Some of them were dying on the sexual front line.
Over the past ten months, five farangs had turned up dead. A couple of bodies had been found dumped in an isolated, dark soi a couple of miles away from Don Muang airport. The others had been discovered in a guesthouse and a short-time hotel. Calvino believed the murders were the work of a serial killer targeting foreigners coming into the country.
“Hey, I am from New York. I can smell a murder. A serial killer is doing these guys, Pratt.”
Pratt wasn’t moved by Calvino’s olfactory facilities. “This isn’t New York, Vincent. Each of the dead men died of a drug overdose. And each of them was found with their passports and their cash and their other valuables. Where’s the motive? No motive, no smell.”
Calvino cracked a smile, wondering if this was some Shakespeare paraphrase.
“I am working on motive. Give me some time.” Pratt had him cold. Why would a Thai kill a farang unless it was about money or the farang had caused a major loss of face resulting in a fight? But there wasn’t any sign of violence. There wasn’t a bruise to be found on the dead men. Just the needle in the arm and a lethal dose of heroin in their blood. But there also had been a common thread: all of the victims were Americans, single men, and card-carrying Cause members who died somewhere between twenty-four and forty-eight hours after landing at the airport. Pratt’s buddies in the police department shrugged off the serial killer theory. The police said they had no evidence of anyone being killed. There was no murder. These were junkies who overdosed.
Fact one: Each of the dead men had been American. Fact two: Each had died from a drug overdose. A syringe of heroin main-lined into the big fat blue vein that popped out of the crook of the arm. The needle still sticking out of the arm by the time the cops found the stone-cold body turned blue around the lips. Fact three: Each was a member of a single male Internet travel club called the Cause.
The cases became a hobby after a relative of one of the victims paid Calvino to verify the police report and death certificate. The victim had been a middle-aged guy from San Francisco with no previous record of heroin. What had Pratt said? “So the farang hid his habit. Or your guy decided to walk on the wild side, didn’t understand that heroin is a dangerous drug, and shot up an overdose first time out.”
“I’m saying, Pratt, this tells me they got whacked,” he touched his nose. “Some white-shoe guy from the ‘burbs doesn’t suddenly start sticking needles in his arm just because he takes a trip to Thailand.”
They agreed to disagree. Stone-cold body and a stonewall. He verified the police report and death certificate but he had his doubts.
Calvino sat in his parked car, thinking how it could be that no one had robbed the dead farang. It bothered him in the way that the sign painted on the upper windowpane of a shop which read “Flowers” bothered him. This sign was a normal sign; none of the back-to- front lettering of HELL. He surveyed the inventory of the shop: stuffed toy bears and elephants and dogs, ceramic piggy banks, and streetwalker mini-skirts on plastic hangers. The essentials for people going to HELL, he thought. Calvino did not see a single flower. A flower shop that didn’t sell flowers, not even a fake flower, was like murders without any money or passports being taken. Two hours into the stakeout and he was doing store inventory to pass the time, in between trying to find any other connection between the five dead farangs that would prove his New York nose had not failed him. The only flowers were hanging from his rear view mirror. The garland of flowers suspended from the end was two short strands threaded with jampee flowers: long, thin, elegant beige petals that had a languid, mellow fragrance. jampee noi was what the Thais called this small twin tailing of flowers, which hung from the garland; it was also a phrase that was Thai slang for a man’s penis. A small boy’s penis. The jampee petals were faded, turning a burnished copper, dropping onto the dashboard. The smell of the jampee flower no longer shouted; it had become a faint whisper.
To the right of the flower shop that didn’t sell flowers was a mini-mart. It did sell food so the world wasn’t completely upside down. Hookers strolled in and out, thick, long black hair glimmering from the rain, buying beer, cigarettes and salted nuts, and on the other side was a hairdresser’s with half a dozen chairs, a reception area with a TV. It was quiet inside. A hairdresser held a blow dryer above a customer’s head; otherwise there wasn’t much activity. The small village of shops was at one end of a parking square and serviced two towers of Grand Mansion. Like the flower shop with no flowers, this place would never be confused with a mansion in the real world. A dozen stories with few hundred hongs—which was Thai for rooms—occupied by students, clerical workers, and hookers. Three Thai men in flip-flops struggled with a queen-sized mattress in the light drizzle, stopping to catch their breath at the corner of the mini-mart. Another guy came behind them carrying a 25" TV set, and next to him were a couple of yings wearing the night-time gear sold in the flower shop. This was like a self-contained village where there was always something happening. And this was a transition hour at the end of the month. People moving in, getting their hair done, buying supplies, getting ready to go to work or coming home from work.
