At Walt’s hotel, we waited for the bar hostess to finish serving a Jack Daniels whisky for Walt and a coffee for myself. We had hardly spoken since the taxi ride back, but as soon as she’d finished, Walt leaned forward, helped himself from a bowl of cashew nuts, and took a mouthful of the whisky.
“So,” he said, “what do you want?”
“Facts,” I said.
“What are you? FBI or something? What’s the English equivalent?”
“I’m private,” I said, helping myself to the nuts. Deciding salted cashews and coffee didn’t mix, I went on. “I’m a private investigator, Walt. I specialise mostly in international industrial problems -
industrial espionage, theft of intellectual property, that sort of thing.”
“Jeez,” he said, so I gave him the rest of my potted story.
“Viruses, drugs, and vaccines businesses are new to me,” I admitted.
“Do scientists disappear regularly?”
Walt sat forward, feeding his mouth and munching away on the nuts.
“You’re working for a competitor of Biox. Is that right?”
I shrugged, but it didn’t seem to bother him.
“I started in the labs at Biox,” he said. “But, these days, they need scientists to sell to other scientists. Green, raw salesmen straight out of college aren’t enough. They wouldn’t know a test tube from a machine for DNA sequencing.
“The industry still gets a bad press from time to time, with business getting bought by unethical incentives, that sort of thing. But a lot of the top research is being done by smaller companies, universities, and hospital research departments on tight budgets. Biox is one of them.
And it takes money and a long time to get things licensed and ready to use.” He stopped. “I could ramble on. What exactly do you want to know?”
“Tell me about David Solomon and Guy Williams. What’s your gut feeling?”
He sighed. “I dunno. They used to socialise together, but don’t get me wrong. This was not a liaison as far as I know. Dave was as straight as a die. What they had in common was politics - environmental issues and such like. That and they were both were from the UK with weird notions about everyone getting free drugs, that everyone was equal, and no one should have a priority on treatments just because they were better off than the next man. Dave could get really agitated if you got him going.”
He took a drink and wiped his mouth. “They both had fall outs with Josh Ornstein, Biox’s president, but they were good scientists, and Dave Solomon was given his top post because he could motivate others. In the lab, he’d keep his private thoughts to himself, but outside, in the bar or wherever, it was different. Guy Williams went back to UK because he’d been offered a place at Cambridge, where he’d come from. Dave Solomon just went home one night, spent the night with the girl who shared his apartment, and didn’t turn up for work next day. His girlfriend called in to ask if anyone knew where he was. None of us did. Turned out he’d packed a case, said nothing, and disappeared. His girlfriend was interviewed by the police, and Josh Ornstein went to see her but nothing. Gone. Vanished. There was a bit of local newspaper talk for a while, but the company deliberately tried to keep it a quiet, and like everything, life goes on.”
Walt drained his glass. “And that’s it. I hadn’t thought about it for months until you came along. Any the wiser now?”
“Do you think these two guys are together somewhere?” I asked.
“Maybe. That’s what Josh Ornstein thinks. It’s a real possibility. But where?”
Soon after that, I thanked Walt, wished him a good night’s sleep, and said I’d see him the next morning.
Ten minutes later, at one in the morning, I asked my taxi driver to take a detour along some side streets. Then I told him to stop. I got out, paid him, and then tried the door of the bar. It was still open, and so I walked in. Dimly lit as usual, the only drinkers left were two
well-oiled Europeans preparing to leave. They staggered past me and disappeared into the night.
Anna was behind the bar, so I went over, leaned on the bar and she smiled at me from a distance.
“Sorry,” I said, “I was busy. I tried to phone you.”
She continued to wipe empty glasses for a while, but then came over and stood with her hands on the bar, facing me. “Where are you staying? I called the hotel, but they said you’d checked out.”
“I stayed downtown. Business. You know?”
“Hmmm.”
I grabbed her hand. “Let’s go to your apartment, Anna. Tell me about the lady-boy in the next apartment again. Something. Anything. I don’t want serious, OK?”
