‘I see no problem there,’ Ngy said with a smile.
Okay, thought Hatcher, now comes the breakthrough. ‘Good,’ he said. ‘Well, I know you’re busy.
I’m here really to see that the remains get back safely. Let the family know that the police are working on it. You know how it is, they’re on the other side of the world. . .
Ngy nodded vigorously. Why not put him at ease, he thought, get rid of him once and for all.
‘Perhaps,’ said Ngy, ‘it might help if you took a copy of the investigation report back to the family. Let them know that we’re doing everything possible.’
Hatcher could hardly contain his joy. Point, game, match, set.
‘Excellent idea, Major. I’m sure it will help.’
Harmless, thought Ngy after Hatcher had left. Apparently the Americans trusted Ngy’s handling of the case.
Sy and Hatcher returned to the hotel, where Hatcher rented a dark blue two door Chevy sedan. Then he went up to his room, ordered a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and a pot of Thai tea. He turned up the air conditioning, turned on the ceiling fan, peeled off his shirt, poured himself a cup of tea and laced it with whiskey, and sat down on the rattan sofa with all the files spread out on a coffee table.
The report was short and simple and told him very little. Witnesses reported that a man had made an arrangement with a prostitute named Sukhaii who worked on the Phadung Klong near New Road market. While they were in the cabin of her boat, a hang-yao approached and two men got out and started to board the boat adjoining Sukhaii’s. The American, Windy Porter, apparently went to the aid of the prostitute and was stabbed by one of these men. He fell overboard and his body was retrieved quickly by several boat people. The man with Sukhaii jumped over board and escaped the scene. The killers escaped in the hang yao, which was later recovered with its owner, who also had been stabbed to death. The autopsy showed two stab wounds, one in the lower right chest, the other straight down into his neck, by a thin blade knife that had coursed down seven inches and pierced the heart.
It could be coincidence, thought Hatcher, that the killers had used a killing thrust that had become a trademark of the Chiu Chaos.
The officers making the report assumed that the two intruders were attempting to rob the prostitute and her mark and Porter unfortunately had interceded. Descriptions were vague. one of the killers was described as ‘a Chinese man with a streak down the side of his face and a bad eye.’
Police had been unsuccessful in locating the mark who had jumped overboard and swum for his life. Sukhaii had given them an insignificant description of him — five six, 150 pounds, brown eyes, black hair, narrow face. No name. According to the report, the killers had said nothing to her.
Was it Wol Pot? If so, why 1id Porter mix it up with the two men who were obviously after the ex-Vietnam prison commander? Perhaps it was simply chivalry. More likely, Porter knew that if they lost Wol Pot they would also lose Cody. So he’d tried to help out.
Hatcher pored over every slip of paper, writing down anything that seemed significant. There were more than a dozen locations mentioned in the daily diaries, although it appeared that Porter practiced a very simple surveillance and did not ask any questions about Wol Pot or Taisung or whatever the hell his name was.
He added to his list every location that was mentioned more than once, including the American Deli. Porter had been there three times, once with a notation:
‘Ate lunch while observing subject from across the street.’ He also had attended several sporting events, including the horse races and boxing matches.
Hatcher also added to the list ‘Tombstone’ and ‘The Longhorn,’ the two locations mentioned to Daphne by the ex-GI at the Ts’e K’am Men Ti battle. When he was finished he had a list of fifteen or twenty locations. Then be started checking them more carefully, trying to form some kind of profile of this Wol Pot in his mind.
As soon as Hatcher was gone, Sloan left the hotel and took an air-conditioned limo to the embassy. He signed the necessary papers and made the :necessary arrangements to ship Major Porter’s earthly remains to San Francisco on an Army transport leaving the next day. In all, the Porter business took a couple of hours. He lunched with Harvey Kendall, a diplomat familiar with DEA and NSA operations in the area, and made small talk for an hour.
Then he took a tuk-tuk to Yawaraj. Driving into Chinese Town was like entering the wide end of a funnel. They went down one twisting, tortuous street to another and then to an alley suffocated by row shops and then another alley, even more claustrophobic, and from there to its dead end at the river.
The old man who ushered Sloan through the innocuous-looking door was as old and wasted as the doorman the previous night. His eyes were unfocused burned-out coals, his face was caved in and as wrinkled as a pitted prune, and he was skeletal.
The timbers and slats were webbed by spiders. The old place creaked and groaned with age. Below him, Sloan could see the desk and, behind it, cubicle after cubicle. Faintly, he could hear an occasional cough, and softly, far back in the room, a vague tenor voice was crooning an Irish lullaby. The old man led Sloan down the rickety wooden stairwell into the den, into smoke that swirled in wispy whirlpools under a broad ceiling fan that hung on the end of a long, 1ender pole, which vanished up into darkness. The sweet mown-grass odor of opium drifted up the stairway, and Sloan’s mouth went dry with anticipation.
He paid for his pipe and followed the old prune-faced man to a cubicle with two narrow cots. He lay down. It was hot in the room, and he peeled off his tie and opened his shirt to the waist. He was already dizzy from the fog of opium smoke that settled like morning mist on the floor of the large room. His eyes kindled with excitement as he watched the old man roll a goli of thick, brown-black opium between his fingers and stuff it in the bowl of the pipe and stoke it up.
While Sloan waited, his mind. drifted to Hatcher and his growing rejection of the brigade. Damn you Hatcher, damn your soul, Sloan thought to himself. You can’t reject all the good guys we had in the brigade. God, look what’s happened to them. Eddie Conlan dead in Libya. Ike Greenbaum burned to a crisp in a crack-up in Chile. Dick Mazetti running some halfassed security outfit in Florida and drinking himself to death in a wheelchair. Jack Burbank blinded by terrorists in the Lebanon embassy explosion. Molly McGuire, one leg short, serving out his time in the Immigration Service. The Immigration Service, for God’s sake. How many times had he saved Hatcher’s ass? And mine? They had all put their asses on the line, Hatcher as well. Were any of them less heroic because they didn’t wear a uniform? Who could say they weren’t heroes?
The old man took a deep draw and passed the pipe to Sloan, who drew deeply on the pipe, felt the hot smoke burn down his throat and fill his lungs. He quickly forgot Hatcher and t1e brigade. He turned away from thoughts of the past and almost immediately he was euphoric, his mind in another time and place, his cares and worries dismissed from his mind. He closed his eyes and saw green fields drifting with the wind. He did not hear the person enter the cubicle or the squeaking of the other cot.
‘Did you see Hatcher?’ a voice asked.
Sloan answered without opening his eyes. ‘Yes.’
‘And?’
‘He’s getting closer. I told you he could find him. It’s just a matter of time.’
‘Has he spotted Wol Pot?’
‘No.’
‘Does he know who Wol Pot really is?’
‘He didn’t say.’
‘And Thai Horse?’
Sloan was tired of talking, tired of thinking about questions and framing answers. He was at the doorway of the Land of Nod and then as he entered he said dreamily, ‘Didn’t mention Thai Horse. Didn’t mention Wol Pot. Didn’t mention bangles, baubles or beads or moonlight and roses. Nightingales in Berkeley Square. Pigeons on statues and bright yellow ribbons. Didn’t mention any of it. Look, Hatcher will find Cody. He’s onto something, I can tell. I know him as well as I know myself. He’s the best there is.’