The Paradise bar is a Phuket landmark, one of the first and probably still the most famous of what are now dozens of rundown bars along Patong beach. I parked at the Holiday Inn, cut through the garden past the darkened swimming pool, then emerged from their back gate into the nighttime hubbub of Beach Road. Turning north, I walked the fifty or so yards to a little shack on the beach.
The Paradise was more of a sunset watering hole than a nighttime hangout. By now, just after nine, most people had moved on to livelier haunts and the place was pretty calm. Those few patrons who remained were drinking quietly, either at a long counter that faced the ocean or further back inside at the scarred wooden bar with a big-screen television above it.
Clovis Ward was on a stool in a far back corner with his Stetson cocked back on his head, which made him a hard man to miss. I noticed he had chosen a seat that had a clear field of vision across the entire bar and all the way out to the street. It could have been just a coincidence, but somehow I doubted it. He didn’t look at me when I walked in. He was leaning on his forearms against the bar, and he appeared to be completely absorbed in a golf tournament on the television set up over his head. Somehow I doubted that, too.
“You play golf?” I asked as I pulled out the stool next to him and sat down.
“You gotta be joking. I don’t get paid enough to afford clubs. It’s you rich people who play golf. Not guys like me.”
“Is that why we’re meeting here in this dump, Marshal? To demonstrate what a working-class guy you are?”
Now he looked at me.
“I like this place,” he said.
“Figures.”
“Besides it’s handy. I’m at the Holiday Inn next door.”
“That figures, too.”
A golfer I didn’t recognize, which was to be expected since I didn’t recognize any golfer who wasn’t Tiger Woods, belted his drive into a lake and Ward chuckled in enjoyment.
“Look, Marshal,” I said after a moment, “I gathe cl Is dr-”
“You can drop that cutesy bullshit,” he interrupted. “People call me CW.”
“Okay, fine. CW it is. But only if you take off that stupid-looking hat.”
CW made a snorting noise. I hoped it was a laugh, but I couldn’t be sure. Whatever it had been, he took off his hat and laid it on the bar.
“Happy now?”
I gave CW a very small smile, but I didn’t say anything.
“Okay, Jack. Now, I’m buying, so what’s your poison?”
“Mekong and soda,” I said to the middle-aged woman waiting behind the bar.
“Mekong?” he asked as she walked away to make my drink. “What’s that?”
“It’s Thai whiskey.”
“Pretty good?”
“No. Actually, it’s awful.”
“Then why are you drinking it?”
“It’s refreshing on a hot night, if you put enough soda and ice in it.”
“Maybe I ought to try it,” CW muttered. “This beer tastes like dog piss.”
CW raised one hand and caught the bartender’s eye. Then he pointed to me, made a drinking gesture, and held up two fingers. The woman nodded and took down a second glass.
“Okay,” I said. “Enough of this happy horseshit.”
I pulled the three pictures he’d given me out of my shirt pocket and dealt them out onto the bar one by one like playing cards.
“You going to tell me what this is all about?” I asked.
CW waited in silence for the bartender to serve our drinks. The woman glanced at the pictures while she was setting out the glasses, but apparently didn’t see anything of interest to her. CW picked up his drink, sniffed suspiciously at the amber liquid, and tried a sip.
“You were right,” he said. “Not bad at all.”
“How wonderful for you. So can we get to it now?”
CW seemed to consider that for a moment. “You sure you’re not one of his lawyers?”
“I already told you this morning that I wasn’t.”
“Yeah, but you got to appreciate my position here, Jack, me being an officer of the law and all. If you’re one of Karsarkis’ lawyers, then that’s one thing. But if you’re just a guy who’s hanging around with him, then that’s something else.”
“I’m not one of Karsarkis’ lawyers and I’m not a guy who’s hanging around with him either. I’ve laid eyes on Plato Karsarkis exactly twice in my entire life.”
“Okay.” CW didn’t seem very interested in the last part of what I said. “But you’re not one of his lawyers. That’s right, isn’t it?”
