“Irv, explain. You look frightened.”
“This is no joke, sweetheart. Give it to me and you’ll be out of this.”
“So, it wasn’t a gift meant for my father, and you never knew my grandfather.” She grabbed her backpack off the back of her chair and reached inside.
“No, Riley, I knew Ozzie. But that’s a long story and Benny’s following me. I gave him the slip this afternoon, but my guess is he’s no more than ten minutes behind me. It is too late to prepare for danger when our enemies are upon us. If I don’t give him that thing back, he’ll kill us both.”
“Benny, huh. Kill us?” Riley rummaged around inside the pack. “You’re serious?”
She pulled out her wallet and Peewee stopped working his teeth long enough to stare at her.
“I’m dead serious,” he said. “Give it to me.”
Riley threw several hundred baht onto the table, then zipped her pack closed and threaded her arms through the straps.
“Riley, this is no game. We’ve already used five minutes.”
“I guess we shouldn’t waste our lead time then.” Riley pushed back her chair and stepped around the old man.
“You don’t understand,” he said.
“You’re right. Explain it to me while we get out of here. I’m willing to listen.” She opened the door to the kitchen. “After you.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Suit yourself,” she said, and she stepped through the door.
The kitchen was tiny. The only person back there was an old woman who was standing over a stove. She looked up in surprise as Riley crossed toward the back door. Pausing, Riley stuck her head out and checked the alley in both directions. Nothing but trash cans as far as she could see—which wasn’t far in the pitch-black night. From the corner of her eye, she saw the old woman’s head swing back toward the dining room. Riley turned around and Peewee came trotting through the kitchen, looking like he was about to piss himself.
“Come on, old man,” she said. “Follow me.”
Mandarin Oriental Hotel
Bangkok, Thailand
November 17, 2012
Elijah swirled the ice in his glass and then drank the last sip of his watery scotch. The flimsy paper on the table in front of him was printed in multiple languages, but the print was tiny. There wasn’t enough light at his table out on the Riverside Terrace to read the instructions for the little twenty-dollar disposable cell phone he’d purchased at a 7-Eleven on the way in from the airport. He signaled the waiter to bring him a second drink. When the man arrived, Elijah asked him if he could provide him with a flashlight so he could read the activation instructions for his phone.
“I would be happy to assist you with that if you would like, sir.”
Elijah liked that about this hotel. They knew how to treat a man. And unlike some of the less exclusive hotels, they never made “cowboy” comments about the way he dressed.
“I’d appreciate that.” He handed the man the phone and the cards with the pass codes for adding the minutes he had purchased.
The waiter walked over to the bar and held the phone under the light. He pressed buttons and checked the numbers on the cards.
Elijah liked the fact that the man stayed where he could keep an eye on him so he’d know if the waiter dropped the phone or something.
Unfortunately, that was his reality. He could not count on anyone to do things as well as he could do them himself. God alone knew what was happening back on the ranch with Caleb left to his own devices. Or take Belmonte. It made no difference that the man didn’t even know who he really worked for or the stakes involved. He was a Filipino, so how could he understand what the Enterprise was truly all about? From the moment of her birth America has had her enemies. It was only once they found the gold here in the Philippines that men like Elijah had acquired the resources to fight those enemies without government interference. His predecessors had successfully fought the communist threat through all those Cold War years, and now the Enterprise would deal with the Global War on Terror just as well. Even if Belmonte couldn’t appreciate why, resmelting the gold for export was his job, and the old man was the key to their new supply. Belmonte never should have let him escape.
After a couple of minutes, the waiter returned.
“Here you are, sir.” He set the phone down on the table.
“Thanks. I’ll let you know when I’m ready to order.”
Elijah had selected this table because it was off in an isolated corner and there were no other diners nearby. He could have made this call from the room, but he wanted a drink and the opportunity to admire the great view of the river and the city skyline.
He liked Bangkok but he didn’t get to come here often enough. Maybe he’d stick around this time once he’d finished his business here. Meet a nice Thai girl. He understood they were even better than the Filipinas when it came to knowing how to treat a man right. He deserved it after all he’d done for the Enterprise lately.
Before he’d left Baguio, Belmonte gave him Benny’s Bangkok number, and Elijah had committed it to memory. He dialed the number and it only rang twice.
“Yeah?”
“Benny, it’s Mr. Hawkes.”
“Hey.”
“So, what do you have to report?”
He didn’t answer for several seconds. Elijah knew it wasn’t going to be good. When the news was good, guys from the field couldn’t wait to tell you.
“I saw the old man pass something off to a woman. She’s American. I assume it’s what you’re looking for. No one gives me those details. The woman got away.”
Elijah tried to insert a comment, but Benny kept right on talking.
“I got my hands on the old man and convinced him to take me to her. I don’t trust him so I let him go, and I’ve been following him. He’ll take me to her. I’m standing outside a hotel now and I’m certain they’re both inside.”
“Describe her.”
