The Tale of the Lazy Dog

by Alan Williams

  ‘We don’t know we are,’ Ryderbeit snarled.

  ‘Probably we’re not. Because again — unless they tortured Finlayson before they put the nail in — they may not know exactly what he did know. And that’s important. They may not have known about the Vietnam angle at all — just that Finlayson had become bent and was going to move in on something big. So they skip the polite diplomatic courtesies and take a short cut. They arrange — in the official CIA jargon — to have Finlayson “terminated with extreme prejudice”. A little unofficial dirty work. They have him removed.’

  ‘The CIA? Conquest and his lads?’

  ‘It depends how seriously you take them.’

  ‘They’re serious. But how would Conquest have heard about it? Unless through his lovely little wife, who just happened to hear someone mutterin’ in his sleep about one billion dollars!’ He was sitting on the edge of the bed now, smiling brightly through the smoke. ‘Eh soldier?’

  Murray sat as relaxed as he could, watching Ryderbeit’s long thin hands under the candlelight. ‘She doesn’t know a damned thing,’ he said at last. ‘And even if she did, he’d be the last person she’d tell.’

  ‘Oh yes?’

  ‘She doesn’t like him, for a start. And as for talking in my sleep, there was no sleep.’

  Ryderbeit knocked a finger of ash on to the floor, crushing it under his suede boot. ‘You’d better be right, Murray boy. For your sake as well as Mrs Conquest’s. As for Filling-Station — well, so it was the spooks put the nail into the poor sod. But where does that leave us?’

  ‘Washed up. The show’s over, Sammy. Let’s cut our losses and clear out before they start sending little men with hammers and nails after us while we’re asleep.’

  ‘Now wait a minute. You’re being selfish, soldier. You’re not the only one, y’know. There’s still me and Jones —’

  ‘I’m not stopping you. I’m just passing.’

  ‘Passing applecrap!’ Ryderbeit roared, slamming the tumbler down on the table and dashing the candle over into darkness. ‘We don’t know they know anything. We can’t prove a bloody thing.’ He got the candle going again with his lighter, then looked across the flame with his mean, crooked smile: ‘Shall I tell you what’s wrong with you? You think too bloody much. There’s more than one thousand million bucks sitting somewhere out there waiting for us — remember! And you’re trying to funk out on some lousy half-baked hunch that Finlayson blew us. How could he? What did he have to tell them? — that some nutty scribbler’s dreamt up a plan to knock off a billion of Uncle Sam’s greenbacks? Don’t make me laugh! You think they’d take it seriously?’

  ‘Finlayson’s dead — they’re going to have to take that seriously. Besides, even if we aren’t blown, we can’t act without Finlayson. We can’t even find out the time of the next flush-out.’

  ‘To hell we can’t! What about this Frenchman o’ yours down in Cambodia? He’s on the inside, isn’t he — just as much as Finlayson ever was?’

  Murray hesitated. The truth was, he did not quite know how far Pol was on the inside. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘supposing you do find out, and manage to seize the plane at Tân Sơn Nhất — how are you going to get rid of the stuff? Fly it up here into Laos, transfer it to a routine rollercoaster, and then what? Sit with five tons of dollars on top of a mountain for the rest of your life, just looking at the stuff and watching it turn mouldy in the rainy season?’

  Ryderbeit sat stroking his long throat. ‘We’ll think o’ something. Fly into Burma maybe, or up to Kathmandu. Use one o’ the opium trails down into India. As you said yourself, with that kind o’ money you can buy a whole Government.’

  ‘You go ahead, Sammy. You can have my films of the dam, for what they’re worth, and I’ll put you in touch with Pol, and with young Sergeant Wace of the U.S. Military Police. As for Mrs Conquest — well, you’ll have to chat her up yourself, if you still want that Red Alert. You’re on your own now.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘Me? I think too much.’ He grinned and poured more whisky. ‘Sorry, I’ve got the wind up and I’m taking off — on the morning plane to Bangkok.’

  ‘You booked?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘It’s a crowded flight down to Bangkok. Might not be a seat.’

  ‘Don’t be so optimistic. I’ve learnt at least one truth as a journalist — there’s no such thing as a full airplane or a full newspaper. Only don’t worry, this is one frontpage story that’s going to remain between just you and me, and Filling-Station’s grave. Cheers!’

