by L. J. Hawke
“That sounds beautiful. I can agree to all of that.”
Sanur stood and kissed her on each cheek, her forehead, then her lips. He swallowed at the sudden lump in his throat. “So, I will have Htet send over a phonetic spelling of the vows, and you will call him at designated times three times a day to practice. When he feels that you can get through the whole ceremony without stumbling, then we will have the ceremony.”
“Okay.” Tania wobbled on her chair, a little dazed.
“After the ceremony, I request that you move into our house. I'll get a car if you would like to be driven to work, but we both have scooters, and the neighbor’s son drives a tuk tuk. We will sign a stack of business papers and divide up our responsibilities. I look forward to that day with all my heart and soul.” He kissed her fingers, then turned and walked away.
Tania wiped her eyes, finished her noodles and her cola, and walked back to work in a daze.
Two hours later, she wasn't surprised to find an email with an audio file of a woman nearly whispering the words in whatever language that it was. In between telephone calls, taking over Lupe’s duties, and making sure everything was going well on the floor, Tania memorized one word at a time, one phrase, one sentence. She wrote out her own phonetic version of the script by hand as the voice whispered in her ears. She had never heard the language before. It certainly wasn’t Thai. It sounded very old.
The entire time, her mind was whirling. She wanted to invite Kandace and Corinne to the wedding. But what if she couldn’t memorize all these whispered words? What if the whole thing fell apart? Neither one of them would have the funds to fly to Thailand; they had massive debt, too. She knew they would come running, hell or high water, borrow the money from some guy named Guido who would break their legs later when they couldn’t repay the money, if she even hinted at a wedding. Should she ask Sanur for the money to fly them out? No, that would be asking too much. She had to make things equal. She sighed. She was making herself crazy.
She also had gifts to buy Sanur for their ceremony-thing. What would a shapeshifter like? Cases for his shed skin? She shuddered. He lived so elegantly, yet simply. He didn’t need more stuff.
She was determined to be paid off so they could join together with her owning the business with no loans, even from his trust. So, using her own funds wouldn’t work. Asking the man she would marry for the money sounded crass. Plus, both her friends had work, a lot of it, from what she could tell. They would drop everything and come, but they had their own enormous debts to pay, and she would be asking them to fly across the world. They would have to take a week off and be very jet lagged on both ends.
Where would she put them? Her apartment? They deserved the best. All that expense and travel would cause them exhaustion, worry, and heartache that wasn’t necessary. It broke her heart. Maybe she could sell something? What? She thought about her fake Stratocaster and her tip money and smiled. Then, she made a call.
Hunt
The next day, Tania was in her office answering emails, going over the ceremony and chanting it with the woman’s whispered voice, when she received a knock on her door. She turned off the recording, looked up, and saw a woman standing in the doorway who looked like a slightly miniaturized Sanur. She sported his long, flat nose, the cut of his cheekbones, the same honey caramel color of his eyes, the same tilt of his head.
“You must be Sanur’s relative, come to find the people trying to harm him.” Tania cast her voice so she couldn't be heard past the door.
The woman stepped inside the office and shut the door. “My name is Supayalat. You may call me Hteiksu.”
“You were named after the last queen of Burma, now Myanmar,” said Tania, a little smug that she’d been doing her historical research into Sanur’s family. “But if you want me to call you Hteiksu, princess, you need to call me Rani.”
“Do you consider yourself a queen? You are memorizing the marriage ceremony,” Supayalat quietly observed.
“I take it you're not here to make small talk. What do you need?”
“I'm going to take apart that woman's desk.” Supayalat referred to Lupe.
“The police were here and left fingerprint powder all over the damn place. I'm afraid the scene has been compromised a bit.”
“Since Sanur paid for her housing, and Lupe is in jail prior to being deported and hasn’t cleaned out the apartment yet, I've already been there. I found several fingerprints the police missed. I've also been to the places she had her meetings, and despite those lounge chairs having multiple people sitting in them and their being cleaned, I found some fascinating fingerprints.”
Tania typed a note to herself to remember to clean out and release Lupe’s apartment. It had never crossed her mind. Tania mentally slapped herself for not thinking of it. She was relatively sure that Sanur had, and had left the apartment as it was until Supayalat came to investigate. “I take it you are referring to Somchair and Malee. Sanur told me about them. Please, do whatever you find necessary to go after these people. We're not in this for the money, we're in this to help people. If you don't have that mindset, you can't make this business work anyway. They would just loot it and disappear, just like they did before.” Tania tapped her fingers on the desk.
Supayalat inclined her head. “So you think it's both of them.”
“A woman wouldn't have made so many mistakes, but I'll make you a bet it's her greed behind all of this,” said Tania. “If you are relying on being beautiful and a demon in bed, that only lasts for so long. And you have to keep yourself in top physical and sexual shape for years. Grifters don't like doing that much work. So, they convince others to do the work for them. Are there actual demons?” Tania asked Supayalat.
To her surprise, Supayalat didn’t laugh; she just shook her head. “Just the human kind.”
