Paying Back Jack (40 page)

Ball thought for a moment. “Yeah, I may have seen a guy like that. So what?”

Calvino exchanged a look with Colonel Pratt. The oyster shell had cracked open, and it was time for the Colonel to spoon out the fleshy bits and see if he'd find a pearl.

Calvino opened the glove compartment. He took out a notebook, tore out a page, and wrote down Casey's cell-phone number. Handing it to Ball, he said, “He gave me this. It's a secret number. He said Nongluck had this number. He said you also had it. Casey said you'd understand. Maybe it's in your phone book.”

“When is the last time you saw Casey?” asked Colonel Pratt.

Ball looked up from the paper with Casey's private number on it.

“A couple of days ago,” said Ball.

“Before he left town?”

“I didn't know he left town.”

“Some say he did,” said Calvino.

“But I think he might still be in Bangkok,” said Colonel Pratt. The Colonel showed no emotion. It was a matter-of-fact statement.

“I don't know if he's in Bangkok.” Ball looked at Colonel Pratt, thinking the Colonel might take his side. “It's true. How would I know?”

“I think that's bullshit,” said Calvino.

“Any idea why he'd tell us you killed Nongluck?” asked Colonel Pratt.

Ball crumpled up the paper. “Tell us your side of the story, Ball,” said Calvino. “The farang got you in over your head. We know that. It wasn't your fault. Casey's a dangerous man. I know it, and you know it. Of course you're scared.”

The smell drifted from the bad odor of a possible trap baited by his interrogators to something even more rancid: a setup by Casey, and Ball suddenly couldn't wait to set the record straight. Casey had come around to Saxophone and gotten to know Ball. He'd bought him drinks, gotten friendly with him. Casey had asked if Ball would like to work for him. Ball needed the cash and agreed to sign on to Casey's payroll.

“He offered you money?” asked Colonel Pratt.

“After he followed me.”

“Why was he following you?”

Ball shrugged, tossing head side to side, like he was playing his guitar. “It had something to do with Meow. I teach her nephews the guitar.”

“How much is he paying you?” asked Calvino.

“Twenty-thousand baht.”

“A month, a year?” asked Colonel Pratt.

“A week.”

Calvino raised an eyebrow. That was big-time money for a guitar player like Ball. Keeping up the monthly installments on the Mazda meant a few compromises. The question was what Ball had brought to Casey's table to justify the expense.

Casey must have found out about the guitar player and Cat being a number, not of the musical variety but in the nature of a gig—the Thai version of a no-strings sexual relationship. Cat was no different from other minor wives who needed a personal diversion to relieve their cabin fever waiting for the phone to ring, alternating between boredom and hostility in the long periods between the infrequent visits by her patron. She liked Ball. He made her laugh and played love songs for her. They danced together on the balcony of her condo. It wasn't a strictly genuine gig because Cat was paying him money. And with that plus the money from his guitar playing and teaching and this new source of revenue he'd found in Casey, Ball was riding high on the hog wagon, forgetting that the wagon always ended up at the slaughterhouse.

“What did you do for Casey?” asked Calvino.

Ball's lips tightened and his eyes looked wild with hate and fear.

“He didn't give you money for nothing, Ball. What did he want?”

“Was the money to kill Nongluck?” asked Colonel Pratt.

Ball's attitude changed, and he shifted position in his seat, arms folded tight like someone in a straightjacket. When a mug like Ball opened up, it was the shower going full-blast, and everyone was going to get wet. Ball said that Casey's deal was simple. His job was to report on Cat's relationship with Somporn. That was the way it had started. But soon after Ball took the money, Casey tapped him for gossip and found it a convenient two-way street, passing along gossip to Ball about the affair between Nongluck and Somporn. He knew it would get back to her.

Cat didn't take the gossip well. She exploded, broke a vase, screamed, cried, and railed. Like most minor wives, her whole life was threatened. And she'd watched enough Thai soap operas to understand that Ball expected, as she expected of herself, the need for a dramatic outburst, if only to get the shock out of her system. The bottom line was that Somporn wasn't someone she wanted to let go; she didn't want to share him with another woman. The major wife was enough of a headache, but that was an established way of structuring the man's needs.