  CHAPTER 6

  The morning was damp and heavy, with a curtain of rain creeping across the fields towards the edge of the runway. Murray stood at the airport bar, past Police and Immigration Control, and risked a beer before take-off, casting a sore sleepless eye over his fellow passengers. Mostly Laotian and Thai businessmen, a couple of families, a few French traders. Nothing out of the ordinary; nothing to suggest the presence of a hired assassin. But then nothing, he remembered, was quite as you expected in the little Kingdom of Laos.

  The loudspeaker was jabbering, passengers beginning to move towards the departure doors. A hostess greeted him with a brilliant smile, despite his morning stubble, and gave him his boarding card. Halfway across to the Royal Thai Airways plane a tiny old Laotian lady walking just ahead of him suddenly swayed and crumpled on to the tarmac. He went to help her, taking hold of one frail arm, then paused, astonished at her weight. Under her silk blouse and ankle-length sin she must have been wearing her 24-carat gold like a suit of chainmail. She began shrieking angrily in Lao as another old crone hurried to her aid.

  Murray moved on, thinking, And the best of Lao luck to her! She’d be a rich little old lady at the end of her journey; whereas what did he have to show for his four days’ trip? A few cuts and bruises, and a hangover.

  A moment later the rain hit the tarmac and he began to run.

  PART 6: THE FAT MAN

  CHAPTER 1

  ‘Monsieur Pol. Please.’

  The eyes behind the desk slid sideways and a fine-boned man in a dark business suit moved out from a glass partition, bowing with fingers steepled under his brow in the traditional Thai greeting.

  ‘Yes sir?’

  ‘Charles Pol. The King Rama suite. He’s expecting me.’

  ‘Your name sir?’

  ‘Wilde.’

  ‘Yes sir. One moment please, Mister Wilde.’ He bowed again and glided back behind the partition.

  Murray spoke to the first man at the desk, leaving his canvas grip-bag with him; then stood in the big cool lobby and waited. It was crowded, mostly with American tourists — slouched grey creatures in expensive casual clothes, with that tired baffled look of people worn-out by too much leisure. Several minutes passed. He bought a copy of the Bangkok World and scanned the foreign news. Finlayson’s death was on page one, in a boxed paragraph datelined AFP Vientiane, under the headline: Mystery Slaying of British Banker. The Laotian police were stepping up their hunt for the killers, believed to be bandits. But there were still no details as to how he had been killed: only that he had been murdered during the previous day at his riverside house in Vientiane.

  The Thai receptionist had moved soundlessly up to him. ‘Mister Wilde. Please, this way.’ Murray followed him across a quarter of an acre of carpet that lapped round the soles of his shoes, up some shallow stairs past the Rama Coffee Shop and Cocktail Lounge, shelves of gifts, magazines, jewellery, down a long cool corridor, stopping at a varnished door. ‘Please sir, enter!’

  Murray stepped into damp scented heat. A girl rose from behind a desk and led him over to a sheet of plate-glass, like an observation window. Inside, under stark strip lighting, sat a row of girls, all identically pretty and expressionless, in short white hospital coats. Murray pointed to the nearest one to save time, and she came out with fingertips touching, smiling as she took his hand and led him down a linoleum passage to a second door. From inside came the thump and splatter of hands on
wet flesh. She was already helping him off with his jacket when a voice called through the discreet nightclub lighting: ‘Ah mon cher Murray! Comment ça va?’

  ‘Ça va,’ said Murray, unbuttoning his shirt. ‘And you?’

  ‘Ah, this city! Too many Americans in too many cars. I’m not used to it. Ayee!’ he cried, as the girl over him began a rapid drumroll on the back of his thighs.

  Murray looked across at the adjacent bench and could just make out a mountain of flesh lolling on its belly, all pink and shiny like a giant fresh-peeled shrimp, buttocks divided into confusing folds of fat, his huge shoulders creased down the middle like more buttocks, the whole body topped with a great egg-shaped head on which the hair grew in damp spirals, signing off with a kiss curl draped over the dome of his brow. His little goatee beard was dripping sweat steadily on to the floor.