“My guess is Malee and Somchair lived the glamorous lifestyle and finished off the money they stole from Sanur and whomever else they were ripping off at the time. My guess is that they're both also vicious, cunning, venal, and stupid in certain ways. I'll also make a guess that they're not doing this to keep some sick mother alive. If that were the case, one or the other of them would have simply asked Sanur for help, and he would have given it. So no, find them, and have them enjoy a Thai prison.”
Supayalat bowed her head. “Rani,” she said quietly. “And, just so you know, I prefer Mibaya. Rani is more Sanskrit. We started using the term when we moved south and west. But it is the term that Sanur prefers to use.”
“Hteiksu Supayalat,” said Tania. “Update me if you have time, but I assume Sanur will take care of that.” Supayalat inclined her head again, and then was gone.
Tania was pleased that they didn't have to do photo shoots for quite some time. Lupe’s recent preference to be separate from Tania meant that nearly every product was in a photo shoot. Tania was now in a position to create ads, not design pictures for them.
Tania had kept her previous online marketing clients, working like mad to pay off the partial loan from the trust for her fifty-one percent of the business, so she would enter the wedding debt-free. Since Tania got a free apartment from work, and she very literally didn't have time to run around buying much of anything, she made the largest chunk of payment on her loan that she could. She would soon have to completely withdraw from both the band and her old customers, which saddened her, but the company came first. She sighed about selling her fake Stratocaster.
She grinned when she realized she could pass on her marketing clients to her trainees; they could build a second side business. She made a note to herself; Sanur would know better how to build such a side business, adding local Thai businesses.
Exams were coming up, and the high school students were frantically studying. Tania was overjoyed that she had made plans to deal with this. The students got time off, and everyone else took up the slack, including Tania and Sanur. They somehow got through.
During this busy time, Htet brought lunch every day to Tania a
nd Sanur, and walked Tania through the ceremony. Tania could remember longer and longer chunks. Unfortunately, neither man took anything she was doing as a joke, so she couldn't use strange voices to remember the words. She secretly used the timing of the 1980s hit “Hey Mickey” to remember the ceremony in four-minute chunks.
Supayalat came back with Sanur to Tania’s office half an hour after Htet arrived. Both were silent while Tania worked with Htet to let the words roll off her tongue. Htet came over in person because she was so close to reciting it perfectly. While she was waiting, Supayalat cleaned her nails with the little knife she took from her boot. Tania grinned, took the challenge, and within two tries was able to recite the entire ceremony. “Good job, Rani,” said Supayalat. “I will give you one of these as a liege gift during the ceremony,” she said, holding up the knife.
“Make it a belt knife. I only wear boots when I sing heavy metal.”
Supayalat raised her eyebrows. “Hair bands? You sing the music of hair bands?”
“Don't knock it until you've nearly paid off your debt. I make a lot of money in tips, and people write their phone numbers and stick them in the jar as well. I seem to have groupies.” Tania grinned proudly.
Supayalat pretended to bash her head on the desk. She turned to Sanur, who shrugged. Htet had a faint smile on his face. “My liege, you would like for me to swear fealty to this one?”
Tania laughed from the bottom of her stomach. “What did you expect? I'm a crass backwoods girl. I will probably use the wrong fork in a fancy restaurant. I like walking around my house naked, something I can't do in the future with a valet living in the house.” Both Sanur and Htet choked, and Supayalat snorted out a laugh. “I will be whatever I need to be, but remember, you may take the girl out of a country, but you can't take the country out of the girl. And, pardon the pun, I'm also mean as a snake when pissed.”
Sanur grinned. “My woman is strong.”
Tania nodded. “Damn straight.” She turned to Supayalat. “Have you found those two outlaws yet? Those idiots ruined an excellent friendship. In addition to screwing over my man, both literally and figuratively, those scum-sucking turds turned someone I loved into a bitchy, whiny middle-school girl, and nearly got her put in a Thai prison. I want payback.”
Supayalat looked down at her screen, then looked up, exhilarated, eyes flashing. “They're hiding in Bangkok. I'm going to go there and have them arrested. Would you like to come along after work?”
“Can we be married first so that I may protect her from prison?” asked Sanur.
Supayalat shrugged her shoulders. “You can, but that doesn't leave either one of you time to purify yourselves, and I expect you're going to want a honeymoon directly after that.”
“Don't even want to know what ‘purify myself’ means,” said Tania. “Do I have to hose myself down with holy water?”
Sanur doubled over laughing. Supayalat snorted. Htet kept his composure. “No, it has to do with incense and prayers,” Sanur said when he could speak.
“This is not a wet T-shirt contest,” said Supayalat, making Tania snort.
Tania’s eyes narrowed. “You people are going to make me homicidal, suicidal, and every other -cidal there is, if you prevent me from going after those nasty people. They screwed up my friendship with someone I cared about, and they messed with this company. I own it, it’s mine. I'm going to go, I'm going to win, and if they have any brains, they're going to beg to go to a Thai prison.” Supayalat shrugged and flashed something at Sanur with her fingers. Sanur groaned. Htet said, “I will make the travel arrangements.”
