Thai Horse (49 page)

He had a dog on the end of a long leather leash. It was a big, ugly, dumb-looking animal, which looked like a cross between a Great Dane and a spaniel with some hound dog thrown in. He had sleepy yellow eyes, a long, slobbery muzzle and a long, skinny tail that drooped until it rose at the end. His coat was shiny deep brown except for a large white spot that looked as if someone had thrown paint on his shoulder. There was nothing symmetrical about the spot; it covered half his face and then dribbled down his chest, where it was speckled with brown spots. The dog didn’t walk, it loped, and it didn’t look bright enough to scratch an itch.

The black man opened o
n
e eye, saw the dog, and started to chuckle to himself. ‘The chuckle started at his big, burly shoulders and rip pled down to his portly waist. He kept his mouth shut hut eventually the chuckle burst out in the form of a loud snort, followed by a stream of beer.

‘Lord laughing out loud, would you look at that big, lazy, ugly, dumb-ass, sissified, silly-tailed dog over there.’

‘Excuse me, you talkin’ about my dog, Otis?’ the man in the red, white and blue sneakers said with a scowl.

‘I’m talking about that big, lazy, ugly, dumb-ass, sissifled, silly-tailed dog right there. Would his name be Otis?’

‘What do you mean, “would be”? His name
is
Otis’

‘Well then, that’s who I’m talkin’ about.’

‘You’re really pissing me off, brother, I told you, that’s
my
dog.’

‘If you don’t say
anything,
nobody’ll know.’

‘I’m proud of that fuckin’ dog, man.’

‘Then you’re dumber than he is.’

‘Maybe you’d like to gum your dinner tonight. Maybe you’d like to pick your teeth up off the floor and carry them home in your pocket.’

‘Yeah, and maybe you’d lik
e
me to pull your tongue down and tie it to your dick.’

‘Lord God a’mighty, you m
u
st be having a lucky day. You must think this is the luc
k
iest fuckin’ day in your lousy, worthless, fuckin’
life.’

‘I don’t need luck to grind you into the street and make a big ugly spot out of you.’

‘I hope you’ve made your peace with God. I hope you’ve kissed that wart-faced, fat, smelly old whore of a mother of yours Ah-dee-fuckin’-
ose
, because you’re about to be nothin’ but patty sausage.’

‘Shit, I don’t know how you lived this long, somebody hasn’t parked a sixteen-wheel goddamn Mack truck in that ugly fuckin’ mouth of yours, it’s big enough, that’s for damn sure.’

‘I’ll kick your ass all the way back to King Tut’s court. I’ll kick you right outa this ce
n
tury.’

‘Well then, why don’t just get to it, motor mouth.’

‘Kiss this sweet earth farewell, m
o
therfucker.’

‘That’ll be the day, you stand-short, rubber-muscled
d
ipshit.’

‘Why don’t you stop talkin’ and st
a
rt fightin’.’

‘Well, what are you waiting for, you little dork, a goddamn band or somethin’. Goddamn fireworks. Goddamn invitation from the fuckin’ president.’

‘Listen, they friends most time,’ Sy confided to Hatcher. ‘I bring Amehrikaan tou
r
ist here alla time, they buddies usually.’

‘Buddies!’
Hatcher answered with surprise.

‘Most time.’

The white man tied the big dog to one of the posts in front of the Longhorn and struck a classic boxing pose, holding one fist close to his face, snapping his nose with his thumb and shooting his other
arm
out tauntingly.

‘Get serious, Potter,’ the black man said with a smile.
‘I’ll whack you into the sidewalk, won’t be nuthin showin’ but the top of your miserable head.’

‘Well, get at it, Corkscrew, get at it,’ the man called Potter said, dancing about.

A large man with shoulders like a bison’s stepped out of the Longhorn and stood with his bands on a waist the size of a ballet dancer’s. He had snow-white hair and a white handlebar mustache, and he wore cowboy boots and jeans and a holster with a .357 Python jammed in it.

Hatcher watched the display with open-mouthed awe. What we got here is a time warp, he thought to himself.

The white-haired man stepped between Potter and Corkscrew and laid a gentle hand on their shoulders. ‘What the hell’s going on?’ he asked
?

