“So far she hasn’t tried to use the phone,” said Jess.
“But she hasn’t been alone,” said Pratt.
“I know this place where she worked. A near-beer joint. A front for prostitution. Only the ABC can’t really close them down because they don’t have a licence for beer or alcohol, so there is no way to stop the yings from accepting drinks from customers. Or going with customers.”
“She’s drunk now,” said Pratt. “We have a situation.”
Noi had walked out of the bathroom, headed straight for the door, walked out and left the door wide open like she didn’t give a shit, and staggered down the corridor trying all the doors until she found a maid coming out of a hong. She walked into the hong, slammed the door, hit the light switch with the palm of her hand, and started to cry. She had a lot of reasons to feel sorry for herself, to question who were her friends and who were her enemies, and to decide how she was going to play it out. It was confusing and she had been trying to break down who hated her the most and who could inflict the most damage by finding ways to direct that hate at her. In her mind, Jess, Pratt and the over-weight farang named Naylor and the weird guy at the Mall, McPhail, all hated her, and made her feel like she was a whore no matter how hard as she tried to tell them that she was a singer. A talented singer who didn’t need to fuck for money. She became angry as she saw that look of doubt in their eyes, “Sure you were singing in LA. Sure you didn’t fuck for money.” It made her mad; it made her a little crazy that no matter what she said, she couldn’t get through their barrier of preconceptions, a barrier built not with bricks made of straw but bricks made of hate and lies. She had gone along with them but they made her feel that she wasn’t really one of them. These men just assumed that she was a danger to them. Everything had gone wrong and each time one of them thought about the bomb, they stared at her like she was a personal force of evil who had inserted herself in their midst and had to be contained. They forgot that it was their idea she go with them. She would have stayed. They insisted. Then all the time they had been comforting her—after all, she could have been killed as well—was just an excuse to watch her. No matter what anyone called it, these men had been taking turns guarding her. Holding her like a prisoner who they thought was stupid enough not to know that she was in prison. They were afraid of her and what she might do. It had never occurred to them that she had nowhere to go. Where would she have gone? Who would she have turned to?
By the time Jess found her, all these dark thoughts had made her hysterical, desperate. He stood outside knocking and asking to be let inside. She ran over to the telephone, picked it up, and the old lady on the switchboard told her that she could not connect her to an outside line. She slammed down the phone and sat down hard on the bed. The Thai rum made her face feel hot. The nun’s habit made her sweat. She stripped it off and sat on the bed naked.
“Why are you playing God with my life?” she shouted through the door.
“No one is playing God with your life,” Jess said.
“You think I am a whore because I worked at Gabe’s club.”
Jess knew now that she had overheard the conversation. He kicked himself.
“I said to Pratt that places like that can be a front for prostitution. That doesn’t make you a whore. It means some of the yings might go with customers. It means some of the people you worked for might be bringing in yings from Thailand. And those yings might be forced to go with customers.”
When she didn’t have to look at him, Jess sounded so reasonable. She had never met a cop who talked as well as he did. Explained things the way they really were.
“It’s these bad people who put the bomb in the car park. No one is judging you. No one has time for that. We are trying the best way we can to keep you, and me, and the farang alive. And that means we must consider all of the angles.”
She stripped the sheet off the bed and wrapped it around her body and went to the door. He waited for a long pause, then heard her unlock the door.
“Why can’t I use the telephone?” she asked standing at the door.
“Where are your clothes?”
“I got too hot. Besides, I am tired of being a nun.”
He stepped past her and into the hong. The nun’s habit was crumpled on a chair.
“No one is allowed to use the phone. Not only you. That includes me. It includes Naylor and Calvino. We must assume that anyone organized enough to plant that bomb might trace any phone call.”
Noi stared at him, wondering if this might be true or just something he said to shut her up, calm her down, and stop her from being angry and upset. She grabbed her glass and sat back on the edge of the bed.
“You want to send my brother to prison,” she said.
The sweat dripped off her chin and onto her white sheet. Her hair was matted from all the sweating. She looked like she had just finished getting out of a sauna.
