by John Burdett
I'm mulling this over (he said: I love you, but then he added too) when all of a sudden everyone freezes because two strangers have walked into the bar.
Well, not strangers exactly. America is certainly a tribal society, isn't it? The effect they have on the old codgers in the bar makes me think of a couple of Cheyenne coming around a turning in a forest to find a band of Crow having lunch. Hudson and Bright and all the customers hitch their pants simultaneously. Hudson turns away from the wrinkled hippies with a sour look and stares me in the eye.
"Hello, Detective. Remember us?" Hudson says, almost without moving his lips, as hard, gaunt, and haunted as ever.
"Songai Kolok. You were businessmen at the time."
"And you were an American resident with a green card. Let's cut to the chase. You know why we're here?"
Wordlessly I lead them out back. Hudson wrinkles his nose, and Bright sniffs ostentatiously. (That's a third-world stink if ever there was one.)
"Mother, these are the two CIA spies I met in Songai Kolok, when they were pretending to be businessmen in the telecommunications industry," I explain in Thai.
Have I told you before that in our primitive society we still have courtesy? My mother takes my introduction as a signal that these two men are higher up the pyramid than she. She stands and wais them mindfully. Hudson, I think, wishes he had a hat to lift, and Bright is confused. He thinks about a wai, then gives up.
"You mean they lied to you?" my mother asks, still maintaining the polite smile.
"Lying is what they do. They're spies."
"How disgusting." Nodding politely at Hudson. "Do they speak Thai?"
"Not a word."
Returning Bright's respectful nod with a beam. "Does the Colonel know about them? Are we going to bump them off?"
"Mother, please, that would not be a good idea. The CIA is quite powerful."
"I don't like the way that young one keeps sniffing at my durian. Maybe I'll bump him off myself if he keeps doing that." In English: "Gentlemen, do sit down, my house is your home."
I see that Bright is not at all certain that it would be safe to sit in a place with such a pervasive odor. Bravely he pulls up a chair, though, and Hudson does the same. Hudson has not failed to notice that he is in the presence of an attractive Thai woman of about his age group. (I see a terrible bitterness that he would be prepared to melt down and recycle for the right lady, maybe a womanly Asian with courtesy and gentleness? Could this be her?)
"The older one fancies you."
"D'you want me to seduce him, find out how much he knows?"
"You're supposed to be retired."
"The young one really thinks he's the bee's knees, doesn't he? Shall we set one of the girls onto him? I don't think he'll look like that when we show him the video of his performance with his pants down."
I have an expression of filial adoration on my face. "That's really not a bad idea. Is room ten still rigged up?"
"Yes it is, despite your puritanical objections."
Explanatory note: Dear Nong has never forgiven me for refusing to join a syndicate that broadcasts pay-by-the-minute porn over the Net, usually without the consent or knowledge of the erection owner. The secret digital camera was all rigged up and ready to go when I found out and put a stop to it.
"Who shall we ask? What is his profile?"
"Easily aroused, good basic performer with not much imagination, probably can keep it up for the full twenty minutes if he needs to, a jaw-grinder on the home stretch, a triumphalist, resents it if the lady doesn't climax. We don't want submissive, he'd only get arrogant and contemptuous. Someone smart and subtle who will drive him crazy: Oh, I hope you'll return soon, I get so horny when I don't come, shall I get you some Viagra next time?"
"Nat?"
"She's so flighty, but I agree she's got the talent. In the right mood she would be perfect. I'll see if she's around." In English: "Excuse me, gentlemen, I must get back to work."
"We'll put our cards on the table," Hudson says in a flat, neutral tone as soon as my mother has gone. "You have information about the disappearance of one Mitch Turner. We think he was murdered in a hotel not far from here. We think he was with one of your workers at the time." He looks at Bright. "Have I left anything out?"
