The Next Best Thing

by Wiley Brooks

  “Won’t be necessary, chief. I’m just gonna walk around a bit to get a feel for the place. I stopped by to see you mostly to find out if there has been anythin’ new since the report you filed with Kuala Lumpur.”

  “Not really. I didn’t have the manpower to send one of my men to Tioman to track down the three other backpackers. I did talk with the captain of the fishing boat who took them to the island, but it didn’t produce anything. He took them to the pier and dropped them off. He said the German fellow came up to the bridge once on the crossing, but they didn’t talk about anything important.”

  “So chief,” Mason said while pulling out a small map of Mersing. He had marked the police station on it. “It would be kind of you to show me on the map where the Happy Song and the Portside Café are.”

  The chief looked at the map, took a pen and marked two Xs on it. By one, he wrote “Hotel” and by the other “Café.”

  “Well, thank you, chief. I should be out of your hair tonight or first thing in the mornin’. Just doin’ my job, you know. If I learn anything new at all, I’ll swing back by and tell you.”

  With that, Mason rose, as did the chief. They shook hands and Mason left.

  His first stop was the Happy Song Hotel. It looked as if it was at least fifty years old and perhaps was last painted shortly after World War II ended. It had a regular house door in front. He opened it and walked in.

  “Hello, you want room?” a Chinese Malay man asked him in a clipped accent when he walked in.

  “Is the manager here?” Mason asked.

  “I manager. You want room?”

  “No,” Mason said. “I’m here about the girl who was kilt here last week.”

  “I already talk to police. You not need to know. Goodbye.”

  Mason reached into his pocket and pulled out an American twenty-dollar bill and placed it on the counter. That was ten times more than Amanda paid for her room. “I just wanna talk. If I learn somethin’ new, I put another twenty dollars on the counter for you. Okay?”

  “I talk. What you want?”

  “Let’s start with your name. I’m Mason. What should I call you?”

  “I Pug. Everybody call me that.”

  “Okay Pug. Start from the beginnin’ and tell me everythin’ you remember about that night.”

  Pug said he saw the five backpackers get off the bus at the bus stop halfway down the street. They walked to the Happy Song, but only the four came in.

  “What did the other one look like?”

  “He backpacker,” Pug said.

  “Okay, but was he as tall as me? Did he have brown hair? Anything stand out about him?”

  “He maybe tall as you. Hair like you, too. He not white like you and the others.”

  “Oh. That’s interestin’. Was he black?”

  “No. Just not white.”

  “Malaysian?”

  “He backpacker!” Pug said. “He across street.”

  Mason asked to see the register from the night they all checked in. Pug opened to the page and turned around the book. Pug pointed to the four names. They matched the police report, but Mason also wrote down their names as spelled in the register and their passport numbers.

  “They want to see rooms. Dead girl take room nine on second floor. Other alone girl take room twelve. Couple take bigger room on this floor, room three.”

  “I’d like to see Amanda’s room.”

  Pug grabbed a key and walked up the stairs. Room nine was last one down the hall on the left.

  “Where does this door go?” Mason asked about the door at the end of the hall when they reached Amanda’s room.

  Pug opened it to show Mason that it was a back exit.

  “Was this door unlocked the night Amanda was killed?”

  “Door always unlocked from inside. Fire escape.”

  Pug then took Mason into Amanda’s room. It was small but had a private bathroom. Mason surveyed the setting. In his mind, he could see what likely happened. Amanda got up after the sex and went into the bathroom to pee and freshen up. The killer would have stood behind where the door would open. He’d have a knife in his dominant hand. When she came out the door, he would move up behind her swiftly. Undoubtedly, he would put his hand tightly over her mouth to stifle a scream, then quickly slice through the front of her neck. The whole thing would take maybe two seconds. The killer probably knew that if he cut deeply enough that she’d be unable to make any sounds. Mason could picture him easing her body onto the bed to let her bleed to death.

  Her turned back to the hotel manager.

  “What time do you go to bed, Pug?”

  “Late.”

  “How late were you up that night.”

  “One in morning.”

  “So, they came back to the hotel after 1 a.m.”

  “No, they come earlier. Maybe midnight.”

  “Really. There was nothin’ in the police report about you seein’ them arrive.”

  “Police not ask. Police ask if I was at desk when they came in. I said no because I not at desk.”

  “Where were you?”

  “My room behind desk. I look out when I hear door. I see it her, so not get up.”

  “So, you saw her. How about the guy?”

  “Just peek. Same guy from bus.”

  “Did they say anything?”

  “Whispers. I no hear words.”

  “Anything else you can tell me?”

  “German guy come back a few days ago.”

  “You mean one of the backpackers?”

  “Yes.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He ask when other girl check out. Said she not come Tioman.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “I tell him she dead,” Pug said while pulling his finger across his neck.

  “What did he say when you told him?”

  “He look sick. Then he cry a little.”

  “Did you tell the police he was back?”

  “No one ask me to do that.”

  “Is he still here?”

  “No. Leave next day.”

  Mason pulled a second twenty-dollar bill and handed it to Pug.

