Return to Tomorrow (9 page)

Something was wrong, very wrong, for Rachel Phillips to have taken the risk of coming to him. A thousand times over the past months he'd wished to hell he'd never given in to the impulse to let her see and feel, and know of his attraction to her. He'd pushed a little too hard and she'd bolted. But now she was back and he had another chance. He looked back over his shoulder, consigned the two very important and influential gentlemen he'd left cooling their heels in his office to Hades, and walked into the bar.

“I'm sorry I can't help you,” Ponchoo was saying in the friendly, polite way all Thais carried on business, and even arguments.

“I have to find Tiger Jackson.” Her tone was friendly and polite, also, but tired, with a thread of anxiety snaking along beneath the surface calm. “I was told I might find him here.”

“Sorry.” Ponchoo picked up a glass and started polishing it. “Do you want a drink?” he asked politely, changing the subject and ending the discussion as far as he was concerned.

“No. Please.” The barman pretended not to hear.

“Arguing with a Thai is like trying to wrestle a cloud.”

Rachel whirled toward him, her eyes wide with relief, and a hint of wariness. “Brett.” As always, the sound of his name on her lips made his gut tighten with need. “He said he'd never heard of you.” She looked back at Ponchoo accusingly. He shrugged and smiled disarmingly.

“Sorry, ma'am.” He went back to polishing his glassware.

“He has his orders.”

A faint hint of color stained her cheeks. “Of course.” She wrapped her hands around the straps of the
yaam
she carried on her shoulder.

“What's wrong, Rachel?” He didn't come any closer. He didn't want to frighten her away again. It was late afternoon, the bar was empty for the moment but the early dinner crowd would be arriving soon. He pulled a high-backed bamboo chair away from a small table nearby and held it for her.

“Is it so apparent something's wrong?” she asked, brushing nervously at her hair where it lay against her cheek.

“Yes. And I know you wouldn't come to me unless you needed help.” He held her gaze with his own. She didn't flinch or look away, just smiled sadly.

“It's Ahnle. She disappeared over a week ago. I think she's been brought here against her will. I just got here today—I came in a supply truck. I tried the embassy first. I thought…Ambassador Singleton might help. He's a friend of my brother, Simon.” She made a helpless little gesture with her hands as she sat down.

“Since you're here, he obviously didn't.” He signaled Ponchoo to bring her something to drink.

“Juice is fine,” she said when the bartender appeared at her elbow. “I never saw the ambassador. Harrison Bartley suggested I try to contact you here.”

“Out of the goodness of his heart, I imagine.”

She smiled, just a hint of a sparkle in her tired eyes. “I don't think so.” Her smile disappeared. “Brett, can you help me?”

“You're looking for a needle in a haystack.” She flinched when he said it.

“I have to try to find her.” He hadn't been wrong in thinking Rachel was growing very attached to the young Hlông woman that day at the camp.

“Khob khun,”
she murmured as Ponchoo set the tall glass of iced juice in front of her. “She didn't come here of her own free will. I know she didn't.” Rachel curled her hand tightly around the glass and looked down. “She's lost everything, Brett. Can you understand that? Her family…her identity…” She was silent a moment, then looked up at him with such sorrow in her blue-gray eyes that he was shaken to the very center of his soul. “She's lost everything dear to her. I can't stand by and see her lose her freedom…her self-respect.” Her voice grew stronger, determined once more. “I have to find her.”

“In a city this size…” he began, choosing his words carefully. He didn't want to build up false hopes. There were people he could contact, but it would take time. If Ahnle had been gone over a week already, there was no telling what might have happened to her.

“Surely there are places I can look for her?”

“No, not alone.”

She reached out her hand, as if to touch him. He leaned back in his chair, away from her. If she touched him, he didn't know what would happen. He'd sure as hell want to touch her back, and he'd probably be tempted to go off with her on some damn fool search of the seedier bars off Patpong Road. He couldn't do that, not now. He was too close to talking the gentlemen in his office into giving him the extra quarter-million dollars in gold bullion he needed to ice the deal with Khen Sa. The search for Ahnle would have to wait.

“You won't help me?”

