Thomas Caine series Boxset

by Andrew Warren

  “Tatsui.”

  The awful, scarred face gave a small nod, an almost imperceptible tilting of the chin. Still, the motion was at least somewhat human. That comforted Tatsui somewhat. Perhaps there was a chance after all.

  “I am called Bobu. I apologize for our rude behavior, but we are on a mission of grave importance. Please, do not be afraid.”

  Tatsui was dumbfounded by the sharp contrast between the man’s smooth, calm words and his horrific face.

  Bobu tilted his head, as if focusing the gaze of his injured eye on the man who cowered before him. “Forgive me. I know my scars can be frightening. But know this ... they are marks of purity. The heat and fire that made me this way also burned away the shame of my past. Do you understand?”

  Tatsui nodded.

  Bobu smiled. Tatsui watched the mangled, pink flesh twist and move; smiling was the most terrifying thing the man had done yet.

  “We are looking for someone. It is important that we find her as soon as possible. She is lost.” Bobu held out the phone to Tatsui.

  It showed a picture of a girl in her early twenties. She was sexy and beautiful, like Yuki. But, unlike his masseuse, her beauty was not angelic and carefree. She looked cold, like a porcelain doll. Her dark eyes seemed worried. Haunted.

  Color rushed back into the sarariman’s features. His eyes lit up with hope. “Yes, yes! I have seen this girl!”

  Bobu leaned in, his mutilated face inches away from Tatsui.

  “Where?”

  “Ah, wait, let me think.”

  Bobu’s cold gaze never wavered as the flustered man racked his brain for details.

  Tatsui looked up, a smile on his face. “Yes, I remember! It was in Roppongi, at Tiger Velvet! A hostess club. We were there after work, to celebrate closing a deal. Perhaps ... two weeks ago!”

  “You are positive it was her?”

  The older man nodded. “Yes, I remember her eyes. She looked unhappy to be there. I told her she should cheer up, and she spilled my sake in my lap! We complained to the manager, and he sent over a different girl.”

  Bobu stared at him for a few more seconds.

  “It was her, I swear!” Tatsui added weakly.

  Bobu spun around, and took a few steps away from the crowd. The other men kept their guns trained on Tatsui as the hulking man brought the cell phone to his ear. He spoke in hushed, short sentences. Then he slid the phone in his pocket and turned back to his men.

  “Burn it down. No one lives.”

  Like a switch had been flipped, the room immediately filled with screams and shouts. Tatsui watched in horror as the men opened fire with automatic weapons. Yuki’s lifeless face hit the ground. Blood mixed with the black tears of mascara that spattered her face.

  He tore away from the men holding him and rushed over to Bobu. “Please, don’t do this! We had a deal! Please sir, I have a wife. I have—”

  Bobu pushed him away. It was just a light movement of his thick arm, no more than a shrug, but it sent Tatsui sprawling to the floor. In the midst of the massacre, Tatsui smelled gasoline fumes filling the room. A pair of the black-suited killers were dousing the curtains and furniture with cans of the flammable liquid.

  Bobu slipped a large pistol from a shoulder holster under his jacket. He leveled the gun at Tatsui’s face.

  “Don’t worry. You will not burn. You will not be purified. You are free.”

  He pulled the trigger. The gun roared, but Tatsui did not hear it. Or if he did, it was just an echo, a faint fragment of sound trapped in the mists at the edge of his consciousness.

  For Tatsui, there was only the growing darkness. For a brief second, he could see the lights of Shinjuku ... brilliant flickering stars, a map of heavenly pleasures on earth. Then, one by one, the stars went out.

  Chapter Two

  Mark Waters took a sip of his cocktail and looked over his shoulder at Soi 8, the street outside Lucky’s Bar. Late afternoon was always his favorite time in Pattaya. The city seemed to take a deep breath, a relaxing pause before the relentless nightlife whipped the place into a frenzy.

  Turning his attention back to the bar, he caught a glimpse of himself in one of the many mirrors hanging on the wall. Years of the intense Pattaya sun had turned his skin a deep tan and lightened his messy brown hair. He knew his prime was past—wrinkles creased his green eyes as he squinted at the image before him. But his navy linen blazer and khaki jeans still fit like a glove. His body was blessed with the lean physique of a natural athlete.

