American and Thai uniforms carted the defused bombs one at a time onto the roof for inspection. Calvino heard one of the American uniforms say the two bombs would be flown out of Thailand, taken apart piece by piece, inspected and labeled to unravel where the parts came from, finding the bastards who sold the parts and putting them on a list of cards for more reward money. As for the dead men on the roof and the bomb, which were being taken down eighteen flights of stairs, the Americans wondered as they finished the interrogation how to play back the operation.
“You think we’ll ever see any part of the five million?” asked Calvino.
Colonel Pratt shrugged.
“Is that why you were here? For the money?”
Calvino looked ashamed.
“It’s a lot of money.”
“And you were the one who killed Hasam,” said Colonel Pratt.
“Is that what you want me to write in my report?”
“It’s probably in violation of my work permit.”
“Most likely.”
“Nui should get part of it. Without her, we’d never have found him.”
Colonel Pratt nodded.
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Washington would settle the reward issue later. Handing out rewards kept people onside. Kept them loyal and expectant, hoping to be of service the next time. For a larger amount of the pie—and everyone loved big fat pies—revisions were necessary, if not mandatory. As he watched Calvino walk away, the colonel remembered the lesson from Sun Tzu’s Art of War.
“. . . yet [generals] begrudge bestowing ranks and emoluments of one hundred pieces of gold [to spies] and therefore do not know the enemy’s situation. This is the ultimate inhumanity. Such a person is not a general for the people, an assistant for a rule, or the arbiter of victory.”
He thought of calling Calvino back and quoting from Sun Tzu.
He decided it was better to leave that battle for another day.
FORTY-FOUR
VALENTINE SAT AT the end of the dining table reading the Bangkok Post and sipping a large glass of fresh orange juice. Som stood ten feet away at the counter preparing his coffee. Calvino walked past the swimming pool. The rain slanted against the aqua blue water. The overhanging palm leaves and plants were a brilliant liquid green. Flowers along the back of the pool drooped with rain pouring off the petals. The baby goats pranced around the table and chairs. Chopin, who was pure black, jumped onto a chair and onto the table. Som ran over and pulled her down to the floor where she scampered off to the corner, knocking over a plastic water bottle. The brown-spotted, four-day-younger Haydn chewed the corner of a white cloth laid over the top of a ten-liter water bottle next to the fridge. They jumped, ran, pranced, and pissed on the floor. Valentine looked up from his newspaper. Calvino had a look of disgust as a 12-day-old goat named Chopin squatted and pissed on the tiled floor.
“It’s only water,” said Valentine. “Bring Mr. Calvino a cup of coffee.”
Som mopped up the urine with a small throw rug. Making Valentine’s coffee, keeping the baby goats off the furniture and cleaning up after them had Som looking more ragged than usual. Things were so bad in Burma that life in Valentine’s compound and her chores were as close to paradise as she was likely to come. Calvino stepped over a puddle left by Chopin, pulled back a chair and sat down at the table.
“Prasit was murdered,” said Calvino.
“Yes, perhaps he was. What a pity. Did you find his murderer?” asked Valentine.
“It’s one of two men.”
Valentine stroked Chopin.
“Who are they?”
“You and Sawai. You both had access to the compound and you both had a thing about snakes.”
“And what is my motive to kill my own gardener?”
“He was squeezing you for money.”
“Blackmail?”
“Was he?”
“Good God, no. My life is an open book. Do you see me hiding anything?”
The answer was that everyone had something to hide. The question was what Valentine had buried and what Prasit had dug up. Sawai’s motives were not in doubt. His connection was with Veera; he was working to keep his jao poh out of harm’s way by dispatching a hit team and leaving snakes on the bodies to confuse the authorities.
“Sawai is the other possibility.”
“The guru? What evidence do you have for this conclusion?”
“Insufficient evidence for a Thai court.”
Calvino had no illusions that Sawai could be arrested based on mere assumptions, no matter how plausible. The luuk nong of a jao poh would go down only if there had been a video camera on the scene showing him killing someone. Even then the tape would likely go missing and the witnesses’ minds would go blank.
“That’s rather complicated. You’ve solved the crime but can prove nothing. We must be in Thailand.”
Valentine let out a hooting laugh that scared the baby goat.
After he recovered, Valentine sighed.
“I suspect that’s the end of it. It doesn’t matter.”
Calvino disagreed; it mattered to him.
“Did you ever meet Sawai?”
“He once brought me a lovely cobra for my collection.”
Valentine pointed to the shelf; inside one of the bottles was a curled-up baby cobra.
“That was thoughtful of him,” said Calvino. “You might have told me that before.”
“You’re the private investigator. You didn’t ask me.”
Valentine grinned. “Did you?”
Calvino lowered his head.
“It’s not satisfactory. But what can you do? What can anyone do?” asked Valentine.
