‘Sure,’ said Earp. ‘And next season the Pope’s gonna play second base with the Mets.’
Melinda was sitting on the porch when Hatcher walked out. She looked up and for the first time she smiled at him.
‘Do you understand now?’
‘Most of it,’ he said. ‘I’m a little confused on details.’
‘Like what?’
‘Like you and Prophett.’
‘I’d like you to understand about Johnny and me, maybe it will explain what holds us all together. It’s not fear of being discovered.’
‘I know it isn’t fear. I’m a fast read.’
Hatcher looked at her and thought about all the passion that had been in her pictures. She had been to able to predict the perfect moment on the faces of the victims of war, the soldiers, the enemy, the innocent bystanders who seemed always to get the worst of it; to capture the fear and frustration and the awful confusion of the young and the despair and the awe and the agony of the old when faced with the obscenity of death, And almost as if she were reading his mind, Melinda went on, ‘Johnny was something. Not afraid of anything. And dreams — God, did he have dreams. But he wasn’t prepared for Nam. It overwhelmed him, and he was like, I don’t know, a little boy in closet who needed somebody to reach out and hold him. He really needed me. He’d cuddle up against me at night, curl into all the right places, tell me how much he loved me. I was drawn to his poetry. And I guess to his weaknesses, too. But Indian country was like a magnet to him. And so was the needle. When he didn’t come back that last time, I waited and waited. I knew he wasn’t dead.’
‘How did you find him?’
‘Pai. She called me one day. I didn’t know her and she was very secretive. “Come to Bangkok” is all she said, but I knew why. I was on the next plane out.’
‘The spike’ll kill him, you know,’ Hatcher whispered.
‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I’ve always known I’ll outlive him. Every time he takes a shot I think it’ll be his last. He comes to me and he puts his arms around me and I can feel all the futility and defeat in his body. That’s when I just pray I’ll have him one more day, before the needle takes him away. I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like. The loneliness of not having him anymore.’
‘Fong will kill Murph, Hatcher, like he had to kill Wol Pot. That’s why we have to destroy Tollie Fong first.’
‘I’m out of it. Do what you want. I’ve done my job and I’m going home,’ he said.
Hatcher thought about the trips Pai had made down- river to score for Taisung and for Johnny; about the deals she had made for them; about the logistics of getting Jaimie, who was dying of cancer, back into South Vietnam so he could get home.
‘Leave Tollie Fong alone,’ Hatcher whispered. ‘You prod him, he’ll be like an angry bull. Leave him alone and it will all pass. Believe me, I know this man well.’
‘How about Sloan?’
‘I have to see him once more — there’s something that needs to be finished between us.’
‘And what’ll you tell him about Murph Cody?’
Hatcher looked at the tall, sad-eyed man who had once been his brash boxing colleague, looked across the yard at Wonderboy, who was playing his guitar and singing softly for the Thai dancers, and at Pai, who had traded her youth, her nationality, her very soul, for the man she loved.
‘I’ll tell him the truth,’ said Hatcher. ‘I’ll tell him Murph Cody is dead.’
PLAYBACK
The sun was close to the horizon when he got back to the hotel. Hatcher was tired and dispirited, and at first did not notice the tape recorder sitting on the table beside the bed. He peeled off his dirty clothes, took a shower, came out with a towel wrapped around his waist and lay on the bed, thinking about Murph Cody and the regulars, a disparate group bonded together by love and the need to protect one another. And suddenly he missed the island and Ginia and his friends there, people who asked nothing of one another but trust and friendship. Not unlike the Longhorn regulars. And he admitted to himself that Ginia had brought more happiness and feeling into his life than anything since his days at Annapolis.
He shifted his thoughts back to the regulars. They were going to hit Tollie Fong, he was sure of it, and they would risk everything to do it. And then thinking of Fong, he thought about the assassination of Campon and the bombing in Paris and the death of the Hyena. The police were speculating that he was killed by one of his own people, but Hatcher was familiar with the Hyena — he always worked alone. Pieces began to fall in place in his head.