Calvino’s assignment was simple—find Pao and give her a birthday card from Frank. Today was Pao’s birthday; that is, if Calvino’s client, an Australian named Frank Hogan, could be believed. Frank was a card-carrying member of the Cause. He had forked over six thousand baht for Calvino to make a personal delivery of the birthday card. Why not use a courier or EMS? Why not deliver it himself? These were legitimate questions and Hogan had some plausible answers. He wanted to receive a first-hand account of Pao’s reaction to the card. That ruled out a courier or EMS. But he had had an argument with Pao and she wasn’t speaking to him so that eliminated a personal delivery as well. Hogan was a guy with all the answers, and six thousand baht was not a bad deal in the rainy season during the middle of an economic depression. A hundred and fifty bucks got Calvino’s attention. Pao had gone walkabout—Frank’s Aussie expression—three days before her birthday; hadn’t showed up for work at her Dead Artist bar, and she hadn’t phoned him.
Calvino’s secretary, Ratana, told him she had a bad feeling about Hogan. He nodded, thinking, How bad can delivering a birthday card get?
“That’s a lot of money for delivering a card,” she said. Deep in her Chinese genes was a built-in abacus that calculated the value of service or goods faster than a NASA mainframe computer.
“For some farangs, money is no object when it comes to yings.”
She thought about this. “I thought yings were an object for some farangs.”
He smiled; she was quick, bright, and on target. “It’s ten minutes’ work.”
“Why doesn’t he ask a friend to help him for five hundred baht?” Sipping her coffee she waited for Calvino to answer, knowing he had already made up his mind and was going to take the money because no one was knocking down the door to hire him as a private investigator.
“Men like Frank don’t have friends. Or if they do, they don’t trust them. At least not around their yings.”
“Like I said, I don’t have a good feeling about men who don’t have friends.”
“You aren’t getting jaded?” he asked her.
She half-smiled, glancing down at her coffee. Calvino’s Law: Being jaded meant the day had arrived when a person realized her cynicism about mankind had been fully justified.
“You look tired, Khun Vinee. Why don’t you let me deliver the card? It will only take ten minutes.”
The butt of his .38 calibre police special rode forward as he leaned over his desk to pick up the telephone. They both knew it was not a ten-minute job. “It might take more than ten minutes. And it looks like rain.” He lifted the phone and dialed Frank Hogan’s office.
“Frank. This is Vincent Calvino. I will deliver the birthday card tonight,” he said, looking at Ratana the whole time. “Yeah, I will deliver it myself.” He put down the phone and picked up a pho
to of the birthday girl from the pile of papers on his desk. Ratana turned and walked back to her side of the office, leaving him alone with the photo. Why a farang would be attracted to such a low-class, upcountry peasant girl, she could never understand.
Pao wore a green and black uniform, white shirt, and black bow tie; Calvino examined the frozen smile, the large eyes with painted eyebrows and the full lips. This was the uniform of a Dead Artist bar chick. The outfit looked like a Las Vegas blackjack dealer’s uniform. Something was missing from the picture. Calvino studied her features. One distinguishing feature: a small brown mole on the right side of her chin. He was looking for whatever Frank Hogan saw in this woman which might explain the elaborate arrangements and cost of six thousand baht to deliver her a birthday card. He couldn’t see it. There was nothing special about Pao. It didn’t add up, he thought. Then he remembered what his father used to say to his mother, “Show me the place in the universe where everything adds up. I want to move my entire family to that place.”
