Thai Horse

by William Diehl

  ‘This is Namtaan,’ Earp said. ‘She wants to meet the great white hunter. Namtaan, this is Hatcher.’

  ‘How do you do,’ Hatcher said.

  ‘It is a pleasure,’ she said. ‘So you are the tiger killer.’ ‘We all had a hand in it.’

  ‘And did everyone have a hand in saving Wonderboy’s life? You are too modest, Mr. Hatcher.’ She looked up at him with penetrating eyes.

  ‘It’s not modesty,’ Hatcher said, looking at Earp. ‘Everybody here depends on everybody else. It’s something I missed in the war. My job was a very solitary one.’

  ‘That is very sad,’ she said.

  ‘Uh-huh,’ he growled with a shrug. ‘Well, we Westerners have a saying, “You’re never too old to learn.”

  ‘There’s the other side of that .com,’ said Earp. “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.”

  Hatcher smiled. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘take your pick.’

  ‘He says you asked him about an old Thai legend.’

  ‘Oh? What legend was that?’

  ‘The legend of the Thai Horse.’

  ‘He was only partly right. I wasn’t talking about the old Thai Horse legend, I was talking about the new Thai Horse legend.’

  ‘The new Thai Horse legend?’

  ‘I’m looking for one who calls himself Thai Horse,’ Hatcher replied, staring straight into her dark brown eyes.

  ‘I do not understand,’ she said_

  ‘I think Mr. Earp does,’ Hatcher said.

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ said Earp. ‘Why don’t we stop kidding each other,’ Hatcher said bluntly. ‘I was told that a man named Murphy Cody calls himself Thai Horse.’

  ‘Cody was killed in the war,’ Earp said, almost too casually.

  ‘Maybe not,’ Hatcher answered.

  ‘And why would he do this? Call himself Thai Horse?’

  ‘Because he buys and sells heroin. He kills others and steals it from them. He buys babies and kills them and smuggles dope in their bodies.’

  Namtaan looked at Hatcher for a few moments, then turned abruptly and entered the house. Earp followed her, stopping at the door.

  ‘C’mon,’ he said to Hatcher. ‘She won’t bite.’

  The interior of the small house was dark and cool. The windows and shutters were closed against the early afternoon sun and an air conditioner purred softly somewhere. Sunlight slanted through the slats in the shutters, casting harsh slivers on the plank flooring. She sat down on an ancient, battered sofa.

  ‘Sit down,’ she said.

  Earp leaned against a table sipping his drink. Hatcher sat down on the opposite end of the couch.

  ‘Who is this Cody?’ she asked.

  ‘Why are you so interested?’

  ‘Please, cooperate with me for a few minutes,’ she said almost plaintively.

  As Hatcher and Namtaan talked, the other regulars started drifting into the room. Prophett and Melinda sat quietly in a corner, Prophett sprawled loosely in a chair, making aimless little marks on the floor with the toe of his good foot. Riker leaned in the doorway, drinking a beer, and Gallagher sat on the arm of a chair with his arms folded across his chest. Hatcher tried to ignore them.

  ‘Murph Cody is the man I came to Thailand to find,’ he said emphatically. ‘I’m only interested in Thai Horse as it relates to him.’

  ‘Why do you seek him?’

  ‘It’s personal.’

  ‘Do you know him?’

  ‘We were friends a long time ago.’

  ‘Is that why you are looking for him?’

  Hatcher thought about the question for a moment, then said, ‘That’s part of it.’

  ‘Who told you Cody called himself Thai Horse?’ Earp asked.

  As Hatcher’s eyes became more accustomed to the room he became aware that there was another person there. The old Chinese who had been attending the cook pots had also entered the room. He was a dim figure, an old, stooped man sitting in the darkest corner of the room.

  ‘A man named Wol Pot, a North Vietnamese POW commandant during the war. His real name was Taisung and he ran a camp called the Huie-kui in Laos.’

  ‘And how did he know Cody?’

  ‘I think Cody was one of his prisoners.’

  ‘I told you,’ Earp repeated, ‘Cody was killed in a plane crash in 1972.’

  ‘And how would you know that?’ Hatcher asked.

  ‘I read it somewhere,’ Earp snapped back.

  ‘A common misapprehension, said Hatcher.

