World of Trouble (9786167611136) (22 page)

“Americans, Brits. You people from countries
where nothing has changed in hundreds of years. You think life just
goes on the same way forever. You think civilization is like the
air you breathe. It’s just there and it always will be. Tomorrow
your mail will be delivered and the trash will be picked up and
you’ll drive down to the club and play a little golf with your
pals. Out here, my friend, we know it can all be gone in a moment.
We’ve lived it. We’ve lost it and gotten it back and lost it again.
We’ve done it over and over. You don’t know a goddamned thing about
that.”

“I know that—”

“You know shit, asshole. Ask the people in
New Orleans how strong civilization is. The government gave up on
them and in twenty-four hours they were ripping each other’s hearts
out. We’re savages, Jacko. We’re twenty-four hours from the fucking
jungle. Without government and law, we’re nothing but animals.”

Shepherd looked back out the window at the
groups of red shirts gathered along both sides of the street. He
understood what Tommy was saying. He even more or less agreed with
him. But these particular guys looked pretty benign to him. Mostly
it was hard for Thais to look anything other than benign.

“These are just people with a different idea
of Thailand than you have, Tommy. That’s called democracy. Thailand
is
a democracy, isn’t it?”

“They’re barbarians,” Tommy snorted. “They
want to destroy everything we’ve built, everything that gives this
country a chance at a real future.”

“The barbarians are at the gate, huh?”

Tommy said nothing. He just looked away.

On the sidewalk just outside the window a
young boy who appeared to be about seventeen or eighteen was
juggling a stubby iron bar in one hand. While Shepherd watched, he
flipped the bar back and forth between his hands, but the kid was
too young and skinny to be threatening so it didn’t particularly
bother Shepherd.

“There’s going to be a civil war in Thailand,
Jacko.” Tommy was still looking away, but he spoke in a voice tight
with anger. “Your pal General Kitnarok is going to lead that rabble
out there into the streets and the rest of us are going to fight
back. We’re not going to let people like that take over our
country. We’ll do whatever it takes to stop them. Whatever it
takes.”

“You’re afraid of people like that, aren’t
you, Tommy?”

“I’m afraid of what they might do to this
country.”

“The folks on your side aren’t exactly
candidates for sainthood.”

“You haven’t any fucking idea what
you’re—”

A loud noise cut Tommy off, a single metallic
bang as if something had fallen from the sky onto the roof of the
car.

“What the fuck was that?” Tommy snapped.

Almost immediately there were two more bangs,
but this time they had both seen the rocks come arcing in from the
sidewalk before they hit the car. Shepherd cut his eyes back to the
red-shirted kid with the iron bar just in time to see the kid wind
up and fling the bar at the Mercedes. It hit flat against
Shepherd’s window, the same one he had started to roll down before
Tommy stopped him. The glass spidered to the edge of the frame, but
it didn’t break. Shepherd had never thought much before that about
the benefits of bullet resistant glass, but right at that moment it
seemed to him to be one of the world’s greatest inventions.

The driver wrenched the steering wheel to the
left and popped the accelerator. The heavy Mercedes swayed into the
opposite traffic lane and jerked as the driver cut between a bus
and a delivery van and shot away up a side street.

“You fucks!” Tommy screamed. He twisted
around in his seat toward where the red shirts along Soi Ekamai
were rapidly disappearing behind them. “You fucking cunts! We’ll
destroy you, you lousy little shits! We’ll kill you all!”

Leaning his head back against the seat,
Shepherd closed his eyes. He had no doubt Bangkok was entering a
slow slide into chaos. Malice and spite were everywhere. He could
even feel it in the dim grayness of the early evening.

Tommy’s breathing turned ragged as he
struggled to control himself.

“Fucking shits,” Tommy muttered, and then he
was quiet.

Shepherd said nothing.

***

A FEW MINUTES Shepherd opened his eyes and
straightened up. They were on Rama IV Road cruising steadily
through traffic toward the financial district. He saw no more knots
of red shirts on the sidewalks.

