Big Mango (9786167611037) (21 page)

It took less than ten minutes in Chuck’s
office for Bar to tell him everything he knew about Eddie Dare and
Winnebago Jones. He recounted the story Eddie told about being
hired by someone calling himself the general to find out what
happened to Harry Austin and he described the pictures with the red
circles that Eddie claimed he had gotten in San Francisco. Finally,
he related his own encounter the night before with the motorcycle
messenger and then pushed the airmail envelope the guy had given
him across the desk to Chuck. After that, Bar sat back, folded his
arms, and waited for the verdict.

Chuck pondered, running his hand back and
forth through his crew cut so that Bar would see he was thinking
and not asleep.

“You sure that’s it?” he asked after a
while.

“So help me. That’s the whole story.”

“And the guy on the bike just handed this to
you?”

“Yep.”

“No shit?”

“No shit.”

Chuck carefully lifted the envelope by its
edges, compressed it slightly so that the end Bar had torn off
popped open, and then shook out the single photograph inside. He
picked up the photo and examined it curiously while Bar sat quietly
and watched.

“Nothing else in the envelope when you opened
it?” Chuck asked.

“Not a thing.”

The picture was a snapshot of some young
American marines. A few of the men were in combat gear and the
others in fatigues, but they were all standing in a ragged group,
their arms flung haphazardly around each other’s shoulders, mugging
for the camera. Oddly, one man was off a little from the rest of
the group. He was straddling what had once apparently been a
straight chair, but was now little more than some broken sticks of
wood. He was looking off to the side, watching something outside
the frame with what appeared to be great interest, which put his
face largely in shadow.

What got Chuck’s attention about the
photograph was the same thing that had scared the bejesus out of
Bar when he first saw it. Three bright red circles were scrawled on
it: two around the heads of men in the large group and the third
around the man in the chair, the man whose face couldn’t quite be
seen.

“You say that Dare and Jones got shit like
this?”

“They said they got photos with circles
around their heads, but I didn’t see them. Maybe they were
different.”

“And you’re sure you don’t recognize any of
these guys?” Chuck held up the snapshot in his left hand so that
Bar could see it and tapped the back of it with his right
forefinger.

“I think the two guys with the circles in the
big group are Dare and Jones, but I’m not sure.”

“How about the guy in the chair?”

“I can’t see his face. I don’t know.”

“Maybe he’s an officer,” Chuck suggested.
“Somehow the prick looks like an officer.”

“Well…maybe it’s Austin.”

Chuck blinked, but he didn’t say anything. He
ran his left hand through his crew cut again, and then looked up at
Bar.

“This picture scare you?” he asked.

“No.”

Chuck looked skeptical and Bar
reconsidered.

“Okay, maybe a little, but mostly it pisses
me off. I don’t like being threatened, and I especially don’t liked
being threatened by some cowardly fucker who hides behind a dark
visor and then comes at me when I’m minding my own business riding
down the street.”

“Meaning…” Chuck rolled his hand in a gesture
that suggested Bar still hadn’t gotten to the point and Chuck would
be grateful if he would hurry.

“Meaning I wasn’t sure whether I was going to
help Dare or not, but this…” Bar pointed at the picture lying on
the desk, “more or less puts us in the same boat now. So I guess
I’m in.”

“In the same boat? How does it do that?”

“Look, Chuck, the photo is obviously a
threat.” He waved a finger toward it. “If that’s Austin in the
chair, and I’d bet you it is, we know he’s dead. And it’s not too
hard to guess that the other circles mean Dare and Jones are next
if they don’t stop poking their noses where they don’t belong.”

Bar chewed on his lip for a moment.

“Don’t you get it, Chuck? Whoever sent me
this picture is warning me that I could be on his list, too.”

“So what. You’re not involved.”

“So what? It pisses me off, Chuck, that’s so
what. I’m not going to sit here and be threatened in my own
home.”

“I thought you were on the back of a
motorcycle.”

“Don’t be such a literal bastard. You know
what I mean.”

“You sure it’s not just the ten grand that’s
got you all revved up?”

“It doesn’t hurt. But no, that’s not it. Not
anymore.”

Chuck suddenly seemed to lose interest in
Bar’s state of mind. “You want to get a drink somewhere?”

