“N…” All of a sudden there was a screeching sound in the agents’ ears as somebody else toyed with the squelch on the band.
“Damn.” Charlie One jerked the earbud from his right ear. He put his finger in and wiggled it around a little trying to relieve the pain. Then he held the bud up to his ear without putting it in. “Repeat. Charlie Three. Do you read?”
“Nothing yet. I’m almost to their hotel. I’ll check there and let you kn…”
“THIS IS LIEUTENANT CHATNGEON, PATTAYA POLICE. THIS OFFICIAL POLICE BAND. WHO IS THIS? IDENTIFY YOURSELF!”
Charlie One released the button on the mike. He pulled out his cell phone and started to dial just as the door opened behind him.
“Quiet as a tomb downstairs,” said his partner. “I took a peek from the stairwell. 208 is locked up tight, lights out as usual. I checked all the way down to the ground level. There’s no sign of them in the building. Who you calling?”
“The embassy. If any of those three get themselves killed, Washington’s gonna have our scalps.”
“What can the embassy do?”
“If we don’t find them soon, we’re gonna need help. The Pattaya police aren’t gonna be feeling terribly helpful when they find out we’ve been working their turf without notice.”
“And?”
“And so we may need a royal dispensation,” said Charlie One.
Chapter Nineteen
Liquida talked for a minute or so to the motorbike taxi boy sitting in the beach chair up on the sidewalk. Body language indicated to Liquida that of the three kids lounging at the taxi stand, this one was probably the boss. After conversing for a while, he took out his money clip, peeled off a few bills, and handed them to the kid. The biker got up and followed him across the narrow alley of a side street where the two of them climbed a couple of high steps onto the tiled floor of an outdoor beer bar. The place was already starting to rock with loud music. By nine you wouldn’t be able to hear yourself think.
They sat down at a table, and Liquida ordered two beers. He talked to the bar girl who delivered them. After a few seconds, she pointed to one of the other women who was working the bar.
The other woman was wearing a tight white dress with large burgundy flowers printed on the cloth. Liquida paid the barmaid for the beers and gave her a generous tip.
She walked over and talked to the woman in the flowered dress and then gestured toward the table where Liquida and the taxi driver were seated. The woman in the tight dress walked over to Liquida’s table.
“What can I do for you?”
“The other lady says you speak good English,” said Liquida.
“Yes?” She studied the pockmarks on his face.
“This is my friend,” said Liquida.
She glanced at the taxi driver seated next to him. The kid was hunched over the bottle of beer, his eyes cast down at the table. There was enough road grit on his face to know he probably hadn’t showered in two days.
Liquida leaned toward the bike driver. “What’s your name?”
The kid looked up and said, “Kee.”
“This is my friend, Kee,” said Liquida. He wanted to make sure that the next time the girl saw him she would recognize him, so that there would be no problems. “If I get busy, sometimes Kee takes care of things for me.”
“I see him before,” she said. “Over there.” She gestured toward the taxi stand where his friends were still hanging out.
“Yes, well, I have a problem, you see. I wonder if you would mind doing me a favor? There are some papers I have to pick up in an office just across the street. Right over there.” Liquida pointed lazily in the direction of Second Road. “I have a conflict, you see, and I cannot go over and get them right now. It’s helpful to have someone who speaks such good English. I wonder if you would mind walking across the street and picking up these papers for me?”
She turned and looked back toward the street, the direction where Liquida had pointed. This was not the usual request from one of her male customers. “I don’t know. I’m not really supposed to leave, not unless I am bar-fined out,” said the girl. A bar fine was the amount of money a customer paid to take a girl out of the bar.
“I’d be happy to pay you if that’s the problem,” said Liquida.
“How much?”
“I don’t know… Say five hundred baht?”
She flexed her eyelids, jerked her head back just a bit and smiled. “You going to pay me five hundred baht just to walk across the street, pick up some papers, and come right back?”
“Yeah.” The way she looked at him, Liquida knew he’d stepped in it. He tried to do some quick calculations and realized that he had just offered the girl fifteen bucks for a quick two-minute stroll across the street. This was probably two days’ wages working in the bar.
The money was too easy. Now she was suspicious. “Why can’t you get it yourself?”
“The problem is I’m supposed to meet a friend. He should be here any minute.” Liquida regrouped instantly. “If I’m not here when he shows up, he’s liable to leave thinking I decided not to come. And he doesn’t have a cell phone, so if I miss him I may not be able find him later. So you see, I have to stay here. And when my friend gets here, we have to leave immediately for a meeting and we need the papers. So you would be doing me a big favor.”
“Why can’t he do it?” She looked at the biker.
“He’s waiting for a fare; guy went up to get something in his room, said he’d be right back down,” said Liquida. “He can’t leave. Listen, if it’s too much trouble, don’t worry about it. I’ll find somebody else.”
“Let me talk to my boss,” said the girl.
“Sure, no problem. Go ahead. We’ll wait here.”
She walked away and disappeared around behind the bar. Liquida sat waiting, thumping his fingers on the table to the beat of the music as the taxi boy sat drinking his beer.
A few seconds later the girl came back. “My boss says I can go so long as I am back in five minutes.”
“No problem. I’ll show you where it is. It’s just right across the street.” Liquida got up and told the taxi boy to sit tight. He picked up the beach bag and escorted the girl to the front corner of the bar where it bordered the sidewalk on Second Road. From here they had a good view across the street and to the south about a quarter of a block. He told her about the green door just beyond the tailor’s shop, next to the pharmacy. He waited for a break in the stalled traffic that was now bumper to bumper until they got a glimpse of the door. He described the interior of the office and told her the filing cabinet she was looking for should be in the second row from the right, about halfway down. Liquida hoped they hadn’t moved it since that first day when he set up the account and they gave him the tour.
Then he grabbed one of the bar napkins, took a pen from his pocket, and wrote something on it. He handed her the napkin.
“There will be a label on the drawer that will look just like this. It will have this typed on it in big letters. You can’t miss it. Just go ahead, take everything out of the drawer; there shouldn’t be that much. Drop it all in the bag and bring it back here. That’s all you have to do.” He handed her the beach bag and the keys and told her which one was for the office door and that the other was for the cabinet drawer. He gently took her arm and eased her toward the sidewalk. He thanked her and then watched as she slowly threaded her way through the stalled traffic toward the other side of the road.
Harry was wondering what in the hell was taking so long. At first he was worried that something might have happened inside. He was tempted to knock on the door, but as he got up close to the translucent glass he saw the faint flicker of a light inside. They must have found some kind of a flashlight. He left them alone and checked his
