The Vets (Stephen Leather Thrillers)

by Stephen Leather

  “You watch, okay?” she said, nodding.

  “Of course.”

  She pinched his arm gently and ran around the bar and up on to the stage, slipped out of her bikini and dropped the two tiny bits of orange material on to a chair. She looked even younger without the swimsuit, her thighs plump with puppy fat, her breasts firm and with no trace of sagging. Lorn gave him a beaming smile and shook her shoulders at him and blew him a kiss. Lehman smiled back and raised his glass to her.

  The Americans sat in silence, watching the dancers on the stage and drinking their beer. Occasionally a man would leave with one of the bargirls dressed in a simple dress or blouse and jeans, presumably back to the guy’s hotel or to one of the many short-time hotels which were in the buildings above the bars and restaurants of Pat Pong. After twenty minutes all the girls on the stage skipped off and were replaced with a new shift.

  Lorn popped up at Lehman’s side and slipped her arm around his waist. She was wearing her bikini once more. Her hand crept inside the back of his trousers where she stroked his skin.

  “You see me?” she whispered into his ear.

  “Oh, yes, I did that,” said Lehman.

  “You pay my bar fine? You take me out?”

  “Maybe,” answered Lehman.

  A thick-set Thai man with a chunky gold chain around his neck and wearing a gold Rolex came out of a side door. He went behind the bar and checked the till. He saw Tyler and threw up his hands, a wide grin on his face. He practically ran around the bar and shook Tyler fiercely by the hand. “Joel Tyler,” he said. “Good to see you back.”

  “You couldn’t keep me away from the best bar in Pat Pong,” said Tyler.

  “In Bangkok, please,” said the man.

  Tyler introduced the burly man to Lehman as the owner of the bar and when they shook hands Lehman could feel a chunky ring bite into his flesh. The grip was firm and slightly damp and the smile seemed artificial. The man’s name had about six syllables and when Lehman asked him to repeat it Lehman was still unable to pronounce it.

  “My farang friends call me Josh,” he said.

  “Farang?” said Lehman.

  “It’s what they call foreigners,” explained Tyler.

  “It’s quite friendly,” said Josh. “It carries no racist overtones, I can assure you. Some of my best friends are farangs.” His belly rolled as he laughed, big booming guffaws that cut through the rock music. Several of his back teeth had been replaced with gold ones.

  “Little Lorn is looking after you, Dan?” Josh asked.

  Lehman could feel Lorn tense as if she were frightened. Lehman sensed that a less than enthusiastic response would end up with her being hurt. He put his arm around her shoulder and pressed her to him. “She’s terrific,” said Lehman, detesting the Thai man for the effect he was having on the girl. She was trembling.

  “Good, good,” said Josh. He spoke to Lorn in Thai and she replied in a faltering voice, shaking her head. Josh asked her something else and she nodded and he laughed again and then took Tyler off to one side for a private conversation. “Your drinks are all on the house,” he called over his shoulder.

  “What did he say to you?” Lehman asked Lorn once Tyler and Josh were gone.

  “He ask me if I sick,” she said.

  “Sick?”

  “If I have AIDS, or VD. I tell him I okay.”

  “But doesn’t he stop the girls working if they get sick?”

  She shook her head. “No, he not care. Many girls here have AIDS. They must work, must send money to their families. They very poor. Even if sick, still must work.”

  “You mean, if a girl gets infected with AIDS she still works?”

  “Of course. What she do?”

  “And Josh doesn’t stop them?”

  “Why he care? All girls use condoms. And most customers are tourists. Most not come back. That is why he ask me. He not want you get sick. You friend of friend. He must take care of you.”

  “What else did he say to you?”

  She blushed. “He say I must treat you like king, and not ask you for money.” Lehman disliked the man even more, for scaring Lorn and for pimping for him. “I come to your hotel?”

  “I don’t think so,” said Lehman.

  “You not like me?”

  Lehman sighed. “Yes, of course I like you. I like you a lot. You’re very pretty, very sexy, I’m sure I’d have a great time with you. But I can’t.”

  “Why not?” she pressed. “If I not make love with you, he very angry. Maybe he hit me.”

