The Solitary Man (Stephen Leather Thrillers)

by Stephen Leather

  ‘He wants you to choose one,’ Park explained.

  The Irishman shrugged carelessly. ‘You choose,’ he said.

  Park squatted down and tapped one of the machines with his finger. The man with the tiger tattoo picked up a screwdriver and quickly removed a panel from the bottom of the video recorder. He pulled out three polythene-covered packages containing white powder and handed one to the Irishman.

  The Irishman walked over to a stack of boxes. He indicated the cardboard box at the bottom of the stack. ‘That one,’ he said.

  The man with the tiger tattoo began to talk quickly but Park silenced him with a wave of his hand. Park said something in Thai but the man continued to protest. ‘He says it’s too much work,’ Park translated. ‘He says they’re all the same.’

  The Irishman’s eyes hardened. ‘Tell him I want to see one from that box.’

  Park turned to the man with the tattoo and spoke to him again. There was something pleading about Park’s voice, as if he didn’t want to cause offence. Eventually the man with the tattoo shrugged and smiled at the Irishman. He waved his two colleagues over and they helped him take down the upper boxes until they had uncovered the one on the bottom. They dragged it into the centre of the space. The man with the tattoo handed a crowbar to the Irishman and pointed at the box.

  ‘He wants you to—-’

  ‘I know what he wants,’ said the Irishman, weighing the crowbar in his hand. The metal was warm and his palms were damp with sweat. He stared at the man with the tattoo as if daring him to argue, but the Thai just smiled good-naturedly as if his earlier protests had never occurred. The Irishman inserted the end of the crowbar into the top of the box and pushed down. There was a crashing sound from the far end of the warehouse followed by shouts. He looked across at Park.

  The man with the tiger tattoo pulled his gun from his belt and ran towards the entrance to the warehouse. His two companions followed. Park yelled at his own two men to go with them.

  ‘What’s happening?’ shouted the Irishman.

  ‘Maybe nothing,’ said Park.

  ‘Maybe nothing, my arse,’ the Irishman shouted. ‘This is a fucking set-up.’ He jumped as a gun went off, the sound deafening in the confines of the building. There were more shots, louder than the first. The Irishman glared at Park. ‘Maybe nothing?’ he yelled.

  Park looked left and right, then grabbed the Irishman by the arm. ‘This way,’ he said, pulling him down the aisle. They ran between the stacks of boxes.

  ‘Is it the cops?’ asked the Irishman, gasping for breath.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Park. ‘I don’t know.’

  A bullet thwacked into a cardboard box above the Irishman’s head and he ducked down. ‘The cops wouldn’t just shoot, would they?’ he asked.

  ‘This is Thailand,’ said Park. ‘The police can do anything they want.’ He kicked an emergency door and it crashed open. Sunlight streamed in, so bright that the Irishman flinched. Park seized him by the belt of his jeans and pulled him across the threshold, then stopped dead.

  It took the Irishman a second or two to realise that the once noisy street was now totally silent. He blinked and shielded his eyes from the blinding sun. The stall-owners had gone, and so had the crowds. Khaki Land-Rovers had been arranged haphazardly around the building and red and white barriers had been erected across the alley. Behind the vehicles and the barriers crouched men with rifles, in dark brown uniforms and sunglasses. The Irishman whirled around but immediately knew that there was no escape. They were surrounded. Three rugged Thais with assault rifles stood at the emergency exit, their fingers on the triggers of their weapons.

  A megaphone-amplified Thai voice echoed off the walls of the alley.

  ‘Drop the crowbar,’ said Park calmly. ‘Drop the crowbar and put your hands above your head. Very slowly.’

  The Irishman did as he was told.

  THE PANELS PROTECTING THE CD player swished open as the young man brought his hand close to the controls. He slotted in the CD and pressed the select button until he got the track he wanted. A few seconds later the mournful tones of Leonard Cohen filled the apartment: ‘Hey, That’s No Way To Say Goodbye’. The smoked glass panels whispered shut again. He stood with his eyes closed and let the music flow over him, swaying backwards and forwards like a sailor trying to maintain his equilibrium on a gently rocking boat, breathing softly through his nose.

