by R. J. Jagger
She tried to block it.
Colors exploded inside her head.
Emmanuelle was yelling at her.
She could tell.
But the words came from behind a thick fog that kept them unintelligible.
They got dimmer and dimmer.
Then everything went black.
95
Day 5—August 17
Friday Morning
TEFFINGER WOKE UNDER A CANAL BRIDGE Friday morning, exhausted from twisting and tossing on barren ground all night, with nerves already on fire from the stress of being hunted by every cop in Bangkok.
Jinka didn’t know where he was.
He had to keep her out of it.
Last night, after attacking Petchpon to near death, Teffinger drove to the canal road, gave Jinka her car and told her what happened.
“I couldn't do it.”
“You had him—”
“His eyes rolled back,” Teffinger said. “Something snapped. I had to stop.”
“He’ll kill you,” Jinka said. “You’re a dead man.”
“I already know that,” he said. “Take the car and go back to your place. Stay out of it.”
“No!”
“Listen—”
“No,” she said. “We’re in this together. I’m going back to Denver with you.”
Teffinger grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her.
“There is no more Denver,” he said. “Don’t you get it? This will follow me there. Starting from this moment, I’m on the run for the rest of my life.”
“Then I am too.”
“No you’re not because I’m not going to do that to you.”
He turned.
And ran into the night.
“Teffinger!”
He kept running.
“Teffinger, come back here!”
He wanted to.
More than anything, he wanted to.
But he keep putting one foot in front of the other.
That was last night.
Now it was morning.
He had one thought and one thought only. Get to Kanjana’s and prey that she’d sneak him out of the county.
96
Day 5—August 17
Friday Morning
AT SOME POINT after she blacked out, which could have been two minutes or two hours, Prarie felt something hot stinging her face and opened her eyes to find Kanjana slapping her awake. She went to move and found she was tied to a chair. Kanjana said, “Don’t scare me like that,” got a knife from the kitchen and cut her loose. Two bodies lay dead on the floor.
Emmanuelle Roux.
Jean-Didier Thomas.
“Who were they?” Kanjana asked.
“They were after the journal.”
“Come on, we got to get out of here,” Kanjana said.
“Where?”
“Someplace safe first,” she said. “Then we’re going to find the treasure and disappear off the face of the earth.”
Prarie rubbed circulation into her wrists.
“Fine by me.”
They threw essentials into suitcases then headed out the front door, right into a large man, who pushed them back inside. “Remember me?” he said to Kanjana.
“Of course.”
“I almost killed a detective last night, a man named Petchpon,” he said. “Every cop in Bangkok is looking for me. I need to get out of the country.”
She studied him.
“I’ll pay,” he said. “I have money.”
A beat.
“Let’s go.”
They headed to the car.
Teffinger ended up in the back seat, lying down in a balled-up position, under a blanket.
They squealed out.
TWO MINUTES into the drive Prarie said to Kanjana, “I need to be honest with you about something. I acted surprised when you read the journal to me. Actually, I had already had it translated back in Paris by a professor named Claude Morel. I also had him draft a new page to mis-describe the location of the treasure and make it look like part of the original journal. The actual location is near the rock that’s described in the journal. That way, if I hired someone to help me find it, they could get me to the rock but they wouldn’t find the treasure. I could then go back after they left, knowing the true directions from the rock, and get it. That was just a precaution to keep someone from double-crossing me.”
“So what I read to you wasn’t the proper location?”
Correct.
“What I photographed, and what you read, was the page drafted by the professor, not the original page. After I got the journal transcribed, I went to a lawyer in Paris by the name of Lucas-Henn Lambert, to find out if I had any legal rights to the treasure if I was able to locate t. His answer was long and complicated but in the end it was basically, No. The best way to get the treasure and keep it would be to smuggle it out of Thailand.”
Okay.
So?
“Emmanuelle Roux found out about the journal from the lawyer,” Prarie said. “The lawyer didn’t have a copy of the journal or the translation, though, he only knew about it. He did know, however, that it had been translated by the professor, Claude Morel, who might have a copy. Emmanuelle and her boyfriend, Lucas-Henn, paid a visit to the professor to get his copy of the journal. He wouldn’t tell them where it was and they killed him. Then they paid a visit to my friend, Sophie, and killed her to find out where I was.”
“Wow.”
Right.
Wow.
“Do you remember the true location of the treasure?”
“It’s in my head.”
“That’s all we need,” Kanjana said.
“The only problem is that whoever has the original journal will also have the true location,” Prarie said. “That’s the reason I’ve been so intent on getting it back.”
Silence.
Then Kanjana said, “Was you plan to get me to help you find the rock cropping and then cut me out of the treasure?”
“It might have entered my mind in the beginning,” Prarie said, “but not now.”
97
Day 5—August 17
Friday Morning
KANJANA HEADED SOUTH out of Bangkok, towards the ocean. “There’s something you should know, Teffinger. You too, Prarie, for that matter,” she said. “A few years ago I started doing something I shouldn’t have.”
