Killing Plato js-2

by Jake Needham

  Since Tommy didn’t seem much inclined to continue the conversation, I pushed open the curtain on my side and looked out at the street. We were in a residential neighborhood I vaguely recognized, one somewhere between New Petchburi Road and Sukhumvit Road. I hated driving in that area since I always got turned around in the bewildering warren of tiny streets. The problem was that the street signs were all in Thai, which no westerner I knew could read, and there were no other real landmarks to navigate by. The high concrete walls that enclosed the small apartment buildings and huge, unseen estates all looked more or less alike, and the broken glass and sharpened iron spikes that lined the top of most of them gave the whole area an air of secret and no doubt illicit doings.

  After a while I gave up on trying to make sense of our route. We were going where we were going and I wasn’t about to give Tommy the satisfaction of showing too much interest.

  At one point the street we were traveling on made a right-angle bend between two high walls and the Mercedes came to a complete stop while a green truck with sheets of dark canvas strapped over it slipped past us in the opposite direction. The space between the walls was narrow and the truck came so close to the Mercedes that a bulge in the canvas hit the driver’s mirror. The creak of the mirror folding inward and then the thump of it snapping back into place caused me to flinch, but neither the driver nor Tommy seemed to take any notice.

  As we sat there waiting for the truck to pass, my eyes drifted to a black metal gate in the wall at my side of the car. The gate was open a crack and in the gap I could see a tiny girl in a blue and white school uniform who couldn’t have been more than five or six. She was looking out at us, and her huge, deep brown eyes stared at me without expression. I wondered if the proximity of the big car and my white face looking out of it frightened the girl or just tickled her curiosity, but I could read nothing at all in those big wet eyes, not even whether she could actually see me through the dark glass of the windows. I smiled and wiggled my eyebrows stupidly at the little girl just to see what would happen, but I got no response. Then, after a moment, the truck passed by, the Mercedes began to edge forward again, and the little girl was gone.

  Less than five minutes later the car stopped at a pair of gates built of close-set green metal bars with gold curlicues on the top. A guard wearing a uniform of some sort walked up to the driver’s window and bent down, and the driver opened the window a crack and said something in a low voice I didn’t quite catch. It must have been the right thing, because the guard whipped out a crisp salute then stepped around in front of the car and pushed open the gates. The Mercedes rolled forward and I saw we were in the courtyard of what appeared to be a small apartment building.

  “Okay, Big Jack. We’re here.”

  I glanced at Tommy. His head was still tilted back against the seat, but now his eyes were open.

  “So does this mean you’re going to cut the crap and tell me what’s going on?”

  “Yeah.” Tommy stretched and yawned. “Plato Karsarkis wants to talk to you about something. This place is…”

  All of a sudden Tommy’s eyes began to dart around wildly. I knew he had just realized he was about to say the wrong thing, but was stuck for a quick alternative.

  I let him off the hook. “Onookt re of Plato’s fuck pads?” I asked.

  The corners of Tommy’s mouth flicked up and down a couple of times. “Something like that,” he said.

  “So, tell me, Tommy. I don’t really figure I’m this guy’s type. Why am I here?”

  “Just shut the hell up for once in your life and have a little patience, would you, Jack?” Tommy looked to me like a man who very much wished he were somewhere else right then. “Let’s go upstairs.”

  We got out of the car and I followed Tommy toward the lobby of the building. A man wearing a white jacket and a black bow tie pulled open the glass door and then jumped over and pushed the elevator button. The doors slid back immediately. After we were inside, he leaned in and pushed a button marked PH, which I assumed stood for penthouse, then he pulled his arm back out and bowed slightly as the doors closed again. It was a pretty snappy move, but Tommy was staring hard at the floor and didn’t appear to appreciate it as much as I did.

