‘Good for you,’ Scott said. ‘Are you here for work then?’
‘Sort of,’ Alan said, not wanting to show his cards until he had an idea of his opponent’s hand. ‘We’re doing an environmental piece with Sophie Deans and the Thai elephants.’ Alan tried to read something, anything, from the American’s responses or body language. He really wished that Berenice was here, she was great at this stuff. Even Bob would’ve done at a pinch.
Scott raised his eyebrows, again. ‘Sophie Deans? Should I know her?’
‘Oh, no, probably not, Scott. You don’t mind if I call you Scott? Sophie’s one of our biggest TV stars. And she’s a singer. But she’s not really known in America.’
Scott nodded. ‘Even if she was, I’m not really big on pop stars.’
‘Of course not,’ Alan said, as if that was a given, for some reason. ‘So are you on the trail of another big story?’
‘Always,’ Scott grinned.
‘Is it the whole Golden Triangle drug thing this time?’
‘No. Not drugs at all this time.’
Come on: elaborate, Alan thought. ‘Right, I guess you have to keep a lid on things while you’re still researching.’
‘Something like that,’ Scott said. ‘But my story’s not really based in this region at all, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
‘Me?’
‘Yeah, if you’re onto something bigger than elephants yourself; here, I mean.’
‘Me? No,’ Alan shook his head. ‘I am here, in this bar, to meet someone, a contact; so I will have to nip off any second, but it’s no biggy. You’re not here,’ he pointed to the table, ‘to meet a source?’
Scott stared at the Australian. Man, this guy is as subtle as a hand grenade. ‘No I’m having a drink with a friend. Ah, here she comes,’ Scott said with relief. He never thought he’d have a reason to be glad to see Kaisha.
‘Who’s your new friend?’ Kaisha asked Scott, as she sat in the empty chair and waved for the waiter. She was dressed quite bizarrely - even for her - but then she had done nothing but shop, at every opportunity, since they’d been in Thailand. Right now it looked like she was wearing every item of clothing she’d bought, all at once.
‘Alan, um Wagner was it?’ Scott said.
Alan nodded and cast his eyes over the incredibly attractive young woman, who was obviously not Thai, but was Asian-ish.
‘Alan, Kaisha, Kaisha Alan. And we just met.’
‘It’s a pleasure to meet you,’ Alan gushed.
Kaisha’s gaze yo-yoed between Scott and Alan, finally settling on Scott. ‘Don’t tell me you’re a gay boy too.’
‘No,’ Scott shrugged. ‘Why?’
Kaisha waved her hand between the two. ‘I leave you on your own for half an hour and you’re already being picked up by strange men.’
‘Picking up? Who me? No, I wasn’t picking up anybody,’ Alan over-reacted. ‘And I’m not strange, I mean I’m not gay.’
‘It’s okay Alan. It’s me she’s making fun of, not you,’ Scott said, deciding it was time to be anywhere else.
‘Oh. I have to be going now, anyway,’ Alan said, standing. ‘Nice to meet you both.’ He returned to his table only to find it occupied by two geriatric men in toupees. And, as they both looked more like Dad’s Army than anyone’s commandoes, Alan chose another table and ordered a fresh beer. He kept an eye on Scott Dreher though, and his delicious girlfriend or ‘date’, while he waited; just in case Scott was meeting someone else.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chiang Mai, Thailand
Sunday 9.30 pm
Jana and Bob, bonded in mutual mockery of the only person they had in common, were enjoying their own Singha beers at the Krankle Café. They’d chosen a table diagonally across the narrow street from where Alan had, by the looks of things, just made a fool of himself, before moving to a table on his own.
When Jana said she’d had a drink with the same guy in her hotel earlier, Bob explained who the American journo really was.
‘Do you know the girl?’ Jana asked, wondering why Scott Dreher the ‘spy novelist’ - who had given her his card - hadn’t told her how famous he was. It was almost un-American of him.
‘Not a clue,’ Bob admitted, casting a sideways glance at the very hot Jana Rossi. From what Alan had told him, Bob had imagined she’d be doing a Linda Blair every other minute, spewing nails and spinning her head on her rather attractive body.
Bob should’ve known better. When Alan trashed even half-good looking birds, it was either because they’d turned him down, or he hadn’t had the guts to ask. In Alan’s book that made them dogs, lesbians or lunatics.
