World of Trouble (9786167611136) (10 page)

Up on one of the flat screen televisions
hanging above the bar a satellite channel was broadcasting a game
between the Dallas Cowboys and the New York Giants. Shepherd
glanced at his watch and did the math. The game couldn’t have been
coming in live, but he supposed it could have been a rebroadcast of
a game played earlier in the day. On the other hand, for all he
knew it was a re-broadcast of a game played several seasons back.
He had pretty much lost track of American sports during the last
few years. Occasionally he wished he hadn’t, but not all that
often.

The picture shifted to the Cowboys
cheerleaders and that naturally got Shepherd’s full attention. He
sat for a minute with his arms folded over his chest and just
watched. The star-spangled silver-and-blue uniforms, the tiny white
shorts molded to perfect bottoms, the bubbling energy, and the
face-splitting smiles all mesmerized him in equal measure. America
was the only culture in the history of mankind to have spawned
cheerleaders. He wasn’t sure what that meant, but he was absolutely
certain it couldn’t be anything good.

***

WHEN THE RAIN eventually stopped, Shepherd paid his
tab and headed back to his hotel. It was a nice night for walking
and Bangkok didn’t give up many of those. The air, cleansed by the
rain, had turned almost cool, at least cool for a place where the
locals hauled out parkas and mukluks anytime the temperature
dropped below eighty degrees.

Shepherd liked walking in Bangkok. That was a
good thing, since walking was the most practical way to get around.
Cars, motorcycles, buses, bicycles, vans, and even
tuk-tuks
,
little three-wheeled vehicles that roared like pissed-off
lawnmowers, choked the city’s narrow streets day and night with
traffic so snarled it had become a tourist attraction.

A lot of the city’s life was lived right out
there on its streets. People ate their meals on the streets, got
their hair cut on the streets, had their shoes repaired on the
streets, and did their shopping on the streets. On every walk
through the city, he passed through an endless succession of
vignettes of people living their lives. They all somehow fused
together into an exotic brew of adventure and romance that still
held a lot of attraction for him, whatever else he might think
about Bangkok now.

He walked west on Silom Road, then turned
left at the old Christian cemetery and followed its concrete wall
south. Up ahead he could see the radio masts rising from behind the
high, ocher wall topped with razor wire that surround the Russian
Embassy. Just in front of that wall was the Grand Hotel.

The Grand Hotel wasn’t really all that grand.
To be absolutely truthful, it was slightly shabby. Some of the
great hotels of the world were in Bangkok: hotels like the Mandarin
Oriental, the Four Seasons, and the Peninsula. Charlie was paying
the bill so naturally Shepherd could have stayed anywhere he
wanted, but he stayed at the Grand regardless. It was clean, it was
comfortable, it was a ten minute walk from the business district,
and it had soul.

There was something else, too, of course. He
had lived at the Grand for nearly six months after Anita left, so
there was also an element of loyalty involved in returning there.
The Grand had been his sanctuary when he needed one, his safe house
while he was trying to decide what was to become of him. The small
suite where he lived back then had been agreeable. He ate most of
his meals at the Duke of Wellington, and he didn’t do any
entertaining. What else had he needed but a bedroom, a bathroom,
and a little sitting room where he could lie on the sofa and watch
television? The Grand had been a steadfast friend when he needed
one. He felt now like he owed it the same allegiance and fidelity
in return.

The atmosphere of the place was just right
for him as well. The Grand was almost a private club, one dedicated
to the preservation of a particular species of foreigner: the
slightly off-kilter refugees from reality who usually washed up on
the great dirty beach of Bangkok. That was Shepherd back then all
right. Off-kilter and washed up. He had fit right in at the
Grand.

***

IT WAS LATE when he got to the Grand and no one was
in the lobby but a dozing security guard. He was an elderly man in
a wrinkled khaki uniform and he sat on a stool next to the front
desk, his head pitched forward on his folded arms. He snored gently
as Shepherd walked by. Since he had dropped his bag off before
going to the Duke, he bypassed the elevator and took the stairs. He
was on the third floor, which wasn’t much of a climb, and the
elevator was so slow that he had long ago developed the habit of
walking whenever it was practical.