Calvino wished sometimes he had a perfect record of asking the right person the right question at the right time. Most of the time it was hard enough finding any reasonable conclusion. People got themselves killed for all manner of reasons. But it was always in the fine print or through the small detail that a truly motivated murderer could be discovered. Sawai had used the police crackdown on drug dealers as a cover to kill Prasit’s brother. He had made Prasit’s death appear to be a suicide with a backup scenario that pointed either to Valentine or Fon. He’d hired someone to hit Ton using Calvino as his alibi. That was hubris. It was outright in-your-face bravado. Catch me if you can. He knew he wouldn’t be caught. He was a master of opportunity and sheltered under the cover of a powerful man. The snake was his signature.
“It doesn’t matter. Don’t take all of this so personally. It’s time to move on. I’ve moved on.”
“Moved on to what?” asked Calvino.
“I am expanding the herd. I want a hundred more goats. And I am hiring new staff and building new facilities and buying more land. In six months I will produce one hundred kilos of cheese a week. Our cheese will be sold in the best shops in Bangkok. I plan to sell to Harrods.”
“I’ve told the police that Prasit was killed in this compound,” said Calvino. “They may come around and ask you some questions.”
“That’s hardly my affair. People are killed all the time in Thailand. They have to be killed somewhere. It’s only the law of averages that sooner or later one of them is done in on your property.”
Valentine was hard work. His precise opinions on everything were as fixed and rigid as the musical scales. He reached over and patted Chopin on the head.
“Can you imagine, this beauty is a twelve days old goat? Look at her size. The way she runs and jumps. Think if a human baby could do that. Think if Frédéric Chopin could have done that. He would have been composing for the piano at six months old.”
The world of goats was a far more appealing one to Valentine. Measured food, set feeding times, and a sure-fire source of milk within months of birth. “I stopped in to let you know that I am going back to Bangkok tonight. I wanted to let Fon know what I’ve found out. Whether you care or not, she deserves to know.”
“Fon’s given me her notice. Can you imagine that? She’s resigned.
She leaves tomorrow. The others can go with her. I hope that they do. They’ve been nothing but a misery. The goats need happy and contented workers. I need happy people working for me. I want smiling faces. Busy bees that love these babies as much as I love them.”
There was nothing more to say to Valentine. He leaned over and cuffed Haydn around its long Nubian ears and made smacking noises with his tongue. Calvino slipped out without saying goodbye and walked across the grounds to the gardener’s house. Fon was inside packing a suitcase. She didn’t seem surprised to see him standing in the doorway.
“I quit.” She was smoking a cigarette.
“I heard,” he said, slipping off his shoes and stepping into the room.
She had packed a case small enough for an airplane carry-on. Her life’s possessions fit into a case small enough to fit in the overhead compartment of a 747. She folded a blouse and laid it on top. She walked across to the fridge and poured Calvino a glass of water. All that remained in the fridge was a bottle of water.
“It’s for the best,” she said.
“I am not angry with him. If he doesn’t want me here, I should go.”
“I can’t prove it, but I would says the odds are that Sawai killed your husband.”
She stopped pouring the water. “Sawai?”
“He had access. Khun Prasit trusted him. He knew that your husband had worked on hit for Veera. And they got scared when Noi moved into the compound. My guess is that Sawai did it himself, or he might have sent Ton to do the job. I can’t prove any of this. Please understand. Ton’s dead. And there’s nothing but circumstantial evidence to show the connection between Sawai and Ton, or that either of them actually murdered your husband. But I wanted to let you know that you were right. Your husband didn’t kill himself.”
Fon finished pouring the water and handed him the glass.
“My husband shouldn’t have gone back to that old life. In Thailand we have something called kreng jai. You know this?”
Calvino nodded. “It means you can’t tell your boss ‘no’ even though in your heart you know that what he is asking you to do is wrong and you don’t want to do it.”
“He didn’t want to kill that reporter. I know it in my heart. But he couldn’t follow his heart.”
“Where will you go?”
She wiped a tear that spilled down her cheek. “There’s an animal clinic in Bangkok run by one of my old classmates. She said I could have a job anytime. The time has finally come around to see if that job is still open.”
“And if it’s not?”
“Nothing is certain in the world. But I know that I will survive.”
“About the other night,” Calvino said, putting down the water glass.
“I know that you have someone in Bangkok, if that’s what you want to tell me.”
“What I wanted to say is that you’re no failure. You taught me a lesson. Not to make assumptions. Failure is sometimes the best card to draw for success. If you ever need anything, let me know,” he said.
As she inhaled deep on her cigarette, a wisp of a smile crossed her lips, “Sure. Once two paths cross, they are crossed forever.”
Neither of them wished for a long goodbye. Nor did they need any further explanations. He had the feeling, though, that sometime, somewhere, they would meet again. He leaned forward to kiss her and she offered her cheek.
Calvino left the gardener’s house and Valentine’s compound. On the way out, the dogs ran after him; the giant slobbered on his jacket sleeve. He stood in the driveway, his car door open, taking one more look at the gardens in the rain. A thick film of white clouds rolled across the black clouds leaching thunderheads, boiling and spilling out to the far horizon. The world did go on. Nothing ever stopped for long. Now and again, there was a pause, and people pondered why someone died and how, and not long afterwards, those clouds passed and the rain stopped and the gardens bloomed and the new goats ran across vast lawns.
