World of Trouble (9786167611136) (5 page)

“I don’t want to go to Thailand.”

“I know you don’t.”

“I told you I wasn’t going back there
again.”

“I wouldn’t ask you to go if it weren’t
important. You’re the only person I can trust with something like
this.”

“Look, Charlie, even if I went to Thailand,
I’m not sure how much good I could do you.”

“You know more about moving money than anyone
I ever met, Jack. You’re a goddamned wizard when it comes to stuff
like that.”

“I appreciate your confidence, Charlie,
but—”

“But nothing. When the Asian Bank of Commerce
collapsed, how much was in the wind? Five hundred million? And it
was all CIA black money, wasn’t it?”

Shepherd said nothing.

“Your old pals back in Washington were
running around shrieking like a bunch of little girls. Somebody had
fucked them, too.”

Shepherd said nothing.

“But you worked out the scam, didn’t you?
Then you tracked down the money all by yourself and you got it
back. And I’ll bet to this day there’re not more than five people
in the whole world who even know it was you who figured the whole
thing out.”

“Is that the way you think it happened?”

“That’s the way it
did
happen.”

Shepherd shrugged. “A penny saved is a penny
earned.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“I’m a big fan of clichés. They say so much
and require so little effort.”

Nothing useful could come of telling Charlie
what really happened to the money from the Asian Bank of Commerce.
A lot of people had died trying to grab that money. Some of them
were good people and some of them were not so good. But in the end
everything had turned to crap and the good and the bad alike had
both shared exactly the same fate. They had all ended up losers.
Shepherd didn’t want to talk about it. He
wasn’t
going to
talk about it.

So Shepherd cleared his throat and changed
the subject back to the money Charlie wanted to get out of
Thailand.

“You know as well as I do that we would have
to get permission from the Bank of Thailand to move that much money
out of the country.”

“I know.”

“And I really don’t think—”

“When you get there, go to Bangkok Bank. See
a guy named Tanit Chaiya who’s an Executive Vice President in the
head office on Silom Road.”

“I didn’t say I’d go, Charlie.”

“All Tanit needs from you is a structure he
can use to make it all look okay. Some kind of overseas corporate
acquisition will do it. Tell him we’re buying the Eiffel Tower or
some goddamn sports team in the United States. Just make it look
good.”

“If that’s all there is to it, why can’t I
just draft something after I get back to Hong Kong and email it to
this guy?”

“Because the Bank of Thailand wouldn’t
approve the transfer if that was all you did. They’re not going to
approve it at all without a little persuasion.”

Shepherd nodded, but he didn’t say anything.
He could see now where this was going.

“You with me here?” Charlie asked.

“How much persuasion?”

“I’d say a couple of million would probably
get the job done. Maybe a little less or a little more. Use your
own judgment. I don’t know exactly how they’re going to play it
when we try to move the money, but I know what the bottom line is
going to be. That’s why I need somebody there to look them in the
eye and make sure this gets done. Buying people is easy. Making
sure they stay bought is a lot harder.”

“You’re making me uncomfortable here,
Charlie.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“I’m not going to get involved in bribing the
Bank of Thailand. The US government takes a dim view of that sort
of thing. Americans go to jail for bribery.”

“This isn’t a bribe.”

“Then what would you call it?”

“It’s like ransoming a kidnapped child.
Americans don’t put people in jail for paying ransoms, do
they?”

“I doubt the Department of Justice would look
at this quite that way.”

“I’m not going to sit here and let them steal
my money, Jack. That’s not right.”

“No, it isn’t,” Shepherd admitted.

“I’ve got to pay a few people if I want my
money back. That’s the way business works in Thailand. You know
that.”

“Yes, I know that, but still—”

“So I’m asking you to take care of this for
me, Jack. If I can’t do something myself, you’re my guy.”

“I’m flattered.”

“I’m just looking after my own interests
here. You’re the best. You know everything there is to know about
international corporate structures and banking operations. You’re
Mozart with money. You can make chicken salad out of chicken
shit.”