Bright looks me intensely in the eye. (He really intends for me to really get what he's saying.) "See, we're Americans at war, and we don't leave our dead in the field, no matter what. It's as simple as that. We just don't do it. So it's in everybody's interest to cut the crap, cut out all the-ah-little cover-ups and conspiracies and cooperate, get the thing over and done with and bring the perp to justice, because we will get to the bottom of this, one way or the other." Out of the corner of my eye I see that Hudson has the grace to wince. "I hope you understand what I'm saying, Detective?"
I am obliging with Third World Fear and Awe when Nat appears with a smile to ask if anyone would like something to drink. Bright does not appreciate the distraction and snaps "Water" in the same tone of Stern. He flicks his eyes up at her. She is wearing a knee-length white cotton dress of relatively modest cut, although it does dip quite a bit, and she doesn't seem to be wearing anything underneath. His eyes do not ransack her body, but the very pleasing contrast of stark white with her creamy brown legs and shoulders is hard to ignore. Contact the first.
"I'll take a Coke if that's okay?" Hudson says with considerable courtesy. (I think he was hoping for Nong to return.)
I shake my head with a smile, and Nat makes a cute wai to Hudson and Bright. Bright wrestles with distraction and wins. "Maybe the detective can confirm that we're all agreed."
"On what?" I ask with a smile.
"Yeah," Hudson says, "you lost me a bit. What are we agreeing on here?" Why do I sense that these two partners are not enjoying a totally satisfactory relationship?
Bright goes-well, bright crimson. "I was just trying to-"
"I know what you were trying to do. Thailand is probably our greatest ally in this part of the world. If the president wants to screw up every international friendship we have, that's up to him, but you're not the president." He looks as if he is about to say something more, then changes his mind. I am expecting Bright to turn volcanic, maybe shoot Hudson with a Magnum, but instead he makes a face of childish pique. Hudson leans forward a little, engages my eyes rather gently, even gives his own a slightly pleading hue. "Detective, look, we know what probably happened. You know who we are. Why are we here? We are here because the organization we work for is not going to rest until the disappearance of Mitch Turner is accounted for. Until then, officially no one can say if this is a case of international terrorism, a case of domestic violence, a mugging that went wrong-or what? See what I'm getting at? If something happened between Turner and one of your girls, if that's all there is to it, if there are mitigating circumstances as there probably were, after all he was a big, strong guy-we think he disappeared on a Saturday night-he was known to have a very low resistance to alcohol-he shouldn't have been in Bangkok at all-you see where I'm heading? If there are grounds for reducing the charge to manslaughter, maybe even entering a plea of self-defense, we would be able to make the prosecution listen to you, maybe cut a deal. We just need to clear the thing up one way or the other. Americans are very tidy minded. We just can't have an open file with Unsolved stamped on it, not in a time of war, not in the case of someone like Mitch Turner. We would like you to help us. Please."
Nat returns with the water. By leaning over Hudson to pour, she reveals much of her upper body to Bright, who is now ripe for distraction after the reprimand from Hudson. He catches himself in a stare, looks up, and finds her eyes on him. He blushes all over again. Contact the second.
"I see," I say, wondering what to do. This whole situation cries out for Vikorn's skills. What does a monk manque know? Are we playing three-dimensional chess or two-card brag? "The thing is, it's not in my hands."
Now Hudson is distracted. He is no fool, and Nat's skills have not e
scaped his notice. He and I both watch with clinical interest as she leans over Bright to pour his water. There is nothing flirtatious in her manner, but she does pour the water with unusual slowness. It's a very hot night under our crude strip lights in the yard. Everyone is sweating. Almost drop by drop the pure, clear ice-cold water fills the glass, which turns opaque with condensation. The moment seems to last forever. Nat shows no mercy while Bright concentrates on the glass so as not to glance sideways at the two brown young breasts hanging very near his face. He looks swiftly up when she is done, says thankyou in a gruff tone. She makes a cute little bow, keeping her face serious. Contact the third.
