by R. J. Jagger
“You’re all over the news,” Sarapong said.
“I know that,” Wing said. “What’s going on, do you know?”
“All I know is they’re searching your place.”
“Do me a favor,” Wing said. “You’re my attorney on this. Go over there and find out what’s going on. I’m gong to keep my cell phone powered off so they can’t trace the location, but I’ll power up and call you at exactly midnight.”
“Done.”
“Thanks, I owe you.”
Wing hung up and before he could power off, the phone rang.
It was Vutipakdee.
“Big news, my friend,” the man said. “I just had a little chat with our P.I. friend, Kanjana. She told me who killed Tookta.”
“So who was it?”
“Some guy named Nick Teffinger,” he said. “He’s an American, a big guy with long black hair. A man from a bar across the street spotted the little bastard coming out of Tookta’s window after he killed her.”
Wing’s breath stopped.
The words cut into his brain with the power of a death star.
Teffinger.
Teffinger.
“Your work is done,” Vutipakdee said. “I’ll be opening those doors for you. We’ll start next week, if you’re free.”
Great.
Okay.
Talk to you.
WING POWERED OFF, LOOKED at Jamaica and said, “The guy I’m being blackmailed to kill, Teffinger, is the one who killed Vutipakdee’s daughter, Tookta.”
She stopped the wine halfway to her mouth.
“Teffinger killed Tookta?”
Wing nodded.
Then smiled.
“This is the absolute, best thing in the world that could have happened,” he said. “Vutipakdee didn’t come right out and say it, but he’s going to kill Teffinger, either personally or by hire.”
“You think?”
“Damn right I think,” he said. “That’s what this whole investigation was about, nasty little revenge. Teffinger’s murder will get me out from under the blackmailer, if he’s true to his word. That whole complication ends up disappearing. On top of everything, Vutipakdee will open those doors for me that he promised, unless of course he gets caught. All we can hope is that he doesn’t.”
Jinka rested her head on Wing’s shoulder.
He put his arm around her.
“All we need to do is deal with whatever it is that’s happening at my place,” he said. “If it relates to Rain, we need to have a story in place as to why we met with Po Sin earlier in the evening.”
In the distance, a dog barked.
“We could say we were in Hong Kong to set up the framework for a video shooting,” he said. “It actually fits, because I told that to Cho when I rented the Junk from him. He’ll back me up if the cops talk to him. Somehow, we just need to tie Po Sin into the video.”
“Where do you know him from, anyway?”
Wing exhaled.
“He’s the brother of one of the women who danced in a few of my videos, a woman named Tasia,” Wing said. “He used to hang out at the rehearsals with his girlfriend, a woman named Mogi. I developed a little bit of a crush on her but never let on, given that she was Po Sin’s girlfriend. I did, however, talk to her as much as I could. Po Sin was always there, so I got to know him a little by default. I learned that he did a lot of shady things. I had him do a little deal for me and things worked out fine. Then I gave him another little project and that worked out fine. He did what he was told and kept his mouth shut.”
Jamaica took a swallow of wine.
“What did Mogi do, for a living?”
Wing chuckled.
“Nothing,” he said. “With a face like hers, she didn’t have to.”
“That’s it then,” Jamaica said. “The story is that you were meeting with Po Sin to try to find out where Mogi was to use her in the video.”
Wing clinked glasses.
“The big question is whether the cops found my blood at the scene,” he said. “I can’t talk my way out of DNA. Maybe that’s what they’re doing at my loft right now, gathering up DNA to match.” A pause, then, “You know, you’re pretty cute when you think like a criminal.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“Prove it,” she said.
WITH WINE BUZZING HIS BRAIN, Wing took her, hard, right there on the rooftop under the Bangkok night. Afterwards, they laid on their backs and looked at the sky. The lights of Bangkok cast a soft patina on a low blanket of clouds.
Wing had never loved a woman more in his life.
Not even close.
“Don’t ever leave me,” Jamaica said.
“We’ll die in each others arms,” he said.
“Promise?”
Oh, yeah.
Absolutely.
Without question.
“I’m glad you feel the same way,” he said. “I’d be a mess if you didn’t.”
“How could I not?”
A dog barked.
Not too far off.
The barking got louder.
It didn’t stop.
Wing stood up, surveyed the nightscape and saw nothing unusual.
Still, the barking didn’t stop.
“Come on,” he said.
“What is it?”
“I got a bad feeling.”
91
Day 4—August 16
Thursday Night
THE VEHICLE SKIDDED TO A STOP. Still hogtied, naked and blindfolded, Prarie got pulled out of the trunk by strong hands that carried her a short distance, set her on the ground and slapped her ass. The car sped away. Seconds later, a hand ripped her blindfold off. She opened her eyes to find herself in front of the canal house with Kanjana staring at her wide-eyed.
“You’re safe baby, I got you.”
“Untied me!”