“I can't leave here now.”

“Why not?”

“I don't like to publicize this fact, but I own the place.”

“I see. Business first.” She squared her shoulders. The hand she'd reached out to him just moments before curled into a fist. “You don't have to tag along with me. Just tell me where she might be. Surely you know what kind of places take young girls like Ahnle.”

“Not firsthand, if that's what you're implying.” He was angry, too. His reputation had never bothered him. He did what he had to do and the rest of the world be damned. But seeing the contempt in Rachel's eyes flicked him on the raw.

Rachel closed her eyes briefly. “I'm sorry. I didn't mean that. I just thought…”

“A man with my reputation would frequent dives like that.”

“Brett.” This time she did touch him, a butterfly caress on the back of his hand that rocked him with the force
of a mortar shell going off beneath his feet. “Forgive me. I'm tired and I'm scared to death for Ahnle. I have to find her. I know…I know what it's like to be forced into…” She broke off and took a deep breath. “Please help me find her.”

For twenty years he'd been able to put duty and necessity before his own needs. Never had it been harder to do than at this moment.

“Where are you staying?”

“I…I don't know.”

He recalled her disjointed explanation of Ahnle's disappearance, the method of travel she'd used to get to the city. She probably didn't have more than a few dollars to her name.

“There's a place you can stay nearby.” She started to object but he cut her short. He couldn't afford to delay the stalled negotiations in his office much longer. “It's a guest house. Clean and cheap. Lonnie can take you there. I'll put out some feelers on finding Ahnle. I should know something in a day or two.” Or sooner than that, if he could find Billy and head into the Patpong district himself later that night.

“A day or two? I can't wait that long.” She stood up. So did he. Rachel leaned forward, rested her hands on the table. “I intend to go looking for her today. Now.”

“That's out of the question.” He kept his voice low. One or two patrons had begun drifting into the bar. “Patpong Road is no place for a woman alone.”

“I'll manage.”

“I said you're not going. That's an order.” He'd made
a mistake saying that. She stood taller, her shoulders thrown back, her chin high. She looked brave and determined and scared to death.

“No one tells me what to do. No one.” She started to walk away. Brett was aware of curious looks, suspended conversation around them.

“Rachel, wait.” He ran his hand through his hair. He'd rather face Khen Sa and a hundred of his men than argue with a woman, especially this woman. He wanted to make love to her, not fight with her.

“No.” She shook her head. “Don't you see, I can't wait? I waited half a lifetime for someone to come for me. I'm not going to let that happen to Ahnle if I can help it.”

“Dammit.” Brett watched her walk away, back straight, her hips swaying gently beneath the soft cotton skirt. What the hell was he supposed to do? Ponchoo couldn't leave the bar. Billy wouldn't be back for hours. He'd have to let her go for the time being. Right now he had to get back to the men in his office. They were all taking a risk just meeting here, but time was getting short and he needed the gold Khen Sa demanded as ear nest money, and damn soon. He watched the door close behind Rachel, then turned and walked back through the beaded curtain to his office, a grimly determined look on his face.

Women.
For twenty years he'd managed to stay pretty much free of them. Now, in a matter of months, in a number of meetings he could count on one hand, Rachel Phillips had managed to turn his life upside down.
Hell,
he thought, twisting the knob on his office door with a great deal more force than necessary,
she was making a wreck of his life and he hadn't even gotten around to kissing her.

 

R
ACHEL STOOD ON THE SIDEWALK
outside the Lemongrass, looking for a bus stop. She simply didn't have enough money to bargain for a taxi, although it would be faster. At least the Lemongrass was close enough to the Patpong district that she shouldn't have to transfer. It hadn't been so convenient getting to the restaurant from the embassy on Wireless Road.

“Hi.” The hoarse, ruined voice belonged to Lonnie Smalley. “Need a lift?” He was leaning out of the open window of a very battered VW of indeterminate age and color.

“I'm going to Patpong,” she said, fishing in her
yaam
for her sunglasses, “not some guest house your boss picked out for me.”

“I figured that when I saw you march out the door. I overheard some of what you told him,” Lonnie said without embarrassment. “You're makin' the colonel real mad, ya know.”

