by Jake Needham
“Who else here?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
The man pointed past me into the living room. “Here. In house. Who else?”
“Oh,” I said, going back to speaking loudly with exaggerated intonation. “You are asking if anybody else is with me in this house, yes?”
The man wiggled the finger with which he was pointing into the living room. “Who here?”
“Me,” I said, tapping myself on the chest with my forefinger. “Only me. The house belongs to a friend who is in New York. She’s letting me use it for a few days. There’s nobody here but me.”
“You only?”
“Yes, me only.”
All of a sudden the army officer’s eyes shifted up and over my shoulder. I wondered for just a moment what had caught his attention, and then I heard the footsteps coming down the stairs.
I sighed heavily and my whole body sagged. I had almost done it. I had almost gotten rid of these guys. Why couldn’t Kate have stayed asleep a little longer? And why, for God’s sake, did she have to come downstairs after she woke up? Was she that groggy without her coffee, or did she just have a death wish?
“Who are these people?” I heard her saying behind me. “What in the world is going on here?”
The army officer shifted his eyes back to me and I saw in them the unmistakable look of triumph. He had the foreigner dead to rights, and there was nothing a Thai liked better than nailing a foreigner dead to rights.
She walked up next to me and put her hand on my shoulder. It was an oddly affectionate gesture, I thought, particularly under the circumstances. I glanced quickly over at her and then back at the army officer. All I really registered was that she had put on jeans and a t-shirt, too. Wasn’t that nice? We were going to prison dressed as twins.
“You tell me only you here,” the officer snapped, his eyes cold.
I nodded. I didn’t say anything. There was really nothing I could say.
“Who this?” he asked.
“Huh?” How was it possible he didn’t recognize Kate?
“I say who this?”
This time the officer pointed to make sure I knew exactly who he was talking about.
“You mean you don’t know?” I blurted.
Then my eyes followed the man's pointing finger and my mouth slowly began to open.
Because I didn’t know who it was either.
Not for a moment or two.
And then I did.
“WHAT ARE THESE soldiers doing here?” Alisa asked me.
Alisa, the bartender at Le Bouchon. Alisa the supplier of bikes, and guns, and clothes. Alisa, the Mata Hari of the resistance.
That Alisa.
She was standing there right next to me, squeezing my shoulder adoringly, and giving me the most loving smile.
What the fuck?
FIFTY-TWO
ALISA AND THE army officer chatted a bit in Thai while I pretended not to understand what they were saying. She told him she was my girlfriend and he let the euphemism pass without comment. He did ask to see her Thai ID, a national identity card all Thais are required to carry. She went upstairs and brought it down, and the officer examined it with the same care he had devoted to examining my passport.
When Alisa asked the army officer if he wanted to come in and look around, I damn near shit myself. But I was careful to keep my face empty and show no sign of comprehension.
Why would Alisa do that?
Then I realized what the answer to that question was.
Kate wasn’t there. She was gone.
I lost interest in the conversation after that, but it didn’t last much longer, anyway. After another minute or two, the officer stepped back and snapped off another of those crisp salutes.
“Sawadee krap,” he said. “Khap khun krap.” Goodbye. Thank you.
I nodded. “You’re welcome.”
And then I closed the door.
Neither Alisa nor I said a word. We just stood and listened as the officer and the soldiers accompanying him moved away from the door, walked out to the street, and closed the gate.
“SHE’S NOT HERE, is she?” I asked when the sounds outside had died away.
Alisa looked at me and shook her head.
“Where is she?”
Alisa hesitated, but she remained silent and shook her head again.
“You moved her?”
“She moved herself. She called and asked me to stay here in case you needed help. She was worried about leaving you alone.”
“Then all this has been a waste. Kate’s gone back home.”
“She hasn’t gone home. She decided her place is here, with us, in her country, rather than hiding out overseas. But now she’s somewhere they’ll never find her.”
“It still feels like a waste to me.”
“Without you, Jack, we would have lost Kate. She needed you. What you did means more to her, and to us, then we can ever tell you.”
“It would have been nice if she’d at least said goodbye.”
“She did.”
Alisa smiled, pulled an iPhone from the back pocket of her jeans, and offered it to me.
“She recorded a message for you.”
I took the iPhone and held it for a minute without looking at it.
“Maybe I should have some coffee before I listen to this.”
“I make pretty decent coffee,” Alisa said. “Where’s the kitchen?”
I sat on a stool at the kitchen counter thinking about nothing at all while Alisa rooted around in the cupboards looking for coffee and filters. I watched her as she put a filter in the basket of the coffeemaker, measured ground coffee into it, and poured water into the machine’s reservoir. She flipped the switch, and we sat together in silence while the coffeemaker gurgled, sputtered, and dripped. When it finished, she searched through the cabinets until she found two mugs. She glanced at me, her eyebrows raised in a question.
“How do you take it?” she asked.
“Black.”
She poured coffee into both of the mugs, put one of them in front of me, and took the other around to the stool next to me. I put the iPhone on the counter between us and she reached over and selected the memo app. She looked at me and again raised her eyebrows.