‘Alan, of course, assumed the reporter guy was here to chase the same story as him,’ Bob added.
Jana laughed. ‘Yeah right, famous American writer snatches the great Sophie Deans exposé from unknown Australian.’
As much he wanted to enlighten her, Bob knew Jana had signed the same ‘shut up contract’ about what had happened on Laui Island as Alan had. And just because he was breaking the contract, didn’t mean Jana would. So he nodded and said, ‘Pretty much what I told him.’
‘It’s beyond me how you haven’t murdered him,’ Jana said. ‘You’ve had more than a decade.’
Bob stroked his moustache. ‘Don’t usually have to endure him for so long. In fact we’d never been further than Coogee together before this. Oh, except for a gig at Wet and Wild in Queensland five years ago. The man wears orange budgie smugglers,’ Bob shivered all over. ‘I’d forgotten that.’
‘No, that’s suffered traumatic amnesia,’ Jana said, grateful the Laui rebels had at least saved her from Alan in Speedos. ‘Is he waiting for Sophie to stroll by so he can pounce on her?’
‘Probably,’ Bob said.
‘Where’s your camera? What kind of media mug are you?’
Bob laughed. ‘One who wouldn’t want to catch Australia’s current sweetheart in an even vaguely compromising situation with my mate Alan. No one could pay me enough for that.’
‘Not even if she decks him?’
‘Not even if her girlfriend decks him. You want another beer?’
Jana waved her half-full bottle, Bob went inside to get a single.
Jana closed her eyes for a moment, to free her senses from the narrow focus of one-on-one banter, then opened them to drink in the vibrant street life all around her. Thai vendors hawked exotic fruits from small carts, shop assistants beckoned westerners into their stores, tuk-tuk and songthaew drivers competed for fares and - on the footpath between the many bars and cafés - woodcarvers and souvenir sellers displayed their wares. The sheer number of out-and-about people, meant that much of the pedestrian traffic ended up on the narrow roadway itself, zigzagging each other and dodging the slow-moving traffic.
Jana’s attention meandered amongst the locals and the tourists: a dozen-strong tour group in colourful matching shirts, an exquisite Thai woman in the doorway of a Head and Foot Massage shop, and three young boys playing with hand-sized hoops.
She also glimpsed a few vaguely-familiar profiles or possibly-familiar faces in the crowd - a regular happening wherever she travelled, and often embarrassing. Sometimes she was wrong in her identification or, more likely, clueless when people recognised her. Just that afternoon, she’d approached her doctor from Melbourne on the mountain-top Wat Prathat, only to find herself greeting a perfectly strange French woman from somewhere else all together.
Across the road, Scott was just about to order another drink when his pocket began vibrating. Kaisha had been talking incessantly about the massage she just had, and how Scott really should have one too, because he really needed sterunching and debugging. Scott really didn’t want to know what she meant, so he pulled out his cell phone and answered it. It was Hiroshi informing him that his partner Ari was finally home from the debt talks in Kuala Lumpur. ‘Time for me to go, Kaisha,’ he said. ‘Are you coming to meet Hiroshi’s boyfriend now, or later?’
‘I go when
you go. The strange man who tried to pick you up is eyegling at me now,’ Kaisha said.
Scott tapped the nearest westerner on the arm, to indicate they were vacating the table, then he and Kaisha began to snake their way out through the other standing patrons. A tall incoming New Yorker - marked by his accent when he apologised for bumping into them - hesitated a moment after Scott replied, probably to make sure he didn’t know his fellow American.
‘What was that about?’ Kaisha asked.
Scott shrugged. ‘I’ve got that sort of face. People always think they know me.’
‘Maybe they do. You know, from your book.’
Scott looked down at Kaisha. ‘That still doesn’t mean they know me. It’d be like you thinking, for a second, that you could say hi to Angelina or Brad; and that they’d give a damn.’
‘Well Mr Only-a-Little-bit-Famous, that guy seems to know your ex-boyfriend.’ Kaisha nodded back to the table where the strange Australian reporter was sitting.
Alan looked up from picking apart his drink coaster when something obstructed his light.
‘Are you Wagner?’ The talking obstruction was built like League fullback, or, given he was a Yank, a gridiron player.
