by Jake Needham
The next time I passed behind the club’s huge swimming pool I left the track and took the steps up to the pool area two at a time. I flopped down in one of the blue lounge chairs on the deck surrounding it, fell back against the cool cotton cover, and gave in to fatigue, my chest rising and falling in deep heaves until my pulse rate got close to normal. Pushing myself into a sitting position I pulled up my knees and checked out the early arrivals filtering into the club.
There weren’t many. A portly, middle-aged Thai with an ancient-looking wooden tennis racket was patting balls gently against the backboard on one of the tennis courts. In the pool, two elderly foreigners who I took to be husband and wife were swimming together, stroking slowly but methodically back and forth from one end to the other, staying side by side as they swam. I liked the look of that and I wondered briefly if someday Anita and I would grow old the same way, just staying together and stroking methodically along side by side. I hoped so.
It was while I was watching the old couple that I noticed the man in mirrored sunglasses. He was sitting alone at a table in the shadows at the front edge of the tennis pavilion. He looked familiar, but the distance and the sunglasses made him difficult to place. Then he raised his hand and waved me over and something about the gesture caused my memory to click.
It was Mango Manny.
I walked over and dropped into a chair across from him. “I didn’t know you were a member of the Polo Club, Manny.”
“Too bloody right I’m not. You high society fuckers would never let a working-class boy like me into a place like this.”
“Hey,” I protested, lifting up my T-shirt and wiping sweat from my face. “Leave me out of this. I’m not a member either. I’m just passing through.”
Manny was wearing sharply creased pearl-gray slacks and a matching silk shirt. He looked liked he might have come straight from Caesars Palace and, for all I knew, he had.
“So what are you doing here so early this morning?” I eventually asked when he didn’t say anything else.
“Waiting to talk to you.”
I looked closely at Manny. He had to be kidding.
“Why would you be waiting here for me? I didn’t even know I was going to be here until a half-hour ago.”
“I know things, mate. Just like you know things.”
“Yeah? Well, I only know things after they happen. Knowing things before they happen is kind of spooky.”
Manny just shrugged, but I understood what he was saying.
Foreigners in Bangkok, even long-time residents, forget how conspicuous they actually are. Since most Thais politely pretend not to notice us, we drift into the agreeable sensation that we are going about our lives almost invisibly, although nothing could be further from the truth. Everywhere a foreigner goes in Bangkok, there is someone who sees him go there. Everywhere a foreigner is in Bangkok, there is someone who knows he is there. And that information is always available to people who know how to get it.
I looked at myself in Manny’s mirrored sunglasses. Droplets of sweat rolled down my face like silver balls bouncing down a pinball machine.
“Would you take those damned glasses off, Manny?” I asked when I was through admiring myself. “They make you look like a gangster.”
I watched the muscles of Manny’s face around the edges of the silver mirrors covering his eyes and I tried to decide whether or not he was smiling. Then he took the glasses off. He wasn’t smiling.
“I’m sorry about Dollar,” he said.
“Yeah, me, too.”
“A good bloke, he was.”
I nodded.
“But over his head,” Manny added. “Way over his head.”
I didn’t say anything.
“I think maybe you’re over your head here too, mate. You want some help?”
“I’ve already asked for help. You didn’t offer any.”
Manny let that pass.
“You still looking for that other geezer? Barry Gale?”
“I am.”
“How do you think you can find him?”
“You found me this morning when I didn’t even know where I was going. How tough can it be to find a bald American who’s hiding out with a six-foot tall Chinese woman?”
“Not tough for me,” Manny said. He picked up his glasses and twirled them in his fingers, first one way then the other. “But a lot tougher for you, I reckon.”
“Maybe you’re underestimating me.”
“Probably not.”
He had me there.
Then all at once I got the message. “You already know where Barry is, don’t you, Manny?”
He nodded.
“Thailand?”
Manny nodded again.
“But not in Bangkok.”
Manny shook his head.
“Why are we playing this stupid game, Manny? You said you wanted to help. If you know where Barry is, just tell me for Christ’s sake.”
“Let’s just say I do tell you where this bugger is, mate. What you gonna do then?”
“I’m just going to talk to him, Manny. Just talk. That’s all.”
“You want me to have somebody talk to him a little first, maybe loosen him up?”
I examined Manny’s face for some sign he was kidding. I didn’t see any. “I’ll certainly keep your offer in mind.”
Manny nodded as if that sounded reasonable enough to him. He put his glasses back on and turned his head away.
“So after you talk to this guy, then what?” he asked.
I said nothing. I hadn’t actually worked that part out yet, but I didn’t want to tell Manny that. I watched the elderly couple climbing out of the pool. The old man lifted a towel and began wiping the woman’s back.
“You’re a pretty cocky guy, mate. A lot of shit’s going down here you know fuck all about.”
“Meaning?”
“These bastards are mental. I’ve done stuff for them once or twice, but I won’t touch them now. They’re out of control.”
“Who’s out of control, Manny?”
Manny slowly turned his head until he was looking me full in the eye. I watched myself in his glasses.
