Thai Horse (7 page)

The little man placed the magazine back on the bar and sighed. ‘I’m a specialist,’ he said. ‘I specialize in recovering stolen art works.’

‘Hey, that sounds interesting. And profitable, right?’ He winked at Stenhauser.

‘Well, I’m not ready to retire yet, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Not yet,’ Sloan said, taking a sip of beer and not looking at him.

Stenhauser’s eyes narrowed. The man was beginning to annoy him. It was almost as if he were prying. Stenhauser studied him. His face was weathered and leathery, he had a small scar under his right eye, his body was square, like a box, and muscular. His charcoal-black hair was clipped in a severe crew cut, and his sport coat seemed almost too tight. An outdoor man, Stenhauser figured. A hunter rather than a fisherman. He had the burly look of a hunter; fishermen were more aesthetic. Probably did weight- lifting every day. A big sport fan and a beer drinker. Not too bright, thought Stenhauser.

‘And what’s your business, Mr. uh
. . .‘
Stenhauser began.

‘Sloan. Harry Sloan. I’m a snoop.’

‘A detective?’

‘No, just a snoop,’ Sloan said, drawing him in, slowly weaving a shimmery web for his fly.

Stenhauser chuckled. ‘That’s good. That’s very funny,’ he said. ‘That’s what gossip magazines are all about, right? I suppose we’re all a bit nosy.’

Sloan leaned over toward Stenhauser and said, very confidentially, ‘Yeah, but nothing like I am. I stop’
—
he held two fingers a quarter of an inch apart
—
‘about that far short of voyeurism.’

Stenhauser looked surprised. ‘Well most people wouldn’t admit it,’ he said, taking another sip of his martini.

‘I like to study people,’ said Sloan. ‘I feel I’m a very good judge of character.’

‘Is that right.’

‘Take you, for instance. I’ll bet you’re a very precise man.’

‘Precise, huh.’ Stenhauser thought about that for a few moments. ‘I suppose that’s true. It pays to be precise in my business.’

‘I’m sure it does. Can’t afford a slipup.’ Sloan leaned closer to him. ‘Do you deal with the criminal element?’ he asked, adding more sheen to the
well
,.

‘That’s what I do,’ the little man said proudly. ‘I realise I don’t look very imposing, but I
speak
their language. I can be very tough when need be.’

‘I can tell,’ Sloan said.

‘You can, huh?’

‘Absolutely. I’ll bet you’re one
h
elluva negotiator.’ It was Sloan’s oldest trick, working the mark’s vanity. It never failed.

Stenhauser somewhat arrogantly wiggled his head back and forth a couple of times but did not comment. He’s hooked, Sloan thought.

‘I do a little writing,’ Sloan said. ‘I’d like to talk about some of your cases, the tough ones. 1kight be something in it for me.’

‘Uh, well, I, that’s very flattering but, uh, most of my work is highly confidential.’

‘I don’t mean real names. Just, you know, some inside stuff. The more you know, the m
o
re authentic the work is.’

‘I suppose so. Well, perhaps some other time. I have to leave in a few minutes.’

‘Look, why don’t we just talk on the way up to Seventy-fourth Street,’ Sloan said, smiling as he sipped his beer.

Stenhauser stared at him with surprise for a fraction of a second. ‘How did you.
. .
I’m not going home,’ he said quickly. ‘I’ve got tickets for the theater.’

‘That’s a shame. Your dog’s gonna bust a kidney.’ Stenhauser leaned over close to Sloan, and said between clenched teeth, ‘What the hell are you up to, anyway?’

‘Hatcher.’

‘Hatcher?’

Sloan nodded. ‘Hatcher.’

‘Is that supposed to mean something to me?’

‘Christian Hatcher, Mr. Stenhauser. I just want him, that’s all. An address, a phone number. I’ll vanish from your life like that.’ He snapped his fingers.

‘I think you oughta just’
—
he snapped his fingers, too
—
‘vanish like that anyway, whoever the hell you are.’