“It can't be helped.” She leaned down and looked at him.

“Get in. I'll take you where you want to go.”

“I don't want you getting in trouble for helping me.”

“Don't worry about me. I know some of the places you'll need to go look for your friend. Get in,” he repeated, opening the door.

“Do you think we can find her?” Rachel asked, as he maneuvered his way through the heavy traffic.

“We can try.” He handled the car competently enough, although his hands were shaking and his face twitched uncontrollably. He needed a fix, Rachel realized, badly. He turned his head, saw her watching him. “Don't worry. I'm not going to dump you to go off looking for some China White. I'm tight. Okay?”

“Okay,” Rachel said doubtfully. She hadn't considered the complications of Lonnie's addiction when she'd agreed to accompany him. She wondered what had happened to make him lose control of his life.

“Patpong is no place for a lady.”

“I've been in worse places,” Rachel said quietly.

“Yeah,” Lonnie said, nodding his head. “So have I.”

The days were getting shorter. It was almost dusk before they arrived at the entrance to the Teak Doll. It was a bar on a narrow, twisting side street called a
soi
off Patpong Road. Behind them, the noisy main drag of the so-called sex center of the city was busy and well-lighted. Here, where she stood with Lonnie Smalley, it was relatively quiet. The neon signs were smaller, many with burned-out letters above ramshackle bars and massage parlors.

The come-on girl outside the third bar they'd stopped at had directed them this way, after first ascertaining that her boss couldn't see her talking to the
farang
woman and her man. Lonnie had reached over and slipped a ten-
baht
bill inside the almost nonexistent bottom of her bikini. “Try Teak Doll,” she said in heavily accented English. “Many new girls, young girls, sent there.”

Rachel looked to Lonnie for guidance. “We might as well give it a shot,” he said, hunching his bony shoulders against a spasm of shivering. They set off, following the
directions the girl had given them. It was still very hot but Lonnie continued to shake. Thunder rumbled off in the distance, promising a quick, drenching shower before the night was over.

Rachel's hands were shaking as badly as Lonnie's as she pushed open the bar's swinging door, like those in old-fashioned western saloons. The Teak Doll was as seedy and down-at-the-heel as the street on which it sat, dark and smelling of stale beer, cheap perfume and unwashed bodies. It was crowded and noisy and their entrance went unnoticed by most of the clientele.

About six or seven young girls moved around the long, narrow room, laughing too loudly, bending too near the men at the tables. On the teak bar, the room's most prominent feature, four more very young, scantily clad girls gyrated to heavy-metal music, played at ear-numbing levels. Ahnle was one of them. She looked lost and scared. She kept trying to stretch the scrap of red satin bikini that was all she was wearing to cover more of her golden skin. Her long, gloriously black hair hung straight and heavy, almost to her waist. Rachel's heart twisted inside her. Modesty was important to Hlông women. They displayed their bodies to no one except their husbands.

Ahnle's actions obviously displeased the burly German sailor seated directly beneath her at the bar. He reached up, tugging the skimpy material lower on her hips, laughing at her distress. Ahnle pushed at his hand, looking around her fearfully as she did so. The look of utter horror in her eyes so at odds with the death's head smile stretching her lips, made Rachel's blood run cold. How well she knew the sense of hopelessness Ahnle
must be feeling, the dread of being so completely at the mercy of a man, a stranger, with nowhere to turn and no one to keep you safe.

The German sailor was getting angry at Ahnle's continued rebuff of his advances. The owner, a skinny pockmarked Chinese, was also taking notice. Rachel felt paralyzed with indecision.

“Is that her? The girl in the red bikini?” Lonnie asked. For a moment she'd forgotten he existed. Now she could feel him watching her, gauging her reaction.

She nodded. “Yes, that's Ahnle.” She turned her head. His face was pasty beneath his tan. He was scratching his left arm with an intensity that brought welts to the surface of his skin. That he was in withdrawal was obvious to her and would be to others. The Thai government dealt harshly with addicts. Lonnie Smalley shouldn't be here any more than Ahnle. “We have to get her out of here.”