flight schedules and there was only one flight from Singapore to Bangkok between five and eight. I figured you’d be on it, and…” Cally spread her hands, palms up, “here you are.”
She winked at him. “Not bad for a girl, huh?”
Tay wasn’t sure exactly what to say to that, so he settled for something generic. “It’s really very nice of you to come out to the airport, but I could have just taken a taxi into town.”
“You’re not going into town.”
“I’m not?”
“Nope. You’re going to Pattaya.”
“Where?”
Cally tilted her head and examined Tay with more care than he would have thought his question merited.
“Are you trying to tell me that you’ve never heard of Pattaya?” she asked.
Tay thought he probably had, but nothing was coming to him right at that moment.
“Do you really expect me to believe,” Cally continued, “that you are the only male in all of Asia, perhaps the only male in the entire known universe, who has never heard of Pattaya, Thailand?”
And then Tay remembered.
Pattaya was a slightly shabby beach resort a couple of hours south of Bangkok that had a reputation for commercial sex and freewheeling debauchery sufficient to overwhelm the limits of most people’s imaginations. Tay had never been to Pattaya. He was no prude, at least he didn’t think he was, but he had heard enough about Pattaya to know that he probably wouldn’t like it very much.
To tell the truth, Tay didn’t like anywhere in Thailand very much. Beneath its veneer of exotic cuisine, extravagant temples, and saintly monks lay the dark heart of a country that lived off very little but sex and greed. No matter how you tried to dress the place up, Tay thought, Thailand would always have the soul of a whore.
Tay shifted his bag from his left hand to his right.
“Why am I going to Pattaya?” he asked.
“Not just you. We’re both going.”
“Then why are
“Because I want to talk to a man who lives in Pattaya and I want you to hear what he has to say.”
“What does this have to do with your ambassador being murdered?”
“I’m not sure yet. Maybe nothing. Look, Sam, I’ve got a car outside and I’m driving to Pattaya right now. If you don’t want to go, well…”
Cally pointed over Tay’s shoulder. When he glanced back, he saw a sign hanging above a battered counter that read Hotel Book Here. Behind the counter were two local women, both holding clipboards and looking in his direction with what he thought were unreasonably hopeful expressions.
Tay picked up his bag and followed Cally out to her car.
TWENTY-TWO
Cally had the dark blue Volvo up to ninety within a minute or two of hitting the expressway to Pattaya.
“Let me know when we’re airborne,” Tay said.
“I’m a great driver. You’ll see.”
The expressway was a four-lane divided highway set in flat and unpromising countryside. In the median strip, yellow vapor lamps on high aluminum poles streaked the heavy night air with sulphurous stripes. Scrawny brush and thin clumps of unidentifiable vegetation were scattered in patches over the sandy ground along both sides of the road.
“Where did you get the car?” Tay asked.
“Embassy motor pool. I went over there after I looked at the crime scene.”
“Was the crime scene here the same as mine in Singapore?”
“
Tay said nothing, hoping that would encourage Cally to get her eyes back to where they ought to be.
“There’s a digital camera on the back seat,” she said after the silence had stretched on for a minute or two. “Check it out yourself.”
Tay looked around until he found the camera. After fiddling with it briefly, he located the photographs Cally had taken and began clicking through them.
“Where is this?” he asked.
“It’s an apartment in a small building not far from the American embassy.”
“Was the ambassador shot?” Tay asked without looking up from the photographs flicking by on the camera’s tiny screen.
“Yes. Once. In the left ear.”
“A.22?”
“I told them where to look and what to look for. We’ll have to wait for the autopsy to be sure, but…” Cally paused. “Yes, that’s what it looks like.”
“Restraint marks?”
“Wrists and ankles. Same as Singapore.”
Tay couldn’t see the photographs all that well on the tiny screen, but he could see them well enough to tell the ambassador’s face had been beaten until it looked like freshly ground hamburger. He couldn’t determine from the photographs whether the beating had been inflicted before or after the woman was dead, of course, but he had seen violence like that only once before in his entire career and it had been the violence inflicted on Elizabeth Munson.
The ambassador’s body also appeared to have been posed in the same degrading manner as Elizabeth Munson’s. The details all looked alike to Tay, right down to the chrome-bodied flashlight protruding from the woman’s vagina.
The same man who had killed Elizabeth Munson had killed this woman in Bangkok. Tay had no real doubt of that. No other explanation made any sense.
“They look the same to me as the photos of
Tay shut off the camera and returned it to the back seat.
“Yes,” he said. “I think they are.”
Cally nodded slightly, more to herself than to Tay, but said nothing else.
“An anonymous call?” Tay asked.
“What?”
“You said the Thai police got an anonymous call about the ambassador. That was how they discovered the body.”
“All they told me was that the caller was a man who spoke English. He gave them the address and said they’d find the body of the American ambassador there. They thought it was just some crazy, until-”
“Was the call taped?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Did they get a caller ID?”
“Look, Sam, this is the Thai police we’re talking about here. They’ve got telephones. That’s about it.”
Cally turned her head and looked over at Tay. “There’s something else you should know,” she said. “We’re going to sit on this for a few days.”
“I’m sorry?”
“The FBI has decided not to publicize the murder of Ambassador Rooney yet and State is going along with them. They say that a public announcement now would affect the investigation.”
“That doesn’t make any sense to me.”
