“You’re not that interesting, Jack. John Hanratty moves in higher circles than either of us. I sure he couldn’t care less what you’re doing.”
“Let’s put this plainly, Stanley. Just for the record. As far as you know, does any agency of the United States government have any interest in me at all?”
“Not unless it’s the IRS, Jack.”
Our conversation went on for a while after that as conversations sometimes do even when they’re already over, but nothing else of any importance was said by either of us. By the time I left Stanley it was dark, and I went back downstairs to my own office and just sat there a while thinking.
In real life, coincidences really did occur sometimes. When I thought about what Stanley had told me, I could see now why the Asian Bank of Commerce could have been in Dollar’s address book. According to Barry Gale, the bank was in the business of facilitating shady dealings for foreigners in Asia by providing them access to compliant banking facilities and bankers who didn’t ask too many questions. That would have been just the ticket for Howard and Dollar in setting up their Chinese money runs. Maybe there wasn’t any more to it than that. Probably Barry Gale would have known nothing about how Dollar and Howard had been using the ABC, so his sudden appearance in my life might well have nothing to do with them at all.
That still left unanswered the question of who killed Howard, of course, and exactly what Dollar might be hiding from now also remained a mystery; but Stanley was probably right about that, too. I had never actually been involved in whatever Dollar and Howard were doing. Regardless of what the answers to those two questions ultimately turned out to be, those answers would have nothing to do with me.
Looking at everything that way made me feel a lot better. I stood up, stretched, and collected my briefcase. It was time to go home.
As the elevator whirred down to the garage, I thought to myself again that it really did look like I was in the clear with regard to whatever Dollar and Howard might have been up to. Now if I could only find some way to get rid of Barry Gale, my life would be pretty much back to normal.
I climbed into the Volvo and drove home. I held onto that thought the entire way, enjoying it beyond all reason.
THIRTY TWO
When I got and took the elevator upstairs the first thing I noticed after the door opened at my floor was the faint odor of cigar smoke.
I reminded myself yet again either to clean up my act and cut down on my smoking or at least get the apartment aired out every now and then. It was a wonder to me that one of my neighbors hadn’t already complained to the residents’ committee and started a movement to get me thrown out of the building. It wasn’t until I opened the door to my apartment, dumped my briefcase, and crossed the entry hall into the living room that I realized the smoke I smelled wasn’t quite as stale as I had first thought.
“These are pretty good,” Tommy said, gesturing with the lighted cigar in his hand. “I generally prefer Cohibas, but Montecristos were all I could find around here and, like you Americans say, don’t look in the mouth of a horse that is a gift from somebody.”
“It’s ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.’“
“Whatever.” Tommy took a long draw on the Montecristo. “My English may be a little rusty. Maybe you ought to help me with it, Jack.”
Tommy seemed to have made himself entirely at home there in my apartment. Although the living room was dim and he hadn’t turned on any lights, he looked comfortable enough settled as he was into one of the two leather chairs that were turned at right angles to each other in front of the big front window. The cigar he was holding was about half smoked, so I gathered he had probably been there for a while.
“Don’t just stand there, Jack. This is your apartment. Come in, come in.”
Tommy’s tone was so avuncular that for a moment I wondered if I had forgotten some arrangement we had made for him to be waiting there for me. I hadn’t, of course, and I stood looking at him as he took another long pull on the cigar and exhaled in a steady stream.
“Where’s your girlfriend, Jack?”
“She’s out. Somebody’s having a birthday party at the Oriental.”
My response was automatic and I immediately regretted it. Why did I owe Tommy an explanation for anything? After all, he had gotten into my apartment somehow and was lurking there in the dark waiting to ambush me when I came home. In my book that hardly entitled him to start asking questions, much less to get any answers.
“Okay, fine.” Tommy’s voice filled the room with a hearty, good-natured boom. “That’s good.”
I wondered what was good about it from Tommy’s point of view.
“How did you get in here?” I asked.
“You ought to be more concerned about how I’m going to get
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“Why don’t you just sit down? This won’t take long.”
Tommy tapped the Montecristo against a green celadon bowl he had put on the floor by the chair to use as an ashtray. He smiled slowly in what I gathered he thought was a reassuring way. Other than grabbing Tommy and flinging him bodily through the living room window, I didn’t see what else I could do. And that didn’t seem like too hot an idea, so I sat down.
I watched Tommy as he smoked quietly, smiling in a vague sort of way and looking off in the direction of the lights along Ploenchit Road. He had a soft, almost pink face, and he wore plain, black-rimmed glasses. His dark hair was neatly cut and he was conservatively dressed in a dark suit that was neither snappy nor expensive, a white shirt, and a plain tie with a muted pattern. He didn’t seem to notice that I was looking him over or, if he did, to care very much.
“You weren’t expecting me tonight, were you, Jack?” he asked, still looking out the window.
“I wasn’t expecting anybody.”
“But you should have been, Jack. You should have been.”
He took a quick draw on his cigar and twisted his head toward me when he exhaled, pointing his free hand toward the humidor that was sitting on a desk across the room.
“You want a cigar or something?”
“It’s my apartment, Tommy. If I want a fucking cigar, I’ll get it myself.”
He nodded slowly at that, but I noticed he had stopped smiling.
“Okay, here it is,” he said.
Tommy tapped the arm of the chair lightly with his fingers.
“We asked you to stay away from the Asian Bank of Commerce, Jack. We asked you nicely. Then we find out that you’re still asking all kinds of questions about the ABC; you’re searching through people’s houses and looking at their personal papers; and you’re pitching all these crazy conspiracy theories. Why would you do things like that, Jack? Are you trying to fuck with us?”
“Well,” I said, “I guess that qualifies as getting straight to the point.”
Tommy started smiling again, but this time it was in a way I didn’t much like. I thought about asking him how he knew all that, but decided it would be pretty much a waste of time.
“You see, Jack, the way it works around here is that I’m responsible for looking after some things.”
“Things like what?”
“Money. Banking. Investments.” Tommy puffed at the Montecristo again and I started wishing I had taken him up on his suggestion that I have one, too. “You know the things I’m talking about.”
I didn’t know, but I nodded anyway.
“Those things get fucked up and some people start thinking that