  Murray stepped out of his clothes and lay down on the bench beside Pol. Murray’s girl had unfastened her coat, letting it hang open as she went to work. Like her partner she wore only a pair of navy-blue pants underneath. Murray relaxed under the tiny strong fingers which started first on his shoulders.

  ‘You had no trouble getting in?’ Pol asked: ‘No complications downstairs?’

  ‘I was kept waiting for some time at the desk,’ Murray said, still speaking French, which is not widely understood in Thailand.

  ‘Bien. But you had no trouble?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  The Frenchman’s eyes were closed, his cherry lips parted in a half-smile as the masseuse bent over him, kneading the deep mounds in the small of his back. ‘A little matter of security, that’s all. This morning someone tried to kill me.’

  Murray went rigid under the girl’s hands. ‘You’re joking?’

  ‘Joking!’ Pol gave his peel of high-pitched laughter. ‘My dear Murray, I have a sense of humour — but I trust not a gallows humour. I still enjoy life.’

  Murray lay with a dull lump growing in his guts. ‘What happened?’

  ‘They sent me a bomb for breakfast. Plastique in a brandy bottle. Imagine the impudence of it.’

  ‘You know who it was?’

  ‘Eh bien —’ he shrugged a shoulder like a side of beef — ‘not precisely. But I have my ideas. They were professionals, for a start. The explosive was packed in a carton with the detonators primed to go off as I opened the lid. Simple, but subtle. In fact, if it hadn’t been so subtle I’d be dead now. You see, they exaggerated on the details. Always a mistake — especially when the details are good. It came up beautifully wrapped, with a typed note saying “compliments of the management”. And as I’m in the best suite, right up on the roof, at eighty-five dollars a day, I was only agreeably surprised — until I noticed the label. Hine VSOP — my favourite of the ordinary brands.’ His red lips opened slyly: ‘And in Bangkok of all places! I was more than surprised now — I became curious. You see, I have a nose for these things. I got a knife and slit the box open from the bottom. The wiring and detonator were an excellent job. They knew what they were doing.’

  ‘The same people who killed Finlayson?’

  ‘Ah! There we can only guess. And guesswork in these matters, my dear Murray, can be a dangerous occupation. What do they say in the papers — that he was killed by bandits, don’t they?’

  ‘If that’s what they want to believe.’ Murray glanced across at the glistening pink face on the bench beside him, wondering for a moment if Pol’s tone were just a little too casual for the occasion? ‘Whoever killed him was looking for something — and it wasn’t money.’

  ‘Ah oui?’ The Frenchman had hauled himself on to one elbow, blinking through tears of sweat. ‘How can you be sure?’

  ‘I was there — I found him. And his wallet was still in his pocket, stuffed with money.’

  Pol grunted and rolled on to his back. He said nothing, and for a moment there was just the smack of hands on his loose trembling breasts.

  ‘How did they find out you were staying here?’ Murray said at last.

  ‘Oh I didn’t make it a secret. Perhaps I should have done, as it’s begun to turn out.’

  ‘And who pays for the King Rama Suite?’

  Pol tittered, his eyes still closed: ‘My dear Murray, that’s not very delicate of you!’

  ‘Nor of you, Charles. If someone’s trying to kill you, you’re making it pretty easy for them.’

  ‘So what would you have me do? Seek asylum in the French Embassy?’

  ‘Move into another hotel.’

  ‘And risk even less security, for less comfort? The arrangements here are as good as I’ll get anywhere — unless I choose to involve the police, which I don’t! The management is most discreet. Besides, I like it here. And a man must live.’ He smiled luxuriously as the girl’s hands crept round his groin where his genitalia sprouted beneath his Buddha belly like a second umbilical cord.

  ‘You’re not afraid?’ said Murray.

  ‘Afraid! Ah mon cher, the string of my life is by now so long that when I pull it, I can’t feel the end.’

  ‘You’re in great danger.’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘They’ll try again.’

  ‘We shall see.’ He relaxed happily as the girl worked in vain to coax the turtle-head out of his loins. ‘I shall be leaving Bangkok late this afternoon — but first we have some business to discuss. What progress have you made in Laos?’

  ‘I found two pilots,’ said Murray. ‘Or rather, they found me. Through Finlayson’s agency, I suspect.’