Silence.
Then Prarie said, “As in what?”
“I got into the business of arranging hits.”
Hits?
“What do you mean, hits?”
“I mean exactly what you think I mean, hits—murders.”
“You kill people?” Prarie asked.
No.
No.
No.
“I don’t do the actual killing, I get the assignment and then have someone carry it out,” she said. “I get the assignments from a man name Sarapong. He’s a lawyer.”
“A lawyer has you kill people?”
“Not for himself,” she said. “For his clients. It works like this. A client of Sarapong gets in a legal jam and then it becomes apparent that he can get out of that jam if someone ends up dead. Sarapong calls me with the assignment. I then call someone else.” She hesitated, then turned her head to look at Teffinger. He was still balled up but had his face out from under the blanket. “The person I call is Jinka Sanaveenin. Your Jinka, Teffinger.”
No.
No way.
“That’s crazy,” he said.
“Sarapong never knew who I was giving the assignments to and Jinka never knew who I was getting them from,” Kanjana said. “Somehow they figured it out. I have no idea how, but over the last year no new assignments came to me, and my suspicion grew deeper and deeper that they’d somehow found each other and cut me out of the deal to maximize their own little profits. This morning, I confronted Sarapong at his house before he left for work. I told him I wanted my cut of everything that he and Jinka had done directly over the last year, otherwise I was
going to take then both down.”
Silence.
“What happened?”
“He knew I was serious. He said he’d be right back, then appeared a few minutes later with cash,” she said. “It’s in the trunk.”
Teffinger shook his head.
“Jinka would never kill anyone.”
“You don’t know her,” Kanjana said. “One of the hits that Sarapong and Jinka worked directly on was Tookta. Teffinger, I thought that you’d done it and gave your name to Tookta’s father, who is now out to murder you. As of this morning after talking to Sarapong, I now know it wasn’t you who killed her. It was Jinka.”
Teffinger said nothing.
Then thought, What the hell?
“I killed Tookta, not Jinka,” he said.
“You did?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
“If that’s true, you must have arrived just before she got there,” she said. “One thing for sure, though. Jinka took credit for it. She told Sarapong the assignment was completed and got paid in full.”
Teffinger searched for a fact to prove her wrong.
But came up empty.
All he had was a general denial.
“This is crazy. Petchpon’s the killer, not Jinka”
“Are you referring to the shrine on his bedroom wall?”
“Not just that,” Teffinger said. “We also followed him last night. He hung around outside your house. We thought he’d go in to kill you but he didn’t. You and Jinka are targets, in case you didn’t know.”
Kanjana didn’t know about Petchpon being outside last night.
She demanded details.
Teffinger gave them.
At the end she said, “Me and Jinka are targets all right, but not because Petchpon’s some crazed killer. We’re targets because he’s investigating us. That’s probably why he was outside my place last night, to see if Jinka showed up, or to follow me and catch me in the act.”
Teffinger exhaled.
“I almost killed him,” he said.
“If you had, you would have killed an innocent man,” she said. A beat, then, “By the way, when I pressed Sarapong, he told me something very interesting, namely that the Tookta murder was done at the behest of a client named Wing Boonmee. Wing was somehow involved with another murder and that’s why Tookta needed to die.”
“Another murder?”
Yes.
Right.
“Someone from last week.”
“Last week?” Teffinger said. “Who?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it an American named Aspen Leigh?”
“I don’t know, you’d have to ask Wing.”
98
Day 5—August 17
Friday Morning
TEFFINGER SAT BOLT UPRIGHT in the back seat and shouted, “Stop the car!”
“Why?”
“I’m going back.”
“That’s suicide.”
“Just do it.”
Kanjana pulled over and said, “Your funeral.”
As the car squealed away, Teffinger found himself on the shoulder of four-lane road. Traffic sped past. He had no idea where he was.
He called Jinka.
“I’m south of Bangkok,” he said. “Can you pick me up?”
Yes.
Absolutely.
“Where are you exactly?”
He looked around and said, “All I know is that it’s a four-lane road. Wait, there’s a hotel down the street. Sinbad. Do you know it?”
“No but I’ll find it,” she said. “Stay out of sight. Meet me in front of the hotel.”
She pulled up forty-five minutes later in a car that wasn’t hers.
“Every cop in Bangkok is hunting your ass,” she said.
“Head back.”
“To Bangkok?”
Right.
To Bangkok.
“We need to get you out of the country,” she said. “Me too for that matter. I have a friend in Pattaya. His brother has a boat. He can get us into China.”
Teffinger ignored her.
“Head back to Bangkok.”
“No.”
“Do it!”
“Damn it, Teffinger.”
“Now.”
She pointed the front end north and merged into traffic. “Do you know an attorney named Sarapong?”
Silence.
Then, “Yes”
“Do you know someone named Wing?”
“He’s the one who makes the music videos,” she said.
“Take me to him.”
“Why?”
