Thai Horse

‘In Bangkok?’

Pelletier nodded, finished his drink and ordered another, then said, ‘Having trouble moving it. Feds’re looking for a big shipment. A big shipment.’

‘When?’

‘Any day. Concern you?’

‘I’m not sure,’ Hatcher answered. ‘Have you heard any talk about an outfit called Thai Horse?’

Pelletier’s eyebrows rose. ‘Heard that one too, huh? You don’t miss a trick.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Street rumors. Jerry Cramer in the DEA says the word is around that a bunch called Thai Horse has been clipping Fong’s couriers. That’s all it is, rumors.’

‘Know anything about them, any details?’ Hatcher asked.

Pelletier shook his head. ‘A mean bunch, what I hear. Knocked off three of Fong’s couriers. As I get it, a couple months ago they were buying babies off the street here, killing ‘em, stuffing ‘em with skag.’

‘My God!’

‘They got dumped down on the Malay border. Driver got away.’

‘They’re worse than the Chiu-Chaos.’

‘Suppose. Fong’s done worse.’ He shrugged. ‘So far they only took Fong for maybe a hundred keys. Drop in the bucket.’

Hatcher’s mind did some fast arithmetic.

‘That’s four million dollars’ worth of White before it hits the street,’ he said.

‘What’s two hundred twenty pounds against three tons?’

‘Bad face for Fong, makes him look bad. Others might try.’

This time Pelletier’s smile broadened. ‘Be a shame, huh? You take that fucker out, Hatch, they’ll give you downtown Chicago.’

‘I’m just looking for a guy, not looking for trouble.’

‘You’ve changed,’ Pelletier said.

‘Time’ll do it to us all.’

‘If you need any help . . . ‘Pelletier said, letting the offer hang in mid-sentence.

‘Thanks,’ Hatcher said. ‘If I get in trouble there’s nobody I’d rather have back me up than you.’

‘Yeah,’ Pelletier said without a hint of emotion, ‘same with me.’

When Hatcher left the bar an Hour later, he was unaware of movement in the dark shadows of a closed shop across the street. Glittering eyes watched him hail a taxi. As it pulled away a tall Chinese man stepped from the shadows, entered a car that was waiting nearby. It followed Hatcher all the way back to the hotel.

INVITATION

The next morning, the Bangkok Nation told Hatcher that aside from the daily races at the Phat racetrack, Sy’s boxing tournament was the only other sports event of the day.

The big story on the front page was the bombing of the West German embassy in Paris. Seven people, including the Finnish and Swedish ambassadors and their wives, had been killed. The American ambassador had arrived late and missed the explosion.

In a related story, French officials stated that the infamous terrorist known as Hyena, whose body was discovered later in the day in a hotel room, was believed to be responsible for the attack. Their conjecture was that Hyena had later been murdered in an internal dispute with one of his own people.

Hatcher threw the paper aside and studied the photograph of Wol Pot for several minutes, memorizing his eyes, the shape of his face, his ears, the configuration of his nose and lips, committing them to his ch’uang tzu-chi, the window to his mind. He tried to imagine what Wol Pot would look like if he shaved his head or grew a beard or mustache. The keys were Wol Pot’s eyes, savage and merciless, his ears, which were large and stood away from his head, and his nose, which was long and narrow, unlike that of most Indo-Chinese, whose features tended to be more blunt and heavy.

In his ch’uang tzu-chi, Hatcher isolated a strip from Wol Pot’s forehead to the tip of his chin, concentrating on that area of Wol Pot’s face.

Hatcher spent most of the morning checking out the crowded and noisy Sanam Luang produce market, showing Wol Pot’s photograph to stall keepers and boat people, hoping perhaps someone would recognize the man who had listed himself as a produce salesman on his passport. Nothing. He visited the passport office in the hope that Wol Pot would be remembered there. Certainly he must have applied for a new passport. But once again he ran into a wall of shaking heads and silence. It was highly likely that the elusive Wol Pot had purchased a fake passport, which was not that difficult to do in Bangkok.

A check of the rest of the locations in Porter’s book proved uneventful. Hatcher’s best lead to Wol Pot seemed to be his penchant for sports, although spotting the little Vietnamese in the crowds that attended the horse races and boxing matches seemed unlikely. The trip to the horse races yielded nothing but crowds of frenzied bettors,