Doublespeak--A Novel

by Alisa Smith

  “I would be happy to thank him in person,” Silanon said.

  A blinking set of eyes rose out of the dark water, and I shuddered. “What’s that?” I asked, hoping my tone did not sound as panicked as I felt. I had a fear of hidden creatures in dark water. The thing was about three feet long, with a tail like some kind of lizard.

  “It’s a water monitor,” Silanon said. He grabbed something from a bucket and threw it into the water. The lizard snapped its jaws and thrashed its tail. I hoped this was its way of being happy. “I feed them fish, for good luck,” he explained. “You want luck?” He held out another slimy fish. “Not from a lizard,” I said. Silanon shrugged and tossed over the fish. I didn’t think his luck was so good tonight, fish or no fish.

  The four of us climbed into the longtail. We were silent until we reached the Chao Phraya, and Bill cut the engine when we hit the lonely middle of it. We floated a little while, until finally Silanon asked if we’d run out of gas.

  “Cut the crap,” said Bill, his voice suddenly cold and hard. He leaned forward on his bench. “You’re going to tell me where I can find that tunnel, the one that leads out of the palace.”

  “That is just a legend,” Silanon said, clutching his hands together. “I should not have mentioned it.”

  “But you did, and it sounds real to me.”

  Smile reached into his jacket, and Silanon looked shiny now. Sweating.

  “You said these were friends?” Silanon asked.

  “I have lots of friends,” Bill said. “I had dinner with Chief Phao the other day.”

  Smile pulled out a cigarette and lit it. He passed the pack silently to Silanon who took one from it, his hands shaking. Silanon’s face flared red as Smile held a match to his cigarette, then he was smothered in shadows again, with only the glowing tip remaining as a beacon of his existence. The man said nothing.

  “Let me make it easy for you,” said Bill. “You’re sworn to protect your king, right?”

  “Yes,” Silanon said, sitting up straighter.

  “There’s a man going to try to kill the king. I plan to stop him, but I need you to show me the tunnel.”

  Silanon sat silently a while. At last he said, “I don’t believe you.”

  I felt some admiration for his resistance, but it made me worry I’d have to step into this business. Come on, just tell Bill, I urged him inwardly.

  “Ah!” said Bill, seeming to delight in the increased difficulty of this project. “But if you’re wrong, the king dies. And the guards take the blame. You don’t want the blame, do you? I’ve seen what happens in this country to people who get blamed.”

  Silanon considered this, taking long draws on his cigarette. “You could be planning to kill the king yourself,” he said finally. I had to admit that I, too, had had this thought.

  “Then consider this,” Bill said, moving his face close to Silanon’s. “You tell me where the tunnel is, or my friend here cuts your son wide open and feeds him to the lizards. Tonight. You’ll watch it happen. You’ll have brought your son back to life just to watch him die. And remember, Chief Phao is my good friend. There won’t be anyone you can turn to.” He leaned back again. “Or you can trust me when I say that your king is in danger, and I’m not the enemy.”

  Silanon was quiet a long time then. Bill seemed completely at ease, like a man waiting for a train. Finally, Silanon raised his eyes, though he looked out across the river instead of meeting Bill’s gaze. “This story is my honour,” he whispered. “Two hundred years in my family.”

  * * *

  AFTER BREAKFAST THE next morning, Bill and I took our iced coffee in the downstairs salon, the huge teak doors open to let in the cool morning breeze. Soft light poured through the carved screens above the doors, throwing patterned shadows over Bill’s face. He always preferred to be in the shadows. He did not seem excited that he got the guard to reveal where the secret tunnel was.

  “What’s wrong, Bill?” I asked, sipping my coffee, which was sweet and cold.

  “I got a lot of irons in the fire. It weighs on a man.”

  Bill put down his coffee and reached into his jacket pocket. He pulled out a heavy ring of keys, both ancient and modern, and handed them to me. “I need you to understand my whole business. Guns, gems, and opium. I’m trusting you with everything.”

  I felt a flush of pride at these words, and was happy to be Bill’s lieutenant again. I smiled at him and nodded.

