The Ambassador's Wife (32 page)

In the other three photographs Cally lay sprawled on what appeared to be the same concrete floor. She was as alone as the man, and she was also dead. The entry wound in her forehead was small and neat, but she had bled a lot and the blood had streaked her face and collected in a dark pool under her head. Cally’s eyes were open and Tay thought he could see both surprise and puzzlement in them. He wondered if he would be surprised and puzzled, too, at the moment he realized the time of his death was upon him.

“She was shot with a .22.” August said. “DeSouza thinks it may have been the same gun that was used to murder Rooney, but that still has to be confirmed.”

“You talked to DeSouza?”

“Not directly.”

Tay nodded, his eyes still on the pictures.

“He came into the room right behind Cally,” August continued. “DeSouza shot Dadi after he killed Cally.”

“Shot who?”

“Dadi. The suspect they were taking down. The man in the other photos.”

Tay thought about that for a moment.

“How did DeSouza shoot this guy if…” Tay hesitated. “What’s his name?”

“Dadi.”

“Indonesian?”

“Yes.”

“What kind of weapon did DeSouza use?”

“It looks to me like it was a combat shotgun of some kind.”

“How many times was the guy hit?”

“I don’t know.”

Tay picked up one of the photos of Cally. Holding it in his right hand, he turned it toward August.

“What do you see?” he asked.

“What do you want me to see?”

“The blood. Look at all that blood.”

August nodded. “I see it.”

Then Tay took one of the photographs of Dadi and held it up in his left hand right next to the photograph of Cally.

“No blood,” Tay said. “His chest torn to ribbons by a point-blank shotgun blast and no blood.”

August just looked at Tay and said nothing.

“When Cally was shot, her heart was pumping hard from the adrenaline, which is exactly what you would expect,” Tay said. “She bled out quickly.”

August said nothing.

“Dadi’s heart couldn’t have been pumping at all when he was shot or there would have been blood all over the place. He was already dead when DeSouza used that shotgun on him.”

“You think it was a setup,” August said. He did not make a question of it.

“I know it was.”

August folded his arms and consulted a spot on the wall just over Tay’s right shoulder.

“So do you,” Tay added.

But August said nothing at all.

THIRTY-EIGHT

“
D
E
S
OUZA
killed Cally,” Tay said. “Didn’t he?”

August’s eyes remained fixed on the wall.

“I don’t know,” he said after a moment.

“Yes, you do.”

“Let it go, Sam.”

“Maybe he killed Munson and Rooney, too.”

“Why would he have done that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well there you go.”

“If he didn’t, he’s protecting whoever did kill them.”

“You don’t know that.”

“Cally must have known that. She was getting too close and that’s why DeSouza set her up and killed her.”

“Slow down, Sam. You’re getting way ahead of yourself. You don’t know any of that.”

“Yes, I do.”

“Look…” August hesitated. “That road won’t take you anywhere you want to go.”

“It might take me to the truth.”

“What truth?” August exhaled heavily and rubbed his face with an open hand. He sounded like a man running out of resources and surprised to discover how quickly that could happen. “This is Bangkok. You never know what’s true here.”

“Oh, Christ,” Tay shook his head in disgust. “What a load of crap.”

“You’re in over your head, Sam. Let it go.”

“Goddamn it, August,” Tay exploded, “look at the fucking photographs and tell me that I’m wrong. Can you do that? Can you?”

August took a breath and shifted his eyes to the window. He didn’t say anything.

“DeSouza either killed Cally himself or he stood there while somebody else killed her,” Tay said. “And you fucking know it’s true.”

August suddenly looked exhausted. He seemed to Tay somehow smaller than when he first walked into the room. Tay wondered if he looked the same way to August.

“I’m going to need your help,” Tay said. “Can I reach you on the number that you used to call me today?”

“Yes, but don’t bother. I’m not going to help you.”

“You can bullshit me, August, but you can’t bullshit yourself. This all stinks. What is it? Some kind of half-assed intelligence operation gone bad?”