“It’s not even lunch yet, Chuck.”

Chuck shrugged, not seeing the point of Bar’s
sudden interest in the time of day.

Bar thought about it and then realized he
couldn’t see the point either.

“Sure,” he said, “why not?”

***

THE
Texas was their favorite
hangout during the day. No women, no pool table, just a real saloon
with drinks that didn’t taste too strongly of Bangkok’s pungent tap
water. Ping, the day-shift bartender, wasn’t any more honest than
the other bartenders in town, but at least he was smart enough to
water his drinks with bottled water. That was a touch of class Bar
liked.

Bar also liked the small sign over the door
at the Texas that announced in four languages: NO FIREARMS. When he
and Chuck had first started going there, he allowed for the
possibility that the sign was supposed to be a witticism like the
signs at the Hard Rock Cafes that said NO NUCLEAR WEAPONS; but
after they had been in the Texas a few times and he had gotten a
close look at the people who hung out there, Bar realized that the
sign wasn’t a joke at all.

Chuck had a beer to warm up, then switched to
Johnny Walker Black in a tall glass with a lot of ice and a little
soda. Bar could tell that Chuck was working himself up to
something, but he wasn’t sure exactly what it was. Finally Chuck
snorted a couple of times and cleared his throat. Here it comes,
Bar thought to himself.

“This Austin guy you mentioned. He was a
captain you said?”

“Yeah.”

“And he was the CO of these guys, Dare and
Jones?”

“That’s what they said.”

“This guy who hired Dare, the one who said he
was a general, was he Austin’s CO?”

“I doubt it. Dare told me he didn’t know the
guy and I don’t see why he’d lie about it.”

Chuck considered that, weighing its
implications, although Bar couldn’t offhand see why.

“Did either Dare or Jones see Austin again
when they got out of the marines?” he asked after a moment.

“They said they didn’t.”

“Ever hear from him?”

“Not that they mentioned.”

Chuck drew little slashes with his forefinger
in the condensation on the side of his glass. “And you didn’t know
him?”

“Harry Austin?”

“Yeah.”

“No, I didn’t know him.”

Bar caught Chuck’s slightly raised eyebrows,
but was still working on what that signified when Chuck drained his
drink and waved the empty glass at Ping.

“He was a local,” Chuck said. “I thought you
knew all the local
farangs
.”

“Well, if he was, I didn’t know this one. Did
you?”

Chuck nodded slowly. “I had him under
surveillance for a while.”

“What?” Bar barked. “You telling me DEA was
following
this guy?”

Chuck rolled his head around a little before
he answered. “We had a brief interest in a guy named Harry Austin
who was a retired marine captain with a couple of tours in
‘Nam.”

Chuck did the thing with his head again.

“It’s got to be the same guy,” he said. “How
many Captain Harry Austins could there have been around here?”

“How long did he live in Bangkok?”

“For a while. I don’t know for sure.”

“Was he dirty?”

“Maybe,” Chuck shrugged. “Maybe not.”

Bar didn’t push. It always took Chuck a while
to get a whole story out, but eventually he would get wherever he
was going.

“So you didn’t know him?” Chuck asked Bar
again.

Something was beginning to work at Bar. Maybe
he had known Harry Austin and didn’t realize it. Maybe the guy had
been using a different name, something not all that unusual for
foreigners in Bangkok.

“Bangkok isn’t that big a place if you’re a
white guy,” Chuck prompted.

“Look, Chuck, I’m sure I never met anyone
here called Harry Austin. Now, if he was using some other
name—”

“Nope. As far as I know he was just plain old
Harry Austin. We put him on our watch list because he seemed to
live pretty good without any source of income. Finding an American
like that in Bangkok usually leads to something interesting if you
look close enough.”

Chuck took a long hit on his drink and
rattled the ice cubes a couple of times to get Ping started
again.

“He had a penthouse in a big condo on the
river, but we couldn’t find any bank accounts in his name anywhere
or any other sources of funds. So, when we finally got around to
doing a bag job on his place—”

“Bag job?” Bar interrupted.

“Yeah.” Chuck looked a little defensive. “You
know. He was out one day. We went in and looked around.”

“You broke into his house? The DEA broke into
a retired marine captain’s house in Bangkok because they wanted to
know where his money was coming from?”