  Neither of us spoke as the elevator hummed upward. When the doors opened I followed Tommy out into a small, marble-floored foyer. English hunting prints decorated the walls and there were two dark green upholstered chairs with a lamp table between them. It might have been the waiting room of a prosperous, but badly underemployed, dentist.

  Almost immediately a door swung open. Mike O’Connell stood there smiling and holding his hand out toward me like a man with something to sell.

  “Thank you for coming, Mr. Shepherd.”

  “Your invitation was so gracious, I didn’t see how I could refuse.”

  “Come on, Jack,” Tommy grumbled. “Cut the shit.”

  Then he glared at Mike O’Connell and pointed a perfectly manicured forefinger at him. O’Connell stepped aside and I followed Tommy into the room.

  TWENTY

  The expensively decorated apartment had a distinctly masculine air about it, but it was somehow impersonal. It might have been the living room of a suite at a Four Seasons hotel in almost any city anywhere in the world.

  Plato Karsarkis was sitting in a red leather chair with his legs propped up on an ottoman and crossed at the ankle. He was facing away from me, looking out a large window and contemplating with apparent interest whatever it was he saw out there.

  “Can I offer you coffee, Professor Shepherd?”

  It was Mike O’Connell who spoke, not Karsarkis.

  “Or perhaps something stronger?” O’Connell went on when I didn’t respond immediately.

  “Am I going to need it?” I asked.

  Karsarkis laughed at that and turned his head toward me.

  “Not really, but the least I can do after dragging you all the way out here is to buy you a drink,” he said. “Scotch for me, Mike, and…”

  Karsarkis raised his eyebrows at me.

  “Same.” I said. “Water, no ice.”

  “No ice? That surprises me, Jack. Very European. Americans always seem to want ice. Lots of ice.”

  “I’m full of surprises.”

  Karsarkis nodded slowly several times as if I had jusookt f ice. amp;rdqt told him something important. Then, in a kind of afterthought, he glanced at Tommy.

  “You want anything?” he asked him in a tone that made his lack of interest unmistakable.

  “Vodka,” Tommy mumbled quietly. “Neat.”

  O’Connell disappeared, I assumed to get our drinks, and Karsarkis gestured at a pair of couches.

  “Sit down, gentlemen. Mike is going to have to play waiter since we’ve sent the staff home. It’s just the four of us today.”

  Tommy seemed uncomfortable, although I couldn’t see why. Then it occurred to me I was probably about to find out.

  “So, Jack.” Karsarkis had gone back to looking out the window. “That house in Phuket you wanted. You must be pretty happy about the deal the bank offered you.”

  “I rather thought that was your hand at work there.”

  “Does it matter?” he asked.

  “It does to me.”

  “You wanted the house,” Karsarkis shrugged. “I just thought I’d help you out.”

  “I didn’t want the house. Anita did.”

  Karsarkis glanced at me and lifted one eyebrow as if he didn’t see why that mattered. Little did he know.

  “How did you find out about it?” I asked him.

  “The agent who showed you the place said something to her husband. Tommy here knows the guy from somewhere. He heard it from him. Thailand’s really a small place, Jack. At least it is for foreigners. Everybody knows everybody else’s business.”

  “Then you must already know I’m not buying the house.” I thought a moment and added, “And neither is Anita.”

  Karsarkis shifted his eyes to me, his interest c
aught. “I thought the bank offered a pretty good deal.”

  “For who?” I asked.

  “For you and Anita,” he said. “Who else?”

  “Oh…I thought you meant it seemed like a good deal for you. Making a call or two, getting BankThai to sell me the house at a fraction of its real value, leaving me owing you a big favor. Like that.”

  Karsarkis chuckled and shook his head. “You’re a real pistol, Jack. A friend tries to do something for you and you act like he’s just pissed all over you.”

  “We’re not friends. I already told you that. And if I want a favor, I’ll ask you for it. But don’t hold your breath.”

  “So basically the house…”

  Karsarkis let the phrase hang in the air like a question, but without a question mark.