Farang, I'll bet you Wall Street against a Thai mango he'll be back, if for no other reason than to play the card of virile youth against Hudson's superior rank and thus restore his ego after that humiliating reprimand. Hudson thinks so too. He turns away with a mixture of amusement and irritation. (Why did they have to send him a boy?) Now he is waiting for me to say more. I don't. A sigh. "Okay, whose hands is it in? This Colonel Vikorn character? He has one hell of a reputation, and it's not for being an honest cop."
"A sleazebag," Bright mutters, avoiding Hudson's glare.
I make a submissive face. "Shall I tell him you want to make a treaty?"
Bright is not at all sure if I'm being sarcastic or simply inept in my use of English. He oscillates between rage and contempt with a bias toward contempt. Hudson covers his reaction with a cough. "Yeah, tell him we want to talk. I'm sure we can work something out. It would help a lot if we were able to speak to the last person to see Mitch Turner alive. That would impress us considerably."
They both finish their water in a few gulps, then stand up to leave. I follow them through the club to the front door, keeping my eyes on Bright. Yep, there it goes, that scan of the room he told himself he wasn't going to make. Nat, of course, is nowhere to be seen.
As soon as they're safely into a taxi, I call Vikorn. He's silent for a full minute, then: "What's your instinct?"
"We're the Indians, they're the cowboys, they want to make a treaty. They want Chanya at the meeting, Colonel."
He coughs. "Tell them to come to the bar tomorrow night. We'll close it for as long as the meeting takes."
"Will Chanya be there?"
"I don't know."
In the dead of night my mobile rings. It is Lek at last. A desperate tone (he sounds as if he's dying): "You have to help me."
Lumpini Park (named for the Buddha's birthplace) at night: love at its cheapest, but the incidence of HIV is said to be over sixty percent. In the darkness: furtive movements on benches and on the grass, muted moans and whispers, rustlings of large animals in heat, the intensity of the atomic fusion (highly addictive, they say) of sex and death. It is past midnight in this tropical garden. At the edge of the park, I have to call Lek on his mobile to find out his exact location. He is standing alone by the artificial lake, staring at a reflection of the moon in the water. When I touch him, his body seems half frozen.
"She told me to come here," he whispers after a while. "She insisted that I see it at its worst."
"She's right. That's exactly what a good Elder Sister is supposed to do."
"I feel dreadful. She totally destroyed me."
"She's just testing you. Better you see the worst before you take the big step. You have to be sure you won't end up here."
"Half of the whores here are katoeys," he blurts. "They've lost everything, even basic humanity. They're just… just creatures. I've seen them hanging out on the benches, waiting for customers, just like starving demons. Some of them have lesions. They service taxi drivers."
"What did Fatima say, exactly?"
"She said she would help me if I would drink the full cup of bitterness. She said the path of a katoey is sacred, only katoeys and Buddhas really see the world for what it is. She said I had to be strong as steel, soft as air."
When I put my arm around him, he bursts into sobs. "I don't think I have the strength. I only wanted to dance."
"You think dancing is easy?"
Looking up at me with those big eyes of his: "Thanks for coming. I had a moment of weakness. I better stay here for a while. I need to see it all, don't I?"
"Yes." There's really nothing more to say.
29
T he Old Man's Club would not, under normal circumstances, be anyone's choice of venue for such grim negotiations, but it is the best we can do. The CIA, who are not officially here at all, do not possess an office, nobody wants to do it in a hotel room, and the District 8 police station is hardly appropriate. The only reason I am present is because Vikorn needs an interpreter whose discretion can be relied upon. The only reason Chanya is present is to take the opportunity to prove she didn't do it. (She spent the whole of yesterday locked up with Vikorn in his office.) The only reason my mother is here is that it is her club and no way is she going to miss out.
Although both Hudson and Bright have read it many times before, they take a minute to study Chanya's confession, the one that Vikorn dictated and I wrote, which they have in English translation as well as the original Thai. They both look up at the same time, and it is the young and ferociously eager Bright who speaks first. I am surprised he begins by addressing me not as the official interpreter but in my capacity as humble scribe.
