“You know what I’m talking about, Slick.”
“Actually, I don’t.”
“I mean, do you like him? Are you sympathetic with him?”
“He’s okay,” I said. “But I wouldn’t call myself sympathetic. He’s a bail jumper and a fugitive, for God’s sake.”
“Do you think he’s guilty?”
“Of what?”
“Of selling stolen oil smuggled out of Iraq. Of killing that girl.”
“I don’t know.” I rubbed my forefinger in the condensation on the side of my glass and tried to find a way to get off the subject of how I felt about Plato Karsarkis. “He could be guilty of one and not the other. Or of both. Or neither. What do you think?”
“Me?” CW seemed startled at the question. “I’m just shoveling shit from a sitting position here, Slick. I bag ‘em and tag ‘em whether they’re guilty or not. What happens to them after that is somebody else’s problem, not mine.”
I pushed myself around on my stool until I was facing out toward the sidewalk and watched the passing tourists for a while. There were an awful lot of them and they came in all shapes and si sh on my stzes. Still, I figured that most of them at least knew why they were there, and whether it was to have a meal, or get drunk, or chase girls, being somebody who knew what he was doing there looked pretty good to me right about then.
“You didn’t ask me here tonight to seek my counsel on whether Plato Karsarkis is guilty as charged, did you, CW?”
“Nope.” He shook his head and turned around on his stool as he stifled a yawn. “That I didn’t.”
The sidewalk in front of the Paradise Bar was running high with a river of people heading for the center of Patong. They were a decidedly mixed bag: Scandinavian families with matching hair; Japanese couples who might have been on their honeymoons; sweaty, rotund Germans holding hands with tiny Thai girls; mustachioed Arabic- looking men wearing tank tops and trailed by women in black chadors covering them from head to toe; a clutch of tattooed young Brits with several pounds of metal stuck through various parts of their bodies; a pair of hairy, middle-aged women in dirty T-shirts and baggy shorts who brayed nonstop at each other in broad Australian accents; and hundreds of other unidentifiable but equally uninspiring folks sweating out their cheap packaged holidays in paradise.
“I’ve been here almost three weeks now,” CW said. “And I haven’t done a fucking thing that’s been useful to anybody. It’s all been just a lot of hurry-up-and-wait bullshit. Son of a bitch, I am so damned tired.”
I nodded sympathetically, not having any idea what else to do.
“I got two boys back in Dallas with my ex-wife and I miss ‘em. I want to pop this bastard and go home, but I don’t feel any closer to doing that now than I did the day I arrived.”
“So you’re still waiting for Karsarkis’ extradition to be approved by the Thais? Is that it?”
“Yep. You got it, Slick.”
CW’s eyes flicked at me and then away. For a moment he seemed like he was going to say something else, but he didn’t.
“So then tell me, what’s your relationship with Karsarkis?” he asked instead.
“Dinner guest.”
“Nothing professional?”
“For Christ’s sake, CW, you’re not going to start that again, are you?”
“I asked you before if you were one of his lawyers, Slick. You said you weren’t and I believe you.”
“How nice.”
“Now I’m asking you if you have any other professional connection with him. Maybe a business arrangement of some kind.”
The question surprised me, but I struggled to keep my eyes still so CW wouldn’t see it. Did he somehow know about the conversation Karsarkis and I had had about his hotel deal? From the photographs it was clear CW wasn’t operating alone, and he obviously had some pretty good technology going for him so I supposed it was at least possible. But even if he had somehow eavesdropped on the conversation at Karsarkis’ house, what was I worried about? I’d told Karsarkis clearly that I wanted nothing to do with his business, hadn’t I? Why was I feeling vaguely guilty now about nothing more than having the conversation with Karsarkis?
“Should I take your silence to mean you
“No. You should take my silence to mean I’m searching for a polite way to say it’s none of your goddamned business. So far I haven’t come up with one.”
“You’d best tell me the truth right now, Slick. Things will go a lot better for you that way.”
I wanted to tell him to fuck off. I really did. But I didn’t really see what that would accomplish and what I wanted even more than that was to put an end to the whole damned conversation so I could go back to the hotel and Anita.
“I have no relationship at all with Plato Karsarkis. Neither business nor social. I met him by coincidence in a restaurant here.”
“The Boathouse. Yeah, we know. How come Karsarkis recognized you?”
“I have no idea. He said he’d heard of me and seen pictures of me.”
“And you believed him?”
“Why wouldn’t I believe him? Why would the most famous man in the world walk up to me and lie about knowing me?”
“I can’t put my finger on it, Slick, but something just don’t sound right.” CW shrugged slightly and rubbed at his face again. “Okay. Go on. How have you been involved with Karsarkis since then?”
“I haven’t been. Anita and I went to his house for dinner because…well, because he asked us and my wife was curious about him. I didn’t even want to go. That was the only time I’ve ever seen the man, other than at the Boathouse.”
“So you have no commercial relationship with him.”
I threw up my hands and rolled my eyes.
“Lordy, Mr. Marshal, don’t hit me again with your big stick. I’ll confess everything.”
“Stop being such a smart ass, Slick. Just answer the fucking question.”
“I have no commercial relationship whatsoever with Plato Karsarkis. Clear enough for you?”
“If you’re lying to me, I’m gonna use your butt for a broom, boy.”
“Don’t you think you’re laying on all that cornpone bullshit a little thick?”
CW smiled. “Yeah. Maybe I am at that.”
He dug some bills out of his pocket, twisted around, and dropped them on the bar. Then he stood up and started to put on his hat, but perhaps remembering his promise to me he tucked it under his arm instead and jammed his hands into his pockets.
“There’s somebody I want you to meet. You want to go someplace else with me?”
“Where do you have in mind?” I asked.
“There’s a bar a couple of my boys like to hang out in. Up where the action is. I’ve never been there before, but they said it’s called the Blue Lotus and it’s right at the beginning of a street called Soi Crocodile. You know where that is?”
Soi Crocodile, huh? Indeed I did know where that was.
Maybe my evening was about to get interesting after all.
FOURTEEN
If Patong is the rat’s ass of Phuket, which it is, I don’t know what you can call Soi Crocodile.
Objectively speaking, Soi Crocodile is one of a half-dozen tiny streets near the center of Patong, all of which are lined with open-air bars where hordes of foreigners hang out every day and every night drinking an awful lot of beer. Pretty much Patong’s only real attraction is that thousands of young Thai girls, most of them fresh from tiny
