The place looked like the set of a Western movie, a big, sprawling room with tables and chairs scattered helter- skelter and splashes of sawdust on the floor. Green shaded lights hung from the ceiling like upside-down funnels. The room was low-ceilinged and darkness-cooled and smelled of old beer and onions. Slowly whirring ceiling fans kept the air moving. It was a place that seemed lost in time.
At the far end of the room an aged and battle-scarred oak bar stretched the width of the room. It was a magnificent bar with a brass foot rail and several spittoons scattered along its length. Above it, a beveled mirror also spread across the full width of the saloon, and at its center, engraved in arched, foot-high letters, was the name ‘Tom Skoohanie’ and under it, arched in the opposite direction to complete the circle, ‘The Galway Roost, 1877’.
Above the mirror, a mangy, moth-eaten bison’s head glared balefully through a single marble eye — the other was covered with a black patch. Near the center of the mirror there was a single large-caliber bullet hole.
One wall of the saloon was covered with old, yellowing daguerreotypes and drawings of famous cowboys, Indians and bandits: a family portrait of Jesse and Frank James in black bowlers and their Sunday best; the Doolin boys shackled and lined up in front of a prison wagon but smiling as if they hadn’t a care in the world; Wild Bill Hickok stretched out dead on a poker table with the back-shooter Jack Dance standing behind the table holding Hickok’s last hand, aces and eights and a three of diamonds; Pat Garrett standing over a dead buffalo, his Sharp’s rifle cradled in his arms; Geronimo kneeling Indian fashion, his rifle across his knees; a defiantly staring Crazy Horse.
In a corner near the bar, a Wurlitzer juke box in mint condition was murmuring the Beach Boys’ ‘Surfin’.’ On the opposite side of the room and raised two steps above floor level was a smaller room shielded by a curtain of twinkling glass beads. Several people were playing cards at one of two tables in the alcove while at the other end two men were shooting pool on a table covered with red felt. At the end of this secluded room, in an overstuffed chair flanked by a floor lamp with a fringed shade, sat a portly gentleman in a white suit, his hair a wisp of white, his double chin bulging over a white shirt and black tie. There was a small table in front of him containing a large strongbox and a bottle of red wine. The man was reading. As he reached the end of the page he dipped a finger in a glass of wine he was holding in one hand, licked the wine off the finger, and turned the page with
A tall, lean man with a white handlebar mustache sat at the end of the bar nearest him chatting quietly with a tall, elegant black man in a black T-shirt covered by a suede vest, blue jeans, cowboy boots and a cowboy hat big enough to take a bath in. A red, yellow and green parrot feather was stuck in its band. The butt of a large pistol peeked from under the tall man’s jacket, and as he spoke he continually cast glances at the portly man in the white suit. The only other person in the main room had long blond hair and sat hunched over the bar.
A phone rang somewhere in the back room, a muffled anachronism. The bartender Went through a door, was gone for a few seconds and then reappeared. He wiggled a finger toward the tall man, who went behind the bar and, as he entered the rear office, took out a pistol the size of a cannon and handed it to the bartender. He entered the office and closed the door behind him. A few minutes later he returned. His face was stern and angry, the muscles at the corners of his jaw twitching.
‘I gotta leave,’ he told the bartender. ‘Tell the Honorable to close up the bank until I get back.’
‘What is it?’
‘Kilhanney killed himself,’ he said simply and stalked out of the bar. As he stepped outside he left the past and was suddenly enveloped by the night life of the Patpong nightclub section that was in full swing. Music and chatter filled the night. The tall man motioned to a tuk-tuk, one of the three-wheel motor vehicles that seem to dominate the choked traffic of Bangkok. The little Thai driver started up the tiny vehicle and pulled up to the tall man.
‘Sam Peng,’ he said quietly as he entered the cramped two-seater. ‘Just off Tri Phet Road.’
The little two-seater pulled down a deserted alley in Yawaraj, the Chinese section of Bangkok, and slowed to a stop. From the shadows a stooped Chinese scurried from a doorway and got in beside the tall man.
‘What happened?’ the Oriental’s voice whispered.
‘The way I get it, four nights ago Kilhanney took the overnight train south and drove a bunch of women laborers to the border crossing near Kangar. A dozen of the women were carrying babies. The babies had all been suffocated, and each of the bodies was stuffed with three kilos of China White.’
The Oriental man hissed softly but said nothing.
The tall man shrugged. ‘Baby killers,’ he said. ‘But ingenious. Hell, you can buy a child on the streets of Bangkok for fifty dollars. Done every day in the week.’
‘How did this happen?’
‘Wol Pot.’
‘Damn! Damn, why did he keep this from you?’
‘I don’t know. He told Max that Wol Pot leaned on him to do the run. He didn’t know about the babies. Max says Padre thought he could make the run and come back and forget it, but the thing with the babies blew his mind. By the time he got to Max’s place he was a raving maniac. This morning he went over to the beach, swam out into the surf, and didn’t come back. His body washed up an hour ago.’
The two men sat without speaking for a block or two. Finally the Chinese spoke.
‘I wonder how much Wol Pot has told them?’
‘I’d say as little as possible. What the hell, we’re his ace in the hole.’
‘The little weasel should have been killed a long time ago.’
‘Well, you know what I say,’ said the tall man. ‘Better late than never. Maybe we can set it up so they’ll take out Wol Pot for us.’
‘How do you propose to do that?’
‘Thai Horse,’ said the tall man.
AMERICA
THE PRESENT
BIRD
In Interpol’s highly classified files known as the Holy Ghost Entry and available only to those with first- and second-level clearance, the flier — he, she or them — was known simply by the code name Bird. The reports were deeply classified because none of the authorities in Europe or America wanted the press to get wind of the moniker. In particular, they didn’t want Bird — or the press — to know they had linked the Paris and Chicago jobs.
The Bird knew it anyway. He was flying at that very moment, seven feet above the floor of the French Impressionists room of the International Salon of Art.
Outside on Sixty-fourth Street life went on. Monday night: wives or husbands hurried home to their husbands or wives — from work, from their lovers, from a movie matinee, a business meeting or a quick drink on the way home.
The custodian of the Salon had left early, so the night watchman had cheated a little and locked up at five to six. In the last hour there had been only one customer, a strange fellow with a thick red beard, who was huddled in a bright yellow slicker. Apparently he had left the museum unnoticed. At least, that’s what the watchman thought.
But the Bird had not left. He had hidden himself in a hallway broom closet and waited while the watchman followed his usual procedure: he had locked up, turned on the alarms and electric eyes, punched out the digital combination that controlled the floor sensors, checked the eight screens that monitored each of the museum’s rooms. Then he sat down to watch Dan Rather and eat one of the two sandwiches his wife always prepared for him. Tonight it was his favorite, chicken salad wi.th a slice of pineapple dressed with hot mustard. He could get lost in chicken salad, pineapple and hot mustard.