Killing Plato

Keeping his hands clasped together in front of him, the man went on in a soft voice that carried the hint of an accent I couldn’t quite place.

“Mr. Karsarkis would like to invite you to join him for dn din him inner tomorrow night. If you’re available, he’ll send a car.”

Before I had a chance to say anything, Anita did.

“This is utterly ridiculous.” She glared at the young man and poked her forefinger in my direction. “He put you up to this and I want you to know right now I’m not going to fall for it.”

“No, ma’am, he didn’t.” Mike O’Connell didn’t seem particularly surprised by Anita’s skepticism. “Mr. Karsarkis asked me to come in here and invite you to dinner.”

“Plato Karsarkis?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“The Plato Karsarkis.”

“He’s the only one I know, ma’am.”

“And you seriously expect me to believe Plato Karsarkis is here in Phuket and he sent you to invite us to dinner tomorrow?”

“Yes, ma’am. Mr. Karsarkis just spoke with your husband. Hasn’t Mr. Shepherd mentioned it to you yet?”

Anita lowered her menu, closed it with exaggerated care, and put it down on the table.

“I think he might have said something to that effect, now that you mention it.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I finally tagged the accent.

“You’re an American,” I said. “New York? Boston? Around there?”

The young man summoned up something close to half a smile, but I thought he seemed a bit careful about doing it and didn’t answer me.

“We’d be delighted to join Mr. Karsarkis for dinner,” Anita said all of a sudden.

I turned my face away from Karsarkis’ emissary and raised my eyebrows to get Anita’s attention. “I’m not sure-”

“I am, Jack.”

She flicked her eyes back to the young man.

“What time tomorrow, Mr. O’Connell?”

“Would eight o’clock be convenient? If you’ll tell me where you’re staying, we’ll send a car for you.”

“And where are we having dinner exactly?”

“At Mr. Karsarkis’ home, Mrs. Shepherd. He is having several people around tomorrow night and thought you and your husband might like to join them.”

Anita nodded slowly. “You’ll appreciate, of course, I’m still having a little trouble with all this.”

“Yes, ma’am. Apparently.”

“I hope you’ll excuse me saying so, Mr. O’Connell, but it is difficult for me to accept that Plato Karsarkis is quietly living in Phuket and giving dinner parties.”

“Yes, ma’am. But that’s where he is and that’s what he’s doing. Where shall I tell the driver to pick you up?”

“Never mind about that,” I cut in.

I tried to strike a tone cool enough to leave no doubt at all as to my view of Karsarkis’ invitation.

“We’re not going,” I said. “We have other plans.”

“We are going, Jack.” Anita’s voice was losarvoice ww, but her tone was just as cool as mine had been. “I’d like to go.”

“Can we talk about this later, Anita?”

“No.” Her faced mimed a smile, but I didn’t see any humor in it. “We can’t.”

I looked at O’Connell. He was expressionless. I felt trapped. I gathered I was.

“Okay,” I finally said. “But no car. We’ll drive ourselves.”

“Then may I fax a map to your hotel, sir? That would probably be best.”

Not only was Plato Karsarkis living in Phuket and giving dinner parties, he was faxing out maps to his house.

“That’s fine,” I said. “We’re staying at a hotel on Cape Panwa called the Panwaburi. I don’t know the fax number, but-”

“You’ll have a map by tomorrow morning, sir.”

O’Connell took a step back from the table and inclined his head politely.

“Enjoy your dinner,” he said. Then he turned and walked away across the dining room.

I looked at Anita without saying anything. She looked back at me with an expression I couldn’t read.

“Well,” she finally murmured, breaking the silence. Then she retrieved her menu from the table and resumed studying it. “Shall we order?”

FOUR

The next morning I was sitting on the deck of our cabin drinking coffee and picking at a huge platter of unidentifiable fruit Anita had ordered from room service when I noticed an envelope that had apparently been left at our door sometime during the night. I opened it and found it was the map Karsarkis’ emissary had promised, and it made more sense to me than I had really expected it to.

As islands go, Phuket isn’t that large. It only takes a little over an hour to drive the length of it from north to south and about half that to cross it east to west. Karsarkis’ house was on the far northwestern coast of the island, on the headlands above a place called Nai Thon Beach, maybe a forty-five minute drive from our hotel but no more than a modest jog from Phuket’s only airport. I wondered if that was a coincidence. Probably not. Karsarkis no doubt kept a couple of packed bags in the trunk of his car, just in case.

After little more than a quick scan of the map, I saw I wouldn’t have any trouble finding the place where Karsarkis was holed up. That, of course, raised a fairly obvious question in my mind. How in the world could everyone else on the planet be having so much trouble finding it?

As curious as I might be about that, I wasn’t curious enough to let Plato Karsarkis spoil my vacation. After all, the man wasn’t my problem, was he?

So for the rest of the day, in between moments of laboring earnestly at an arduous regimen of swimming with Anita and napping on the beach, I carefully focused my attention on the young, sarong-clad girls with impossibly shiny black hair who plied us endlessly with sweating goblets of exotic drinks and plates heaped with cold seafood. Then, when the sun began to slide toward the sea, Anita and I showered and changed-what does one wear to dinner at the home of an internationally wanted fugitive? — and just after dusk we left our cabin and began climbing the steep pathway up to the hotel parking lot.

The night smeat lled of salt water and rotting fish, of neighborhood kitchens and mystifying foods, of diesel fuel and burning charcoal, and of plants and flowers with euphonious but utterly unpronounceable names. I inhaled deeply and wondered what it was about the smell of the night in Thailand that always made me feel so utterly alive.

Anita seemed to me uncharacteristically anxious, perhaps even apprehensive in some way, and that wasn’t really like her at all.

“Are you worried about this?” I asked.

Anita hesitated before she answered. “I don’t know what you mean,” she finally said.

“Yes, you do. Have you changed your mind about going to this dinner, Anita? You know I’d be very happy just to bag it.”

“Look, Jack. Why wouldn’t we go? We’ve been invited to dinner by someone most of the world would kill to have dinner with.”

“An unfortunate choice of words.”

“Don’t be so glib. I want to go. Really. Give me just one reason we shouldn’t.”