“She’s about five foot six, light brown hair down to her shoulders. Midthirties but still looks good—like an athlete. She can run.”
Benny might find her attractive, but Elijah knew he wouldn’t. American women disgusted him. So many of them were strident feminists and man-haters with ridiculous ideas about equality. They had no respect for the natural order that God intended. Not like Asian women. “How’d you let her get away in the first place?”
“I think she had help.”
“Really.” Elijah wondered if she represented competing buyers. “Any idea who she is?”
“Not yet. But I will.”
“That’s what I want to hear. You usually do better work than this.”
“What do you want me to do when I have her in hand?”
“Bring both of them to me. I’m staying at the Oriental. And if she had help, we need to know who she’s working for.”
“Anything else?”
It was the way he said it, like he, Benny, was dismissing him.
Elijah clicked the red button to disconnect. One of these days he was going to teach that savage some manners.
Thanon Phra Arthit
Bangkok, Thailand
November 17, 2012
Benny heard the phone disconnect. He pulled it away from his ear and looked at the small screen. The man had just hung up without a word. He hated working with Hawkes. He’d only done it a couple of times before, but every time, he did weird shit like this. He had some inflated sense of self-importance, and he went out of his way to demand respect. Demanding it didn’t work. You had to earn it.
He stood at the corner of Phra Arthit and a narrow alley where he could keep an eye on the door to the Napa Place hotel about a hundred meters away. Benny knew the old man he was after was over ninety years old. He must have a strong heart to have lived this long. Benny hoped it would stay strong so he would last awhile under Benny’s attentions—when he got his hands on him. He intended to make the old guy suffer for what he did today. It was too bad that Hawkes wanted him to b
ring both the woman and the old man back to him alive. That made his job more difficult. But also more valuable.
When he’d found the men’s room empty at Wat Arun, Benny had run for the docks. The ferry had just pulled out, and he saw the old man’s cap in the middle of the Thai passengers. There was a long-tail boat tied to the far side of the dock, but the driver was nowhere to be seen. Benny jumped into the boat and began searching for how to start the engine himself. The driver, who was sitting under a tree on the temple grounds, shouted at him and came running down a ramp. By the time the boatman arrived and Benny had struck a deal for passage across the river, the ferry was almost to the dock on the opposite bank.
Benny had some luck on his side. On the far side of the river when he jumped out of the long-tail boat, there was a loudmouthed woman in the ticket booth who called out to him when he started asking people on the dock about the old man. She remembered (after he’d showed her one hundred baht) hearing Peewee asking if anyone had heard of a place called Napa House.
When Benny got to the street, he hailed a taxi. The first driver was very young, and he had never heard of Napa anything, but on his second try he found an old man who said he knew of a Napa Place. Benny told him to hurry.
Now he was wondering if the old man had beat him there or if he was still asking for directions. If they were in a hotel room, he couldn’t go room to room opening doors. Then he had an idea, and he pulled out his cell phone. He got the number from the information service and dialed the hotel.
“Hello, I’m trying to find my sister. Do you have a Marguerite Riley registered there?”
“Just a moment please.”
Benny stared down the narrow street and began inching his way closer to the front of the hotel. Every time the door opened, he tried to see inside.
The voice came back on the phone. “Hello? Are you still there?”
“I’m here,” he said.
“Yes, your sister is registered at this hotel.”
Benny picked up his pace. He reached for the door.
“I believe she is in the restaurant right now.”
Benny clicked the phone off and thrust it into his jeans pocket. When he yanked open the door, he saw the double doors leading to the restaurant across the lobby. He ran across the lobby and stopped at the threshold. All the tables were occupied by diners except one. A single dirty plate and a half-finished glass of beer were all that was left. A slender girl was taking an order from a large family of European tourists. Benny grabbed her arm and she let out a cry of surprise.
Benny pointed at the empty table. “Was an American girl sitting there?”
She nodded her head.
“Where is she?”
The girl looked confused. She obviously had not seen her customer disappear.
The father of the family spoke in English with a heavy German accent. “They went into the kitchen.”
He spun around to face the big blond man. “They?”
“Yes. An older American man joined her and they left a few minutes ago.”
Benny didn’t bother with thanks. He ran for the kitchen door.
Thanon Phra Arthit
Bangkok, Thailand
November 17, 2012
The first thing Riley did was make Peewee take his damn hat off. He pulled it off his head, folded it flat, and handed it to her. Without it, he could get lost even in a crowd of Thai people—with it, he was unmistakable.
“Don’t call me old man,” Peewee said. “I can keep up. I still go to the gym every day.”
“Good,” Riley said. “I’ll remember that when we have to start running.”
They were making their way up the dark alley, deeper in the Banglamphu district, away from the river and the main road along the waterfront. The narrow passage was filled with garbage from the back doors of all the shops and restaurants on either side. But the doors were all closed—not surprising, given the stench from the rotting food and the sound of scurrying feet, which she assumed belonged to rats. Riley still hadn’t stopped to put her sandals on—something she wanted to do before she injured herself in the dark.
