“It’s ironic, but it doesn’t help us with our problem,” said Fielding.
The two men sat in silence and drank their whisky. Devlin looked at the large screen television in the corner of Fielding’s office. On top of it was a video recorder and several video cassettes labelled with various advertising campaigns. The bank had been trying to restore confidence with a series of optimistic television commercials, but market research showed that they just weren’t working.
Fielding looked out of the huge window which ran the full length of his office. It offered one of the best views in Hong Kong, the Star Ferry terminal with its green and cream-coloured ferries plying their trade across the ship-packed harbour, the glitzy hotels and shops of Tsim Sha Tsui across the water, and the hills of Kowloon beyond. And behind the hills, less than twenty-five kilometres away, was communist China, patiently watching and waiting to take back the colony and its six million inhabitants. Fielding saw a Cathay Pacific 747 begin its final approach over the Kowloon tower blocks, dipping its right wing and swooping so low that it seemed sure to crash, then levelling out and heading for the single finger of runway which poked out into the harbour.
“Are those the projections?” asked Devlin, pointing to the print-out on Fielding’s desk.
“Yes, and damn depressing reading it is, too.”
“Still bad?”
Fielding snorted at the understatement. “We’ve lost about ten per cent of our customer base over the past three years, and the rate of lost accounts is accelerating. Our industrial loan book is in a steady decline because no one wants to buy new plant or buildings. Home ownership is in a tailspin, and prices are down. The only people buying property in Hong Kong are the mainland Chinese, and they’re funding their purchases through the Seven Sisters. None of their business is coming our way. The only section that’s on the up is our gold bullion business and our foreign exchange accounts. The Kowloon depository is pretty much full to capacity. I tell you, Charlie, it’s as clear as the nose on your face what’s happening. Our customers are either putting their money overseas or they’re switching into gold or foreign currency, and they’re sticking that in our vaults in preparation for the day when they leave. And when they go, they’ll take their gold with them. It’s the old refugee mentality, I’m afraid. They have no faith in the banking system. You know what section of the retail sector is showing the best return at the moment?”
Devlin shook his head.
“Luxury boats,” said Fielding. “Big ones. Fifty-footers and longer. And you know why? Because a boat offers escape. I tell you, Charlie, the world is going to have to deal with another type of boat person in a few years. And they’re not going to be so easy to turn away.”
“That’s the impression they have in Europe,” agreed Devlin. “All they read in the press there is the fact that Hong Kong is the Jittery City: the city that’s living on borrowed time. And they don’t want to take the risk of investing here. They want to know what it’s like under Chinese rule. If the Chinese make a success of it, they’ll invest here. But with everything they have on their plates at the moment, they’re not prepared to risk their capital.”
“And who can blame them?” said Fielding. He drank his whisky and placed his empty glass on the table. “If we had any confidence in the Chinese we wouldn’t be going around Europe, cap in hand.”
“It’s a safety net, William, that’s all. If we show the world that we have a safety net they’ll be more confident of our prospects.”
“Aye, Charlie. And I still believe in Father Christmas.”
A young Thai boy in a white uniform walked up to the poolside loungers and asked the Americans what they wanted to drink.
“Four beers,” said Carmody. The poolboy giggled and went back to the bar, returning a while later with four glasses and four opened bottles which were beaded with condensation. He poured each one, giving each glass a thick, frothy head, and after placing them on the tables adjacent to the loungers held the bill out for Carmody to sign, which he did with a flourish. The boy looked at his claw with open curiosity as Carmody used it to hold the pad.
“Pretty, isn’t he?” he said as the boy walked away.
“Yeah, they’re very feminine, the boys,” agreed Lehman.
“Real pretty,” said Horvitz.
“Hey, I didn’t mean that I was attracted to him, or anything like that!” said Carmody, holding his glass away from his lips.
“Didn’t mean to imply you were, Larry,” said Lehman. “Just stating a fact.”