  He didn’t open his eyes until the track had finished, and then he went over to a low coffee table and picked up the remote control unit. He aimed it at the stereo as if it were a loaded gun and selected the same track again.

  The sliding glass door leading to the balcony was open and the night breeze blew in, chilled by the East River. The young man was wearing only a white T-shirt and blue jeans but he showed no sign of noticing the cold. He stood looking over the water, its glistening black surface speckled by moonlight. He stretched his arms out in front of himself and breathed deeply, like a high diver preparing to leave his board. He closed his eyes, then after a few seconds opened them again.

  ‘Damn you, Charlie,’ he whispered. ‘Get the hell out of my mind.’

  He went back into the lounge and grabbed the telephone off the sideboard. He tapped out her number and paced up and down in front of the stereo as he waited for her to answer. Her machine kicked in. The young man didn’t wait for the beeps. He cut the connection. She was there, he was sure she was there. It was three o’clock in the morning, where else would she be? He pressed the redial button again and got the engaged tone. For a second his heart leaped as he thought that maybe she was calling him, but then he realised that it was probably her answering machine resetting itself.

  The stereo went quiet but before the CD player could move on to the next track, he pressed the replay button. There was only one song on the album that he wanted to hear. He hit the phone’s redial button again. ‘Hi, this is Charlotte . . .’ He clicked the phone off. The answer machine was by her bed and he knew that Charlie was a light sleeper. How dare she ignore him like this? It wasn’t fair, he thought angrily. She had no right to do this to him.

  He took the phone out on to the balcony. He wondered if there was somebody with her, somebody else lying under the thick feather-filled duvet. He stabbed savagely at the redial button. ‘Hi, this is Charlotte . . .’

  He glared at the phone and for a moment considered throwing it away. He pictured it arcing over the river, twisting in the night air like the bone thrown by the ape in 2001 just before it turned into the spaceship. He smiled at the image. It was a great movie, he thought. Maybe he’d put Charlotte in a screenplay, have her be the victim of a knife-wielding maniac, stalked and terrified and eventually butchered. That was the great thing about being a writer: nothing was wasted. Every experience, every emotion, it could all be put to use. Even being dumped.

  His word processor sat on a desk by the kitchen door, stuck in the corner so that he wouldn’t be distracted by the view from his window. He switched it on, but immediately realised that he wouldn’t be able to write. He’d barely written anything since Charlie had told him that she needed time alone. Space, she said. She needed space. That had been two weeks ago, and now he was behind on two assignments and his tutor was breathing down his neck wanting to see his work in progress. It was all Charlie’s fault, he thought. She’d given him writer’s block.

  He opened the bottom drawer of his desk and took out a small leather bag that had once contained a shoeshine kit. He weighed the bag in his hand, then tapped it against his cheek. The leather was soft and supple and he could still smell shoe polish. He thought about ringing her one last time, but he couldn’t face listening to her perky message again. He dropped down on to the sofa, unzipped the bag and laid out the contents on the coffee table, then took a small polythene bag of white powder from the back pocket of his jeans. He’d bought the drug the previous day from his regular supplier, a small, weaselly thirty-something man who lived on 77th Street and who delivered as promptly
as a pizza company, promising a twenty per cent discount if he didn’t arrive within an hour.

  The young man hummed along with the CD as he prepared the heroin. It was one of the reasons that Charlie had said she wanted some time on her own. She’d said that he was crazy using the stuff and that only addicts injected. He’d told her that it was safe, that he never, ever shared his needles or syringes, and that it was more cost-effective to inject. And when he’d said that she didn’t appear to have any reservations about smoking pot or sniffing cocaine she’d lost her temper and accused him of being obtuse. He smiled to himself as he drew the heroin up into the syringe. Obtuse, he thought. She didn’t get it and she thought he was obtuse.