  “Thank you, Pug. You’ve been a big help. I’m gonna head down the back exit.”

  Pug was wearing a big smile, already thinking what he might do with forty US dollars.

  Mason opened the door and left. On the ground, he stopped and looked around. No windows faced the small backyard. This is how he left, Mason thought. It would be easy for someone to sneak away like this in the middle of the night.

  It was too early to go to the Portside Café. The travelers and Amanda were there in the evening, so that’s when he wanted to arrive. He walked about the town a bit. He strolled past the docks where the fishing boats were moored. He likely would need to take one to Tioman the next day to find the other travelers. They spent more time with the killer than anyone he could talk with in Mersing. They’d probably be able to give him a better description. Back outside the police station, he got in his rental car and drove to his hotel.

  Boonsri had booked him one night at the Mersing Hotel, a far cry from a Hilton but several heads and shoulders above the Happy Song. His room was spacious with an air conditioner that pumped out refreshingly cool air from above the room’s one window.

  It was 2 p.m. The twelve-hour time difference between Malaysia and Washington, D.C. made it too early to call Fitz for an update on the other murders. He’d do that after the Portside. He did check in with Boonsri, but she had nothing new to tell him. So he closed his eyes and within minutes was asleep.

  It happened again. He saw a young woman clearly. She was in the street between Mason and General Tho. She was attractive and looked to be about twenty. A baby, perhaps four or five months old, was in a strap on her back.

  In the nightmare, both the woman and the baby were peering at him. The woman’s face had a haunting quality. She knew, Mason realized, that her life and that of her little boy were about to
end. Her eyes bore into him and seemed to beg to know why.

  Then, in a sudden burst, she and the baby turned to smoke and blew away. Mason woke up and began to cry. In his heart, he knew she, like the waiter, were real. Had he really killed that little baby? Yes, he had. It took him a while to pull himself together.

  What was most unnerving to him, though, was why now, after nearly fifteen years, was he having these visions? What did it mean? And the bigger question: Would they stop?

  Mason took a bottle of Jack Daniels from his bag and poured a couple fingers into a glass. “Pull yourself together,” he told himself again. He downed the whiskey, feeling the burning tingle as it traveled through his throat.

  He walked into the bathroom, unrobed and took a long, hot shower, then shaved. Back in the main room, he tuned the TV to the English language station and caught up on the day’s world news.

  Why did the news always have to be so bad? Markets were crashing around the world and the mother of all typhoons had killed more than eight hundred people in the Philippines. President Reagan was in Berlin. He gave a speech at the Brandenburg gate between West and East Berlin. He used the speech to send a message to the Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, to “tear down this wall.” “Fat chance,” Mason said to the commentator on TV.

  The shower and TV did what he needed done. They distracted him. Still, his mind would out of the blue flash on the young Laotian woman and her baby from his nightmare. Whenever it did, an icy cold would overtake him.

  Mason walked into the Portside Café at a little after seven o’clock. About half the tables were filled, as well as several seats at the bar. Soccer, or football as it is called everywhere except America, was on the TV above the bar. Another TV in the dining room was airing an episode of Cheers.

  TV was the way Mason stayed connected to America. He hadn’t been back since he first arrived in Southeast Asia in early 1972, not even for his dad’s funeral. He would have done that, but he was on a job when it happened and he didn’t get the message until too late. He had since called his mom once a month. She wanted him to come home, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it.

  Mason didn’t really know why. While he had been eager to get away from the small town where he grew up and away from the farm, he loved his mom and dad. He and Sylvie had planned to take a month back Stateside for the wedding. Mason had wanted to take Sylvie to meet them before heading on to her parents’ place in Connecticut.

  After Sylvie’s death, the Vientiane chief of station suggested that maybe Mason should take a break and visit his folks. Mason, though, was too focused on his secret plan to get revenge to heed the advice.

  Once he moved to Bangkok Mason became obsessed with American TV shows. It wasn’t an easy obsession in Thailand. Pirated videotapes of movies could quickly be found, but TV shows took work and patience. He had a network of people who would sell him black market tapes of shows. That was how he came across Cheers. One of his sources said he would love it and he did. The current TV shows weren’t on when he left the US in 1972. He loved some of those old shows. He could still find himself singing the theme song to The Beverly Hillbillies at the oddest time.

  Come and listen to my story about a man named Jed,

  A poor mountaineer, barely kept his family fed,

  And then one day he was shootin’ at some food,

  And up through the ground come a bubblin’ crude.

  Oil that is. Black gold. Texas tea.

  Maybe, he thought, he should start singing that song in his mind whenever he had flashbacks to the bombing.

  But Cheers had become Mason’s favorite series. He had all the shows on tape through the previous season. He wished Bangkok had an English language network like Malaysia so he wouldn’t have to wait for shows to be available on videotape. Even on the black market, there was a major lag. He watched the show on the TV in the dining room for a bit, but it’s not the same with the volume turned off. Then the bartender was standing in front of him.

  “Good evening, mate. What will you have?”

  “You’re Australian?” Mason asked as he broke into a broad grin. “Didn’t see that comin’.”

