Free For the Dead by Timothy Hallinan Page B

Even his back eases a bit. “Anything I can do.”
    “Good. Good.” A few things on Thanom’s desk—a memo pad, a sleek little laptop that makes Arthit’s look like a museum piece, the old-fashioned intercom that links him to his secretary—seem to be slightly out of place. When he’s rearranged them, he tilts his chair back, his eyes on a spot floating in the air a few feet to the left of Arthit’s head. “The killing of Sawat—”
    “And the others,” Arthit says.
    “Of course, the others. Policemen, some of them, and a former policeman.” He grimaces and sucks air through his invisible teeth. “It—it—well …”
    “Awkward,” Arthit volunteers.
    “Yes, awkward. Doubly awkward, because Sawat apparently had policemen working for him even now. But most of all, there’s all that other business, that … unpleasantness from a few years back. All that will get raked over again.”
    “Bad for the department.”
    “Terrible. A ring of hit men in uniform. Even though we managed to keep it out of the courts, it took years to put it behind us. Careers were ruined.” He tugs down on the front of his shirt, smoothing it over his belly. “Even some of those who kept their jobs have a black mark in their files. A
do not promote
mark.”
    Thanom is one who has been promoted since the story broke, even though he was Sawat’s immediate superior and the obvious place for blame to land. The betting pool, down at Arthit’s level, was four-to-one in favor of Thanom being forced into early retirement, but he somehow managed to zig when a zag would have put him on the street, and he’s been zigging ever since. The Dancer.
    “Well, we did avoid the courts,” Arthit says with a certain amount of enjoyment. “Both the judiciary and the police board decided that it didn’t make sense to reopen the cases—”
    “Yes, yes, yes. But the newspapers, television, the new Prime Minister’s party. It’s all going to get raked up again, by people whodon’t sympathize with us. The only thing to do is deal with it swiftly.”
    “Decisively,” Arthit says.
    Thanom’s flat black eyes come up, and Arthit thinks he’s pushed it too far. Thanom waits, expressionless as a shark, until it becomes clear to him that Arthit isn’t going to look away. “Of course,” Thanom says. “And, as smart as you are, you’ve already spotted the central problem.”
    “Finding someone you can trust,” Arthit says. “There are people here who might leak to the papers or the government. Putting favors in the bank. And then, on the other side of the issue, Sawat obviously was still connected to people in this building, and they’re probably afraid they’ll be exposed. In fact, one of them might have killed him.”
    “He was a nasty piece of work,” Thanom says. “And, as you say, connected inside the department.” But his heart isn’t in it, and he lets it trail off. Then he sits forward. “This is the confidential part. Before I go any farther, I need to know this is between us.”
    “If you’re uncomfortable with it—” Arthit begins, but Thanom lifts a hand and brings it down onto the top of his desk with a flat
smack
.
    “Of
course
, I’m uncomfortable with it. But if I’m going to make any progress, I need allies. I need confidants. And you and I—well, we’ve never gotten along very well, but I’ve observed that you have a code of ethics. If you give me your word, I’m going to take it.”
    “Well, then.” Arthit pulls a chair up to the desk and sits. “Since we’re being so frank with each other, how do I know you’re not setting me up? Here I am, Mr. Trusty, poking his nose into everything, acting on your secret orders, and everybody’s staring at me because I might be incriminating them or shielding myself. And you suddenly have no idea why I got involved in the first place.”
    For a tenth of a second, Thanom’s eyes connect with Arthit’s and then bounce off, so quickly it’s almost audible.