  “Basically,” I said, “that’s none of your business.”

  Just then O’Connell reappeared carrying a wooden tray with three drinks.

  “What?” I asked as he set my whiskey and Tommy’s vodka on the low table in front of the couch. “No pretzels?”

  O’Connell acted as if he hadn’t heard me. He walked over and put Karsarkis’ whiskey on a small table next to him; then he took another chair across the room, put the tray down on the floor next to it, leaned back, and folded his arms. He watched me withouthedy on a expression and I found myself wondering for some reason if he was armed. I examined the lines of his blue suit jacket searching for bulges. I didn’t see any, but I didn’t stop wondering.

  Tommy picked up his drink and sipped tentatively at it, then put it down again. Karsarkis left his drink on the table without touching it.

  “Oh, hey,” Karsarkis suddenly said. “Where are my manners? You want a cigar, Jack?”

  “No, I don’t want a goddamned cigar.”

  “A simple no would have covered it. You don’t have to be so antagonistic.”

  “Antagonistic? Look, Karsarkis, I was about to go home to my wife when this little asshole kidnapped me and dragged me halfway across town to this apartment, and you say I’m being antagonistic?”

  “Now, Jack,” Tommy said, “calm down.” He pushed himself around on the couch until he was facing me. “I don’t particularly like being called an asshole and I think claiming you were kidnapped is a bit of an exaggeration, but you should-”

  “Yes, I apologize for all that, Jack,” Karsarkis cut Tommy off, looking at me, not him.

  Tommy made no protest at the interruption and went back to sipping at his vodka.

  “It was unseemly,” Karsarkis continued. “On the other hand, it was impossible for me to come and see you, and I was afraid if I just asked you to come here, then well…”

  Karsarkis gave a rueful shrug and trailed off.

  “You’re right,” I said. “I wouldn’t have come.”

  “So there you are, Jack,” Karsarkis nodded. “You see my dilemma. That’s why I had to ask Tommy to prevail on you like this.”

  I sighed heavily and slumped back into the couch.

  “Okay,” I said. “So now I’m here. Tell me what you want and let’s get this over with so I can go home.”

  Karsarkis cleared his throat unnecessarily and stood up. He walked to the window and looked out for a moment, his back to me, and then he folded his arms across his body and turned around.

  “I want you to represent me, Jack.”

  “We already talked about that. I told you I wasn’t interested in being involved in your hotel deal.”

  A flash of genuine annoyance crossed Karsarkis’ face and he waved a hand as if brushing it away.

  “Forget the goddamned hotels, Jack,” he snapped. “That was all just bullshit anyway and you know it.”

  Karsarkis unfolded his arms, took a couple of steps toward me, then refolded them and sat back down in the red leather chair. He seemed to me to be a little nervous and I wondered why. I sensed we were getting close now to whatever Karsarkis had really brought me there to say, so I folded my arms too and waited.

  I didn’t have to wait long.

  TWENTY ONE

  “I want you to file an application for a presidential pardon for me, Jack.”

  “A pardon for what? You haven’t been convicted of anything yet. You only get pardoned after you’re convicted, not before.”

  “My lawyers have looked into that. The presidential power to pardon is absolute. Ford pardoned Nixon before he was even charged with anything. This president can do the same thing for me.”

  Karsarkis might have been technically right, I knew, but I didn’t really feel like getting into a debate with him on the finer points of constitutional law. Instead I stuck to the obvious practical problem.

  “You know there’s no way that would ever happen,” I said. “No way in hell.”

  “Oh, I think there may really be a pretty good chance,” he smiled, looking like a man who knew something I didn’t. “All I need is the right person to explain some facts to the White House. Those facts are very much in my favor.”

  “What facts?”

  “That’s not the point right now,” Karsarkis said.

  “Then what is the point?”

  “You, Jack. You’re the point right now. You have both access and credibility at the White House. You can reach people there and they will listen to you. That’s why you’re the guy I need.”