“Just out of curiosity, what is it that makes you think I might be a lawyer for Plato Karsarkis?
“Because you look like one slippery son of a bitch to me, Slick. You’re just the kind of shyster a piece of shit like Karsarkis would want to keep around.”
I wasn’t really sure what to say towha Yo that, so I kept my response as neutral as possible.
“I do not represent Plato Karsarkis in any capacity whatsoever. Is that clear enough for you, CW, or would you like it in writing.”
“Yeah, I would, but I don’t have a pen.”
“I was kidding.”
“So was I.”
“No, you weren’t.”
“Well, mostly.”
CW took another sip of his Mekong and soda, but he didn’t say anything else.
“So do I get an answer now?” I asked after I had waited a while.
The photographs were still lying on the bar and I rapped on one with my forefinger.
“Why in Christ’s name have you been following me around taking pictures?”
“We’re not following you, Slick. We don’t really give a shit about you. But we have Plato Karsarkis under surveillance around the clock and you just happen to get in the way.”
“I don’t see why that gives you any particular right to tell me who I can associate with.”
“Don’t go all prissy on me here, Slick.”
I collected the photographs off the bar and held them out to CW.
He shook his head. “Keep ‘em. I got plenty more.”
I tapped the three photographs into a neat pile and then ripped them in half. For good measure, I stacked the six halves together and ripped them again. Then I piled all the pieces into an ashtray and wiped my hands.
CW nodded absently a couple of times, then looked over at me and cocked his head as if he was trying to size something up.
“How do you feel about Plato Karsarkis?” he asked.
“We’re not having an affair, if that’s what you mean.”
CW returned his gaze to the golf tournament still flickering soundlessly on the big Sony above our heads.
“You know what I’m talking about, Slick.”
“Actually, I don’t.”
“I mean, do you like him? Are you sympathetic with him?”
“He’s okay,” I said. “But I wouldn’t call myself sympathetic. He’s a bail jumper and a fugitive, for God’s sake.”
“Do you think he’s guilty?”
“Of what?”
“Of selling stolen oil smuggled out of Iraq. Of killing that girl.”
“I don’t know.” I rubbed my forefinger in the condensation on the side of my glass and tried to find a way to get off the subject of how I felt about Plato Karsarkis. “He could be guilty of one and not the other. Or of both. Or neither. What do you think?”
“Me?” CW seemed startled at the question. “I’m just shoveling shit from a sitting position here, Slick. I bag ‘em and tag ‘em whether they’re guilty or not. What happens to them after that is somebody else’s problem, not mine.”
I pushed myself around on my stool until I was facing out toward the sidewalk and watched the passing tourists for a while. There were an awful lot of them and they came in all shapes and si sh on my stzes. Still, I figured that most of them at least knew why they were there, and whether it was to have a meal, or get drunk, or chase girls, being somebody who knew what he was doing there looked pretty good to me right about then.
“You didn’t ask me here tonight to seek my counsel on whether Plato Karsarkis is guilty as charged, did you, CW?”
“Nope.” He shook his head and turned around on his stool as he stifled a yawn. “That I didn’t.”
The sidewalk in front of the Paradise Bar was running high with a river of people heading for the center of Patong. They were a decidedly mixed bag: Scandinavian families with matching hair; Japanese couples who might have been on their honeymoons; sweaty, rotund Germans holding hands with tiny Thai girls; mustachioed Arabic-looking men wearing tank tops and trailed by women in black chadors covering them from head to toe; a clutch of tattooed young Brits with several pounds of metal stuck through various parts of their bodies; a pair of hairy, middle-aged women in dirty T-shirts and baggy shorts who brayed nonstop at each other in broad Australian accents; and hundreds of other unidentifiable but equally uninspiring folks sweating out their cheap packaged holidays in paradise.
“I’ve been here almost three weeks now,” CW said. “And I haven’t done a fucking thing that’s been useful to anybody. It’s all been just a lot of hurry-up-and-wait bullshit. Son of a bitch, I am so damned tired.”
