Paying Back Jack (16 page)

“Someone knew where I was staying in Pattaya. I need to know if you told anyone about the hotel.”

Ratana raised her hand and drew an imaginary line like a schoolteacher across the room and the playpen. “Do you really think I'd ever let you down?”

She waited for the emotion to register in his face. It was one thing that Calvino was convinced wouldn't happen. “Any other messages while I was away?”

“A few clients phoned. Mrs. Beckwith phoned. Her husband's being transferred to Chicago and …”

“She wants to close the case,” said Calvino.

“There's no point in continuing. They're leaving Thailand. And Casey's messenger will deliver forty-thousand baht this afternoon,” said Ratana with a radiant smile. She had saved the good news for just the right moment to lift her boss's shattered spirits.

“Did he call when I was away?”

“I told him you were out of town.”

“Did he say anything else?” asked Calvino.

“He said he was very happy with your work.” She snuffled John-John's cheek. He had seen her perform this ritual before. The sniffing of her baby appeared to intoxicate Ratana. It gave her a baby high. The gesture was one that Thais commonly performed on their loved ones. Her nose on John-John's neck, she breathed in, then gently exhaled. The smelling-ceremony style was a mixture of wine tasting and perfume sampling. She never tired of burying her nose into John-John as if she wished to breathe him into her lungs. It was feeding time, and Ratana unfastened her blouse.

Calvino looked away. “Why don't you go back to your desk? You'll be more comfortable.”

Ratana smiled, shaking her head. “You mean you'll be more comfortable.”

Life revolved around the edges of reality for most people. They saw and heard and felt what they wanted. Calvino had no reason to believe Ratana had dropped his travel arrangements with anyone. Alone at his desk once again, he checked his email, wondering who had passed on his Pattaya hotel arrangements. Of course it could have been Apichart, or one of the investigators sifting through the remains of two dead men in the Soi 33 carnage. Who else would have gone to the trouble of finding out where he'd gone?

JARRETT PRESSED HIS EYE against the daytime telescopic lens, his feet firm on the floor, one elbow positioned on the table. A two-foot silencer on the end of the barrel gave the weapon an otherworldly appearance. He stretched his arms and shook his hands loosely at his side as he waited for Tracer, standing to his right, to confirm the target. Tracer, his ears plugged and wired, stood a foot back from Jarrett's position, looking through a pair of binoculars at the buildings in the vicinity of the target.

Tracer and Jarrett had supplied each building within a ninety-degree arc of the target with a code name: Ripper, Papa Bear, Grizzly, Scorpion, Firebird, Rooks, and Black Sheep. The target building itself was code-named Zapper. The code names and locations had been written in large, careful blue lettering on a white board. The white board rested on a chair to Jarrett's left. All Jarrett had to do was look up from the telescopic site at the white board if he needed a confirmation. That wouldn't be necessary because he had the information memorized. But there was comfort in having it there, knowing that memory sometimes failed. It was a lot of information to keep straight. Screwups more often than not were information screwups; communication gummed up as it worked its way down the chain of command.

Floors and units also had codes running left to right, such as one-eight for the first unit on the eighth floor. Tracer passed three-nine on Firebird, paused, looking for any activity before moving on. He'd
studied the buildings and the line-of-fire floors of each one. Waters hadn't indicated any problem. But that wasn't the point. Training kicked in, and it had to be assumed that a force with hostile intention might be in one of the buildings. Only a rookie would focus just on the target on the balcony of three-nine Zapper, never letting it cross his mind that someone could be targeting him. As the blues teach, when anguish gets hung out to dry, it finds itself in a world wet with anger, rage, and revenge.

“Tracer, there isn't anything alive that I can't hit at three hundred and fifty meters.” This wasn't a boast, just a fact. Jarrett was talking to himself, giving himself a talking-to, knowing the time for liftoff was approaching.

“I know that for a fact.” Tracer didn't look away from his binoculars. It had just turned eleven when Tracer spotted movement at the sliding-glass door leading to the balcony. “We got someone at three-nine Zapper. A woman,” said Tracer. “She's with an Asian male.”

Jarrett embraced the rifle, staring through the daytime telescope. Kate's eye picked up the woman, as did Tracer's binoculars.

