Thai Horse

  ‘Hello, Christian,’ she said in her bell-like voice.

  ‘Look at you,’ Hatcher said. ‘You still look sixteen years old. Don’t you believe in time?’

  ‘I will soon be three and oh,’ she said.

  ‘Don’t tell anybody, they’ll never guess,’ he said and handed her the bottle of wine. ‘Save this for you and Cohen.’

  ‘Mm goi,’ she said, holding the bottle close to her breast. ‘We will think of you when we drin1 it.’

  ‘And I will sense the moment,’ he answered.

  She stood quietly appraising him and finally nodded. ‘It is a good day for us, Christian,’ she said somewhat plaintively. ‘Robert used to talk about you all the time. Then we heard you were dead, and after that he never mentioned your name again. Then today! Such excitement. All those years his heart hurt because he thought you were gone. I am glad you are back, for him and for me.’

  ‘And for me,’ he said.

  ‘You have not changed much, she said. ‘Still very dashing. I am sorry about. . . this.’ She gently touched his wounded neck with her fingertips.

  ‘Hell, it just makes me sound dangerous,’ he whispered with a laugh.

  ‘You are dangerous,’ Tiana said quite seriously, staring straight into his eyes. Then she smiled again. ‘Welcome back.’ She took his face between delicate hands and kissed him ever so lightly on the lips.

  ‘That’ll bring you luck for the next twenty years,’ a voice said behind him, and he turned to see China Cohen standing in the doorway.

  Time had put gray in his hair and beard, added some wrinkles to his face, softened the hard lines around his eyes, but otherwise there was little change. He was wearing his customary cheongsam, brocaded with gemstones, and a Thai amulet around his neck. He hurried across the room and wrapped his arms around the taller man.

  ‘Damn, what a gift,’ China said softly. ‘I should’ve known the shmuck isn’t born could take you down.’

  ‘Close,’ Hatcher whispered.

  His two friends stood close by, looking him over, nodding approval, although their eyes kept straying to the mark on his neck. Hatcher touched it self-consciously and shrugged. ‘An accident,’ he said, reaching out and taking the brass amulet in his palm.

  ‘Lovely,’ he said. ‘Thai, isn’t it?’

  Cohen nodded. ‘It’s the amulet of the ten deities, supposed to protect your front and back,’ China said and then chuckled. ‘One of my men took it off a dead Thai swagman. Sure didn’t work for him.’

  ‘You’re going to run out of wind long before you run out of luck,’ Hatcher said.

  ‘I have things to do,’ Tiana said and kissed Hatcher on the cheek. ‘Cohen keeps me very busy minding the servants.’ She giggled and faded quietly from the room.

  ‘I hate to think what it cost you t bribe Fat Lady Lau for her,’ Hatcher said.

  ‘Not a thing. She was a gift to a very good customer,’ Cohen said, grabbing Hatcher by the shoulder. ‘C’mon.’ He led Hatcher to the guest room, which was adjacent to the main room of the house. Hatcher had spent many nights in this room, a sprawling square decorated in yellow and black with a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the harbor below. The headboard of the bed and the furniture we1e starkly simple and painted black lacquer. The sheets were yellow satin. On either side of the bed were hundred gallon saltwater tanks, alive with multicolored tropical fish, while behind the bed the entire wall was covered with a Japanese silk-screen painting of a delicate tree with fernlike leaves and tiny red blossoms. The wall facing it was mirrored. Artifacts and statues were scattered here and there.

  On one of the nightstands was a two-foot-tall ivory horse, its nostrils flared, its eyes subtly hooded, standing majestically on its back legs as though leaping to heaven. A strand of black pearls was draped casually over the back of the horse.

  The bathroom, which was visible through an open door to the right, was black marble with a Jacuzzi bathtub big enough to accommodate a small army, and there were fresh flowers everywhere.

  ‘How long you staying?’

  ‘1 leave Saturday,’ Hatcher said.

  Cohen appeared concerned, but said nothing and simply nodded. ‘C’mon,’ he said, ‘we’ll go outside and relax’

  They went out on the balcony, sat in wicker chairs and put their feet up on the railing and leaned back, basking in the sun.

  ‘Just like the old days,’ Hatcher said.

  ‘Better,’ Cohen said. ‘We’re old enough to enjoy it now.

