Jake Needham - Killing Plato

The one CW introduced as Chuck Parker looked exactly like somebody who ought to have a name like Chuck Parker. He was in his late thirties and had the thick, fleshy neck, light brown crew cut, and slightly heavy frame of a college athlete sliding into middle age.

The other man CW introduced as Marcus York. He was a slim black man of medium height and he wore round, gold-framed glasses that stood out memorably against a thick shock of prematurely gray hair. York looked like a character from a David Mamet play: black jeans, black shirt, and a two-day growth of very black beard. If Chuck Parker had been on the college football team, Marcus York had been in the drama club.

CW said both men were Deputy United States Marshals, but I wasn’t so sure. Parker, yeah. He vibed street cop all the way. But York was another matter altogether. I’d bet my last dollar York was FBI, or maybe even something creepier.

“I wanted the boys to meet you,” CW said as we shook hands all around.

“Why?”

“Well shit, Slick, they might bump into you somewhere out there on a dark night and I wouldn’t want them to shoot your candy ass clean off.”

Parker heehawed at that, wiggling his thick neck up and down, but York didn’t move. He didn’t even smile.

I got the feeling CW and his sidekicks were waiting for me to say something, but I couldn’t figure out what it was supposed to be so we all just sat for a while in silence and watched the comings and goings across the street on Soi Crocodile.

“God damn ,” CW gasped a few minutes later. “Look at that .”

The katoey CW was watching had just climbed up onto a round platform at the entrance to the soi and had begun to sway languidly to music blaring from speakers in one of the bars. At least six feet tall with long, glistening black hair tied away from her face in a ponytail, she wore a black silk sh bl toeath that ended less than halfway down her smooth brown thighs and she balanced gracefully on red platform slingbacks with six-inch heels. After a few minutes, a second katoey joined her on the platform-this one slightly shorter and heavier, but with a chest on her that would freeze a moose-and they began to dance together.

“Ah, shit ,” Parker chimed in. “I’m gonna have me a fuckin’ stroke .”

York, I noticed, said nothing.

As more and more of the katoeys gathered across Soi Bangla, I watched the three men out of the corner of my eye. Parker and CW, at least, couldn’t get enough. Parker moaned and groaned and CW licked nervously at his lips.

Then CW noticed the two katoeys wearing giant rhinestone tiaras and ballgowns who were posing for pictures with tourists. He shot me a quick side-glance, but I kept a straight face and he couldn’t be sure. It wasn’t until he spotted the one in the hoop-skirted Scarlet O’Hara dress bringing a bottle of beer to the one who was dressed like Pocahontas that he got it.

“Fuck,” he moaned, and I admit I had never heard the word used more movingly.

“Gotcha,” I said.

“What?” Parker looked genuinely confused.

“They’re men, you fuckwit,” York finally spoke up.

“You’re shittin’ me,” Parker mumbled, but from the way he climbed back into his drink you knew he saw it now, too.

We sat silently for a bit after that, gazing across the street. The whole scene was almost abnormally good-natured. The katoeys chattered among themselves, ate and drank, waved to passing tourists, posed for pictures, and took turns boogieing on the little round platform in the heavy night air.

“They don’t sweat, man,” CW said to me after watching three of them dance together for a while. “It ain’t natural.”

I gave him a long look.

“Okay,” he nodded. “I see your point.”

York smiled slightly at that, but he didn’t say anything.

Another silence fell and I started to feel a little sorry for Parker and CW in spite of myself. CW in particular seemed almost embarrassed.

“Everybody here’s been fooled at least once, CW” I finally said. “Don’t let it get you down.”

“That’s not it, Slick,” CW shook his head sadly. “It’s just if I have to spend another week or two on this fuckin’ island, I may have to think about turning queer.”

“Keep it zipped, CW,” I said. “It’s tough to be a stranger in a strange land when your pants are down.”

CW shook his head again and made a noise I couldn’t quite put a name to. He waved for two more drinks, then stood up and beckoned me toward an empty table at the back of the bar.

Parker and York watched as I followed CW to the back of the bar, but neither said anything. A tall girl with bad skin had brought our drinks and then drifted away out of earshot.

“We got to get serious here,” CW said.

“I can hardly wait.”

“It’s my job to see that Plato Karsarkis is returned to the US.”

“That’s got nothing to do with me.”

“Yeah, it does.”

I gave CW a look, but I didn’t say anything.

“Look, Jack, I need your help here.”

“I thought you told me you were just waiting for the Thai government to approve Karsarkis’ extradition.”

“Well…” CW appeared to think for a moment. “It’s a little bit more complicated than that.”

I waited.

“Look, Jack, I’m not really allowed to give you the whole thing-”

“Wait a minute.” I held up my hand like a traffic cop. “Are you telling me the Thais aren’t going to support extradition.”

“Not exactly.”

“Not exactly?”

“Well…not at all, really.”

“I see.”

“I doubt that.”

I recalled Anita’s prediction and shook my head a little at the memory of it.

Damn. How could she always be so dead on about stuff like this?

“So you and your little elves over there are here to kidnap the poor bastard and drag him back to the US no matter what the Thais have to say about it. Is that about the size of it, CW?”

“This is an evil man, Jack. He’s a criminal. He has people killed. He’s a traitor to his country.”

“What movie is that speech from?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “I forget.”

“Then tell me what you think we should do about Plato Karsarkis, Jack. Just forget about him? Just forget about everything he’s done and leave him alone to live out his life on the beautiful tropical island of Phuket?”

“Look, this isn’t my problem.”

“Well, shit,” CW leaned toward me, “then maybe I’ll just make it your problem.”

I took a pull from my drink, trying to take the edge off my anger before I said anything I might regret. It didn’t work.

“Well, fuck you, too, Marshal Asshole.”

“Look, Jack-”

“Who the hell do you think you are? Do you threaten everybody, or am I something special to you?”

“I’m sorry,” CW said and he did seem genuinely discomfited. “I was way out of line there and I apologize.”

The man sounded so completely contrite I wasn’t sure what to say, so I didn’t say anything.

“Look, Jack. I really am sorry. I had no right to say that. I need your help here. Hell, I’m begging for your help.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I need intelligence on Karsarkis. How he lives, what his house is like inside, how many guards he has, stuff like that. You’ve been in there. You can tell me all those things.”

I raised my glass in a silent toast to Anita.

“What does that met d can tean?” CW asked me.

“Never mind,” I said. “Forget it.”

CW looked puzzled, but he let it go. “So. Can you help me pop Karsarkis or not?”