FORTY-FIVE
“YOU NOTICED THE lines on my face? They’re from the mask.” It was a statement. She’d worn the mask for two weeks. Her mother had let her lower it to have breakfast, lunch and dinner. Otherwise she checked the stretchy straps that cut into her daughter’s cheeks. In her mother’s house Ratana had become a child again. Unable to speak her own thoughts clearly. Unable to be heard by the adults. Lost in those close quarters, she felt her freedom had slipped away, replaced by a system of rules to obey. She could have been eleven again.
He had noticed them straight away. Deep cuts running from the hairline away from the ear and down the cheekbone. A deformity had set in, marking her. Cosmetics were invented to give a woman’s cheeks a red glow and her lips a fuller, puffy-from-the-after-sex glow. The lines left on Ratana’s face by the mask were about death. Not life. Not sex. The affirma- tion was another world beyond sexual coupling.
“What lines? I don’t see anything.” There were lies to tell a woman, lies you would go to the grave before admitting.
“Everyone else said they saw lines. You didn’t see anything? You’re a trained observer. This is what you do best. And you see nothing?”
Ratana wasn’t any woman. She was a clever woman. She’d known exactly how to challenge Calvino, hitting him in the center of his private-investigating heart. He had been through Valentine’s harem, Fon and Nui and all of them had called upon every single moment of concentration, to see what really was and not to let feelings interfere. With Ratana, though, it was different. He didn’t know which way to jump.
“Maybe I noticed a little.”
“But you said you didn’t notice.”
There were the dreadful words “you said.” They had a special meaning and the way of reading them was to understand a cardinal Calvino’s Law: Never contradict yourself or give a hint of light under an otherwise solid black door of deniability. With a woman, that is.
“What I meant to say...” He knew that he was drowning. “Yeah, there was something, but not enough to say I noticed.”
She smiled. “Did you learn that in law school? To talk that way? To be so quick?”
“You graduated from law school,” he said. “So you know that lines are never fixed.”
“You’re doing it again.”
He leaned against the wall.
“I learned that from Colonel Pratt.”
He turned and started to walk back to his office. He turned around, the puzzled look on his face evaporating. “I am glad you’re back,” he said. He opened his mouth, paused, examining the way she brushed her hair back. It was longer than he remembered. For a long moment he said nothing, as if she would somehow rescue him from the moment, “You bring out the best in me, and I’d like to think I bring out the best in you.”
She thought for a moment. “The best,” she said.
He disappeared behind the partition and sat behind his office desk. Ratana had laid out the morning newspapers. Once again she had broken the siege of her mother. That meant she had another year of work before a new attempt would be made to separate her from the private investigations office of Vincent Calvino. He wondered as he sat down behind his desk if the mother’s resolve would gradually wind down into an uneasy acceptance. He didn’t have an answer and he knew better than to ask Ratana. Any hint of a suggestion that her mother might be a problem was unacceptable. The most liberated Thai women shared the same faith: Mothers were gods. And like all god mothers they could sometimes act in an arbitrary fashion. But they deserved to be worshipped.
At the bottom of page three was a photograph of Veera with a couple of politicians and a couple of businessmen. They were all smiling. They were at a construction site. He read the story. The businessmen worked for the expressway contractor. The contractor wasn’t one of Veera’s companies. He had moved aside and let someone on his turf and he was smiling about this.
Around the corner, at Starbucks, he found Colonel Pratt reading the newspaper with a double espresso. Calvino sat down at the table.
“Have a look
at page three,” said Calvino.
Colonel Pratt cleared his throat.
“I saw the story.”
“The story within the story—meaning there’s insufficient evidence against Veera,” said Calvino.
“He cut a deal.”
“Without the white there can’t be black.”
“You had him.”
“He was never mine to have.”
“You got used. They used you to pressure him.”
“You see only part of the story.”
“Meaning?”
“If Veera concedes the ground one time, the next time will be easier, and the time after that easier still until everyone knows he’s no longer the invincible kingpin. His time is limited, Vincent. You mustn’t see total defeat as the only way to victory. Sometimes it is wise to learn that if you win a little bit everyday and over time, what you wish to see happen, happens. The old era is fading. It won’t be gone tomorrow. But if I can help break the power of someone like Veera even in small measure, I have served my country.”
As Colonel Pratt finished his espresso, Calvino wondered whether Veera would be replaced by another gangster. And the cycle of jao poh would once again take root. Rather than a new era, was this a continuation of the old way with new faces? He didn’t have an answer because there wasn’t one. Some would say evil changes its clothes and face but the old body marches ahead to the same tune. The optimist believes that eventually good wins over evil. Colonel Pratt was on neither side of the dual equation. He was a Buddhist. In his world evil stayed and faded away at the same time, things became worse than before and better than before in the same space and time. There was no contradiction in such forces existing side by side. Calvino tried to see the world through Colonel Pratt’s eyes. Sometimes he caught a glimpse of that world. Mostly he suffered from double vision.
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