Jake Needham - Laundry Man

Residents didn’t get mugged in Bangkok, only tourists, and even then mostly Taiwanese tourists for some reason. That approach had apparently become something of a firm rule among muggers since Taiwanese tourists seldom had much interest in returning at their own expense to testify against them, even if the mugger was unlucky enough to get caught-which he almost never was.

“Who was the client?” I asked.

“What client?”

“The one Dollar was with when he was mugged.”

“Oh.” Jello started in on the second croissant and sipped at his coffee again before he answered. “Just John didn’t say.”

It was hard to believe that Dollar could have been mugged coming out of the United Center on Silom Road at ten o’clock at night. That was one of the highest profile spots in Bangkok, and at that time of night the sidewalk should have been crowded with punters going back and forth to Patpong just down the street.

“Why don’t you call Dollar and ask him what really happened?” Jello suggested.

I looked at my watch. Coming up fast on ten. I had to get going or I would be late for my class.

“It all sounds like a lot of nothing,” I said. “I gotta go. I’ve got a class to teach.”

We said our goodbyes and I headed out. As I pushed out through the door, I glanced back over my shoulder.

Jello was still sitting quietly at the table, twisting his coffee cup with one hand and polishing off the second of his chocolate croissants with the other. He licked the last crumbs off his thumb and forefinger and stared straight ahead at the street, apparently thinking about nothing more important than the traffic flowing past on Ploenchit Road.

But I knew Jello and I knew that wasn’t true. Something had just happened, only I couldn’t figure out what it was.

My ten o’clock class went surprisingly well. The sugar and caffeine did an impressive job. I had just walked into my office after the class when my telephone rang.

“Hello.”

“Could you come to the office tomorrow afternoon to talk over a couple of things, Jack? About five or so would be good for me.”

If Dollar could be brusque, I supposed I could, too, so I ignored his question.

“I was going to call you later,” I said. “I heard you got knocked around last night.”

There was a short silence.

“Where did you hear that?” Dollar asked after a moment.

“Jello told me. The way I hear it, Just John told him.”

“Jello? The ECID guy?”

“Yeah.”

Dollar let that hang there for a moment, and then I heard an exasperated grunt.

“Figures.”

I waited a moment for him to offer some explanation, but he didn’t.

“So is it true?” I finally asked him.

“Well…” Dollar hesitated. “It was no big deal.”

“No big deal.”

“No.”

“What happened?”

“It’s not much of a story.”

I waited Dollar out. Eventually he filled the silence.

“We were coming out of the office and two kids jumped us while I was calling my driver. The little shits were probably just a couple of pill heads trying to grab our briefcases. It happens.”

“Not really. Not in front of the United Center at that time of night.”

“Sure it does.”

“You hurt?”

“A little, I guess. Bruises, and I’m sore as hell, but I’ll live.” I could almost hear Dollar thinking before he went on. “Look, just keep this under your hat, would you?”

“If it’s such a big secret, why did you tell Just John about it?”

Dollar paused for a long time and I sensed he was trying to decide how much he had to say to make me let it go.

“It’s his job to look after firm security,” he finally said. Then he fell silent again.

That was the first I had heard of that. I always thought Just John was just a glad-hander and a boozer. Dollar telling me that he did security work for the firm opened up several questions-most conspicuously, exactly what was John supposed to be securing Dollar’s law firm from. But before I could ask, Dollar started talking again.

“Anyway, a couple of tourist police came along right after we ran the fuckers off. Eventually John would have found out even if I hadn’t told him myself. That would have pissed him off real good. This town is too goddamned small for me sometimes.”

It seemed odd to me Dollar would care one way or the other if Just John was pissed off. Who worked for whom? But another question elbowed past that thought and went right up to the front of the line.

“Who’s ‘we’?” I asked Dollar instead.

“What?”

“You said ‘we’ were coming out of the office and ‘we’ ran them off.”

Dollar hesitated, and suddenly I knew exactly what he was about to say.

“Howard the Roach,” he muttered just as I was thinking exactly that. “Look, Jack, I could have told you something else instead of admitting right off that it was Howard, but you’d probably-”

“Was he hurt?” I interrupted.

“Not really,” Dollar replied after a second’s hesitation. It seemed to surprise him that I hadn’t asked him something else and the relief in his voice was evident.

“I’m glad to hear that,” I said.

I thought about the conversation Dollar and I had about Howard a couple of days ago and I wondered again what Dollar wasn’t telling me.

“Look, Jack, can you come around tomorrow like I asked?” Dollar asked when I said nothing else. “It’s important.”

“I’m going to Hong Kong tomorrow.”

“Hong Kong?” I could swear Dollar sounded startled. “Why Hong Kong?”

“Board meeting. Southeast Asian Investments.”

“Oh, yeah.” There was a tinge of relief in Dollar’s voice for some reason. I was certain of it. “How long you going to be there?”

“A couple of days.”

“Then how about Saturday morning? You free then?”

Whatever Dollar had on his mind must really have been important. As far as I knew, no lawyer in Bangkok had ever gone to the office on a Saturday before.

“I could manage that if you want.”

“I know you’ll probably be tired from the trip and all, and I hate to ask, but-”

“It’s okay,” I interrupted, taking Dollar off the hook. “I’m only going to Hong Kong, not Honduras. It’s not a problem.”

“Okay, yeah. Good.”

Dollar took a breath and rushed on.

“Look, Jack, there was one more thing I was calling about.”

No surprise there. I had already worked out from Dollar’s voice that there had to be something else.

“You haven’t heard from Howard since last night, have you?”

“Oh Christ, you’re not going to start all that again?” Dollar’s obsession over whether Howard was talking to me was taking on comic proportions. “If you don’t believe that I haven’t heard from Howard, why don’t you just ask him yourself?”

“I don’t know where he is.”

“I don’t understand. Didn’t you just say he was with you last night?”

Dollar cleared his throat. “Yeah, but I can’t find him this morning.”

“Where’s he staying?”

“He’s been at the Four Seasons, but I called there and they said he checked out.”

“Well, I can promise you he’s not sleeping with me.”

I let the silence that fell after that stretch on a bit.

“What is it you’re not telling me here, Dollar?”

I could hear him take a deep breath.

“If Howard hasn’t called you, Jack, why did he have your cell phone number written across the top of his notes?”

“I don’t understand.”

“What’s not to understand?” Dollar sounded annoyed. “Yesterday afternoon in the office I was looking at some notes Howard had about this deal he’s working on. Your cell phone number was written on the top of the first page.”