“Yeah. Well they’re not as pretty as the girls here, that’s for sure,” said Carmody. He took a deep drink of his beer and smacked his lips greedily. “Mind you, I reckon they’re better looking than those German women over there. Hell, Lewis there has got more going for him than the German bitches.”
They both looked at the near-comatose Lewis, his broad, black back rising and falling in time with his laboured breathing.
“You think he’s having a wet dream?” said Carmody, and he cackled like an old witch.
Lehman didn’t think so. Lewis’s face was turned towards him and away from Carmody, and if Carmody had been able to see the expression he wore, Lehman knew he wouldn’t have made a joke about it. His eyes were screwed up tight as if he were in pain and his lips were moving, though it was impossible to hear anything intelligible. His head was resting on his folded arms and Lehman could only see one of his big, square hands but it was clenched tight as if he was preparing to strike someone. His left leg twitched and Lehman could see that his toes were drawn back, the tendons in his heel stretched taut.
Lewis began to grind his teeth and a vein pulsed in his forehead. Lehman wanted to wake him, but knew it was better not to, that if he were to awake mid-dream it could be traumatic. Lehman still suffered from his own night-mares and flashbacks, and they were almost a thousand times more vivid and painful if they weren’t allowed to work through to their own conclusion. By far the worst was when somebody woke him up. His two ex-wives had both learned the hard way and had accepted that no matter how much he ranted and raved in his sleep it was better to leave him be, but casual girlfriends had often left his apartment in tears after trying to wake him up. It wasn’t that he wanted to hurt them, it was just that he often came out of the dreams fighting. And it wasn’t as if he could explain in advance, because he couldn’t imagine anything less romantic than a warning that there was a good chance that he’d lash out in his sleep. Lewis’s hand remained locked into a fist and Lehman didn’t relish the idea of fending off the big man.
It was their second day back in Bangkok after being seen off in Saigon by a stony-faced Judy. She had clearly been glad to be rid of them. There had been no conversation from her in the coach and no goodbye speech at the airport, though several of the Americans had tipped her and Hung with American dollars. Lehman himself had given them both ten dollar bills, though all they’d got from Carmody and Horvitz was a scowl. What had surprised Lehman was seeing Tyler slip Judy an envelope, which he guessed contained money. It had been as they were about to go through immigration. Tyler had held back so that he was last and it was only because Lehman was idly looking around while a pretty Customs girl went through his passport page by page that he saw the envelope and Tyler’s smile and nod of thanks.
Their flight back to the States wasn’t for another week, giving them time to wind down after Vietnam. They spent most of their time sitting by the pool and drinking beer. The salesman, Cummings, Stebbings, Henderson and Speed had stuck to themselves on the plane to Bangkok, and from the conversations Lehman overheard he gathered that they had enjoyed their visit and had all felt they had benefited from the experience. Certainly Henderson and Speed seemed a good deal more relaxed and didn’t appear to have to stay as close to each other as they did before their visit. Cummings, too, seemed more at ease and not so dependent on his wife. For them, maybe, it had been a worthwhile endeavour. For the rest of the group, however, the trip to Vietnam seemed to have d
one more harm than good. Carmody’s anti-Vietnamese rhetoric was worse than it had been, and Horvitz kept falling into long, sullen silences as if trying to deal with uncomfortable memories. Lewis had confessed that he’d been having more nightmares since he’d returned to Vietnam, and Lehman had to admit that memories which he thought had long since lost their sting were now troubling him once more and he was getting flashbacks – bad ones, images which he’d hoped had faded. Apparently they hadn’t, they’d been lying somewhere in his subconscious waiting for the trigger to bring them to the surface: the night attack when two Hueys had collided just yards in front of him; the morning when his co-pilot, a nineteen-year-old farm boy called Ted, took a sniper’s bullet in the face; the marine sergeant who walked into the rear rotor of Lehman’s Huey and died in his arms, the top of his skull crushed into mush.
“You okay, Dan?” said a voice and Lehman looked up to see Lewis sitting and stretching. The tension had faded from his face.
“Bad memories,” said Lehman, rubbing his cheeks with the palms of his hands as if he were putting on aftershave.
