The Ambassador's Wife (37 page)

Just past DeSouza’s house, Ridley Park Road narrowed further and thick vegetation crowded in on both sides. Tay kept a close eye out for surveillance vehicles along the road or off to the sides of it, but he saw none.

On the right side of the road, a high wire fence caught Tay’s eye. It was topped with coils of concertina wire, a sight that suited the Tanglin area about as well as a herd of grazing reindeer. He was just wondering what the significance of the fence could be when what looked like lines of military barracks appeared out of the night on the opposite side of the road. They were long, low whitewashed buildings with tile roofs and green shuttered windows and they looked ghostly and abandoned.

He used a roadway between two of the barracks to turn his car around. He sat for a moment with his headlights illuminating the deserted buildings and half imagined armed sentries rushing to challenge him, demanding to know what he was doing there. If any had, he would have had difficulty giving them a coherent explanation. He was even having difficulty giving
himself
a coherent explanation. After a bit, he stopped thinking about it, reversed out into Ridley Park Road, and turned his car back toward DeSouza’s house.

Tay parked on the grass at the side of the road. He chose a place where his car was screened by a thick stand of trees and would not be noticed if DeSouza happened to look out a window. He picked up the envelope with the photographs of the Hoover Hotel and got out, closing the car door quietly behind him.

The night was almost unnaturally calm. There was no wind at all. Moisture hung in the air like globs of powdered sugar. Tay stood for a moment on the grass, listening. Hearing nothing, he walked to DeSouza’s gates and examined them in the dim light of a street lamp up the road. He was pleased to see that they were unlocked. He gave the right one a small push and it swung open.

Tay hadn’t expected to encounter any security and he didn’t. He walked up the driveway, entered the portico, and climbed the three concrete steps to the front door.

He rang the doorbell.

FORTY-SIX

“WHAT
the hell are you doing here, Tay?”

DeSouza was backlit in the doorway, a chunky glass half full of amber liquid in his right hand.

“You need to talk to me,” Tay said.

“Do I now?” DeSouza chuckled and took a hit on his drink. “Why do I need to talk to you?”

Tay held up the envelope with the photographs of the Hoover Hotel, but he didn’t give it to DeSouza.

“What’s that?” DeSouza asked. His face was as flat as a dinner plate.

Then DeSouza surprised Tay by stepping back away from the doorway without waiting for an answer and waving him inside.

“I suppose you’ll want a drink,” he said.

Tay stepped through the door and DeSouza pointed to a room to the right of the entrance hall. It was quite large and appeared to have been designed for use as a study although the floor-to-ceiling bookcases on two sides of the room were almost completely empty. At the place where Tay might have expected to find a desk was a scarred pool table with an orange felt surface and on the opposite side of the room by the windows two brown leather chairs faced each other across a low table. Next to the chairs was a mahogany cabinet with a collection of bottles and glasses on top of it.

DeSouza walked straight to the cabinet. He chose a bottle that looked like Johnnie Walker and poured some into his glass. When he turned around, Tay noticed that the color of his drink had changed from straw to deep gold.

“Did I offer you a drink?” DeSouza asked.

“I don’t want anything.”

“Then I guess you might as well sit down.”

DeSouza gestured toward one of the leather chairs and took the one opposite it, his back toward the doorway. Crossing his legs he sipped at his drink and watched Tay carefully over the rim of the glass until he sat down, too. Then DeSouza put his drink down on the table between them.

“So what’s this all about?” he asked.

Tay fished a box of Marlboros out of his shirt pocket and lit one.

He looked around for an ashtray to discard the spent match. When he couldn’t find one, he looked at DeSouza with a question mark on his face.

DeSouza peered blankly back.

Tay got up, stepped over to the bar, and selected a drinking glass.

He dropped the match into it and returned to his chair. He put the glass down next to DeSouza’s drink.

“I want some information from you,” Tay said. “And I’m willing to give you the photographs in this envelope in return for it.”

“Photographs?”

Tay inhaled deeply, tilted his head back, and blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. Then he handed DeSouza the brown envelope.