"You were present when this statement was taken, Detective?"
"Yes."
"You are the one who wrote it down?"
"Yes."
"While Colonel Vikorn was present?"
"Yes."
"And these are the true words of Ms. Chanya Phongchit as spoken at that time?"
"Certainly."
"Did you think anything odd about her story?"
"No. You have to remember-"
A peremptory wave of the hand. "I know, I know, this is Bangkok, and these kinds of things happen all the time. Let me cut to the chase, Detective." He leans forward, thighs pried open by the pressure of magnificent balls (obviously). "Detective, have you ever had sexual intercourse?"
A baffled pause. "It has been my good fortune from time to time."
"And have you ever had the good fortune to do it from behind? Never mind what part of the lady's anatomy is most interesting, let's just concentrate on the position."
Chanya inexplicably covering a grin, my mother frowning and staring at me, then from me to the Colonel. I think she has seen the drift quicker than anyone. The Colonel has not understood a word.
"Yes. It's not my preferred-"
Another peremptory wave. "Spare us the comment, Detective. Let me ask you this. When you exploited your good fortune in this way, did you notice that the front of your thighs were really rather close to the backs of the lady's? Putting it bluntly, Detective, unless you have a two-foot dick, your body would have been pressing against hers most of the time for the purpose of maintaining penetration?"
My heart sinks, and my mother looks away in disgust, I think, that the Colonel and I (her son of all people) should have committed such a gaffe. Only Chanya is unperturbed. On Vikorn's order I translate the interrogation so far. To my astonishment, he also is unperturbed and responds with an avuncular smile. I should add that since the arrival of the CIA he has scrupulously and impeccably maintained the part of every farang's idea of a crumpled, corrupt, incompetent, and less-than-intelligent third-world cop who only dimly grasps what is being said and who lost the plot some time ago. A slight shaking has been introduced in his left hand-a subtle addition, artistically done-and he has a half-empty bottle of Mekong whiskey on a table next to his chair. He has not shaved this morning; gray stubble catches the light nicely. A few deft touches, in other words, and the master has transformed himself-an astonishing achievement when you consider that in actual fact he is a decadent sleazebag third-world cop, but of an entirely different order. Any fool can play his opposite, but to play the character who is only a couple of shades away from the person you really are-now that shows real talent, in my humble opinion.
Bright has been ignoring him with exaggerated contempt. This is exactly what he expected from us. Hudson so far is carefully noncommittal in his body language. Bright grinds relentlessly on, his voice rising through the full gamut of triumphalism to find its level in an excited squeak.
"Any woman who decided to castrate you from such a position, even if she had the muscles of an Olympic weight lifter, would have to cut off one of your thighs first, wouldn't she?" Just in case he is not being explicit enough for my poor understanding, he stands up, folds Chanya's statement I suppose as representing the knife, bends forward, and swings backward with his hand a couple of times. "It's the one position where a man need fear no attack at all," he adds with a triumphant smile, "not even if the lady had access to a samurai sword," and sits down.
I translate for Vikorn, who has been watching the performance with a twinkle in his eye and who, to everyone's astonishment except Chanya's, bursts out laughing and clumsily claps a few times. Bright is seriously taken aback.
"Please tell our American colleagues how smart I think they are," Vikorn instructs, his left hand shaking as he reaches for the whiskey bottle. When I have done so, I see that Hudson has finally decided to take an interest in Vikorn and stares at him for the next few minutes. "They saw this obvious flaw immediately, on the first reading I am sure." A sip from his shaking glass. "What were we thinking that we produced such an amateurish statement? How could anyone hope to fool the CIA?"
I translate. Bright is lost now and checks with Hudson, who does not take his eyes off Vikorn.
"But what were we to do, gentlemen?" Vikorn raises his hands helplessly, an impotent old man caught in something way too big for him. "Chanya, my dear, please tell them exactly what happened."
Chanya looks at me demurely. "Should I speak in English or Thai? My English isn't really that good."