In his room Shepherd quickly shed his
clothes, depositing them on the nearest available piece of floor,
climbed into the shower, and turned the hot water up all the way.
After a pleasant enough few minutes soaking in the scalding spray,
the water began to go cold, so he shut off the shower, toweled
himself dry, and climbed into bed.

Lying under the sheet, his hands clasped
across his chest, he listened to the humming of the air-conditioner
and thought about the last time he had been in Bangkok. Anita had
come back to him from everywhere then. Perhaps this time would be
different.

It wasn’t different.

Soon enough the memories came padding quietly
on little cat feet through the grey half-darkness of his room. He
surrendered without a struggle and drifted with Anita for a long
while in the borderlands of consciousness, visiting and being
visited by images he thought he had long forgotten. It was far too
long before sleep took him, but eventually it did. The Technicolor
memories faded away, folding seamlessly into black and white
dreams.

WHEN SHEPHERD WOKE the next morning, his first
thought was of how hungry he was. After taking a quick shower and
getting dressed, he slipped his telephone into a side pocket of his
trousers and shoved his wallet into one back pocket and his
passport into the other.

Almost as an afterthought, Shepherd grabbed
the envelope of documents he had gotten from Adnan about Charlie’s
Thai bank accounts. He had drafted a set of transfer instructions
on the flight into Bangkok that included what he thought was a
fairly imaginative explanation as to how the money was going to be
used. He figured he had better check through everything one more
time over breakfast just to make absolutely certain the
instructions was all ready to go. He wanted to go see this guy at
Bangkok Bank right away, make sure the money was moved, and get the
hell out of there as quickly as he could.

Shutting the door behind him and jiggling the
handle to be sure it was locked, Shepherd headed out to get himself
a lot of caffeine and a big-time sugar rush. He had the feeling he
was going to need both.

Downstairs in the lobby, Mr. Tang, the
elderly Thai-Chinese who ran the Grand, was at his customary post
behind the front desk, while Hamster was sprawled on a couch
reading the
Bangkok Post
. Shepherd had no idea what
Hamster’s real name was. He was a wiry little Brit with the nervous
habit of wiggling his nose whenever he talked and Shepherd had
always assumed that unfortunate affliction was the source of his
nickname. Hamster had been living at the Grand since before anyone
Shepherd knew could remember, and Hamster was what everyone, even
Mr. Tang, called him. Maybe Hamster didn’t have any other name or,
if he did, even he had forgotten what it was.

Hamster peeked over the top of the
Post
when he heard Shepherd coming down the stairs.

“Tang said you were back in the house, Jacko.
You staying long?”

Shepherd smiled and shook his head.

“You finally get yourself a new
apartment?”

“Yeah.”

“Where?”

“In Hong Kong.”

That got Hamster’s attention. He lowered his
paper and stared at Shepherd as if he had just mutated into a
camel.

“You’re shittin’ me, mate. You’re living in
Honkers now?”

Shepherd nodded.

“What the fuck you doing up there?”

“You know. Building up a law practice again.
Just trying to find a way to earn a living.”

Hamster shook his head sadly and returned his
attention to the
Post
. “Hell, Jacko, I’m disappointed in
you, man. I thought you’d given up the straight world and dedicated
yourself to a lifetime of exotic adventure in the magical Kingdom
of Siam.”

If Hamster only knew, Shepherd thought to
himself.

The press had never publicly linked him with
Charlie Kitnarok, so not many people in Thailand had any idea about
the sort of an adventure he was really living. That was altogether
a good thing as far as Shepherd was concerned since it allowed him
to operate under the radar. But he wasn’t at all sure how long his
state of grace was going to last. At least a few people at the
American embassy knew about his connection to Charlie; and if a few
knew then pretty soon all the rest would know, too. After that it
would be just a matter of time, probably very little time, before
the press started poking around and asking questions. Exactly what
would happen to his life when his intimate involvement with
Charlie’s finances became public knowledge he wasn’t entirely
certain. All he knew was that it
wasn’t
going to be
pretty.

