“Any plans to meet him?”
“Tonight in Chinatown. That’s the plan.”
“Why don’t I come along?” said Colonel Pratt.
Calvino toasted his friend.
“Tomorrow I’ll have a look around for a local investigator.”
Saxon had given the Colonel some good advice. A local private eye in a foreign jurisdiction was a guy who made his living because he had access to inside information about important people. If it had been easy to find a private investigator, Saxon would have had his number or known someone who did. The fact that he hadn’t passed a number along to the Colonel gave Calvino a doomed feeling. The starting Yankees pitcher walks three consecutive runners, and the coach pulls him, gives the nod to the pitcher’s brother, who walks out to the mound on crutches. That’s how Calvino thought of himself, a guy put in the game because there was no one else to pitch.
“Improvise,” said Colonel Pratt.
“That works with jazz. I’ll see what I can turn up.”
Calvino began to explain how the judge had dismissed the criminal charges against Wai Wan. He’d used the old Asian standby—throw the case out for lack of evidence. The police officer on the motorcycle who’d arrested Wai Wan, or someone who professed to be that officer, said he couldn’t be sure Wai Wan was the driver of the truck. The cop also testified he was absolutely certain about the identity of the remaining three prisoners. They had sat quietly against the wall—a relief driver and two passengers. The owner was out of the case. The driver had got a pass out of jail. That left three poster boys sitting on the low bench, backs to the wall, reminders so no one forgot that, at the end of the day, someone is always needed to hold the bag.
Calvino paused, held up his glass and tried, and failed, to catch the bartender’s eye, even though he was standing close enough for Calvino to smell the garlic on his breath. The man stood behind the bar staring into the distance like he’d been hit by an alien ray gun in an old science fiction movie. Calvino turned to see what had captured the man’s attention and saw that the bartender wasn’t the only one who’d stopped breathing and talking.
A knock-down beautiful Thai woman had entered the room. Standing near the door, she looked around as if looking for someone. A sea of hopeful faces with sloppy choose-me smiles stared back. She’d stopped every conversation in the bar.
Calvino’s jaw dropped as he saw her cross the room to stand just behind Pratt. This woman had a knee-liquefying beauty that made a man’s legs turn to rubber stumps as his jaw involuntarily opened like that of a moron who’d stumbled onto a porn site for the first time. There was a small class of women who made knees quiver, but only once or twice in a decade did the cartilage in a man’s knees appear to uncoil, boil and dissolve.
“Is something wrong, Vincent?”
Calvino signaled with his eyes that Pratt should turn around and take a look at the woman hovering a couple of inches away from his left shoulder. He’d been thinking about Calvino’s courtroom experience. When he turned on the stool, he saw what had caused the room to go silent.
The woman was young. Pratt guessed she stood at about 165 centimeters, and with heels, over 170. Her thick black hair extended to her waist, which was as narrow as that of a political prisoner attached to a feeding tube. She had intense and expressive large brown eyes, full, glossy red lips and the kind of long, shapely legs that come from hours of daily exercise. Calvino guessed she was in her mid-twenties. She wore no wedding ring. She tapped Pratt on the shoulder with one of her fingernails, a long, slender stiletto tap that a man paid attention to. She had the Northern Thai white skin, the kind that Thai men slit throats for, and a smile that caused other men to stare with utter amazement and envy that the woman had chosen Colonel Pratt. What did that man at the bar have that they didn’t?
As soon as it was clear she was with someone, the conversations resumed.
“Hello,” said Pratt in English.
“Do you mind if I sit down?”
Pratt looked at her, smiled.
“Have a seat.” He turned away, talking to Calvino. “The brother walked out of the courthouse a free man?” asked Pratt.
He’d put her on ice. It was an old habit. Like a good cop, he had learnt long ago to control distractions, making it clear
he’d decide the timing.
“There was some paperwork, but that didn’t take long. They’re flexible about that. Pratt, there’s someone who wants to say something.”
Calvino glanced over Pratt’s shoulder. He was talking but no longer concentrating on anything other than the woman hovering near Pratt, waiting for him to give her a moment. Finally, she spoke to him in Thai.
“I wonder if I could have your autograph?”
If one question could give a man face, this question gave Pratt the equivalent of a Jupiter-sized one.
“You must be mistaken,” he said.
She tilted her head to the side, brushing stray hair from her face.
“I heard you playing last night at the 50th Street Bar. I went back to my hotel and searched your name on Google. What a surprise! You are a famous jazz saxophone player from my country. You make me very proud to be a Thai. I saw you at the bar. I hope that you don’t mind.”
“Are you joking?” said Calvino. “Of course he doesn’t mind. What do you want to drink?”