I took a sip of the coffee. It was either extraordinarily good, or I really needed it. Maybe both. I took another couple of sips.
Then I nodded to Alisa, and she pushed play.
“I FEEL AWFUL I didn’t tell you I was leaving, Jack, but I didn’t want to wake you.”
Kate’s voice was clear and strong. She spoke without hesitation or doubt. I missed her terribly the moment I heard her.
“No, that’s not true. It had nothing to do with waking you. I knew you would try to stop me and there was no time to argue with you. You see, you were right, Jack. You put it very well. Thais simply accept everything. Accepting is what we’re really good at. The army drove me out of office at gunpoint and took over my country. The people of this country elected me to be their prime minister and then one day General Prasert and his army thugs pointed guns at us and declared that they were taking over. And what have I done about it? I have done nothing. I have been quiet, I have been polite, and I have accepted.”
Kate paused, and she cleared her throat.
“No longer, Jack. No longer.”
I drank some more coffee and waited for the rest.
“I have lost my country. And if I went with you, my country would lose me, too. It’s not that I’m so important, but I am the last person the people elected to lead this country, and lead it I shall. I will not be reduced to sitting in an apartment in London or New York and writing angry posts on Facebook. I will stay here, and I will join with others, and we will do what we can to take our country back.”
I could feel my eyes growing moist and I looked away and rubbed at them with my hands. I hoped Alisa would think I was only rubbing the sleep out of them, but I imagined she knew better.
“I owe
you a debt I can never repay, but then I desert you like this anyway. It makes me feel small. I hope someday you can find it in your heart to understand and to forgive me. You must now follow through with the plan you made to get us out of the country and leave Thailand yourself. If you stay, if you look for me, I cannot protect you. The army will find you and General Prasert is not a forgiving man. He will make you suffer. Please do not add to my guilt. Leave Thailand right now.”
There was a silence after that, but it wasn’t an empty silence. It was one filled with warmth and kindness.
“It breaks my heart to abandon you, Jack, but I am. I have no doubt the army will search this entire area later today. I’ve asked Alisa to stay here with you and give you whatever help she can when they come.”
I reached out to hit the stop button, but I hesitated. There was something in Kate’s voice that made me think there might be more.
There was.
“I don’t really know how to say thank you. Those seem like weak and empty words. I owe you everything. Whatever happens, to me or to you, please always remember one thing. I love you. There is no logic to love, the heart wants what it wants, but I have a responsibility right now that is greater than my own heart. What I want for myself, what I hope you want, too, doesn’t count for a lot next to that.”
All we needed was an old propeller plane and some fog and we would be playing the closing scene of Casablanca.
I’ve got a job to do. Where I’m going you can’t follow. What I’ve got to do you can’t be any part of. I’m not good at being noble, but it doesn’t take much to see that the problems of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world.
“I hope with all my heart, Jack, that someday there may still be a chance for us. Please take care of yourself. If you won’t do it for yourself, do it for me. Goodbye, my love.”
My eyes filled again and this time I didn’t even try to wipe them. I could barely see well enough to find the stop button on the iPhone’s screen.
Here’s looking at you, kid.
FIFTY-THREE
ALISA LEFT SOI Tonson on Monday afternoon. She wanted to stay longer in case the army came back and I needed her, but I finally convinced her I would be fine and that she should go. Ike was waiting to fly me to Cambodia and I would ride the bike out to the airfield late on Tuesday afternoon when the Songkran chaos was at its peak. Until then, I wanted to be alone in the house on Soi Tonson. That was how I wanted to spend what was probably to be my last twenty-four hours in Thailand.
I thought about looking for Kate, of course. It would have been a romantic quest and I’m a sucker for romantic quests, but I also knew that would almost certainly be hopeless and dangerous for us both. Kate was right. I couldn’t put that guilt on her.
On Tuesday, I took a few green plastic trash bags out of a box I found in the kitchen and used them to protect my laptop, telephone, and passports from the drenching they would get in the streets during Songkran. I wrapped everything up and put it in my duffel bag, and then I took another trash bag, cut two small holes for the duffel bag’s handles, and slid the whole thing into it. Finally, I took one more bag, cut a hole in the top big enough for my head and one in each side for my arms, and pulled it over myself. I couldn’t resist looking in the mirror, and I looked even more ridiculous than I thought I would.
I wrote Laura a note of thanks and left it under a glass on the kitchen counter with my door key lying next to it. After that, I slung the duffel over my shoulders, went out the front door, and felt it lock behind me. When I wheeled the bike out to Soi Tonson, the narrow street was quiet and empty and a warm breeze was carving ripples on the surface of the little canal alongside it. The army and the police had melted away as completely as if they had never been there at all.
It was time. I had an airplane waiting and a client who was missing a billion dollars. At least now I knew where the money was stashed. Getting it back was mostly paperwork.
Up on Ploenchit Road at the end of Soi Tonson I could hear the car horns and the shouting and see people flinging buckets of water at the vehicles passing on the street. No matter how bad things might be, the Thai people weren’t going to be stopped from having their fun.
