IT WAS BECAUSE Tay had been thinking about what Kang had said that the idea came to him. While it was true that Kang and his friends had performed a crucial role in solving the case of the America woman found at the Marriott, there was someone else who had performed an even more crucial role. Someone Kang didn’t know existed.
John August was…well, the truth was Tay didn’t know for sure who John August was. He had some pretty good ideas, at least he thought he did, but he didn’t really know for sure.
A woman who worked for the US State Department had introduced Tay to August when Tay had gone to Thailand chasing leads about the murder of the woman at the Singapore Marriott. August claimed then to be retired from the State Department and nothing more now than the owner of a go-go bar called Baby Dolls located in a Thai seaside resort notorious for what was euphemistically called its nightlife. But Tay didn’t really think August was retired at all, and certainly not from the State Department.
Naturally, Tay had initially jumped to the conclusion that August was CIA, but he wasn’t so sure of that anymore. August was tied into the American security establishment somehow, he had no doubt of that, but whatever his title and whomever he worked for, August was clearly a troubleshooter and problem solver who worked without a lot of supervision.
The simple fact was August solved problems the old fashioned way. He killed them.
That was why Tay thought it unlikely August was just another freebooting contract intelligence operative bouncing around Asia on his own. It seemed more probable he was something genuinely scary, and Tay wasn’t sure he even wanted to know what that was.
Regardless of who he really was, Tay had to admit he genuinely liked August. They didn’t have much of a relationship — they certainly weren’t pals and that was just fine with Tay — but August didn’t seem to mind Tay asking a favor every now and then. Going that route might not have been Tay’s first choice, but it beat the hell out of doing nothing at all and watching the bad guys laugh at you as they walked away. Justice might be blind, but it didn’t have to be stupid.
August had never asked Tay for any favors in return, at least not yet. Tay figured if his bill ever came due, the payment was likely to be a doozy.
Contacting August wasn’t easy. Tay had a telephone number for him, one with a Los Angeles area code oddly enough, but neither August nor anyone else answered it. Tay just called the number and hung up. Then a few minutes or an hour or a day or two later August either called back, or he didn’t. Tay assumed the number functioned on some kind of caller ID system that couldn’t be blocked, but that was just a guess on his part. He had thought a couple of times about borrowing someone else’s cell phone and calling the number to see what would happen, but he quickly abandoned the idea. John August wasn’t the kind of guy you played games with.
Tay placed the call to Los Angeles. Then he leaned back and put his feet on the desk and wondered when August would call him back. If August called him back at all.
***
It was less than twenty minutes before Tay’s cell phone rang. The screen said UNKNOWN CALLER. Tay thought that described August pretty well.
“I’ve been wondering when I was going to hear from you, Sam. You guys got anything on your bombers yet?”
“I’m not on that.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means I’ve been assigned to other cases. They don’t want me on the bombings.”
There was a pause while August mulled that over. Tay made a bet with himself August wouldn’t ask why. He didn’t.
“So what’s on your mind, Sam?”
“I need for you to look at some pictures.”
“Pictures?”
“We found a man with his neck broken. The circumstances are…well, I’ve got some pictures that may help me to identify him and I think you can help me understand what they mean.”
“The dead man had pictures on him?”
“Not exactly. It’s—”
“Yeah, I can guess. It’s a long story.”
“Longer than you can imagine.”
There was a pause. Tay knew what was coming next.
“I heard you’ve got at least five hundred dead from the bombings,” August said, right on cue.
“Something like that.”
“And you’re working a case about one guy who got his neck broken?”
“I need for you to look at these pictures,” Tay repeated. “Where are you?”
“Not far.”
Tay waited him out.
“Look, Sam, I’d like to help you, but I’m sure you can understand I’m pretty busy right now.”
“Yeah, I can imagine. The go-go bar business must be booming.”
August laughed, but he didn’t say anything else.
“There’s a connection, August.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Between my dead guy and the bombings. There’s a connection.”
“What is it?”
“I don’t know. That’s why I need for you to look at these pictures. Without getting an ID on this guy, I’m never going to find out.”
“Are you blowing smoke up my ass here, Sam?”
Tay loved the richness of American idioms, but this one caused an image to flash into his mind that he could have lived a long time without.
“Where are you?” Tay repeated. “I’ll come to you.”
August didn’t say anything and Tay waited. He had made his pitch. August would either bite or he wouldn’t.
He bit.
“Meet me in JB. Say…five o’clock today?”
JB was what everyone in Singapore called Jahor Bahru, the second largest city in Malaysia. It was just across the Straits of Jahor, but it was a world away from Singapore. Tay sometimes thought of the causeway over the straits that connected Singapore and JB as a sort of worm hole between the first world and the third.
“Where?” Tay asked.
“You know the Polo place?”
For a moment Tay wasn’t sure he had understood August correctly.
“Polo? You play polo?”
“Don’t be dense, Sam. I meant the Polo shop.”
“What are you talking about?”
“The clothing store. Out in in the Premium Outlet Center.”
“You want me to meet you in a Ralph Lauren store?”
“Sure, why not? You can’t miss it. It’s just past the Armani Outlet, on the opposite end of the center from Starbucks. Besides, maybe you’ll buy some socks or something from us while you’re there. We need the business.”
“You own the Polo Shop in JB?”
“Not me,” August said, but that was all he said.
“Okay, five o’clock,” Tay said when the silence had stretched on for a while. “I’m sure I can find it.”
“Of course you can. You’re a trained detective.”
And with that, August hung up.