Then he noticed the small hand-size tape machine. He stared at it, wondering where it had come from, before he reached out and picked it u.
Lying on his back, he flipped on the play switch. The voice froze him: ‘Hatcher, do I have to tell you what this is, or do you recognize my voice? Perhaps it will help if I stir your memory. Does Singapore mean anything? It should, Hatcher, that is where you murdered my father. Or the rivers, where you killed my father’s most loyal soldiers. Or the house of the American Jew, Cohen, who calls himself Chinese, where you murdered still more of my men. Do I need to tell you my name? No, I think not.
‘I am certain that you know I have made a promise to my san wong to put aside the ch’u-tiao I have sworn against you. And I will honor that oath even though you have dishonored my family and spilled our blood.
‘And while my promise also includes Cohen, it does not include all your friends, Hatcher.
‘Listen for a moment, here is another voice for you to recognize.’
There was silence on the tape for thirty or forty seconds, a hollow sound. Then Hatcher heard someone enter a room farther away, in another part of the house or apartment or whatever it was. A woman’s voice was humming as a door opened.
Then she screamed.
It was a scream of surprise and fright, followed almost immediately by the sound of someone being hit
— a groan? It was difficult to make out. A moment later there was the sound of heavy breathing, of footsteps on stairs, then Fong’s voice again: ‘It will be a few moments more, Hatcher. I had to use a little force to subdue your friend.’ The machine went dead for a moment, then the hollow sound again followed by a scream and a woman’s voice, angry and full of hate:
‘You bastard, you bloody bastard, take your hands off me...’
Daphne.
He sat straight up on the bed. His heartbeat accelerated. He could not believe what he was hearing, did not want to hear it. He snapped it off and held it in a trembling hand. He knew before the tape spun any further that Daphne was dead. He knew it because Fong would not have left the tape for him to hear if she was still alive. He could not imagine what horror the tape would spew out and yet he hesitated to turn it back on.
The fan whirred overhead in a syncopated rhythm. Outside, the sun slid below the spears and domes of the city’s temples. Darkness crept silently into the room and filled its corners and shadows, and still Hatcher sat there with the dreaded tape recorder in his hand. Finally he turned the switch back on and listened to her screams of anger and outrage, listened to the struggle, to things falling and breaking, and finally a sharp crack and a grunt and a sigh.
And Fong’s voice, slightly out of breath. ‘She is a tigress, Hatcher. Her nails are like scissors. I had to put her away again, but only for a few minutes. She will come around.’
There was a soft, obscene chuckle. ‘I think. I broke her jaw, Hatcher.’
There was a rustling sound, sounds of activity in the room and Fong’s voice again, farther away from the recorder this time. ‘I am tying her to her bed, Hatcher. Her hands to the head . . . there. Now her feet. She is tied down on the bed like a star, stretched out for me, Hatcher.’
Daphne groaned. Her voice, pitifully weak and confused at first, then growing stronger, the outrage flowing back into it. Then came the sounds of clothing being torn, viciously, recklessly, and accompanied by Fong’s toneless chortling.
‘Cut me loose, you pig.
You worthless, stinking pig!’ Then she screamed again, this time a scream of great pain, followed by a sobbing deep in her throat.
‘This is for Hatcher,’ Fong’s voice hissed. ‘You understand, bitch.’
Her scream tore through the small speaker, distorting it. ‘Hatch . .
‘I’m going to have to gag her, Hatcher. You’ll have to trust me from now on. I’ll tell you everything that’s happening. I promise you, I won’t leave out a single detail . .
Hatcher flicked it off again. Shimmering marbles of sweat twinkled suddenly on his forehead and coursed slowly down the side of his face as he stared down at the tiny machine. His teeth were clenched so hard his jaws hurt.
He forced himself to switch it back on, to listen as Fong described every disgusting, brutalizing, painful act in detail, to hear Daphne’s voice growing weaker, more pitiful, more terrified with each vicious move, and he was numbed by the extent of Fong’s sadism, by his total lack of human feeling and compassion, by the horrifying passion with which Fong brutalized, raped and violated her.
