Big Mango (9786167611037) (32 page)

When Eddie got to Soi Nana, it looked just
like Bar told him it would. To his right was the bridge over the
Saensaeb Canal and the stairs on which they had climbed up from the
boat the night before. He walked slowly toward the bridge, scanning
the shops and street stands across the road, and he was almost all
the way there before he saw the place that Bar described.

A purple Kawasaki whined by like an angry
lawnmower, an entire family of four sandwiched together on the
seat, and Eddie sprinted through the traffic just behind it.
Entering the cool darkness of the open-fronted shop, he saw a dozen
plain wooden tables scattered around, each with three or four
folding metal chairs. The place was empty, and Eddie wondered for a
moment if it might not be open yet; but as he settled onto one of
the chairs, an old woman shuffled slowly out of a rear door,
crossed the room, and placed a cracked mug filled with coffee in
front of him. Fumbling in her pocket, she pulled out a handful of
paper packets containing sugar and creamer, dropped them on the
table, and shuffled away again. She hadn’t left a spoon, Eddie
noticed, but he decided black coffee would do fine.

“Thank you,” Eddie called after the woman,
but if she heard or understood or cared, she gave no sign. She
disappeared through the rear door without looking back.

The coffee was surprisingly good, but before
he had drunk half of it, Eddie began wondering if the old woman
would reappear to fill his cup again or if he would have to hunt
her down to get more. Even before the thought was fully formed,
Eddie pushed it away, thoroughly annoyed with himself. He really
was sick of looking at the world that way. All his constant
anticipating of future difficulty was the single most annoying
legacy of a legal education. Why couldn’t he just enjoy his coffee
because it was good? Why did he have to ruin it by wondering where
the next cup was coming from, even before the first cup was
finished?

As he was reflecting on the emotional
handicaps with which his profession had burdened him, a taxi pulled
to the curb on the other side of Soi Nana. Eddie watched as Chuck
McBride got out and crossed the road. The man hardly looked like a
spy although, when he thought about it, Eddie supposed that was
probably the general idea.

McBride was wearing rumpled khakis, a white
polo shirt open at the neck, dark-colored running shoes, and a
black baseball cap with gold letters across the front. When he came
closer, Eddie was able to read the letters. They said CIA.

Walking straight to the table, but taking his
time about it, McBride pulled out a chair. He sat down slowly and
peered off into the middle distance as if Eddie wasn’t there at
all. Almost immediately, the rear door opened again and the old
woman shuffled toward them with another cup of coffee. She repeated
exactly the same cycle that she had gone through before: the
chipped mug, the packets of sugar and creamer dumped on the table,
and no spoon. Eddie called after her for more coffee as she turned
away, but she disappeared out back as if he had never spoken.

Eddie glanced at McBride, who was gently
blowing on his coffee, his face expressionless. “I know,” Eddie
said. “This is Thailand.”

McBride nodded slightly in acknowledgement
and sipped tentatively at his coffee. Finding it to his liking, he
tossed back a big gulp. He said nothing, but he studied Eddie over
the rim of his cup with a steady gaze.

“What’s with the hat?” Eddie asked after the
silence had dragged on for a while.

McBride rolled his eyes up as if he could
actually see it, and then rolled them back down again. “Embassy
softball team,” he said.

“Doesn’t the CIA prefer you guys to be a
little less conspicuous?”

McBride looked disappointed, like a man who’d
been telling a long joke and had suffered the indignity of his
listener interrupting before he got to the punch line.

“What’s a few initials among friends?”

“Yeah, that might be true,” Eddie nodded.
“Among friends.”

McBride shook his head a little as he sipped
at his coffee again. “My, aren’t we witty this morning? Put us on
television, they ought to. Master-fucking-piece Theater.” He smiled
with his face but not with his eyes. “So what are we here to talk
about, Dare? That money Harry Austin liberated from ‘Nam in
‘75?”

“Then you know about it.”

“Of course I know about it. I know everything
about it. I’m good at my job.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?’

McBride snorted, but he didn’t answer.

“What about Lek?” Eddie asked

McBride held up his right hand and wiggled
it, although what that was supposed to signify, Eddie had no idea.
Then he grinned and made a circle with his thumb and right
forefinger, pumping his left forefinger in and out of it several
times.