  ‘Misapprehension?’ Namtaan said.

  ‘A lie.’

  ‘Why do you think so?’ she asked.

  ‘Because it was to Wol Pot’s advantage to turn up Cody. He wanted a visa to the United States. Cody was to be his trade.’

  ‘And why would Cody be that important?’

  ‘His father was general of the army during the war.’

  ‘Perhaps this informant was playing a game.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘But you don’t think so?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You give such quick answers, Mr. Hatcher, I hope you don’t feel like I am interrogating you,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘You are interrogating me,’ he said.

  ‘This is all a lot of bull,’ Earp piped in suddenly. ‘I don’t think so,’ said Hatcher. ‘I think Murphy Cody is alive.’

  ‘Because of what that greaseball told you?’

  ‘That has something to do with it.’

  ‘I don’t believe a word of this,’ said Earp. ‘He’s Sloan’s man.’

  ‘I’m not Sloan’s anything. He hired me to do a job.’

  ‘Christ, he admits it!’ said Earp.

  Hatcher tried to ignore them. ‘What have you got against Sloan?’ he asked.

  ‘We think he hired you to turn up Cody and kill him,’ said Earp. ‘Do you deny that?’

  Hatcher was stymied. What Earp said was true.

  ‘No, I don’t deny it,’ Hatcher said.

  The honesty of his answer obviously surprised everyone in the room.

  ‘But,’ he went on, ‘I didn’t accept the job on those terms.’

  ‘What were your terms?’ Earp said with a sneer.

  ‘That I would find Cody — if he was alive — and deliver a message to him.’

  Earp turned away in disgust and shook his head. ‘Jesus!’ he said.

  ‘Listen to me, Wyatt. This started out to be a simple job. Find Murphy Cody and deliver a message, that’s all. In Bangkok, Sloan changed the signals on me.’

  ‘Earp whirled to face him. ‘How?’

  ‘He wanted me to make a judgment call. If Cody was mixed up in something — embarrassing, he implied I should get rid of him. Sloan never says anything directly. He’s a master of innuendo. And incidentally, I have as much right as anybody to hate Sloan. He framed me and I spent three years in a Central American scum hole called Los Boxes.’

  ‘And you still took this job?’

  ‘That’s right. I figured if anybody could find Cody I could.’

  ‘And you accepted those terms, right?’

  ‘I had to make a choice: stay with the mission and try to find Cody, or take a walk, in which case Sloan would have brought in some cold-blooded bastard to do the job.’

  ‘What makes you different? You once killed for him on a daily basis.’

  ‘Just like you did in CRIP, right?’ said Hatcher angrily. ‘I was a soldier just like you were. I did what I was ordered to do.’

  The remark shut Earp up for a moment. He looked away.

  ‘You know I’m not stupid,’ Hatcher said, sweeping his arm around the room. ‘If I wanted to kill Cody, I sure as hell wouldn’t do it when I’m outnumbered ten to one.’

  ‘You seem pretty convinced that Cody and this baby-killing dope smuggler are one and the same.’

  ‘I’m not sure what I believe about Thai Horse,’ Hatcher said. ‘What I do believe is that Wol Pot, or Taisung as you call him, knew Cody was a
live.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘The rest is all conjecture. What I call the equation.’

  ‘The equation?’ said Gallagher.

  ‘Like a mathematical equation, except that you use information instead of numbers.

  He looked around the room at the rest of the regulars.

  ‘For instance, I know Wol Pot was really a Vietnamese prison commandant named Taisung. I know Wol Pot claimed that Murph Cody is alive in Bangkok. And I also know that Wol Pot was probably telling the truth.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Early.

  ‘Another part of the equation. Eventually Wol Pot would have had to produce Cody to get his visa. To reveal himself was risky because the U.S. could have found out about his past. But he was on the run, and his only chance was to produce Cody. Without him, he didn’t have anything. It would have been like offering to produce — Elvis Presley.’

  ‘Anything else?’ Riker asked skeptically.

  ‘Yeah, there is something else. I also know that Johnny Prophett’s real name is Paget, and that he and Gallagher, and Benny Potter, Riker, and Max Early were all reported missing in action at about the same time in roughly the same area of Vietnam. I’m not sure, but probably Wonderboy and Corkscrew could be included on that list.

