Vulture Peak Read Free Page A

poor and the helpless, et cetera, is driven by
me
. You don’t even have to confine yourself to Thailand—the Philippines is a world center for organ trading. You can even extend beyond Southeast Asia—in Moldova human kidneys are the staple of the economy. They grow them for cropping the way we grow rice. You’re going to be our first World Cop. It’ll put us on the law enforcement map like never before—we’ll get to be more self-righteous than Western Europe and the States put together. We’ll be the Mr. Squeaky Clean of organ sales.”
    My jaw dropped. “You’re going to plaster it all over the media, aren’t you? I mean, the international media? You cunning bastard. The surest way to get the respect of the Thai people is to get the respect of the rest of the world first, especially the Western world. You’re going to give exclusive interviews to CNN and the BBC, which will run endlessly on Thai TV. Damn it, you can’t lose.” I was scratching my jaw furiously. “And you get to nail Zinna into the bargain. It’s two birds with one stone.”
    “Right.”
    I slumped. “And it’s true, I can’t refuse.”
    “See, you agree with me on every point.”
    “It’s also an easy way to get myself killed.”
    “There is a risk factor, I agree. But how long do you think you would live if you resigned from the force?”
    Stress now had me all curled up in my chair—if I were alone, I would have been in a reality-denying fetal position on a bed somewhere. Of course, he had anticipated this moment, just as he had stage-managed the whole interview. Now in one seamless action, he took out his wallet, extracted something small and black from it, sat on his chair, leaned back, and chucked the credit-card-sized black object across the desk. It landed in front of me. I refused to pick it up or even look closely at it. “What is it?”
    Now he showed the first sign of irritation. “What does it look like?”
    “A credit card.”
    “What a genius detective you are.”
    “A black one?”
    “If you pick the bloody thing up, all will be revealed.”
    Correction: if I picked it up, it would be a symbolic act of defeat. Well, he’d already defeated me, so I picked it up. “Amex? They make black ones? Is it for people with poor repayment records?”
    He smirked. “You jerk. If you had one atom of street sense you would know you could buy a jumbo jet with it.”
    I turned it over a couple of times and shrugged. “So congratulations, I already know you’re filthy rich. What’s it got to do with the price of human testicles?”
    “Look again, mooncalf.”
    I looked again and gasped. “It has my name on it.”
    “You’ve no idea how I had to lie to get them to put you on the account. They checked you out—they told me things about you that were truly shocking, but I battled on. It’s a supplementary card. Just don’t tell any of my wives—they’ve been on at me to get them one ever since they found out what it is.”
    “You mean—”
    “Of course, I put a limit on it—a very generous one, actually.”
    “How much?”
    “Not telling you. Let’s say, if you find out, it will be because you’ve gotten uncharacteristically extravagant—or because the case has taken one of those turns that only money can control.”
    All I could do for the moment was to stare, as if the sinister black piece of plastic had arrived from a distant planet. “But why do I need it? If the case requires cash, I can just come and ask you for it.”
    He sighed. “You’ve missed the main clue, Detective.”
    “Okay, I’m just a dumb monk manqué—what clue?”
    “In the old days you would have got it in an instant. I deliberately let it drop early on in this interview. I’m very disappointed. And don’t say ‘fuck you’ again—you only get to play that card once in a lifetime.”
    Now I shrugged and made myself look even dumber than he was making me out to be. I let my jaw hang and gave him a slack-eyed stare.
    “The