Correction, Alan thought, and squared his shoulders to make himself feel bigger. He noted that link between the two sports only fitted when American footballers were dressed for play in their full pussy-wimp uniforms. This guy, on the other hand, was just plain ‘built’. He had close-cropped hair, a three-day growth on his jowly face, muscles on his muscles, and abs ripped enough to tap dance on. He was wearing a tight T-shirt and jeans - both black - and kick-arse boots. All in all, he made Alan feel woefully inadequate; so he compensated by immediately assuming the guy must be dumb as a brick.
‘I am,’ Alan replied, waving at the chair he’d saved from marauding drunks. ‘And you?’
‘For now, you can call me Steve.’
‘Steve’ obviously had the thing that inspired service. The waiter whose attention Alan had been trying to attract for ages suddenly appeared between them. Alan lifted his empty bottle, so his guest ordered a whisky, triple and neat and two Heinekens.
‘So Steve,’ Alan began, realising his voice recorder was useless in his pocket, especially as the rowdy ambient chatter was now being overtaken by loud music. ‘Can I record?’
‘Yeah, but this is just a prelim. We’ll have two meetings. I assume you brought a camera.’
‘Yes, and a guy,’ Alan admitted, placing his recorder on the table. ‘I don’t do cameras. And Bob is cool, I promise.’
‘Is he somewhere here now?’ Steve looked around suspiciously. Alan raised his hands. ‘No no, I swear. He knows why we’re in Thailand, but not where I am right now.’
‘Okay,’ Steve said. ‘So, this time I give you enough to know I’m the real deal. Then we set the rules for you, and your guy, to film an interview, at another place of my choosing. I stress again I will not have my face shown. Is that acceptable?’
‘Yes. Absolutely.’
Across the road, Bob sat back down next to Jana with his beer and a plate of something. ‘This, allegedly, is mee krob wan,’ he said.
‘That’s easy for you to say,’ Jana smiled.
‘No. I would say they were little sweet cakes of crunchy rice noodles, with dates. Enjoy.’ As she reached for one, Bob nodded across the road and added, ‘Who’s the new bloke?’
Jana looked over at Alan and his new tablemate, yet another person who looked nothing like Sophie Deans. ‘No idea. I must have vagued-off, I didn’t even see him arrive. Are you sure Alan is completely straight? He seems to be picking up blokes left and right. And if that guy doesn’t spend all his spare time buffing in the gym, then I’ve never danced to In the Navy.’
Bob grinned. ‘You’re a crack-up Jana. No wonder you drove Alan nuts when you were locked up together.’
‘Don’t know about the driving, but I certainly whacked them.’ Jana’s eyes widened as a thought virtually walked up and waved its hands at her. ‘Bob, do you think Alan’s new friend with the buzz-cut hair, the nine-pack of abs, and the,’ she leaned left to get a look at the guy’s feet, ‘army-type boots, could be a soldier?’
‘What, a sailor’s not good enough for our Alan?’ Bob joked, but then realised Jana was serious. ‘Dunno, I guess he could be. He looks - oh shit, he could be the…’ Bob quite obviously stopped himself.
‘Uh-huh,’ Jana said, peering at her companion. ‘Alan’s here to meet someone about Laui. Isn’t he?’ She unzipped the bumbag she was wearing, to get her mobile out. ‘Bob?’
‘Yeah,’ he confirmed apologetically. ‘I had no idea it was now though. I truly thought he was stalking Sophie. Oh crap, the bastard lied to me.’
Jana raised an eyebrow. ‘Auto-cue-Alan meeting alone with a serious hunk of lethal-looking whatever he is - this has to be a recipe for disaster.’ The first thing she did with her mobile was take a photo of Alan and his Mr Muscle; the second thing she did was phone a new friend.
‘Should I be worried about Alan?’ Bob asked as Jana waited for the phone to answer.
‘I’d have thought that was a given,’ she said, holding up a finger to indicate her call was connecting. Figuring that Alan was right in the middle of breaking the contract he’d signed not to investigate their hostage experience, she wanted to give the heads up to…
‘Speak,’ said the answering voice.
‘Bryn?’ Jana whispered.
‘Yep.’
‘It’s Jana. Jana Rossi. You know your…’
‘I know who you are Jana. Why are you whispering?’
‘I’m spying on someone doing something he shouldn’t be, in a place you wouldn’t believe.’
‘Wanna try that again in English. And louder, I can barely hear you. Where are you?’