  Pol nodded, still without opening his eyes. ‘Americans?’

  ‘One is a Negro — a navigator who seems about as good as they come. The other’s a Rhodesian — a mad Jew who’s been run out of his own country, out of South Africa, South America, and almost every other trouble-spot you can name. This is about the last place that’ll have him — outside the Communist bloc.’

  ‘Ah. Is he a man of the Left?’

  ‘Slightly to the Left of Genghis Khan, I’d say’ — and he sensed Pol wobbling with silent laughter beside him. ‘He fought for Tshombe in the Congo.’

  Pol’s laughter went on for several seconds, while he wiped the sweat out of his eyes and beard. ‘To the Left of Genghis Khan,’ he repeated: ‘Oh that’s good, Murray, that’s very good!’ He chuckled away to himself for a few more moments, then added: ‘And what sort of pilot is he?’

  ‘The best — when he’s not drunk. The trouble is, he’s just got the sack from Air U.S.A.’

  ‘That’s no problem. We can’t use him anyway for the second flight. That will have to be a regular, scheduled rice-drop, everything above board. Two other pilots, and a team of kickers. Otherwise they’ll immediately smell a rat.’

  Murray swung up on one elbow, staring hard at him: ‘Two more pilots? And where the hell do we find them?’

  ‘I’ll find them. Don’t worry, my dear Murray, Air U.S.A. doesn’t employ men of such great integrity, as you know yourself. There are pilots — and pilots.’

  ‘And the kickers?’

  Pol shrugged an enormous shoulder. ‘Thai paratroopers, aren’t they? Mercenaries — nothing more. For a small consideration — a few dollars — they will be persuaded to walk back home. By the time they arrive, we shall be away — home and dry. But tell me more about this Rhodesian and his navigator. Are they reliable?’

  ‘They’re mercenaries — like the kickers. They’ll do it for money.’

  ‘Bien! And when say they’re good pilots, how do you know?’

  ‘They brought us back out of the mountains over North Vietnam on one engine in a storm, with no radar or a radio-compass, and crash-landed us safely in a field.’

  ‘North Vietnam?’ Pol jerked his head up several inches off the bench. ‘You did say North Vietnam?’

  ‘That’s right. We strayed over the border. But it wasn’t the pilots’ fault — the plane was overloaded and missed the drop zone.’

  Pol’s girl was finishing his massage now by pulling out each of his finger joints w
ith a slippery snap that made Murray wince. ‘Does anyone know about this?’ Pol asked.

  ‘Only myself and the two pilots. And a girl.’

  ‘A girl?’ The Frenchman’s voice had hardened as the masseuse knelt down and started on his toes — sh-nick, sh-nick! ‘What girl?’

  Murray shrugged, seeing little point in lying at this stage. ‘A French girl who’s married to one of the CIA chiefs presently working in Laos, otherwise Saigon.’

  Pol had sat up very quickly and was staring beady-eyed at him — a bearded Buddha who was not afraid of a bomb in a brandy bottle, but was now deeply disturbed by the wife of a CIA man in an obscure corner of the earth. ‘My dear Murray.’ His voice had dropped several notes. ‘This is not a joke?’

  ‘No. I don’t have a gallows humour either.’ Pol’s girl had stood up and went over to run him a bubble bath. ‘She’s an amateur photographer, and just happened to come along for the ride.’

  ‘Just happened?’ Pol’s tone was rich with Gallic irony: ‘Just happened to be there when you made contact with the two pilots?’

  Murray sighed wearily. It seemed he had been through this scene once before. ‘It’s not quite like that at all. For a start, she doesn’t love her husband.’

  ‘Oh?’ Pol cocked an eyebrow under his kiss curl. ‘You know her very well?’

  ‘I spent a night with her in Luang Prabang. I know her.’ He used the verb savoir, and Pol chuckled as he lowered his weight on to the duckboards and waddled like some monstrously inflated baby over to the bath.

  ‘There’s another thing,’ Murray called: ‘She happens to work as secretary and factotum to General Virgil Luther Greene — the boy who’s in charge of Saigon security.’

  ‘And her husband?’

  ‘I don’t think she tells him much. She didn’t even tell him she was going on the drop.’