“Far be it from me to sound modest, but—”

“And I trust you,” Charlie interrupted.
“You’re smart, you’re tough, you’re connected. And you’re an honest
man. That’s why I hired you.”

A silence fell and they both sat back for a
while and just watched those black rubber boats drifting on the
Persian Gulf. It was a companionable silence. Shepherd liked
Charlie no matter what some people said about him. He even liked
all the outrageous bullshit Charlie got involved in. Charlie was
good for more outrageous bullshit in a day than most men were in
their entire lifetimes.

The truth of the matter, Shepherd knew full
well, was that managing outrageous bullshit was what he was good
at. Managing outrageous bullshit was what he did for a living.
Sometimes he even wondered if he could do anything else.

After a moment Charlie started talking again.
“I’ve asked Adnan to pull together the documentation on the Thai
accounts for you. You can start with that. If you need anything
else, just ask him and he’ll get it for you.”

“Is Adnan here?” Shepherd asked.

“He’s over in the office,” Charlie said,
gesturing vaguely in the direction of the other house across the
compound.

Adnan was Charlie’s personal assistant. He
was in his forties, slight with slicked-back hair and pale skin,
and he claimed to be Lebanese. Shepherd didn’t think Adnan really
was
Lebanese, but he had never challenged him on the point.
After Charlie fled Thailand two steps in front of a flood of
corruption charges and settled in Dubai, Adnan had taken on the
vague title of personal assistant. Shepherd didn’t know for certain
what Adnan actually did for Charlie, but what he did know for
certain was that he really didn’t like Adnan. Adnan clearly didn’t
like him either, so Shepherd figured they were square all
around.

“What’s really going on here, Charlie? I need
to know.”

“I thought you didn’t do politics, Jack.”

“Assassination attempts and bribing central
banks isn’t politics.”

“It is in Thailand.”

Shepherd said nothing. Charlie did have a
point there.

“You can’t have it both ways, Jack.” Charlie
leaned forward and rested his forearms on his knees. “Either you’re
part of everything here or you’re a lawyer who just looks after
financial matters for me. We can do this either way, but you need
to decide which way it’s going to be.”

Shepherd didn’t say anything for a moment. He
just sat and looked at Charlie, and Charlie just sat and looked
back.

“I don’t do politics,” Shepherd repeated
after a minute or two had passed like that.

“Fine.” Charlie stood up and rubbed his hands
together. “So you’re my lawyer and you look after financial
matters. Then go to Bangkok and rescue my money. Go right now. You
want to take one of the planes? Use the G-4.”

“No thanks,” Shepherd said. “I like flying
commercial.”

Charlie chuckled and shook his head. “You’re
really a piece of work, Jack. Here I put a thirty million dollar
jet at your disposal and you tell me you’d rather drag your ass out
to the airport, stand in the security line, and take a commercial
flight. What the
hell
am I going to do with you?”

What
was
Charlie going to do with him?
It was a question Shepherd had asked himself from time to time,
although he suspected in a somewhat different context. He had never
come up with a particularly satisfactory answer either.

“So are you going to do this for me, Jack?”
Charlie asked. “There’s no one else I trust.”

“It’s only money, Charlie.”

“Yeah, but it’s a
lot
of money.”

Shepherd sighed and pulled a small notebook
and a pen out of his pocket.

“What was the name of that guy at Bangkok
Bank again?”

SHEPHERD WALKED ACROSS to the villa Charlie called
the office and went in through the kitchen door. A large room with
a faux-beamed ceiling that overlooked the sea at the back of the
house had been turned into a conference room, and that was where
Shepherd found Adnan.

Adnan was leaning over a big oak table that
filled the center of the room examining what looked like a large
map. Shepherd couldn’t see what the map depicted, partly because
the angle was wrong and partly because Robert Darling was standing
at the table next to Adnan blocking his view.