‘I’m in Chiang Mai. You know, in Thailand.’
‘I know where Chiang Mai is, Jana.’
‘Well, don’t get thing with me, el Capitan. You gave me your mobile number, remember, in case my ex-roomy contacted me to ask for help in blowing your, your whatsit.’ Jana realised that even though Bob was a fun guy, it was wise to choose her words carefully in front of Alan’s colleague.
‘My whatsit, I see,’ Gideon said. ‘I gather Alan Wagner’s been in touch then.’
‘Not exactly. I thought for a second he was stalking me, but right now he’s sitting in a bar with a guy who looks like some kind of soldier.’
‘A bar in Thailand?’
‘Yes, Bryn. And he, the maybe-soldier, doesn’t look like any of your guys - that I can recall anyway. And, given it’s only Alan’s second-ever overseas jaunt, I thought I should warn you.’
‘Okay. Thanks Jana.’
What; that’s it? Jana frowned. ‘I took a picture of him, them. I could email it to you from my hotel room.’
‘No need. You could just hand it to me.’
Jana frowned. That last statement had been in stereo. It was timed precisely with the arrival of an extra chair, right next to her. Jana kept her eyes on Alan across the road but said, into her phone, ‘That’s you isn’t it?’
‘Yep. Can I buy you a beer?’
Jana snapped her phone shut and turned to her right, to be met by the highly amused blue eyes of Bryn Gideon. ‘Are you stalking me?’ she scowled.
‘No Jana. I’m following him,’ Gideon pointed across the road. ‘But how did you come to be drinking with his cameraman?’
‘Just lucky I guess,’ Jana said.
‘I certainly am,’ Bob said, offering Gideon his hand. ‘You seem to know who I am.’
Gideon shook hands and said, ‘I’m Bryn. You trying to hit on my girlfriend, Bob?’
‘Knock it off Bryn,’ Jana smiled. ‘I am not her girlfriend, Bob.’
‘Oh, but hey,’ Bob said as he was hit by likelihood. ‘Lemme guess: you are the soldier girl that Alan’s been raving about since he got back. No one believed him about you.’
‘And you really shouldn’t either, Bo
b,’ Gideon advised. ‘I’d hate to have to deal with both of you.’
Bob zipped his grinning lips. Now he did wish he had his camera. Alan was going to kill him. Although he guessed this Bryn would be way more skilled in that department.
‘Soldier girl?’ Jana smirked.
Gideon ignored her. ‘So, Bob, you don’t know who that is with your mate Alan?’
Bob shrugged. ‘All I can say for certain is that it’s not Sophie Deans, which is who Alan said he was coming out to meet.’
‘But he is here, in Chiang Mai, to meet someone else,’ she hesitated expectantly.
Bob sighed. ‘A mystery commando, like a Navy SEAL or something, an American anyway. Seriously though, knowing Alan’s luck, the bloke will turn out to be a conman trying to sell him beachfront property in Wyoming.’
Gideon smiled. ‘And I gather you don’t know him, Jana. He’s not your redhead from Laui with a new haircut?’
‘No, it’s not him.’ Jana gazed thoughtfully around the street for a moment, mostly to avoid forming a permanent auto-memory-link between the mullet face Alan was projecting and the arrestingly beautiful one Gideon didn’t seem to know she owned. In doing so, Jana experienced her day’s fifth case of probably-faulty person recognition. She really wished that would stop happening - until a second later when it registered exactly who she had just seen in the crowd.
‘Are you having a seizure?’ Gideon asked, pointing at Jana’s tight finger grip.
‘What? Oh, sorry.’ Jana let go of Gideon’s arm. She went back to scanning the crowd. ‘The guy with Alan is not the redhead I saw with Mila Ifran. But I did just see - there,’ she pointed. ‘The guy in the front of that songthaew is him. I’m sure of it.’
Gideon followed the invisible line from Jana’s finger to the taxi-truck that had pulled into the traffic about 20 metres down from the Kalipot Bar, and was now pulling back into the kerb in front of it. Jana’s redhead got out of the front seat, and two unusually large Thai guys alighted from the back. All three looked shifty, in a cool, collected planned-assault kind of way.
‘Uh-oh,’ Gideon said, and pinched her ear. ‘Are you boys seeing what I’m seeing?’
Redback Page 23