Killing Plato

FORTY FOUR

When I woke again Kate was gone. All the lights in my hospital room were off. Even the glow of the aquarium had been extinguished by some thoughtful soul who must have feared it would disturb my sleep.

My eyes searched the room for the clock. They did not find the clock, but what they did find made me lose all interest in the time.

Plato Karsarkis was sitting on a chair at the end of my bed. He was wearing jeans, a black golf shirt, and black loafers without socks. One leg was draped casually over an arm of the chair and he was facing away from me as if he was studying the heavy draperies that covered the windows.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

Karsarkis tilted his head back and turned it toward me without moving his body.

“I would think first you’d want to know how I got in. Your girlfriend is supposed to have this place locked down tighter than a gnat’s asshole.”

I let Karsarkis’ characterization of Kate pass. I was hardly in any state to engage in a pointless debate.

“Apparently not,” chI said instead. “I gather you walked right in.”

“Ah, well…” Karsarkis made a little movement with his hands he probably thought was self-deprecating. “People like me do pretty much what we want to do. You said as much once yourself, didn’t you?”

I didn’t take the bait.

“So,” I repeated instead, “what are you doing here?”

“I wanted to tell you I’m sorry for what’s happened. I wish now I hadn’t gotten you involved in this.”

“Mia’s the one who’s dead,” I said, “not me.”

“Yes, well…”

Karsarkis swung his legs to floor and pushed himself out of the chair. Its springs squeaked in the stillness. He took a few steps toward me and put both hands on the rail at the foot of my bed.

“Now we’ve both lost people we loved,” he said.

For a moment, I didn’t see what Karsarkis was talking about, then Anita’s face faded into my consciousness like a transparency projected on a screen.

I said, “It’s not the same thing.”

“It is, in a way,” Karsarkis said. “There are all kinds of losses.”

“Your wife was cut to pieces by rifle fire and left to bleed to death. Mine just found somebody she liked better.”

“Either way there was no way for either of us to avoid the final outcome,” Karsarkis said. “How such things happen is less important than that they have.”

“Do you ever think about anything except yourself?”

“Actually, I was thinking mostly about you, Jack. About what you’ve lost.”

“I’ll bet you were.”

Karsarkis took a deep breath and glanced away, but when he looked back at me his face showed such weariness and resignation that for a moment I was almost embarrassed at the way I was treating him.

“You’re right, of course,” he said. “It’s just…well, I guess we all have our own ways of dealing with things.”

“Some of which aren’t very attractive,” I said.

Karsarkis nodded slightly as if he hardly cared one way or the other, then he folded his arms and stood silently for a while, looking at the wall over my head.

“First Mike O’Connell, then Mia,” I said. “They’re getting closer.”

“They are, aren’t they?”

“You know who it is.” I didn’t bother to make a question out of it. There was no reason to.

Karsarkis seemed to weigh the idea for a while as if he were genuinely considering its nuances and implications.

“Yes,” he finally nodded. “I do.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me at the beginning?”

“I assumed it would scare you off, that you wouldn’t be willing to help me if you knew.”

He had me there. He was probably right.

“Some very bad things have happened, Jack. Some things no one wants anyone to know about, ever. Your country has a greater intere1emst in keeping them buried than anyone.”

“My country? Not your country?”

To that, Karsarkis offered the smallest smile I had ever seen.

“I don’t have a country,” he said.

“Maybe you should get one. A little loyalty to something might be just the ticket for you.”

“Oh, I had a country once, and I was loyal as hell. I risked everything for it. Then they fucked me. Flat out fucked me. That’s why I don’t have one anymore.”

I remained silent, waiting for the rest of it. I did not have to wait very long.

“They came to me, Jack. They came to me and asked me to do a dirty job because they thought I was a hard enough man to do it. There are always a lot of those jobs around, but most of them go begging because there aren’t a hell of a lot of people to do them. I agreed, of course. Agreed without conditions. My adopted country was asking for my help. And besides, I thought it was right.”

“Agreed to do what?”

“I put my ass right out there and risked everything,” Karsarkis continued, ignoring my question. “I asked other people to do the same thing, and then the bastards walked away and left me twisting in the wind when they decided I didn’t matter any longer. I learned a real lesson there, I did. I could teach a course on loyalty. Maybe I could lecture to some of your classes on the subject. What do you think?”

A minute or two passed in silence after Karsarkis’ outburst. I studied the pattern in the vinyl upholstery on the chair at the foot of my bed. It wasn’t a very interesting pattern.

“You still haven’t told me why you’re here,” I said after a while. “I don’t believe you came just to say how sorry you are that you got me involved.”

Karsarkis straightened slightly, shifting his weight back onto his heels.

“No,” he said, “you’re right. I didn’t.”

Karsarkis unfolded his arms, then folded them back again and fixed his eyes on mine.

“I’m leaving Thailand.”

“When?”

“This morning.” Karsarkis glanced at his watch. “I have a plane waiting at the airport,” he said. “I’ll be gone in an hour.”

“To where?”

“Paris.”

“Paris? Why Paris?”

Karsarkis shrugged slightly. “At least maybe I can get a decent meal before they shoot me.”

Abruptly Karsarkis turned away and strode to the windows. Putting his hands on the drapes he paused and then, as if in an afterthought, he glanced back at me.

“Do you mind?” he asked.

I shook my head. He pushed the drapes open and shoved them as far apart as they would go.

It was almost sunrise. I could see the faded disk of a three-quarter moon fighting an unpromising battle against the rising light. Moisture glowing with an otherworldly intensity ringed the moon in a halo. I knew Phuket would be wet with rain before the morning was out.

“They’re going to get me, Jack. The bastards can get anybody they want, even me. Once I thought I was bigger than theidty are. But I’m not. And they can.”

Karsarkis spoke without turning around. He just kept staring out the window, his eyes seeing visions I could not even imagine.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

When Karsarkis turned back toward me his face was perfectly still. Then he put both his hands in his pockets and tilted his head slightly to one side.