“Only a judge can sentence your brother to prison. That part is not my job.”
“If it hadn’t been for those cock fights and working part-time for Kowit, then none of this would have ever happened. Or if it had happened, it wouldn’t have involved Charn.”
“You’re right of course. But it happened the way it happened and there’s nothing I can do or you can do to make it happen a different way now.”
Suddenly Noi felt too tired to argue, exhausted enough to put down her glass and stretch out her arms. It was all catching up with her—being scared half to death, the violence, the half bottle of whisky, the insane laugh from the old woman telling her she couldn’t call out of the hotel, her sprint out of the hong and down the corridor into this strange hong. As she dropped her arms, she saw Pratt standing framed in the open door, watching. He had said nothing, showed no expression one way or the other.
“You are wondering why I have no clothes on?” she yelled at him. “It’s because you guys make me steam.”
Before Pratt could say anything, Naylor and Calvino came running down the corridor.
“They nearly handed Vinee over to the Thai cops,” said Naylor.
All heads turned. “Who is they?” asked Pratt.
“The American Embassy. The cops traced his Honda. And Dwight fucking Morgan thinks the bomb was intended for Vincent because of this serial killer business.”
Pratt stepped inside Noi’s hong and Calvino and Naylor followed, closing the door.
“Then the bomb wasn’t intended for me?” asked Jess, coming around to the foot of the bed.
“We still don’t know if they wanted Vincent or you. Or maybe both of you,” said Pratt. “Two for the price of one, as Vincent once said.”
“I don’t think anyone knows a goddamn thing,” said Naylor. He stalked over to the corner and sat on the chair where Noi had left her nun’s habit.
“What’s with him?” asked Jess.
“They scanned him too many times at the Embassy. I think it’s interfered with his brain activity,” said Calvino.
“I fucking heard that, Calvino.” He looked at Noi. “Jesus Christ, when did you get naked?”
She threw the bottle of Sang Thip at him. It missed his head by an inch and a half and smashed through the window and out of the hotel. “I hate you, ai-farang.” It doesn’t sound like much hearing it in Thai but it is about one of the most impolite things a Thai can say to a farang. Only in Naylor’s case he had no idea what she meant. She stormed into the bathroom and slammed the door.
“We got the papers for Ramsey,” said Calvino, looking at Naylor, who was looking out the broken window. “Next we go to the funeral home.”
“You know I now own this hotel. She’s gonna have to pay for the window. I am fucking sorry but that is the way it is. And what is this ai-farang shit anyway?”
“It means you are a dickhead,” she shouted through the bathroom door. “And I am not paying for the window.”
“Let’s go,” said Pratt.
The bathroom door opened and Noi stepped out.
“What
about me? Aren’t I leaving?” she asked.
“You are coming along,” said Calvino. “Provided you put the nun’s habit back on.”
“I can’t, fatso is sitting on it.”
Naylor squirmed on the chair as if trying to wrinkle the habit.
“Give her the habit, Wes,” said Calvino.
“Not until she pays for the window.”
Calvino walked over and slammed Naylor across the face. “Now she’s paid up. Give me the habit.”
Naylor looked up at Calvino with Pratt and Jess slightly behind him. He lifted one enormous thigh and pulled out the habit and handed it to Calvino, who turned and walked over to where Noi was standing. “Get dressed quickly.”
Calvino’s mobile phone rang.
“Vincent, some cops were out here looking for you and your friends,” said Father Andrew. “You remember the drug addict taking the nails out of the stolen doors?”
Calvino remembered the shifty bastard and how he had taken off when the men had helped themselves to his two-by-fours to beat the shit out of the Khmer. “I am listening, Father Andrew.”
“The cops gave him and his girlfriend a few hundred baht. I don’t know what they told the cops. They wouldn’t have known where you were going. Anyway, cops don’t normally pay money for nothing. I thought you ought to know.”
Calvino snapped the case shut and slipped the phone into his pocket. “The cops know I am here.” He looked at his mobile phone. “I hate technology.”
