Bullet Beach Page 6

  He ordered a cup of coffee at a table in a drab, colorless restaurant and spread out the colorful Bangkok Post. A few moments later a young Thai man in a baseball cap, olive tee shirt and jeans came in. Shanahan wouldn’t have noticed except that the kid seemed to make a special point of not looking around. He was trying very hard not to be noticed. When the waiter came, Shanahan saw the young man steal a glimpse before his gaze too quickly retreated.

  Shanahan looked down at his paper and paid no attention to the kid. He asked the waiter for two cups ‘to go’ and walked past the kid and out the door. He thought about trying to lose him, but he didn’t want to. If he was right about the tail, this was the only connection he had made so far. He’d have to figure out what to do about it.

  Maureen was awake and up when he got back to the hotel.

  ‘Channarong called. Wants to know if you have plans for him.’

  ‘I do.’ Shanahan went to the phone and punched in the numbers.

  ‘What’s on our agenda?’ she asked, while Shanahan waited for Channarong to answer.

  ‘Breakfast and a long walk,’ Shanahan said just as Channarong answered. ‘Can you meet us at ten here at the hotel?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Come on up to the room.’

  Shanahan didn’t want to discuss things in the lobby.

  Maureen stood out on the balcony and sipped her coffee.

  ‘Are we going to have breakfast out?’ she asked.

  ‘Can you wait until ten thirty?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We’ll go downstairs. It is part of our rate, I guess,’ Shanahan said.

  She was a little disappointed. The breakfast buffet was OK – for what it was – a breakfast buffet. And it was a food adventure she had already experienced.

  Channarong stepped out on to the balcony. Shanahan followed.

  Looking down, Channarong said, ‘All that used to be a Chinese cemetery. On a morning like this morning the tombstones would look like sunken bathtubs in muddy water as if someone forgot and left the faucet running.’

  ‘I’m reminding you,’ Shanahan said to Maureen who stood in the doorway. ‘I want to be cremated and my ashes thrown on a mountain.’

  She said nothing.

  ‘What happened to the cemetery?’ Shanahan asked.

  ‘They’ve taken it all away,’ Channarong said. ‘Progress. I suspect no one liked the idea of soggy corpses.’

  ‘Are you up for a little intelligence work?’

  Channarong nodded.

  ‘We need three people for this,’ Shanahan said, counting each one of them. ‘I will go for a long walk, perhaps to a park somewhere,’ Shanahan said. ‘You and Maureen will follow at a distance in order to see if we’re being followed.’

  Channarong nodded.

  Shanahan described the young man who was at the restaurant.

  ‘It could be someone else now. Anyway I’ll go sit at a park bench somewhere. If I am followed, Maureen will come sit beside me. We will chat for a while. I’ll see her to a cab and she will go back to the hotel.’

  Maureen raised one eyebrow.

  ‘Then I’ll begin walking again and I will lose him.’

  ‘You don’t want to confront him? You want to lose him?’ Channarong said.

  ‘But I don’t want you to lose him.’

  ‘I see. You want to know where he goes.’

  ‘Yes. You OK with this? It’s beyond the call of duty.’

  Channarong smiled and nodded. ‘Our temples are beautiful, but I can miss a day of explaining the reclining Buddha.’

  They stepped out of the heat and into the room.

  ‘I have to come back to the hotel?’ Maureen asked, a little bit of warning in her voice.

  ‘No, of course not. You can go anywhere you want,’ Shanahan said. ‘A temple maybe. There are thirty-two of them, I believe.’

  ‘Just not with you,’ Maureen said.

  ‘It’s easier for one person to disappear than two. It’s just playing the odds.’

  Though the stretch from the hotel to Lumpini Park was walkable, perhaps even pleasant on a seventy-degree day, this was a ninety-six-degree day. The heat and heaviness of the air made it a bad idea. Shanahan boarded one tuk-tuk and Channarong and Maureen caught another.