Chuck looked annoyed. “It wasn’t a house. It
was a condo. I already told you that.”

“And in your mind that somehow makes a
difference?”

“You want to hear what we found or don’t you,
you sanctimonious prick?”

“Oh, sure. You being a law enforcement
officer of the United States government and sworn to uphold the law
and all that, I guess it’s okay for you to tell me what you found
in this American citizen’s house that you broke into for absolutely
no reason. I guess that would be okay, wouldn’t it?”

Ping put a fresh drink in front of Chuck and
he took a hit.

“Damn straight. I say it’s okay, it’s
okay.”

Bar tilted his head back and waited.

“Porno,” Chuck grinned. “A bunch of it.
Mostly local girls.”

“So Austin was in the porno business?”

“I don’t think so. It looked more like a
hobby to me.”

Chuck cupped his left hand and made the
predictable pumping gesture in front of his crotch.

“Seems a little hard to imagine a guy living
in Bangkok and jerking himself off,” Bar said.

Chuck nodded sadly. “Yeah. That’s what I
thought, too.”

Bar waited a moment, and when Chuck offered
nothing else, he asked the obvious question. “So, what business was
Austin in?”

“None that we could find any evidence of.”
Chuck made a show of scratching his head. “Still don’t know where
his money came from, but he had a pretty nice apartment and a
couple of expensive cars. Sure didn’t buy them out of his marine
retirement pay.”

“Maybe he inherited a pile.”

“Oh yeah, I’m sure that was it.” Chuck raised
his eyebrows. “Unless of course he was just walking along one day
and found it. That might be where he got it.”

“Why didn’t you just ask him?”

“I would have, but he was killed before I got
around to it. Hit and run, the cops said. Driver fled the
scene.”

The last part didn’t surprise Bar at all. In
fact he would have been astounded if Chuck hadn’t added that. After
every traffic accident that had ever occurred in Thailand, the
driver
always
fled the scene, usually accompanied by any
police who might have had the misfortune to witness the incident.
‘The driver fled the scene’ was a phrase rife with local poetry and
represented nothing less than an honored and solemn ritual deeply
ingrained in Thai life. Thailand was a driver-fled-the-scene kind
of country.

“But it was an accident, wasn’t it?” Bar put
the question cautiously. “You’re not telling me that Austin was
murdered, are you?”

Chuck pulled a couple of different faces
while he pretended to think, but neither one gave much away. “I
don’t know. We pulled the surveillance off before it happened and
nothing has turned up since then, at least not until you came
waltzing in this morning with that picture and your cockamamie
story about Dare and Jones. Anyway, file’s closed now.”

“Then I guess that’s that.”

“Maybe not.” Chuck sloshed his drink around.
“I may know someone who can tell you something about the good
captain. You interested?”

Bar nodded.

“I could probably arrange for you to buy Lek
and me a couple of drinks one of these days,” Chuck said.

“Just tell me when and where.”

“How about the Stardust?”

“Fine.”

“You know how to reach Dare and Jones?”

“Yeah. They’re at the Oriental.”

“They would be,” Chuck grunted. “Anyway,
bring them along, too. Tonight okay?”

“Who’s Lek?”

“Be patient, man. Let’s just go one little
step at a time here.”

“What’s the big mystery, Chuck?”

Chuck ignored the question. “About nine.
Okay?”

Chuck dropped a purple banknote by his empty
glass, tossed off a quick little salute, and was out the door
before Bar could ask him anything else.

EDDIE
was planning to go
back to the Little Princess that evening but, after Bar Phillips
called, he changed his mind. Bar told Eddie about the motorcyclist
and the snapshot as well as the story he dragged out of Chuck
McBride about the DEA’s interest in Harry Austin and Eddie quickly
agreed they would meet him at the Stardust at nine instead.

Charlie Wang had owned the Stardust almost as
long as Bar had been in Bangkok. It was an old mansion near the
beginning of Soi Suan Phlu just past Sathorn Road. Local legend had
it that the place had been the home of some deservedly forgotten
general who found himself on the wrong team in a military coup and
wound up shovelling snow in Copenhagen. Regardless, Charlie owned
it now, and over the years he had built it into the Bloomingdale’s
of Bangkok’s nightshift.