‘He’s making fun of my dog,’ Potter snapped. The white-haired man looked at the dog and smothered a laugh of his own.

‘You know what that dog’s name is?’ asked the black man, still struggling to keep from laughing. ‘Otis. Otis, for God’s sake. His name’s enough to make a grown man cry.’

Potter struggled to get at him and the big man pushed him gently back.

‘Just take it easy, Benny,’ the white-haired man said. ‘Come in, I’ll buy you both a drink. You can leave Otis tied up there on the post.’

Benny looked stricken.

‘Somebody’ll steal him,’ he said, panic in his voice. Corkscrew broke out in gales of laughter, but the white-haired man tried to be diplomatic. ‘I don’t think so,’ he said quietly. ‘I don’t think anybody’ll steal your dog.’

‘Not unless they’re real, real hungry,’ said Corkscrew through laughter that was approaching tears.

‘Damn it, Corkscrew, I’ve had enough!’ Benny roared.

‘Aw hell, c’mon,’ Corkscrew said,
‘I’ll
buy the damn drinks.’

The white-haired man herded them both into the saloon. Otis watched them go, then flopped down on the sidewalk, snorted, and fell sound asleep.

‘Who’s the big guy with the—’ Hatcher said, twirling his fingers at the corners of his mouth.

‘Mr Mustache? That is Earp,’ Sy answered.

‘Earp?’

Sy nodded once emphatically.

‘Not
Wyatt
Earp?’ Hatcher asked, almost sarcastically.

Sy reacted with surprise.

‘You know him?’ he asked.

‘No, I just guessed.’ Hatcher sighed.

‘That very good,’ Sy replied, obviously impressed.

‘I think I’ll just check that place out,’ Hatcher said, heading across the street toward the door of the Longhorn.

‘I wait here,’ Sy said. He started practicing a few moves on the sidewalk.

‘Suit yourself,’ Hatcher said.

When he stepped inside, the time warp was complete. He waited for a few seconds, letting his eyes grow accustomed to the dark interior. Then he fixed the details of the place in his head so
h
e wouldn’t forget them. It seemed remarkably authentic, a big room with green shades over the tables and sawdust on the floor; ceiling fans lazily circulating the air, which smelled of bar drinks and hamburgers; an antique bar that stretched the width of the room, and obviously had come from America, with a beveled mirror behind it, which made the saloon seem
wider;
large letters engraved in the glass that spelled ‘Tom Skoohanie’ and under the name, ‘The Ga
l
way Roost, 1877’; a beat-up old buffalo head with one eye and a black patch over the other; faded daguerreotypes and drawings of famous outlaws, lawmen and Indians on
th
e wall, a vintage Wurlitzer jukebox in a corner, turne
d
very low, playing an old record
—
Tony Bennett’s ‘Younger Than Springtime’; in another corner, a bulletin hoard covered with notes, business cards and patches
f
rom Army, Navy and Marine units; on one side of the room, raised a couple of steps above the floor, a smaller room behind a beaded curtain.

The man called Wyatt Earp sat at one end of the bar chatting with Corkscrew and Ben
n
y, who seemed to have forgotten their differences.

The bartender was a tall, elegant b
l
ack man in a black T-shirt covered by a suede vest, blue jeans and cowboy boots. He wore a cowboy hat big
enough
to take a bath in with a red, yellow and green parrot feather stuck in its band. The only other person in
the
main room had long blond hair and sat hunched over the bar.

Nobody gave Hatcher a
f
irst look as he walked toward the bar, yet he felt a sudden chill, like a cold wind blowing across the back
o
f
his neck, and the hair on the back of his arms stood up. He felt uncomfortable, as if, uninvited, he was entering a private club. Why had Wol Pot come to To
mb
stone day after day for short periods of time? Was he indeed watching the Longhorn? Was he following Cody? Thai Horse?

Was the answer to the riddle of Murph Cody somewhere in that room?

TOMBSTONE

Hatcher knew he would have to proceed with caution. If Cody was alive and in Bangk
o
k, he obviously did not want to be recognized, so it w
a
s reasonable to assume that anyone who knew him was protecting his identity. Did someone here know about Huie-Kui, the ghost camp? Or Wol Pot, Cody, ‘Thai Horse? He knew caution was called for
—
abo
u
t what he said and to whom.