  “Dass will show you the ropes.”

  That deflated me a bit. Dass already knew this stuff.

  As though reading my thoughts, Bill said that there was something only I could do. Once I understood the business inside out, he wanted me to get to know the expatriates who were starting to arrive in Siam, looking for opportunities. I would be in charge of finding new markets for his products. “We’re not looking for straight arrows, but there’s some real bastards washing up on these shores,” he said. “Who can we trust? Report back to me before handshaking any deals.”

  Smile entered the room, and Bill stood to leave. He and Smile were going on an unspecified errand that I for one didn’t want to know more about. Not after I saw Smile kill that fellow at the hospital. I followed them out as far as the garden and watched as they locked the iron gate behind them on the way to the dock. Bill turned back and held up his fingers in the V for Victory sign, flashing his Clark Gable grin. A few local children appeared on the pathway, running and shouting in English, “Candy, please.” Tiny missiles of glittering silver flew from Bill’s hand before he boarded the longtail, and the kids leaped in the air to grab them.

  “Sahib,” was breathed in my ear, and I jumped. Why did Dass have to sneak around like that? “We will go to the warehouse now,” he said. I followed him out the palazzo gate. Bill’s boat was already a tiny dot on the river, roaring south. The children, still sucking their candy, hung back a little but stared at us curiously as we walked onto the dock where a second boat waited. One sad barefoot boy approached us. “Candy, please?” His lips quivered as he held out his hand.

  I patted my pockets but of course I had no candy. All I found was an American silver dime, which I pressed into his palm. “Buy candy,” I said, hoping he would understand. He held up the foreign money to his eye and smiled before he dashed off to join his friends.

  “You will find that an expensive hobby,” Dass said over his shoulder. I scurried to keep up with him and nearly fell over, with the boat still rocking from his jump aboard. “Since the soldiers came, all the children want candy. It will rot the teeth from their heads.”

  “I only did it because Bill did,” I said, irritated to find myself making excuses to this fellow.

  “It is true, Bill does that,” Dass said. I got the sense he did not approve of that either, but had enough caution not to say a word against Bill.

  When we reached the other shore, Dass hailed a rickshaw. The one that stopped was shabbier than the others, but Dass did not wave him away. His chipped blue bicycle was rigged with a homemade sidecar, with two hard wooden seats arranged so the passengers sat back to back. It was not comfortable, but at least I had an excuse to ignore Dass. The driver wore a short sarong hiked past his knees but was otherwise barefoot and shirtless, and as he started pedalling, leaning against our weight, I felt sorry for his exertions under the hot sun while we rested under an awning.

  The rickshaw bumped and jolted along the potholed roads. I craned my neck to stare down the mysterious side streets, and each seemed to have its own special purpose. One was crammed with men working behind foot-pedal sewing machines, while another had women rubbing plants between their palms, making rope that lay coiled up beside them. One street was decorated with a black and gold archway, and beyond it monks in orange robes crouched, creating huge patterns on the ground from coloured sand. I wondered why, but Dass was not convenient to ask, and he probably wouldn’t have told me anyway.

  We stopped at a brick building painted white, two stories tall. I smoothed my hair aft
er I clambered out of the rickshaw, and we stood there until Dass reminded me I had the key. “Right,” I said. I jingled through the pile, trying a few in the lock, but none worked. “Which is it?” I asked, trying to hide my embarrassment. Silently Dass touched one of the antiques. The heavy wooden door swung inward with a groan, and once we were inside, Dass slammed and bolted it behind us. The only light came from clerestory windows up high, and dust motes floated in the pale sunbeams. It took a minute for my eyes to adjust, and then I made out tall stacks of wooden crates. Dass reached into a corner and pulled out a crowbar, wrenching open the lid of a nearby box with a creak of nails. I pulled out a rifle that was nestled in straw. It reminded me of the tommy-guns we’d used in the Clockwork Gang, but that was the extent of my weaponry knowledge.

  I asked how many were in the box, and if each box was the same, and were all the guns in the same condition. Dass just shrugged at each question. It felt good to be in charge of things all of a sudden, and Dass a puzzled naïf.

