The Ambassador's Wife (23 page)

“You can’t always judge people by their appearance,” Tay replied. “For example, you don’t look like a pimp.”

Tay wondered almost immediately why he had said that. Did he think he was standing up for Cally in some way? Or was he just getting sucked into a routine bout of masculine preening, a couple of good old-fashioned rounds of
mine-is-bigger-than-yours, cowboy
.

August didn’t seem to hear Tay’s remark or, if he did, to register it. He just lit his cigarette with a wooden match and then flipped the box to Tay who lit his. Soon after, the coffee came. It was unexpectedly good, not at all what Tay expected to get on a Pattaya sidewalk.

Cally took only a sip or two and then pushed her cup aside. She leaned toward August, resting her elbows on the table and folding her hands under her chin.

“We need your help, John. You’ve heard about the murder of Susan Rooney, of course.”

August nodded, but he didn’t say anything.

“We’re here because she wasn’t the first.”

August drew on his cigarette. As he exhaled, he took it out of his mouth, turned it around, and inspected the lighted end. What he might have been looking for mystified Tay completely.

“I didn’t know that,” August said after a moment.

“Last Tuesday, Elizabeth Munson, the wife of Arthur Munson who is—”

“I know who Art Munson is,” August interrupted.

“Elizabeth Munson was found at the Singapore Marriott. She was murdered. It looks very much like both women were killed by the same man.”

August glanced briefly at Tay, then looked back at Cally.

“So that’s what he’s doing here,” he said. “I wondered why you were hanging around with a Singapore cop.”

“But you didn’t want to ask why he was here with me because you thought he was my lover, didn’t you?”

August seemed to shrug with his eyebrows, but the rest of his body remained motionless.

And what would be so flipping outlandish about that?
Tay wondered to himself.

He didn’t say anything of the sort out loud, of course. He just smoked his Camel quietly and watched as the conversation between Cally and August continued.

“I thought Munson’s wife was a suicide,” August said.

“That was a cover story,” Cally replied. “The police in Singapore put it out when they found the body because they wanted to keep the interest down until they had a firm ID. But it was a homicide. There was never any doubt.”

August glanced at Tay again and Tay didn’t like the expression on his face one bit. It was plain August was expressing a measure of contempt for the suicide story, and maybe it was more or less justified, but it was none of August’s goddamned business regardless. Tay was about to say something along exactly those lines, but Cally started talking again before he could make up his mind exactly what it was going to be.

“That doesn’t matter anymore,” Cally said as if she knew exactly what Tay was thinking. “The problem now is that Munson says they may stick to the suicide story.”

“They’ll never get away with it,” August said.

“Not now they won’t.”

Tay finished his cigarette and ground it out in the glass ashtray in the center of the table. He wanted another one, but he wasn’t about to ask August for it.

“Do you have any idea who you’re looking for yet?” August asked Cally.

“The FBI in Singapore is working on the theory Munson was the victim of terrorists and I’m sure they’ll have the same theory with respect to Rooney.”

August snorted.

“Of course they will,” he said. “These days those dickwads think
everything
has something to do with terrorism. First they couldn’t find any terrorists and now they can’t find anybody else.”

Cally didn’t react to that, although Tay had the impression August was expecting her to.

“Anyway,” August asked Cally when he got tired of waiting, “what do
you
think?”

“I think they’re wrong.”

“That’s usually a pretty safe bet when you’re talking about the FBI, isn’t it?”

“Don’t be glib, John. You’re good at it, but after a while it gets really boring.”

August nodded very slowly as if Cally’s remark meant something to him. Tay wondered what it was.

A young girl wearing a shapeless green dress and yellow flipflops brought them fresh cups of coffee without being asked. When she left, August took out his Camels again. Tay gratefully accepted another, although he tried to keep his face expressionless when he did. He hated the thought that August might see how much he wanted it.

“You’re here to ask me if I know anything?” August made the comment sound half question and half statement.

Cally nodded.

“Okay, so here is your answer. I don’t know anything.”

