Black As Night (Quentin Black Mystery #2) (4 page)

I’d be lying to myself to claim I didn’t.

Even if I dismissed it all as lunacy in the end, I still wanted to hear it.

Black had affected me strangely since the moment I’d met him, and I wanted to understand a lot more about that, too. Moreover, there was definitely something different about him. Something beyond his scarily good psychic abilities and his weird gold eyes and his unusual accent and mannerisms. He could play at being like other people––I’d seen him do it pretty convincingly, in fact––but he wasn’t really like the rest of us. That difference, whatever it meant, was obvious to me whenever he wasn’t hiding it.

I was nervous, I realized.

Not about Bangkok, although being here was exhilarating too.

I was nervous to see Black again.

By the time I got that far in my loop of thought, we were pulling up in front of a skyscraper on a busy street in downtown Bangkok. I’d missed a good chunk of our approach to downtown while I’d been lost in my own head, only catching bits and pieces as we came off the highway near a snaking river and drove down a wide street with at least eight lanes of cars and lined by tall and short buildings on either side.

Now a big stone fountain loomed in front of me, half blocking my view of the street from the driveway where the SUV came to a stop. The decoration in the middle of that fountain was actually the name of the hotel facing the street, I realized. The white SUV parked behind the fountain on the circular driveway in front of the hotel, so those copper-colored letters now read backwards, but I could easily read them.

The Hanu Hotel.

I glanced towards the lobby, bending down to see through the window past the woman who still sat across from me. I saw a short flight of steps up to an entrance where two men in dark gray uniforms and white gloves stood, opening doors for guests both leaving and arriving.

Fah turned to me, smiling.

“Moment, please,” she said politely.

Snapping the latch on the door, she slid gracefully out to the driveway. She walked with crisp, perfectly balanced steps on her high heels, aiming straight up the carpeted stairs and into the lobby of the hotel. For a few moments, I just watched people walk in and out of the hotel, all of them well-dressed, many white and obviously on vacation.

When Fah came back down those steps a few moments later, I almost laughed when I saw the person she had in tow.

It was Farraday. Lawrence Farraday. Black’s lawyer from the States.

What the hell was he doing here?

Flushed with red blotches, his face looked overly large, like he’d swollen slightly since I last saw him. The same condition seemed to have turned his cherry-red tie into a weapon around his neck, and he tugged on it as he walked, maybe to keep from choking. His really bad, yellowish toupee sat slightly askew on his head. He wore a wrinkled tan trench coat, which told me he’d probably just arrived too, especially since he wore the coat over a dark suit.

He slid into the back of the SUV with a pained-sounding exhale, and glanced at me in as much surprise as I felt at seeing him.

“Ms. Fox,” he said. “Hello.”

I glanced forward as Fah slid into the front passenger seat next to the driver. She didn’t look back at either of us.

“Hi, Mr. Farraday,” I said, smiling.

“Larry,” he said, grunting as he continued to battle his tie. “Call me Larry, Ms. Fox. Please.”

“All right,” I said. “But only if you call me Miri.”

“Deal,” he said.

His Brooklyn accent made me smile again. He exhaled sharply, grunting in relief when he finally got the knot to loosen around his neck. For a few seconds he just leaned there, breathing hard, dragging the knot further down his chest.

“Christ on a pogo stick. This weather is going to kill me.”

“Aren’t New York summers bad too?” I asked.

“Not in October,” he said, still fighting to breathe.

“Did you just get here too?” I asked sympathetically.

He glanced at me, his bloodshot blue eyes answering my question even before he spoke. “Just got off the damned plane. I didn’t even manage a drink at the hotel bar before that woman came into the lobby. I guess I should be grateful my suitcases are parked somewhere I can pass out later. Just don’t let me near the pool. You might find me floating in it...face down.”

I laughed for real that time. Then, leaning back in the SUV’s back seat, I combed my fingers through my hair, fighting to focus my own eyes.

“Yeah, I didn’t even make it to a hotel,” I said ruefully, glancing out the window as we pulled back out onto the busy, eight-lane street. I looked at Black’s lawyer, my tone a touch sharper. “Do you have any idea what I’m doing here, Larry?”

He threw up his hands, right before he glanced at me. “No idea.”

“Do you know what he’s being charged with?” I said.

“Nope,” he said.

“He didn’t tell you?”

“He didn’t even say he’d been charged. All he’d say is, ‘it’s complicated.’” Farraday swiveled his head on the seat cushion next to me, giving me a meaningful stare.

I burst out in another laugh.

He pulled out a handkerchief, dabbing his face as he checked his watch. He let out another frustrated sigh a second later, looking around the car, and I realized his watch must not have been reset to local time. I showed him the time on my phone. He nodded his thanks as he stuffed the folded-up handkerchief back into his pocket, resetting the time on his old fashioned watch with a few twists of the grooved winder.

“I’m surprised he doesn’t have a Thai lawyer,” I said. “One who knows the laws and how things work here, I mean.”

“Oh, he does,” Lawrence said absently. “But apparently the U.S. Embassy is involved somehow, so he wanted me here for that end of things.”

Shaking my head, I held up my hands in defeat. “Okay. I really won’t ask.”

“Usually a wise course of action,” Lawrence grunted, resettling his weight back on the seat and closing his eyes.

We pulled up to the police station a few minutes later.

