LAUNDRY MAN (A Jack Shepherd crime thriller) Read Free Page B

when they came to Bangkok, something most of them were happy enough to do whenever they could come up with an excuse that their wives would buy. Clients were always flying in for what were euphemistically called conferences, only to spend most of their time on a stool next to John at one of the city’s justly famed go-go bars.
    Everyone I knew called John by his nickname: Just John. The source of that nickname was a local legend. Whenever someone who knew only John’s first name asked for his last, so the story went, John would invariably reply, “It’s just John.” Popular rumor had it that Just John was retired from the CIA. That, of course, interpreted his gesture concerning his name as a penchant for secrecy rather than just an indication of friendliness. I thought the story far too colorful to be true, but I really didn’t know Just John all that well so I had never asked him about it.
    “I didn’t know you were coming this morning, John.”
    “Shit,” he grinned as he pushed himself out of his seat, “neither did I until a couple of hours ago.”
    Just John was a big man and all of his features seemed slightly over-scale: big hands, wide forehead, barrel chest, prominent nose. He must have been in his sixties, but he was tanned and fit-looking despite a beer gut that rode his middle like a kangaroo’s pouch. His gray hair was long enough at the back to curl down inside the collar of the neat, button-down white shirt he wore tucked into sharply creased, dark gray trousers.
    “Come on, Jack.” Dollar placed a hand against my back and nudged me gently toward the door. “Let’s take a walk.”
    The three of us left the building and turned north across the campus. Just John said nothing at all, but Dollar and I made small talk as we strolled unhurriedly in the general direction of a massive, lumpy pile of masonry that looked like a bomb shelter built on the surface rather than underground. In actual fact it was an eight-story, windowless shopping center with a doubtful reputation where a lot of Chula students hung out between classes, eyeing each other over the vendors’ stalls heaped with knockoff clothing, cloned cell phones, and pirated DVDs.
    Eventually I got bored with waiting for someone to tell me what this conversation was supposed to be about.
    “What’s on your mind, Dollar?” I asked.
    “As I recall, Jack, we referred Howard the Roach to you last year. That’s right, isn’t it?”
    I nodded. Howard Kojinski liked to pose as a big-time financier, but he was actually one of those guys who seldom made it past the fringe of anything that mattered. He had earned his colorful moniker, so I understood, because of the way he operated on those rare occasions when he accidentally stumbled into something that involved real money.
    Why are cockroaches so unpleasant?
the question goes.
It’s not because of what they eat,
is the answer,
it’s what they fall into and mess up.
    “You organized a company for him in Hong Kong, didn’t you?” Dollar kept walking, his hands folded behind him. “Then you used it to set up an LA property deal he had going with a some Chinese hustlers.”
    I nodded again and waited for Dollar to get to the point.
    “Just John’s looking into what Howard’s been up to lately. What have you heard from the little asshole?”
    “Nothing.”
    Then I thought about Dollar’s question and realized how odd it was.
    “Why would you think I’d heard anything from Howard?”
    “Well, Jack,” Dollar gave me a tentative look, “you know more about manipulating corporate structures than anyone I’ve ever known. You’re the man when it comes to all that shit. If Howard had a problem with some of his funny-money stuff, I thought he might have called you.”
    “And does he have a problem?”
    “Sure he does, Jack. Howard always has a problem.”
    “What is it this time?”
    Howard claimed to have business interests all around the world, but all I knew for certain was that he had