“Will you at least look at what I’ve got so far and tell me what you think?”

“Sure.” August took a long drag on his cigarette. “How do I get the case files?”

“I brought you the file on Elizabeth Munson. There’s no file yet on Susan Rooney, but I have some crime scene photos for you to look at.”

August nodded slowly several more times, then smoked in silence for a bit.

“When are you going to give them to me?” he asked when he was good and ready.

“You could walk back to the Marriott with us tonight. I have them in my room and I can give them to you now.”

Tay’s first thought was he hoped that was all Cally was going to give August in her room at the Marriott tonight. Then, as quickly as the thought had come to him, he pushed it away. That was absolutely none of his business. What Cally and August did at the Marriott, or any place else for that matter, was completely up to them, wasn’t it?

Yes, absolutely. It was. It was their business entirely
.

August seemed to think the possibility over, then tilted his head back and yawned. The yawn looked phony to Tay and he wondered why August had bothered with it. Tay examined the man curiously. He couldn’t decide if he was more than he seemed to be, or less.

“Okay,” August said after he finished his unnecessary yawn.

It seemed to Tay he was trying hard to infuse the word with a measure of reluctance.

“I’ll look at whatever you’ve got tonight.”

“When do you want—”

“We can have breakfast tomorrow and I’ll tell you then what I think.”

“Where?” Cally asked.

“How about Shenanigan’s? It’s just—”

Now it was Cally’s turn to interrupt. “I know where it is. Seven o’clock?”

August gave Cally an amused look.

“You must still be on Singapore time, kid. We stay up late here. We get up late, too. The place doesn’t even open until nine.”

“Nine then. We’ll be there.”

Cally’s use of the plural must have reminded August that Tay was still around because just then he glanced over at him. Tay resisted the impulse to wave. Instead, he smiled as insincerely as he knew how and gave August a big thumbs-up.

“I’m looking forward to it already,” Tay said.

TWENTY-FIVE

THE
ringing of Tay’s cell phone pulled him from a deep and dreamless sleep. It was very dark and he couldn’t remember where he was. He sat up and fumbled around until he found the switch for the bedside lamp. When the lamp came on, he blinked and then for a few moments stared in total amazement at the strange room in which he was sleeping.

Then everything about where he was and what he was doing there came back to him in a rush and he picked up his telephone.

“Hello.”

“Is this Samuel Tay?”

It was a man’s voice, someone with an American accent.

“Yes,” Tay said. “And by the way, it’s the middle of the goddamned night.”

He looked around for his wristwatch wondering if it really was the middle of the goddamned night. He couldn’t find the watch, but it
felt
like the middle of the goddamned night so he thought hewas more than justified in making the claim anyway.

“I’m terribly sorry,” the man said with a note in his voice that sounded like genuine contrition. “I must have miscalculated the time change.”

“Look, who—”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Tay. I really am handling this badly. This is Arthur Rosenthal.”

The name sounded familiar, but Tay couldn’t immediately place it so he said nothing.

“I’m a lawyer,” the man added helpfully. “In New York.”

And then Tay realized who it was.

“I’m sorry to wake you, Mr. Tay,” Rosenthal went on, “but I thought—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Tay interrupted. “I’m glad you called. How is my mother?”

The man didn’t respond right away, and all at once, just like that, Tay knew.

“I’m sorry,” Rosenthal said.

He said something else after that, too, but Tay didn’t register what it was. It didn’t matter anyway. Rosenthal had delivered his message and that, more or less, was that.

Tay’s mother was dead.

That was very much that.

She had died in her sleep, peacefully, the previous night. At least that was what the lawyer named Rosenthal said. He also said that her husband was making the funeral arrangements.

“Why would he do that?” Tay asked.

“I don’t quite understand what you—”

“I’m her son. I can make the funeral arrangements.”

“We just thought that…well, you’re a long way away, and naturally we assumed…”

Rosenthal trailed off into silence, apparently not certain what to say next. Tay could understand that. He didn’t know what to say next either.

