Laundry Man

scraping sound to echo across the parking lot for a second time. After that, the two men moved to opposite ends of the bag, hefted it, and dumped it onto the gurney.

“This happened because of some bullshit CIA scheme you’re running, didn’t it, John? This happened because the CIA was using Dollar and Howard to funnel tens of millions of dollars to corrupt Chinese officials to keep them spying for you, didn’t it?”

Just John looked surprised in spite of what I gathered was his best effort not to.

I winked at him. “Gotcha.”

John gave a little snort and looked down at his shoes. “Stanley Ratikun must have told you about the NSC thing. Did he tell you the Chinese story, too?”

I didn’t say anything, but of course I didn’t have to. Just John knew he was right.

“What else did he tell you?” John asked me after a moment.

“Not much.” I thought back briefly over the conversation I’d had with Stanley. “Not anything really.”

All three of us watched silently as the gurney rattled away toward the street. When it reached the edge of the parking lot, one of the brown uniforms lifted the crime-scene tape and the two attendants wheeled the gurney under it. Then they turned left behind a white Toyota van and disappeared from sight.

Just John pushed at the gravel with the toe of his shoe.

“This happened, Jack, because $43,600,000, plus change, is unaccounted for.”

“Christ, you guys go first-class, don’t you? What did you think you could get for $43,000,000? Mao’s body?”

Just John gave me an imitation of a smile. “That’s not my point.”

“Then what is your point?”

“Dollar and Howard knew where that money went.”

“Well, my guess is you’re going to have one hell of a hard time sweating it out of them now.”

“You still don’t get it, do you, Jack? That’s why somebody stuck Dollar’s body in your car. They think you know where the money is.” John leaned close to my ear. “And they wanted to remind you that they know where you are.”

“For Christ’s sakes, John, I’m just a college teacher!”

I pointed angrily toward where Dollar’s body had disappeared behind the white Toyota van.

“And he was just a lawyer. Guys like us push papers around when somebody tells us to. That’s all we do. It’s guys like you who screw around with stupid schemes that get people killed, not us. I don’t know where any money is, and I’ve got nothing to do with whatever is going on here. How many times do you want to hear it?”

John’s sigh was long and deep.

“Let me run it down one more time for you, Jack. Dollar and Howard were using the ABC to handle enough black money that somebody is willing to kill people to get at it. Barry Gale fronts the ABC. Gale disappears one day, then he turns up in Bangkok and goes straight to you. You get curious and start sniffing around the ABC and that idiot Tommy turns up in your apartment and tells you to back off.”

John saw me blink.

“Gotcha,” he grinned. “Yeah, sure we know about Tommy going to your apartment, but that’s not what you should be focusing on here, Jack. Focus on what this looks like to us when we put it all together. Focus on how it looks to anybody wondering where you fit in. How do you think it adds up?”

Just John waited patiently for me to meet his eyes before he finished.

“It adds up to you being the link between Howard and Dollar’s operation and the ABC, Jack. That’s how it adds up.”

“That’s not how it is,” I said.

The people who had been in the parking lot began to drift away and first one then the other of the mercury- vapor lights snapped off. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t get that orange bag out of my mind and the darkness only made it more vivid. It was almost as if the bag had left behind a vapor trail where it crossed the lot, a luminescent orange wake that still hung in the air all the way from the door of my Volvo out into the street.

“Look, I can’t help you,” I finally said, not knowing what else to say. “Why don’t you just go find Barry and ask him what’s going on?”

“Jello and I sort of thought you might do that for us.”

“I don’t know where he is.”

“Oh, fuck, Jack.” Just John sounded genuinely disgusted. “When are you going to show us some respect, man? You figure we think you’re down here in Bangkok’s favorite hot spot to check out the action? Or maybe just because you were dying for a beer?”

“An unfortunate choice of words.”

“Not for me, Jack.”

“You know a lot of people,” Jello said. “And you’re not the kind of guy to sit around and wait for something to happen. We figure you either know where Barry Gale is or you have some way to contact him.”

“Somebody has been following me around town for weeks already, John, and we both know who it is. So what’s the problem? You’ve already found out who I know and where I go. And you know I’m not hanging out with Barry Gale.”

I had no doubt at all now that it was John’s people who’d been on my tail-that would certainly account for the high-tech tracking device-although it was dollars to donuts that nobody had let Jello in on the plan.

That immediately raised an even thornier question, however, one I wasn’t sure I was too keen on answering for myself right then.

If it really was Just John’s people following me, were they the people who killed Dollar and left his body in my car? Or, at the very least, wouldn’t they know who did?

I thought back for a moment on my conversation with Stanley.

In my experience, the CIA does not go around killing American citizens in order to advance vast and shadowy conspiracies.

Maybe not, it occurred to me now, but how about in order to hide small and fucked-up ones?

“I’ve got nothing to do with any of this,” I repeated stubbornly.

“Then, Jack, you’re going to have to give us something,” Just John said. “Something that might make us believe you.”

“Like what?”

“Like Barry Gale.”

“I don’t have Barry Gale.”

“Get him.”

A patrolman started rolling up the yellow tape and the spectators continued to thin out. In another few minutes the parking lot would be empty, as empty as if nothing had ever happened there at all.

Some son of a bitch is going to kill me if I don’t get myself out of this, I thought. Sure as hell, some son of a bitch is going to kill me just like he did Dollar and Howard, and I’m not even going to know why.

“Barry Gale told me that the ABC was raided by somebody and lost a lot of money,” I finally told John and Jello. “He’s scared shitless that the Russian mobsters who set the whole deal up in the first place will think that he scammed the bank himself.”

“So why did he come looking for you?”

Just John asked the question like a man who already knew the answer and just wanted to see if I would tell him the truth.

“He asked me to help him find the money and get it back.”

“What did you tell him?”

“I said I wouldn’t get involved and I haven’t seen him since. That’s all I know. I can’t help you find him.”

Just John’s eyes were locked on mine.

“Yes, you can, Jack. And I’m absolutely sure that you will.”

I didn’t respond, but I could feel John watching me as my eyes drifted away from his and back across the parking lot.