  Sung Lo, his servant and bodyguard, appeared and mixed drinks from a bar in the corner. The balcony jutted out into space on long stilts; thirty feet below it, the sharply slanted mountain was covered with ferns and bamboo grass. A large banyan tree hid the house below from their view. It was deathly quiet except for the tinkling wind chimes.

  ‘I got one surprise for you,’ Cohen said. ‘Tiana and I are married.’

  Hatcher was delighted. ‘That’s great news!’ he said enthusiastically.

  ‘Smartest move I ever made,’ said Cohen. ‘How about you? Ever find anybody that could take Daphne’s place?’

  The name momentarily triggered Hatcher’s ch’uang tzu-chi, a brief flash of the elegant, uniquely beautiful Daphne Chien, who wore men’s Suits, owned a company that manufactured jeans, and was the daughter of a Malaysian beauty and a half-French, half-Chinese banker, a volatile combination.

  ‘Hell, I try not to think about her,’ Hatcher said, a white lie, for he was not ready to deal with that subject for the moment. Instead they talked about Los Boxes and past times, and they talked about the old Tsu Fi.

  ‘He died three years ago,’ Cohen said. ‘His ticker finally gave out. It was a helluva thing, Christian. He called me to the hospital, told me I put spice in his last few years. Only time I ever saw the old boy with tears in his eyes.’

  ‘How about that half-mill he owed you for the Rhodes trick?’ Hatcher asked with a smile.

  ‘That was the best part of it, Christian, the old boy was a class act to the end. There was this beat-up old strongbox in the corner of the office, didn’t even look like an antique. When I went to the hospital the night before he passed on, he gave me the keys to his office and then he gave me the key to that chest, said it was full of personal things, and when he died I could go through it and throw away what I didn’t want. So I did. Lo and behold, there was half a million dollars in gold coins in it’ — he held up a finger — ‘and a piece of silicon the size of your fingernail.’

  ‘Silicon?’

  ‘A computer chip. So I took it to a friend and mounted it on a computer board, and when I activated the program, it was like a diary. Phone numbers, names, background on most of the rich taipans on the island and a lot of Orientals

  — all the secrets of Tsu Fi were there. Christian, next to that little piece of sand the half a million looked like a bucket of sand. I didn’t think the old Tsu Fi recognized the existence of computers.’

  ‘Which reminds me, how’re things upriver?’ Hatcher asked.

  ‘Changed,’ Cohen said. ‘I don’t go upriver anymore.’

  ‘Oh? Why?’

  ‘Most of the old gang is gone.’

  ‘Hiekaya?’

  ‘Dead. And Ty San. Joe Cockroach. Jimmy Chow. All of them

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘They started scrambling. killing each other off., The only one who got out whole was Sam-Sam. Now he’s got this gunslinger working for him, an Iranian name of Batal. I hear he was with the SAVAK before the Shah split. A real mean one, Batal. There’s another killer up there who ran out of Haiti with Baby Doc Used to be with the Tontons. Calls himself Billy Death_’

  ‘What the hell are Iranians aid Tontons doing up there?’ Hatcher asked.

  ‘Dollars, I guess. They’re Sam-Sam’s newest guns,’ said China. ‘Sam-Sam lives mostly off tribute, knocks off the Chinese coming down from Shanghai or from out in the provinces, steals their goods, cuts their feet and hangs them off the mast as a warning to ot
hers.’

  ‘Were you worried maybe they’d dust you?’ Hatcher whispered.

  ‘Not really. They need me,’ said Cohen. ‘I still finance a lot of the action up there. Besides, I have a lot of friends, loyal friends. This isn’t Chicago, the triads tend to get along with each other — even the Chiu Chaos stay pretty much in their own backyard. One of the things I learned from the old Tsu Fi: Never eat the whole pie, always give a piece to the other guy.’ Cohen paused pensively for a moment, and added, ‘Now, you, on the other hand, you left footprints all over the place.

  ‘It was part of the job.’

  ‘Whatever it was, you made a lot of enemies, Christian. And I don’t flatter myself that this is a social visit, much as love you.’

  It was not a criticism. Hatcher knew what Cohen meant. In the past there was always something one of them needed from the other.