But an arrangement like a resort time-share with a string of yings was playing fast and easy with the unwritten rules. Casey, according
to Ball, had him drill into Cat's spinning, revenge-seeking head that as long as Nongluck was alive, she was at risk of losing her ticket to the big buffet. She obsessed about the possibility of losing her man and had nightmares of Somporn throwing her and her two nephews out into the street. Cat decided that Ball, if he really loved her, had to help her eliminate the risk. The way it came down was exactly what Casey said would happen. Ball had been Casey's backdoor into Somporn's secret life. Ball liked his well-paid side job with Casey and parted freely with his newly acquired information after each visit with Cat.

“To help Meow, you killed Nongluck,” said Calvino.

“I didn't kill her.”

“Casey says you did,” said Colonel Pratt.

“I didn't do it.”

“Then who did?” asked Calvino.

“Casey,” Ball said. “I drove him to Pattaya. I told him that I wouldn't do it. He said nevermind, he'd find another way.”

“Why did Casey want Nongluck dead?”

Nongluck had been with Casey's son when he was grabbed in a half-lit soi. Casey never quite got over the fact that she'd waited over an hour before calling the police. She said she'd been scared; the men who took Joel away threatened to kill her if she went to the cops. It had taken her a good hour to overcome her anxiety. Another woman in her place might have waited a lifetime. Ultimately Casey excused her delay. She was young, a woman; the men had guns. She had drawn a pass. But that hadn't ended the matter. Casey had nagging doubts about her role in the abduction. Had it been a coincidence that she'd been the one who'd suggested dinner earlier in the evening on the Thornburi side of the Chao Phraya River, at a hole-in-the-wall restaurant?

The restaurant was in the middle of nowhere. How would Somporn's thugs have known to find him on that soi at that time unless they had inside information? And who better than Joel's squeeze to pass the information along? John Dillinger's ying had worn a red dress that fingered him. The police opened fire and cut him down. That would have been a better ending than the one Joel faced. He'd been taken sixty kilometers outside the city, tied up, beaten, tortured, and shot. Casey's boy had suffered the worst kind of death at the hands
of thugs who'd been hired to send a message: don't send people who cause a problem. As Casey was in the torture business himself, he'd assumed the photographs of his son's body were intended to cause maximum suffering.

The late night Calvino had walked back to his office, he had a taste of that don't-cause-a-problem message. He nodded as Ball spoke, and glanced at the Colonel, who acknowledged the bingo moment.

“Were you with Nongluck at the hotel when she paid for my upgrade?”

Ball looked genuinely puzzled. “Upgrade? I don't understand.”

Calvino had the sense that Ball was telling the truth.

For Casey, the verdict had been out on Nongluck until he found out that she had been involved with Somporn. He had the idea in his head that their involvement had happened before Joel died. As far as Casey was concerned, it looked like Nongluck had no more good excuses. She was implicated in his son's murder.

So why involve me? Calvino asked himself. It was a question for Casey.

He needed a foolproof plan to nail Somporn. Pinning Nongluck's death on him would never have worked. Even in a case where all ten fingers pointed to Somporn's guilt in the murder of Casey's son, Somporn had walked on insufficient evidence. He was slippery. If Casey were going down that road, he'd wanted to make certain that all ten fingers pointed at Somporn as the killer. Killing Nongluck had its own rationale. Maybe the best reason was settling accounts for his dead son. And if compromising the private eye he'd hired could be folded into the transaction, he'd get two for one. But the question Calvino continued to ask himself was why Casey would bother tying him to Nongluck's death?

Colonel Pratt reached over and opened the door.

“You can go, Ball.” said Colonel Pratt. “But remember, if Casey's story is right, and you are lying, you will be in more trouble than you ever thought possible.”

“I told you. I didn't kill Khun Nongluck.”

“You saw Casey do it?” asked Calvino.

“I didn't see anything,” he said.

Ball climbed out of the car. Walking around the front, he slipped into the door of Saxophone.

“What do you think, Pratt?”

The Colonel leaned back in his seat. “Ball's lying.”