When the car reached the concrete pillars of
the Expressway, the driver turned underneath them and drove along a
narrow road with very little traffic. They passed a string of
junkyards and construction dumps, then made a right and a left and
came to a T-junction in front of a run-down hotel. Shepherd knew
roughly where they were, but not exactly. They were somewhere near
the center of the city, in a warren of narrow streets just to the
north of Sathorn Road. They made a left in front of the hotel and
then almost immediately took a right and pulled into a small
parking area in front of a nondescript apartment building.

“Let’s go,” Tommy said as soon as the car
stopped.

He got out and Shepherd got out with him.

The air was still and heavy and the city
stunk. Shepherd looked up at the building where they had stopped.
It was a dozen or so floors high and indistinguishable from the
hundreds of other characterless apartment buildings that dotted
Bangkok. A few lights were on in the gathering dusk, but the
building was mostly dark. He assumed Kate was somewhere up there
waiting for him. Maybe she would tell him what was really happening
in Thailand, but maybe she wouldn’t. After all, he was just a
foreigner. Even at the best of times, Thais didn’t have much
interest in cutting foreigners in on the intrigues that powered
their secretive society. And these were a long way from the best of
times.

“She doesn’t have much time for you, Jacko,”
Tommy snapped. “So let’s get your ass upstairs and get this over
with.”

“You don’t sound very happy about this
meeting, Tommy.”

“If it was me, you wouldn’t be here. But
she’s the boss and I’m not.”

“And you’re not likely to be, are you?”

Tommy stepped close to Shepherd and leveled a
finger at his chest.

“Watch your mouth, Jacko.”

“Step away, little man. Don’t push your
luck.”

Tommy let a second or two go by without
moving. Shepherd knew he was just saving face, but saving face was
important to Thais, so Shepherd said nothing. After a moment or
two, Tommy lowered his finger, turned his back, and walked into the
lobby of the apartment building.

Shepherd took a deep breath and followed
him.

THE APARTMENT TO which Tommy led him was on the
seventh floor. It was completely nondescript. Worn gray carpet,
bare walls, and a few generic furnishings that looked like they had
been bought at a tent sale after the closing down of a Holiday Inn
somewhere in Ohio. Tommy pointed Shepherd toward a chair
upholstered in some kind of nubby-brown fabric and took a seat on a
couch set at a right angle to it.

On the other side of the room, standing half
in and half out of a pool of yellow light cast by a green-shaded
floor lamp, Kate was talking on a cell phone. Her back was to them,
which gave Shepherd a moment before he had to say anything. He
figured that was probably his good luck. Men tend to babble when
they talk to beautiful women, and he knew he wasn’t any exception.
As much as he liked to think of himself as the reincarnation of
Humphrey Bogart, most of the time he suspected he sounded more like
Joe Biden.

Kate glanced back over her shoulder as
Shepherd sat down. She waggled her fingers in a little wave, then
she went on with her conversation in a low voice. She was wearing a
yellow silk suit with a straight skirt that ended just at the tops
of her knees. She had on no jewelry other than a single strand of
grey pearls and a gold watch with a brown leather strap, a model so
exclusive that Shepherd couldn’t immediately identify the make. Her
legs were smooth and bare and slightly tanned, and she had on a
pair of green pumps exactly the color of a ‘57 MG Shepherd had once
owned. He noticed that her shiny black hair was cut much shorter
than it had been the last time he had seen her. Instead of a neatly
shaped bob that fell to her shoulders, it was now closely cropped
all around and hugged her head like a helmet. Shepherd wondered
what that meant.

An old girlfriend whose name he had long
forgotten once told him that when a woman made a big change in her
hairstyle she was actually saying she wanted to change a lot of
other things, too. Shepherd assumed then the woman had just been
tweaking his male ego, feeding his conceit, that eventually he
would piece together enough clues to figure out what the women
around him were really thinking. But as the years passed, he
suspected more and more that she had been telling him the
truth.

So what then was the real story behind Kate’s
radical chop? Was it a sign she was looking for a change in her
life? And if it was, what kind of a change did she have in mind?
Shepherd thought he just might have to give that question some
careful thought.

***

KATE CLOSED HER phone and walked over. She sat down
on the couch opposite Shepherd, crossed her legs at the knee, and
smiled.
What a great smile
, Shepherd thought. But then Kate
had always had a great smile so he wasn’t going to read anything
into it.