On the left, she saw a door that was propped open with a block of wood. She poked her head into the crack and saw an empty musical instrument shop. The lights were off, but the shop was lit from the neon sign outside the front window. Guitars and ukuleles hung from the ceiling, while drums and percussion instruments she did not recognize littered the floor.
“Come on. Inside.” She swung the door wide and they stepped inside. Off to their right, she heard the sound of a toilet flushing. “Make sure the front door’s open. I’m going to put my shoes on,” she whispered.
It only took a couple of seconds to pull the sandals out of her backpack, but she had trouble sliding her dirty feet along the soles and under the straps.
Riley was bent over, tugging at the heel strap of her shoe, when she heard a door open close by in the darkness. She wiggled her toes to slide them in, and just as her heel at last slid through the strap the straw end of a broom whacked her across her back.
“Ow!”
Riley stood up and blocked the next blow from the broom. The lady was screeching in Thai at her. Holding her hands in the universal sign of surrender, Riley backed toward the front of the shop. She heard Peewee open the shop’s front door behind her.
Then beyond the woman, close to the back of the shop, she saw movement. The back door swung inward and the light from the street lit the pale blue work shirt and reflected off the threads of silver in his hair.
“Go, Irv!”
Just as Riley made it out the door, she heard a loud crack as the broom handle hit something hard and the shop owner started screaming again.
This street wasn’t much wider than the back alley, but it was full of nighttime tourists out to have a good time in Bangkok. While the crowd would slow them down, that was a good thing for Peewee. She heard him struggling to get his breath. But it would also slow the man behind them. Riley was certain the shopkeeper and her broom would not hold him back for long.
She turned left and herded Peewee past the restaurants with couches and burning tiki torches, the tattoo parlors, and the clothing stores selling knockoff designer labels, back down in the direction of the river. She couldn’t have explained why, but the streets of the city seemed to pose a greater danger. She always sought refuge on the water.
They reached Thanon Phra Arthit sooner than she thought they would. It seemed they had not really gone so far in that dark, garbage-filled alley. The traffic was jam-packed and a skinny, white-gloved Thai traffic cop was trying to move the cars along. He held his palm up toward the pedestrians as he waved the cars along.
When Riley stepped off the curb in front of a bright pink taxi, the cop blew his whistle at her. Placing one hand on Peewee’s shoulder, she steered him across the street with her. The taxi screeched to a stop and the driver poked his head out the window and began yelling at her in Thai. She continued at a brisk pace, dodging between and around vehicles as though she were deaf, despite the traffic cop who was blowing that damn whistle and sounding like a tea kettle in hell.
As she reached the far sidewalk, Riley heard a woman scream and risked a quick glance over her shoulder. The traffic cop had his wood baton out trying to stop the guy Peewee had called Benny. On the sidewalk behind them, a crowd was gathering around someone who was on the ground.
She grabbed Peewee’s hand and said, “In here,” and pulled him into the lobby of the Hotel New Siam Riverside. In the window she had noticed a sign about riverside dining, so she figured they could cut through and get off the street.
Irv’s breaths were wheezing in and out and his shoulders slumped. She hoped he wasn’t going to collapse on her. Yeah, he worked out, as he’d said, but still, he was ninety-three. Then again, there weren’t many ninety-three-year-olds who would have made it this far.
The concierge stepped out from behind a podium with a broad smile on his face. “May I help—”
The man pointed to the dark bar, and he began extolling the virtues of the menu in their restaurant. He didn’t make it past the first course before they were out of earshot.
Behind the center bar, floor-to-ceiling windows showcased the colored lights of a bridge and the high-rise buildings on the opposite bank. There was a surprising amount of traffic out in the middle of the river.
At first she couldn’t see any way out of the bar. Then, far over to her left, she saw a sliding glass door that stood open. When she got to the opening, she saw a broad cement deck and the turquoise water of a large swimming pool. Two handsome young men in hotel uniforms stood on either side of the door. When Riley and Peewee started through, the young men both put their arms out to stop them.
“Sorry, the swimming pool is closed.”
“We don’t want to swim. My grandfather wants—” Riley began to explain, but Peewee just bulldozed his way through the young men. He seemed to be counting on their courtesy toward their elders, and it was working. She hurried to catch up to him.
On the far side of the pool was a concrete wall about four feet high that separated the hotel pool deck from the riverfront. When Riley leaned over the wall to look down at the wooden public walkway, she saw that the planking was another five to six feet lower than the pool deck. A ten-foot drop wasn’t a big deal for her, but for old bones, she wasn’t so sure.
They both looked back at the windows that fronted on the pool deck. Across the bar, they had a clear view of the black-and-silver-haired man speaking to the concierge.
“Benny,” Peewee whispered.
Riley saw Benny reach into that leather satchel he carried and pull out a long stick. She remembered him using it to hit people at the market.
Dragon's Triangle (The Shipwreck Adventures Book 2) Page 10