Teffinger stared ahead and said nothing.
AFTER TWO MINUTES OF SILENCE he said, “You’re a hitwoman.”
A beat.
“I’ve done my last one,” she said. “I’m through with that part of my life. I still want to come to Denver with you, Teffinger.”
He exhaled.
“Do you still love me?” she asked.
“Tell me about Tookta,” he said. “She was supposed to be one of your hits, right?”
“Correct.”
“Why?”
A long beat.
Jinka reached over and put her hand on Teffinger’s leg. “I’m going to tell you something, Teffinger. You might hate me after I do, but just remember that I didn’t have to tell you. I’m doing this for you.”
He reached down to remove her hand.
But didn’t.
He left it there.
“Tell me what?”
“You think you killed Tookta,” she said. “The truth is, you didn’t kill her. I did.”
Teffinger tossed his hair.
“I wish that was true.”
“JUST LISTEN to what I have to say,” she said. “Mint—the floater—demanded money from Wing, a lot of money, after appearing in one of his videos. She said she’d never signed a release to be in the video and didn’t want it aired unless he paid her what she wanted. Wing checked with his assistant, Yingfan, who was responsible to get all the releases. It turned out to be true that Mint had evaded the release phase of the production. Wing went to his attorney, Sarapong, who said that legally Mint would be able to obtain a court order prohibiting the broadcast of her face for profit without her release. That was a problem because it was supposed to be released Saturday.”
“What does this have to do with Tookta?”
“Hold on, I’m getting there,” Jinka said. “Wing’s assistant, Yingfan, felt terrible about the whole thing since it was her fault. Unknown to Wing, she arranged to meet Mint down by the Phraya river Thursday night, ostensibly for the payoff. Yingfan had her lover with her, a woman named Mod. When Mint showed up, they put a knife to her throat and made her sign a release.”
She concentrated on the rearview mirror.
Someone was riding her ass.
She moved into the slow lane.
The other car sped past.
“Anyway, a fight ensued,” Jinka said. “Yingfan ended up smashing Mint’s head in with a rock. Then they dumped her in the river.”
“You knew all of this the whole time we were investigating it?”
She nodded.
Yes.
That was true.
“Yingfan told Wing what happened,” Jinka said. “Wing broke into Mint’s apartment and erased all evidence of her attempt to blackmail him. Then they all sat back and hoped that it would just blow over.”
“And?”
“And, it didn’t,” Jinka said. “Mint had a friend named Tookta who knew about the blackmail scheme. When Mint went missing, Tookta suspected that Wing killed her. She contacted him and demanded money, otherwise she would go to the police and tell them everything she knew.”
“So now he was getting blackmailed a second time?”
“Right.”
99
Day 5—August 17
Friday Morning
AS THEY CROSSED into Bangkok city limits, traffic got intense and pollution dimmed the sky. Jinka paid mo
re attention to driving, not needing an accident.
“When Wing got blackmailed by Tookta, he went to his attorney, Sarapong, to get a read on how much trouble he was in, personally, due to the Mint murder. Even though he’d only done the cover-up and not the actual murder, he was in trouble. Sarapong said he had a way to rectify the situation, if Wing didn’t mind getting extreme.”
“You mean kill Tookta,” Teffinger said.
Right.
Kill Tookta.
“Wing gave his okay to proceed,” Jinka said. “Sarapong called me and gave me the assignment.”
“Lucky for you, I killed her before you got to her,” Teffinger said.
No.
No.
No.
“That’s not what happened,” she said. “Sarapong told me that Tookta was a high-priced escort and I came up with a plan. I approached the woman and said I wanted to get revenge on a man who was going to be down at Soi Cowboy that night. What I wanted her to do was pick the man up, have some drinks with him, then take him back to her apartment, ostensibly to screw him. Then she’d drug him. After he was unconscious, me and a friend would come over, drag him out the window and take him away in a van.”
“That’s pretty elaborate.”
“You’ll see why in a moment,” she said. “Anyway, I promised Tookta so much money that she couldn’t possibly say no. That night, we went down to Soi Cowboy. You came walking down the street and I said, That’s him. She went over and picked you up.”
“I don’t get it,” Teffinger said.
“I chose you because you were so striking,” Jinka said. “People in the clubs would remember you. Anyway, my plan was to go to Tookta’s after the man—you—got drugged. Then I’d kill Tookta with a knife and put it in the man’s hands. That way, it would look like he did it and not me.”
Teffinger stared out the windshield.
“Your goal was to set me up.”
Right.
True.
“But I didn’t know you at that point,” she said. “You were just a stranger to me. Anyway, things went a little wrong. Tookta was supposed to call me once you were drugged. She never called. I eventually went over and knocked on the door. She said she was tied up on the bed. I tried the door but it was locked from the inside. Then I went around the outside to see if one of her windows was opened. They were all shut and locked from the inside, except the one in the closet. I raised it open and climbed inside. Tookta was tied up on the bed. You were next to her, unconscious.”