It worked. Some five hours later, I was lying naked on my back on a low single bed, watching a brown cockroach making its way across the top of a clothes closet. On the floor, boxes, cases, and other belongings were piled high. Space here was very limited, and it had been very hot all night with only a fan directing a constant breeze of hot air. I didn’t mind.
Anna was still asleep with her hair across her face, so I put my arm around her. It was even hotter, but it felt the right thing to do. No, that’s not true. The truth was I couldn’t resist it.
Wherever I am, the hours around dawn are a good time for thinking.
My biological clock seems to self-adjust, and right then after perhaps an hour of sleep, I was wide awake.
I ran over the events of yesterday and wondered if I should talk to Amos Gazit again. I switched to the bar where Walt and I had left John Wardley and, to Walt’s words, the two drinkers from Livingstone Pharmaceuticals.
And then, quite suddenly, I sat up. It happens like that when I find I can finally put a name to a face. Suddenly, I knew where I’d seen that
man in the picture in the Livingstone magazine - the man called Mohamed Kader.
Mohamed Abdul Kader was an Arab, probably Egyptian, with a string of companies in Kuwait and the Gulf states—mainly agency businesses in baby food and basic non-prescription medicines. I’d been in Abu Dhabi about two years ago when his picture appeared in the business section of the Gulf Times. Being a multi-millionaire, Kader had just acquired yet another agency. This time, it was a much bigger, higher profile, international pharmaceutical company and he was pictured in the same pose as the Livingstone publication.
Memories flooded back. Mohamed Kader’s business had spread from the Gulf and gone international. It was slightly unusual. Many Arab businessmen from his background would stay local—there being, at least at one time, enough money to be made in the Gulf without expanding further afield. Kader was different.
The cockroach had vanished, and I wondered where.
Another piece of information then slotted into place.
This was, most likely, the same Mohamed Kader I’d recently read about in Hong Kong. There’d been a scare over some contaminated batches of baby food sold by a distribution company owned by Kader.
Health officials were inspecting the company that made the food in Hong Kong. I didn’t know the outcome because I’d left for Vietnam, but it was enough to log itself into my memory.
I lay back onto the pillow and noticed that Anna was now fully awake and watching me. I had nothing on, and the fan was blowing the few hairs on my chest. Whether this was especially interesting to her or not, I don’t know, but she suddenly cried out, “Crazy farang, I thought you’d fallen off the bed. What are you doing now?”
“Sorry,” I said. “I suddenly remembered something.”
I pulled her towards me, pressing the side of her cheek onto my chest.
If she wanted to get close to my chest hairs, then she was now as
close as she could get. My real plan though was to talk to her without her staring at me. “I’m always saying sorry to you, Anna,” I said.
“Hmmm.”
“But . . . but you’re very good for me. You know that?”
That was it. I know it was short and rather meaningless, but I’m a bloke, OK? Don’t criticise a man just when he’s just getting going. I half-regretted it anyway and was already having second thoughts.
Instead, I hugged her even closer. It was hot, but she stayed there for a moment before wriggling free.
She then sat astride me, looking down. “Yes, I agree. I am very, very good for you. You want to shower? I’ll make coffee.”
She wrapped a towel around her waist and went to the corner of the little room where she crouched over a low shelf to find two cups. She busied herself while I wandered into the tiny tiled area that she called the bathroom. I showered, washed my hair, and pondered again on Virex and Biox and whether I was getting somewhere or chasing unconnected coincidences. But my thoughts then turned back to Anna. I began to think about her real, much longer Thai name. I tried to say it to myself. It was a pretty name, and I liked it, but Anna was easier.
I picked up a towel from the floor to dry my hair, and Anna’s face appeared through the plastic curtain. “Don’t use that. Very dirty. I use that to clean the floor. I find good one.”
She returned with a clean towel with pink flowers and stood there, still smiling, watching me. As I finished, she took my hand and looked up at me. The towel dropped from her slim waist. Then she led me from the shower. “Drink coffee later.”