The Collected Part 5

Another few seconds of silence. "Maybe a week ago. It was a Friday, I think."

"Did he say anything about visiting his family then?"

"No. Not that I remember. Why?"

"Have you tried calling him since?"

Daeng could almost hear Yai shake his head. "I didn't have any reason to."

"What about a number for his family in Issan? Do you have one?"

"He should have his mobile. Just call that."

"I have called his mobile. He's not answering. But I need to talk to him now."

"Okay, okay. Um, let me think." Yai fell silent for several seconds. "Dom might know. She's been hanging out with him on and off for a while now."

"Get ahold of her. Tell her to call me."

"Sure, of course." A pause. "You want me to do that now?"

"Yes," Daeng said. "Now."

While he waited for the girl to call him, he cut up a mango, and started to eat it. Two slices in, his phone rang, only it wasn't Dom. It was Yai again.

"She's not answering," Yai said.

"You tried more than once?"

"Yeah. Three times. Maybe she sleeps deeper than I do."

Maybe, Daeng thought. Then again...

"You know where Ton lives, right?" he asked.

"Sure," Yai said.

"Meet me there in twenty minutes."

"It's going to take me a little more than-"

Daeng hung up.

__________.

TON LIVED IN the rooftop apartment of a building near Silom. Yai was waiting out front when Daeng's taxi pulled to the curb.

"You go up yet?" Daeng asked.

Yai shook his head. "Just got here."

"Come on, then."

They went inside and took the scuffed-up elevator to the seventh floor. From there, they had to climb the stairs one more flight to Ton's place-a four-room structure built right in the middle of the roof. It had a wide wooden patio at the front, and a jumbled storage area behind.

A plank pathway led from the stairwell door along the edge of the roof to the home's side entrance. Daeng knocked when they reached it, but, as he expected, no one answered.

He tried the k.n.o.b and was surprised to find the door was unlocked. He glanced back at Yai, who also looked confused.

"You armed?" Daeng whispered.

Yai reached around to the small of his back, and pulled a gun out from under his shirt.

Daeng's intention had been merely to find a way inside, where he was sure they'd find some way of contacting Ton's family in Issan, but as he opened the door, he instantly knew a call to the countryside would be unnecessary.

The smell of death rushed through the opening as if it had been waiting for someone to let it loose.

"s.h.i.t!" Yai said, blinking his eyes and twisting his head away.

Daeng looked around, and spotted several old rags by the back corner of the house. They were dirty, but better than nothing. He retrieved them, gave a couple to Yai, bundled together the two he'd kept, and pressed them tightly over his nose and mouth.

Yai looked surprised. "We're going in?"

Daeng answered by doing just that.

They found Ton and Dom in the living room, sitting side by side on the couch, their throats slit. A swarm of flies hovered around their bloated corpses like auras. Their eyeb.a.l.l.s and tongues seemed to be trying to jump out of their head.

Yai groaned twice before rushing out of the room.

Daeng could hear him just outside the front door losing whatever was left in his stomach from the previous night. Daeng didn't have the same problem. Even before he'd started working with Nate removing all sorts of bodies, he'd seen more than his share of the dead. Instead of running out, he moved closer, looking for any clues as to who had done this and why.

But whoever slashed Ton's and Dom's necks had left no calling card.

__________.

"THIS IS VERY disturbing," Christina said.

Daeng remained silent, letting the woman process what he had told her.

They were in a storage room at the back of a restaurant Christina owned near Khao San Road, just one of dozens of businesses the American woman had around the city. She'd been in the Thai capital for decades and was known in certain, very exclusive circles as someone who got things done. She and Daeng had used each other's services many times over the years, and she had always exhibited a level of protectiveness over him, not quite as if he were the son she never had, but close.

"And you're sure about how long they've been there like that?" she asked.

"As sure as I can be," he told her. Given the condition of the bodies, Daeng was certain Ton and Dom had been dead for at least a week, which would have been right around the same time Ton had sent Daeng the message to return to Bangkok. Perhaps even before.

She stared at an empty shelf, the hint of concern on her face. Without turning back to him, she said, "Someone was asking about you."

"What? Who?"

"I didn't talk to them directly. They spoke to one of my people, who then put them in contact with your organization."

"With Ton?" he asked, already knowing the answer.

She hesitated, then nodded.

"When?"

"Thursday last week."

A day prior to the message Ton had sent Daeng.

"Who was it?"

"Like I said, I didn't speak to them, so I don't have a name."

"But you can call whoever it was they talked to and find out."

"Do you really think a name will get you anywhere? If this person is responsible for the deaths, the name was undoubtedly fake."

"It's a place to start."

Five minutes later he had a name-Thatcher-and, in an unexpected bonus, a cell phone picture taken by Christina's man as Thatcher left. Thatcher was in profile and far enough from the camera that his facial features were slightly blurred.

But he did have one distinctive feature: a bald head.

CHAPTER 8.

A SOUND, A smell, then nothing as Nate pa.s.sed out again. Over and over, the sequence repeated.

A constant droning, like an air conditioner in the background.

Black.

The overpowering smell of sweat.

Black.

A door slamming.

Black.

A vibration.

Black.

Voices, talking to him but making no sense.

Black.

Then the p.r.i.c.k of a needle in his arm.

And black, deeper than before. Oh, so deep...

CHAPTER 9.

LOS ANGELES.

BETWEEN THEM, QUINN and Orlando had seven messages on their phones when they deplaned in L.A.

Each was from a freelancer who had worked with Quinn and Nate in the past. All had received calls from Nate within the past week, checking on their availability, but to a man they had been previously booked and therefore unavailable. The most disturbing part was the bookings. While two of the men had actually gone out on jobs, the other five had been put on paid holds for projects that ended up not panning out, so they had basically earned their fee for doing nothing.

"I don't like this," Quinn said as they waited for the shuttle that would take them to the rental car lot. "We need to know who hired them."

By the time they had their car and were driving away from LAX, they'd finished calling everyone back. Though the contact name changed from job offer to job offer, the descriptions of the projects the men had been put on hold for were remarkably similar. Calls to the two men who'd actually gone out on a.s.signments confirmed another suspicion. They, too, had been contacted about being put on hold, but had turned the offers down because of their prior commitments.

It was clear someone had purposely tied up the people Nate would have normally hired.

Quinn took La Cienega north toward the hills. Just after they pa.s.sed Wilshire Boulevard, his phone rang.

He checked the display before putting the call on speakerphone. "Daeng?"

"Have you heard from him?" Daeng asked.

"Nothing yet."

There was a pause before Daeng spoke again. "Something's happened here. I'm not sure if it's connected, but it might be."

"In Bangkok?"

"I believe I was tricked into returning home." Daeng explained about the message he'd received that turned out to be untrue, about the man who had sent him the false information being murdered, and about the guy calling himself Thatcher who had been looking for Daeng just before all this had happened.

Quinn's concern had already increased after learning about the other freelancers. Now, it skyrocketed. "Any idea who this guy was or what he wanted?"