Why in God’s name was he starting an argument over who would make his mother’s funeral arrangements? He didn’t have the first idea how to make funeral arrangements in New York, and even if he had he was halfway around the world, it was the middle of the night, and he was over his head in an investigation of the most brutal murder he had ever seen.

“Never mind,” Tay murmured. “Forget it.”

“I’m sorry?”

“I said, never mind. Her husband can make the funeral arrangements. That’s fine with me.”

Could they assume then that Tay would be coming to New York for the funeral, the lawyer named Rosenthal asked?

Of course they could assume he would be coming to New York for the funeral. It was his
mother
, for Christ’s sake. Or maybe he wouldn’t be. Later he couldn’t remember how he had answered Rosenthal’s question. After that there were some other words, too, but later Tay couldn’t remember what they were either. As soon as he could he thanked the lawyer for calling and hung up.

Tay shut off the light, pulled the sheet around his neck, and rolled over with his face to the wall.

Feelings came and went, flickering in and out of his mind like an unreliable signal on a faulty television set. Sadness, abandonment, the loneliness of the forsaken child, regret for time gone by, for things undone and unsaid — and most of all, sorrow for his inability to share or even acknowledge in any real way the pain, perhaps even the humiliation of the way his mother’s life had ended.

Every thought dislodged feelings deep within Tay and they rained down around him like bombs, setting off little explosions of recognition, remembrance, and regret. When he could take it all no longer, he got up to have a cigarette, but then he remembered he didn’t have any. That left him nothing to do but go back to bed where he laid absolutely still, breathing in and out, counting every breath. It took him quite a while to get back to sleep, but eventually, somehow, he did.

Once during what remained of the night he thought he felt himself crying softly, but that had probably just been a dream.

TWENTY-SIX

THE
next morning Tay sat in the lobby for nearly half an hour waiting for Cally to come down. He didn’t even bother looking at his watch when he finally saw her walking toward him. He knew full well what time it was and he had no doubt Cally knew as well.

“I’m sorry, Sam,” she said. “I forgot to leave a call.”

She looked fresh and bright-eyed and was wearing white drawstring pants, a blue striped shirt, and blue sandals. Tay was wearing a clean shirt, but he had on the same trousers and shoes he had worn the day before and he was certain he didn’t look fresh and bright-eyed. He didn’t comment either on the time or on Cally’s small apology.

“How far is this place where we’re having breakfast?” he asked instead.

“Not far,” Cally said. “Just across the street.”

Tay and Cally left the hotel and walked the short distance to Shenanigan’s in silence. Tay was a little surprised when they got there to find it was more of a pub than a restaurant. The floor was black-and-white tile and green-shaded lamps hung from the ceiling in tight rows. A long mahogany bar, scarred from what looked like years of hard use, ran down one side of the big room and tables surrounded by mismatched chairs filled the other. The whole place smelled vaguely of spilled beer and stale cigarettes.

Tay didn’t see August, although there were more people there than he would really have expected given the time of day. Most of them were lounging at tables reading newspapers and eating breakfast, but there were also three middle-aged men at the bar with half-empty beer glasses in front of them. Silent and separate, they sat and stared at a television set tuned to CNN.

A woman wearing a long, black apron and a red vest over a white shirt led Tay and Cally to a quiet alcove. The bench seat along the wall was upholstered in something that was probably supposed to look like green leather, but didn’t. In front of the bench was a beaten-up wooden table, and on the opposite side of it sat a pair of wooden chairs that could have belonged to somebody’s grandmother fallen on hard times.

The girl brought them coffee. It wasn’t very good coffee, Tay found when he tried it, but he had a lousy night and was bad-tempered and sour, so he drank it anyway. He asked the girl for cigarettes and was pleasantly surprised to discover the place had Marlboros behind the bar. When she brought him a pack, he lit one using a book of matches someone had left on the table, and inhaled deeply. He held the rich smoke in his lungs for a moment longer than usual, which he found improved the taste of the coffee considerably.