DeSouza opened it and removed the contents. At first, Tay could see he was genuinely puzzled. DeSouza held one photograph in each hand and glanced back and forth between them. Then something seemed to catch his eye and he twisted toward a lamp and held the photographs under it. He leaned closer and studied them in the light.

All at once DeSouza’s whole body went slack starting with his face and spreading downward. He tried to cover his reaction, but he couldn’t.

“I have others,” Tay said. “Much better ones.”

DeSouza slowly lowered his hands and put the two photographs on the table between them. In the silence, Tay could hear the sound the photographs made when they touched the tabletop.

“That guy worked for us,” Tay said.

“What guy?”

“The one you thought was a woman. Or maybe you didn’t think he was a woman. It doesn’t matter. Either way, he was ours. I set you up.”

DeSouza said nothing. He lifted his glass and sipped at his whiskey. Tay could see he was thinking about it.

“I wanted to get something I could use against you. Now I’ve got it. It’s really just that simple.”

“Spell it out, Tay. What do you want?”

“You know why Elizabeth Munson was killed. You know who killed her. And you’re going to tell me in exchange for the pictures I have.”

DeSouza swirled the whiskey absentmindedly for a moment.

“You surprise me, Tay.”

“Sometimes I surprise myself.”

“I thought you were just a squirrelly little washout, and here it turns out you’re a big-time extortionist. Who would have thought it?”

American idioms were generally a source of annoyance for Tay. What in God’s name was
squirrelly
supposed to mean? He certainly wasn’t about to ask DeSouza.

“You don’t know shit, do you, pal?” DeSouza continued when Tay didn’t say anything.

“We’ve got a witness who can put you at the Marriott when Mrs. Munson was killed.”

That was stretching a point, Tay knew, but it was close enough for government work.

“We’ve also got a witness who can place you at the apartment in Bangkok when Ambassador Rooney was killed,” Tay hurried on before DeSouza could ask any questions. “And I know you were with Cally when she was killed. That makes you the common link in all three murders.”

“That’s bullshit, Tay.”

“Are you telling me you weren’t in any of those places?”

“I’m telling you that you haven’t got any witnesses.”

Tay drew on his cigarette and exhaled slowly. DeSouza’s eyes lingered on him, gazing at him through the wisps of cigarette smoke. Then they flickered and shifted toward the darkness outside the windows.

“Here’s the offer, DeSouza. You tell me what you know and I’ll give you the rest of the pictures and walk right out of here. You don’t tell me and I will make it my life’s work to burn your ass. And I don’t care what I have to do. I’ll make you hurt.”

“You have the other pictures with you now?”

“Of course not. They’re somewhere safe.”

“Bullshit. You’re bluffing.”

“Then call my bluff.”

DeSouza took a breath and let it out again. “You don’t have any idea what you’re doing here, do you? You don’t have any idea what you really have.”

Tay wasn’t sure what that meant, so he remained silent.

DeSouza picked up his drink again and sat sipping at it, but his eyes stayed focused somewhere outside the windows. Tay finished his cigarette and stubbed it out in the drinking glass where he had dropped his match.

“Stand up,” DeSouza abruptly snapped.

“It won’t do you any good to throw me out.”

“I’m not throwing you out. Stand up and take off your shirt.”

“Take off my shirt?”

“I want to be sure you’re not wired, you fucking dimwit.”

Tay considered that briefly, then stood and unbuttoned his shirt. Pulling it open he held it out away from his body.

“Satisfied?” he asked.

“Damn, Tay,” DeSouza said with a low whistle. “You really could stand to lose some weight, man.”

“Go to hell, DeSouza.”

DeSouza snickered.

“Let’s see your back,” he said.

Tay shifted his feet and without taking his eyes off DeSouza lifted his shirt and twisted his upper body enough for DeSouza to see his back.

DeSouza’s gaze went straight to Tay’s .38.

“Lose the gun,” he said.

“The gun stays where it is. Take the deal or leave it. But the gun stays where it is.”

Tay started to rebutton his shirt.

“Okay,” DeSouza said, “then drop your trousers.”

Tay sighed heavily, but he removed his revolver from its holster and held it loosely in his right hand. He unbuckled his belt, unzipped, and let his trousers drop around his ankles.