What was it Kate had said?
Thais endure.
I STARTED THE bike, but then I just sat on it without moving.
You’re done here, I told myself sternly. You’re done with Thailand and Thailand is done with you. Something will come next. Even if you can’t imagine what it is, something will come next.
Maybe I’ll go back to America. Maybe I won’t.
Maybe I’ll look for love. Maybe I won’t.
Maybe I’ll find somewhere with warm nights and cool days where I can smoke cigars and drink martinis and live the rest of my life without fighting any more battles.
Or maybe I won’t.
It’s time. It really is time.
I pulled on my helmet and closed my faceplate. I was heading either into the future or into the past. I had no idea which one it would turn out to be, but I’d figure that out when I got there.
I put the bike in gear and rode away.
- THE END -
A NOTE FROM JAKE NEEDHAM
Friends and neighbors,
This is my fifth book featuring Jack Shepherd. As hard as it is for me to believe it, nearly twenty years have passed since I wrote the first Jack Shepherd book, LAUNDRY MAN. Back then, I had no intention of beginning a series and no idea I was creating a character that would be around for anywhere near this long.
I’m a different person now in many ways than I was twenty years ago. Shepherd is different, too, as are Thailand and Hong Kong. I like to think Shepherd and I have gained from our experience and grown in wisdom and that we are both better now at being what we should be than we were when we started down this road together. I’m not sure I can say the same thing for Thailand and Hong Kong.
A good many people over the years have suggested my Shepherd books reveal all sorts of inside stories that are true in spite of not being generally known. So maybe this is a good time to remind you again of something I have reminded my readers of before.
I write fiction, friends. I make this stuff up.
Kate Srisophon first appeared in a Jack Shepherd novel almost fifteen years ago, back in a time when the thought of Thailand ever electing a woman as prime minister seemed downright laughable. I had no idea then that nine years later Thailand actually would elect a woman as prime minister, or that three years following her election the Thai army would put tanks in the streets of Bangkok, force her out of office, and take over the country.
Some of the events that shape the narrative of DON’T GET CAUGHT have also turned out to be real. But here’s the thing. I wrote the initial draft of this novel a full year before those events occurred, and I didn’t know any of them would actually happen when I thought them up for this book.
One reviewer said this about my Jack Shepherd novels: “Anybody can write novels based on real events after they happen, but Jake Needham writes novels based on real events that haven’t happened yet.”
That’s a bit glib, of course, but naturally I like it anyway.
Regardless, I want you to remember this, please…
Kate Srisophon is not a real person. General Prasert Aromdee is not a real person. Mr. Wang is not a real person. Alisa is not a real person. Jello is not a real person. What’s more, none of them are meant to represent real people. They are all pure fiction, characters in a novel, people who exist only in my imagination. If you insist on reading something into them other than that, you’re on your own.
On the other hand, Hong Kong and Bangkok are real places and I work very hard to portray them in such a way that they feel real to you. Most of the locations here are exactly where the narrative says they are, and generally they look and feel and smell just like Jack Shepherd tells you they do. I do confess, however, I have altered a few details here and there. For example, while ther
e are three Brainwake Cafés in Bangkok — all of them featuring the Jake Needham Omelette, which I highly recommend — none of them are at EmQuartier. I make no excuses for that. Novelists are permitted to nudge the real world around a bit whenever we feel like it. That’s why some of us became novelists in the first place.
There are a couple of passages in this book for which others deserve the credit. The song lyrics quoted in Chapter 27 are from a country and western song called ‘Attitude Adjustment.’ It was written by Chris Penny, Skinny Williams, and Hank Williams Jr, and recorded by Hank Williams Jr. The lines quoted at the end of Chapter 52 are from the screenplay of the film Casablanca, released in 1942 and written by Julius J. Epstein and Philip G. Epstein.
One other thing. I need to say thank you to a few friends who helped me deliver this book without being embarrassed by the errors in it. There are six in particular I want to mention. Archie Hall and Paul Owen gave me valuable support in sorting out a few physical details about Thailand concerning which my memory had faded. Julia Gibbs, Rob Carnell, Greta Dabrowski, and Tony Grey were all kind enough to read the manuscript before publication, point out my mistakes, and offer suggestions to make this book better. I am in their debt.
Above all else, however, I want to record here my gratitude to my wife, Aey. She suffered with me through the usual bouts of wretchedness and brooding that are generally part of the struggle to push a new novel up onto its feet, and she did it without berating or abandoning me. Even when I doubted this book would ever manage to stand on its own, she kept reminding me that they always do, somehow, and one more time she turned out to be right.
Thanks for reading DON’T GET CAUGHT. Jack Shepherd and I hope you enjoyed hanging out with us.
With my warm regards,
Jake Needham
Bangkok, August 2017
BONUS PREVIEW
Have you met Inspector Tay? Here’s a preview of the book that introduced Jake Needham’s series of crime novels featuring Inspector Samuel Tay of Singapore CID.