  He took the leather belt from around his waist, deftly wound it around his left upper arm and tightened it. He’d only been injecting for two weeks or so but he had no trouble in raising a vein and injecting the contents of the syringe. His supplier had shown him how to do it, had even thrown in the first few hits free of charge. Not that he couldn’t afford to buy his own: the drug was cheaper than it had ever been. As he’d told Charlie, it was almost cheaper getting high on heroin than it was getting a buzz from beer. And without the calories. He put the empty syringe down on the coffee table and loosened the belt, then settled back on the sofa, his eyes closed, a lazy smile on his face as he waited for the rush. The telephone began to ring, but to the young man it sounded as if it was a million miles away. He tried to open his eyes but the effort was too much for him; it was as if his eyelids had been sewn shut. Something felt wrong, but he couldn’t work out what it was, then the feeling passed and his jaw dropped open and a thin dribble of frothy spittle oozed from between his lips. His breathing grew slower and slower and then stopped altogether.

  The telephone continued to ring out, then it too stopped and the only sound in the apartment was the humming of the word processor.

  THE YOUNG GIRL KNELT down and pulled a spinach plant out of the ground. She shook the reddish soil from its roots and put it in the large wicker basket with the ones she’d already picked. She hated gathering vegetables from among the poppy plants. It was back-breaking work, made all the harder because she had to take care not to damage any of the poppy plants as she moved across the field. Her father had explained to her how important the vegetables were, how the beans and spinach helped keep the field clear of weeds, and how they added nutrients to the soil, nutrients that would enhance the poppy crop. The better the crop, the more opium the poppies produced, the more money her father would make. The girl stood up and arched her back. Something clicked, like a small twig snapping. She wiped her hands on her black trousers then rubbed the base of her spine with her knuckles.

  It would be almost two months yet before the opium plants would be ready. The red and white flowers had yet to appear, though the girl could see already that it was going to be a good crop. The plants were over a foot tall, strong and healthy, and the majority had five stems per plant. Her father had said that was a good sign. In a bad year, there would be only three stems on a plant. Four was good, five was reason for celebration. She picked up the basket and carried it a few steps forward. Her mother wanted a full basket of spinach, enough to feed the men in the compound. The men paid well for fresh vegetables. They were soldiers, not farmers, and didn’t like getting their hands dirty. She bent down and pulled up another plant.

  She jumped as she heard a loud snort from behind her. She dropped the plant in surprise and whirled around. A large white horse stood at the edge of the field, its rider wearing a camouflage uniform and dark sunglasses watching her. He had a peaked cap on his head, also of camouflage material, and strapped to his back was a rifle. The man kicked the horse with his heels and the animal moved forward.

  The girl opened her mouth to tell the man to be careful, that his horse was trampling the poppies, but something about his demeanour warned her that he would not take kindly to being told what to do. She put her hand over her mouth. The horse snorted again. It was a huge animal, the top of the girl’s head barely reaching its shoulder. She had to bend her neck back to look up at the man’s face. He was middle aged, smooth shaven with a round face that might have been pleasant if it weren’t for the sunglasses. They were so black that she couldn’t see his eyes.

  The man smiled for the first time showing white, even teeth. ‘Ga-la had-you dumnya,’ he said.

  The girl was suddenly embarrassed at the unexpected greeting and she averted her eyes.

  ‘Chum ya-ah you con-tee?’ he asked.

  The girl blushed furiously. Why did he want to know her name?

  ‘Can’t speak?’ said the man, amused by her silence.

  ‘No, sir. I mean, yes, sir.’

  ‘How old are you, child?’

  ‘Fourteen, sir.’

  She glanced up, saw that he was still smiling at her, and bowed her head again and clasped her hands. The man walked the horse slowly around her. She could smell its warm, sweet breath and she could hear the clink of its bridle and the thud of its hoofs on the soft earth, but she steadfastly refused to look up.

  ‘What is your name, child?’

  ‘Amiyo, sir.’

  ‘Do you know who I am?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Are you sure? Have you never heard of Zhou Yuanyi?’ She caught her breath. Everyone knew of Zhou. Zhou the warlord. Zhou the opium king. ‘Well?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Look at me, child.’ The girl looked up. The horse snorted as she did and she flinched. ‘There’s no need to be afraid,’ Zhou said. He looked enormous, sitting astride the animal. His riding boots shone, and there wasn’t a fleck of dirt on his uniform. In his right hand was a leather crop. The horse stamped its feet impatiently. Amiyo looked up at the man’s face. She could see her reflection in the sunglasses. ‘Have you been up to the compound?’ he asked.