  ‘So, the equation tells me that it’s possible all of them were captured by the VC and were in Wol Pot’s prison camp. And since Wol Pot knew Cody, I assume he was there, too.’

  Riker snorted. ‘You got a lot of guts,’ he said.

  ‘Any more to that equation?’ Corkscrew asked.

  ‘One more thing. Wol Pot also claims that Cody is a killer and a dope smuggler who calls himself Thai Horse. I also heard from a source in the government that there’s a rumor on the street this Thai Horse is a drug dealer.’

  ‘And what’s the old equation tell you about that one?’ Riker asked.

  ‘Perhaps I should take you off the spot, Mr. Hatcher,’ said Namtaan, tapping her breast. I am the one known as Thai Horse.’

  Hatcher’s surprise was genuine, so much so that Namtaan broke into a smile for the first time since they had entered the house.

  ‘I did not mean to shock you,’ she said.

  Hatcher quickly recovered his composure. He started to laugh. ‘I don’t believe a word of that,’ he said.

  ‘Nevertheless, it is true,’ she said.

  ‘I gave her the name, Hatcher,’ Johnny Prophett said.

  ‘Yeah, everybody knows that,’ said Gallagher.

  ‘I don’t know it,’ Hatcher said hoarsely.

  ‘You don’t know a helluva lot, soldier, but you sure do a lot of guessing,’ Earp said.

  Hatcher stared down at Pai. His recognition of her had come gradually. At first he had thought she was someone he had met before, someone from the past. He wanted to see her without the facial makeup — unlike Wonderboy, whose painted face was his reality.

  ‘Okay, I’ll try one more,’ Hatcher said, staring at Namtaan. ‘I’m guessing your name is Pai.’

  ‘My name is Namtaan.’

  ‘Sure. But it was once Pai. Fifteen years ago in Vietnam. You were Cody’s lady fair.’

  ‘That is a nice way of saying it.’

  ‘I have a picture of you taken in 1972. It was obvious you were devoted to him, and I’m sure you still are.’

  ‘Why are you looking for him, Mr. Hatcher?’ she said, quite earnestly.

  ‘Like I said, I have a message for him.’

  ‘You have come all this way to deliver a message?’ she said with disbelief.

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘And Cody was your friend?’ said Namtaan.

  ‘That was a long time ago. But old friendships die hard.’

  He stopped, and she continued to stare deeply into his face.

  ‘And if Cody was this baby killer, what would you do then?’ she asked.

  It was a question that had gnawed at Hatcher since his last conversation with Sloan, a decision he had wanted to avoid. Now he had to make it.

  ‘I didn’t come here to judge Murphy Cody,’ Hatcher said. ‘I’ll admit the thought I might have to kill Cody has crossed my mind a lot in the last few days. But no matter what he’s done, I’m through playing judge, jury and executioner. I’ve had enough of killing. Somebody else can do the dirty work from now on. I came to deliver a message, period, and that’s what I intend to do.’

  In the gloom of the dark room, the regulars were all quiet. There was no doubting the sincerity with which Hatcher had spoken.

  ‘And who is this message from?’ Namtaan finally asked.

  ‘That’s between Cody and me.’

  ‘There are ways we can find out,’ said Earp.

  ‘Not from me,’ Hatcher growled.

  Riker chuckled at the remark. ‘Son of a bitch, I’m beginning to believe that,’ he said.

  ‘You feel that responsible to this Cody, do you?’ Namtaan asked.

  ‘The message is very personal. I’ll make it face-to-face or not at all.’

  He suddenly turned toward the old figure in the corner, squinting his eyes and peering through the gloom at him. The last time Hatcher had seen the old man, he had been backing away from him in an alley in Bangkok after killing Wol Pot.

  ‘This old gentleman killed Wol Pot. He also had a clean shot at me, started to take it, and changed his mind. I’ve been asking myself why ever since.’

  ‘And what did you decide?’ Johnny Prophett asked.

  ‘Aw, c’mon,’ Hatcher whispered, staring across the dark room at him. ‘None of you would’ve let a stranger do your dirty work. Whatever reason you had to kill Wol Pot, and I can think of a lot of them, if it was to be done, one of you would have done the trick. It’s not your style to give the job to an old man.’