“They traced your phone signal,” said Pratt. “I’ll check downstairs.”
“There is a service entrance in the back,” said Naylor. “We can go out that way.”
“Stay here. I will phone from the counter downstairs,” said Pratt.
Calvino closed the door. “How do you know about the service entrance?”
“That’s where McPhail goes to smoke a joint. The rose bushes almost cover the driveway,” said Naylor. “And if you ever hit me again . . .”
“Wes, don’t be a dickhead. We have to go.”
As Pratt reached the lobby, two uniformed policeman were waiting at the reception desk. Pratt headed straight at the two cops and they half turned, wondering who this Thai in civilian clothes was and what business he had with them. “I am Colonel Prachai. This hotel is under my jurisdiction. I am operating a stakeout and the standing order is no uniform. So explain what you are doing here.” Pratt flashed his police ID.
One of the policemen was a lieutenant and the other a sergeant. Pratt outranked them, and was older than both of them, and on the basis of rank and age they had already taken two strikes. To refuse his implied request for them to leave would have led to exactly the kind of confrontation that they had been drilled to avoid from birth . “We have orders from . . .” the lieutenant began to explain.
Pratt cut him off. “Lieutenant, perhaps you did not hear me. This is my stakeout. And you and the sergeant are risking a major CID operation. Do you want me to phone your superior and explain that you and the sergeant are about to destroy an undercover drug bust that the CID and the American DEA have planned for months?”
“We are looking for an American named Vincent Calvino. We have information that he is here,” said the Lieutenant.
“Who told you he was here?”
Jep walked out from behind a fridge sucking on a straw stuck in a can of coke.
“She did.” He pointed at Jep who was sucking on a straw, her eyes as big a child frightened by a ghost.
“Farangs all look alike to bar yings,” said Pratt. He picked up the photo of Calvino from the reception desk and turned to Jep, “Have you ever seen this man—well, have you?”
Her lips pressed against the straw as she tried to figure out from Pratt’s face exactly what he wanted her to say. She knew the lieutenant wanted her to say yes. And she got the idea from hearing Pratt and the lieutenant talk that Pratt had wanted to say she had never seen him. The question in her mind was who was going to be the most pissed off? The lieutenant had bought her the coke. From the way the power balance was shifting, though, it looked like the lieutenant was on his way out the door, meaning that Pratt would still be standing here after that man left. And if she had said or done the wrong thing, then she could be in for some kind of pain that would make her mosquito-bitten ass not even a nice warm up. She eyed the Lieutenant, looked at Calvino’s picture again, and eyed Pratt.
“Come on, yes or no?” asked Pratt. She knew he meant no.
Jep didn’t bother to remove the straw as she shook her head. Pratt handed the photo back to the Lieutenant. The tension immediately left Pratt’s face and that made Jep happy.
“I am afraid you’ve made a mistake,” said Pratt.
The Lieutenant held the photo. It was his move. If he knew about Calvino he would have known that Pratt was someone close to him and that Pratt would do or say anything to protect him.
“I am looking for him myself. When I find him, I will let you know.”
“We are trying to carry out our duty,” said the lieutenant.
“And I am telling you that your duty is not to interfere with my operation. Is that understood?” He looked at his watch. “I have a special unit waiting inside my van. I am taking them inside now. So I would appreciate it if you and the sergeant would leave.”
The lieutenant and sergeant backed away from the reception desk and headed for the entrance. But they waited a decent interval at the door so it didn’t look like they were running away. As they opened the main door, Pratt asked the desk clerk what the cops had wanted. They had shown her a photograph of Calvino.
“What did you tell them?” asked Pratt.
“What you told me to tell anyone asking. Never saw him before.”
“Give me the key to the service entrance,” said Pratt. He slid a five-hundred-baht note over the counter, and the receptionist slid the key back, their fingers brushing against one another for split second of human contact. He could smell the grass on her breath; her eyes, red-rimmed, were watery and cold like she was fishing her brother out of the urn with his ass all eaten away.