The surprise on August’s face was only a flicker and then it was gone, but Tay caught it.

“That’s right,” Tay said. “I know that Elizabeth Munson was a spook. A NOC. That’s what you call it, isn’t it? Wondering what else I know?”

“How’d you find out about Liz?”

“Cally told me.”

“She shouldn’t have done that.”

Tay slammed his open hand down on the photographs on the bed.

“She shouldn’t have walked into that setup either and gotten herself killed, but damn it all she did, and she was. Maybe if I’d been with her…”

Tay trailed off into silence and cleared his throat.

“Whatever you’re trying to cover up here, August, just answer me this. Was it worth it? Was it worth Cally dying for? Was it worth three dead women?”

August looked as if he was about to say something, but he didn’t. The room slipped into an uneasy stillness. Tay heard the refrigerator in the mini-bar click on, hum softly for a minute or two, and then click off again.

“So what do we do now?” Tay eventually asked into the silence.

“I don’t know about you, Tay, but I know exactly what I’m going to do. I’m going to go straight back to Pattaya and get blind drunk. There’s no better place on God’s green earth to get blind drunk than Pattaya and no better time to do it than today.”

“You can do what you want. I’m going to find out what in Christ’s name is going on here and I’m going to hang somebody for it. And understand this, pal. If you had anything to do with it, that includes your worthless ass, too.”

“Fuck you, Tay. I would have done anything in the world to protect that woman.”

“But you didn’t protect her. You let her walk right into it.”

“I didn’t fucking
let
her do anything. Cally always did what she wanted to. Always.”

“You could have warned her.”

“Warned her about
what
?”

“That’s what I intend to find out.”

The two men glared at each other for a while, but neither of them had the energy to keep it up for very long and soon enough they just stopped.

“What are you really after here, Tay?” August asked.

Tay didn’t know exactly what to say to that, so he said nothing.

“Is it justice you want,” August went on, “or would revenge do?”

“I’m a police officer. I’m going to find out who killed Cally and why, and I will see to it that he is punished according to the law.”

“That’s what I thought. Well then, let me tell you this, my friend. You’re going to end up with nothing at all. There is no justice down that road and you don’t have the balls to be serious about revenge. I could give you DeSouza on his knees, holding a signed confession in his teeth, and you still couldn’t pull the trigger. Leave this to people who can.”

“I’m a police officer,” Tay repeated doggedly.

“No, you’re not. Not here in Thailand. You’re just passing through, one more piece of foreign shit in the dirty great toilet of Bangkok. You haven’t got a hope in hell of accomplishing anything here. Go back to Singapore.”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Sure you are. What the hell are you going to do here in Bangkok? Investigate Cally’s death and prove that DeSouza murdered her with the help of some Thai cops?”

“If that’s what happened.”

“Don’t be naive, Sam. This is the Wild West. It’s nothing like Singapore. Go around asking questions of the wrong people in a place like this and somebody rides up next to you on a motorcycle and punches your ticket with a .45.”

“That doesn’t scare me.”

“It sure as hell ought to. It scares the shit out of
me
. Unless of course you’re just too dumb to be scared. Is that it, Sam? Are you just too damned dumb to be scared?”

“I’m staying.”

August pushed himself to his feet.

“Suit yourself, big man. As for me, well shit, I’m out of here.”

August walked over to the bed, scooped up the photographs, and slid them back into the manila envelope.

“Wait a minute,” Tay said. “I want those.”

“No fucking chance, fellow. They’re too easy to trace to me and nobody wants to be tied to a loose cannon.”

At the door August stopped with his hand on the knob. He looked back at Tay, who was sitting absolutely still.

“You don’t have any contacts,” he said. “You don’t have any help at all.”

“I have you.”

“No,” August shook his head. “You don’t.”

Then he opened the door and he was gone.

THIRTY-NINE

IT
was raining when Tay flew back to Singapore, and it rained all night. The next day, a hot Saturday afternoon, Tay was sitting in the café at Borders and it was still raining.