  “We’ll have to do a detailed inventory, including age and condition,” I said. “Then I can get quotes in the international market. How many men do you trust to handle these and know their worth?”

  “Not many. The best would be an Englishman, Jack Dodgson.”

  “Who are the main customers so far?”

  “Burmese hill tribes mostly. We exchange guns for opium. But for cash, South America looks promising. India also. I have some connections there.”

  I wondered what so many people wanted guns for. Hadn’t the world had enough of war? I guess it depended whether you felt like a winner or a loser.

  “The gems are locked up,” Dass said. “Follow me.” We climbed a circular metal staircase and paused in front of a steel door on the second floor. “He brought food, cigarettes, and radios into Burma when they were in need, and he got paid in gems. It is possible they are fakes, but Bill trusts his people.”

  I held out the ring of keys to Dass and he touched one, which opened the door to a windowless room. Dass pulled a cord on a bare light bulb to illuminate two safes, bank quality and about five feet tall. “Nice,” I said.

  Approaching one of the safes, Dass turned the dial left, right, left. I felt a surge of nostalgia at the familiar sound. He pulled open the door, revealing three shelves holding canvas sacks. I picked up a sack and untied it, and inside were large chunks of translucent rock with red glitters in their secret depths.

  “Rubies,” Dass said. “Some raw, some roughly cut.”

  By the time I had opened the sacks, filled with stones sorted into red, blue, green, and white, my head was spinning. Some of the raw stones were as big as my fist. But these rocks might be worth nothing at all, I told myself, trying to remain calm in front of Dass.

  He opened the second safe and inside were large gold bars. About ten of them.

  “Holy Jesus,” I said. I picked one up and almost dropped it. It was heavier than I expected. There was only a single mark on the gleaming rectangle: “24K.”

  “We ran into a Japanese convoy trying to make off with these right after the surrender order.”

  “In terms of valuation,” I said, trying to sound blasé in the face of this haul, “gold is easy. We just need the weight. But for the gems or rocks or whatever they are, we need an appraiser.”

  “The royal court employs the good ones. The others are bamboozlers.” I smiled that Dass would use such a Bill-like word in his otherwise lilting and formal speech.

  “I know just the man in Seattle, but we’ll have to bring him here.”

  “Tell me the message and I will send a telegram,” Dass said. “He shall come.”

  * * *

  WORKING WITH BILL again was like being handed a magician’s wand. Think of a thing, and it would happen. The jeweller I wanted was arriving today from Seattle. It was a plus that Vitale Levitsky had never seen Bill’s face, because I was the one who had dealt with him back in Washington. He’d been recommended by the speakeasy men, because he never cared where your money came from, and was just as incurious when asked to appraise or recut jewels of uncertain origin. I still had a hard time saying, even to myself, words like “robbery” and “criminal.” It was nice that Bill’s business here was legal. Well, at least the opium that stayed in Siam. I was pretty sure some of it went to the States. I also worried about the people he wanted to sell guns to. I fanned myself with the ledger. Let’s face it, this whole so-called legal business was more crooked than any bank job we ever did. The police were up to their eyeballs in corruption and mysterious schemes. Chief Phao was scarier than the worst gangster I ever met in the US of A, and Bill was in tight with him.

  Bill had his finger in every pie. From studying the ledgers, I knew he was also “donating” money to the democratic leader, Mr. Pridi, so I followed his activities in the South China Morning Post. He had gained favour with the West during the war when he built the Siamese resistance against the Japanese. Now, Pridi was agitating for a constitution that would allow full elections for the first time in the country’s history. Despite that, British support was wavering under peacetime realities. Back in the thirties, Pridi had been exiled from Siam as a Communist. If this label was proven, they would probably abandon him. On the other hand, he was popular in Siam and might win an election. I supposed Bill played it safe by putting a bet on all sides.