Calvino had felt Ball had stitched together enough real information to paint a plausible explanation that let him off the hook. “And Casey doesn't want to be found,” said Calvino. “But he's got me wanting to find him.”

“He thought that you'd be in a Pattaya jail and out of his hair,” said Colonel Pratt.

“You think he's that smart?” asked Calvino.

Colonel Pratt glanced at a couple passing on the street. He waited until they passed. “Don't know. But I wouldn't underestimate him. Think, Vincent, you must have some idea where we can pick him up.”

Calvino closed his eyes and sighed. “He was trained to hide without leaving any clues. His history is black-bag operations. How do you find a guy like that?”

“That doesn't answer my question, Vincent.”

“I don't know where he is,” answered Calvino.

Colonel Pratt got out of the backseat and waited until Calvino shifted over to the passenger seat. “If you find him, you'll let me know.”

Calvino pursed his lips, his upper lip disappearing below the teeth line. He was thinking that in some ways he'd been no different from Ball. He'd taken money from Casey, knowing that something about the whole assignment had the smell of three-day-old fish. “Yeah, if I see him, I'll tell him you're looking for him.”

“You're going after him,” said Colonel Pratt. The matter-of-fact tone of his voice meant that he hadn't expected any confirmation.

But Calvino provided one nonetheless. “He killed a woman and tried to make it look like I was involved. Of course I'm going after him.”

Colonel Pratt reversed the Volvo. He understood that for Calvino it wasn't about money. Calvino had been drawn into a situation by a professional who had been using him, someone who had arranged to throw a woman off the balcony above his room in Pattaya. It was personal. Casey had used him for gathering information and then implicated him in a murder case. “Vincent, as your friend, I want you to listen.”

“I always listen,” Calvino said.

Whenever Colonel prefaced his remarks with “Vincent, as your friend,” what followed was in the way of a warning, a stop sign—hazard ahead.

“You said it yourself. Casey was trained to operate in a world you can't begin to comprehend. He worked in a secret CIA prison here. He worked at another prison in Baghdad. If you try taking Casey on your own, he will kill you.”

Calvino glanced over and caught the Colonel's eye.

“I'll keep that in mind,” said Calvino.

Frustration seeped into Colonel Pratt's voice. “You're underestimating the advantage his training gives him.”

“He set me up. I take that personally.”

“When you make it personal, you make mistakes,” said Colonel Pratt. “So far Casey hasn't made one.”

“Believe me, he will.”

A HALO circled the sun. Dabs of brilliant colors painted a rainbow on it. Marisa stood on the sidewalk staring directly at the halo, with her right hand shading her eyes from the sun. The sky was a polished gray glazed with slivers of white, like crystals of frost on a dirty window. Marisa couldn't take her eyes off the rainbow. She phoned Juan Carlos and told him to go outside and look. They agreed it was an unusual sky. Marisa said it was a sign. Centuries ago, peasants would have fallen on their knees and prayed. It was an end-of-the-world sky.

Somporn had turned Juan Carlos down. Somporn's wife hadn't been any help either.

“It's such a small thing to ask, Juan Carlos.” She'd been thinking of a Catalan proverb—‘Who has a daughter has bread; who has sons goes begging.'” Marisa bit her tongue and waited for his reply.

“He said, ‘You don't understand how Thai people think.'”

“I remember at lunch he said that you did understand the Thais.”

“He's changed his mind.”

“What does that mean?” A sense of bitterness mixed with sadness colored his voice. Juan Carlos, the forever-optimistic brother, had crashed.

Juan Carlos stepped back, feeling the flow of the air-conditioning. “In the West, Somporn told me, the top people at a company or in politics are replaceable, like light bulbs. They get thrown out the moment someone brighter, smarter, better-looking comes along. For the Thais,” he said, “the big people are indispensable. They are not
challenged. They are not replaced. The military might overthrow the government. A company head might be shot. But those are extreme cases. I asked Somporn what that had to do with finding Fon's father. And he said, ‘You don't get involved in a business that is not yours. It is an unwritten rule.' I said, ‘Her father works for one of your companies. You are involved.' And he said, ‘That is Western logic.'”