  ‘That’s very astute,’ Earp said.

  ‘So the answer is, he’s not an old man. He’s one of you.’

  He turned back to the old man.

  ‘Right, Polo?’ he whispered.

  The stooped Chinese stared across the room at Hatcher. Then he started to chuckle. He stood up, and then he stood erect, adding another three inches to his height. He limped across the room toward Hatcher.

  ‘Well, I’m sure as hell older. I haven’t heard that nickname since the academy, Hatch,’ said Murphy Cody.

  THE SECRET OF HUIE-KUI

  Hatcher felt a sudden rush of excitement. He had not been sure until that moment that Cody vas really alive. Now, looking at his old friend, he felt a sense of relief and joy.

  Namtaan opened the shutters. Sunlight invaded the room, filling its dark corners.

  ‘Jesus, Polo, I’m glad you’re alive,’ Hatcher said. ‘I don’t remember you as being so tough,’ Cody said. ‘I didn’t remember you with white hair,’ Hatcher whispered with a smile, trying to break the tension.

  ‘Part of the act,’ Cody said. Every wife is very good at makeup and disguise. My real heir still has a little color to it.’

  ‘What happened to your leg?’

  ‘Tore it up when I fell out of my plane. How about your box?’

  ‘Walked into a gun butt.’

  ‘Funny how simple stories become after a while,’ Cody said. ‘With time, an hour-long story is reduced to a sentence.’

  He seemed taller than Hatcher remembered and thinner. Whatever bad cards had been dealt to Murphy Cody through the years had taken a toll, although the powdered beard and age lines added illusion to reality.

  ‘Look,’ said Hatcher, ‘if you think you can trust me, I’d like to have a couple of minutes in private.’

  Cody thought about that for just a moment, then turned to the regulars.

  ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Leave us alone for a minute, please. Namtaan, you stay.’

  The regulars scuffled out of the room.

  ‘I’ve thought a lot about you through the years,’ Cody said, leaning against the windowsill, and stared out across the fields, and then he chuckled. ‘We saw some good days together, didn’t we?’
/>
  ‘That’s a fact,’ Hatcher said.

  ‘Remember that New Year’s Eve? We went to New York, both ended up in bed with that girl, what was her name?’

  Hatcher had to think for a minute before he remembered. ‘Linda.’

  ‘Yeah, Linda.’

  ‘A very compassionate soul, Linda.’

  ‘Wasn’t she, though,’ said Cody’. He turned to face Hatcher. ‘You know, I’ve owed you an apology for a long time.’

  ‘You don’t owe me anything, Polo.’

  ‘I had dinner in Saigon with my- dad about a month before I went down. The last time I saw him. He told me you were in Nam working undercover for him and had been for a couple of years. I felt about an inch tall, remembering what I said that night in San Diego. I guess my mouth ran a lot faster than my brains in those days. For what it’s worth, I apologize.’

  ‘Thanks. That means a lot to me.’

  ‘You’re a persistent son of a bitch, you know.’

  ‘I’ve been told that.’

  ‘So what’s the message, Hatch?’ Cody asked seriously.

  ‘It’s from your father.’

  Cody was surprised. ‘My father knows I’m alive?’ he said.

  ‘That’s what I was sent over here to determine.’

  ‘Forget it,’ Cody said. ‘Let the dead stay dead.’

  ‘There’s no way to put this gently,’ said Hatcher. ‘Your father’s dying of cancer.’

  Cody was jarred. He stared into space, then sucked in his lower lip. His eyebrows bunched together. ‘Oh Jesus,’ he said, and his shoulders suddenly sagged and the middle went out of him and he reached out and leaned against the window shutters. The seams in his face grew deeper. After it sank in for a full minute, he asked, ‘How long?’

  ‘Six months, maybe, if he’s real lucky.’

  ‘Oh God . . .‘ The words choked off in his throat. He lowered his head and tears ran down his cheeks. Pai stood beside him and put her arm around his waist.

  ‘Y’know, I never thought I’d see him again, I took that for granted. I just never thought about . . . that someday . .

  ‘He doesn’t care what you’ve done or what you’re doing,’ Hatcher said huskily. He just wants to know you’re alive, to see you once before he dies.’