Paying Back Jack Read Free

The lunchtime trade had gone back to the offices, shops, and apartments until dinnertime. It was as quiet as it ever got on Soi 33 this side of mid-afternoon.
    A short distance behind the General’s black Camry a motorcycle had been tailing the car. It slowed as the General’s car slowed, and the rider flashed a red laser penlight on the General’s car. The General had come to a stop between Goya and Papa’s. Calvino looked over his shoulder and saw a second motorcycle, a blue and silver Honda, with a driver and a passenger turn into the soi from Sukhumvit. Both riders on the Honda wore wraparound sunglasses and black clothes.The rear passenger’s face was covered with a ski mask. This wasn’t the time to act like a newbie fresh from the airport, seeing things for the first time. The hand of the fast-approaching rider had reached inside a nylon jacket and emerged holding a handgun. The gun, the laser: it added up to a certainty that the motorcycle riders were working together. The laser beam pinpointed the man inside.
    The time from the moment a gun is drawn to when it’s used is calibrated in seconds. Glancing up and down the street, Calvino counted one, and before he got to two, pushed the deep-fried insect vendor to the side, and using his body, shoved her cart into the path of the oncoming motorcycle. Both driver and passenger had been concentrating on the target and hadn’t seen the cart coming. When it hit the motorcycle’s midsection, it knocked the driver off balance, and he had no chance to recover. Rider, passenger, and bike skidded hard, tipping over on the rain-slick road. The Thai driver had tried to brake at the last second but lost control. His machine spiraled, shooting out a trail of sparks as it struck from behind, engine still running, a parked motorbike that had four torpedo-shaped metal cylinders strapped to the back. Rider and passenger held on, thinking that against the odds they’d somehow come out of the spill, shoot the General, and escape down Soi 33. If they’d seen the soi the way a foreigner saw it for the first time, they wouldn’t have made that mistake. The gas delivery boy, who did a nice business selling gas cylinder refills to the roadside vendors, stood in the street a few feet away, rolling away an empty and attaching a new one in its place. Wiping the sweat from his brow when he heard the crash, he looked up and saw the bike spinning toward his bike where it was parked in front of the banyan tree.
    The impact of the two bikes occurred with maximum force. In the collision, the first cylinder exploded, setting off a chain reaction that burst the other three, each adding more fuel to the large orange ball of flame shooting up the banyan tree. The vendor looked at what remained of her cart, bugs strewed over the road, and then at the fire leaping up the banyan tree, catching the dry and brittle veins on fire until the umbrella of branches and veins ignited a virtual New Year’s fireworks display. The wrecked bikes and riders were enveloped in the ball of flames. The helmeted head of the driver shattered, sending fragments of plastic and skull across the road, splattering the dwarf and the tree, and coated the legs of half a dozen girls.
    The yings from the Japanese karaoke place backed away in horror and fear. The vendor stared, hands clutched into a ball. There were tears in her eyes. Her livelihood had just been destroyed. Calvino reached inside his new jacket, unholstered his .38 caliber police service revolver, and ran down the street. Sidestepping the flames, he came up level to the General’s car. The General waved at him. But Calvino was looking past the General at the motorcycle rider who had tagged the old man using a laser light. He had managed to stop a short distance behind the General’s car and remained a threat. With the point bike out of action, was the hit still in play? Calvino had no way of knowing. It was possible