“Yeah, tell me about it. They worse for you, after Vietnam and all?”
Lehman nodded. “Yeah. It’s to be expected, I guess. It was twenty-five years ago, I was just about coming to terms with it.”
“Man, you don’t ever come to terms with it. Never. Hey, you wanna go look round the city?”
“Yeah, I reckon I’ve been in the sun long enough. Do you want to eat?”
Lewis patted his stomach. “No. I’m okay. Just fancy a look-see. Check out the markets maybe. See if I can find a souvenir for my boy.”
“Didn’t know you had a son,” said Lehman.
“Eight years old,” said Lewis proudly. He fished his wallet out of his shorts and took out a small colour photograph. He showed it to Lehman. A crinkly-haired boy with a mischievous grin beamed out of the tiny picture. He had his father’s wide forehead and square chin. A good-looking boy.
“He’s definitely your son all right,” said Lehman. “Looks just like you.”
“Yeah. I don’t see much of him these days. One weekend in four.”
“Divorced?”
“Yeah. Wife couldn’t take it any more, she said. The nightmares. The flashbacks.”
Lehman stood up and draped a towel over his shoulders. “Come on,” he said, “we need a change of atmosphere. This is starting to get too depressing.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” laughed Lewis. He got to his feet and asked if Horvitz or Carmody wanted to go along. They both declined but Carmody reminded them that they’d promised to meet Tyler later that night for a tour around Pat Pong, Bangkok’s red light area. Rest and Recreation, Tyler had said. Rape and Run, Carmody had called it.
Lehman and Lewis left the poolside to go back to their rooms to change. On their way through the hotel lobby they met Tyler. He wore a light blue safari suit and a pair of gold-rimmed sunglasses.
“Where are the boys?” he asked them.
“By the pool,” said Lewis.
“You guys still okay for tonight?”
“Sure thing,” said Lewis. “Nine o’clock, right?”
“On the dot,” said Tyler, grinning. “You going somewhere special?”
“Check out the shops and stuff,” said Lewis. “Present for my boy, maybe.”
“You should look at the computer stuff they’ve got here,” said Tyler. “Pirate copies. Dirt cheap. Anyway, see you both later.”
He nodded a farewell and headed for the pool.
“What do you make of him?” asked Lehman as Tyler disappeared through the door.
“Tyler?” said Lewis, frowning. “What do you mean?”
“He’s nothing like any pilot I ever met,” explained Lehman. “I feel like I should salute every time I see him. And have you noticed that Carmody has started calling him ‘sir’? There’s more to him than meets the eye, I’m sure of it.”
“Yeah, well I think he talks a lot of sense. I thought he handled himself really well with Judy. He stood up for himself. Hell, he stood up for us all. I think if he hadn’t been there we’d have all laid down like Henderson and Speed. Yeah, I like Tyler. We could have done with more officers like him in Nam. You know who he reminds me of? Oliver North. Marine Corps through and through. A professional soldier, someone you can rely on, somebody who’d die to protect his men and who’d expect them to do the same.”
“But not a pilot?” pressed Lehman.
Lewis shrugged. “Pilot. Marine. Who gives a fuck? He’s just an A-One guy. Come on, let’s go get changed and get a tuk-tuk.”
“Hell, can’t we get a cab? You die of fumes in the back of those things. And they’re dangerous, too.”
“Come on, man,” laughed Lewis. “Who wants to live for ever?” He slammed Lehman on the back hard enough to rattle his teeth and pushed him towards the elevator.
They got back to the hotel just after dark, their shirts soaked in sweat after a thirty-minute ride in the back of a two-stroke tuk-tuk, the hybrid of a scooter and a rickshaw which buzzed like a wasp in a bottle as their driver recklessly weaved through the dense Bangkok traffic.
They arranged to meet at the bar at just before nine o’clock and went upstairs to shower and change.