  “Your turn, Mr. Waters!”

  Janjai, the new bar girl, was grinning at him. Her lively brown eyes held a mischievous gleam, and her beautiful smile was genuine. She had not yet acquired that awful, generic pleasantness like the other bar girls.

  Mark didn’t blame them. After all, it was their job to entice male tourists into the bar any way they could. Still, after a few months on the scene, the girls learned all the tricks and lines. Their forced smiles, corny greetings, and flirtatious banter grated on his ears every night.

  It only bothers you because you can see right through them, he thought. It’s not their fault you’re an expert on living a lie.

  “You gonna go or not?” Janjai was staring at him, a friendly pout on her lips. Her crossed arms pressed the coffee-colored skin of her breasts up against the opening of her white tank top. Mark realized she was learning faster than he’d thought.

  “Sorry, Jan. Let’s see here.... I think you may have got me.” Mark examined the Connect Four game that stood between them. The game was a three-dimensional version of Tic-Tac-Toe. The goal was to stack four plastic checkers in a vertical, horizontal, or diagonal row. Janjai’s last move had cut off the diagonal line he was building.

  He often spent his afternoons playing bar games at Lucky’s. He figured it was better for Janjai to earn her money beating him at Connect Four than the other activities she might soon engage in. Most of the time, he let her win.

  Today, however, Janjai’s inevitable victory was due to her skill alone. With a sigh, he slipped a red checker into the grid. It fell into place, blocking the girl’s vertical play, but it left her with an opening to make a horizontal row on her next move.

  The Thai girl shrieked with delight as she dropped a black checker into the plastic grid. The piece completed her row of four and won the game. She clapped and laughed. “You lose, Mr. Waters! I too smart for you!”

  Mark chuckled as he slipped two-hundred baht notes from his wallet and lay them on the counter. Janjai snapped them up with a childlike glee.

  “Truer words were never spoken, Janjai. Now, how about you take pity on me and make me a drink?”

  “Sure thing, Mr. Waters. Then we play again! You want another Sabai Sabai?”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Janjai prepared his drink, a refreshing combination of sugar, lemon, club soda, crushed basil, and local Thai whisky. As she worked, Mark stole a glance at his cell phone. It was a prepaid model from the electronics stand down the street. It showed no incoming calls. This doesn’t feel right, he thought.

  The trucks should have arrived at the docks forty minutes ago. Lau was supposed to check in as soon as they arrived and then again when the merchandise was loaded on board the boat.

  Mark always stayed far away from the docks when a delivery was scheduled to arrive. It was up to his partner, Lau Somchai, to keep him in the loop and confirm that everything was all right. That left two options. Either Lau was keeping him in the dark ... or everything was not all right.

  Janjai set the drink down in front of him.

  “Ready for next game, Mr. Waters?”

  Mark gave her a warm smile and placed another two-hundred baht on the counter. “Give me a few minutes to recover from that last beating, okay? But consider this my reservation.”

  Janjai nodded and moved away, sensing his wish to be alone. As she wiped down the counter with a wet rag, Mark scanned the bar again. He kept an eye out for Lau or anyone who didn’t belong. />
  His gaze settled on a young Thai man sitting near the railing that separated the open air bar from the street. He was wearing a white dress shirt open at the collar. His sleeves were rolled up, and sweat stained the fabric at the armpits.

  He appeared intensely focused on a wrinkled newspaper he was flipping through, an issue of the Pattaya Times. He paid no attention to the steady throng of attractive women walking up and down the street outside, many dressed only in bikinis and sarongs.

  Mark hadn’t noticed him until now. The man had been in the bar for some time, but until this moment, Mark hadn’t given him a second thought. He felt wrong somehow. Mark took a deep breath, shocked to realize just how much his skills had atrophied over the past few years.

  Keeping a lock on the man from the corner of his eye, Mark angled back towards the bar and took another sip of his cocktail. He let the cold ice linger against his teeth, using the pain to sharpen him up. He allowed himself another unobtrusive glance in the man’s direction.

  He could just make out the large color photo on the front page of the rumpled newspaper—girls dancing in pink evening gowns. Something about it was familiar.