‘No matter what happens, the game’s over, Mr. Stenhauser. It’s not going to work any
m
ore
—
the art scam, I mean, and I know you know what I’m referring to. Now, I just want to talk to Hatcher, that’s all. No big hassle. Hell, we’re old friends. I once helped him out of a bad scrape.’

‘Is that a fact.’

‘Yes.’

‘Listen, I don’t know any Hatcher, but if I did know a

Hatcher, I wouldn’t tell you so much as his middle name. I

wouldn’t tell you his shoe size, I wouldn’t tell you his
—
I

wouldn’t tell you a damn thing about him. I don’t like you. I

don’t like your style, or your crazy talk Is that clear?’

Sloan nodded earnestly. He wiggled a finger under Stenhauser’s nose.

‘You’re going to be obstinate, I can tell,’ he said as slowly, as patiently as always, still smiling. ‘And that’s too bad.’

‘Really?’

‘Really. Obstinacy will buy you about
—
oh, I don’t know

—
at least ten years. Plus they’ll take every dime you’ve got, which I’d say is plenty at this point.’

‘I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, Mr.
. . .
Sloan, was it?’

Sloan nodded. ‘Listen, why don’t we just walk up to Seventy-fourth Street together. Maybe I can clarify all this for you. Nobody will pay any attention to us, and you’ve got to go up there to let your dog whiz anyway, theater or no theater. And in case you need more convincing, we could even chat about Paris, Chicago— New York.’

They sat there, trying to stare each other down. It was Stenhauser who lowered his eyes
first.

‘What the hell,’ he said in almost a whisper. ‘If you promise not to mug me on the way, maybe it’ll get you off my case.’

Outside, a brisk spring wind was blowing across town. They walked over to Madison Avenue and headed north. Stenhauser said nothing. He looked at the ground while he walked and his hands were jam
m
ed deep in his coat pockets.

‘You know, maybe I’ve been a little hard on you,’ Sloan said, his smile broadening. ‘Maybe Hatch changed his name. Maybe you know him by another name.’

Stenhauser said nothing. He walked briskly, still staring a foot or two in front of each step.

‘He used the same technique in all three jobs. I know his style. Down through the ceiling on a wire, pressure sensitizers on the walls when he lifts the paintings. He never goes near the floor, no worries about electric eyes, floor feelers, that kind of thing. And the son of a bitch always leaves a little something behind to help the police along. Old Hatch hasn’t changed a bit. He used the same technique hitting the Russian embassy for me in London.’

Stenhauser looked up sharply, staring at Sloan as they walked.

‘Also the Iranian embassy in Washington, before the hostage thing. Always leaves something. One of the sensitizers, the wire, something. It’s magician stuff
—
misdirection, because he always ju
m
ps the alarm system but he never leaves the jumper behind, you know why?’

Stenhauser’s pace began to quicken.

‘Because to jump the system requires inside knowledge. In both my cases, Hatcher had an inside man, but he didn’t want to blow their cover, so he leaves a little something behind. Now, here he is pulling the same old stunt. Hell, I was on to him from the first job, the thing in Paris. What a score!’ Sloan laughed appreciatively.

Stenhauser stopped. He jabbed a finger at Sloan.

‘You’re crazy, you know that? I don’t know who you are or what your game is, but you’re stuffed full of shit.’

‘I haven’t gotten to the good sniff yet. See, here’s the way I figure it works. Let’s say somebody lifts a Picasso from a museum. The museum doesn’t want a million bucks’ insurance money, they want the work. They want it before it winds up on some Arab’s yacht over in the Mediterranean. So they make a deal. The insurance company pays fifteen percent, no questions asked. It costs the insurance company a hundred fifty grand on a million- dollar policy, the museum gets its goods back, and the thief walks with a clean bill of health.’

Stenhauser was not a brave man. All he did was provide information and make deals. It had never occurred to him that he and the Bird would be caught. Now fear began to nibble at his insides.

‘There’s nothing illegal about what I do, Sloan,’ he said defensively. ‘I make deals, sure. 1ut it’s perfectly legitimate. It saves the taxpayers money because the police aren’t involved. It saves the insurance company money. The victims get their things back. Everybody ends up happy.’