He watched the big fat drops splatter on the green umbrellas covered in Carlsberg logos just outside the windows and drip onto the empty tables the umbrellas were supposed to shelter and he wondered if he should have stayed in Bangkok after all. It was supposed to be the dry season in Singapore now, wasn’t it? So why wasn’t it dry? If it were the goddamned dry season, would somebody explain to him exactly how it could be raining like a motherfucker and it didn’t look like it was ever going to stop?

A half-drunk cappuccino in a ceramic mug and an unread copy of James Lee Burke’s new novel were on the table in front of Tay, but he had lost interest in both. He was thinking instead about Bangkok, and what he was thinking had very little to do with the weather. He was thinking about Bangkok because of what happened there. He was thinking about Bangkok because of what he had now decided to do about what happened there.

Tay sipped at his cappuccino, but it had gone cold and he put it down again. What he really wanted was a cigarette, but smoking was only allowed outside and it was raining like a son of a bitch outside, wasn’t it? How fair was that? How fair was it that he was permitted to smoke only when it wasn’t raining? And it was always raining in Singapore, goddamn it to hell, so he would probably never be permitted to smoke anywhere in Singapore again.

“When did you get back, sir?”

Tay looked up as Sergeant Kang pulled out the chair across from him and sat down.

“Last night.”

“The OC said to be sure and give you his best, sir. He hopes you’ll drop in to say hello, when you have the time, of course.”

Tay ignored the bait and went straight to the reason he had asked Kang to meet him at the café.

“I need your help with something, Robbie.”

“So you said on the telephone, sir.”

“It will have to be handled completely off the books.”

“Yes, sir. I gathered that might be the case.”

“Are you comfortable with that?”

“I’m ready for whatever you need me to do, sir.”

Tay thought for a moment about how best to put the idea to Kang, and then he stopped worrying about it and just told him.

“I may need to keep someone under around-the-clock surveillance.”

“For how long?”

“For as long as it takes.”

“Right, sir.”

“You’d need at least six men to do it. And they’d all have to work on their own time.”

“That wouldn’t be a problem, sir. You’ve got a lot of friends.”

“Don’t you want to know who the target is before you agree?”

“My guess is that it’s DeSouza.”

“That’s very astute, Sergeant.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“Would you and your friends be uneasy about conducting off-the-books surveillance of an FBI agent?”

“No, sir. Not if it’s for you.”

Tay was pleased to hear that. He was, to be entirely honest, quite touched, but he had absolutely no intention of getting all misty-eyed about it. There might be a time for that later, but probably not.

“Okay, Sergeant,” Tay said. “I’m going to take a crack at the boss first and see if I can get this done officially. If that doesn’t work out, you and your men have the job.”

“We’ll be there if you need us, sir.”

Tay wondered if he had any real chance of persuading the OC to let him continue the investigation or if he would just be going through the motions. Either way, he supposed he would have to take a shot at it. Maybe the OC would respect his doubts and let him take a run at DeSouza. Or maybe he wouldn’t. Tay supposed all he could do was ask.

Tay felt like he ought to say something to Kang about how much his support meant, but he wasn’t sure how to do that. So he just kept it simple.

“Thank you, Robbie.”

“You’re welcome, sir.”

Now Tay really
did
need a cigarette, but it was still raining and it still didn’t look like it was ever going to stop.

FORTY

“ARE
you out of your mind, Sam? Are you out of your goddamn fucking mind? You want CID-SIS to put an FBI agent from the American embassy under surveillance?”

The OC’s face had turned an arresting shade of purple, or perhaps it was closer to puce. Tay wasn’t absolutely sure he knew the difference.

“Can you imagine…” the words stopped coming for a moment and the OC sputtered at the sheer impossibility of it, “what would happen to me if I let you do something like that and anyone found out?”

Tay recognized that he was not being asked a question to which he was actually intended to provide an answer, so he remained silent.

The OC abruptly stood up from behind his desk and walked over to the windows. He rubbed at the back of his neck with one hand while he rested the open palm of the other against the glass and gave the city outside the once-over.