“Got her.” He watched her through the crosshairs.

“She's a looker,” said Tracer. She wore a dark short skirt and silk blouse, diamond earrings in both ears, and another larger diamond mounted in a gold pendant around her neck. A woman with a diamond at her throat was a woman not just displaying the number of carats she thought she was worth, but the real value a man had placed upon her. Her hair had been pulled back from her forehead and ears and tied with a clip.

“If you've got money, you don't buy ugly,” said Tracer.

“But it don't buy love.”

The binoculars scanned the distance. “Got that right, but it can pay some rent.” He paused. “The balcony door's sliding back. She's out. He's behind her. His right hand is on the small of her back like he's balancing her.”

The telescope picked out a man's head. Jarrett leaned into his embrace with Kate.

“Wait,” said Tracer. Two, three beats of silence. “That's not him. That's not our target.” He reached down and picked up the photo of Somporn.

“You sure it's not him?” Jarrett had the man in the crosshairs, his finger on the trigger.

“Look at the photo.”

“I know what Somporn looks like.”

“Then you're seeing a guy thirty years younger and half-a-foot taller than Somporn. If that's our target, then that boy's got himself a major face-lift and some elevator shoes.”

Jarrett looked again and then sat back in his chair, drumming his fingers on the edge of the table. He was wound up, pumped with adrenaline, and the race had been called off.

“Then who is he?”

“Does he look Thai to you?” asked Tracer.

Jarrett rested his right eye snug against the scope.

“He looks like a Japanese punk rapper. Look at that wild, thick kinky hair. Looks like an eagle's nest,” said Tracer, with a whoop of glee that dove into a valley of disappointment.

They both watched the young woman in the short skirt and silk blouse show her stuff. “Either he's a boy toy, or she's double-dipping,” said Jarrett.

“The bitch is kissing him,” said Tracer. “Like a bear licking honey.”

Jarrett shivered as he thought how close he'd come to killing the wrong man. A mistaken identity had been what had killed Jack. Jack's red hair had been a near perfect match for an Australian named MacDonald. He shook off the image of Jack, thinking instead back to the beekeeper sleeping in bed early in the morning. He wondered what time she'd woken up, found the money, put on her clothes, and left. He glanced at the photo of Somporn taped to the side of the whiteboard and looked back through the telescope sight. “Tracer, you hear about the bees going AWOL? Dying everywhere?”

“We're finished here,” said Tracer. “At least for today. I can't see Somporn joining this party. I'd bet the bank he's not coming around to make up a threesome.” Tracer reached over to a side table and cranked up the music. The empty, disappointed space of the sitting room filled with the voice of a wailing blues singer. She was singing about the moment of truth when a man satisfies a woman, makes her
knees go weak. They both watched Somporn's
mia noi
and her boy toy dancing on the balcony as they listened to the lyrics. “Don't be shy, satisfy me. Try and try and try.”

“You hungry? And I don't mean for the crap Casey bought,” Jarrett asked. Suddenly the aborted mission had given him a craving for a cheeseburger and French fries.

“I feel like catfish and hush puppies,” said Tracer.

“I'd settle for a burger and fries.”

“Nothing much to keep us here. I'd say Mr. Somporn ain't showin'.”

Tracer lowered his binoculars and glanced at Jarrett, who lifted his head up from the scope. Jarrett still had the white feather in his hat. A broad smile crossed Tracer's face. “Bees dying. Yeah, I dig it. We've got ourselves a situation.”

Jarrett looked down the length of the silencer fixed to the barrel of the rifle. There wasn't going to be anything but silence today, he thought. He leaned on his elbows, staring through the telescopic lens, watching the action. “Maybe we got the wrong floor or unit? Wrong date or time? Wrong something.”

Tracer smirked. “There you have it. Wrong something. Three-nine Zapper.”

“Casey's report might've been fucked up.”

“It says the man's here every Wednesday between ten-thirty and one. Like clockwork. It says Somporn is like a German when it comes to time.”

“Then what's this punk rapper doing giving a foot of tongue to Somporn's minor wife?”

Tracer shrugged. “Man, I'm just the paid help. But I got a feeling he don't know, you know what I mean?” A wide smile broke across his face.