  “Janjai?” he said without looking away, his voice low. “Does Lucifer’s Bar still do the beauty pageant thing? You know, where the girls put on fancy dresses and do that fake pageant?”

  Janjai leaned over the counter. “Sure. They raffle off the winner for the night. They do that on Wednesday, I think.”

  It was Saturday afternoon. That meant the man was fully absorbed by two-day-old news.

  Mark drained his drink and slammed the glass down on the bar. “Time to make a deposit!” he announced. Janjai giggled but gave him a concerned look. He slipped several baht notes onto the counter. “In case I don’t make it back for the game,” he whispered. “You probably would have won anyway.”

  He purposely avoided looking at the Thai man as he made his way to the dingy men’s room at the rear of the bar. He staggered and swayed as he walked, giving the impression that he was drunk. With a sigh, he shut himself in the tiny, dark room.

  As soon as the door closed, he sprang into action. Tearing his cell phone from his pocket, he popped off the rear cover and disconnected the battery. He threw the battery in the trash and stomped the dead phone into pieces with the heel of his boot. Then he dumped the pieces into a dirty bucket of mop water that stood in a corner. He had no idea who could be tracking him. Based on the lone watcher he’d spotted, it was probably just the Royal Thai Police. But that was far from the only possibility, and the other options could be much more deadly.

  Outside the door, he heard Janjai talking. “Please wait, sir. Someone in there!”

  Mark uttered a silent curse as footsteps hurried towards the bathroom door. He grabbed a dirty towel that hung from a rack of cleaning supplies and wound it around his arm. Gritting his teeth, he smashed his padded elbow into the dirty glass of the bathroom window. The dusty pane shattered and exploded outwards.

  The noise outside grew louder. Janjai was screaming, and someone—most likely the Thai man—was shouting.

  Might be calling for backup, Mark thought, which means if I don’t get out now, I don’t get out. Loud thuds echoed through the bathroom as the door shook. Someone was trying to break through.

  Mark took a deep breath and vaulted through the broken window into the alley behind the bar. Crouching, he looked up and down the thin strip of dirt. There was a commotion at the south end, the ocean side of town. Five armed men in civilian dress rushed around the corner, charging towards him. One dropped to his knees to take aim with a pistol. Mark launched into an all-out sprint as the weapon roared behind him. The bullets struck the dirt, sending a small cloud of dust into the air near his ankles.

  Ducking around the corner of Lucky’s Bar, he hurtled into the crowded street of Soi 8. He ran north, away from the beach. A motorized growl grew closer and closer as he ran. A three-wheeled tuk tuk followed close behind, weaving through the pedestrians and bicycles. The tiny vehicle bore the yellow and purple markings of the Royal Thai Police. Three uniformed officers rode onboard.

  This is all wrong.

  Mark increased his pace, sprinting towards a narrow alley that led towards Soi 7. Since when do the Royal Police give a damn about some counterfeit jeans and designer purses? He looked back. Unable to fit down the narrow passage, the tuk tuk had turned away. Mark figured it was probably headed down the boulevard that linked Soi 8 and Soi 7.

  Panting, Mark burst out the other end of the alley and turned north again, heading up Soi 7. Behind him, he heard the tiny vehicle screech around the corner; the driver must have anticipated his route. A wailing siren now rose above the whine of the tiny motor.

  Pedestrians and motor scooters swerved left and right, clearing the street for the police as they closed the gap. Mark gasped for breath, knowing it was only a matter of time before they caught up to him. Even at his peak, now several years behind him, he couldn’t run like this forever.

  A small truck pulled into the cross street ahead of him. The driver leaned on his horn, trying to clear the throng of pedestrians from the crosswalk ahead.

  Mark dropped to the ground and slid under the truck. The rough pavement tore at his clothes and scraped his skin. Ignoring the pain, he rolled out from under the other side of the vehicle and leapt to his feet. He turned and continued his frenzied run.

  Behind him, the tuk tuk driver slammed on the brakes, but he was too close and traveling too fast. The tiny vehicle fishtailed in the street, sending the crowd of partygoers clambering to the sidewalks. The passengers leapt from the unstable vehicle as it rolled onto its side and slammed into the truck.