Pratt picked up the house phone and dialed the hong Noi had fled to. Calvino picked up on the second ring. “I’ll drive the van around to the service entrance,” said Pratt. “Take the others down the back stairs. We don’t have a lot of time.”
Pratt stood at the back as Jess, Naylor, and Noi climbed inside. Calvino picked one of the roses, pressed it to his nose, looked up at the sky, then smiled at Pratt.
“It’s going to work,” said Calvino. “I have a good feeling. And you know my instincts are always right about such things.”
He handed the rose to Pratt, who closed and locked the doors. The back windows were tinted black.
On the way out of the hotel, Pratt stopped next to the squad car and rolled down the window of the van. “My men are inside. They will notify you if Calvino shows up at the hotel.”
FIFTEEN
RACHADA PHISEK ROAD crossing through the Din Daeng intersection suddenly looked as if a squadron of B52s had dropped a load of Big Bettys, those ying-named explosives that chewed up everything on the ground. Heavy construction equipment, dump trucks, and workers in hard hats swarmed down the center of the road. It was unclear whether they were the cause of the damage or working to repair the damage done by others. Pratt drove the van very carefully like he was giving Calvino a lesson in how to keep a vehicle in good shape. Pratt hadn’t said much since they left the hotel. The others sat in the back and Calvino could hear their muffled conversation as it drifted to the front. Mainly a monologue by Noi worrying about her kid and a separate monologue by Naylor bitching about the window she had broken. From Jess’s silence it seemed they were both driving him nuts and he would be happy to get back to his life arresting drug dealers in LA. Pratt didn’t need to say anything because Calvino knew what he was thinking, that if you concentrated on what you were doing when you were doing it—a basis of Buddhism—then things didn’t get broken. Calvino’s
recent bad karma centered mainly on windows like the one that was busted in his car and the one in the hotel hong. After they drove through the Huay Kwang intersection, there was a string of karaoke bars, massage parlors, membership clubs, and pool halls lining both sides of the road like new and secondhand car dealerships in New Jersey. The huge sign of a smiling ying reminded Calvino of the woman at the window in the Embassy tracing the drawing of the baby Jesus with her finger. Then one ying sign after another. Lovely, alluring twenty-five-year old faces on both sides of the road, promising to let a man trace any outline he wanted around her body. Pratt stopped the van at the traffic lights and turned into Lard Phrao Road. The funeral home Dwight Morgan had recommended was located on a soi off Lard Phrao. Rarely did farangs on holiday venture into this part of Bangkok; there were no attractions pulling them in that direction. Like parts of Queens, thought Calvino. Tourists never went to parts of Queens; people who lived in Manhattan never ventured to Queens.
Search the database of www.causemember.com and no Cause-member ever filed a report on Lard Phrao Road. Pratt turned the van into the soi, and continued half a mile until he came to a compound surrounded by a concrete fence. He braked, stopping the van at the front of the gate. He sounded the horn. To the right was an unfinished building; there were cranes swinging from the fifteenth floor and trucks and workers coming in and out of the site. Most construction in Bangkok had come to a standstill since the baht collapsed in July of ’97. But this condo showed no sign of being abandoned. As a security guard opened the gate, Calvino watched the construction crane hoisting a load of long steel girders. This condo was someone’s dream that had kept on going forward when most developments had entered the nightmare phase of bankruptcy. A moment later, a guard appeared and opened the gate, swinging back one side of the large, tall metal gate, then walking back and opening the other half. Pratt drove the van inside and the guard closed the gate behind them.
The main house, a wooden house with screens on the windows, was set back from the road, leaving a long well-kept garden in front, with a clean swept driveway. Tall trees provided shade and there was a grove of banana trees near the fence. A servant ran in front of the van, directing Pratt to the side of the house and, as instructed, he turned right following the drive past the outbuildings, pulling to a stop just in front of several large wreaths of flowers stacked on wooden pallets. The flowers looked fresh and the name of the deceased was written in Thai on a black ribbon that had been strung across the wreath. They did funerals for more than just the dead farangs, thought Calvino.
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