Thai Horse

  He patrolled the plot of land, looking for traces of other tigers, but there were none. Old Scar realized there was very little grass here. And there were houses built around one side of the lake and where there once had been a large bamboo-fringed bay there were vegetables growing. The forest was now a hundred yards from the lake with only reeds to provide cover for him.

  The tigers’ two biggest enemies, progress and man, had stolen more of their domain. But Old Scar was too tired to go any farther. On the far side of the lake he could see people moving about. He crawled on his belly, sneaked into the lake and crouched there quietly, cooling himself, bathing his wounds and drinking the cool water.

  It was near dusk when he saw the child: a girl, no more than three years old, a naked toddler who had wandered away from her mother’s eye. She strolled along the water’s edge, kicking at it, making splashes.

  Old Scar watched her with his one good eye. She looked like a monkey, perhaps more meat. She didn’t appear as fast and she had no tail. He pulled his legs up under him, got ready. His ears leaned forward, his lips crept back away from his teeth.

  The little girl danced straight to him. When she was perhaps five feet away, she saw the giant, hunched in water up to his shoulders, his yellow eyes afire, his broken teeth twinkling. Before she could scream, the tiger lunged. One giant leap and Old Scar had her in his jaws. As he would have done with any animal, he bent her head back like a deer’s, bit hard into the throat and suffocated her. Then he turned and sneaked back to the safety of the jungle with his kill. He settled down and started to lick off the blood.

  He had tasted better meat and his eye had festered and he was feverish and agitated, but the kill was easy and the food was nourishing. The next day he sneaked back down to the lake. This time he crept closer to the village, close enough to see another child playing in the dirt at the edge of the village.

  In the next week Old Scar killed two more children, a crippled old monk and a full-grown woman who was doing her wash in the lake.

  That was when Max Early was called in. That was when the party started. And that was when Hatcher finally began to unravel the riddle of Murphy Cody.

  DOGS

  At first, Wol Pot’s wallet seemed to yield very little besides his passport. There was a driver’s license with an address on Rajwang Road in Chinese Town, two bet tickets from the racetrack, obviously losers, and a ticket to a boxing match, now past. According to Wol Pot’s papers he was a ‘produce salesman.’

  There was nothing else of interest in the wallet.

  Over breakfast, Hatcher spread the two photos, of Wol Pot and Pai and Cody, in front of Sy.

  ‘I’m also looking for this guy,’ Hatcher confided, tapping the picture of Wol Pot.

  Sy studied the photographs for a few moments.

  ‘I think on this girl since yesterday,’ he said. ‘She is most beautiful. I maybe see her but . . . I think that about all beautiful women.’

  ‘Do you remember where?’ Hatcher asked.

  Sy shook his head. ‘He is with this girl?’ he asked, pointing to the photo of Cody.

  ‘Maybe, maybe not. I don’t know. The GI is the one I’m looking for.’

  ‘Okay,’ Sy said. ‘Where do we go first?’

  Hatcher took out his list of locations from Porter’s day book. Unfortunately Porter’s diary contained notations on locations and times but no addresses and no comments. He also had the address from Wol Pot’s passport, an address in Yawaraj. He took out the sheet the Mongoose had given him, the water-streaked page from Porter’s diary dated the last day of Porter’s life, and spread it out on the table. That was all he had to go on, that and a note to check out a bar called the Longhorn in a place called Tombstone and another note: ‘Thai Horse?’ He smoothed the water-ruined sheet carefully on the table and perused it once more, but the only thing legible was part of one entry:’ . . . try, 4:15p . .

  ‘Address from passport is in Chinese Town,’ Sy said. ‘Rajwang Road. We start there maybe?’

  ‘Good idea,’ Hatcher said. But it wasn’t. The address turned out to be phony — a non-number along the river on the edge of Chinese Town. The closest number to it was an ancient building that in disrepair seemed ominous. Its wooden walls were faded and peeling from the sun and rain, the windows were boarded over, and it seemed to sag in the middle, as though the very floors were tired. A deserted old relic squeezed between two other deserted old relics. Hatcher tried the doors of the three warehouses but they were nailed shut. Deserted buildings. Obviously nobody lived in them. Wol Pot’s address was an empty pier.