“I used to think they were coppers, maybe even CIA, but I’m not sure anymore. For fuck’s sake, mate, even I don’t know who these guys really are. Shit, some of them may not know who they really are.”
We sat for a while after that without talking. The old man finished drying the woman’s back, and then she picked up a fresh towel and began gently rubbing down his chest and stomach. The whole concept still looked pretty good to me.
“I want to know where Barry Gale is, Manny.”
“I know that.”
“And I want something else. I want to get to him without a whole goddamned parade behind me. Can you do that for me? Get me to him without anybody knowing where I’m going?”
“They want Barry Gale, not you, mate. So why don’t you just let me give him to them?”
“No,” I said. “I don’t understand what’s really going on here and I’m not giving up anybody until I do.”
“Why are you really doing this, mate?”
“Because whatever is happening has gotten two people killed already and I don’t want to be responsible for anyone else ending up dead. Least of all me.”
Manny turned away and watched four middle-aged foreign women swatting a tennis ball lightly back and forth on one of the courts. They shrieked and giggled like young girls, bouncing around the court without much apparent interest in playing well. The sunlight made long glistening streaks through the thin sheens of perspiration that coated their smoothly tanned arms and legs.
“But you want me to tell you where this guy is. And what if you’re the next one to get killed? I’m not responsible for you then?”
“I’m going to find Barry Gale with or without your help, Manny. You can’t do anything to change that. You can make it easier for me, or you can make it harder. But you can’t stop me.”
Manny took off h
is sunglasses. He folded the glasses and clasped his hands together in front of him on the table, but he didn’t say anything.
“I was right about Phuket, wasn’t I?” I said. “That’s where Barry is.”
I watched and waited.
Finally, Manny sighed heavily. “You not gonna kill him?”
“I already told you, Manny. I’m just going to talk to him.”
“And then just leave him and walk away?”
“Unless he had anything to do with killing Dollar. Then I’ll blow the whistle on him.”
Manny looked sideways for a while after that and I waited for him to go on, knowing now that he would. Finally he shifted his eyes back and stared hard at me.
“I’ll get you where this geezer is without anyone knowing about it, but after I do that you’re on your own. I’ve got people to protect and I’m not going to fuck around with a bunch of crazy bastards just so you can satisfy your curiosity.”
I nodded. That made sense.
“That’s my offer. Take it or leave it.”
“I’ll take it. Where’s Barry?”
Manny ignored my question. “Can you leave now?” he asked instead.
“The sooner the better.”
“Okay, let’s go.”
“Sure. Let me go home and change and I’ll meet you—”
“Forget it,” Manny interrupted. “Now means now. They know you came to see me last night. They probably know I’m talking to you now. I’m not going to fuck around, let them get set up, then put my lot in danger.”
“I can’t go anywhere in these sweaty jogging clothes, Manny. And Anita was still asleep when I left. I’ve got to at least tell her where I’m going.”
“You tell her nothing. The less she knows, the better off she is.” Manny produced a cell phone from somewhere. “I’ll get some clothes for you.”
“I’ve got to talk to Anita,” I said. “I can’t just disappear.”
Manny shook his head.
“I’ll get a message to her that there’s some kind of business emergency. Now go take a piss or something while I get the rest of this shit fixed for you. I’ll be waiting for you out front in five minutes. You’re not there, I’m gone.”
THIRTY EIGHT
I WASHED MY face and dried off as well as I could in a men’s toilet and ten minutes later I was at the entrance to the Polo Club buckling myself into the passenger seat of Manny’s Porsche which was exactly the color of a ripe lemon. Before I was even done Manny accelerated out the main gate past the poker-faced security guard, and still in second gear swung south on Wireless Road.
“Why are you doing this, Manny?” I asked.
Manny said nothing.
“Regardless,” I went on after a moment, “I want you to know I really appreciate it.”
“Wait till you find what happens to you, mate. Then you decide how much you appreciate it.”
A blue-and-white city bus chugged away from the curb in front of us. Manny corkscrewed around it with two practiced flicks of his wrists, downshifted, pulled a hard left into Rama IV Road, and headed east. Manny didn’t appear inclined to offer any indication where we were going so I sat back and awaited developments.
“I’ve set everything up to get you to Phuket on the quiet,” he eventually said without looking at me. “You were right about that. He’s holed up down there.”
“Okay.”
“After that some of my people will show you where this wanker is, but that’s all I’m going to do.”
“Fine.”
“Even then, if there’s some kind of a cock up…”
Manny didn’t finish the thought, but I got the point anyway.
“I understand.”
“You’ve got to do every fucking thing my people tell you to do. Every fucking thing. We clear on that, mate?”
“We’re clear,” I said.
I settled back and folded my arms, placing myself entirely in Manny’s hands. Strangely, that felt like a completely sensible thing to do.
An island resort off the coast of Thailand about five hundred miles to the south of Bangkok, Phuket is set in the turquoise splendor of the Andaman Sea and soaked by sunshine nearly year-round. It’s a glamorous, alluring vacation hideaway that has become justly famed among sailors, golfers, skin divers, and social glitterati all over the world.