Shepherd had met Darling a half dozen times.
They were both trustees of Charlie’s charitable foundation and had
run into each other at trustees meetings but not on any other
occasion. Darling had said little about himself other than
something professionally vague about being in the private
investment business. Shepherd hadn’t pressed. He figured it was
none of his business what the man did for a living. He had met a
lot of people who introduced themselves in exactly the same way and
he wouldn’t
want
to know what most of them did for a
living.

“I didn’t know you were here, Robert,”
Shepherd said.

Darling turned his head very slowly.

“Hello, Shepherd. You look tired. Up late
last night?”

“No. Must be all the excitement. It’s a shame
you missed it.”

Shepherd knew he sounded testy and frankly he
didn’t give a fig.
What was with the you-look-tired shit?
Darling was just the kind of guy who always had to take a shot,
even when there was nothing to shoot at.

Adnan quickly rolled up whatever it was they
had been examining. He blocked Shepherd’s view of it with his body
until he was done, then turned around holding it in his hands.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” he said.

“So I see.”

Adnan had a stiff smile that bared his teeth
far more than was really desirable. Sometimes Shepherd thought he
looked downright reptilian. Today was one of those times.

“What do you want?” he asked.

Darling seemed quite amused at Adnan’s
belligerence. He folded his arms and waited, a half smile on his
face.

“Charlie said you have some documents for
me,” Shepherd said.

“They’re in my office.”

“Fine.”

Adnan just stood and looked at Shepherd and
said nothing else.

“May I have them?” Shepherd prompted.

“I would have sent them to you if you had
telephoned.”

“I’m sure you would. But I’m here, so I’ll
take them with me.”

Adnan still looked irritated and Darling
still looked amused. Shepherd couldn’t work out what the hell was
going on.

“Look, guys, I’m sorry I interrupted whatever
you were doing,” he said. “If somebody will just give me the stuff
I came for, I’ll be on my way and leave you to it.”

Darling glanced at Adnan and gave a little
jerk of his head and Adnan scurried off. He carried his rolled up
map or whatever it was with him when he left.

That was interesting, Shepherd thought. He
didn’t even realize Adnan knew Darling. Now here they were huddled
together looking as if they were plotting something and Darling was
running whatever it was. Shepherd filed the observation away with
the large stockpile of other curiosities he had already collected
in his wanderings around the royal court of Charlie Kitnarok. You
could never tell when little things like that might turn out to be
useful.

After Adnan had gone, Darling took a blue and
white box of Gitanes Brunes out of his inside jacket pocket, the
non-filter kind, and held them out.

“No thanks,” Shepherd said.

Darling grunted, shook one out, and lit it
with a gold lighter. He was a small man with a large head. On each
occasion Darling and Shepherd had met, Darling had worn a well-cut
dark suit, a white shirt, and a bow tie. His clothing gave him an
air of primness. He looked like a man constantly smelling something
unpleasant and suspecting it might be you.

“I keep trying to quit,” Darling said,
sliding the box of Gitanes back into his pocket. “I’ve even done
hypnosis and acupuncture. Nothing works.”

Darling loosed a world-class shrug, one any
genuine Frenchman would have been proud to author.

“I just like the fucking things too much,” he
said.

Shepherd nodded but he didn’t say
anything.

Darling took a long pull on his cigarette.
“What are you up to these days, Shepherd?” he asked.

“Same as always. Just practicing law. Trying
to get by.”

“I hear you’re living in Hong Kong now.”

“That’s right.”

“You like Hong Kong better than Bangkok?”

“Yeah. You meet a better class of bar trash
there.”

Darling nodded slowly, almost as if Shepherd
had made an interesting observation worthy of reflection, and drew
on his cigarette again.

“You’ve really been up and down these last
few years, haven’t you, Shepherd?”

Shepherd wasn’t sure what to say to that.
Actually, he
was
sure since Darling was absolutely right. He
just wasn’t about to give the bastard the satisfaction of agreeing
with him.

“You should have tried Paris,” Darling nodded
as if he knew exactly what Shepherd was thinking. “There’s a long
tradition of Americans running away to Paris when they are
unhappy.”