  Shanahan’s motorized rickshaw sounded like a lawnmower and only went a little faster than one running on the power of human legs. At the entrance to the park, a statue of Rama IV stood at the front gate to welcome visitors. Just inside was a political demonstration. Banners flew, people on megaphones spoke.

  Shanahan continued until he was further into the park. He found a bench and sat, pulling out his now tattered newspaper and began to read as pigeons gathered around his feet. With the exception of the heat, it was very much like any city park. Strollers and bicyclists whisked along the wide walkways.

  He read for about ten minutes looking for Maureen’s arrival to signal that the tail had been identified. But she did not come. Instead a man in a light suit, not Thai, not Asian, sat beside him though there were empty benches nearby.

  Perhaps the man just liked this bench. In a few moments the man reached in the jacket pocket and pulled out a number ten manila envelope, folded it in half, and put it between Shanahan and himself.

  That’s when Shanahan noticed Maureen maybe 75 feet away. Shanahan gave her the slightest head shake in the negative. She stopped and pretended to examine her shoe. The man sitting next to Shanahan got up, leaving the envelope, and headed further into the park. Maureen was walking again. She pretended she didn’t know Shanahan and continued on in the same direction as the man. Once past him, she waved her arms behind her, letting him know he was not to follow.

  Shanahan put the envelope in the newspaper, folded it up and walked back toward the entrance. He was worried about Maureen, but if he interceded he’d likely screw everything up and Maureen would be upset that he didn’t trust her.

  As he passed back through the gate Shanahan caught Channarong out of the corner of his eye. Neither acknowledged the other. Shanahan headed back into the business district. In the midst of a gathering of food vendors, Shanahan moved about as if he were interested in what they were selling. He doubled back a couple of times and noticed Channarong, which meant that he was being followed. But so far, he was unable to make out who it was and therefore he wasn’t sure how to shake him, which was the point of the exercise.

  Then again, Shanahan thought, who was the man in the park? Were there two, separate people interested in his comings and goings? He stepped into a multi-floor mall, glad to be in the cool air, if not thrilled about the choice of goods. He looked around for some other way out and couldn’t find one. He went into a luggage shop and pretended to look at the wares. He came out again into the overwhelming heat. He thought about the Skytrain, which would whisk him out to the suburbs, but if he managed to dodge his tail, the timing might make it difficult for Channarong to follow the culprit. He was, he thought, a bit rusty at the spy game – though some things never change. The clandestine exchange on a park bench, for example. Only this time, it wasn’t prearranged.

  Shanahan wanted two things. To be cool again and to read what was in the envelope. He did not want the person tailing him to know that someone else had contacted him. If neither knew about the other, he wanted to keep it that way until he could sort out the situation. He found a bar and went inside. The cool air hit the layer of perspiration on his face and it was instantly chilling. He pulled a handkerchief from his back pocket and wiped at his forehead before going to the bar where he would, as he understood already, be regarded as a typical sweaty westerner, a farang.

  Shanahan sat at the bar, put the newspaper upon its smooth, worn wooden surface. He ordered the elephant brew, put enough baht on the bar to cover the beer, and relished the first, long drink of it, brought to him from an indifferent bartender. The bar had no particular sense of place. It was culturally neutral. He glanced around. No one had followed him in. He slipped the envel
ope from the folds of the newspaper and put it in his front pocket. He took another sip of beer and looked for the men’s room. He spotted the little hallway, the only hallway and deduced that the bathrooms had to be in that direction.

  The men’s room was small and very clean. It was also well-lit. Light not only came from the fluorescent bulb above him, but through the window, which was open about half an inch. Shanahan locked the door and opened the envelope.

  Come alone to the Kitty Club on Soi Cowboy tonight at eleven. Walk straight through the bar to the back wall. Enter through the red, swinging door. Ask for Moran.

  That was it. No signature. No threats, but no explanation.