CALVINO checked his watch. Time came to a standstill on stakeouts. Nine-fourteen. The guys were lifting the mattress like a lifeless thing pulled out of a shipwreck. A couple of taxis, windshield wipers slapping back and forth, windows fogged, crawled past looking for customers. Waiting and waiting. Then she appeared at the top of the staircase. The stakeout was over; the time for delivery had arrived and then he could go home. Pao stood alone. Dressed in a neon blue mini-skirt that looked like it was made out of plastic, matching vest, high heels. He quickly climbed out of the car and threaded his way through a couple of dozen motorcycles. By the time Calvino had started up the stairs, a friend had joined her dressed in standard hooker gear: tight black pants and a flimsy white top exposing her shoulders. Pao smoked a cigarette, flicking the ashes as she spoke to her friend. She was just standing there, talking, smoking her cigarette when Calvino called up to her.
“Happy birthday, Pao.”
Her head jerked up and she stared straight at Calvino, her face clouded with one of those “Who the fuck are you?” looks.
“Do I know you?”
Calvino reached the top of the stairs, his hair and face wet with rain. “Frank Hogan wanted you to have this card on your birthday.” He handed Pao a white envelope; one of those fat envelopes that promised a bundle of cash or drugs or dried flowers. Frank had written her name in English and had someone else write “Pao” in Thai script below the English spelling. She examined the envelope, her long red nails tapping the sides like scorpion legs, creating a mixture of dread and curiosity.
“Aren’t you gonna open it?” asked her hooker friend, swaying easily from side to side in tight leather pants like a scorpion. Sting or get back in your hole.
She stepped back inside the lobby of the building and Calvino followed her inside.
“It’s only a birthday card,” said Calvino. “Frank wanted you to have it.”
“Frank’s a crazy sonofabitch,” said Pao. “No girl can stay long with a man like him. Or she go crazy.” She was buying some time, trying to decide whether she wanted to know what kind of craziness Hogan intended to inflict on her and whether his messenger was part of the conspiracy to drive her crazy. Hookers may not have invented suspicion but they had sublicensed the rights to use it after nine at night.
She pulled the card out of the envelope and slit it open with a long, red-varnished fingernail. The card was one of those corny musical cards that played Happy Birthday in a Donald Duck kind of half voice, half noise. She shook the card. Nothing fell out. She turned the envelope inside out. Nothing else was inside. No money, no check. Just one musical birthday card. “Cheap Charlie,” said Pao. “Tell that crazy Cheap Charlie I never want to see him again. That I hate him.”
Pao’s hooker friend laughed. “No money?”
Pao’s rage accelerated and her face flushed as she clenched her hands into fists. That was the reaction he would report to his client. His job was over; he could go home and dry off. Calvino started to turn around and, as he was off-balance, without time to react, a punch caught him nose-high, knuckles and ring finger smashing his right eye. A second punch hit him midsection, doubling him up; he slowly dropped to his knees. Two kicks to his ribs landed as Calvino tried to protect himself. He lay flat on his stomach, and as he tried to get up, his vision was obscured by blood. He was spitting blood as he tried to get a good look at the guy who had come out of nowhere. His first impression was that the guy was a farang with either Indian or Iranian blood. The kicks in the ribs had left Calvino gasping for air. As he finally struggled to his feet, Calvino saw the man moving in closer. His assailant had a moustache and a two-day growth of beard; he was wearing shorts, designer track shoes, and a Chicago Clubs T-shirt, and looked to be in his late twenties. Well muscled in the arms and shoulders, fit with a thick, tanned neck; the hair from the guy’s chest curled like an unravelled rug against his throat.
“You motherfucking Cause creep, you come near my girlfriend again and I’ll kill you,” he said.
His face throbbing, bleeding, his guts aching from the blows, Calvino tried to focus on his attacker, who was dancing on his toes like a boxer. It looked like the man was coming in to do more damage, to finish him off. What had been entertainment for the hookers ended when they saw the blood on Calvino’s face. Pao stepped in between them. Calvino wanted a piece of the guy. He was hurting—not the ego hurt like Pao finding no money in the birthday card but the pain of some serious physical damage. This young guy had put him on the floor with two punches, two solid, powerful blows. The worst thing wasn’t the pain but feeling slow and old. Calvino was holding onto his forties like a dog onto a bone.
“Stop it, TJ. Don’t you see you’ve hurt him enough? Besides, this isn’t Frank. I don’t even know who this guy is, okay.” She looked at Calvino like a referee examing a beat-up fighter just before giving his opponent a technical knockout. “You better get out of here, Pa.”
