by B. L. Morgan
You might think that someone as poor as me would never hire someone to clean their place. Just chalk it up to me being a lazy white boy. I’d rather pay somebody else to do it than do it myself whether I really had enough money to afford it or not.
“I got to leave town for a while,” I told Rosa. “Can you keep an eye on Tom while I’m gone?”
“Sure,” Rosa answered. “I still got the key from when you were here before. Rodney never changes any locks. If we want to do it, he don’t care. But he never does.”
“If you can, just make sure he’s fed and watered and drop his turds on the assholes that sleep in the alley below the window,” I told her.
“I can do that,” Rosa said. “I’ll leave the window open too. Tom’s like you. He likes to come and go as he wants.”
“That he does,” I said.
“Do you know when you’ll be back?” Rosa asked.
“Not exactly,” I said.
“You’ll never change,” Rosa said. “But I wouldn’t want you to. It’d be like gelding a bull.”
“That’d be painful,” I told her.
* * *
I walked over to Johnny’s Bar and Grill. He had his left arm in a sling and was telling a drunk he’d slap him silly with his one good arm if he didn’t shut the fuck up and get the hell out of his tavern.
Johnny always did practice good customer relations.
I sat on a bar stool and Johnny got me a Michelob on draft. He set it in front of me.
“Did you just hit the lottery?” I asked him.
His look said, “What?”
“A while back you wouldn’t give me anything but that shit tasting Schlitz. Now you’re giving me the good stuff even before I ask for it. What gives?”
He grabbed the glass up and took a big swallow out of it.
“Fuck-it! I’ll drink it myself,” he said. Then he downed the entire glass.
“Hey, I wanted that,” I told Johnny.
“I wanted it, too,” he said and got me another one.
“I’m leaving town,” I said.
“Figured you would,” he answered.
I filled Johnny in on heading to Tehan Setar with Ron Martin and Candi Divine.
Johnny said, “That’s going to be like a goddamn traveling freak show.”
“You can tell Ron that yourself,” I told him.
“Shit!” Johnny said. “That big mother-fucker! I may be stupid but I’m not that goddamned stupid.”
We drank for a few hours, told some jokes back and forth, and watched some really bad TV. Sometime during the night Johnny asked me to give him Graham’s number.
I gave it to him and asked, “What do you want him for? I didn’t know you did any business that would have anything to do with what he’s into.”
“There are lots of goddamned things you don’t know,” Johnny said. “I just got a bone to pick with him. It ain’t nothing for you to worry about.”
“Well, fuck it then,” I told him.
Around midnight I headed home.
My small run-down apartment seemed too large and empty without Sherry there with me. Any room seemed too large without her in it.
I was going to have to get used to that.
BOOK TWO
PART I
INTO THE EAST
CHAPTER 28
The city Bangkok, Thailand; exotic, mysterious, and at first glance, to me it looked a hell of a lot like any China Town in any major US city. The main difference was that this China Town wasn’t just a neighborhood. This China Town went on and on. It was big.
Ron Martin, Candi Divine, and me got off the flight in Bangkok, grabbed our bags, grabbed a taxi, and went directly to a hotel. We’d just taken a long flight and I was bushed.
One thing did happen to remind me of where the hell we were. The three of us about shit a brick when the taxi driver pulled out into traffic and went the wrong way down the fucking road. After we yelled a few times at him, “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” And him laughing at us, we realized everybody was driving on the wrong side of the road.
Well, the wrong side over here turns out to be the right side. Welcome to fucking Thailand.
Where Candi and Ron spent the flight in two seats side by side cuddling and cat napping, I spent the flight staring out the window trying to make plans for who we were going to see, and how we were going to track down William Po.
If anyone could point me in the direction of Sherry’s killer it would have to be William Po.
Sherry had been sending him large amounts of money. Why? I’d find that out when I found him. Sherry’s killers asked her over and over again, “Where is William Po?”
Someone wanted William Po bad enough to kill an innocent woman just to get information of his whereabouts. William Po had made dangerous enemies and now they made me theirs.
Our starting place would have to be someone who was friendly to us and who knew the local area. Since none of us knew anyone in Tehan Setar I brought the name and address of the one person in that country that was in Sherry’s address book.
Sister Mary Sheridon was the first person we had to talk to. After that, who the hell knew?
* * *
After I caught a few hours of sleep I met Ron and Candi in the hotel’s restaurant.
Candi came in wearing some casual slacks and a nicely styled loose blouse. The blouse hid the bulges of muscle on Candi’s arms and shoulders and did nothing to hide the bulges of her breasts. She looked all woman, even if it was in an overstated way.
I’d only seen Candi at the clubs where she never had hardly any clothes on at all, and on the flight over here she wore tight jeans and a tee shirt exposing arms that were frightening.
Candi noticed my eyes wander over her and she beamed a large toothy smile.
Ron noticed and laughed.
“See John,” Candi told me. “I can be a lady when I want to be.”
