FORTY-SIX
“What the hell are you doing here, Tay?”
DeSouza was backlit in the doorway, a chunky glass half full of amber liquid in his right hand.
“You need to talk to me,” Tay said.
“Do I now?” DeSouza chuckled and took a hit on his drink. “Why do I need to talk to you?”
Tay held up the envelope with the photographs of the Hoover Hotel, but he didn’t give it to DeSouza.
“What’s that?” DeSouza asked. His face was as flat as a dinner plate.
Then DeSouza surprised Tay by stepping back away from the doorway without waiting for an answer and waving him inside.
“I suppose you’ll want a drink,” he said.
Tay stepped through the door and DeSouza pointed to a room to the right of the entrance hall. It was quite large and appeared to have been designed for use as a study although the floor-to-ceiling bookcases on two sides of the room were almost completely empty. At the place where Tay might have expected to find a desk was a scarred pool table with an orange felt surface and on the opposite side of the room by the windows two brown leather chairs faced each other across a low table. Next to the chairs was a mahogany cabinet with a collection of bottles and glasses on top of it.
DeSouza walked straight to the cabinet. He chose a bottle that looked like Johnnie Walker and poured some into his glass. When he turned around, Tay noticed that the color of his drink had changed from straw to deep gold.
“Did I offer you a drink?” DeSouza asked.
“I don’t want anything.”
“Then I guess you might as well sit down.”
DeSouza gestured toward one of the leather chairs and took the one opposite it, his back toward the doorway. Crossing his legs he sipped at his drink and watched Tay carefully over the rim of the glass until he sat down, too. Then DeSouza put his drink down on the table between them.
“So what’s this all about?” he asked.
Tay fished a box of Marlboros out of his shirt pocket and lit one.
He looked around for an ashtray to discard the spent match. When he couldn’t find one, he looked at DeSouza with a question mark on his face.
DeSouza peered blankly back.
Tay got up, stepped over to the bar, and selected a drinking glass.
He dropped the match into it and returned to his chair. He put the glass down next to DeSouza’s drink.
“I want some information from you,” Tay said. “And I’m willing to give you the photographs in this envelope in return for it.”
“Photographs?”
Tay inhaled deeply, tilted his head back, and blew a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. Then he handed DeSouza the brown envelope.
DeSouza opened it and removed the contents. At first, Tay could see he was genuinely puzzled. DeSouza held one photograph in each hand and glanced back and forth between them. Then something seemed to catch his eye and he twisted toward a lamp and held the photographs under it. He leaned closer and studied them in the light.
All at once DeSouza’s whole body went slack starting with his face and spreading downward. He tried to cover his reaction, but he couldn’t.
“I have others,” Tay said. “Much better ones.”
DeSouza slowly lowered his hands and put the two photographs on the table between them. In the silence, Tay could hear the sound the photographs made when they touched the tabletop.
“That guy worked for us,” Tay said.
“What guy?”
“The one you thought was a woman. Or maybe you didn’t think he was a woman. It doesn’t matter. Either way, he was ours. I set you up.”
DeSouza said nothing. He lifted his glass and sipped at his whiskey. Tay could see he was thinking about it.
“I wanted to get something I could use against you. Now I’ve got it. It’s really just that simple.”
“Spell it out, Tay. What do you want?”
“You know why Elizabeth Munson was killed. You know who killed her. And you’re going to tell me in exchange for the pictures I have.”
DeSouza swirled the whiskey absentmindedly for a moment.
“You surprise me, Tay.”
“Sometimes I surprise myself.”
“I thought you were just a squirrelly little washout, and here it turns out you’re a big-time extortionist. Who would have thought it?”
American idioms were generally a source of annoyance for Tay. What in God’s name was
“You don’t know shit, do you, pal?” DeSouza continued when Tay didn’t say anything.
“We’ve got a witness who can put you at the Marriott when Mrs. Munson was killed.”
That was stretching a point, Tay knew, but it was close enough for government work.
“We’ve also got a witness who can place you at the apartment in Bangkok when Ambassador Rooney was killed,” Tay hurried on before DeSouza could ask any questions. “And I know you were with Cally when she was killed. That makes you the common link in all three murders.”
“That’s bullshit, Tay.”
“Are you telling me you weren’t in any of those places?”
“I’m telling you that you haven’t got any witnesses.”
Tay drew on his cigarette and exhaled slowly. DeSouza’s eyes lingered on him, gazing at him through the wisps of cigarette smoke. Then they flickered and shifted toward the darkness outside the windows.
“Here’s the offer, DeSouza. You tell me what you know and I’ll give you the rest of the pictures and walk right out of here. You don’t tell me and I will make it my life’s work to burn your ass. And I don’t care what I have to do. I’ll make you hurt.”
“You have the other pictures with you now?”
“Of course not. They’re somewhere safe.”
“Bullshit. You’re bluffing.”
“Then call my bluff.”
DeSouza took a breath and let it out again. “You don’t have any idea what you’re doing here, do you? You don’t have any idea what you really have.”
Tay wasn’t sure what that meant, so he remained silent.
DeSouza picked up his drink again and sat sipping at it, but his eyes stayed focused somewhere outside the windows. Tay finished his cigarette and stubbed it out in the drinking glass where he had dropped his match.
“Stand up,” DeSouza abruptly snapped.
“It won’t do you any good to throw me out.”
“I’m not throwing you out. Stand up and take off your shirt.”
“Take off my shirt?”
“I want to be sure you’re not wired, you fucking dimwit.”
Tay considered that briefly, then stood and unbuttoned his shirt. Pulling it open he held it out away from his body.
“Satisfied?” he asked.
“Damn, Tay,” DeSouza said with a low whistle. “You really could stand to lose some weight, man.”
“Go to hell, DeSouza.”