“Are you…?” McBride asked Eddie.

Eddie just looked at him.

“Yes? No?” McBride prompted. “Well, whatever.
You’d better keep a close eye on her either way, Dare. She’s—”

“Vietnamese Intelligence,” Eddie
finished.

McBride blinked at that. “You got that all by
yourself?”

Eddie nodded and McBride bobbed his head
around briefly making Eddie think of one of those little football
player dolls with a spring for a neck that you found glued to the
dashboards of ‘67 Chevys.

“I’m impressed,” McBride said after a few
moments.

“I live for that.”

McBride ignored the wisecrack. “What else you
get? You find out she’s a hitter?”

“A what?”

“You know…” McBride made a little gun out of
his thumb and forefinger and pointed it at Eddie “…bang! bang! They
use her mostly for the subtle stuff, like when they need to slice
something out of somebody before they put them away.”

Eddie said nothing.

“Anyway, I’m glad you called me,” McBride
went on. “I want to know what you and Tonto are up to.”

“I thought I called this meeting.”

“Yeah, that’s right, you did. But I don’t
give a shit.”

McBride leaned forward, resting his forearms
on the table and lowering his voice slightly. Eddie gathered that
was mostly out of habit since there was no one else anywhere near
them.

“You don’t know where Austin stashed the
loot, do you?” McBride said.

Eddie looked away and didn’t answer.

“No, of course you don’t.” McBride bubbled
air out through his lips, making them pop. Then he leaned back in
his chair.

Eddie started to say something, but McBride
held up his hand like a traffic cop. “Before you even ask—no, I
don’t know either.”

Eddie was anything but surprised to hear
McBride say that.

“Why are you fucking around here, Dare? You
don’t really think you can just wander around Bangkok like an idiot
until you just stumble over where Austin hid it, do you?”

“Maybe.”

“And you somehow figure Lek would leave you
alive to enjoy it, even if you did?”

“I don’t think she’s—”

“Oh, I know,” McBride interrupted again,
raising his voice. “You’re a big, tough white guy. You’re not
afraid of a cute little Asian chick with a tight ass, are you?”

McBride clicked his teeth together a few
times, grinned viciously, and slapped his open palm sharply against
the table.

“Come to Jesus here, Dare. Let me give you a
little background. Lek’s father was Chinaman, a triad Red Pole, and
she learned her trade from him. Everyone’s shit scared of her and
they should be. She’s the meanest little cunt you’ll ever
meet.”

McBride shook his head theatrically. Eddie
could see that he was like a lot of American diplomats and
intelligence people who had hung around Asia longer than was good
for them. On the outside, they seemed to be nothing but flabby
drunks; but on the inside, they were as tough as street whores.

“She learned to use choppers from her daddy,”
McBride went on. “You know, those things like long butchers knives
with the little notches on the edge that make such a fucking mess
going in and out. She’s good with them, I hear. So quick she can
cut just the muscles in your arms or your legs and then there you
are.” McBride made a gesture of helpless submission. “You’re alive,
but you can’t move. You just lie there while she cuts on you some
more. You bleed while she asks you questions and you’ll tell her
any fucking thing, Eddie, just any fucking thing she wants to know
to make her stop.”

“Guys like you always have to dig up a
monster from somewhere just to get the kiddies into bed, don’t you,
McBride? Lek isn’t going to kill me. She thinks I can find Austin’s
money.”

“And what if you can’t, Eddie? You think then
she’s just going to watch you go back to Frisco and forget all
about it?”

McBride let that sink in for a moment and
then went on.

“I hear she really hates white guys. That’s
why she flashes her ass around to taunt us.” McBride spread his
hands again. “We came into that piss-poor little country of hers
with our big money and our loud mouths and just took it over,
fucking the women and killing the men. Hey, it’s no wonder she
hates us, huh? Now that I think about it that way, she probably
wouldn’t kill you, Eddie, even if she got sick of waiting for you
to dig up the dough. She’d probably just cut off a few parts of you
for laughs.”

Then, just to make sure Eddie hadn’t missed
his point, McBride leaned back, dropped both hands to his crotch,
and gave a long whistle.

