‘While we’re at it,’ said Hatcher, ‘I’m also looking for these two people.’ He showed Sy the photograph of Cody and Pai taken in Vietnam fifteen years ago.
‘Is this old picture?’ Sy asked.
Hatcher nodded. ‘Fifteen years,’ he growled.
‘They change a lot,’ Sy said.
Hatcher nodded again. ‘I’m sure of it,’ he said.
‘This is American and Thai girl?’ Sy asked.
‘No. The man was an American flier, but the girl was Vietnamese.’
‘Ah,’ Sy said. He stared at the picture for at least a minute and then nodded and passed it back to Hatcher.
As they drove through the crowded streets, Hatcher reflected on his plan. First, try t find the girl, since she was the only person who had actually seen both Wol Pot and Windy Porter’s killers. Then he would start checking out Porter’s surveillance locations to see if that produced anything. Near the top of the list was the section called Tombstone and the Longhorn Bar. The subject of Thai Horse was touchy, since it involved street gossip. Was there really a Thai Horse, and if so, was it a gang? A man? Wol Pot or Cody? Or someone new? Because Hatcher could not tie it directly to Cody, he would play that by ear.
The trip to Phadung Klong took only a few minutes; the intersection was a few blocks away, just past the sprawling produce market now almost deserted for the day and across a short arched bridge at the klong. It took Sy three stops and the better part of an hour talking to river people to get a lead on the girl.
‘They say she works closer to Rama Four Road,’ he said returning to the car. ‘We find her, mai pen rai,’
They drove parallel to the klong, separated from it by thick banyan trees, flowering orchids and shacks built on stilts over the banks of the river. At Rama Four, Sy parked the car and disappeared. down the bank of the Hong. He was gone for another fifteen minutes.
‘She has moved to Klong Mahachai,’ he said when he got back. ‘But it will be difficult to locate her until tonight. We should find her near the Maharaj Road crossing close to the Thieves’ Market in Chinese Town.’
At dusk they drove to Maharaj Road, and Sy once again scouted the banks of the klong. He was gone only a few minutes this time.
‘We have luck,’ he said proudly. ‘Come.’
He led Hatcher along the edge of the klong, past several boats.
‘You be careful, okay, pheuan?’ Sy said. ‘Sometime the girl boss he looks to steal your money, watch, you know? But I be behind you,’ he said, pointing down the row of snakeboats and houseboats that were tied to the bank and to one another. There were many young women sitting in the bows of the boats, smiling, appraising, inviting a bid from the crowds along the canal. Hatcher followed Sy as they threaded through the crowd of gaping tourists that was already beginning to gather on the bank and past several boats until the little Thai stopped a man who was heading upstream with a fishing pole.
‘Sukhaii?’ Sy asked ‘You know which is her boat?’
The old man smiled gleefully, nodding vigorously, and pointed over Sy’s shoulder to a long boat practically at their feet.
‘My trip,’ Hatcher said and walked uncertainly across the first hang yao and past a muscular Thai, who stared at his chest as he passed but did not look at his face. He scrambled aboard the second boat as a young girl, no more than sixteen, came from under the thatched hooch at the rear. Lowering her head slightly, she stared at him over her nose. Her eyes got dusky brown. She had it down to a science.
‘Sukhaii?’ Hatcher asked.
‘You know my name?’ she said, surprised.
Hatcher nodded. ‘Chai,’ he said.
‘You want do some sanuk?’ she asked in shattered English. She pulled him close and rubbed against him, still smiling. She was warm and soft to the touch and had a sprig of jasmine behind her ear. For a moment Hatcher thought about having little sanuk with her. He gently took her by the arm so she wouldn’t bolt and held up an American fifty-dollar bill.
‘I am not here for fun,’ he said in Thai.
The girl look startled and tried to pull away from him.
‘Look,’ he said, ‘fifty dollars American. That’s one thousand bahts, two purples. You want this?’
The girl stared at the fifty and Hatcher dropped her arm.
The muscular Thai in the other boat stared casually across the deck at them but said thing.
‘What for?’ she asked cautiously.
‘There was a man here the other night when the killing occurred in the next boat. He jumped overboard.’
‘Chai. .
‘What did he look like?’
The girl thought for a moment and held her hand out, about five and half feet above the deck.
‘This tall. Very brown eyes. Black hair. Thin face. About like you heavy.’
‘Built like me but shorter?’
‘Chai.’
‘Any scars — uh, marks on his face or body?’
Sukhaii’s eyebrows rose. ‘Ah chai, chai . . . he has dragon. Here.’
She laid her hand on her chest
‘A tattoo of a dragon?’
She nodded.
‘Now, this guy, he was in a big hurry, yes?’
She nodded her head vigorously. ‘He was afraid.’ ‘I’m sure. Now, the way I see it, he didn’t have time to get dressed before he went swimming,’ Hatcher whispered.
She looked at him suspiciously but did not answer.
‘He probably didn’t take his clothes with him—’
‘Chai, chai, took clothes—’
‘Mai,’ Hatcher said, shaking his head. ‘No time.’
‘I told police—’
‘I am not the police. I don’t care .what you told the police. And I do not tell the police anything.’
‘I tell police everything,’ she said defiantly.
‘I think perhaps he may have left his pants behind—’
She shook her head frantically.. ‘Mai, mai. No wallet.’
‘I didn’t say anything about a wallet,’ Hatcher said softly.
The young girl was beginning to panic. She looked past Hatcher at the Thai on the other boat.
‘Look here, I’m not from the police, I am Amehricaan,’ Hatcher said. ‘All I want are the ID papers that were in the wallet. I don’t care about anything else, you can keep the money or anything else of value. I just want the papers, understand?’
Her eyes shifted behind him again. He turned. The Thai stood near the port side of the boat but did not come aboard. He was dressed in a purple pakoma, a kind of man’s sarong-pants and a white cotton tank shirt. There was a large tattoo of an orchid with a snake entwined around it on his right forearm. He smiled briefly at Hatcher and then looked at the girl.
‘What does he want?’ the man asked Sukhaii in Thai.
Hatcher interjected. ‘I was offering the young woman fifty American dollars for the identification papers in a wallet left here the other night. No questions asked. I’ll forget I was ever here, okay? No police. It is personal. All I want are the papers.’
The Thai came aboard and walked close to Hatcher. He was two or three inches shorter— but his body was hard and veins etched his biceps. He studied Hatcher’s face for a full minute through eye the color of mud. Behind him, Sy stepped on the other boat, waving away the water babies and vendors who squawked at him.
The tattooed man lowered his eyes and said, ‘You wallet?’
Hatcher shook his head. ‘Mai.’
‘You friend’s wallet?’
Hatcher did not lie. He shook his head again. ‘Chai.’
‘Huh,’ the Thai said. He stepped past Hatcher and whispered to the young prostitute. She stared up at him for several moments and nodded. ‘How much?’ he asked and she whispered, ‘Ten thousand bahts.’