Bluffing, and not very well, Sloan. thought, chuckling to himself. Still smiling, he shook his head. ‘I couldn’t care less,’ he said with a shrug. ‘But let me give you a new scenario. A thief hits the Louvre and walks off with twelve million dollars’ worth of goods. The fixer steps in, quietly gets the word around, makes a deal. The insurance company gets stiffed for one point eight mill, but saves ten point two mill in the long haul, an
d
the museum gets its paintings back. Now, just supposing we had a real smart man working for the insurance co
m
pany. And supposing he approaches this flier and says, “Look, pal, I can give you advance information on where art’s gonna be, when it’s vulnerable, the security
systems
, I’ll set up the buy, and we just split the pie up two
w
ays.” Sloan paused. ‘Neat, isn’t it?’

‘I know where you’re heading
with
this, and I’m telling you right here and now you’re nuts,’ said Stenhauser vehemently.

Sloan kept talking, slowly, quietly, as if Stenhauser bad never uttered a word. ‘I figure the t
w
o of you have split almost four million dollars over the last two years, Stenhauser. You’re not only going to have cops all over the world crawling up your ass, you’re gonna have the IRS sitting in your lap every time you take a load off. All I have to do is tell them what you’ve been up to. Whether they can prove it or not, they’ll make life so miserable for you
—,

Who is this man? Stenhauser wondered. He had never before entertained even the remotest thought of murder
—
of any form of bodily harm to anyone else
—
but now, walking up Madison Avenue, he found the blackest kind of ideas buzzing in his head.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ Sloan said, as if reading Stenhauser’s mind. ‘Forget it. You don’t have the guts or talent for it.’

Stenhauser’s mouth dried up.

Sloan shook his head. ‘There’s no reason for all this anxiety,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to make life miserable for you. I want Hatcher.’

‘And I keep telling you—’

Sloan cut him off. His eyes grew cold, lost their expression, but the smile remained. Stenhauser suddenly felt a chill creep over him.

‘Get off it, little man,’ Sloan said very quietly. ‘You’re going to tell me what I want to know
—
now
—
or I’m going to come down on you so hard you’ll think it’s raining bricks. Think about it. You’re out of business anyway. Do you want to keep what you’ve got, smile all the way to the bank, or do you want a lot of grief?’

Stenhauser looked up and down the street. He hunched deeper into his coat and stared at Sloan’s feet. ‘He’ll kill me,’ Stenhauser whispered.

‘No way.’

‘You don’t—’

‘Know him?’ Sloan finished the sentence. ‘I was in business with the man when you were still taking the SATs.’

Stenhauser turned away from Sloan. He strolled to the curb and looked up at the gold lights on Trump Tower. He had dreamed of owning an apartment there, a million- dollar layout with all the trimmings, and now this stranger, whom he’d never seen until half an hour ago, was stealing the dream. Anger roiled up inside him, but Stenhauser was smart enough to know there was nothing he could do about it. Sloan had him and was squeezing.

‘I don’t know where he is,’ Sten
h
auser said finally. ‘I’ve never laid eyes on him. Didn’t even know his name until you brought it up. I get in touch through a dead drop, a relay phone.’

Sloan, smiling, walked over to him and patted him on the shoulder.

‘That’ll be just fine,’ he said.

‘Who the hell are you, anyway?’ Stenhauser asked bitterly. ‘What’s in this for you?’

‘That’s none of your fucking business,’ Sloan answered as slowly and methodically as ever.

GINIA

He lay on the floor with his chin resting on the backs of his hands, watching a bright yellow
f
lame-tail tang darting in and out of the coral, its snout pecking for food. A moment later, she swam into frame, trailing bubbles from her tanks, her long black hair waving behind her.

She was as naked as the fish she ‘was chasing.

Her hard, perfectly rounded buttocks ground together as she scissor-kicked her long, muscular legs, and glided over and around the small coral cluster, chasing the tang. She had an astounding figure and the tiny white triangles, where her bikini had blocked the sun, made her tawny figure even more alluring.

An absolutely stunning creature.