  Shanahan put the letter back in his pocket and examined the window. The window was on a chain and could be opened halfway. He did and looked out. It was a short drop into what seemed to be a stairwell. No exit. He debated. There was a stairway that went up the side of another building. He decided to do it. He pulled himself through the window. For a moment his body was a seesaw, half in the bar, half out. He inched his way forward, putting his hands down to break the inevitable, but hopefully short fall.

  He shook his head. He wasn’t twenty years old, or thirty, or forty. He was seventy and breaking a hip was a distinct likelihood. Nonetheless, he managed the maneuver without much trouble. He went to the ladder – a fire escape of sorts – and climbed up past a second story to the rooftop. He moved over the roof to the front of the building and looked down.

  Shanahan wasn’t sure if it was the same or a different young man in the baseball cap. The kid stood across the street, smoking. He had donned sunglasses. Channarong was a block away, standing near a food vendor, nibbling on something on a stick. OK, he knew who he had to lose.

  Shanahan looked to the left. Another building, but three stories. To the right there was another rooftop adjacent to the roof where he stood. He had only to climb over a three-foot wall. He went across easily and then to another where there were clothes hanging on a line. The colorful shirts and undergarments were leaden in the unmoving, heavy air. Behind the clothing was a small structure with a door. The door led to a stairway and the stairway to a landing and another stairway, which led to a lobby of sorts, and to the street. He waited until it was clear, waiting until his tail looked the other way. Instead the young man simply lowered his head. Tired, bored. Shanahan, who believed the young man was resting his eyes as well, took the moment to scurry the few feet to the corner and disappear around it.

  Out of sight he stopped for a moment to take stock of his bones and organs. He was exhausted, sweaty, but all the vital parts seemed to be where they were supposed to be and functioning. He had no idea where he was, but he knew where he was going. Shanahan walked the small street until he found a busier one. He waved for a cab. He could count on the driver knowing the way back.

  EIGHT

  Cross told himself that if he could be calm and collected, cool might follow. This he said only in his mind as he cracked three eggs into a bowl. The oil was heating in a small skillet. He continued the internal monologue. ‘You remember the good, old days when you were paid to get other people out of trouble.’ He chopped up some onion and two slices of bologna.

  The intended omelet turned out to be scrambled eggs.

  ‘Same same,’ he told Casey, who had just meandered in, no doubt picking up the scent of breakfast.

  ‘All right, all right,’ he said to the universe, ‘I’m going to get on it.’

  What was on the plate didn’t look like an omelet or scrambled eggs.

  ‘A scramlet,’ he said, putting some of it in a bowl he put down for Casey and a tablespoonful of it for Einstein.

  He took his plate into his office where he sat on a chair, putting the plate in his lap and the coffee on a side table. He flicked on the television. He glanced at his watch as the screen gained life.

  Five minutes until the news. He pushed the ‘mute’ button. There had to be something about the case. He nibbled on his eggs, sipped his coffee, thought about what it was that he knew. Marshall Talbot was the son-in-law of a powerful citizen, Raymond Taupin. The identity of the woman had yet to be disclosed. The relationship between them was also unknown. Lovers? Two strangers at the wrong place at the wrong time?

  What else did Cross know? The man with the shotgun was waiting for Cross and Slurpy. Of that, there was no doubt. And why was that? Cross couldn’t be sure. But he knew that it ended with the murder weapon in his and Slurpy’s possession. The question then became, was Cross the intended set-up? Maybe the killer or killers wanted Cross to take the fall. Specifically Cross. True? Cross couldn’t be certain of that even though it felt that way. If Cross was the real target, maybe the bodies in the trunk were a pretext, related to nothing else, not even to each other. They were used to get to Cross.

  ‘You must think pretty highly of yourself,’ Cross said to himself.

  Either way, how did they know Cross, or anyone for that matter, would be there to repo the car the same evening the victims met their fate? Then there was a phone call to let the police know where they could find him, Slurpy, the two dead bodies and the shotgun.