Calvino stared at TJ for a moment. Pa. She had called him dad, father, papa. Card delivered, nose broken, major mouse over the right eye, reminded of his age. It was time to move on; forget about the pride, own up to the fact that he was no longer in that awkward in-between age: too old for a boy toy, too young to answer to papa. He was old enough to be her father and the father of the guy who beat him up. Calvino nodded at Pao, wiped the blood away from his face and turned to walk away. Six thousand baht, he thought. Job done.
“If I ever catch you fucking around with old guys looking for a Monster Fuck, you can expect some of this.”
TJ slapped her with the flat of his hand. Pao started to cry. Pao’s hooker friend started to cry as well. This was her birthday, pissing down rain, a musical birthday card without any money inside delivered by a stranger, her boyfriend starting a fight, then slapping her around—things had shaped up on the ugly side of life, stacking the decks for a miserable year to come. Calvino closed his eyes for a second, thought, and before he knew what this thought was going to be he slammed his heel hard into TJ’s right foot, and followed with a kick to his groin. TJ collapsed on the floor, blubbering, his face as tight as a fist. Calvino leaned down with his knee in TJ’s back, pulled out a pair of handcuffs and slapped them around the right wrist and then the left.
“Apologize to Pao,” said Calvino.
“What are you, a fucking cop?”
Calvino cuffed him on the ear. “I am not hearing an apology.”
“Jesus, you are bleeding all over me.”
Calvino’s broken nose was leaking a trail of blood down TJ’s neck. Calvino pressed his knee harder into TJ’s spine. “Why don’t I just call the Thai cops. Check your visa and your apartment for drugs.”
“Okay, Pao. I am sorry. Okay?”
Pao was enjoying seeing TJ suffer some pain. Her hooker girlfriend giggled and lit a cigarette. Pao helped herself to a cigarette, taking her sweet time as Calvino’s knee hit a nerve in her boyfriend’s back. It wasn’t turning out to be such a bad birthday after all.
&n
bsp; “For fucksakes tell him it’s okay. Please.”
She liked that word. Please.
“She didn’t hear you,” said the hooker friend.
“Please,” shouted the boyfriend.
“It’s okay,” said Pao, smiling, taking a drag on the cigarette.
Calvino removed the handcuffs. As he pulled back his jacket to clip the cuffs to his belt, TJ rolled over on his back, thinking his time had come for some revenge. He caught sight of the .38 police special in Calvino’s shoulder holster. There was no more fight left in him. His fists unclenched. He must have realized Calvino could have shot him from the moment of the first punch. He backed off, backed way off, sliding towards Pao.
“She said it’s okay,” TJ said with anger, but the fire had gone out of his voice. He limped over to the couch in the foyer and sat down.
That was the way the birthday card night ended: Pao holding TJ’s hand on the couch and kissing him on the cheek. Not so much a kiss as one of those smelling rituals Thai yings like to engage in from time to time; inhaling the smell of another human being the way a lioness smells her cub to make sure it is hers.
Most of the bleeding had stopped by the time Calvino got back to his car. He fished in his pocket for the keys, only to realize that he had locked them inside. He touched his nose; TJ’s power punch had fractured it. He felt the rain on his face. The choices were not that great. Finding a chang—a kind of street handy-man whom the Thais sometimes called an “engineer”—to pry open the door would be an ordeal only one or two rungs below getting punched out by a stranger. The chang would demand a farang price, a rain premium, a flood bonus; and he would no doubt screw up the door, knocking off paint, bending the metal, tearing off the rubber around the glass. Calvino figured the other alternative would cost about the same and he would be inside his car immediately. Calvino unholstered his .38 police special, turned it around so the butt end faced the window, and with one swift blow shattered the window. A couple of hookers standing under the awning in front of the beauty shop saw him breaking the glass—farang with a gun and busted, bleeding face—and they quickly walked away, glancing back as they went. He opened the car door, swept the broken glass off the seat, slid in, and started the engine. All he had been hired to do was deliver a birthday card to a Dead Artist’s bar chick . . . a ten-minute job.
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