The Tunnel Rats (Coronet books)

by Stephen Leather

  ‘One of my favourites.’

  ‘Guess we don’t need to rehearse, then,’ said Wright, raising his harmonica to his lips.

  Doc looked at him with an expression that came close to amazement, then he shrugged and nodded curtly at Ramirez. The drummer came in quickly as if trying to catch Wright off guard, four taps of his sticks to get the beat and then straight into it. He was joined almost immediately by O’Leary.

  Wright took the chorus, his harmonica taking the place of the vocals, and Doc stood at the side of the stage, listening and tapping his right foot. Wright closed his eyes and concentrated on hitting the notes right.

  As he finished the chorus, Hammack joined in, but it was Doc who took the solo, turning his back on Wright and putting everything into it.

  Doc turned sideways on and flashed a look at Wright, letting him know that the chorus was his again, but Wright didn’t lift his harmonica. Instead he sang, with his eyes closed because he didn’t want to see Doc’s reaction or be distracted by it.

  There was a whooping cheer from the far side of the bar and Wright opened his eyes. It was the Canadian, pumping his fist into the air.

  The bass player joined in as Doc took the next verse. Doc threw in a few improvisations as if trying to show Wright what he was capable of. Wright remained stony faced, his eyes fixed on the saxophone as he tried to get a feel for Doc’s rhythm. Doc finished the verse and nodded at Wright. Wright raised the harmonica to his lips and played, this time keeping his eyes on Doc’s face. Doc smiled and folded his arms around his saxophone. When Wright finished the chorus, Doc nodded again.

  Wright stepped closer to his microphone, arching his neck up as he sang. Doc turned to O’Leary as the verse ended and nodded, then gave Hammack a sideways glance. They all hit the chorus together, and Wright joined in with his harmonica. They finished with a flourish and the audience erupted. Wright felt the appreciation wash over him. Ramirez was grinning and Hammack gave Wright an enthusiastic thumbs-up.

  Doc walked over to Wright. ‘A singing policeman,’ he said. ‘Where the hell did you learn to sing?’

  ‘I was in a band at university,’ said Wright. ‘Pubs and stuff.’

  ‘You’re good,’ said Doc.

  ‘Nah,’ said Wright.

  ‘You wanna do another?’

  ‘Sure.’

  ‘You know “It’s Rainin’ In My Life”?’ Doc asked.

  ‘Yeah. Mine too.’ Wright grinned. ‘Yeah, I know it.’

  Doc turned around and primed the rest of the band, then went immediately into it. Wright played harmonica, singing only when he came to the chorus, but when they moved seamlessly into ‘Honky Tonk’ Wright started to sing again.

  Without a break they went into a medley of Howlin’ Wolf songs. Wright felt as if Doc was testing him, seeing if he was able to spot the cues. Several times Doc threw solos at him, allowing Wright to jam on the harmonica, then quickly coming in on his sax, taking the lead back and switching tunes, then throwing it back to Wright. Wright enjoyed the challenge, and after half an hour was confident enough to be able to relax and enjoy himself. When Doc eventually brought the set to a halt, the nightclub burst into applause.

  Wright went back to the bar where Civel hugged him and clapped him on the back. ‘Bloody brilliant, man. Fantastique.’

  Wright picked up his bottle and drank the last of his lager. Civel ordered him another.

  ‘You can sing, man,’ said Civel. ‘You can really sing.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  The members of The Jazz Club were making their way over to their regular seats. Wright clinked bottles with Civel, then went over to join them.

  Doc was whispering something to O’Leary, but he moved back as Wright approached. ‘Pull up a chair, Nick,’ said Doc.

  ‘Nice harp-playing,’ said Ramirez.

  ‘It’s just a hobby,’ said Wright, sitting down on the sofa next to Hammack.

  ‘You could do it professionally,’ said O’Leary, pouring the contents of his bottle of Singha into a glass.

  ‘You could, too,’ said Wright. ‘Why don’t you?’

  O’Leary shrugged. ‘Not much call for wheelchair-bound musicians,’ he said bitterly. ‘These days it’s all pretty boys and dance routines.’

  ‘Bullshit,’ said Wright. ‘You’re a musician, a good one. You could play with any band in the UK or the States. Doc said you played with Clapton.’