  Okay, so I knew someone at the White House. To tell the truth, I knew someone there pretty well; and it wasn’t just someone, it was really someone. William Henry Harrison Redwine and I had been roommates for two years when we went to law school together at Georgetown, and ever since this president had moved into the West Wing, Billy had been White House counsel. No one outside of the innermost circles of the White House ever knew for sure how the power was distributed or who really had the president’s ear, but whenever commentators speculated as to who the most powerful people in Washington were, whenever lists of the influential were made up and torn apart, inevitably Billy Redwine’s name was right at the top. In Washington, that was the ultimate definition of someone.

  Karsarkis said nothing else, but he watched me closely. He was clearly less nervous now that everything was on the table and his careful examination of my reaction seemed composed of equal parts curiosity and expectation. Still, I tried to give him very little reaction to examine.

  “In compensation for your efforts on my behalf,” Karsarkis went on when I said nothing, “I am prepared to pay you a fee of one million dollars.”

  I tried to remain expressionless, but I’m sure I gaped at that regardless. Karsarkis was back on familiar ground, not asking for help, but controlling a proposition by drowning it in money. His face once again displayed the self-assured look of a man in control.

  “Let me make this very clear, Jack. If you will agree to represent me in seeking a pardon from the President of the United States, I will pay you a fee of one million dollars right now, tonight. I will arrange for it to be wired in full to any bank account you designate anywhere in the world within the hour. That money is yours to keep whether you succeed or fail.”

  Karsarkis smiled slightly, but he didn’t seem to mean anything in particular by it. I waited. He waited. I waited longer.

  “If you do succeed, however, I will pay you a further fee of four million dollars.”

  Tommy leaned forward, his knees banging into the low table so hard he sloshed some of the vodka out of his glass.

  “That’s five million-”

  “I can add, Tommy,” I cut him off. amp;ldq hi"1euo;So for Christ’s sake shut up.”

  Tommy opened and closed his mouth, but then he leaned back on the sofa again and said nothing else.

  Ever since I began practicing law, I had dealt with vast, mostly unreal sums of money — ten million here, a hundred million there — so the mention of five million dollars hardly caused me to fall out of my chair. Still, all those enormous sums were just numbers on pieces of paper, nothing like real money, and certainly nothing like my real money. This was altogether
different.

  “So what do you say, Jack? Are you with me here or not?”

  I stared at Karsarkis in complete silence for a good thirty seconds. He just sat there and stared back.

  “You’ve got the wrong guy,” I finally said. “You really have.”

  “Do I?” Karsarkis looked annoyed. “Don’t shit me, Jack. You have a private line straight into the White House and we both know it. You are well respected and well connected and you have significant credibility with someone who has the ear of the President of the United States.”

  “Look, Mr. Karsarkis, I-”

  “So will you do it, Jack? Will you go to the White House and put my case for me?”

  After that everyone, including me, sank into silence. I assumed they were waiting for me to say something, but I had absolutely no idea what to say.

  Eventually Karsarkis leaned forward and fixed me with the kind of sincere gaze I figured they probably taught you at the Dale Carnegie School. “Can you do it?” he asked in a near whisper.

  “Sure,” I said. “I can also eat a box of rat poison and stick my finger in a wall socket, but on the whole, I’d rather not.”

  Karsarkis didn’t even smile at that. Instead, he just looked at me, then leaned back and waited some more.

  “I really don’t know what to tell you,” I said after a long time had passed in silence.

  “Just think about it. Mike will call you tomorrow. If you accept my proposal, he will wire your money immediately.”

  I nodded slowly, not trusting myself to do much of anything else right then.

  “Oh, yes. I almost forgot, Jack,” Karsarkis added, “there is one other thing.”

  Karsarkis put a hand on the back of his neck and left it there as if he was trying to recall all the details about whatever it might be.

  “It has come to my attention you may be in some danger.”