Tania stood up. “Meeting’s over. I’ll get my passport.”
“I’m coming.” Sanur’s voice brooked no argument.
However, Tania had no problem arguing. “You have five...or six, I’ve lost count...businesses to run, plus the wedding to plan. I understand that you have some very old ideas of how to do a wedding. I don’t care how we’re married, just that we are married. We can get there and get right back. We may even be back tonight. Plus, if they see you, they’ll run.” She kissed him. “See you soon.”
Sanur groaned. “I used to be known for my sanity. You make me insane.”
“Supayalat will get us in and out. Besides, they’re grifters, and not even particularly intelligent ones.”
Supayalat sighed. “Yes, my liege.”
Sanur nodded. “See that you do.” He sighed. “I can deny you nothing.”
Tania grinned. “I’m worth it.”
Sanur sighed. “Yes, you are.” He kissed her again, and then she rushed out. “I may regret this.”
Htet smiled. “I think she may surprise you. She is small but fierce.”
Sanur puffed out a laugh. “That she is.”
“Read this,” said Supayalat in the tuk tuk on the way to the airport. She handed Tania a tablet. The wait at the airport, then flight to Bangkok were both so short that Tania barely had enough time to read the dossiers. There was nothing in them that would make anyone think that those two would turn out to be grifters.
Sanur’s friend Somchair had been going to private schools on scholarships, worked three small jobs to pay for the food, housing, and tuition that the scholarships he had cobbled together didn’t cover. Sanur had put Somchair in a position to finish off school without going into debt and having to work only one job instead of three.
After school, Desak and Ketuk went to Bali and started a profitable hotel business there. Sanur took his friend Somchair back with him to Thailand. Sanur discovered a way to use an import/export business to help artists in the places he loved.
Somchair was handsome, with a square jaw, flat face, long nose, and eyes that seemed to miss nothing. His smile seemed kind. Tania tapped the tablet. She spoke in a very low voice, nearly a whisper. “There’s nothing here that screams, ‘Hello, I'm a grifter and I'm going to steal all your money!’”
Supayalat’s voice sounded like little more than a hiss, but Tania understood every word. “Our family knows something about courtiers. They are nothing new to us. Somchair did not hang on Sanur’s every word, he didn't ask for everything he wanted. He refused gifts, even had little spats with Sanur. It seemed to be a genuine friendship as opposed to hooking himself to someone else's star to rise in the world.”
Tania turned over the word courtier in her mind. This was a whole new world to her. Supayalat explained at Tania’s confused expression. “Our family is used to this sort of thing. As long as a courtiers align themselves with our best interests, everyone benefits. Someone who would not have had a chance to rise in the world can rise much higher and can take advantage of some magnificent opportunities. If that person no longer wishes to align with us, the person can simply withdraw or manufacture a falling-out. As long as we are never harmed by this association, it is not a problem.”
“I don't like being used,” said Tania. “We will not be having courtiers. We may have employees, we may have family. We may have friends and various states of being close or not close. But I don't like users, and I never will.”
“It can be argued that you used those orphans to benefit yourself. There are employment agencies you could have used.” Supayalat looked down her nose at Tania.
“I tried that. The girl they sent from the agency was a bubblehead who refused to type or do anything to risk breaking a fingernail. I volunteered at an orphanage back in South Korea, and I know damn well those kids often don't get a chance in life. I knew I could train them, give them a better life. If the orphans hated the job, or if they weren't cut out for it, they at least would learn English and some skills.”
“I see.” Supayalat’s voice was as dry as paper.
Tania narrowed her eyes. “I've talked extensively with each of them. They're being paid far more than going rates even to start with. They are not slaves, they can leave at any time, and the Thai government knows exactly where they are at all times. I even paid for more education for them online.”
Supayalat nodded. �
��And that is part of the old ways, taking care of one’s people. You have an enormous responsibility to make sure every single one of your people is more than just fed, housed, clothed, and has proper medical care. Your people must also be educated, something rulers historically have not permitted.”
“What? Why?” asked Tania.
Supayalat smiled grimly. “Stupid people are like sheep, easy to herd. It has historically been much harder to reign over an educated populace. They know when they are being herded, and when they are not getting proper treatment. If you do not treat them well, you will lose your head.”
Tania snorted. “Glad you approve.” Tania opened the other file. Malee’s file didn't point to a grifter either. She grew up in a small apartment with her brother and sister. Her parents paid for extra English tutoring for all three children, and Malee went to two years of business school. It wasn't surprising that an educated, beautiful woman who spoke fluent English would end up working at an import-export company.
It was also not surprising that either man would fall for her, because she was a smoking hot beauty. She liked to keep her long black hair up in golden pins, she wore just the right amount of makeup, and she dressed conservatively in long skirts and beautiful blouses. Her smile was lovely. Nothing in her file said that she would want to turn around and steal money and run off with the boss’ best friend after sleeping with the boss.