  ‘He was out here on tour and he dropped by one night, that’s all.’

  ‘You held your own, Dennis,’ said Doc. He stabbed his cigarette at Wright. ‘Clapton offered Dennis a gig in the States, but he turned him down.’

  ‘It wasn’t a definite offer, Doc,’ said O’Leary.

  ‘Damn was, Dennis, and you know it. You just didn’t want to leave your wife alone.’

  Ramirez’s fan club clustered around him, four young Thai girls in short skirts and tank tops. They were flirting outrageously, vying for his attention, flicking their long hair and batting their eyelashes like crazy. Ramirez talked to them in Thai and they giggled.

  ‘I went to see the cop who’s investigating Eric Horvitz’s death,’ Wright said to Doc. ‘He didn’t seem to be making much progress.’

  ‘And you’re surprised at that?’ asked Doc. ‘Eric was a farang.’

  ‘A farang?’

  ‘It’s what they call foreigners. Investigating the murder of a farang isn’t exactly a money-making opportunity, so we’re pretty low on their list of priorities.’

  ‘What’s money got to do with it?’ asked Wright, confused.

  Doc sighed as if he’d been asked by a child to explain why the sky was blue. ‘People here don’t join the cops out of a sense of public service,’ he said.

  ‘What, like they do in the States?’ interrupted Hammack, his voice loaded with sarcasm. He spat the gum he’d been chewing into an ashtray.

  Doc ignored him. ‘They join for one reason – to make money. The traffic cops take bribes from motorists, the guys back in the station take a percentage, everyone gets a cut. The higher up the ladder they can climb, the more they get. You want to open a bar in Bangkok, you have to pay the cops. You want to start a business, you talk to the cops. You get arrested, you pay off the cops.’

  ‘Are you saying they don’t investigate murders here?’

  ‘No, that’s not what I’m saying. Most murders are domestics: a wife stabs her unfaithful husband, husband has one drink too many and hits his wife too hard, kids arguing with parents over money, and they get put away, though they usually serve less than ten years. No, what I’m saying is that if the crime doesn’t solve itself, they’re not going to put in any effort, not unless there’s going to be a pay-off.’

  ‘And where would the pay-off be in solving a murder?’

  Doc looked across at Hammack and winked. ‘The innocent abroad, isn’t he?’ He waved his bottle of Singha at Wright. ‘Did you tie your white horse up outside, Nick? Checked your suit of armour at the door? You’re not in bloody old England now. You can get someone killed in Bangkok for less than a hundred US dollars. Hitman on a motorbike, bullet in the back of the head.’ He mimed pulling a trigger. ‘Pop!’ He took a swig from his bottle. ‘Happens every day. Now, do the cops investigate? Yes, if the victim’s rich or well connected, because if the victim’s a somebody, then the guy who paid for the hit is probably a somebody, too. And being a somebody in this country means only one thing: money. So sure, they’ll try to solve the murder then, because if they can come up with a suspect who’s got money, they can take a bribe to let him off.’

  ‘That happens?’

  ‘Sure it happens. The hitman will probably go to prison for a few years, but the guy who paid him will take care of his family and give him a bonus. It’s typical Thailand, everyone comes out of it making a profit.’

  ‘Except the victim?’

  ‘Yeah. Except the victim.’

  ‘So you reckon this Vasan isn’t going to solve Eric’s murder?’

  �
��Eric didn’t have any rich enemies; hell, he didn’t have any enemies at all. He wasn’t the boss of a big company, the orphanage was a non-profit-making body.’

  ‘He had money, though.’

  ‘Who told you that?’ asked Doc, leaning forward. He pulled a cigarette out of its pack, lit it with his Zippo, and put the red and white pack and the lighter on the low table in front of him.

  ‘One of the nuns. She said Eric paid for everything.’

  ‘He did, but through a trust fund he’d set up. No one could have made a profit from Eric’s death.’

  Wright put down his bottle of lager. ‘Where did Eric get his money from?’

  Doc shrugged. ‘He never said. He turned up in Bangkok five years ago. Before that he was in Saigon. Before that he was in the States, living rough on the Canadian border.’

  ‘Living rough?’