“You'd better phone Waters and let him deal with Casey,” said Jarrett. “Tell him what's happened. Let him figure out what to do.” They decided to wait another hour, watching, making sure that the boy toy didn't slip away only to be replaced by Somporn. That would be embarrassing. Neither Tracer nor Jarrett thought that would happen. It was one of the oldest stories from the field: the men on the ground had been dished up E. coli when they thought they'd been
dining on the best that money could buy. After a few minutes of cooling down, they became resigned to the fact that they'd ended up with the military's answer to a bad oyster.

“I'll let him know,” said Tracer, shaking his head. He raised the binoculars and had another good look at the couple on the balcony. The Thai man, aged about thirty, had his shirt unbuttoned and his arms wrapped around Somporn's Miss Special. The way their tongues were working, some fire deep in the belly must have been heating up, making them crazy.

Tracer observed the French-kissing through his binoculars one last time. “Whoa, boy.”

“Where's Somporn?”

“She's a beautiful creature, and from the look of things I'd say she's pretty confident Somporn's not coming around.” He stopped talking, held out the binoculars for Jarrett. “Have a look.”

Jarrett got up from the table and used the second pair of binoculars to focus in on the lovebirds doing their ritual shifting and sliding.

He saw a couple dancing on the balcony. The young Thai was swinging her around like they were on a dance floor. She followed each step, really dancing a jitterbug, smiling and laughing. They looked to be without a care in the world. Three-nine Zapper was a disco stage, and no one was going to die that day.

After they'd packed up and locked the condo, they sat in the back of a taxi headed to the Madrid Bar in Patpong. They didn't say much during the ride, looking out the window, thinking about what hadn't happened and what it meant. They were like a team taking the bus back after losing the game.

As far as Jarrett was concerned, until they established contact with Waters and worked out the next step there was little to do, say, or think about. Given the circumstances, he left his mind free to find some other object. It didn't take long until he'd shifted to the ying he'd left that morning. The beekeeper's daughter. Tracer had gone and talked about honey not knowing she was on his mind with memories of her face, story, and body.

“Bees are dying all over America, Europe, and Asia. No one knows why.”

“That's a hell'va thing, Jarrett.”

“I get the feeling most people have moved on. Too many other things to worry about. Bees? It's hard to get worked up over something that's going sting your ass and die anyway.”

“Human nature. If you can't figure out why something is the way it is, then block it out. No point hitting your head against the wall.”

They got out of the taxi opposite CP Tower, crossed Silom, and walked along Patpong Soi 1 until they reached the Madrid. They sat in a corner booth, an old habit, so they could watch who came in the door. The specials were chalked on a blackboard.

“Changed my mind,” said Jarrett. “I want a pizza. One of the large specials that's got everything the cook can find in the fridge on it.”

Tracer looked up from the menu, saw the waitress standing in front of the table, and said, “Don't suppose you'd have catfish and hush puppies?”

MCPHAIL SWAGGERED LIKE A PRIZEFIGHTER as he came through the door of the Lonesome Hawk Bar. A broad grin was plastered on his mug as he passed under the head of the Cape water buffalo mounted on the wall. It had been a gift from a friend of Old George, but the buffalo head had cost him a huge import duty and the years never dimmed the pain of that layout of cash for a noble head given in friendship.

“What the hell you so happy about?” asked Old George.

Before McPhail could answer, another farang pushed past him, giving him a shove without saying he was sorry. That was Casey's style.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” asked McPhail.

“Someone you don't want to fuck with. That's who I am.”

McPhail sized him up and decided this wasn't the way he wanted to start his lunch. Pretending Casey wasn't worth the effort, he turned to the side and sat down opposite Old George. There were a couple of ways to handle a guy like Casey, and for McPhail both of them promised a kind of humiliation. Casey correctly read McPhail's gesture of boredom as a signal of surrender. Experience had taught Casey a few things about reading a man's intentions. When Casey interrogated suspects, there was a flicker of something in their eyes that would signal surrender. Interrogation techniques were designed to lead a suspect to that point, when he knows that no one is coming
to rescue him, and that there's only a long drop into nothingness if he continues to resist.