Thai Horse

‘Hello, Christian,’ she said in her bell-like voice.

‘Look at you,’ Hatcher said. ‘You still look sixteen years old. Don’t you believe in time?’

‘I will soon be three and oh,’ she said.

‘Don’t tell anybody, they’ll never guess,’ he said and handed her the bottle of wine. ‘Save this for you and Cohen.’

‘Mm goi,’ she said, holding the bottle close to her breast. ‘We will think of you when we drin1 it.’

‘And I will sense the moment,’ he answered.

She stood quietly appraising him and finally nodded. ‘It is a good day for us, Christian,’ she said somewhat plaintively. ‘Robert used to talk about you all the time. Then we heard you were dead, and after that he never mentioned your name again. Then today! Such excitement. All those years his heart hurt because he thought you were gone. I am glad you are back, for him and for me.’

‘And for me,’ he said.

‘You have not changed much, she said. ‘Still very dashing. I am sorry about. . . this.’ She gently touched his wounded neck with her fingertips.

‘Hell, it just makes me sound dangerous,’ he whispered with a laugh.

‘You are dangerous,’ Tiana said quite seriously, staring straight into his eyes. Then she smiled again. ‘Welcome back.’ She took his face between delicate hands and kissed him ever so lightly on the lips.

‘That’ll bring you luck for the next twenty years,’ a voice said behind him, and he turned to see China Cohen standing in the doorway.

Time had put gray in his hair and beard, added some wrinkles to his face, softened the hard lines around his eyes, but otherwise there was little change. He was wearing his customary cheongsam, brocaded with gemstones, and a Thai amulet around his neck. He hurried across the room and wrapped his arms around the taller man.

‘Damn, what a gift,’ China said softly. ‘I should’ve known the shmuck isn’t born could take you down.’

‘Close,’ Hatcher whispered.

His two friends stood close by, looking him over, nodding approval, although their eyes kept straying to the mark on his neck. Hatcher touched it self-consciously and shrugged. ‘An accident,’ he said, reaching out and taking the brass amulet in his palm.

‘Lovely,’ he said. ‘Thai, isn’t it?’

Cohen nodded. ‘It’s the amulet of the ten deities, supposed to protect your front and back,’ China said and then chuckled. ‘One of my men took it off a dead Thai swagman. Sure didn’t work for him.’

‘You’re going to run out of wind long before you run out of luck,’ Hatcher said.

‘I have things to do,’ Tiana said and kissed Hatcher on the cheek. ‘Cohen keeps me very busy minding the servants.’ She giggled and faded quietly from the room.

‘I hate to think what it cost you t bribe Fat Lady Lau for her,’ Hatcher said.

‘Not a thing. She was a gift to a very good customer,’ Cohen said, grabbing Hatcher by the shoulder. ‘C’mon.’ He led Hatcher to the guest room, which was adjacent to the main room of the house. Hatcher had spent many nights in this room, a sprawling square decorated in yellow and black with a floor-to-ceiling window overlooking the harbor below. The headboard of the bed and the furniture we1e starkly simple and painted black lacquer. The sheets were yellow satin. On either side of the bed were hundred gallon saltwater tanks, alive with multicolored tropical fish, while behind the bed the entire wall was covered with a Japanese silk-screen painting of a delicate tree with fernlike leaves and tiny red blossoms. The wall facing it was mirrored. Artifacts and statues were scattered here and there.

On one of the nightstands was a two-foot-tall ivory horse, its nostrils flared, its eyes subtly hooded, standing majestically on its back legs as though leaping to heaven. A strand of black pearls was draped casually over the back of the horse.

The bathroom, which was visible through an open door to the right, was black marble with a Jacuzzi bathtub big enough to accommodate a small army, and there were fresh flowers everywhere.

‘How long you staying?’

‘1 leave Saturday,’ Hatcher said.

Cohen appeared concerned, but said nothing and simply nodded. ‘C’mon,’ he said, ‘we’ll go outside and relax’

They went out on the balcony, sat in wicker chairs and put their feet up on the railing and leaned back, basking in the sun.

‘Just like the old days,’ Hatcher said.

‘Better,’ Cohen said. ‘We’re old enough to enjoy it now.

Sung Lo, his servant and bodyguard, appeared and mixed drinks from a bar in the corner. The balcony jutted out into space on long stilts; thirty feet below it, the sharply slanted mountain was covered with ferns and bamboo grass. A large banyan tree hid the house below from their view. It was deathly quiet except for the tinkling wind chimes.

‘I got one surprise for you,’ Cohen said. ‘Tiana and I are married.’

Hatcher was delighted. ‘That’s great news!’ he said enthusiastically.

‘Smartest move I ever made,’ said Cohen. ‘How about you? Ever find anybody that could take Daphne’s