by Jake Needham
Justice might be blind, but it didn’t have to be stupid.
Tay took the postcard over to the kitchen table and examined it carefully.
The back of the card was nothing more than a picture of the garish red, blue, and yellow neon sign Tay remembered from the front of Baby Dolls. The other side of the card was hand-addressed to him in blue ink. On the left, where there was space for a message, was written in the same hand, Come to Baby Dolls’ Third Anniversary Party! Below that was the address of the place, and a date and time.
The postcard was no doubt John August’s way of telling Tay he was alive and well. Tay had never really doubted that, even if he couldn’t understand how it could be. Tay knew that August had been badly wounded that night in Geylang. He had checked quickly for a pulse and found none. That was why Tay had taken August’s backup gun. And that gun had saved both his life and Sergeant Kang’s.
Tay looked again at the date on the postcard and then squinted at the date window on his wristwatch. The party was today. My God, Tay wondered, how long had it been since he looked in his mailbox?
It was a little after noon and it was a two-hour flight to Bangkok and another two hours or so from the airport to Pattaya by taxi. There were flights from Singapore to Bangkok every couple of hours. He could still make it to Pattaya by the time of the party tonight if he really wanted to.
Damn right he did. He didn’t care about the party, but he wanted to see John August and hear how he had managed to get out of that Geylang shophouse that night and make it all the way back to Bangkok with at least three bullets in him.
Tay went upstairs to get his cell phone and call Singapore Airlines.
CHAPTER TWENTY
TAY ARRIVED IN Pattaya a little after seven and checked in at the Marriott. He didn’t want to stay at the Marriott, Marriotts were just too American for him, but it was the only hotel in Pattaya he had ever heard of and he knew how to walk to Baby Dolls from there so that’s where he stayed.
He showered and changed his shirt, but it was still early for a place like Baby Dolls so he went downstairs and walked around a small shopping mall that was connected to the hotel. He found a coffee shop and ordered a cappuccino and a grilled cheese sandwich, and he sat and ate the sandwich and drank the cappuccino at a little table out front where he could watch the passing parade.
And in Pattaya, the passing parade was better than Mardi Gras.
Tay had always thought there had to be some kind of international network devoted to coaxing social rejects and dropout cases worldwide into coming to Pattaya because come they did by the thousands. They walked away from third-shift jobs in places like Manchester, Berlin, Toronto, and Seattle, bought the cheapest airline ticket they could find, and made their way to the Land of Smiles. They were all there: the lonely, the frightened, the guilty, the depressed, and the psychotic. Soaked with sweat, they rushed from one bar to another, reeking of that peculiarly sour odor given off by the overmatched and underachieving. Most of these refugees from reality couldn’t have located Pattaya on a map before they decided it was the place for them, maybe they still couldn’t, but now Pattaya had become their last, maybe their only hope.
If you were a guy like John August, running a bar in Pattaya was the perfect gig. It was the kind of a place where, if you were foolish enough to ask anyone who they were or what they did, the only thing you could be certain of was that they would lie to you. Even if it didn’t matter, and it almost never did, they would still lie to you. Pattaya just did that to people.
Tay glanced at his watch. Nine o’clock was still early for Baby Dolls, but he decided to walk on over anyway. After all, it wasn’t often you got to talk to a guy shot dead in Singapore who was still running a go-go bar in Thailand.
Tay hadn’t gone a hundred yards before the sweat was running down his face and his shirt was stuck to his body. Pattaya, God help it, was even hotter and more humid than Singapore. How did people live here? He tried to walk more slowly, but it didn’t help. Within five minutes he was as wet as if he had been walking in the rain.
There wasn’t any haze, at least, but Tay wasn’t sure which was worse: breathing smoke, or breathing water. Tay told himself there had to be at least one place on planet Earth where the environment wasn’t trying to kill him, and he resolved for what was probably the hundredth time to find that place before he got too old to care anymore.
Baby Dolls wasn’t far from the Marriott, but to get to it Tay had to walk right through the carnival that was Pattaya. There were tourists on the prowl, hookers on the stroll, cops on the take, and criminals on the lam. There were bar touts, flower peddlers, cigarette sellers, and vendors of genuine Rolexes for only five dollars. There was everything Tay had ever imagined, and a great many things he hadn’t. He wiped the sweat from his eyes and shouldered on through the crowds to Baby Dolls.
But when he got there, the flashing neon tubing that outlined the blue two-story building was turned off, the red neon sign was dark, and not a single tout was at the front door hustling horny tourists inside. Was he in the wrong place? Tay looked around and thought about the last time he had been here. No, he was certain he had the right building. Had Baby Dolls moved? No, that couldn’t be the explanation either. This was the address on the card he received.
Tay tried the door. It was locked. Of course it was.