  “Yep. I’m a Sydney boy. I’m Michael. Can I pour you a freezer beer or would something else do for you?”

  Mason ordered a Heineken and watched as Michael pulled one straight from a freezer behind the bar. He popped the lid, was about to set it on the bar, then paused.

  “You a glass guy?”

  Mason shook his head no, then reached and took the bottle from Michael.

  “So, what brings you here? You’re a wee bit older than my usual expat customer.”

  “Actually, I came to talk to you.”

  “Me?” the bartender asked, then without missing a beat added, “Oh. About the girl?”

  Mason introduced himself, then told Michael that Amanda’s father had hired him because he wanted the guy tracked down. He knew that it would never happen if he left it to the police.

  “Got that right, mate. I’m not sure how much help I can be but give it a go. I’ll have to dart around a bit, though.”

  With that, two fellows at the other end of the bar waved him over and he was off. When he returned, Mason didn’t jump into the formal interview. Instead, he just chatted with Michael and how Michael ended up tending a bar in Mersing. Michael said he’d been a bartender at places like the Portside all over Malaysia, Thailand and even in Bali.

  Mason switched to his preferred drink, Jack Daniels straight up. By half past eight, business at the Portside was slowing. Mason got to the reason he was there.

  He laid a photo of Amanda on the bar.

  “You recall her, right?”

  “Yeah. Pretty girl. Had a great laugh. Had she come in here alone, I would have talked her up myself. It’s one of the perks of the job. It’s a bloody shame what happened to her. I hope you find the guy.”

  “Tell me what you remember.”

  “She was the last to arrive. The first were a couple – a German guy and his American girlfriend – and another single girl. A ginger, she was. And a looker, too. They had been here just a few minutes when the other guy showed up. They saw him when he came in and called his name.”

  “What did they call him?”

  “Joey,” Michael said. “Maybe five minutes later, the Amanda girl came in. The German bloke pulled another chair to their table between him and the Joey guy.”

  “Did they drink a lot?”

  “No. Not a lot. The German guy had three or four beers. The others a couple. That’s not much considering that they also were here to eat.”

  “Did you notice anythin’ about how they acted,” Mason asked, “or maybe what they talked about?”

  “They acted completely normal, you know. They talked a bit about Tioman, I know that. The Joey guy had been there before and was telling them about it. They also talked about other places they had been. They bitched about the bus ride from Melaka. Sounded like they were in a non-air-con bus and it was hot and dusty.”

  “They didn’t all leave together,” Mason said, making it sound like a question.

  “No. Joey and Amanda stayed, ordered another beer and asked if I’d tune the TV above the bar to TV3. It was time for L.A. Law. I don’t know how they knew that, but they did. I figured as long as they were drinking beer, they could watch whatever they wanted. There were only about six or seven people left in here by then. When the show came on, I turned on the volume.”

  “Did they stay for the whole show?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Did they appear attracted to one another?”

  “Hard to say, mate. They weren’t touching or anything like that.”

  “So, describe Joey to me.”

  “He’s about five feet ten, give or take. I’d say about eighty kilos. He looked very fit. He had some muscles. You could see them under his tee-shirt. Oh, he had a nasty scar on his left forearm.” Michael used his finger to trace a line about eight inches long on the top of
his left forearm. It was clean, like a knife wound. I bet that sucker hurt when it happened.”

  “That’s good info. How did he look, though? You know, eyes, hair, nose. That kind of stuff.”

  “He was a good-looking bloke. He was presenting himself as an American. I mean he sounded exactly like an American. But I’m not so sure.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Well, working this job you meet a lot of people from everywhere. After a while, you can pretty much guess where someone is from before they say it. This Joey guy was not easy. It wasn’t that he looked Malay. His facial features weren’t right. But his skin color was spot on Malaysian.”

  “Couldn’t he have been American with African or Hispanic blood in him?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Malaysians have a little yellow tint to their skin color. You don’t see that in Americans, or other Westerners, for that matter. Wherever he is from, he’s part Malaysian, or Indonesian. No matter what his eyes and nose looked like, he wears the skin of someone from here.”

  “I will say he had nice, soft features,” Michael continued. “His face, you know eyes, mouth, nose, even his eyebrows could have been American, but that was the extent of it.”

  “What about eye and hair color? Did you notice those?”

  “His hair is definitely Western. Kind of a light brown. Most Americans seem to have brown or blonde hair, don’t you think? His was thick and wavy. It wasn’t long, but a longer style than you see on locals. That’s for sure. I have no idea about his eye color, but he had nice eyes. Like I said, he was a good-looking guy.”

  Before Mason headed back to his hotel, he asked Michael if he had an idea when he could take a boat to Tioman. Michael smiled and said anyone in Mersing could answer that question. “It all has to do with the tides,” he said. “The fishing boats need a high tide to leave the docks. That would be around 9:30 the next morning.”

  Mason thanked him and was about to head back to the hotel when Michael thought of one other thing.

  “He’s left-handed,” Michael said. He drank with his left hand. That’s how I first saw the scar.”

  Mason thanked him again and left. When he got back to his room, he made a list of new information.