  Their conversation was cut short by the appearance of Sing, Cohen’s enormous Chinese bodyguard, who suddenly appeared quietly in the living room behind them. He cleared his throat to summon Cohen. Cohen went in the other room, talked in low tones for a minute or two, and came back. Sung Lo remained in the room. Cohen’s mood seemed darker.

  ‘A problem?’ Hatcher asked.

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Cohen said seriously. ‘Are you in trouble, Christian?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just curious.’

  ‘I may need a favor,’ Hatcher said finally.

  ‘Must be something going on for you to come back to Hong Kong,’ Cohen said. ‘You know Tollie Fong is the new san wong of the White Palms?’

  Hatcher nodded.

  ‘They all think you’re dead. The minute Fong knows you’re here, he’ll try to kill you. If he misses, Joe Lung’ll have the whole damn White Palm Triad on your ass. They’ll follow you to the North Pole if they have to. We’re talking about family honor, blood oaths, saving face, the whole ticket. It would be better if you were left dead.’

  ‘I know the score.’

  ‘Well, you act like you forgot,’ Cohen said. ‘This is their turf, Christian. As long as you’re in this house, you’re safe, but I wouldn’t give a Confederate dollar for your chances out in the colony. I love you pal, and I hate to see you leave, but you can’t stay in Hong Kong. Somebody’s already got a tail on you, old pal.

  ‘Yeah. I think it’s the Hong Kong police. A sergeant named Varney with the Triad Squad paid me a visit this morning. He claims my name popped up in their computer when I went through customs.’

  ‘You don’t believe him?’

  ‘I believe the computer part of it, that could happen. But this Varney seems a little too interested in me. They followed me from the hotel.’

  ‘Humph,’ Cohen said pensively. ‘This Varney just showed up at your room?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t trust anybody, particularly where you’re concerned,’ said Cohen. ‘I’d forget whatever brought you here. Go home, Hatch.’

  ‘I can’t do that.’

  ‘Why? What’s so special about this trick?’

  Hatcher told Cohen the whole Murph Cody story, ending with the death of Windy Porter and the disappearance of Wol Pot.

  ‘Right now, I don’t have a lead except this ghost camp in Laos. If it existed, somebody upriver knows about it. Maybe I can get a name, some lead before I go to Bangkok.’

  ‘Bangkok! Shit, it’s worse in Bangkok,’ China said, his voice going up an octave. ‘Fong spends half his time wasting dissidents up in the Golden Triangle and the other half getting laid at the Royal Orchid Hotel. Why don’t you just go over to Macao and hatch an egg in his front yard.’

  ‘There’s five million people in Bangkok. I can keep away from Fong and his bunch.’

  ‘Hell, a damn cop already knows you’re here. You think you can just slip in and out of Bangkok without stirring up something? And you have no other leads?’

  ‘A picture of Cody and his hoochgirl. Does the phrase “Thai Horse” mean anything to you?’

  Cohen looked at him and smiled for the first time since Sing discovered the house was being watched.

  ‘Thai Horse? Why?’

  ‘It popped up somewhere.’

  ‘Come here,’ Cohen said, leading Hatcher back into the bedroom. He pointed to the ivory statue of the horse by the bed.

  ‘That is a Thai Horse,’ he said.

  ‘The statue?’ Hatcher said with surprise.

  ‘That’s right. It’s a real treasure. Authentic Thai Horse, about third century B.C. Been kicking around for a long time.’

  ‘What is a Thai Horse?’ Hatcher asked. My God, could the reference to the Thai Horse at the Wall have meant a statue, a simple gift? he wondered.

  ‘The mythical ghost horse,’ Cohen said. ‘Supposedly stolen from the King of Siam, According to legend, it carried Thai heroes to heaven after the great wars. Legend has it that a Chinese brigand stole the horse and brought it here to the first emperor of China in exchange for a pardon. They renamed it the Celestial Horse, the Tian Ma. It was the Tian Ma that delivered the first seven emperors of China to the mountaintops around the colony when they died, then the gods turned them into dragons. When the rule of the Han Dynasty ended, the horse disappeared and was never seen again’

  Hatcher whispered, ‘Where’d you get it?’

  ‘From an artifacts museum in Peking,’ he said with a wink. ‘Don’t ask me how much I paid to get this little darling lifted.’

  Hatcher stroked the smooth sides 0± the handsome ivory horse. Could there be any significance to the reference other than as a statue? he wondered. Finally he said, ‘Well, that doesn’t add anything to what I know, which is damn little.’

