Tanner on Ice by Lawrence Block

Author:Lawrence Block [Block, Lawrence]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Mystery & Detective, Tanner; Evan (Fictitious character), Smuggling, Insomnia, General, Rangoon (Burma), Suspense, Espionage, Thrillers, Fiction, Spy stories
ISBN: 9780061283932
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2007-09-24T23:00:00+00:00

Spurgeon! Harry Spurgeon, asleep in my bed!

Well, not exactly. Staring hard at him, I realized he didn’t seem to be breathing. I leaned in, listening, and still couldn’t hear anything. I reached out a hand and touched him. His forehead was still warm — it takes a while for a body to lose heat, especially in the tropics — but I could tell I was touching a dead man.

He was lying on his stomach, the side of his face pressed to the pillow. I rolled him over to get a look at his face and found I was wrong on a second count as well. Not only wasn’t he sleeping, but he also wasn’t Harry Spurgeon.

I got my little flashlight from my Kangaroo and made sure. He wasn’t Spurgeon, and he didn’t even come close. This man was Asian, for openers, and he was shorter and slimmer and darker than the hearty fellow who’d picked me up at the airport. In fact, the only similarity between the two men was the white hair at the temple.

And that was a fake. A close look with the help of the flashlight showed the hair had been bleached, with the effect heightened by the application of what looked like white shoe polish.

Who was this faux Spurgeon? And what was he doing here? And how had he died?

The last question was the easiest to answer. Whoever had stuck the knife in him had left it there, wedged between his ribs. The wound must have been instantly fatal, as there was hardly any blood.

I patted him down, looking for ID. His pockets were empty except for a single well-worn forty-five-kyat note. Something made me roll him over again, onto his face, and when I ran my hands over him I felt a bulge in the small of his back. I tugged his shirt free from his pants — he was wearing dark Western trousers, this Spurgeon imitator — and found an oilskin packet fastened to his skin with plastic-coated tape.

I ripped it free, stuffed it into my own pocket. And heard a car draw up somewhere outside, brakes squealing. And more noise in the pre-dawn stillness — men shouting, their boots slapping on wooden stairs, their voices loud and angry in the lobby.

Time to get the hell out.

I heard them on the stairs and beat them to the door, turning the key and sliding the brass bolt across as well. While they hammered at the door I rushed to the window, flung it all the way open, and tossed my backpack out. More hammering at the door, and they were fiddling with the lock, trying to get a key in while the key I’d left there blocked the way. In a minute or two they’d lose patience, I knew, and they’d kick the door in, and that would be about as difficult as shoving in the side of a cardboard box.

I sat on the windowsill, my legs outside. I got turned around so that I could get a grip on the sill and lower myself partway before letting go.

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