all. The language sounded vaguely like a Chinese dialect, but I didn’t know a single word of any Chinese dialect so I couldn’t be sure. Beth had a question in her voice when she spoke-I was pretty sure of at least that much-and one of the men nodded quickly in response, giving a single crisp snap of his head. After that both men waited patiently while Beth looked off into space for a few moments.
“Okay,” she finally said.
Then she added something else in whatever language it was she was speaking and both men immediately turned and walked away without another word.
Beth took a deep breath and wiped both hands over her face.
“It looks like somebody may be interested in you after all,” she said.
“You mean somebody is following me?”
“There does appear to be surveillance of some kind operating.”
I blinked at that. “You have got to be kidding.”
Beth shook her head.
“Who is it?” I asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Are you saying that Jimmy Kicks-”
Beth interrupted, waving my question away.
“I don’t know. We’ll keep you covered with a counter-surveillance team until I’m sure what’s going on. Just keep on doing whatever you normally do and don’t worry about it.”
“I already told you-”
“All of a sudden you sound more like a spook than a bodyguard to me, Beth. Is that it? Are you really a spook?”
“I am exactly who I told you I am, Mr. Shepherd. I am not associated with any intelligence agency.”
Beth’s response had a oddly wooden quality to it and I wondered for a moment if there was a message for me somewhere in there between the lines.
“It’s no concern of mine whether you believe me or not,” Beth went on before I could decide. “Mr. Gale pays me to provide security for him and I answer only to him. He asked me to monitor you for surveillance. Now it seems you may be tagged and I’ve got to tell you that I’m not real thrilled.”
“Well, that makes two of us, Beth.”
“The reason I’m not real thrilled,” she continued, her tone neutral, “is that now I’m going to have to pull some people off Mr. Gale to cover you and that leaves me weak if anything goes down with him. I don’t like to be weak.”
She paused and looked at me to make sure I appreciated the point.
“You must not tell anyone about any of this, Mr. Shepherd. You would be putting yourself in danger, and possibly others as well. If you
“Like what exactly?”
“It will be difficult for you to see Mr. Gale again.”
“That’s not a problem. I don’t want to see Mr. Gale again.”
“Don’t make jokes, Mr. Shepherd. This isn’t a game. I don’t think you understand what you’re up against here.”
“Oh, I think I do, Beth. I’m not up against anything because I’m not involved with Barry Gale and I don’t intend to
“Then why were you-”
“I had some time to kill in Hong Kong and I was curious.”
“Curiosity killed the cat.”
“Gee, I wish I’d said that.”
The corners of Beth’s lips lifted in a smile, but her eyes didn’t join in. “You’re not taking me seriously, are you?”
“Well… no.”
“These are serious people. It’s risky to underestimate people you don’t know and don’t understand. I doubt they have underestimated you and that gives them the advantage.”
“Hold on, Beth.” I tried to put just the right tone of appeal into my voice without coming off like a wimp. “Can you just lay it out for me? What the hell is going on here?”
“I’m only the hired help, Mr. Shepherd.”
“But you
Beth hesitated, and for a moment I thought she was about to say something, but then she looked away.
“It’s up to Mr. Gale. My job is just to make sure no one bothers you. We’ll be around. Don’t worry. You’ll be fine.”
She smiled and there was something like an apology in her eyes, but I knew that was all I was going to get out of her.
“You really have nothing to worry about, Mr. Shepherd. In spite of what you may have assumed, I’m not just some bimbo. I did eight years with Special Branch Counterintelligence in Hong Kong. I’m very good at my job. I have expert ratings with a dozen kinds of firearms.”
“Are you saying that you may have to
Beth chuckled slightly, but she didn’t reply. She just slipped off the picnic table, nodded at me, and broke into a jog toward the park’s main gate on Ratchadamri Road. I watched her until she reached the gate, passed through it, and disappeared.
I pushed myself off the table, too, and started walking back to where I had parked the Volvo.
It was utterly inconceivable to me that there could be people watching me at that very moment. I was just an unimportant lecturer at an insignificant business school in an inconsequential country in an unimportant part of the world. I couldn’t believe that anyone-other than perhaps Anita-gave even the most minuscule of damns about where I was going or what I was doing.
The more I thought about it, the more certain I became there was only one sensible explanation for all this: Barry was trying to scare me. He must have concocted this whole ridiculous story and then sent this woman and the two guys around to make it look real. Barry probably figured if he could frighten me badly enough, I would jump into his arms in sheer terror and then he would have me right where he wanted me.
I had thought for a moment there that Beth might be about to tell me what was really going on. Could I really believe she had come to meet me without Barry knowing about it? There had been something, I thought, an instant in which she seemed to want to tell me everything-and I had almost been ready then to believe that she really was there on her own-but I was probably mistaken. Men in general tended to become unreasonably hopeful and stupidly optimistic in the company of beautiful women, and I was no different. That was probably all there had been to that.
When I got back to the Volvo, I glanced up the street and immediately spotted a man sitting behind the wheel of a blue Toyota van parked a short distance along Soi Sarasin and on the opposite side. He looked like a Thai, but he was wearing a green baseball cap and dark glasses, and it was hard to tell for sure.
The man was probably just waiting for someone, I told myself. He really didn’t appear to be paying any attention to me and there was nothing unusual about him or about what he was doing. Nevertheless, I found myself keeping a wary eye cocked in his direction while I started the Volvo, made a U-turn, and headed back toward my apartment.
When I turned the corner onto Wireless Road, I glanced up at my mirror and saw the man was still there. He hadn’t moved. He hadn’t even looked at me as far as I could tell. Then both he and his blue van slipped out of sight and all I could do was wonder.
TWENTY THREE
