With not-so-steady hands, Eric returned the samples to the drawer, locked it, and went back to work.
MAX and Colonel T (as he liked to be called) sat in a taxi on Rama IV Road not too far from Patpong. Through the static of the car radio, a voice blurted out something unintelligible to Max. Colonel T picked up the receiver and blurted back something equally unintelligible.
“Camron has left the bar,” the colonel explained. “He hired one of our tuk-tuks.”
“Tuk-tuks?”
“Think of it as a taxi.”
Max nodded. “Then I guess it’s showtime.”
“I will set up tuk-tuks wherever he is dropped off. We will try to stall him if he returns before you have a chance to free Mr. Silverman, but there is no guarantee.”
“I understand.”
“You will signal us if the room has an explosive device?”
“I’ll raise and lower the shade,” Max said. “If I give you the signal, don’t try to stop him. He might blow the place sky-high.”
The colonel nodded. “And you have the layout memorized?”
“Yes.”
“Then good luck.”
“Thanks.” Knots began to form in Max’s stomach. “One last question.”
“Yes?”
“How do I go about hiring a prostitute?”
The colonel smiled. “Sit at the bar and hold up a tendollar bill, Lieutenant. The rest will take care of itself.”
SARA woke up late. For a brief moment she blindly reached out for Michael and clawed at the pillow before she remembered that he would not be there. Then she withdrew her hand and began to get ready to visit Harvey.
An hour later she knocked lightly on the door to Harvey’s office and peeked in. “Can I come in?”
He looked up from his desk. He smiled at her in a tired way and took off his reading glasses. “Of course.”
“I don’t want to interrupt.”
“No,” he said, “you’re not interrupting. I need a break anyway.”
“When was the last time you got some sleep?” she asked.
“Oh, let’s see. What year is it?”
“You look awful.”
He nodded, still smiling. “I’ve seen you look better too.”
She limped toward the wooden chair in front of his desk and sat down. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the poster of Michael that Harvey had plastered on the wall behind him. Seeing his image soaring to the basket was oddly comforting. She adjusted her spectacles and stared for a few more moments, watching him glide in midair, seeing the mask of concentration that covered his face. Then she said, “I have something to tell you. Something involving my father and Reverend Sanders.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Oh?”
“You are not going to like it.”
“When something involves your father and Sanders, I rarely do. What is it, Sara?”
She told him everything. Harvey’s mouth remained still while she spoke but his body language was another matter. It altered completely. His fists slowly closed and then tightened to the point where the knuckles turned white. His face grew scarlet, his features twisting in smoldering anger.
“Sons of bitches!” Harvey shouted at long last. “Those ignorant, bigoted bastards!”
Sara said nothing.
Harvey stood up, his rage mounting with each passing second. “How could I have been so stupid? I knew it and I didn’t do a goddamn thing. Of course Markey was working for them, the callous son of a bitch.” He shook his head. “Sanders and Jenkins, I expected it from—but your father, Sara—he calls himself a man of medicine. A healer. Yet he joined forces with them. What kind of man is he?”
Her voice was soft. “I don’t know.”
“They’re going to pay. The world is going to know what they did.” His shoulders slumped, and the tired aura surrounded him again. “It’s a constant battle, Sara. It never ends. Bigots, homophobes, naive people. AIDS has so many strikes against it, I sometimes wonder if we will ever be able to rid the world of it.”
He moved back to his chair and sat down heavily. He spun the chair one hundred eighty degrees and stared at the photograph of his brother. “Do you remember when the AIDS scare first began?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“There was talk of locking the carriers in concentration camps, remember? There was even talk of quarantining all known homosexuals. Nazi tactics, Sara. That’s what it started with. You don’t hear much talk about that now, but in a way the threat to gays is greater now than ever.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Guys like Jerry Falwell and Ernest Sanders have become more subtle now. They have the same bigoted aim, but they take a different approach. And it works. People fall for it. We are bombarded by arguments that say AIDS will never become an epidemic in the heterosexual community. Respected doctors like your father say it every day. But the larger question is not the severity with which AIDS will strike the heterosexual community, but why we feel it is necessary to argue the point so vehemently.”
“I don’t understand.”
Harvey’s voice was both passionate and pained. “Okay, let’s assume for a moment it is true. It’s not. But for the sake of argument, let’s assume your father is right and that AIDS will be a true epidemic only amongst homosexuals and intravenous drug abusers. So what? If your father and his cohorts are not being discriminatory, as they claim, why should it matter what segment of the population is being killed by the virus? If we found out that AIDS was only killing little girls between the ages of five and twelve, would someone dare come out and say, ‘Don’t worry. It won’t affect you’? Of course not. Homophobia fuels these people, Sara. It’s a battle we constantly wage. The tune has changed but the song is still the same.”
“So what do we do?”
“We scrape and claw and battle back. We do everything we can to fight them. We go to the media and destroy them.”
“But it might make them panic. If they are holding Michael . . .”
He nodded, stepped back. “I see what you are saying. Have you told Lieutenant Bernstein?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
“Not to do anything until he gets back.”
“Where is he?”
“In Bangkok.”
“What is he doing there?”
“He said he might have a lead on something.”