Finally he leaned forward until the top of his head was on the bed and beat the mattress with his fists, his rage pouring out in muffled screams and cries.
Fong’s voice continued on, its malevolent tones whispered in a deadly mimic of Hatcher’s own voice. ‘Do you feel it, my dear. Do you feel the point against your throat, hmm?’
Daphne’s reply was a painful whimper.
‘You know the drill, Hatcher. Place the point of the blade in the hollow place of the throat pointing toward the heart —‘
‘God, no!’ Hatcher cried out through his clenched teeth.
‘— then thrust down —,
Her scream was agonizing, even though it was muffled by whatever he had used for a gag.
‘— hard and straight —‘
Hatcher heard her weak cry.
‘— into the heart. Hah!’
Her sharp intake of air. Then the rattle of blood and air in her throat. Then the silence.
‘It is over, Hatcher,’ Fong’s voice whispered into the machine. ‘Your friend is dead. And many other friends will die, you gwai-lo bastard. It is far from over.’
Hatcher sat for more than an hour, staring into the growing darkness, the tape recorder gripped tightly in his fist, his rage crashing and ebbing in his chest like the waves of the sea, his memories of Daphne Chien surging through his mind. Should he have predicted this would happen? he wondered. Could he have stopped it? He had a moment when he thought it might have been a cruel joke, a perverse play, acted out for his sake.
Finally he called Cohen. It took three tries to get through, and then he heard the familiar Boston accent.
‘China?’
‘Hi, buddy.’
‘I’m calling about Daphne —,
‘What can I tell you. I feel like a son of a bitch. I should have covered her—’
‘It’s true, then?’
‘How did you find out?’
Hatcher’s mouth went dry for a moment. He took a sip of water. ‘He left a tape . . . described every
every .
‘Jesus. Listen to me, Hatch. I‘ve already talked to the san wong. I told him Fong was a dishonor and a disgrace to the Chiu Chao, that he’s a woman killer and a rapist — shit, you wouldn’t believe what I said. I told him if any, any, member of the Chiu Chao sets foot in Hong Kong, he’s dead. He’s disgraced them all, Hatch, the whole damn bloody—’
‘China?’
‘Yeah?’
‘I can’t talk any more now, China.’
‘Are you okay?’
‘Yeah, I’m okay. I just can’t talk anymore.’
‘You watch yourself, Hatch. He’s a demon, this one.’
‘I know it — see you later.’
‘Listen, kiddo, I’ll come over there, bring some of my best guys. I can be there by morning and—’
‘China?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Stay home. Later, okay?’ He softly cradled the phone.
It had been difficult for Hatcher to accept the reality that for years he had killed with neither hate nor malice, that he had been conditioned and manipulated to the point where inflicting death had come as easily to him as going to the grocery store or voting. If the journey that had started in Los Boxes and ended on a tiger hunt in Thailand had achieved nothing else for Hatcher, it had forced him to deal with the lightless places in his soul, places he had ignored for many years. From 126 he had discovered himself; had learned about camaraderie and trust and love from Melinda and the regulars; about the meaning of friendship from Cirillo and Ginia and Daphne and China Cohen.
And he had learned the true meaning of hate from Tollie Fong.
Hatcher knew he could never shed light in some of the dark places that were part of his nature. He might have been able to set aside the hatred that curled in his gut like an asp, except that he knew Fong’s desecration of Daphne had nothing to do with the Chiu Chaos or China Cohen or Harry Sloan or Cody; it was between him and Tollie Fong. Hatcher had started it and Fong was justified in his hatred. Hatcher knew he would continue to wreak his vengeance against everyone close to Hatcher until the ch’u-tiao was satisfied.
And Cody and Earp also were right. Eventually the regulars, too, would feel Fong’s deadly sting. It had to be ended once and for all. Hatcher knew he could not bury the past without purging it first. Hatcher knew now that he had come to Bangkok because he valued Cody’s life. In a savage turn of irony, he had tried to do something decent, and Sloan, who had created the monster within him, had summoned him back to use it again.