  The warehouse door opened, a shaft of light piercing the dark room as Dass entered with another gentleman. I paused in my work of recording the guns and asked Mr. Dodgson to take a break. I was tired of him. Mr. Dodgson was the gun expert, but he was no use to talk to. He had clammed up the moment he arrived in the morning and only opened his jaw to spew out the facts I required of each gun he inspected. It was probably just as well I didn’t get to know him because he seemed like a lowlife. He had hooded eyes and thick eyebrows that made him look perpetually angry. When he rolled up his sleeves, he revealed a snake tattooed on his forearm, and there was a long scar on his right cheek, as if he had been in a knife fight.

  “Vito, so glad you could come,” I said, clapping the newcomer on the back, as I imagined Bill would do.

  “Long time no see.” Vitale Levitsky was short, but the ladies in Seattle had thought him attractive. His delicate features contrasted with an intense dark stare, and it probably did not hurt that he dealt in fine jewellery. Dass silently withdrew from the warehouse with Mr. Dodgson, and I suggested the two of us go upstairs to the office.

  “This must be something pretty special to drag me around the world,” he said, as he followed me up the steep metal staircase.

  “Mr. Yardley hopes so.”

  I placed myself between Vito and the safe as I turned the knob so he would not see the combination. Though he was smart enough that he’d never pull anything—next thing he knew he’d be floating face down in the Chao Phraya River. Lord, what brought such a thought into my head? Maybe I had been better off as a barkeep in harmless old Sequim, where the worst thing to happen in the ten years I lived there was the time some kids egged Mrs. Spencer’s door on Halloween. There was practically a manhunt over the outrage, since the cops had nothing better to do. The delinquents, though, were never found, about which I was secretly pleased.

  I placed the pouches on the desk and flicked on the banker’s lamp. Vito picked up the largest stone and pulled out a magnifier. He whistled as he turned it under the light. “I’m gonna need my microscope and cutting tools, but you have the real deal here.” He inspected some of the gems that had been roughly cut, and looked pleased. “At a guess I’d say you’re looking at over a hundred grand.”

  I was staggered. That was as much money as the biggest heist we’d ever pulled back in the day, and this was from legitimate business. All because Bill trusted the remote Burma traders. His instincts had always been good, at least when he was not on the drugs. Bill had told me the few British soldiers that passed through the region had scoffed at the rocks as just that, pretty rocks, and wouldn’t even trade their rations for th
em. The Burmese were that desperate after the war.

  Vito asked if I could set him up with a workshop with good ventilation, because cutting stones was dusty work. “Mr. Yardley have any preference of the style they’re cut to? Any of these to be made into something for a special lady?”

  “We’re not sentimental. Whatever will fetch the highest price is what we want.”

  Dass knocked on the office door and I came out, closing it quickly behind me. I wasn’t sure why I bothered to conceal these doings with Vito, given that Dass seemed to know everything that was going on. Was it wrong to want my own fiefdom?

  “Telegram from Mr. Yardley,” he said, holding out an envelope between thumb and finger. As soon as I took it he turned on his heel. “The boat is leaving for the palazzo. Now,” he said, more like an order than a piece of information. His insolence was annoying. After that first day when he had served drinks in the garden, he had refused to behave like a servant at all. I would have to talk to Bill about him, and subtly try to get a sense of what his position was. Then again, what was mine? Talking to Vito about his commission, I realized that I didn’t know the nature of my own share in Bill’s business. In the bank-robbing days, he had divvied things up equally between the gang members, reserving for himself the larger portion. Here in Bangkok, I lived in luxury at no cost, but I wanted something more substantial. There was more danger in this business than anything I’d done before. In the Clockwork Gang, cops might have shot at us, but they were usually small-town bunglers. Chief Phao was a professional killer.

  I ripped open the envelope.

  “LENA IS ON HER WAY. STAND BY FOR DETAILS.”

  I stared at the message and noticed my hand was shaking. So she was really coming. Would she recognize me? It would be humiliating if she did not, yet unsurprising. She only ever had eyes for Bill back then. Would I recognize her? This much time could have changed her. I had burned in my mind forever an image from when we robbed the bank in Nanaimo: Lena had tossed her hat to a poor coalminer’s daughter as we fled the scene, her beautiful face so joyful.