He turned away, not certain what to do. He had come all the way to Pattaya because of the invitation he assumed was from John August, and now John August wasn’t here. Nobody was here, in point of fact, except for Tay and a lot of weirdoes walking up and down the street behind him.
Tay’s eyes drifted to an open-front shophouse just across the way. He recognized it as the place August had taken him for coffee the first time they had met. The music in Baby Dolls had been so loud that conversation was impossible so they had come out here. He remembered sitting and smoking in one of the big cane chairs that faced outward toward the street, talking to August, and watching the circus.
Tay stopped and cocked his head. It took him a moment to register what he was looking at and, even when he did, his first thought was that he was imagining it. Was that really John August sitting in the last chair on the end and smiling at him?
The man was very tall. His face was deeply tanned and he wore round eyeglasses with steel frames. His dark brown hair was flecked with gray and he wore it quite long, brushed straight back against his head in a way that made him appear a bit old-fashioned. The man might have been a university professor on vacation, but he wasn’t. The man was John August.
Tay raised a hand in greeting, but August didn’t acknowledge him. Instead, he stood and walked away. Tay had no idea what was going on, but he could think of only one way to find out.
He pushed into the crowd and followed August.
At the 7-Eleven, August turned off Walking Street and slipped through a gaggle of food vendors. He strolled fifty yards up a narrow, dimly lit alleyway and went into a building on the right.
It was a neat little two-story shophouse, yellow with green trim, but it didn’t look like a go-go bar, at least none Tay had ever seen. There were no garish neon lights, no neon lights at all really. Just a doorway covered with a heavy black drape and a simple lighted sign above it with what Tay supposed was the name of the place.
SECRETS
Perfect.
Tay parted the black drape with his hands and opened the door.
Secrets was a bar all right, but it was probably the only one in Pattaya without even a single go-go girl bumping and grinding on a platform. The place was dark and woody with a clubby feel to it, and from loudspeakers Tay couldn’t see drifted the sound of a string quartet playing something classical deep in the background. Bach, Tay thought, although he wasn’t certain.
On the right-hand side was a small bar with four stools, but most of the room was taken up with battered but comfortable looking dark-brown leather chairs grouped around low tables. The bartender was a Caucasian, which was an o
ddity in Pattaya, and he looked Tay over with undisguised suspicion as he stood there in the doorway.
Tay glanced around quickly. It didn’t look like the place had any customers at all.
“Where the fuck’s my gun?” a voice called out.
Tay had no doubt it was August’s voice he heard, but he couldn’t find him in the low light.
“Over here,” August said. “In the back.”
The bartender lost interest in Tay and went back to washing glasses. Tay closed the door and followed the sound of August’s voice into the dim room.
“Did you bring my gun back, Sam?”
“No.”
“Oh man, that was a Baby Glock. I loved that thing. It’s the only backup gun I trust.”
Tay shrugged. “So get another one.”
“I want that one. I had it all broken in just right.”
“You really expected me to get on an airplane in Singapore carrying a gun and deliver it to you here in Thailand?”
“Jesus, Sam, I thought you were connected. That shouldn’t have been a big problem for you.”
“I don’t have it anyway. I couldn’t give it back to you if I wanted to. CID is holding it as evidence in my suspension.”
“Yeah, I heard about that. I’m glad you shot the bastard. He had no business shooting me.”
“But you were there to shoot him, weren’t you?”
August said nothing. He just pointed to the chair opposite him and Tay sat down.
The bartender crossed the room and placed tall glasses of draft beer on the table in front of both of them. Tay hadn’t heard August order the beer or he would have stopped him and asked for something else. Still, this was Pattaya after all. Tay supposed it was possible the bar didn’t have anything except beer.
Tay took out his Marlboros. “Can I smoke in here?”
August just laughed.
Tay took that as a yes so he shook out a cigarette and automatically offered it to August. August shook his head, as Tay had known he would, and Tay took the cigarette and lit it for himself. He blew out the match and looked around for an ashtray. August pointed at the floor. Tay dropped the match and settled back in the deep leather chair.
“The last time I saw you, you didn’t look so good, John.”
“So naturally you looted the body.”
“I couldn’t find a pulse. I thought you were dead.”
“So did I.”
August picked up his beer and sipped at it tentatively. Apparently finding it to his liking, he took a long pull and put the glass back on the table.
“How did you get out of there?” Tay asked.
“I got up and walked. It’s amazing what you can do when you have no choice.”
Tay understood that all too well. He thought back to when he had pulled the trigger of August’s backup gun over and over and watched a man’s body slump to the floor. That was exactly how he had felt then, too.
“Where did you go?” Tay asked. “You needed a hospital.”
“It wasn’t as bad as it looked.”
“So you didn’t go to a hospital?”
August shrugged. “I’ve got a few friends here and there.”
Tay knew that. He had often wondered exactly who those friends were, but August had never told him and he had always been afraid to ask.
“You okay now, John?”