Kanjana fumbled with the knots, swore, then ran inside for a knife and cut her loose.
Being tied up in the same tight position for hours did something that wouldn’t let Prarie’s body get back into normal shape. When she moved, the pain went straight to her skull. Kanjana kneaded her muscles until the flexibility returned, then got her inside on the couch, wrapped her in a blanket and brought her water.
“I had to tell him who killed Tookta, otherwise he was going to kill you,” Kanjana said. “I gave up Teffinger’s name. It was the scariest thing I ever did. I thought he would kill me as soon as he had what he wanted. You too.”
Prarie rubbed circulation back into her wrists.
“Who was he?”
“I don’t know, he was wearing a mask,” she said. “He’s going to kill Teffinger, no question.”
Prarie took a sip of water.
“We have to warn him.”
“How?” Kanjana said. “When he called me it was from a payphone. I don’t have his number. And we only met that one time at my office, for all of two minutes. He barely told me anything.” A pause, then, “Did you get a look at who took you?”
No.
She didn’t.
The man who took her was by himself.
He was insanely strong.
“So what do we do?”
92
Day 4—August 16
Thursday Night
TEFFINGER AND JINKA came out of the underbrush after Petchpon got sufficiently past, then crept over to the house he’d been staking out and got the address. By the time they got back to the car, Petchpon was long gone. Jinka used her handheld to log onto a database at work.
“Someone named Kanjana,” she said. “That’s who owns the house.”
“Pull up her driver’s license and see if she’s the other woman on Petchpon’s wall.”
She did it.
“It’s a match,” she said. “Why didn’t he make his move?”
Teffinger tossed hair out of his face.
“Foreplay,” he said. “He gets off on the fact that he can walk in there at any time and do it. The hunt
’s a lot more exciting than the kill. I’ve seen guys like him a hundred times.”
Silence.
“Do you think he’ll be back?”
“You mean tonight?”
Right.
Tonight.
“You never know,” Teffinger said. He kicked the gravel and said, “Here’s the plan. You stay here and guard the house in case he comes back. I’m going to take your car and see if he went back to his place. If he did, I’m going to have a talk with him.”
“A talk?”
“Right.”
“What kind of talk?”
“The kind of talk where he admits he killed Aspen,” Teffinger said. “Then I’m going to snap his neck.”
“You’re forgetting something,” she said.
“What?”
“He doesn’t speak English.”
Teffinger laughed.
“How’d I miss that one?”
She grinned.
She didn’t know.
“Enough’s enough,” she said. “It’s time for him to die. Tonight. You stay here. I’m going to do it.”
No.
No.
No.
“I’ll do it,” Teffinger said.
“Are you sure?”
Yes.
He was.
THEY HELD EACH OTHER, long and tight, then Jinka hopped out. Teffinger kicked over the engine, turned the car around and headed to Petchpon’s.
He pictured Aspen underwater.
Dead and trapped.
His heart got darker with every kilometer.
“This is for you,” he said.
THE LIGHTS WERE ON inside the house and Petchpon’s car was in his driveway.
Good.
The witching hour was here.
Teffinger approached on cat feet from the railroad yard and paused when he got to the back of the house. The sound of a TV came from deeper inside. The talking was constant, much like a newscast. Petchpon was shouting now and then, animated and angry. At first, Teffinger thought he was on the phone, but the more he listened, the more he realized the man was responding to the TV.
Teffinger slid the back window the rest of the way open, ever so quietly.
He muscled his six-foot-four frame through the window and dropped into the spare bedroom.
He took a deep breath.
Then headed for the main room.
Petchpon didn’t see him until the last second, at which point he bolted for a gun on the end table.
Too late.
Teffinger was already on him.
The man was no match.
Teffinger got him on his back, straddled his chest and pushed his thumbs into his throat.
The man twisted and jerked.
Frantic.
Teffinger didn’t let up.
The twitching got less animated, less strong, less intense.
Petchpon’s eyes lost their focus and rolled back into his head.
Suddenly, something snapped in Teffinger’s skull.
This was wrong.
Wrong!
Wrong!
Wrong!
He pulled his thumbs out of the man’s throat.
Petchpon didn’t react.
Teffinger slapped his face.
Again.
Again.
Then Petchpon gasped for air.
Still alive.
Teffinger hopped off his chest, busted out the front door and ran into the night.
93
Day 5—August 17
Friday Morning
WING CALLD SARAPONG AT MIDNIGHT and got good news. The cops were at his loft because someone gave them an anonymous tip that he had cocaine there, bags and bags of cocaine to be precise. They didn’t find anything and left.
“Who called them?” Wing asked.
Sarapong didn’t know.
Even the cops themselves didn’t know.
“It was anonymous, but whoever it was, it was someone who’d been in your place before,” he said. “They gave the cops descriptions of where to look. They knew the lay of the land, no question about it.”
“So now what?”