Phuket has also attained a certain kind of fame among another quite different group—international criminals on the lam. The weather is good, the living is easy, the food is terrific, and the women are, well, Thai. Best of all, if the local police unaccountably notice them at all, rascals on the run are generally offered the option of making a modest contribution to the authorities in order to renew their invisibility. Most of the world seems to think of Thailand as not much more than an asylum for the morally impaired anyway—it’s the cuisine and the sex, the popular theory goes—so what better place is there for a scoundrel to lie low?
Morning traffic was building as we took the ramp up to the expressway. Still rolling, Manny flipped a note toward the tollbooth, downshifted, and accelerated away. I tilted my head back and listened to the distinctive, high-pitched whine of his Porsche running up through the gears. Manny cradled the black, leather-covered steering wheel in his palms like a man entirely at home with the little car. His elbows slightly bent, his hands in the approved racing positions of ten o’clock and two o’clock, he snapped his elbows right and left as he dodged from lane to lane.
Manny was in the far right lane as we took the long curve just past the Din Daeng intersection and turned north toward the old airport, but I wasn’t particularly surprised when he abruptly shot across three lanes of traffic and roared off onto an unmarked connector road that I knew would eventually lead back to the new southbound expressway link. We weren’t going to the airport. I had been pretty certain of that from the beginning.
“I’m only fucking around,” Manny said as if he were reading my mind.
The tall limestone column of the Victory Monument flashed by on our left and Manny loosed a blast from the Porsche’s air horn at a motorcyclist who started to cross in front of us.
“These guys are pros. If they’re on you, we won’t lose them like this, but it’ll look like we’re bloody well trying.” Manny patted the dashboard of the Porsche with affection. “We’ll keep their attention right here for a while.”
Call me crazy, but I had always thought that when you were trying to lose somebody the last thing you wanted was to keep their attention on you. On the other hand, what did I know about such things compared to a guy like Manny?
“Fuck you, you cocksuckers!” he suddenly screamed, slamming both big hands against the wheel so hard I was afraid he would break it off the column. “I’m too good for any of you bleedin’ wankers!” He slammed his hands down again, harder, and this time the whole car rocked.
A blue Toyota pickup with a half-dozen kids sliding around in the bed began to drift slowly into the middle lane right at us, its exhaust pipe burping puffs of purple-black smoke. I involuntarily leaned back in my seat, but Manny flicked his elbows and blew right by the truck in without slowing down. He turned north on Rama VI Road, made a U-turn through the parking lot in front of the Ministry of Finance, then took Sawankhalok Road south past Chitralada Palace. Just across from the Royal Turf Club, he swung into the garage reserved for officials of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Fishing a laminated card out of the glove box, he thrust it at one of the two battle-dressed soldiers blocking the entrance. While they examined the card, I examined the M-16s hanging across their chests.
After only a second or two, the guard handed the card back to Manny. He took a couple of quick steps away from the Porsche while muttering something under his breath to the other guard, then both of them cracked to attention and snapped their right hands to their helmets in salute. Manny ignored them and roared into the garage. He cut straight across the bottom floor to the exit and, accompanied by another flurry of salutes from another pair of heavil
y armed sentries, shot out of the garage again into Sri Ayutthaya Road. I started to ask him why he had a pass to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs garage, particularly one that seemed to merit such deference from guys carrying really big guns, but then decided I didn’t really want to know.
Manny bumped in and out of a couple of other parking garages, tooled around the Parliament building a couple of times, and after checking his watch, headed south through the tree-lined residential streets of the oldest part of the city. Soon after that the Grand Palace came into view. The red-and-green rooflines of its fairy-tale structures shimmered like a mirage in the wispy morning sun and the fragments of colored glass embedded in the high walls glinted as fiercely as the precious stones they appeared to be.
Inside those parapets had once been the mysterious core of the fabled Siamese empire, but these days there were only mobs of footsore tourists wilting in Bangkok’s customary heat and humidity. Regardless, narrow pathways unchanged for a century still twisted among fanciful pavilions and the same stone giants, half human and half animal, still guarded a royal temple where thousands of candle flames flickered endlessly under the unsmiling gaze of the Emerald Buddha.
“Okay,” Manny said to me as we turned suddenly into the road leading to the main gates of the Grand Palace where the tour groups entered. “Look at the buses.”
I looked. Tourist buses were lined up nose to tail along both sides of the road like two freight trains parked in a rail yard.
“We’re out of sight now,” Manny took one hand off the wheel and pointed ahead. “I’m going to dump you out just before the last bus on the right side. You’ll see a bunch of Japanese there. Get on their bus with them. I’ll keep going back to the expressway and out toward the airport.”
“You’re joking.”
“Dead serious, mate.”
I was trying to decide what to say next when the Porsche slammed to a stop and Manny reached across my lap and shoved the door open. A large bus painted pink with giant green flowers idled next to us, and just as Manny had said a group of middle-aged Japanese was milling around near its open door.