‘What’s your poison?’ the bartender asked in a deep cultured voice that was almost operatic.

‘Sing
h
a,’
Hatcher answered.

‘Draft, bottle or can?’

‘Draft.’

The bartender filled a frosted mug with Thai beer, all the while keeping his eyes on Hatcher. ‘First drink’s on the house,’ he said, sliding it down the bar. Hatcher held out his hand and felt the cool, w
e
t glass slap his palm.

‘Khawp khun,’
he said.

‘You’re welcome.’

The black man’s face was friendly but his sparkling eyes were suspicious.

‘You don’t look like the average tourist we get in here,’ he said, casually running a rag over the highly polished bar. ‘You have the loo
k
of a man who did some time in-country.’

‘Military intelligence out of Cam Ranh,’ Hatcher answered.

‘Special Forces,’ said the bartender. ‘I was never sure where the hell I was. Where you from?’

The man who was slouched over the bar sat up and leaned on his arms, staring at Hatcher through faraway gray eyes; eyes that were bloodshot and drowsy. Clean- shaven with his long, blond surfer’s hair tied back in a ponytail, he had on an unbuttoned khaki safari jacket with sweat stains half-mooning the armpits, no shirt, a pair of white tennis shorts and old-fashioned high-top Keds. Hatcher could not guess his age, which could have been thirty-five or fifty. The man said nothing. He just stared at Hatcher for a while, then turned back to his half-empty drink and stared into
it.

‘I like to keep moving, never nest anywhere for too long,’ was Hatcher’s whispered answer.

‘What brings you to Bangkok?’

‘Vacation. My driver said this was the place to come. Who knows, I might bump into an old pal.’

‘Who knows?’ the bartender answered, noncommittally.

Hatcher patted the bar, trying to keep the conversation alive, and said, ‘I’m guessing this bar didn’t come from anywhere near Thailand.’

‘You do know your bars,’ said the bartender. He stroked the worn top affectionately
.
This one and the mirror and old John Ford up there,’ he said, wiggling a thumb over his shoulder toward the one-eyed bison’s head, ‘came here from one of the finest saloons in the U.S.’

‘Is that a fact,’ said Hatcher.

‘Old Skoohanie was a Texas cowboy
-·
and one lucky Irishman. One night he wandered into a gambler’s tent in Abilene
—
when Abilene wasn’t much more than a passing thought
—
and runs forty bucks to six thousand. Ends up owning the tent, the tables, the bank, the whole megilah. That was the beg
in
ning of the Ga
l
way Roost.’ He stopped long enough to draw himself half a glass of beer.

‘Which doesn’t explain how it got here,’ said Hatcher.

‘There was this mealy
-
mouthed little sapenpaw name of Edgar Skoohanie in my outfit in Nam who was always bragging about this bar of his,’ the bartender went on. ‘So I told him if he e
v
er wanted to sell out, let me know. Sure enough, one day I get a call and the voice on the other end of the hook says, “This is Edgar Skoohanie, remember me?” Like anybody with an IQ of more than ten would forget a name like Edgar Skoohanie, right, and I says sure and he says things aren’t going well for the oh Roost and he’s gonna change it into a disco! A fucking
disco,
for God’s sake.
We kicked it back and forth and I end up with the bar and the mirror and Edgar throws in old one-eyed John Ford there and next thing you
know, I’m in business. Twelve thousand purple for the lot and four thousand more to get it shipped over.’

The bartender never spoke in terms of American money, he talked of bahts, one baht being about five cents American; of purples, which were five-hundred
baht notes, or browns, which were ten bahts, or greens, which were twenty, or reds, which were a hundred. He paused again, this time to dra
w
Hatcher another beer, then said, ‘What else was there to do but open up the Longhorn?’

‘Bet a good story goes with the bullet hole in that mirror,’ said Hatcher.

‘Not as interesting as the one that goes with that voice of yours,’ the bartender answer
e
d.

‘Talked when I should have listened,’ Hatcher growled.

The barkeep responded with a barracks-room laugh. Two gold teeth gleamed from
the
side of his mouth. A full carat’s worth of diamond twinkled from the center of one of them.