“Subtle is just a little too hard for you,
isn’t it, McBride?” Eddie said, shaking his head. “What do you
expect me to do now? Piss all over the floor in sheer terror and
then jump into your arms and make you promise to protect me
forever?” He threw his hands in the air. “You guys are such
assholes.”

“Hey, Dare, don’t bust my hump here.” McBride
seemed more amused than irritated by Eddie’s outburst. “I could be
your best friend, you dumb shit. You have no idea at all what
you’re up against.”

“I may have a better idea than you
think,”

McBride loosed a disgusted sign and stretched
his arms behind his neck. “Goddamned tourists,” he said, “you’re
all alike. Two days out here and you all turn into Lawrence of
fucking Bangkok.”

A black motorcycle pulled to the curb in
front of the shop and the driver slowly turned his helmeted head in
their direction and racked the throttle. It might have been Eddie’s
imagination, but he thought he saw McBride tense and slide his hand
toward his waistband. Just as Eddie was about to fling himself to
the floor underneath the table, a little girl in a pink dress
appeared from out of nowhere, jumped on the back of the bike, and
locked her arms around the driver’s waist as he roared off.

Eddie focused on a spot high on the wall and
willed his breathing to return to normal. He kept his face empty
and didn’t look at McBride until it did.

“Is it my turn now?” he eventually asked into
the relative silence that fell after the motorcycle had sped
away.

“Yeah, sure.” McBride seemed to yawn
slightly, although whether it was real or just an affectation,
Eddie wasn’t sure. “What’s on your mind, Dare?”

“I want you to watch my back while I look for
the money.”

“You want…what?” McBride sputtered, caught
genuinely off balance. “Why the fuck would I do that.”

“I knew Captain Austin better than anyone.
Given some time and a little luck, I can find that money, but I
can’t do it with people hanging all over me trying to take it
away.”

Chuck McBride looked as if he was having a
hard time keeping a straight face. “And tell me why, exactly, would
I do something like that?”

“Because then I’d turn it over to the CIA.
All except for five million, which is exactly what Lek offered me.
I think that’s a fair deal.”

“Yeah, it’s a hell of a deal, Dare.”
McBride’s eyes were twinkling now, and Eddie didn’t know what to
make of that. It was anything but the reaction he’d expected. “On
the other hand, I think you may be laboring under a false
assumption here. You obviously think we give a shit about that
money.”

“You don’t?”

“Nope. Not even one tiny turd.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Look, Dare. That’s a can of worms nobody in
his right mind ever wants to open up again. We start scratching
around about what really happened in Saigon back in ‘75 and Christ
only knows what kind of monsters are going to come tumbling out of
the closet. It took us long enough to get the fuckers in there and
slam the door. We sure as hell aren’t going to be the ones to open
it again.”

“Then why is the Secret Service looking for
the money?”

“Window dressing. Standard government
bullshit. That’s all it is. And of course, Reidy’s an idiot who
thinks he is going to make his career on this. There’s that, too,
but that lame jackass couldn’t find his asshole with both hands and
a floodlight.”

“So that’s it then. You’re not interested in
helping me.”

“Shit no. I already told you that back at the
embassy.”

“I didn’t realize then that you knew about
the money.”

“Well now you do, and the answer’s still the
same. I wouldn’t touch it, or you, with the old barge pole. You’re
on your own, Dare. You want my advice, you better go home, tuck
yourself into bed, and hope for the best. Leave the big game to the
big dogs.”

“Work on controlling your excitement while I
take a leak, McBride. There are a couple of things you don’t know
that might make you change your mind.”

Eddie stood up and disappeared through the
door at the back of the cafe while McBride played with his empty
coffee cup and wondered what the hell there could be that he didn’t
already know. When Eddie hadn’t come back after ten minutes,
McBride realized he’d been had.

The back door, McBride quickly discovered,
didn’t lead to a toilet at all. It went straight out to a concrete
ledge that ran along the edge of the Saensaeb canal. A few yards to
the right, a set of steps led down to a wooden pier where boats
moved in and out in a steady stream picking up and dropping off
passengers. Another twenty yards away, up on the road, taxis were
passing continuously over the bridge. Dare could have been in
either within a few seconds of going out the door.