It was hard to believe that Martin’s first known deadly move, the assassination of Minister Ban Lok Huong, had occurred such a short time ago. If we moved fast, we could curb the effort quickly if Martin would listen to reason. My big worry was that the kill campaign had been released as a headless, pre-planned monster over which Martin no longer had control. He could have turned loose a bunch of mindless kamikazes who would continue the slaughter without stopping until the job was done.
“That could be,” I mused, aloud. “Martin had to anchor himself in this part of the world to get the job done. This is as close as he could reasonably come and tie in with whoever he’s running. I never thought of his using a woman as a go-between. If there was a girl in Saigon, she doesn’t matter. If we want Martin, we’ll have to make a call on Madame Peacock.”
“What the hell is he talking about?” Bu Chen asked Willow.
Her answer told him nothing. “Take us to Madame Peacock,” she replied.
“Then we’ll need a taxi.”
The driver of the cab called by Bu Chen studied me with interest. This neighborhood wasn’t the kind to have honest white men circulating in it. He started the taxi with a jerk as he shifted gears and called in on the mobile radio at the same time. I guessed that the dash-mounted CB transmitter was originally U.S. Government property. He seemed to enjoy having it aboard. He used it a number of times.
After one call, Bu Chen began questioning the driver. The exchange became argumentative. Willow translated. “Bu Chen thinks the driver is going a roundabout way to load up the meter. I think we’ve doubled back at least once.”
Bu Chen sat back, still muttering under his breath. He paid close attention to our progress. At one unmarked intersection, we slowed before crossing. A cruising police car approaching the intersecting streets slowed and halted at the corner to let us pass. The cabbie drew over to the curb in the middle of the block. I looked behind. The hood of the police car stuck out beyond the front of the corner building. The two uniformed occupants in the cruiser were in no hurry to cross the intersection.
The taxi made a tight U-turn. The driver was taking a chance; the two Thai policemen had their faces turned toward us.
Madame Peacock’s establishment on Lamtubok Street was nothing like the Stardust in Las Vegas. It was a run-down nightclub that had an odor of bad plumbing, persistent dampness, and stale beer. We were too early for the main action. In the main room, tables and chairs surrounded a pint-size dance floor. A raised platform against a curtained wall held music stands, a piano, a drum set and empty chairs waiting for the absent musicians. Along the opposite wall was a long bar. A half dozen heavily madeup Asian girls lounged against it, some sitting on stools. The bartender behind the counter looked like an Oriental Jackie Gleason with a Prussian-style crew cut topping his balloon face. His girth and build was similar to a Japanese sumo wrestler.
Silence followed the entrance of Willow. Bu Chen rattled off something. The girls at the bar giggled. The eyebrows of the fat bartender moved upward. I looked at Willow. Her cheeks were flushed with embarrassment. “What’d he say?” I asked.
“He said you and I were looking for a girl to share.”
The tittering and whispers at the bar ceased when a tall, thin woman brushed aside and walked through a curtain of beads at the far end of the bar. “That’s Madame Peacock,” Bu Chen muttered needlessly.
One look at her and I could tell that she was hard as tempered steel. Tall and dignified-looking, she walked toward us with a smooth, gliding motion. She had delicate hands ending in inch-long fingernails. High-piled black hair crested a narrow face graced with a long, sensitive nose with flared nostrils. The way the bar girls looked at her with awe, I expected to see Madame Peacock draw a bull whip out from the folds of her long, capelike garment and start cracking it over their heads.
Her eyes were set well apart above high cheekbones. They riveted on me briefly before darting to fix on Bu Chen. She either recognized him or found his company unsuitable. She strode toward us, brushing by the hushed bevy of girls who watched the conductor. The floor-length flared skirt hid her legs as she walked, giving her movement a reptilian quality. Everyone in the room was as still as if they were props in a tableaux.
My attention was locked to the unusual woman as she approached. Her eyes began shifting back and forth between myself and Willow. She ignored Chen completely. Some five feet away, she stopped abruptly. I heard the solid clump of heavy footsteps behind me. I looked over my shoulder, then turned around.
Two Thai policemen in dark blue uniforms, white gauntlets, white leather Sam Brown belts with attached holsters, and white canvas ankle gaiters stood on the step just inside the street door. Their white-topped caps with shining visors topped nearly seven feet of burly human beings. They were big all over. And unsmiling.
For a moment, I had the fleeting thought that Bu Chen had betrayed us. That idea was dispelled quickly.
One of the grim-faced cops stepped down and towered over Bu Chen. With a sweep of his gloved hand, he sent the surprised Vietnamese to one side. Bu Chen crashed into two bar stools and went down. His head struck the foot rail in front of the bar. Blood from a gash on his forehead spewed down over his face like a crimson curtain.
Neither policeman turned his head toward the noise Bu Chen’s fall had made.
Madame Peacock’s lofty cool disintegrated. She began an excited chattering in her native tongue. Her words came out in pleading, piercing tones. Willow crowded closer to me, half-turning to see what the second policeman was going to do. “What’s going on” I shot to Willow. “What’s she saying?”
The cop mounted on the step behind us was arguing over our heads. “She keeps saying she’ll pay them off. The fuzz says Madame Peacock has broken the law by letting you in here. This is an Off Limits place to Americans. She says that’s not so any more. All of the American GIs have been thrown out of the country. She doesn’t want any trouble.” The harangue went on and the big cop started poking in our direction with his nightstick. Willow kept up with the exchange. “Now the cop says she’s harboring a foreign agent, meaning you, Nick. Well, I’ll be damned,” gasped Willow. “Now the cop’s trying to—”
Willow didn’t get a chance to finish. The big cop behind us, overhearing her whispered commentary in English, wrapped a huge hand around Willow’s upper arm and lifted her out of the way to separate us. He wasn’t gentle. Willow’s natural balance and keen coordination were all that kept her from stumbling over a nearby chair and table.
I really didn’t need Willow’s explanation. It was clear to me that the two police were in league with the taxi driver. He had used the cab radio to summon them to Madame Peacock’s. It was one of the oldest dodges in the world. I knew the drill. American tourists are victimized wherever they travel. It ranges from simple gouging by Paris cabdrivers to dark-alley muggings by gangs of street urchins in Karachi. Americans abroad are given the shaft by everyone. These Thai bullies were using their badges and muscle to pull a scam — a ripoff.
I wasn’t going to have any of it. I couldn’t. The payoff would be a self-help cleaning out of my wallet. I’d first be rammed up against the wall and frisked — American style — and that would bring on real trouble. Group Captain Harrington had arranged for me to circumnavigate the metal detection barrier before getting on the Air India plane. I was decked out of my complete stock of concealed weapons.