  She nodded. Her mother took her with her when she delivered vegetables to the kitchens there. It was where the soldiers were based, and where the opium was processed.

  ‘I want you to come along to see me tonight.’

  ‘But, sir, my father—-’

  ‘Your father won’t mind,’ he interrupted. ‘Tell him you’ve spoken to me.’

  ‘Sir, I . . .’

  Zhou slammed his riding crop against the horse’s neck. The horse jerked away but Zhou kept a tight grip on the reins and swiftly brought it under control. ‘Do not argue, child.’

  Amiyo lowered her eyes and said nothing.

  Zhou ran the tip of his crop along her left arm, down to her elbow. ‘That’s better,’ he soothed. ‘Tell your mother you are to wear something pretty.’ He kicked the horse and it broke into a trot.

  Amiyo didn’t look up until the sound of the horse’s hoofs had faded away. There were tears in her eyes.

  THE TWO MEN SAT together in the corner of the bar, their heads so close that they were almost touching, as if one was a priest hearing the other’s confession. The older and more priestly of the two had thick greying hair and he peered over the top of a pair of hornrimmed spectacles as he listened.

  The confessor, at fifty-two years old a full decade younger than his companion, had florid cheeks as if he’d spent much of his life outdoors and had the stocky build of a labourer. His hair was grey but thinning and from time to time he ran a veined hand over the top of his head as if to reassure himself that his comb-over was still in place. ‘He’s just a boy, Mr McCormack,’ he said, his voice a low growl. ‘We can’t let him rot in that hellhole.’

  Thomas McCormack nodded. ‘I know, Paddy.’

  ‘He did as he was told. He kept his mouth shut, he told them nothing.’

  ‘I know, Paddy, and we respect that.’ McCormack lifted his glass to his mouth and sipped his whiskey.

  ‘My own sister’s boy, Mr McCormack. Can you imagine what she’s been like these past few weeks? Fifty years. Fifty years without parole. Jesus, even the British don’t hand out sentences like that.’

  McCormack put hi
s glass down on the small circular wooden table. ‘Paddy, it’ll be taken care of.’

  ‘When?’ Paddy Dunne glared at McCormack with cold, hard eyes as if daring him to look away.

  McCormack met the man’s stare. For several seconds their eyes remained locked, a mental trial of strength that neither man was prepared to lose. McCormack reached across and laid his hand on Dunne’s sleeve. ‘You’ve got to trust me. It’s going to take time.’

  For a moment it looked as if Dunne was going to argue but then he slowly nodded. ‘Okay, Mr McCormack. I’m sorry. Okay.’ He pulled his arm away from the older man’s touch and cupped his large nail-bitten hands around his pint of Guinness. ‘Ray’s not taking it well, you know? It’s a hellhole, a cockroach-infested, AIDS-ridden hellhole. I’m not sure how long he can stand it.’

  ‘Soon,’ said McCormack. ‘You have my word.’

  Dunne drank his Guinness, then wiped his upper lip with his jacket sleeve. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

  McCormack shook his head. ‘Best you leave it with me, Paddy.’ Dunne drank again, draining his glass. McCormack caught a young barman’s eye and nodded at the two empty glasses.

  ‘Fifty years,’ muttered Dunne. ‘Fifty bloody years. That’s almost as long as I’ve lived. What sort of people are they, Mr McCormack?’

  McCormack shrugged.

  The barman came over, placed a glass of foaming Guinness and a double measure of whiskey on the table. ‘Compliments of Mr Delaney,’ he said, picking up their empty glasses. McCormack raised his glass in salute to a small, neat man in a tweed suit who was standing at the end of the bar. Jimmy Delaney was the owner of the establishment and an old friend of McCormack’s. Delaney lifted his own glass and nodded at McCormack but made no move to come over, realising that the two men didn’t want to be disturbed.