“Now nothing,” Sarapong said. “I talked to them about issuing an apology or statement, given all the publicity, but they’re not going for it. You’re just going to have to get the word out on the street yourself that it was all a bunch of nothing.”
Wing nodded.
Fine.
With all the stuff going on in his life, that was hardly a blip.
“I do have some advice, though,” Sarapong said.
“Are you going to charge me for it?”
Sarapong laughed.
“I started charging two hours before your first call,” he said. “Seriously, someone’s out there to get you. If they’d planted cocaine somewhere before they called the cops, you’d be up the unsanitary tributary without any means of propulsion right now. Change your locks. Go through your apartment centimeter by centimeter and be sure nothing’s there that shouldn’t be.”
That was last night.
Wing could have gone home, but was already settled in at the warehouse with Jamaica.
Sweet, sweet Jamaica.
HE WOKE AT THE FIRST RAYS of dawn Friday morning, already busy trying to figure out who set him up, when a scary thought entered his head.
Moon.
It might have been Moon who set him up.
She might have figured out he was tied in with Po Sin and ended up with the Monets. The call to the cops may have been a warning shot across the bow, something to rattle him so that he took her seriously when she demanded the paintings back.
Speculation.
That’s all it was, speculation.
Still, it fit.
Moon had been in his loft before.
She knew the turf.
WING CALLED VUTIPAKEE and said, “I’m going to ask you a question and I want to be straight with me, because if you’re going to do what I think you’re going to do, I can help. Are you planning to kill Teffinger?”
A beat.
“Yes.”
“When?”
“I don’t know yet. I need to come up with something foolproof.”
“So it might be days from now?”
“Theoretically, yes. Why?”
“I came across an opportunity to set him up,” Wing said. “It’s a situation where he’ll think he’s going to be faking his own death. The twist is, you can make it real. Are you interested?”
He was.
Very.
“But I don’t get how you can set something like that up. What’s your connection to him?”
“Someone wants him dead and has blackmailed me into killing him,” Wing said. “When you told me he was the one who killed Tookta, I thought great, you’ll kill him and I’ll get off the hook with this other person.”
“Who is this other person?”
“I don’t know,” Wing said. “But here’s the twist. I need to have Teffinger dead today to get out of my end of the problem. So I figured we could help each other. I’ll set him up and you kill him. We need to do it today, though.”
Sure
Fine.
No problem.
“What I’m going to do is have him go somewhere remote to meet with someone who’s supposed to be a special effects guy to make it look like he’s been stabbed in the chest. He’ll think that the guy will then take pictures of him, showing him dead. He’ll think that I’ll then use those pictures to prove I killed him. All you have to do is pretend to be the makeup guy. You’ll have the knife out, ostensibly as a prop. You shove it into his chest. Just don’t screw it up. I don’t want him coming back at me.”
“Sounds good.”
“I already talked to him about doing the fake,” Wing said. “He hasn’t committed yet, but wants me to call him with details. Since it’s just going to be a fake photo shoot, I don’t think he’ll have any problem doing it. I’ll call you back right after I talk to him.”
�
�You do that.”
WING CALLED TEFFINGER and got no answer.
He hung up and tried again.
No answer again.
94
Day 5—August 17
Friday Morning
PRARIE WOKE FRIDAY MORNING to an empty bed with no Kanjana in it. She called out, got no response, and searched the house with a racing heart. There was no Kanjana, no note, no nothing.
The woman was gone.
Vanished.
A knock came at the front door.
Weird.
Prarie opened up to find the last two people on earth she expected, Emmanuelle and Jean-Didier. The man had a gun in hand and motioned with it for Prarie to step back. She did. They followed, then closed the door behind them.
“What’s going on?”
“The journal is what’s going on,” Emmanuelle said. “Where is it?”
“What journal?”
The woman punched her hard in the side of the head. Her knees wobbled and she fell to the floor.
“Don’t play stupid, we’re not in the mood.”
Through the pain, Prarie had a thought.
A terrifying thought.
“You’re the one who killed Sophie.”
Emmanuelle looked at Jean-Diddier and said, “Give her a cigar.” Then to Prarie, “Where is it?”
“I don’t know.”
“Bullshit!”
“Someone stole it,” Prarie said.
EMMANUELLE PACED and put a disappointed look on her face. “You want to do this the hard way. That’s fine. We don’t really care.” Then she kicked Prarie in the ribs. “Sophie wanted to do it the hard way and we obliged her. So did Claude Morel, and we obliged him. Now we’ll oblige you.”
Claude Morel.
The professor.
“You killed him?” Prarie said.
“Another cigar,” she said. “I have to admit, you pick good people. He wouldn’t give us the translation, no matter what we did to him. He took a lot of pain. More than I would have been able to, if you want to know the truth. But that’s history. The only that matters right now is you. Take your clothes off. I like to work on bare skin.”
“You’re insane.”
“You have no idea.”
Suddenly the woman’s foot jerk back and then launched at Prarie’s face.