  What was Wol Pot doing there? Obviously Porter had been following Wol Pot and made notations of every place the man went. The first two locations on the list were restaurants in Chinese Town, but they yielded nothing. Hatcher assumed that Wol Pot had eaten there. The managers of both studied Wol Pot’s photo for a long time, then shrugged. ‘Maybe’ was the consensus.

  ‘What’s next?’ Sy asked.

  ‘You know a place called the Stagecoach Deli.’

  ‘Okay,’ Sy said. ‘Very near here.’

  ‘We’ll try it next.’

  They drove through noisy, tacky Patpong with its blaring loudspeakers outside gaudy bars and dazzling neon signs, fully ablaze in mid afternoon, and turned at a place called Jack’s American Star and the San Francisco Bar, which advertised topless go-go dancers who performed ‘special shows.’

  Then suddenly they were on a street out of the past, away from the neon glare, the bellowing loudspeakers and the hawkers. It could have been a street in any Western American town and even in the daylight there was about it an unreal atmosphere. Sunbeams, like spotlights, sliced through the late afternoon mist from the nearby river, and it was eerily quiet, like a ghost town.

  ‘Stop here!’ Hatcher ordered as they turned into the street. He got out of the car, surveying the strange, winding road. A wooden marker had been tacked over the regular street sign. CLEMENTINE WAY, it read.

  ‘This has to be the section they call Tombstone, right?’ Hatcher said to Sy.

  ‘That’s good guess. I saw in the movie over at Palace one time. The O.K. Gunfight.’

  ‘Gunfight at the O.K. Corral,’ Hatcher corrected.

  ‘That’s it, Burt Reynolds.’

  ‘Lancaster.’

  ‘Chai,’ Sy said, smiling his row of battered teeth.

  Hatcher walked down through the mist, past the Hitching Post, which had elegant ‘Western boots and tall cowboy hats displayed in the window. He checked the menu pasted to the window of Yosemite Sam’s, and it reminded him of home: Brunswick stew, chili, spareribs and pork barbecue. The Stagecoach Deli was a few doors farther down the street. It had swinging doors and an imitation Tiffany window but offered lower East Side New York fare. A little farther on was Langtry’s Music Hall. The photographs in its two-pane windows were of naked Thai and Chinese dancers, but it too conformed to the Western motif that dominated the street. The windows also featured old posters of entertainers from the gay nineties. Lillian Russell, Houdini, Lillie Langtry and Eddie Foy. It did not open until 6P.M.

  He walked down one side of the street, crossed over and came back up the other side, passing other quaint spots. An ice cream parlor called Pike’s Peak, a ham- and-egg joint called the Roundup, which advertised American doughnuts in its window. A movie theater, the Palace, which according to its marquee played American double features.

  And there was the Longhorn, its flat roof dwarfed by a soaring onion-domed wat directly behind it. The Longhorn’s sign was shaped like a giant scroll, rolling over the entrance from one side to the other. There was an old-fashioned wooden Indian propped by the swinging doors and long wooden bus-stop benches on both sides of the door, and a balcony over the sidewalk supported by unfinished four-by-fours.

  Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make this small, isolated section authentic.

  A large black man was sitting on one of the benches in front of the bar’s beveled glass windo
w, drinking a can of Japanese beer. He was leaning back against the window of the saloon with his eyes closed, letting the afternoon sun burn a hole in him. Every so often he would take a swig from the can.

  Hatcher crossed back to the Stagecoach Deli and checked out the short street. There was a hint of music and conversation from behind the closed doors of Tombstone but none of the hawking and loudspeakers of Patpong, a block away.

  The notations in Porter’s notes said, ‘Stagecoach Deli, taxi, 10A.M., 1 hr’; the following day, ‘Stagecoach Deli, noon, 45 mins’; and the day after that, ‘Palace Theater, 2:30 P.M., 35 mins.’ Did that mean Wol Pot had come to these places in a taxi or had he been watching them from a taxi? He could have eaten at the Stagecoach Deli in forty-five minutes but he had spent only thirty-five minutes at the Palace Theater, hardly time to see a film.

  The two places formed a perfect triangle with the Longhorn as the apex. He took out the water-scarred sheet the Mongoose had given him, and studied the partially legible entry.

  try, 4:15 p . . ‘was still all he could decipher.

