He spoke every word as though it were a hot coal he was spitting out of his mouth. It was obvious he found the entire matter repellent.
‘Excellent decision,’ said Sloan. I’ll check it out.’
‘Have you seen the police?’
‘Not yet. I came straight here after checking into the hotel. Do you have the police reports?’
‘No, the investigator, a major, Ngy, wouldn’t give anything up. A real mean one, he needs it for the investigation,’ Pellingham stammered quickly. ‘But I have the other things. Come with me, please.’
The nervous junior diplomat led Sloan back through the ornate passages of the Thai embassy to his office, a cheery but small cubicle near the back of the building. He riffled through a stack of folders in his ‘Hold’ box and handed Sloan an envelope marked, ‘Porter . Final Papers. Confidential.’
‘Everything’s in there,’ Pellingham said. ‘All the forms, his insurance papers, even his last expense report.’
‘Interesting. I’ll just take these along,’ Sloan said. ‘Perhaps I should, uh, make a copy?’ Pellingham stammered, rubbing his cheek with the palm of a sweaty hand and turning what started as a statement into a question.
Sloan smiled his reassuring smile. ‘If it would make you more comfortable,’ he said, ‘a copy will be fine.’
‘They say it’s, uh, a case of innocent bystander, killed more or less by accident, if ‘ possible for someone to be murdered by accident.’ He hesitate and, when Sloan made no response, added, ‘Not exactly a hero’s death. But I suppose it’s best for our purposes. I mean acceptable under the circumstances.’
‘Acceptable,’ Sloan said. ‘An excellent way of putting it. I can see why you picked the diplomatic service.’
‘Well, thank you, sir,’ Pellingham responded. ‘I meant for the family and all.’
‘Of course. I know exactly what you mean, and I agree,’ Sloan said, trying to put the young man at ease. ‘Look here,’ he went on, ‘no need to worry about this any further. I’m here now. It’s in my hands.’
‘But...’
Smiling, Sloan handed the envelope back to Pellingham. ‘Why don’t you make your copy while I check out Porter’s things.’
‘Yes, yes, good idea. You, uh, know where to ship the remains and his effects?’
‘It’s all arranged.’
‘Oh, thank God,’ the neophyte diplomat said with relief.
‘Just show me Porter’s suite while you’re copying the report, hmm?’
‘Right, right.’
The young man watched as Sloan entered Porter’s suite, wondering whether he should accompany him. But Sloan closed the door and he stared at it for a full minute before scurrying off to the copy machine.
An hour’s search produced nothing .of value to Sloan but a five-by-seven leather-bound, three-ring notebook. Porter’s diary, a veritable autobiography f the man beginning in January of that year. Sloan stuffed it in his briefcase. He checked over everything else and found nothing else related to the Cody-Wol Pot case. After getting the copy of the Porter documents, he headed back to his hotel.
He peeled off a soggy shirt, pulled a table under the ceiling fan and spent the rest of the afternoon going through the diary. Porter had certainly been keeping a wary eye on the little Thai. The notebook was complete up to the day Porter died. The expense account meticulously included fifty cents for a Coke at a place called the American Deli in Patpong ‘while performing surveillance.’ Porter had turned into the ultimate bureaucrat.
Then the need began gnawing at Sloan. He became distracted and finally closed the file folder and the notebook. As the sun began to set he stared out the window at the city of golden spires and domes, shimmering in the dying rays of the sun, watched as they got dimmer and dimmer until finally they winked out like dying candles. The need was in him and the night lured him out of the room, down to the crowded main street.
A two-seater with a wiry, energetic little driver waited near the entrance of the hotel, ‘Sir, sir,’ the little fellow said, trotting beside Sloan as he walked toward the row of taxis at the door. ‘Got good tuk-tuk, best price in town. Very fast.’
Why not, thought Sloan. There were hundreds of the noisy machines in the city. It would be impossible to trace his movements.
‘All right, lead on,’ Sloan said.
‘My name is very complicated,’ he said. ‘You can call me Sy, my American friends call me Sy.’
‘Right,’ Sloan said, settling back in the somewhat uncomfortable seat, and gave him an address in the waterfront district.
The trip across town took only fifteen minutes, but Sloan’s heart was already a thundering drum in his chest by the time they got there.
The place had not changed, would never change. The tart smell of the river gave way to a much sweeter odor. It attacked his brain and intoxicated his spirit as he went down the narrow stairs, which creaked and groaned underfoot. As he descended the odor got stronger, headier.
The master waited as usual at a desk near the door. This one was new, but they all looked alike. Wrinkled, bowed old men with faded eyes and sunken faces, they were the dream masters, the killers of nightmares and assassins of pain, and the guides to the Elysian Fields. As he followed the old man back through a narrow passageway, Sloan began to feel a little light-headed. They entered a long narrow room lined with drab canvas cots. Silk screens stained by age and misuse separated the beds. A gray veil of smoke clung to the ceiling. It was like walking through hell.
Sloan followed the dream master to the third cubicle. He lay on his side on the bed, got comfortable, watched as the old Thai tamped the black cube into the bowl of the long pipe, lit it with a taper, and sucked fire into the cube until it glowed. Then he held the thick stem against Sloan’s lips. The colonel took a deep breath, felt the oily smoke as it surged into his lungs, invaded his bloodstream, streaked up to his brain.
As the opium took effect, Sloan felt electrified. His body hummed, then became numb. Old bruises and wounds were healed. Pain vanished, stress evaporated. The doom diminished. The old Thai shrank before his eyes and slowly vanished in a golden mist.
Sloan groaned and rolled over on his back.
He let the haze envelop him, embraced it, walked through to the other side.
To a place of green fields and flowers -
A deep blue sky was overhead and the sun warmed him.
Somewhere nearby, the sea crashed on rocks.
He lay down in cool grass.
His anxieties were washed away by the caressing breeze that wafted over him.
Here there was no death. No cries of pain, nor enemies nor dirty jobs to be assigned. No nightmares.
There was only tranquility.
It was the only place left where Sloan could find peace.
THE TS’E K’AM MEN TI
Hatcher and company left two hours before dawn, sneaking past the harbor patrols and customs boats in the Bujia Ngkou, the bay at the mouth of the Beijiang River that becomes Hong Kong harbor, and then heading west into south China along one of the many tributaries of the jungle-choked Xijiang River. By the gray wash of dawn they were thirty miles upstream.
They came in two boats. The first was a long, narrow snakeboat, heavily powered, with a thatched cabin near the rear. Behind it was a thirty-foot 600 hp Cigarette boat, capable of skimming the water at sixty miles an hour. Hatcher, Daphne, Cohen and Sing, who doubled as helmsman, and another gunman, Joey, were in the first. There were four Chinese gunmen in the second, on ‘loan’ to Cohen from a friendly Chiu Chao triad known as the Narrow Blade Gang, as backup in the event the Tsu Fi got in trouble. They all felt comfortable, since Daphne’s intelligence had reported that Sam-Sam was farther upriver and was not expected back to the Ts’e K’am Men Ti stronghold until the next day.