apartment building.
“Okay, Big Jack. We’re here.”
I glanced at Tommy. His head was still tilted back against the seat, but now his eyes were open.
“So does this mean you’re going to cut the crap and tell me what’s going on?”
“Yeah.” Tommy stretched and yawned. “Plato Karsarkis wants to talk to you about something. This place is…”
All of a sudden Tommy’s eyes began to dart around wildly. I knew he had just realized he was about to say the wrong thing, but was stuck for a quick alternative.
I let him off the hook. “Onookt re of Plato’s fuck pads?” I asked.
The corners of Tommy’s mouth flicked up and down a couple of times. “Something like that,” he said.
“So, tell me, Tommy. I don’t really figure I’m this guy’s type. Why am I here?”
“Just shut the hell up for once in your life and have a little patience, would you, Jack?” Tommy looked to me like a man who very much wished he were somewhere else right then. “Let’s go upstairs.”
We got out of the car and I followed Tommy toward the lobby of the building. A man wearing a white jacket and a black bow tie pulled open the glass door and then jumped over and pushed the elevator button. The doors slid back immediately. After we were inside, he leaned in and pushed a button marked PH, which I assumed stood for penthouse, then he pulled his arm back out and bowed slightly as the doors closed again. It was a pretty snappy move, but Tommy was staring hard at the floor and didn’t appear to appreciate it as much as I did.
Neither of us spoke as the elevator hummed upward. When the doors opened I followed Tommy out into a small, marble-floored foyer. English hunting prints decorated the walls and there were two dark green upholstered chairs with a lamp table between them. It might have been the waiting room of a prosperous, but badly underemployed, dentist.
Almost immediately a door swung open. Mike O’Connell stood there smiling and holding his hand out toward me like a man with something to sell.
“Thank you for coming, Mr. Shepherd.”
“Your invitation was so gracious, I didn’t see how I could refuse.”
“Come on, Jack,” Tommy grumbled. “Cut the shit.”
Then he glared at Mike O’Connell and pointed a perfectly manicured forefinger at him. O’Connell stepped aside and I followed Tommy into the room.
TWENTY
The expensively decorated apartment had a distinctly masculine air about it, but it was somehow impersonal. It might have been the living room of a suite at a Four Seasons hotel in almost any city anywhere in the world.
Plato Karsarkis was sitting in a red leather chair with his legs propped up on an ottoman and crossed at the ankle. He was facing away from me, looking out a large window and contemplating with apparent interest whatever it was he saw out there.
“Can I offer you coffee, Professor Shepherd?”
It was Mike O’Connell who spoke, not Karsarkis.
“Or perhaps something stronger?” O’Connell went on when I didn’t respond immediately.
“Am I going to need it?” I asked.
Karsarkis laughed at that and turned his head toward me.
“Not really, but the least I can do after dragging you all the way out here is to buy you a drink,” he said. “Scotch for me, Mike, and…”
Karsarkis raised his eyebrows at me.
“Same.” I said. “Water, no ice.”
“No ice? That surprises me, Jack. Very European. Americans always seem to want ice. Lots of ice.”
“I’m full of surprises.”
Karsarkis nodded slowly several times as if I had jusookt f ice. amp;rdqt told him something important. Then, in a kind of afterthought, he glanced at Tommy.
“You want anything?” he asked him in a tone that made his lack of interest unmistakable.
“Vodka,” Tommy mumbled quietly. “Neat.”
O’Connell disappeared, I assumed to get our drinks, and Karsarkis gestured at a pair of couches.
“Sit down, gentlemen. Mike is going to have to play waiter since we’ve sent the staff home. It’s just the four of us today.”
Tommy seemed uncomfortable, although I couldn’t see why. Then it occurred to me I was probably about to find out.
“So, Jack.” Karsarkis had gone back to looking out the window. “That house in Phuket you wanted. You must be pretty happy about the deal the bank offered you.”
“I rather thought that was your hand at work there.”
“Does it matter?” he asked.
“It does to me.”
“You wanted the house,” Karsarkis shrugged. “I just thought I’d help you out.”
“I didn’t want the house. Anita did.”
Karsarkis glanced at me and lifted one eyebrow as if he didn’t see why that mattered. Little did he know.
“How did you find out about it?” I asked him.
“The agent who showed you the place said something to her husband. Tommy here knows the guy from somewhere. He heard it from him. Thailand’s really a small place, Jack. At least it is for foreigners. Everybody knows everybody else’s business.”
“Then you must already know I’m not buying the house.” I thought a moment and added, “And neither is Anita.”
Karsarkis shifted his eyes to me, his interest caught. “I thought the bank offered a pretty good deal.”
“For who?” I asked.
“For you and Anita,” he said. “Who else?”
“Oh…I thought you meant it seemed like a good deal for you. Making a call or two, getting BankThai to sell me the house at a fraction of its real value, leaving me owing you a big favor. Like that.”
Karsarkis chuckled and shook his head. “You’re a real pistol, Jack. A friend tries to do something for you and you act like he’s just pissed all over you.”
“We’re not friends. I already told you that. And if I want a favor, I’ll ask you for it. But don’t hold your breath.”
“So basically the house…”
Karsarkis let the phrase hang in the air like a question, but without a question mark.
“Basically,” I said, “that’s none of your business.”
Just then O’Connell reappeared carrying a wooden tray with three drinks.
“What?” I asked as he set my whiskey and Tommy’s vodka on the low table in front of the couch. “No pretzels?”
O’Connell acted as if he hadn’t heard me. He walked over and put Karsarkis’ whiskey on a small table next to him; then he took another chair across the room, put the tray down on the floor next to it, leaned back, and folded his arms. He watched me withouthedy on a expression and I found myself wondering for some reason if he was armed. I examined the lines of his blue suit jacket searching for bulges. I didn’t see any, but I didn’t stop wondering.
Tommy picked up his drink and sipped tentatively at it, then put it down again. Karsarkis left his drink on the table without touching it.
“Oh, hey,” Karsarkis suddenly said. “Where are my manners? You want a cigar, Jack?”
“No, I don’t want a goddamned cigar.”
“A simple no would have covered it. You don’t have to be so antagonistic.”