  The entry could have referred to Langtry’s Music Hall: ‘Langtry, 4:15 P.M.’ It fit. Was it possible that Wol Pot had been observing the Longhorn four days in a row, each day a little later than the day before? He remembered what the ex-soldier upriver had told Daphne. ‘Go to the Longhorn in Tombstone, a lot of Americans living in Bangkok hang out there.’

  An ironic scenario popped into Hatcher’s mind. Perhaps Wol Pot had lost track of Cody. Wol Pot was looking for Cody, and Porter was following Wol Pot.

  ‘I’m going to take a look at the Longhorn,’ Hatcher told Sy.

  Before Hatcher could cross the street, another man came down the sidewalk toward the bar. He was wearing tan safari shorts, a faded red tank top, and red, white and blue sneakers. A red bandanna held scruffy blond hair out of his eyes.

  He had a dog on the end of a long leather leash. It was a big, ugly, dumb-looking animal, which looked like a cross between a Great Dane and a spaniel with some hound dog thrown in. He had sleepy yellow eyes, a long, slobbery muzzle and a long, skinny tail that drooped until it rose at the end. His coat was shiny deep brown except for a large white spot that looked as if someone had thrown paint on his shoulder. There was nothing symmetrical about the spot; it covered half his face and then dribbled down his chest, where it was speckled with brown spots. The dog didn’t walk, it loped, and it didn’t look bright enough to scratch an itch.

  The black man opened one eye, saw the dog, and started to chuckle to himself. ‘The chuckle started at his big, burly shoulders and rip pled down to his portly waist. He kept his mouth shut hut eventually the chuckle burst out in the form of a loud snort, followed by a stream of beer.

  ‘Lord laughing out loud, would you look at that big, lazy, ugly, dumb-ass, sissified, silly-tailed dog over there.’

  ‘Excuse me, you talkin’ about my dog, Otis?’ the man in the red, white and blue sneakers said with a scowl.

  ‘I’m talking about that big, lazy, ugly, dumb-ass, sissifled, silly-tailed dog right there. Would his name be Otis?’

  ‘What do you mean, “would be”? His name is Otis’

  ‘Well then, that’s who I’m talkin’ about.’

  ‘You’re really pissing me off, brother, I told you, that’s my dog.’

  ‘If you don’t say anything, nobody’ll know.’

  ‘I’m proud of that fuckin’ dog, man.’

  ‘Then you’re dumber than he is.’

  ‘Maybe you’d like to gum your dinner tonight. Maybe you’d like to pick your teeth up off the floor and carry them home in your pocket.’

  ‘Yeah, and maybe you’d like me to pull your tongue down and tie it to your dick.’

  ‘Lord God a’mighty, you must be having a lucky day. You must think this is the luckiest fuckin’ day in your lousy, worthless, fuckin’ life.’

  ‘I don’t need luck to grind you into the street and make a big ugly spot out of you.’

  ‘I hope you’ve made your peace with God. I hope you’ve kissed that wart-faced, fat, smelly old whore of a mother of yours Ah-dee-fuckin’-ose, because you’re about to be nothin’ but patty sausage.’

  ‘Shit, I don’t know how you lived this long, somebody hasn’t parked a sixteen-wheel goddamn Mack truck in that ugly fuckin’ mouth of yours, it’s big enough, that’s for damn sure.’

  ‘I’ll kick your ass all the way back to King Tut’s court. I’ll kick you right outa this century.’

  ‘Well then, why don’t just get to it, motor mouth.’

  ‘Kiss this sweet earth farewell, motherfucker.’

  ‘That’ll be the day, you stand-short, rubber-muscled dipshit.’

  ‘Why don’t you stop talkin’ and start fightin’.’

  ‘Well, what are you waiting for, you little dork, a goddamn band or somethin’. Goddamn fireworks. Goddamn invitation from the fuckin’ president.’

  ‘Listen, they friends most time,’ Sy confided to Hatcher. ‘I bring Amehrikaan tourist here alla time, they buddies usually.’

  ‘Buddies!’ Hatcher answered with surprise.

  ‘Most time.’

  The white man tied the big dog to one of the posts in front of the Longhorn and struck a classic boxing pose, holding one fist close to his face, snapping his nose with his thumb and shooting his other arm out tauntingly.

  ‘Get serious, Potter,’ the black man said with a smile. ‘I’ll whack you into the sidewalk, won’t be nuthin showin’ but the top of your miserable head.’