He studied every rippling muscle in her body, every square inch of tanned skin, knowing she knew he was watching and was enjoying his voyeu
r
ism just as much as he was. He felt himself begin to tighten, felt his pulse tapping in his forehead.

The six-foot glass square mounted in the floor was what really had sold him on the yacht. It -was hidden beneath the plush Oriental carpet in the main cabin. With the push of a button, a panel in the hull slid back and four powerful floodlights mounted on each corner of the window switched on. The result was a spectacular undersea panorama.

She was holding a plastic tube about two feet long, which looked like a large syringe four or five inches in diameter with a plunger on one end. She was behind the tang, extending the tube slowly toward it, then she suddenly drew back the plunger and the suction pulled the tang into the tube where a mesh valve trapped it. The fish darted up and down the tube, confused by the almost invisible plastic sides that entrapped it. She turned toward the window and proudly flexed her muscles.

‘Nicely done,’ he said aloud in a harsh, rasping voice that was almost a whisper. He leaned up on one elbow and crooked a finger toward her, inviting her closer, and she swam up close to the window, rolled on her back and spread her legs, tantalizing him. He leaned down and pressed his lips against the window and she moved slowly through the water, rising up against it, pressing first her breasts, then her stomach, then her thighs, against it, and he opened his mouth slightly, flicking his tongue against the inch-thick window, and she began to slowly wiggle, taunting him as he moved his head over her breasts, down to her hard, flat stomach and then down farther, to the matted hair that was pressed on i
n
ch away from his mouth. Then she was gone.

He lay there, watching the fish darting in and out of the coral cluster, thinking about Ginia. He was lucky. She was bright, beautiful, and sensuous. They had been lovers for almost a year.

It had been Cirillo who found this island. And it was to Cirillo and his wife, Millie, that
H
atcher had come after Los Boxes. He had walked away from Sloan’s rescuers, hitchhiked from Miami and arrived at Cirillo’s door in the middle of the night, a gaunt hollow-eyed replica of himself, wet to the knees from stumbling through the marsh. The Cirillos had asked n
o
questions; they simply had nursed him back to health, providing the care and understanding necessary to heal this shattered mind and body.

The years after Los Boxes had been almost as traumatic as the experience itself. His emotions had become so armored, so distrusting and involuted, that he had spent the first months alone, wandering the bases of his past, looking for someplace to sink a root, something to hook him to reality. The closest he had come was a boat, but there were no roots in the sea. For a year he had indulged himself, cruised the Caribbean, lain in the sun, gorged on good food and wine, read constantly, and made love to women of every possible persuasion
—
white women, black women, red women, married women, unmarried women, smart women, dumb women, old women and young women.

Ultimately he had returned to the island. Hatcher had learned to love the place; to love the marsh that insulated the island from the rest of the world, and the island itself, so teeming with new life that it had rekindled his own spirit after Los Boxes. It had become his first real home. The isolated corner of the world was a perfect refuge for him.

There had been rumors about him, this strange, quiet man with the shattered voice and the haunted eyes, who sat night after night in Murphy’s Tavern, nursing brandy. That he was a doper on parole, that he was a doper who had never been caught, that he was a narc looking for dopers on the isolated island, that he had served twenty years for murdering a faithless wife. All fictions written with whiskied tongues by the women he ignored and the men whose women were attracted to him.

He laughed at the stories, flattered by a status that had become mysterious and legen
d
ary and gradually the islanders had accepted him, attracted by his sense of humor, his independence and a sense of loyalty to fellow islanders that was revealed slowly and without fanfare. He was one of them now and the stories had been put aside. Like many others who had escaped a checkered past and sought refuge in the small waffle of land two miles off the coast of Georgia, his past remained a mystery.

Ginia had her eye on him for a couple of months before he finally moved on her. She asked no questions, nor did he, although he knew she was a native of the island, had graduated from the Wharton School with honors, had been one of the most respected brokers on Wall Street, married a wealthy attorney and then, on her thirtieth birthday, had chucked it all and returned to the island and set up a small brokerage firm. That was all Murphy talk, and he never asked her anything about it, just as she never questioned him. It was as if they had no past, only their future.