybe not as well as I did.”

Eddie stood up and walked over to the windows
and looked down at the Chao Phraya River, still and black in the
moonless night. He didn’t really want any more coffee, but he
picked up his cup anyway and tipped it to his lips, letting the
lukewarm liquid just hang there against his tongue without
swallowing.

What the hell am I doing, Eddie asked
himself. Why am I eyeing this woman’s legs one moment and
cross-examining her like a criminal the next? He felt like he was
once again standing in front of the same door that had started to
swing open for him when he was back at the embassy, the papers from
Harry Austin’s safety deposit box spread over the table in front of
him. Although the door yawned unmistakably now, standing wide open,
and he saw that as clearly as he had ever seen anything in his
life, he could still make out nothing at all of what waited beyond
it.

Eddie returned his cup to its saucer and put
them both down carefully on a table. Then he took a deep breath
and, without so much as a glance back, plunged through that
door.

“I’m not going to miss this party,” he told
the others. He wondered for a moment if there was anything he was
leaving out, but there wasn’t. It was just that simple. “That’s it.
I’m in this until it’s over, whatever that turns out to mean.”

The room was still. Bar, Lek and Winnebago
watched Eddie carefully, but no one said anything. The silence
quivered around them like jelly.

“If any of you want to throw in with me…”
Eddie paused long enough to underline the significance of what he
was going to say next “I’ll divide whatever we get out of it
equally with each of you. If we get anything at all.”

Winnebago took another bite of his sandwich.
Chewing on it thoughtfully, he swallowed and rubbed the back of his
hand across his mouth. “In ‘Nam you got me into some shit that
still makes my asshole pucker, man. You know, I got to think about
that.”

“I understand.”

“I guess…” Winnebago paused, thinking back.
Suddenly he flashed a wide grin and punched a fist into the air.
“Hey, fuck this hippie shit! Let’s do it!”

Eddie looked at Bar. “How about it?”

“What if I say no?”

“Since I’ve already told you everything, I’ll
have to kill you.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Yeah, but only barely.”

Bar tapped his forefinger absentmindedly
against his coffee cup for a moment and then he looked across at
Eddie and held his eyes. “Okay, Eddie. What am I saving my youth
for, huh? I haven’t had any real fun in a long time either. I’m
in.”

“You won’t be sorry.”

“I already am,” Bar laughed. “But only
barely.”

Then the three of them looked at Lek.

She lifted both hands in a mock gesture of
surrender. “I’m not going to get very far on my own. Count me in,
too, I guess.”

“Well then,” Eddie said, “I guess we’re in
business.”

“So, what’s the plan?” Winnebago asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You got no plan?” Winnebago looked pained.
“Nothing?”

“I’ve got a place to start. After that, we’ll
just have to see how everything works out.” Eddie glanced at Bar.
“Can you organize somewhere for the four of us to stay for a few
days.”

“What for?” He looked around the suite. “The
Oriental’s not good enough for you?”

“Not a regular hotel. We’ve got to disappear
for a while. Do you know anyone who’s out of town; maybe someone
who could lend us a house or an apartment?”

Bar thought for a moment while they all
watched him. “Okay, I know just the right place.”

“We’ll need it tomorrow night.”

“You got it.”

“I don’t understand something,” Winnebago
interrupted. “With the Secret Service, the Vietnamese, and Christ
only knows who else watching every time we take a leak, how are we
supposed to get to wherever this is without them all knowing where
we’ve gone?”