  “Lorn, I’m married,” Lehman lied. “I love my wife very much and I cannot sleep with any other girl. You understand?”

  She nodded earnestly. “I understand. You very good man, Dan. Your wife very lucky.”

  “Lorn, if Josh tries to hurt you, you must tell me.” He tore off a corner of the “Welcome To Bangkok” poster and wrote down his hotel and room number on it. “If he gives you any trouble, I want you to call me.”

  She took the piece of paper and slipped it inside the briefs of her bikini. Lehman got off his stool and she hugged him around the waist. On the stage a girl was lying on her back and using her vaginal muscles to blow steel-tipped darts through a silver pipe at balloons held at arm’s length by two seedy-looking tourists. Her stomach tensed and the dart flew through the air and one of the balloons popped with a loud bang. “Don’t go,” pleaded Lorn.

  “I have to,” he said. He took out his wallet and tried to give her another 500 baht note but she put her hands behind her back and refused to take it.

  “I not want your money,” she pouted.

  He folded the note and slid it down her orange briefs, next to the piece of paper. “A present,” he said.

  Lehman patted Lewis on his shoulder and told him he was going back to the hotel. Lewis was having his thighs massaged by a plump girl with her hair tied in two braids. He said he’d stay for a while. Horvitz was similarly occupied with a bargirl while Carmody was trying to pay a girl’s bar fine. Lehman removed Lorn’s hand from his arm and headed towards the entrance. Tyler caught up with him just as he reached the door.

  “You going, Dan?” he asked.

  “Yeah, thought I’d have an early night.”

  Tyler looked at his watch. “It’s not that early,” he said, “it’ll be midnight in a few minutes. I think I’ll call it a night myself. Let’s get a tuk-tuk together.” He waved a goodbye to Josh and Josh’s gold bracelet glistened under the spotlights as he waved back. Girls in bikinis made a half-hearted attempt to stop them leaving as they descended the stairs and one was bold enough to stand in front of them, hands on hips, demanding that they go back and buy her a drink. They moved either side of her, pressing their backs to the wall, and her small hands wandered over Lehman’s thighs. They fluttered around his groin and then he felt his wallet being slid out of his pocket. He clapped his hand to his pocket but the girl was so cute he found it impossible to be mad at her. She held her hands up in the air as if surrendering, then stood up on tiptoe to kiss his chin. Her breath smelt of fish and garlic and he heard her sniff as she kissed him. He slipped by her and followed Tyler out into the street where he was being harangued by three youths who were offering to show him the charms of night-time Bangkok. He spoke to them in Thai and they stepped back, surprise on their faces, then they burst out laughing and walked away.

  “What did you say to them?” asked Lehman.

  “Something along the lines that the only women I wanted were their mothers and what I’d like to do to them. It loses a lot in translation.”

  “Yeah, I bet it does,” said Lehman. “Your Thai is pretty good, isn’t it?”

  “I can get by.” Tyler beckoned to a tuk-tuk driver who kicked his machine into life and pulled up next to the two men.

  “You said you couldn’t speak Thai,” said Lehman as he climbed into the back of the tuk-tuk.

  Tyler got in and held on to a guard rail as the tuk-tuk moved away. He turned and looked at Lehman,
fixing him with his cold blue eyes. “You’ve got to have some secrets, haven’t you, Dan?” he said.

  “I can’t argue with that,” said Lehman.

  “I mean, life would be boring if we all knew everything there was to know about each other, wouldn’t it? A little mystery makes life that much more exciting.” He smiled and his eyes crinkled. Tyler’s smile was quite warm, it was the confident, “I can be trusted” expression which Lehman had seen on the faces of boiler room salesmen all over California.

  The tuk-tuk accelerated through the traffic, the driver skilfully switching back and forth between the road lanes whenever he spotted a gap. “Are you planning to stay out in Asia for a while, Dan?” asked Tyler.

  “What makes you ask that?” replied Lehman. The tuk-tuk lurched to the left and ducked in front of a rattling old bus which slammed on its brakes.

  “Problems back home, maybe,” said Tyler quietly.