When Lehman arrived in the bar in a clean red polo shirt and white slacks, Tyler was already there talking to Horvitz and Carmody at a table in the far corner. All three looked up when Lehman walked in and for a moment it seemed to Lehman that they were sharing a secret and that he was an intruder. Horvitz and Carmody quickly turned their faces to Tyler as if seeking his advice but his expression didn’t change and he asked Lehman what he wanted to drink.
Lehman asked for a beer and Tyler waved over a slim waitress in a tight-fitting purple and gold dress which covered her from the neck to the floor and asked for four Singha beers.
“Make that five,” he said as Lewis arrived. He was wearing a short-sleeved green and white striped shirt and blue jeans.
“Like it?” he said, holding out his arms and modelling the shirt. “It’s a fake Yves Saint Laurent, cost just thirty baht.”
“A bargain,” said Lehman. Two waiters in jacket and trousers made from the same purple and gold material as the waitress’s dress scurried over with two more chairs which they arranged around the table and before the beers arrived they had placed a wooden bowl of crisps and another of salted peanuts in front of the Americans.
“Isn’t the service here just out of this world?” asked Carmody. He was the only one of the group wearing a long-sleeved sweatshirt, and it covered up all of his artificial arm except for the claw at the end. He scratched his bare leg with the claw. He was also the only one of the Americans to be wearing shorts. His sweatshirt had a large orange sun on the front with “Bangkok” written in oriental script.
“Unbelievable,” said Lewis as the waitress returned with the tray of drinks. She knelt skilfully by the side of the table and poured the beers into cold glasses with small, economical movements, all the time smiling and averting her eyes demurely.
“Can you imagine them doing this in Baltimore, Bart?” laughed Carmody.
Lewis rolled his eyes. “Just wouldn’t happen, not in a million years,” he agreed.
“So,” said Tyler, helping himself to a handful of crisps. “First we eat, then we hit Pat Pong. How does that sound?”
“Sounds perfect,” said Horvitz. Despite the darkness of the bar he was still wearing his sunglasses.
They finished their beers and made their way to the front entrance of the hotel where they discovered that Tyler had hired a white Mercedes for the journey. “I thought you might like to go in style,” he explained.
“All right!” cheered Carmody, climbing into the back seat.
Tyler opened the front passenger door and got in while Horvitz, Lewis and Lehman joined Carmody in the back. The Mercedes was the large 560SEL model so there was plenty of room for them.
“Where we going?” Lewis asked.
“A place I know,” said Tyler and he spoke a few words of Thai to the driver. The driver, a middle-aged Thai in a white uniform with gold buttons, nodded and started the car.
“You speak Thai?” Lehman asked.
“Not so you’d notice,” replied Tyler. “I asked the concierge to tell me how to pronounce the name of the road.”
“Your tones sounded good,” said Lehman.
“Let’s wait and see where we end up before you start complimenting me on my Thai,” said Tyler, good-humouredly.
The Mercedes was air-conditioned so they were insulated from the choking fumes and dust of the crowded city streets, but even through the closed windows they could not escape the night-time sounds: the sing-song Thai voices of the street hawkers, distant police sirens, car engines racing as impatient drivers kept their feet hard on the accelerator even when the roads were blocked, the ever-present buzzing of the tuk-tuks, nipping in and out of the stationary cars.
The Mercedes turned off the main road and into a narrow alley devoid of street lights, bumping and bucking over potholes. Lehman looked out of the side window but all he could see were pockmarked walls and sacks of rubbish. He saw a dark shape scuttling along the side of a building but he couldn’t tell if it was a small cat or a large rat. The car turned right and into another alley and then drove out of the darkness and on to another well-lit area, a street full of restaurants and shops with bright neon signs and the ever-present tuk-tuks outside.
“Here we are,” said Tyler as the Mercedes pulled to a halt. As the Americans piled out of the car, Lehman heard Tyler speaking to the driver in Thai. Lehman couldn’t understand what was being said, but he doubted that it was anything Tyler had learned from the concierge and the tones sounded as good as they’d heard on Thai radio. Tyler’s fluency with South-East Asian languages was something that Lehman would love to have had explained.
The Vets (Stephen Leather Thrillers) Page 21