  ‘I guess he went a little crazy after he got back home. Went off to live by himself in the woods.’

  ‘Back home?’

  Doc went suddenly still as if he’d just realised that he’d said too much. Hammack, Ramirez and O’Leary sat looking at him. Ramirez waved the girls away. They pouted and went over to stand by the bar. Wright waited, knowing it was a turning point in the conversation: Doc could either shut up, change the subject, or continue. It was a moment Wright recognised from countless interviews with suspects and witnesses and he knew there was no way he could influence the way Doc would jump. All he could do was wait.

  Doc blew smoke out through his nostrils as he stared at Wright. ‘Back to the world,’ he said eventually. ‘From Vietnam. He was a Vietnam vet, and he had a rough war. Post traumatic stress syndrome they call it now. Crazy, they called it back then. Eric went crazy, but no more than thousands of others. Did you know that fifty-eight thousand Americans died in the war? But many more than that went on to commit suicide after they got back. You don’t see their names on the wall.’

  ‘The wall?’

  ‘The Vietnam War Memorial in Washington. All the names of the dead are on that wall, they say, but that’s shit because they forget about the ones that took their own lives. Tens of thousands of suicides, probably more than a hundred thousand if you count all the car wrecks and drug overdoses. Where are their names, Sergeant Wright? Who remembers them?’

  ‘What about your war, Doc?’ asked Wright quietly. ‘What was your war like?’

  Doc looked at him, his eyes bloodshot and watery. He looked suddenly tired. ‘You don’t want to know about my war,’ he said.

  ‘I can’t imagine what it must have been like, to have been sent thousands of miles away from your home to fight a war in a country you knew nothing about. I can barely walk through Bangkok without getting covered in sweat, it must have been hell to have been sent into the jungle carrying a gun. Being shot at.’

  ‘Ever been in a war zone?’ asked Doc.

  Wright shook his head.

  ‘So you’d never understand, even if I spent a hundred years trying to describe it.’

  ‘And Eckhardt? What was his war like?’

  Doc’s eyes hardened. Wright could feel the barriers building up. ‘How would I know?’ asked Doc.

  ‘I just thought that maybe he was a Vietnam War vet, too. That seems to be the common thread, right? You, Eric. And Bernie, Sergio and Dennis, you’re all about the same age, all American, I just assumed . . .’

  ‘You assume a lot,’ said Doc coldly.

  ‘What about you, Dennis?’ Wright asked O’Leary.

  O’Leary flinched as if he’d been struck. ‘What?’

  ‘Your tour of duty in Vietnam. Is that where you were injured?’

  O’Leary looked at Doc. Doc gave a small shake of his head, the sort of gesture he used to such good effect when they were playing. O’Leary looked away and said nothing.

  ‘Maybe it’s time you left,’ said Doc.

  ‘Why did you take the photograph down?’ Wright asked.

  ‘What photograph?’ asked Doc.

  ‘You know what photograph. Did you think I hadn’t seen it? Did you think that if you took it down I’d convince myself that I’d imagined it?’

  Doc said nothing.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Wright pressed. ‘Why the secrecy? They were friends of yours and they were murdered. Don’t you want to know who the killer is?’

  ‘We know,’ said O’Leary bitterly.

  Doc flashed him a withering look and O’Leary put up his hands as if warding off an attack.

  ‘Why don’t we tell him?’ asked O’Leary.

  ‘This isn’t the time or the place,’ said Doc.

  ‘You name it,’ said Wright.

  Doc glared at the detective. ‘You’re an outsider here, Sergeant Wright, and you’ve overstayed your welcome.’

  ‘There are still some questions . . .’

  ‘You’re not in England now,’ said Doc. ‘We don’t have to tell you anything.’

  ‘I just thought . . .’

  ‘You just thought that if you came along and jammed with us then we’d open up to you like shucked oysters.’ Doc stood up. He looked across at Hammack. Hammack stood up, too, his massive arms swinging at his side. ‘You can leave under your own steam, or I can provide an alternative. It’s up to you,’ said Doc.

  Wright could see that it was pointless arguing. ‘Okay, I can take a hint,’ he said. ‘Do you mind if I have a cigarette?’ Before Doc could say anything, he leaned over and picked up the pack of Marlboro and the lighter.