‘I do like a man who can joke about his mistakes,’ he said, sticking out a hand big enough to crush a basketball. ‘Name’s Sweets Wilkie, I own the place.’

‘Hatch,’ Hatcher answered.

As Wilkie and Hatcher talked, t
w
o Thai girls entered from a door at the rear. They were beautiful young girls with long black hair that cascaded down their backs almost to their waists. They were dressed in cowgirl miniskirts, cobra-skin cowboy b
o
ots and fake pinto
pony vests, their budlike breasts holding the vests at bay. Neither of them could ha
v
e been more than fifteen. They hit Sweets Wilkie from both sides, giggling and wrapping their arms around him and kissing him on both cheeks.

‘This is Jasmine, we call her Jazz, and this is Orchid,’ Wilkie said, obviously enjoying the attention. ‘We been married about a year now.’

‘You and Orchid?’ Hatcher asked. Wilkie looked surprised and said, ‘Hell, both of ‘em.’

‘Both of them!’

‘Been married and divorced si
x
times since I been here and I’m yet to lay out one baht for alimony. I figure this time I’ll double up
—
maybe I’ll get a little luckier.’

His glittering grin lit up the darkened bar. He swatted the girls on their ample derrières and they moved on down the bar.

‘Welcome to Tombstone,’ the blond man suddenly mumbled, nodding as though he were about to fall asleep, and continuing to stare int
o
his drink.

‘Meet Johnny Prophett, the official poet laureate of Tombstone,’ Wilkie said.

‘My pleasure,’ said Hatcher.

Prophett looked over his nose at Hatcher, smiled wanly, and held out in Hatcher’s general direction a hand that was cold and lifeless.

‘How many Americans live
in
Bangkok?’ Hatcher asked.

Prophett stood up unsteadily hopping two or three steps on his right foot. His eyes were beginning to water and he shrugged his shoulders and scratched his arms, and Hatcher realized, seeing him on his feet, that Prophett was rail-thin, almost emaciated. Prophett held his arms out at his sides like an evangelist on a roll. ‘Four, maybe five hundred,’ he said. ‘In all shapes and sizes. Engineers, salesmen, tennis bums, stock racketeers, gamblers, walking wounded, cynics, miscreants, displaced persons, anti
-
socials. You name it, we are it.’

Well,
thought Hatcher,
than narrows the odds on finding Cody from five million to o
n
e to four hundred to one.

Wilkie said casually, ‘Just a bunch of relocated Yanks.’

‘God’s fucked up, man,’ Prophett meandered. ‘Supposed to be dead on the far si
d
e of the river. Bloody boatman hasn’t figured out what happened. Even a poet has a hard time making any sense outa that one.’

‘Right,’ Wilkie agreed and Hatcher nodded, although neither of them kne
w
what Prophett was talking about. ‘Johnny’s doing a book,’ he said by way of explanation and winked.

‘Bombay and tonic,’ Hatcher said to Wilkie.

Wilkie took the glass, put in a handful of ice cubes, and filled it with soda water.

As Prophett rambled on, a
m
an came from behind the beads, shaking his hands as though they were cramped. He was a bizarre sight a husky man pushing six feet, walking with a little strut, his shoulders rocking back and forth. He wore jeans and a white sleeveless T-shirt. The skull imprinted on the front had a rose in its bony teeth and
Grateful Dead
printed across the back. His arms were thick and muscular and his hands, although large, had slender, almost delicate fingers. Thick black hair curled around his shoulders and tumbled down over his forehead. What was bizarre was a thin, red line that ran from his forehead down across the bridge of his nose to the point of his chin. His face was painted black on one side of the line and white on the other.

‘That’s Wonderboy, our resident minstrel,’ Prophett said.

Wonderboy walked to the bar and held his hand out toward Sweets Wilkie.

‘My luck’s on vacation,’ he said. ‘The box, Maestro.’ Wilkie handed him a four-string guitar, polished and well worn, an instrument obviously cared for with great affection. The strange-looking man walked over to the Wurlitzer, pulled the plug with a booted foot, and sat down next to it.

He closed his eyes and laid his head back against the wall and started singing: “Hey Jude, don’t let her go.
. .

