18mm Blues (30 page)

Grady and Julia dropped to the latticed deck of the water taxi. There was no way to hide, really. The upper part of the hull, the free board, barely kept them out of sight. The speedboat needed only to come a half dozen or so feet closer to have them visible, and the young man would shoot them point-blank.

The only possibility, Grady thought, would be to wait until the speedboat was coming alongside. There'd be an instant, perhaps, when it wouldn't be quite close enough to suit the young man but close enough for Grady to loom up suddenly and leap from boat to boat, leap right at the young man and get to him before he had a chance to fire. Could he risk a peek over the gunwale to see if the speedboat was within leaping range? Sure, and get the top of his head blown off. He'd just have to guess it, time it just right. Maybe there'd be a sound that would help him decide when. At best it was going to be the most desperate kind of move. How different it would be if he had a gun, he thought. If the situation wasn't so one-sided. If he had a gun and let these men know it, just fired it in the air to let them know it, they'd probably run. No fucking gun.

Julia was faced away. She turned her head to be eyes-to-eyes with him. Hers were showing more of their whites than usual, and she was breathing through her mouth, like she was a bit winded. For Grady there was a sadness to her fright, the idea that Julia was about to be deprived of the rest of her time, the currency of her existence to be squandered, infuriated him and, in turn, his fury made him feel even more helpless.

He waited, listened, would attempt the leap.

The young man fired off two volleys. One group of bullets struck around the waterline of the taxi. The others went much higher, tore through the canopy several feet above Grady and Julia.

Intentionally wasted shots, Grady believed. To keep him and Julia as they were, cowered down. But why? Why wasn't the speedboat being brought alongside? They'd witnessed the killing, could identify the young men. Maybe those two didn't care, were privileged enough not to care, Grady hoped they were, hoped they were through and by now headed away.

Something flew through the air.

Thrown from the speedboat.

Landed within inches of Julia's head, scraped across the plain surface of one of the plank seats and found nothing to grab onto. It was a five-pronged grappling hook, a ten pounder attached to half-inch nylon line. Like some awkward, galvanized crustacean it proceeded to the interior of the hull, tried to get the gunwale, groped along it and finally got a hold on one of the upright steel pipes that supported the canopy.

At once the nylon line was made taut and Grady heard the speedboat's engine answer the demand for more power. Felt a sudden surge. Took a cautious look at the situation.

The young man who'd had the machine pistol now had an automatic rifle. At the ready. He was standing in the rear of the speedboat, alertly facing back to the water taxi, which was now being towed down the
klong
in the direction of the river. Going at a fast clip. About twenty feet of line connected the two vessels. Because the grappling hook had the water taxi caught back a ways from its bow, the water taxi was being dragged along at an angle and the resistance of its hull to the water was causing shudder.

Grady considered going overboard, making a swim for it. He asked Julia what she thought of that. She was all for it. He gave it a second and third thought: maybe when they rose up and dove in, no matter how swiftly, the young man would get off a spurt of shots and not miss. And, even if he did miss, before they could swim to the bank the speedboat would turn around, come back, and have no trouble killing them in the water. Alone, he would have risked it. But he didn't want to risk her. Besides, he had no idea how good or bad a swimmer she was. For all he knew she was a dog paddler.

A short distance farther on they reached where the
klong
joined the Chao Phray River and the idea of swimming to safety was no longer a reasonable option. No matter how well they swam, with the wicked currents of the Chao Phray it was doubtful they'd make it to shore.

Why, Grady wondered, had they resorted to towing, and where to? Going like hell downriver. It wasn't far to the sea. Maybe they had extemporized their maliciousness, had been inspired by it to take him and Julia water-skiing, mix fun and fatalness. That would be their style. Whatever, considering the way the driver had been so deliberately killed…

Grady glanced at the dead driver, whose lavender shirt was ugly brown where the blood had seeped and was already coagulating. What, considering the circumstances, would the driver do if he were still alive? Grady asked himself. Speak to me, driver, he thought. You know the fucking river; you know this fucking water taxi. You're an old bag of tricks. Yeah, you're an old
dead
bag of tricks, gone to the place where they dole out next lives. You're no help at all.

But wasn't it possibly some aspect of the driver, some ability that he'd acquired since death, that spoke into Grady's head, gave him instructions in the form of an idea?

Grady slithered over the rear passenger seat to the driver's spot, shoved the lifeless old man out of the way. Kept low while he studied the engine, its controls and the steering system. It could hardly have been simpler. A switch for on or off, another for forward or reverse. A horizontal steering arm with a throttle on the end of it—a rotating section such as commonly found on motorcycles.

Grady peeked around the side of the engine over the stern. There was the twelve-foot-long shaft that reached back and down diagonally to the water. With the propeller on the end of it. He tried the steering arm, moved it laterally to the left. The engine, shaft and all, moved with it, swiveled so the propeller was off to the right. He moved the steering arm laterally to the right to have the propeller off to the left. Nothing complicated about the steering.

It occurred to Grady then that the engine should be on. They'd been under way when the driver was killed, so it should still be on. Had the driver hit the on/off switch when he'd been slammed back against the engine, or perhaps when he so suddenly released his grip from the throttle had the engine stalled? Anything was possible, including a malfunction.

Grady glanced at Julia.

She drew a question mark in the air.

Grady shrugged. Which was true. He wasn't sure. It seemed as though he was making this up as he went along, and yet, it equally seemed as though he was obeying instructions a step at a time.

Such as now. He was to switch on the engine.

It started right up.

He gave it just enough throttle to keep it idling. Craned up for a peek at the young man in the stern of the speedboat, who apparently was none the wiser and wouldn't be able to hear over the roar of the engine beneath him.