  It all seemed to come down to Edelman. And he would be profoundly, eternally quiet.

  Cross clicked the mute button and sound burst into the room.

  A very blonde, doll-like woman read a few headlines to tease for the news that would follow nearly endless commercials. Once the dancing mops had saved the day it was clear that the bodies in the trunk led the news.

  ‘Police are asking for help in the murder of Marshall Talbot and an unidentified woman.’ A police sketch of a woman appeared on screen. She appeared to be Hispanic, perhaps Middle Eastern. ‘Police are seeking information about the woman shown here in a police sketch. Both Mr Talbot and the other victim were found in the trunk of a repossessed automobile, both apparently dead from shotgun wounds.’

  The face of Lieutenant Rafferty appeared on screen, a microphone in front of his mouth.

  ‘What have police learned about the repo case so far?’ asked a disembodied voice.

  ‘We know very little at this point. We are in the preliminary stages of the investigation. With the help of the coroner and medical examiner, we are developing a time line and are questioning everyone who might be able to shed some light on the case. We are confident that we will be able to apprehend those responsible for these deaths.’

  ‘I understand that you are questioning a private investigator, the person driving the car at the time of the discovery of the bodies.’

  ‘We are questioning everyone.’

  ‘Is the investigator . . . let me see . . . Howard Cross a suspect?’

  ‘In this stage of the investigation almost everyone is a potential suspect.’

  ‘He is being held for questioning,’ the voice asked. ‘Isn’t that right?’

  ‘We are not going to go into any information regarding people of interest at this point. Thank you.’

  ‘I’d like to follow up on the death of Chester Thurman who was killed by police that night.’

  ‘We’ll be getting back to you when we have more to say.’

  ‘The public has a right to know,’ the voice said.

  ‘Of course. And they will know. At the moment we need to make sure we don’t jeopardize the investigation and that we protect the rights of every citizen. Thank you. We’ll keep you informed.’

  Rafferty was good on camera, Cross thought. Unfortunately though, Howard Cross was now in the public domain. ‘Howard?’ Of course, he didn’t like ‘Howie’ either, but a guy has to have a name. He was about to shut the television off when the next story picked up on Edelman’s death.

  ‘Indianapolis police have their hands full,’ said the blonde woman behind the desk. ‘We’ve just learned that Irving Edelman, owner of the car lot where the repo murders were uncovered, was found dead in his home in an apparent suicide. Arnie is at the Edelman house on the city’s Northside. What do we know about this, Arnie?’
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br />   ‘What the police will tell us is that Irving Edelman was found dead in his garage with a noose around his neck. Police will not confirm the suicide theory saying that they are waiting for the coroner to make a statement and that it might take a few days before that ruling will be made. We do not know who found Mr Edelman or what other information they might have gathered so far. All we know is that city hall recently boasted of a declining murder rate. The number of homicides in the last few days has to worry them.’ Arnie looked into the camera for a few serious moments before the camera went back to the perfectly coiffed anchor.

  ‘I’m sure the mayor has something to say about this,’ she said. ‘Thanks, Arnie. Now for news from the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Members of the—’

  Cross clicked it off. He finished his noon breakfast and sipped the last of the coffee. Time to do something. But what? Edelman was dead. That left the police, who weren’t known for sharing with a civilian let alone a suspect. And members of the family weren’t any more likely to consent to an interview with the likes of Cross.

  After letting Casey out and then back in, Cross showered, shaved and slipped on jeans and an old madras shirt which he left untucked.

  ‘What do rich people have that most people don’t?’ he asked Einstein, who seemed bored at the attention. ‘They have help. People who do their cooking and cleaning and gardening and who knows what?’

  He punched in the numbers.

  ‘You’ve reached the law offices of James Fenimore Kowalski. Please leave a brief message at the tone.’

  ‘Kowalski. This is Cross. I want to know where Raymond Taupin lives and he isn’t listed anywhere. Give me a call at . . .’