‘Sure, you do,’ Earp said and slapped him on the shoulder.
Earp, Riker and Early left the alcove, passing behind the bar and entering Wilkie’s private office. He ignored them. The office looked like an indoor junkyard. Old newspapers, bills, file folders, and magazines were piled on the desk, chairs, on the floor, and were stuffed in an old-fashioned file cabinet shoved in one corner.
‘Sweets has every piece of paper he ever got in his life,’ said Early, shaking his head sadly as he surveyed the oppressively cluttered office.
‘That he has,’ Earp answered. He opened a drawer in the desk, put his .357 in it and took out a 9 mm. pistol with a silencer attached. He popped the clip and checked it. Full.
The phone rang, a muffled announcement from under a stack somewhere. Riker found it and handed the receiver to Earp.
‘Earp. Yeah . . . excellent, excellent! Okay, we’re on. Be real careful. Good luck.’
He hung up the phone and rubbed his hands together very slowly.
‘We’re in luck. She got there ahead of him. He checked in ten minutes ago and she managed to get the connecting room.’
‘So it’s a go, then,’ said Early.
‘Yep,’ said Earp.
‘Sounds like a stroll down the lane to me,’ said Riker.
‘Could be,’ Earp said with raised eyebrows. ‘Let’s go, we got ten minutes.’
Prophett, too, left the alcove and walked across the bar to the men’s room. He sat down in a stall and took a small plastic box from his pocket. It contained a hypodermic needle, a candle, a spoon and a packet of heroin. With shaking hands he lit the candle and set it on the toilet-paper holder, then tapped some of the powder in the spoon and cooked it over the flame until it was a clear bubbling fluid, dipped the tip of the spike in the fluid, his fingers squeezing the bulb on the end of it, forcing out the air, sucking in the fluid. He flexed his fist. The needle flirted with a vein, nicked it, then slipped deeply into it. Prophett flinched slightly, took a deep breath and shuddered. A look of contentment crossed his face, he closed his eyes and smiled.
The Dusit Thani was a short walk away, but they took Riker’s pickup truck and parked t the rear. Riker got out but stayed close by. Early and Earp went to room 429. She was waiting.
‘We’ll give you about five minutes so you can find out the size of the load,’ Earp said. ‘Nervous?’
She shook her head.
‘Good girl. Let’s do it, then.’
She left the room, took the stairs to the third floor and took the elevator back up, just in case he was watching or listening for it. She knocked on the door of 427 and it was opened almost immediately by a large Chinese with a livid scar down one side of his face.
‘Mrs Giu?’
She nodded, and he stepped back as she entered the room, then quickly checked the hail before closing the door. He was surprised. The woman was beautiful — tiny, erect, almost regal in her bearing. She was wearing an emerald-green silk evening dress and white gloves. Her pearl earrings looked expensive. She certainly did not fit the profile of a drug courier.
‘I am Mr. Sen,’ he said. ‘Passport?’
She took the small leather-bound booklet from her purse and gave it to him. He checked it closely, looking for signs of a forgery, but couldn’t detect any. If it got past him, it would get past customs.
The passport identified her as Mrs. Victor Giu, a widow, twenty-nine years old, born in. Bangkok. She had done her share of traveling, mostly to Malaya, India, Hong Kong and the Philippines.
‘I see by your passport you are a dancer,’ he said.
‘Yes. The steamer trunk is for my costumes.’
Sen smiled thinly. ‘Very good,’ he said. ‘A clever stroke, the trunk. It holds three times what a normal suitcase carries. You understand ‘what you are to do?’
‘Yes. I check the four cases through to Seattle. After I pass through customs, a limousine will be waiting to pick me up. Once the bags are loaded in the car, I will be paid the rest of my money and be free to go.’
‘Yes. Really quite simple.’
He took an envelope from a dresser drawer and gave it to her.
‘Here is your round-trip ticket and two thousand seven hundred ninety-five dollars. That’s five hundred dollars for expenses and half the fee.’
Mrs. Giu quickly calculated the weight.
‘Not bad for a few hours’ work,’ Sen said.
‘You forget the risk,’ she said, moving toward the door that connected the two rooms.
‘There are no problems,’ Sen said. He was attracted to the elegant widow and began bragging. He picked up one of the suitcases, put it on the bed and opened it, explaining that the walls were lined with cakes of pressed heroin wrapped in thin sheets of aluminium foil soaked in coffee. The coffee shielded the odor from dope-sniffing dogs. The pockets in the suitcases and several of the drawers in the steamer trunk contained small bags of sachet, which concealed the smell of the coffee from inspectors. As he described the carriers, Mrs. Giu leaned back against the connecting door and unlocked it, then moved across the room to the foot of the bed, keeping Sen’s attention away from the door.
‘We have not lost a shipment in six months,’ Sen said. ‘Nothing to worry about.’