Hamster yawned hugely and folded up the
paper.

“So you’re off to join the demonstration, are
you?” he asked.

“What demonstration?”

“It’s the red shirts today, I think. Or maybe
it’s the yellow shirts. Shit, it might even be purple striped
shirts for all I care.”

Thailand was generally in the throes of some
sort of political upheaval, but the results were usually pretty
benign. Nothing much in Thailand ever really changed. Recently,
however, the locals had taken to exhibiting their political
sentiments somewhat more belligerently than they had in the past.
They had adopted what amounted to team colors for each of the two
primary movements. The yellow shirts were the supporters of the
current government, whatever that might mean on any particular day,
and the red shirts were the people who wanted to throw the
government out and return Charlie Kitnarok to power.

Bands of red- and yellow-shirted
demonstrators now roved the streets of Bangkok almost daily,
proclaiming their support for whichever causes they had been told
to love this week by the guys who were really running things. The
whole business would have been mostly comic if the color-coded
armies hadn’t started bashing each other occasionally. Although the
weaponry had so far remained primitive and the conflict limited, a
feeling of unease was inexorably sliding over the city. Would that
be the extent of the street violence, or was something worse,
perhaps much worse, out there just over the horizon?

“The reds and the yellows are both marching
on Silom Road this morning, it says here.” Hamster lifted the
Post
and gave it a shake just in case Shepherd was uncertain
of the source of his information. “I’d keep my head down if I were
you, Jacko.”

“Hey, Hamster, see this face?” Shepherd
framed his Caucasian features with his open palms. “It’s my
personal free pass.”

Hamster cocked one eyebrow. “You mean ugly
old farts are exempt from the hostilities?”

Shepherd flipped him the finger and headed
out to get some breakfast.

***

THE GRAND WAS in one of the few pockets of the old
city the real estate developers had somehow overlooked. Wedged into
a few blocks between the embassy compounds on Sathorn Road and
Bangkok Christian College, the neighborhood was marked by narrow
streets overhung with willow trees and high walls that concealed
crumbling villas a decade or two overdue for a paint job. It was a
modest reminder of how life had been in Bangkok back in an age now
largely forgotten by almost everyone.

In less than a generation Bangkok had been
transformed from a lazy village crisscrossed by canals into a
sprawling forest of glass and steel. Now almost none of the old
city was left. The canals had been paved over to become roads
gridlocked with traffic and the gentle swish of frangipani trees
had turned into the throb of air-conditioning compressors. Shepherd
knew the developers would eventually get to the Grand and its
neighborhood, too, but for the moment at least an older, more
tranquil way of life still survived there, and he hoped it could
hold out just a little bit longer.

It was a good four hundred yards from the
Grand up to Silom Road, but as soon as Shepherd stepped outside he
heard in the distance the tinny screech of loudspeakers and the
deeper rumble of a rhythmically chanting crowd. He stood for a
moment and listened, wondering if perhaps he would be better off
walking in another direction.

It was the general conceit among foreigners
in Bangkok that none of this had anything to do with them, which is
what Shepherd had meant when he told Hamster that his Caucasian
face was his free pass. Yet sometimes he wondered if that was true
anymore. Even in the best of times, foreigners were more tolerated
by Thais than liked. They spent money, which was good; but they
were big and loud, smelled funny, and screwed around with the
women, which was not.

The innate shyness and natural deference of
most Thais had shielded foreigners from the ups and downs of the
kingdom almost from the time the first white men had sailed up the
Chao Phraya River and demanded trade concessions from the puzzled
and no doubt slightly bemused rulers of ancient Siam. In the last
few months, however, shyness had inexorably turned into truculence
and deference into confrontation. It was true that, for the moment
at least, Thais were primarily taunting and confronting each other,
but it seemed to Shepherd that it might be only a matter of time
before foreigners might be tarred as the real enemy and the warring
camps stopped bashing each other and joined together to bash
foreigners instead.