It was a beautiful voice. Clear, deep, a touch of whiskey in its high tones, and he gave the song such a plaintive plea that one wanted to grab Jude and shake some sense into his head.

Prophett leaned over and whispered, ‘Five feet from a flame-thrower when it took a mortar. Nobody really wants to see what’s under that paint.’

As the afternoon wore on, the bar began to ff1 up. Wilkie commandeered Benny Potter to help as the bar began to stack up two deep. His eyes watering, Prophett began hunching his shoulders and absently scratching his arms. A man entered the Longhorn walking with a funny little jump step, as if he had just fallen off a two-story building and landed flat on his feet. He had the trunk and arms of a weight lifter but skinny spindles for legs. He skipped straight to Earp and whispered something to him. Earp got up and went behind the bar and through a door into the rear of the building somewhere. The man with the funny walk went up the steps and through the beads into the small alcove.

‘That’s Gallagher,’ said Prophett. ‘Gerald Gallagher from Hobart, Indiana, owns a club called Langtry’s across the street. Naked girls. Not ladies, girls. Gallagher doesn’t hire them if they’re over twelve. In Gallagher’s book, any woman over twelve is menopausal. In the United States, he’d be stoned to death in the public square.’

‘How come he walks so funny?’ Hatcher asked.

‘His jeep hit a land mine. The floorboard almost put him in orbit,’ said Prophett. ‘His feet never woke up.’

‘I assume you were in Nam,’ Hatcher said to Prophett. Prophett stared back into his glass. ‘Hell, I was with Gallagher the day he blew up. I left a leg in that jeep.’

He held out his right leg and tapped on it with a knuckle. It made a metallic sound,
ping,
like hitting an empty water pipe.

Prophett,
Hatcher said to himself,
that name is vaguely familiar.

Earp came back into the bar and went up through the beads into the Hole in the Wall. He sat down beside the Honorable, who was watching two men play eight ball.

‘That’s Hatcher down there talking to Johnny,’ he said.

‘Ah, you followed my advice, then.’

‘Sy didn’t steer him here, he turned upon his own.’

‘As I predicted.’

‘Don’t get smug on me. I’m not so sure it’s a good idea, playing along with this guy.’

‘I knew he would end up here sooner or later,’ the Honorable said, proud that his intuition had paid off. Earp took a long cheroot from his vest pocket and lit it, twisting it slowly between his fingers so it would burn evenly.

‘He’s flashing around a picture of Wol Pot. Also Cody. And he works for Sloan.’

The Honorable made a temple of his fingers and rested his mouth against its peak.

‘He told Sweets he was here on vacation, but Sy connected with him after he had breakfast with Sloan,’ Earp went on. ‘He’s not here by accident.’

‘Chance perhaps. They both are here, they both
—,

‘Let’s be serious. He’s tracking, and I say if he’s here this quickly, he’s too close.’

‘Don’t let your paranoia cloud good judgment.’

‘I say he’s on to something.’

‘A fair call. Maybe you can find out what.’

‘I say Thai Horse takes him out.’

‘Kill
him?’

‘Don’t you understand, this is a very dangerous man. I know him by reputation. He was a sanctioned assassin in Nam. They sent him out with a list. When he scratched off the last name, he came in and got another list. He’s not some dumb gums
h
oe from San Francisco.’

‘All the more reason to be cautious. I gave you my suggestion. Get next to him. Befriend him. Find out what he’s doing here. You can’t go around just recklessly knocking people off, Mr Earp. Regardless of what we call it, this is not the O.K. Corral.’

Earp glanced down at the bar. Hatcher and Prophett were chatting. The whispering man seemed to show no interest in what was going on behind the beads.

‘I will also remind you that Porter was killed here.’

‘So?’

‘So even if you decide to do something rash, don’t do it in Bangkok. Lure him out in the countryside somewhere. Two in a row would attract a lot of attention from the Americans.’

‘Great idea,’ Earp said flatly. ‘I’ll just invite him on a picnic.’

‘You must be resourceful. You sound like you’re panicking. You still have the advantage, Wyatt. We know more about him than he knows about us. Now you must find out why he’s here.’

‘I don’t think you could torture that out of him.’

‘You know what they say about getting more with candy than sour cream.’