I nodded sympathetically, not having any idea what else to do.
“I got two boys back in Dallas with my ex-wife and I miss ‘em. I want to pop this bastard and go home, but I don’t feel any closer to doing that now than I did the day I arrived.”
“So you’re still waiting for Karsarkis’ extradition to be approved by the Thais? Is that it?”
“Yep. You got it, Slick.”
CW’s eyes flicked at me and then away. For a moment he seemed like he was going to say something else, but he didn’t.
“So then tell me, what’s your relationship with Karsarkis?” he asked instead.
“Dinner guest.”
“Nothing professional?”
“For Christ’s sake, CW, you’re not going to start that again, are you?”
“I asked you before if you were one of his lawyers, Slick. You said you weren’t and I believe you.”
“How nice.”
“Now I’m asking you if you have any other professional connection with him. Maybe a business arrangement of some kind.”
The question surprised me, but I struggled to keep my eyes still so CW wouldn’t see it. Did he somehow know about the conversation Karsarkis and I had had about his hotel deal? From the photographs it was clear CW wasn’t operating alone, and he obviously had some pretty good technology going for him so I supposed it was at least possible. But even if he had somehow eavesdropped on the conversation at Karsarkis’ house, what was I worried about? I’d told Karsarkis clearly that I wanted nothing to do with his business, hadn’t I? Why was I feeling vaguely guilty now about nothing more than having the conversation with Karsarkis?
“Should I take your silence to mean you do have some kind of arrangement with him?” CW prompted before I had finished my musings.
“No. You should take my silence to mean I’m searching for a polite way to say it’s none of your goddamned business. So far I haven’t come up with one.”
“You’d best tell me the truth right now, Slick. Things will go a lot better for you that way.”
I wanted to tell him to fuck off. I really did. But I didn’t really see what that would accomplish and what I wanted even more than that was to put an end to the whole damned conversation so I could go back to the hotel and Anita.
“I have no relationship at all with Plato Karsarkis. Neither business nor social. I met him by coincidence in a restaurant here.”
“The Boathouse. Yeah, we know. How come Karsarkis recognized you?”
“I have no idea. He said he’d heard of me and seen pictures of me.”
“And you believed him?”
“Why wouldn’t I believe him? Why would the most famous man in the world walk up to me and lie about knowing me?”
“I can’t put my finger on it, Slick, but something just don’t sound right.” CW shrugged slightly and rubbed at his face again. “Okay. Go on. How have you been involved with Karsarkis since then?”
“I haven’t been. Anita and I went to his house for dinner because…well, because he asked us and my wife was curious about him. I didn’t even want to go. That was the only time I’ve ever seen the man, other than at the Boathouse.”
“So you have no commercial relationship with him.”
I threw up my hands and rolled my eyes.
“Lordy, Mr. Marshal, don’t hit me again with your big stick. I’ll confess everything.”
“Stop being such a smart ass, Slick. Just answer the fucking question.”
“I have no commercial relationship whatsoever with Plato Karsarkis. Clear enough for you?”
“If you’re lying to me, I’m gonna use your butt for a broom, boy.”
“Don’t you think you’re laying on all that cornpone bullshit a little thick?”
CW smiled. “Yeah. Maybe I am at that.”
He dug some bills out of his pocket, twisted around, and dropped them on the bar. Then he stood up and started to put on his hat, but perhaps remembering his promise to me he tucked it under his arm instead and jammed his hands into his pockets.
“There’s somebody I want you to meet. You want to go someplace else with me?”
“Where do you have in mind?” I asked.
“There’s a bar a couple of my boys like to hang out in. Up where the action is. I’ve never been there before, but they said it’s called the Blue Lotus and it’s right at the beginning of a street called Soi Crocodile. You know where that is?”
Soi Crocodile, huh? Indeed I did know where that was.
Maybe my evening was about to get interesting after all.