“Right as rain, fit as a fiddle, bold as brass. Take your pick.”
Tay drew on his cigarette and let the silence stretch out, but August didn’t say anything else. Tay pretty much knew he wouldn’t.
“Is Baby Dolls closed permanently,” Tay asked after a while, “or just temporarily?”
“We haven’t decided. I’m…”
August hesitated and looked off into the gloom.
“We’re reorganizing a few things,” he eventually finished.
“Who’s this we you keep mentioning?”
August didn’t respond to that. Of course he didn’t.
“Do I have anything to do with this reorganization?” Tay asked after a moment.
August looked genuinely puzzled. “Why would you think that?”
“You sent me that invitation to an anniversary party, and I get here and—”
“Oh that,” August waved a hand around dismissively. “There’s no party. Never was. I just needed to talk to you.”
“Couldn’t you use the telephone like everybody else?”
“No.”
Tay smoked quietly and waited for August to go on, but August waited longer. And Tay ran out of patience.
“Look, John, I love a meaningful silence as much as the next man, but are you going to tell me why I’m here?”
August seemed to think about that while he finished off his beer, but finally he put down the glass and folded his arms.
“I need your help,” he said.
“My dance card’s pretty open these days.”
“Your name came up.”
“I guess it’s good to be remembered.”
“I need to ask you a few questions first, Sam, but I can’t tell you why I’m asking them.”
“Do you know how ridiculous that sounds?”
August shrugged and looked away.
Tay took a final puff on his cigarette, dropped it on the floor, and ground it out with the heel of his shoe.
“I guess you better tell me what we’re really talking about here, John,” he said.
So August did.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“WE HAVE AN interest in your friend Zachery Goodnight-Jones.”
Tay said nothing. He might have, but he was so surprised he was speechless.
“If you don’t mind me asking, Sam, what were you doing in his office?”
Tay worked hard to keep his face still, but he was sure his astonishment was obvious. What was August’s interest in Goodnight-Jones? And how in God’s name did August know he had gone to Goodnight-Jones’s office?
“And what if I do mind?” Tay asked when he had regained his power of speech.
August shrugged and sipped from his beer, but he didn’t say anything.
“Are you watching—”
“No, we’re not watching you, Sam. We’re watching him. You just walked into the frame.”
“Who’s this we you keep talking about?”
“Do you really want me to tell you, Sam?”
Did he want to know who August was working for even if August was willing to tell him? Maybe he didn’t.
“I need to think about this, John.”
“No, you don’t. Just tell me what you were doing meeting with Zachery Goodnight-Jones at his office. How hard is that?”
“I was just helping out a friend.”
“And that would be Emma Lazar, of course.”
Tay cocked his head and stared at August.
August said nothing.
“Okay,” Tay said after a moment, “yes. That would be Emma Lazar.”
“How good a friend is she?”
“What are you really asking me, John?”
“I’m asking if you’re sleeping with her.”
First Goh asked that, and now August. Was sex the only basis on which anyone thought he had relationships with women? If they only knew.
Tay said nothing. He just reached for his cigarettes. He shook one out of the pack, lit it, and blew the smoke directly at August.
“Look, Sam, I’m not interested in your personal life. I’m just trying to understand how involved you are in this.”
“How involved am I in what?”
August ignored Tay’s question and asked another of his own.
“Why are you involved with that journalist if you aren’t sleeping with her?”
Tay wasn’t at all certain what the answer to that question actually was. He didn’t know how to answer it for himself, let alone for August. He could always throw out a few platitudes about what a dedicated reporter Emma was and how she deserved to get the truth, of course, but he knew August wo
uldn’t buy that. So he went with something that was pretty basic.
“She came to me and asked for my help. She’s an interesting woman, and I was bored.”
“There’s more to it than that, Sam.”
There was indeed, Tay knew, but he wasn’t sure what it was.
“How much do you know about the death of Tyler Bartlett, John?”
“That American who hung himself in Singapore?”
“He didn’t hang himself. He was murdered. Emma wants to write a story about the police cover-up.”
“And you’re pissed at your old mates in the Singapore police because they’re trying to hang you out to dry, so you want to help her crap all over them.”
“I wouldn’t put it quite that way.”
“What’s this Wall Street Journal reporter’s story about that kid got to do with Zachery Goodnight-Jones?” August asked.
“Are you jerking me around here, John?”
August looked genuinely puzzled. “You’ve lost me, Sam.”
“You mean you really don’t know?”
“Know what?”
“Tyler Bartlett worked for Goodnight-Jones at The Future. At least he did up until a few days before he died.”
“You’re shittin’ me,” August roared so loudly even the stoic bartender looked over to see what was going on.
“I shit thee not, my friend. Tyler Bartlett was hired away from Google by The Future to develop security software for them. Four months later he quit, and three days after that he was found hanging in his apartment.”