  ‘Didn’t realise you smoked,’ said Doc.

  Wright took out a cigarette and lit it. He looked at the Zippo. The rat engraved on the side grinned up at him. Wright flipped the lighter over. A Latin phrase was inscribed on the back: Non Gratum Anus Rodentum.

  Doc took the lighter and the pack from Wright. He nodded at the door.

  Wright smiled thinly and held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘I can tell when I’m not wanted,’ he said. On his way to the swing doors he stubbed out the unsmoked cigarette.

  The three flaming torches soared high in the air and the juggler looked up optimistically, his top hat perched precariously on the back of his head. He caught them one by one to scattered applause while a young girl with braided blonde hair walked around with a Harrods bag collecting change from the spectators. As he continued to whirl the torches around his head, the juggler flicked off his top hat and caught it deftly with his right foot.

  Gerry Hunter walked behind the crowd and headed for a row of small speciality stores at the far end of Covent Garden. The shop he was looking for was in the middle. Game For A Laugh, it was called, and the window display consisted of board games and books, including more than a dozen different chess sets. Hunter pushed open the door and a bell ding-donged at the back of the store. A balding, overweight man in rolled-up shirtsleeves was sitting behind the counter reading a chess book. He looked up and nodded at Hunter, then went back to his book.

  Hunter was the only customer. There were glass-display cases containing more chess sets and stacks of board games, some like Monopoly and Cluedo that Hunter remembered from his childhood, but many that he’d never seen before. Hunter went over to the glass counter. On a shelf below it he saw what he was looking for: dozens of packs of playing cards.

  ‘Help you?’ said the man, putting down his book.

  Hunter showed him his warrant card. ‘I’m interested in a playing card,’ he said, taking the plastic bag containing the ace of spades from his coat pocket.

  The man took it. ‘Is that blood?’ he asked.

  Hunter nodded. ‘Do you know who made the card?’

  ‘Sure do,’ said the man. ‘The United States Playing Card Company. Biggest card company in the world.’ He turned the card over. ‘What made the hole?’ he asked. ‘A bullet?’

  Hunter ignored the question. ‘Is there anything special about the card?’

  The man’s lower lip jutted forward and he frowned, as if thinking was an effort. ‘Not that I can think of,’ he said. He scrat
ched his bald head, and flakes of skin drifted down on to the counter. ‘They’ve got several brands. This one they call Bicycle.’

  ‘Any idea why?’

  The man shrugged. ‘Just a name, I think.’ He showed the front of the card to Hunter. ‘See the woman here? The white figure? That’s only on the Bicycle brand.’

  Hunter took the card off him. ‘Do you know much about the cards?’

  ‘I’m more of a chess buff,’ said the man, indicating the display case full of chess pieces and boards. ‘If I had my way that’s all I’d sell, but there’s not the call for them that there was. It’s computers or fantasy games. Even playing cards don’t sell like they used to. What is it you want to know?’

  ‘That’s the thing,’ said Hunter. ‘I’m not really sure.’

  The man nodded at the card in Hunter’s hand. ‘It’s a clue, right?’

  Hunter smiled thinly. ‘Yeah, it’s a clue. A big clue. But I haven’t the faintest idea what it means. Do you know of anyone who is a real card expert? Somebody who might be able to tell me something about the history of playing cards, stuff like that.’

  ‘Try the card company,’ said the man. ‘Their head office is in Cincinnati, Ohio.’ He scratched his peeling scalp again.

  Hunter thanked him and headed back to his office. He wasn’t sure what the time difference was between Cincinnati and London, but he figured it must be about six hours. He had time for a quick bite in the canteen before he called the company.

  Wright managed to find a taxi driver who spoke reasonable English and he explained that he wanted to sit and watch the bar for a while. ‘Five hundred baht for one hour,’ said the driver.

  ‘Whatever,’ said Wright. He settled back in his seat. The driver tuned his radio to a Thai pop station and adjusted the airconditioning. After an hour, there was still no sign of the members of The Jazz Club leaving Cowboy Nights.

  The driver turned around and held out his hand. ‘One more hour, five hundred baht,’ he said. Wright handed over another purple banknote.