I said, “Yeah, the girl with something extra for sure.”
They both laughed and Ron leaned over and kissed Candi a big wet smacker.
“Y’all are fucking crazy,” I told them.
That made them laugh harder.
The restaurant’s menus were the kind that had pictures of the dishes as well as written descriptions of what the dishes were.
I was glad they had the pictures because I didn’t know what the hell the words said.
Even when I was in the Special Forces as a Search and Destroy Specialist in Viet Nam, I didn’t learn very much of the local language and what little I knew was long forgotten.
The only words I learned in Viet Nam were the ones that had to do with me getting food beer and women. Making someone understand that I wanted food or beer was harder for me to do than making a woman understand that I wanted to do the horizontal tango.
For food and beer I’d point at my mouth and make eating or drinking motions. A lot of the time people looked at me like I was a fucking idiot.
To get a woman I’d just grab my dick and hold up some money. It was funny how they always understood what the hell that meant.
We were in Thailand now so even if I had been fluent in Viet Namese I doubt I would have understood the language spoken here anyway.
Ron and Candi ordered some noodle dishes. I didn’t want to take any chances not knowing exactly what I was ordering and got a large bowl of chicken fried rice. With my luck if I ordered a noodle dish I’d find out later that I’d just chewed up an expensive bowl of Earth worms.
As Candi was slurping down a forkful of noodles Ron asked me, “So what’s the first move you figure we ought to make here?”
“Well,” I told them. “I don’t know about you but I ‘m feeling mighty naked without a weapon. Inside the city it seems about as safe as St. Louis, but out in the country I can tell you from experience there’s some crazy mother-fuckers out there.”
Candi asked, “What are we going to do about the border crossing? I doubt they’re going to let us carry arms from Th
ailand into Tehan Setar.”
“We’re going to make our crossing through the jungle where we won’t have to worry about that. We’re going into that country with every intention of tracking down and killing one of their citizens. We don’t want to leave any trace that we were there at all.”
* * *
Night was falling in Bangkok as we left the hotel to go gun hunting.
I told Ron I’d go by myself and get the three of us some hand guns. He wouldn’t have any of that, saying, “No way man. We came over here to do a job together. Besides, I’m footing this bill. I want to know what kind of fire power I’m buying before I have to stake my life on it.”
Ron told Candi we’d be back in a little while.
“Yeah, we all gonna be back in a little while,” Candi told him. “I ain’t letting you boys go off and chase no Asian poon tang.”
“Babe, you know we ain’t gonna do that,” Ron told her.
“Damn right I know that,” Candi told him. Cause I’m gonna be right there.”
“Fuck-it,” I told the two of them. “Why don’t we just invite the entire fucking hotel and make it a goddamn parade.”
CHAPTER 29
We had a taxi take us to a street market. I figured that was as good a place as any to start.
The weather was hot. I’m not exactly sure of the temperature but after leaving snow in St. Louis I was sweating my balls off in this steamy son-of-a-bitch.
People were still out in droves. Around here, this street market was a twenty four hour thing. We strolled through the market taking in everything that was around us, getting ourselves accustomed to where we were.
There was a sea of faces all around us. Most of the faces were Asian and in the dark almond shaped eyes, black hair and coffee with lots of cream skin I saw Sherry everywhere. There’s no way I could live over here permanently, not with so many people around me who would remind me that the woman I loved was dead.
If I lived the rest of my life in this place it would be like living in a nation of ghosts.
The smells of exotic spicy food being sold by street vendors engulfed us. Some of the spices were so hot just sniffing the breeze made your eyes water. Kids came up begging for coins. Most of them knew a word or two of English. They sure knew more of my language than I knew of theirs. We didn’t give them anything. If you ever give one of them anything you’ll never be able to get rid of the rest of the pack.
After they followed us through all kinds of open-aired street shops for about fifteen minutes they gave up and went off in search of other tourists to beg from.
Everything was on display out in that open-air street market. Leather goods, computers, cell phones, electronics, you name it, it was for sale.
We were looking for guns.
Because we weren’t the only tourists roaming around here, and we were ease dropping in on the conversations around us, we could tell that most of the people running these make shift mini-stores had a working knowledge of English. That was why, when we came to a dealer of knives and swords, I told the guy right up front that I was looking for weapons that were for more than just being on display.
“I do not know what you mean,” the man told me as he showed me the keen edge of a Samurai Sword priced at fifty dollars. His smile and the look in his eyes told me he knew exactly what I was talking about.
The four of us were alone in his small shop that was only made up of three cloth walls and a cloth ceiling. I looked at Ron and he stepped forward so that his bulk blocked the view of anyone outside.
“We’ll pay well for guns,” I told the man, and Ron dug into his pocket and showed the shop owner a roll of bills, while Candi kept a look-out for anyone taking notice outside.
The man’s eyes sparkled when he saw the money.
“I do not sell that product myself,” he said. “For a price I can take you to someone who does. It is not far. I can take you there.”