  The tuk-tuk driver accelerated so quickly that Tyler and Lehman were pushed back into their seat, then he braked and they were thrown forward. Behind them another driver angrily sounded his horn.

  Lehman looked at Tyler, frowning. Before he could speak, Tyler held up his hand. “Hear me out first, Dan,” he said. “I gather you’re in a spot back in LA, and that it probably isn’t a good idea for you to show your face there, not just now …”

  “How the hell do you know about that?” Lehman said angrily.

  “I have contacts all around the world, Dan. And when I meet someone who interests me, I make enquiries.”

  “What the fuck is going on, Tyler? What are you up to?”

  The tuk-tuk turned off the main road and into a darkened sidestreet where it bumped over potholes and weaved from side to side to avoid piles of garbage.

  “I’m pretty sure we can both help each other. You have skills which I need, and I think I can help you out of your present predicament.”

  “Predicament?”

  Tyler smiled, and this time his smile lacked warmth, it was a brief showing of teeth that reminded Lehman of a shark preparing to attack. “There’s a contract out on you, Dan. I’m sorry to have to break it to you like this, but that’s the way it is. If you go back to California, you won’t last ten minutes.”

  “That’s ridiculous!” said Lehman, but his stomach churned with the realisation that Tyler might be right.

  “Mario Cilento doesn’t piss around,” said Tyler. “He’s put a 10,000 dollar contract on your head. It’s not much, I know, but there’s plenty of folks around who’d kill for Mr Cilento free of charge just to get on his good side.”

  Lehman felt devastated. He knew that Mario Cilento would be furious at him for hitting his brother, but he’d never expected him to order his death, not over 125,000 dollars and a knee in the groin. Max would certainly bear a grudge, but he didn’t have the authority to order a hit and his elder brother had always had a cooler head. A beating, maybe, a broken limb, that was the most he’d expected. But a contract? Lehman shuddered despite the hot Bangkok night. He leant forward in the tuk-tuk and put his arms protectively around his chest, his mind a whirl. “You must be mistaken,” he said eventually.

  Tyler shook his head. “There’s no mistake, Dan.”

  “But it was only money,” said Lehman. “Barely six figures. I thought that if I laid low for a while, then went back and promised to make up for it –”

  “It’s more serious than that,” interrupted Tyler. “You hit Max harder than you thought.”

  “Oh Christ, he’s dead?”

  “No, he’s not dead. But when you kneed him between the legs, you damaged one of his testicles. You damaged it so badly that they had to operate and Max Cilento is now walking around with just one ball. Well, from what I hear, walking isn’t actually the right word. Limping would be more appropriate.”

  Despite the seriousness of his situation, Lehman couldn’t stop grinning. “One ball?” he said. “Max Cilento is one ball short of a full pair?” He laughed out loud and Tyler laughed with him.

  “Yeah, they’ve started calling him the Eunuch and he’s having a real hard time. Mario is being called the Sultan and Max’s crew is tagged as the Harem. It isn’t so much the damage you did, it’s the embarrassment factor. If Mario Cilento was Chinese you’d call it loss of face. You’ve made the family a laughing stock and they’ll never forgive you for that.”

  Lehman leant back in the seat. “Yeah, I see what you mean.” The tuk-tuk lurched to a halt outside the hotel and Lehman climbed out while Tyler paid the driver. They walked together through the hotel lobby.

  “Can I have a word with you before you turn in?” asked Tyler. Lehman agreed and the two men took the elevator to his room. Lehman opened the door and Tyler sat on a beige sofa while Lehman knelt down by the side of the mini-bar.

  “Singha okay?” asked Lehman.

  “I’d prefer a bourbon,” said Tyler.

  “Ice?”

  “Straight.”

  Lehman gave him a miniature Jack Daniels and a glass and helped himself to a beer. He sat down on the corner of the queen-size bed as he poured the Singha. A large mirror hanging on the wall opposite the bottom of the bed reflected his actions. The whole hotel seemed to be geared up for guys picking up girls. The reception desk asked to see the IDs of any girls brought into the hotel so that guests could be protected from theft, every room had a huge bed, two robes in the bathroom and a mirror close to the bed. Business cards with the names and addresses of local massage parlours appeared under his door as if by magic and even the chambermaids smiled invitingly as if they’d be prepared to share the bed rather than simply make it up.