  ‘Have you got anything else on the fire?’ Cohen asked.

  ‘I’ve got a man doing some checking for me in Washington,’ Hatcher said. He looked at his watch. ‘I can call him now. If he comes up with anything, I’m going to play out the hand.’

  ‘Or—’

  ‘I’ll trash the job and go home.’

  ‘Then I hope the son of a bitch doesn’t even turn up your name,’ Cohen said. ‘I’d sure as hell rather have you gone than dead.’

  FLITCRAFT

  Sergeant Flitcraft was waiting in the reception room of computer operations in the Pentagon when Sergeant Betz arrived at work. Betz was a tall, paunchy man in his late forties, a short-sticker with a cushy job and less than two years to go before retirement, The broken blood vessels in his nose attested to his penchant for scotch, particularly Dewar’s. He and Flitcraft went back a long way. Bragg. Korea. Nam. Betz scowled at Flitcraft, the smiling, tough black sergeant, who had somehow managed to stay in the service although he walked with a limp, supported by a cane. Flitcraft, too, was close to retirement. Betz knew Flitcraft wasn’t there on a social visit.

  ‘Got some confidential entries for you this morning, Sergeant,’ Flitcraft said, standing as Betz entered.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Betz said. ‘C’mn down.’ He turned to the receptionist. ‘Give Sergeant Flitcraft a class-three permit,’ he said.

  She reached in a drawer and pulled out a blue name tag, filed its number on a registry and handed it to Flitcraft. She knew him and assumed he was there to give Betz classified information for the general computer. The blue pass permitted him to go only as far as the general offices, a bank of small windowless boxes, through a door to the left of reception. The door to the right opened into the general computer system and was guarded by a marine.

  Flitcraft followed Betz into his office, a small cheerless cubicle with just enough space for a desk, a file cabinet, a computer terminal and one other chair.

  ‘You got some entries for me there, Sergeant?’ Betz asked, easing open a desk drawer.

  He knew Flitcraft, knew he worked for a special unit known only as Shadow Section, and that he was trustworthy. Since Flitcraft did not have a C-1 classification, he did not have access to secret computer files. Flitcraft took a quart of Dewar’s White Label from his briefcase and sli
pped it in the drawer, which Betz eased shut with his knee. Because the office was under constant surveillance by a roving video camera, they played this game of charades.

  ‘We’ve got some low-grade classified reports here for general entry,’ said Flitcraft, sliding a sheaf of immaterial reports across the desk to Betz. Betz looked at them, casually lifted the cover sheet and read on a slip of paper on page two: ‘Classified POW files.’ Betz looked at Flitcraft as if to say, ‘Who cares?’

  Flitcraft raised his eyebrows and shrugged as if to answer, ‘Who knows? You know how the brass are.’ Silent looks exchanged between noncoms ‘who had been in the system a long time and knew that a lot of information was classified simply to prevent the news media from gaining access to it through the Freedom of Information Act.

  Betz slid open the tray on his desk and checked a list of code names and numbers. He wrote several down on a slip of paper and attached the slip to the top of the file. He set it aside in plain view of Flitcraft ‘while he filled out a receipt, which he signed.

  Flitcraft memorized the list immediately:

  52-767-52116

  Sidewinder

  9696

  Cherry

  Monte

  Cristo

  Zenda

  Betz handed the phony receipt to Flitcraft, who put it in his briefcase.

  ‘See ya,’ Flitcraft said. They shook hands and he left the office.

  So far, so good. Flitcraft went straight to the men’s rest room on the same floor, entered a stall, and wrote the list down before he forgot it. Then he left the Pentagon and hailed a cab.

  The office of Shadow Section was in a private office building near the White House. To the casual observer, it was a small personal communications company in the private sector. Very few people knew that it was a branch of military intelligence.

  Inside the office, which was identified only by the name Interplex on the door, was a bank of computers and interconnected communication systems that gave the three men, who dressed in civilian clothes, access to satellite and computer information all over the ‘world.

  Flitcraft ran the operation with the help of two other noncoms. All three had served Sloan in the past, and all three had suffered wounds that should have resulted in medical discharges from the service. But Colonel Harry Sloan protected his men, and they, in turn, were thoroughly devoted to him. They would have given up their tongues rather than discuss the work they did.