There could be no end to the killing yet. Either Hatcher or Fong must die before the blood feud would end.
The little metal cars were replicas of one of the earliest Mercedes racing machines, a single-seater with giant wheels made of real rubber and small plastic windshields. They were made in Germany by the Schuco Company and, when wound up, could reach a speed of thirty miles an hour for about two seconds.
Riker, who had found them in a toy store in the International Bazaar and brought four of them back, was on his knees, blowing dirt from around the axles and dropping single drops of oil into the moving parts. The jukebox was thundering and Corkscrew and Johnny Prophett were servicing their cars. The regulars were lined up along the wall in the small room behind the glass-beaded curtain, and they had moved the tables back and put several heavy strips of Styrofoam against the back wall and around the legs of the pool table to protect the racing cars when they reached the end of the room. The Honorable, as stern-looking and inscrutable as always, was sitting behind his desk, taking bets, marking the tabs and passing them.
‘Okay, c’mon, Corkscrew, get ready. I’m about to make dog meat out of you.’
‘That’ll be the fuckin’ day,’ the burly black man answered. He lifted his finger off the back wheels of the small toy car and they wheezed as they spun around. ‘Looka there, man. I may be goin’ for a record here.’
‘Sure,’ snapped Riker, winding his car up with a toy key and keeping a thumb on the back wheels.
‘Are you ready?’ Wonderboy yelled. He was holding a piece of yellow silk that had been checkered with a Magic Marker.
‘Drivers ready . . .‘ he called out, waving the flag over his head. And then he dropped it. Corkscrew and Riker set the cars down and the ‘wheels skittered on the hardwood floors and the two little machines took off toward the end of the room, their springs whining as they unwound and the cars bounding along side by side until Riker’s car began to shift to the right and eased against Corkscrew’s machine just enough to set it off course. The midget racing car veered, hit the wall and tumbled end over end halfway down the room. One of its wheels flew off and bounced down behind Riker’s car as it crossed the finish line and whipped into the Styrofoam barrier. Earp, at the other end of the room, waved the winner’s flag.
‘Awright!’ Riker yelled.
‘Foul,’ complained Corkscrew bitterly. ‘You fouled me, m
an, drove me right into the wall.’
‘Foul, hell, there’s no such thing,’ Riker snapped back.
The two men stood nose to nose their fists clenched, bellowing at each other until the Honorable raised his hand and loudly cleared his throat. ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen,’ he said severely, ‘really! This is hardly the way international champions act.’
‘What’s the decision, Honorable?’ Corkscrew asked.
The man in the impeccable white suit cleared his voice and announced, ‘Unfortunately, while it would appear that a foul did occur, I must rule that in the absence of any specific regulation concerning the deportment of the vehicles on the course, no foul was committed. The blue car is the winner.’
A general cheer went up and bet money changed hands. Riker counted out his bhats as Corkscrew paid off, snapping the bills into his palm. Then suddenly the room got quiet. Riker turned around. Hatcher was standing at the top of the stairs. His face looked drawn and the color seemed to be drained from it.
‘Hey, buddy, what’s the matter,’ Wonderboy said, ‘couldn’t stand to leave us?’
Hatcher didn’t smile. He walked over and put the tape recorder on the corner of the pool table and snapped it on. The regulars listened, then moved closer as Fong’s voice recited his vicious litany.
‘Oh my God,’ Melinda breathed and, covering her mouth with her hand, turned her back to the table.
When it was over they were all grouped tightly around Hatcher, staring down at the machine. There was no explanation necessary; the tape spoke for itself.
‘This lady was special to you, was she?’ Prophett asked.
‘Does it make any difference?’ Hatcher said.
They all slowly shook their heads.
‘I made a mistake,’ Hatcher whispered. ‘This morning when I said Fong was too busy to bother with you? I was wrong. He’ll kill and keep killing until he gets to me.’
‘So?’ said Earp.
‘So the only choice is to force his band. I’ll go after him and force him to move on me in self-defense and I’ll kill him.’