  “Dan, I don’t want you to think that I’ve been prying into your personal life,” said Tyler. “I’m not playing some sort of game with you, I want you to know that.” He took a long pull at his Jack Daniels. “You seem like the sort of guy I could use, and I wanted to have that confirmed before I approached you with what I have in mind. I just made a few phone calls, that’s all.”

  “Who did you call?” asked Lehman.

  “I have friends,” said Tyler. “That’s all I can tell you.”

  “Everyone must have their secrets?” said Lehman sarcastically.

  “Something like that. But you’ve no need to worry, the people I use are discreet. There’s no way that Mario Cilento will know that you’re out here. At least, he won’t find out from me. Does anyone else know you’re here?”

  Lehman shook his head.

  “I asked you before how long you planned to stay here. Can you answer me now?”

  “I’m not sure,” answered Lehman. “Not now you’ve told me about the contract. I’d assumed that it was just a matter of lying low for a while then going back and taking my medicine. A beating, maybe. Possibly a broken arm and a promise that I’d make good the money. I’m a good operator, you know, and I’d just put in the extra time until I cleared it.”

  “The way I hear it, that’s not on the cards,” said Tyler.

  “Yeah. So I guess I will stay put for a while, while I figure out what to do.” He drank his beer but it had no taste. He grimaced and so did his reflection.

  “Dan, I can help you,” said Tyler.

  “Help me make up my mind, or help me get straight with Cilento?”

  “I can help you get enough money maybe to persuade Cilento to take back the contract. Or to start a new life somewhere else. Plastic surgery if necessary, new ID, the works.”

  Lehman snorted. “Plastic surgery? You think I need a nose job, Joel, is that it?”

  Tyler smiled grimly. “You know what I mean. You could get enough money to stay hidden for ever. And you never know, if you were to offer Mario Cilento half a million bucks and a fulsome apology, he might figure it was worth the loss of face.”

  “Half a million bucks?” said Lehman. “Where am I going to get money like that?”

  Tyler sipped at his bourbon. “That’s what I want to talk to you about.” He paused long enough to make sure that h
e had Lehman’s undivided attention. He did. “Dan, what would you be prepared to do for two million dollars?”

  Lehman rolled his glass between the palms of his hands as he considered the question. “A lot,” he replied eventually.

  “Would you kill?”

  “No,” said Lehman emphatically. “Not cold, I’d never kill for money.”

  “You killed in Nam, though?”

  “Twice. I was a chopper pilot, remember? I killed when I had to, when my Huey went down and we had to fight off an NVA patrol, but I was never in the jungle with an M16 in my hand. But that’s not what we’re talking about, is it? You’re talking about killing for money, and the answer is that I wouldn’t. Not for two million dollars, not for twenty million dollars.”

  “A point of principle?”

  “Yes.”

  “Would you break the law for two million dollars?”

  Lehman laughed. “Come on, Joel. Everyone breaks the law. We’ve all driven above the speed limit, we’ve been at the wheel with a few too many beers under our belts, we’ve smoked grass and done a hell of a lot more besides. I’ve no problems with breaking the law, it just depends on what law it is you want broken. Why don’t you tell me what’s on your mind?”

  “What I’m trying to do, Dan, is to ascertain just what you’d do for money. You’ve told me that you won’t kill, and that’s fine, the job I have in mind doesn’t involve murder. But you can’t expect me to come right out with what I’ve got in mind, not until I know where you stand. For all I know, you might go running straight to the police, and then where would I be? No, you’ll have to bear with me, for a while.”

  “If you’ve been asking questions about me back in California you’ll know that I’m not exactly on the best of terms with the police. And you’ll know what it is I do for a living.”

  “You sell non-existent investments. Fraud.”

  “It’s a grey area, but I wouldn’t quibble too much with your description.”

  “Would you fly a helicopter for money?”

  “Depends.”

  “On what?”

  “On what it is you want to fly. I wouldn’t want to get involved in drugs.” He grinned. “Other than for occasional recreational use,” he added. “But I wouldn’t fly drugs in from South America. Too risky.”