“How have you been, Jack?”

“Good,” he nodded. “Good.”

“You’ve gone back to practicing law I
hear.”

“Yeah, more or less.”

“And I also hear you have some rather
interesting clients.”

Shepherd shrugged and said nothing.

“Want something to drink? We’ve got beer and
wine in the fridge, I think.”

“A beer would be good.”

Kate looked at Tommy and lifted her head
slightly. “And a glass of wine for me, please, Tommy.”

Tommy scurried off without a word into what
Shepherd assumed was the kitchen. He liked the idea of the little
turd being sent off to fetch drinks. He liked it a lot. He and Kate
sat in silence while they waited for Tommy to return and he liked
the comfort of the silence, too.

Shepherd and Kate had trusted each other not
long ago when something big and dangerous had come unwound around
them. At first, it was because they had to. Later, it was because
they wanted to. That was when their moment had come. But then it
passed. Maybe their timing was lousy or maybe it was something else
altogether. Either way, what did it matter now? Their time had
come. And it had passed. Simple as that.

Shepherd had never been one to attempt CPR on
the past. Trying to breathe new life into yesterday was a lousy way
to deal with tomorrow. Besides, he didn’t know anyone who had ever
succeeded at it, no matter how much they might have wanted to.
Still, Shepherd couldn’t help speculating a little as he and Kate
sat quietly there together.
I could have been a contender
,
he thought.
Once upon a time, I could have been a
contender.

Tommy came back and set out their drinks.

“I think it would be better if Jack and I
talked alone, Tommy,” Kate said when he was done. “Could you wait
downstairs, please?”

Tommy didn’t look particularly happy about
that and Shepherd couldn’t really blame him. It had to be
embarrassing to be dismissed that way, but Tommy covered it
reasonably well and just nodded and left the room. Shepherd almost
felt sorry for him, but then he quickly came to his senses and the
feeling passed.

Kate began.

“It’s good to see you, Jack.”

“It’s good to see you, too,” Shepherd said.
“I mean it’s really good.”

Prattling already. He bit his tongue.

If Kate noticed, she gave no sign.

“All the same,” she said, “I gather you’re
not here just to say hello to an old friend.”

Shepherd shook his head. “No, I’m not.”

“I didn’t think so.”

Kate’s purse was on the floor next to the
couch and she reached down and lifted it into her lap. It was the
same green color as her shoes and looked expensive. Shepherd
watched as she felt around inside and then took out a red and gold
box of Dunhill Filters and a gold lighter.

“I didn’t know you smoked,” he said.

“I stopped and then started again. And then I
stopped a few more times and started a few more times.” Kate
shrugged. “You know how it goes.”

Shepherd made a noise he hoped sounded
sympathetic.

Kate broke the cellophane around the box with
her thumbnail and flipped up the top. He watched her fingers
extract a cigarette and decided they were without a doubt the most
graceful fingers he had ever seen. Long and slim, elegantly shaped,
nails neatly trimmed and varnished in deep red. He followed the
cigarette with his eyes. She lifted it to her mouth and slid it
between her lips. He heard rather than saw the top of her lighter
snap back and her thumb spin the wheel. He saw her lips pucker
slightly as they shaped themselves around the filter and sucked
gently at it.

Watching her, Shepherd thought back a year or
so to when he lay in a hospital bed in Phuket recovering from two
bullet wounds he had acquired when a ham-fisted hit man had
confused him with one of his clients. He had lost a lot of blood
and passed out at the side of the road. He might have bled to death
if Kate hadn’t found him and gotten him to a hospital in time.

Kate had stayed at his bedside all of that
first day, and when she left that night she had bent down and
brushed his lips with hers. He wanted to tell her right then how
that made him feel, but he was so tired he wasn’t sure what he had
said to her. He had tried, he could remember clearly that he had
tried, but he didn’t know how much he had been able to put into
words before sleep took him. Kate never mentioned it, and he had
never figured out a way to ask without sounding like a complete
jerk. Whatever he had said, or hadn’t said, this obviously wasn’t
the time to talk about it.