Even under the blast of over-exuberant air conditioning, Farraday was sweating. When the driver opened his door and let in the tropical heat––which had gone up a few degrees already since the forty minute drive from the airport and the other twenty or so minutes we’d just spent in traffic since leaving the Hanu Hotel––Farraday let out a pained-sounding groan. He didn’t wait though, but hefted himself right off the seat.

“You should leave the coat,” I urged him.

He waved me off, already red-faced as he followed Fah.
 

The two of them walked towards the same building I remembered from the photograph-like image Black flashed in my mind while I sat in my favorite sushi restaurant in Japantown. A dirty yellow from living at the fork of two busy roads, the building had a red tile roof, white window frames, chocolate brown shutters and those four ionic columns just outside the front doors. Despite the high ceilings I could see just past the front doors, the building was smaller than I’d thought from Black’s snapshot. In addition to the Thai writing across the top of the building, I also saw the national flag whipping in the breeze on a pole.

Letting out a sigh of my own, I climbed out of the back of the SUV on the same side as Farraday, pausing only to return a sympathetic-looking smile from our driver, who I only then realized still held open the door for me. Although I’d grown up in San Francisco, for some reason, the heat didn’t bother me. I found it almost a relief after being inside recycled air for so long. Anyway, I was way overdue for a real vacation.

I jogged a little to reach Farraday and Fah, catching up with the two of them right as Farraday held the door open for Fah to walk in ahead of him. Seeing me, he nodded for me to go in ahead of him, too.

I started to, then paused, lowering my voice as I glanced at Fah’s back.

“Who is she?” I murmured. “Do you know?”

Lawrence gave me a wan smile. “Our translator.”

“Our translator?” I let out a surprised laugh. “But she doesn’t talk.”

He just shrugged, smiling that knowing smile of his.

Giving up, I walked into the low-ceilinged building ahead of him.
 

Instantly I was hit with another blast of high-powered air conditioning, despite the fans rotating creakily from the ceiling overhead. The high-ceilinged foyer was relatively quiet, maybe partly due to the hour.

As soon as we walked through the inner glass doors to the main reception area, however, I immediately got hit by the familiar bustle of a police station.

A slew of plastic chairs held people from different walks of life, most of them Thai but a few foreigners too, most of them looking upset or worried. A Thai man in uniform stood behind a tall desk that formed the apex of a gated area that separated the public part of the station from the non-public side. Fah walked directly up to him and began speaking to him rapidly in Thai.

Farraday and I just waited, looking around the room.

I noticed a few glances in our direction, but most of those stares held boredom. Clearly, foreigners weren’t much of a curiosity here. Given that we were close to the tourist district, according to the GPS map on my phone at least, that wasn’t particularly surprising.

I was about to walk over and look at a glass case filled with wanted posters, when Farraday touched my arm, bringing my attention back to him. When he motioned towards Fah I saw her walking back towards us.

“They will release him now,” she said.

“Who?” I said, startled. “Black?”

“Chai, khá.
Yes.”

“So they’re not holding him?” I said, still stumped.

She smiled at me, but the look in her eyes conveyed patience as much as friendliness. I found myself thinking she was wondering what I was doing here as much as I was.

“He has worked out agreement with authorities,” she explained politely. “They now understand his work here. They work out talks with America Embassy.” She shifted her gaze, focusing on Farraday. “They would like to speak to you now, Mr. Lawrence.”

Farraday nodded, wiping his face with his handkerchief, which looked pretty damp to me at that point, even with the fans and the air conditioning. Giving me a grim smile and a wave, he followed Fah. I watched, biting my lip, as the two of them walked towards the wooden gate separating the front and back areas of the station. I continued to watch as the policeman at the front desk buzzed the two of them in.

Seconds later, both Fah and Farraday disappeared down a long, lime-green corridor decorated with florescent lights.

Feeling somewhat abandoned, I just stood there for a few seconds, my arms folded.

I wondered again if this would turn out to be little more than a paid beach vacation for me. No way was I getting right back on a plane if Black decided he didn’t need me here after all, whatever he said. He’d ordered me out here––he’d just have to suck it up and let me take a little personal time before I headed back.

The thought wasn’t entirely unappealing.

I’d throw a few bathing suits on a credit card, maybe hop a plane or a train down to Koh Samui or one of the other islands. I was trying to decide if I should just leave, see if the driver might suggest a hotel or even take me back to Farraday’s hotel on Sathorn, when the wooden gate separating the private and public areas of the police station opened a second time with a thunk.

I glanced up, then started, feeling the blood drain from my face.

Black stood there.

His gold eyes met mine with an expressionless stare. When his face didn’t move, I glanced down at the rest of him, not hiding my disbelief.

Unlike Farraday, Black appeared to have embraced the blending-in-with-the-locals thing a little too enthusiastically. He’d also picked a segment of the population to emulate that wouldn’t exactly win him friends among most authorities in the United States, so I doubted did him any favors with the Thai police, either. A dusty and stained black tank top stretched across his chest, accentuating his muscled arms and shoulders, as well as the tattoos running down his skin to his wrists. Those tattoos were probably the only thing that truly convinced me of who he was.
 

Below the shirt, baggy combat shorts hung low on his hips, held up loosely by a scuffed leather belt. His legs were streaked with mud and he wore filthy sandals on his feet. His hair looked longer than I remembered too, and dirtier and...well, shaggier somehow.