A Nissan pulled alongside her at the curb, and Rob’s voice called from the window.
“Hop in.”
She swung the door open and slid into the passenger seat, the tracking phone glowing in her hand.
“Did you talk to Edgar?”
“Yup. He’ll have two more vehicles at our disposal within an hour, and a surveillance team in place within two.”
“So now we wait. It might be a long night.”
“Most are.”
Chapter 14
Tuk tuks roared by their position a block from the club, the three-wheeled conveyances ferried tourists from one den of iniquity to another. A seemingly endless parade of buzzing motor scooters made kamikaze runs in and out of the speeding traffic, their pilots seemingly fearless, immune to the effects of any ill-timed braking or a swinging fender. Sirens pierced the night as the ambulances mobilized to scrape up what was left of the riders who had timed it wrong.
“There are literally hundreds of accidents every day with the bikes and scooters,” Rob said, reading her mind.
“But everyone drives like they’re insane.”
“It’s part of the local charm.”
“Reminds me of Rome. Or New Delhi.”
“Hmm. Never been.”
“You haven’t missed much. Especially India. It’s a different world.”
“I’ve been confining my travels to Asia.” Then Rob clammed up. He obviously didn’t feel like sharing any further, so Jet let it go. She wasn’t particularly interested, anyway.
“You’re still thinking about the little girl, aren’t you?” he asked, after a time.
“Why do you say that?”
“I can see it in your eyes.”
“Maybe.”
“It’s a despicable situation, but we can’t get involved. The risks are too great. And I didn’t sign up for that.”
“I know.”
An uncomfortable silence settled between them, which was fine by her. She wasn’t in a mood to talk.
They had been sitting for two and a half hours and could just make out the front of the club, occasional patrons appearing out of the night and wandering inside — always Caucasians.
“Thais only go to the ping pong clubs if they’re taking foreign guests out on the town. Otherwise it’s not their thing.”
“I know. Edgar told me. Seems like that’s about the only perversion that’s not their thing. Sex with children, no problem. Ladyboys galore, bring it on. But ping pong. Heaven forbid…”
“Not everyone condones sex with minors.”
“Yeah, I can see the loathing and disgust the proprietors and customers at the club displayed. Touching.”
Rob didn’t pursue it.
“Hey. He’s moving. Look.” She held the phone up, and they watched as the blinking red dot began inching away from them.
“Hold on.”
Rob started the engine and swung into traffic, narrowly missing a tuk tuk that appeared out of nowhere from behind a double-parked car. The driver swore in Thai and made a universal gesture of displeasure at Rob, who grinned and then gunned the gas.
“He’s two blocks west. Make a left at the next street and you’ll be behind him.”
Rob edged over, cutting off a van that rebuffed him with an angry honk, and then swerved around a stationary taxi before making the left onto the larger boulevard.
“Okay. We’re three blocks back. See if you can get us within a couple, but not too close. I don’t want to queer this by getting right up on him,” she instructed.
They jockeyed back and forth until they were two hundred yards back, then settled into a tracking pace that stayed even with Lap Pu’s car.
“Look. You can see his taillights up by that truck. This is close enough,” she said.
“Yes, master. Oops. Mistress.” He stressed the sibilance mischievously.
Twenty minutes later, the Mercedes swung onto a residential street with high-rise condominium buildings towering on both sides. The driver reached up and hit a remote control, and an electronic gate rose. They watched as the Mercedes moved into the underground parking garage, and then the barrier descended.
“Let’s see what we can get on this building. I want everything possible. Blueprints, a list of residents, you name it. My bet is a guy like Lap Pu won’t be in a one bedroom. Probably one of the larger units, possibly the penthouse.”
“I’ll send the request to Edgar. Now what?”
“Now? Now we wait. Let’s get the surveillance team in place.”
Rob nodded and made the call.
~ ~ ~
The following day at one p.m., Pu left his condo with an entourage of bodyguards. The watchers followed him to a large traditional Thai restaurant, where he met with a group of business associates for two hours. In the meantime, Edgar got Jet the plans for the building, and they quickly pinpointed Pu’s likely condo — a four-bedroom, forty-two-hundred-square-foot unit that occupied a third of the penthouse. His neighbors were a prominent real estate developer and a television celebrity.
The downside was, that on first blush, the condo seemed impenetrable, at least without getting caught. To breach it and shoot her way out would not have been a problem, but for any sort of stealth approach, it posed a host of issues.
She studied the diagram and felt a tingle of anticipation. There was always a way. It would just be up to her to find it.
Three hours later, she had devised a scheme. It would be risky and involve an element of luck, but then again, most of her life had been like that, so she wasn’t dissuaded. The building had a weakness, as did his condo.
Jet picked up her phone and called Edgar, taking two minutes to describe what she would need by six o’clock that evening.
Pu looked out over the Bangkok skyline, its lights twinkling like a holiday pageant as far as his eye could see. It had been dark for almost an hour, and he stood in his silk bathrobe, smoking a Lucky Seven cigarette as he gazed out at his empire, a crystal tumbler of single malt scotch in his hand. The television murmured in the background, the news blinking images of the world’s daily atrocities at the back of his head as he contemplated the night sky.
A trace of jasmine lingered in the bedroom from where his new favorite, Suchin, had spent a frolicking two hours with him, having only recently departed. She was a delight, barely eighteen, exceptionally beautiful and smart. But a conniver, he could tell, always trying to calculate how to best exploit any given situation.
He didn’t mind. That was her role. He was money and power, she was beauty and grace, but she wanted what he had to offer more than he needed what she could provide. And so the dance without end went, the pirouettes and pas de chevals artful, if obligatory.
He had never harbored any desire to settle down after his wife died in a car accident eighteen years ago, struck down without warning in the prime of her life. Companionship was easy to find when you were a rich sex industry magnate in Bangkok, and he had a virtually endless stream of eager friends to share his bed and table. It might be a shallow life, but it had its pluses, he mused, blowing a white cloud of nicotine at the uncaring ceiling.
Pu tossed back the last of his scotch and stretched, enjoying the familiar burn of the smoky nectar as he cracked his neck and then stubbed out his cigarette. He glanced at his watch. It was time to rinse off and then gear up for dinner, followed by the inevitable meetings that were a part of managing his network of businesses.
He padded to his nightstand and unclasped the stainless steel Rolex Submariner that he’d been wearing for a decade — preferring it to the more ostentatious styles worn by his peers, whose platinum Masterpieces and Presidents screamed wealth to anyone interested. Pu preferred a low-key appearance. He knew how much money he had, and he didn’t need to proclaim it to the world. Leave that to the younger peacocks intent on fanning mating displays with their feathered finery. At fifty-nine, he didn’t have any need to prove anything to anyone — the only benefit from growing older he could see.