  Mark couldn’t resist the slightest grin of satisfaction. He dodged to the left and ran into an outdoor beer garden. Finally, he had gained some distance on his pursuers. The sirens and shouting grew fainter as he lost himself in the crowd.

  Mark stood in a shadowy corner of the Venus Club, a sleek, modern structure of glass and chrome, built to resemble a popular bar in Bangkok. The bar’s interior was a sci-fi fantasy: each of the club’s go-go dancers held a laser pointer, which they flashed around the room as they slithered and swayed atop their chrome pedestals.

  The glass-enclosed bar was suspended above a parking garage in the wealthy, modern neighborhood of Amaya Hill. Several beautiful Thai girls danced near the edge of the structure, grinding their bodies against the clear walls. They aimed their lasers at the pedestrians below, hoping to lure more young, rich partygoers into the club.

  Ignoring the beams of light dancing over his body, Mark scanned the crowd from a second-level catwalk. The height gave him a bird’s-eye view of the girls and their customers, and the shadows helped hide his torn, dirty clothes. He had been able to avoid the police so far, but he knew they were still looking for him. He would have to keep a low profile until he could get out of the city.

  Still early in the evening, the crowd was sparse. As he surveyed the room, he spotted the man he had been looking for. Lau Somchai.

  He watched as the short, chubby man ambled into the club, laughing and gesturing expansively with his arms. He wore a loud Hawaiian shirt and expensive-looking slacks. The bar girls immediately marked him as “money” and began moving closer, teasing their laser beams across his body. The lights danced across his partner’s face. Mark saw quick flashes of greasy, pockmarked skin and dark, beady eyes.

  Lau peeled off baht notes from a shiny money clip and tossed them onto the bar with a flourish. The bartenders set up a round of drinks for Lau and the lingerie-clad girls that surrounded him. All the girls were beautiful, but Mark knew Lau’s favorite was Kandi. Within minutes, the waif-like Thai-Filipino girl was at his side. She laughed and ran her hands across Lau’s sweaty, bald head while whispering into his ear.

  Lau threw down some more money, then took Kandi’s hand as she led him up the metal stairs to the catwalk. Mark left his perch for one of the small glass rooms that surrounded the slender s
tage. It’s only a matter of time now, he thought. Hopefully, he’d paid Kandi more than Lau had.

  Inside the room were dark velvet curtains, and Mark drew them closed. Outside, the loud beats of dance music overrode all other sound. The bass washed over his body like an ocean wave, penetrating him to the core, shaking his bowels and organs. Mark stood motionless in the corner next to the door, waiting in the darkness.

  He didn’t flinch when the door opened, even though he could neither hear nor see anyone approach. Two shadowy figures appeared: Kandi and Lau. Should have paid more for the lap dance, you cheap bastard!

  Mark let Lau walk past him before emerging from his corner. He slid his body between the short, pudgy man and Kandi. Before either Lau or the dancer could react, Mark lifted his right foot and stomped down hard on the inside of Lau’s knee. With a surprised grunt, Lau lurched forward and tripped. He landed face-first on the plush velvet couch that dominated the room.

  “Take a seat, partner.”

  Mark kept his back neutral, not wanting to give Kandi an opportunity to betray him. He turned and saw that the petite brunette in purple lingerie hadn’t even entered the room. Mark held up a wad of bills. “Thank you,” he said. There was no warmth in his voice.

  Kandi blinked as a barrage of green lasers flashed over their faces through the open door. She took one look at Mark’s cold, hard eyes, grabbed the money, and hurried off. He swung back to face Lau.

  He shut the door to the room, muting the music outside. Lau gasped and groaned as he pulled himself up to a seated position on the couch. Mark pulled aside a curtain, letting a crack of light into the room. When Lau saw his face, the look of confused anger melted away, replaced by an almost supernatural calm.

  “Waters. I knew you come looking for me.”

  “I was worried about you, friend. Had a little run-in with the Royal Police this morning. Figured if they were after me, they might come looking for you.” Mark gestured with his hands and looked around the room. “But, obviously you’re not too concerned. Not enough to stop chasing underage tail, anyway.”