  ‘Well, get at it, Corkscrew, get at it,’ the man called Potter said, dancing about.

  A large man with shoulders like a bison’s stepped out of the Longhorn and stood with his bands on a waist the size of a ballet dancer’s. He had snow-white hair and a white handlebar mustache, and he wore cowboy boots and jeans and a holster with a .357 Python jammed in it.

  Hatcher watched the display with open-mouthed awe. What we got here is a time warp, he thought to himself.

  The white-haired man stepped between Potter and Corkscrew and laid a gentle hand on their shoulders. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ he asked?

  ‘He’s making fun of my dog,’ Potter snapped. The white-haired man looked at the dog and smothered a laugh of his own.

  ‘You know what that dog’s name is?’ asked the black man, still struggling to keep from laughing. ‘Otis. Otis, for God’s sake. His name’s enough to make a grown man cry.’

  Potter struggled to get at him and the big man pushed him gently back.

  ‘Just take it easy, Benny,’ the white-haired man said. ‘Come in, I’ll buy you both a drink. You can leave Otis tied up there on the post.’

  Benny looked stricken.

  ‘Somebody’ll steal him,’ he said, panic in his voice. Corkscrew broke out in gales of laughter, but the white-haired man tried to be diplomatic. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t think anybody’ll steal your dog.’

  ‘Not unless they’re real, real hungry,’ said Corkscrew through laughter that was approaching tears.

  ‘Damn it, Corkscrew, I’ve had enough!’ Benny roared.

  ‘Aw hell, c’mon,’ Corkscrew said, ‘I’ll buy the damn drinks.’

  The white-haired man herded them both into the saloon. Otis watched them go, then flopped down on the sidewalk, snorted, and fell sound asleep.

  ‘Who’s the big guy with the—’ Hatcher said, twirling his fingers at the corners of his mouth.

  ‘Mr Mustache? That is Earp,’ Sy answered.

  ‘Earp?’

  Sy nodded once emphatically.

  ‘Not Wyatt Earp?’ Hatcher asked, almost sarcastically.

  Sy reacted with surprise.

  ‘You know him?’ he asked.

  ‘No, I just guessed.’ Hatcher sighed.

  ‘That very good,’ Sy replied, obviously impressed.

  ‘I think I’ll just check that place out,’ Hatcher said, heading across the street toward the door of the Longhorn.

/>   ‘I wait here,’ Sy said. He started practicing a few moves on the sidewalk.

  ‘Suit yourself,’ Hatcher said.

  When he stepped inside, the time warp was complete. He waited for a few seconds, letting his eyes grow accustomed to the dark interior. Then he fixed the details of the place in his head so he wouldn’t forget them. It seemed remarkably authentic, a big room with green shades over the tables and sawdust on the floor; ceiling fans lazily circulating the air, which smelled of bar drinks and hamburgers; an antique bar that stretched the width of the room, and obviously had come from America, with a beveled mirror behind it, which made the saloon seem wider; large letters engraved in the glass that spelled ‘Tom Skoohanie’ and under the name, ‘The Galway Roost, 1877’; a beat-up old buffalo head with one eye and a black patch over the other; faded daguerreotypes and drawings of famous outlaws, lawmen and Indians on the wall, a vintage Wurlitzer jukebox in a corner, turned very low, playing an old record — Tony Bennett’s ‘Younger Than Springtime’; in another corner, a bulletin hoard covered with notes, business cards and patches from Army, Navy and Marine units; on one side of the room, raised a couple of steps above the floor, a smaller room behind a beaded curtain.

  The man called Wyatt Earp sat at one end of the bar chatting with Corkscrew and Benny, who seemed to have forgotten their differences.

  The bartender was a tall, elegant black man in a black T-shirt covered by a suede vest, blue jeans and cowboy boots. He wore a cowboy hat big enough to take a bath in with a red, yellow and green parrot feather stuck in its band. The only other person in the main room had long blond hair and sat hunched over the bar.

  Nobody gave Hatcher a first look as he walked toward the bar, yet he felt a sudden chill, like a cold wind blowing across the back of his neck, and the hair on the back of his arms stood up. He felt uncomfortable, as if, uninvited, he was entering a private club. Why had Wol Pot come to Tombstone day after day for short periods of time? Was he indeed watching the Longhorn? Was he following Cody? Thai Horse?