They were surely on the river now, going down it, somewhat favoring the left half. There was considerable traffic. Four boats, extremely narrow for their length, the makeshift fat-beamed boats of families that lived on the river, water taxis buzzing about, of course, and many barges, tugs laboriously pulling strings of four to eight of those. Most prominent were the huge rice barges, semicylindrical shaped with corrugated tin roofs. Given wide berth by all the other vessels. In fact, every floating thing kept a generous distance from every other floating thing.

It was that afternoon time when the accumulated heat was about as high and thick as it would go. The sky was ambivalent, had blue patches, but directly overhead leaden clouds had amalgamated and were swiftly gaining weight for the daily downpour.

Well, do or die, Grady thought. He twisted the throttle up full and shoved the steering bar as far to the left as it would go.

The stern of the water taxi swung left, making an advantage of the angled way it was being towed, increasing the angle so the bow caught more water and was forced even farther right.

Which, in turn, brought the stern around sharply. And now the water taxi was perpendicular to the speedboat, being dragged along sideways by it like some unwilling charge.

The nylon towline was quivering with tension. It wouldn't break, could take at least ten times the strain now being put on it.

Grady in the driver's place was exposed now, not entirely, but enough so the young man brought the rifle up to aim position and pulled off several short bursts.

Bullets cut the air close around Grady. Others ricocheted off the head and block of the engine. Grady expected any moment to experience what it was like to have a bullet smash into him, most likely into his skull, the most evident target.

He flipped the switch.

From forward to reverse, from full speed ahead to full power back.

Causing a sudden additional surge of resistance.

The grappling hook kept its hold on the upright support of the canopy. However, the support couldn't take the pull. It gave way, as Grady had hoped. The four long screws in the flange where the upright was attached to the flat upper edge of the hull ripped out, and that section of the canopy collapsed. As though settling for any sort of grasp, the grappling hook got into a tangle with the canopy and its steel frame, and, next thing, the entire canopy and frame were torn away and that was all the speedboat was dragging downriver.

Grady had only an instant to appreciate that. Because with the abrupt release at full throttle in reverse the water taxi was out of control. Headed for collision with a forty-passenger tour boat.

Grady had to switch to forward and swerve the taxi sharply.

Too sharply.

The bow of the taxi reared up, high up. For an instant only its stern was in the water. It did a partial, off-balance pirouette and came down more overturned than not.

Everything loose in the taxi was all at once in the water, ineluding the body of the driver. Grady and Julia were plunged in and under so awkwardly that for a while they were disoriented, didn't know which was the way to the surface.

Julia wasn't panicked. Ordinarily, being underwater was not something she found pleasant, or safe, even when she was in a nice, clear swimming pool. However, now she felt unexpectedly capable of coping with the situation. Actually, she was more concerned with Grady's safety. Where was he?

The river water was murky and there was no sunlight to help visibility. Julia could barely make out the body of the driver, his lavender shirt, as it sunk off a ways to her right. Then, also in that direction, she spotted something else.

Bright red. The drawstring pouch containing the rubies. It must have come out of Grady's shirt pocket.

Julia's immediate reaction was to swim to it, to retrieve it, and, after only a couple of strokes, there it was within easy reach, sinking slowly because it was lightweight and not yet saturated.

She didn't grab it. She watched it, as though fascinated with its descent. Her thought was she could have it in her grasp whenever she chose. Treading water, she kept her gaze on the red pouch, picturing the rubies she knew it contained, how important they were to Grady.

She reached for the pouch.

But only mentally.

It was as though her arms were paralyzed. She couldn't work her arms. They wouldn't move. Why, for God's sake, why?

The pouch was soaked now, sinking more rapidly.

Julia commanded her arms to allow her hands to seize it.

They disobeyed.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

“You moping?”

“Just thinking.”

“You've never struck me as the sort who'd mope. Even if it was over a loss of a million or two.”

“You called the airline?”

“All of them. Want some bread and wine?”

“No.”

“Anything I can do for you?”

“Get us a flight home.”

“There's no available space, except as far as Hong Kong. We'd have to lay over there until tomorrow night, maybe even until the next day, nothing could be promised.”

“Fuck Hong Kong.”

“My sentiments exactly. One airline, I believe it was Singapore, said it would put us on standby. But do you want to do that, hang around the airport praying for no-shows?”

A negative grunt from Grady. The last thing he wanted to do now was subject himself to airport hours. That, he thought, would likely cause him to go mad.

They were in the bedroom of their suite at the Oriental. On the floor in a pile of pillows with neither clothes nor lights on. That afternoon when the river police pulled them out of the Chao Phraya, Grady had decided the episode with the young men in the speedboat was too complicated and implausible to explain. He'd let the police assume what it appeared to be: merely another case of near drowning. Besides, he'd discovered right off that he'd lost the rubies and was in no mood for words.

So back to the hotel they'd come, sopped to the skin, catching every eye as they squished and dripped across the busy lobby and up. They got out of their wet things and took a shower, which improved their comfort but not Grady's disposition. Julia sensed he needed or, anyway, wanted quiet, didn't press for conversation. He hardly said anything, nothing consequential and that was how it went throughout the early dinner that he left her to order up. He ordered the wine. For some reason, without giving the wine list more than a glance he chose the most expensive red on it. An '82 Cabernet Sauvignon Grand Cru. Then he sipped down only a half goblet of it. Had he asked her preference she'd have told him her state of mind called for a crisp, delicate white, a Riesling or Gewürztraminer perhaps, something more reasonably priced.

The high point of the evening thus far had been when the valet came to return the clothes they'd worn that day. Clean and hand pressed and none the worse for the river dunking. He must have known from the silt caught in the pockets and seams what had happened, however he remarked that he was kept particularly busy during that time of year because guests were constantly being drenched by the rains.

Grady appreciated the valet's tact. For a moment.