“All right,” I told the man. “But we don’t pay you until we see the guns. We see the guns we’ll pay you. You go on your merry way. Deal?”
“Yes,” the shop owner said.
The shop owner said something in Thai then and I just shook my head at him asking, “What was that?”
“Sorry,” he answered quickly. “I forgot myself for a moment. I was just asking if you are sure you do not need some of my blades. They are the best quality in all of Asia.”
“We might come back for a few tomorrow,” I told him. “Tonight we need to get what we came for.”
“Of course,” he answered.
He then pulled back a fold of the cloth and yelled something in Thai to someone outside his tent. A moment later a ragged looking old man with rotting teeth came through the cloth doorway.
They exchanged words. The wrinkled old dude looked at us and sighed, then pulled up a stool and sat down next to a display of swords and knives.
“We go now,” the shop owner said, and lead us out into the street.
* * *
We followed the shop owner through the street market, then onto some dimly lit side streets.
The route he took us on was through narrow walkways. The pavement felt like cobblestones and the air smelt of urine and garbage. We were moving farther into one of the poorest sections of Bangkok, places where the police didn’t dare come.
If the police were chasing a criminal and he ran into this neighborhood they’d break that chase off. Here they were outnumbered ten to one. That’s not good odds for anybody.
Ron noticed that Candi was lagging back from us as we traveled into the Bangkok ghetto.
“Hey darlin’... get on up here with us,” he told her. “I don’t want anyone jumping out of the dark and grabbing my baby.”
“I am the woman,” Candi said. “And here I must walk behind my man.” Candi’s voice was soft and she actually sounded kind of meek. Candi just wasn’t like that. I was wondering what the hell was up myself.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Ron asked.
“In this land I must bow to the will of my man,” Candi said.
“Shit,” Ron said. “I’ll test that one back at the hotel. Get on up here with us.”
“Your woman has realized her rightful place,” the shop owner said. “That is good.”
That is really fucking strange, is what I was thinking.
CHAPTER 30
We walked about what I estimate was a half mile into this extreme ghetto, passing moaning drunks laying in gutters full of their own piss and shit, dope dealers selling their drugs to ragged street people, and scabby looking prostitutes that radiated disease and filth, when the shop owner took us down a long narrow alley with tall brick walls on both sides.
The alley ended in a dead end with a door in its center. The shop owner pressed a button and an intercom spoke to him some garbled words.
He answered back in Thai and the door buzzed.
The shop owner pushed the door open and stepped through.
Ron and me stepped inside. Candi came in after us and stepped to the side behind the shop owner.
This room was like the gun section of a good sized pawn shop. On the walls were all kinds of rifles and shotguns. In a glass display case directly in front of us was a good selection of some deadly looking hand guns.
Behind the counter stood two young Thai’s, both wore wicked looking smiles. One reached under the counter.
Candi grabbed the shop owner by the hair of the head and jerked him backward against her. A knife flashed in her hand and she pressed the blade of what looked like a miniature Samurai Sword to the shop owner’s throat.
“Father!” One of the Thai’s behind the counter gasped involuntarily reaching forward. The family resemblance between the two Thais and the shop owner was obvious. This business of weapons sales was a family business. The Thais behind the counter were the shop owner’s sons.
“Don’t even flinch,” Candi growled at them. Then she spoke to them in their own language which surprised the hell out
Ron and me.
The Thais froze.
Candi told me and Ron, “I barely understood this asshole telling the old man he was going to rip us off, but I understood the old fuck loud and clear when he said to gut us so they could sell our innards to the cat food plant. I like cats as much as anyone but I don’t feel like being dinner for them.”
“It was just a joke,” the shop owner said. “We talk like that. We were just joking.”
“Yeah,” Ron said, “Well the jokes on you now, ain’t it?”
“We’ll kill you,” one of the young Thais said.
“And your father will die,” I told them.
“You need guns, OK, OK!” The shop owner said. “We sell you guns. Good guns. Good price.”
“Damn right you will,” I told him.
“You boys slowly put your hands on the counter,” Ron told the two young Thais.
The young guys looked at their father who nodded.
“We will do the deal the right way tonight,” he told them.
I went behind the counter and got a shiny .38 and a box of shells. I quickly loaded it.
Ron was checking out three assault rifles on a wall rack. “What the fuck are these?” He asked.
One of the Thais answered. “AKS-74U submachine guns, black market assault rifles, very good weapons.”
Ron plucked one of the submachine guns off the wall and held it out in one hand, testing its weight. He liked what he felt. He dry-fired it and broke it down then put it back together real fast. There was a pile of old army duffle bags in the corner. Ron took one and put the three AKS-74Us in it and grabbed about ten boxes of shells and dropped them in.
“Those babies are light,” Ron told us. “Why I even think my honey could handle one of them.”
“I can handle anything that you can, darling,” Candi told Ron.
I tossed a .38 to Ron and a box of bullets. He loaded it quickly.