“Huh,” DeSouza grunted. “Boxer shorts. I should have fucking guessed.”

“Satisfied?”

DeSouza didn’t say anything, but after a moment he nodded.

Tay pulled his trousers up, returned the .38 to its holster, and put his shirt back on. When he sat down again, he took out another Marlboro and put it between his lips, but he didn’t light it.

There was a half-smile on DeSouza’s face now and Tay knew something had changed. He didn’t know what it was and he couldn’t decide whether that was good or bad, but DeSouza was doing nothing to conceal it. It seemed as if he was looking forward to whatever was coming next.

“Do you have any idea how much I hate you, Tay?”

“You don’t know me well enough to hate me.”

“I know plenty of self-righteous little pricks just like you and I hate the whole fucking bunch of you.”

Tay couldn’t see exactly where this was taking them, but he was willing to let DeSouza talk. As little as he had going for him right then, it certainly couldn’t do any harm.

“Guys like me…” DeSouza tapped himself on the chest with his forefinger, “come midnight, we’re everybody’s fucking daddy.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I do what has to be done, pal. I do whatever is needed to protect whatever’s worth protecting. Guys like you don’t have any idea what it means to put everything on the line. You don’t have any idea how it feels to be out on the edge.”

DeSouza stared at Tay as if he expected him to say something, perhaps to register a protest of some sort. But Tay just watched DeSouza without saying anything at all.

“I think you’re pathetic,” DeSouza said.

Tay wished he could argue with DeSouza’s conclusion, but he didn’t know exactly how. In some ways, he even thought DeSouza had him pretty much dead to rights.

“Let me give you some advice, Tay. If you’re considering a second career as a blackmailer, better hang onto your day job. I don’t know if you really did set me up or not, but if you did I owe you one, pal. She was the best fuck I’ve had in a long time. And as far as your pictures go, I’ll take a set of glossies in 8x10s for my memory book. Hell, why don’t you make it two sets? We only live once, huh?”

DeSouza eyed Tay and unveiled a vicious grin.

Tay wondered if that was just a show of bravado on DeSouza’s part. He told himself it probably was, but DeSouza was the very picture of a man who sincerely didn’t give a shit. Actually, since Tay didn’t actually have any pictures, it occurred to Tay that whether DeSouza did or didn’t give a shit was more or less beside the point anyway, wasn’t it?

Tay didn’t say anything else. He didn’t know what else he
could
say. He had rolled the dice and he had crapped out. If he started talking again now, he would probably just sound desperate, which made sense since he
was
desperate.

“But hey, don’t give up, Tay. Even if you’re a fuckwit, I’m going to make this real easy for you. You listening?”

Tay just looked at DeSouza and said nothing.

“I’m going to tell you who killed Munson and who killed Rooney, and I’m even going to tell you exactly what happened to your girlfriend. Do you know why I’m going to tell you all that?”

“No.”

“You don’t think it has anything to do with your stupid pictures, do you?”

“No.”

“Well, good for you, asshole. At least you’ve got that one right. Your pictures don’t mean a damn thing to me.”

Tay watched as DeSouza’s face grew taut with contempt.

“I’m going to tell you for one reason, Tay. Because it will cut your fucking heart out.”

Tay didn’t understand what that was supposed to mean, but the look in DeSouza’s eyes frightened him. He was on a steamer sailing into the River Styx and there was a madman at the helm.

Abruptly, DeSouza stood up. He poured more whiskey into his glass, then went to the window and stood staring out into the darkness. Tay started to light the Marlboro in his mouth and was surprised to discover he was sick of smoking. His mouth tasted filthy. Was it from all the cigarettes? Maybe, but perhaps it was just from sharing the same air DeSouza was breathing. Tay kept the cigarette in his mouth, but he didn’t light it.

DeSouza continued silently staring out the window for a long while, although at God only knew what. Tay couldn’t see a thing out there.

All at once, DeSouza’s voice dropped to a husky, confidential whisper.

“I confess,” he said.

Tay wasn’t sure he had heard right. “What?” he asked.

“I said I confess.”

“Confess to what?”

“To everything.”

FORTY-SEVEN

D
E
S
OUZA
turned away from the window and looked at Tay.