A Haunting Smile

by Christopher G. Moore

  “Where’s Rusty Reagan?” asked Ross. He paused as if the question was being put to a real person, and then continued. “And don’t tell me he’s not inside. Because I’ll call you a liar. Any man who is open on this day is a jek. You hear what I called you, Wing? A jek. If there was a baht on the road you’d be open for business, finding a way to get that baht in your pocket. Then I looked around and saw his mob was standing behind him. Tough-looking dock-worker types. I thought if Rusty’s inside this hole, he’s in real trouble. I pushed my way through Wing and his men and surveyed the area. I looked into the back room. It was empty. Okay, where’s Rusty Reagan? I knew I wouldn’t get a straight answer. When one of his men tried to blindside me with a chair, I put him away with a sidekick to his groin. He doubled up like an oyster feeling the tip of the knife touch the shell. I turned to Wing, and said, the trouble with a chek is that you don’t have the guts to take a man on face to face, you’ve got to have pond scum try and hit him from behind.”

  “That’s not a story about a fish,” said Tuttle.

  “That story is about courage. You have to understand courage before hearing the fish story. Trust me. Besides it was a great story. You should have recorded that story. You should have a camera like Addison. I would be great on film. Telling that kind of story is what people want to hear. True life, hard-boiled conversations about real men in fear of their lives.”

  Ross’s technique was to soften up a client who was racked with regrets, lapses of courage, doubts about his competence. He found it was successful to start with a minor lesson about bitterness and courage. The main story for those who were on the verge of losing their nerve came from the rainy season horrors. It related to a fear that struck terror into the hearts of certain Bangkok residents: a fear beyond the pollution, drugged mad motorcyclists, careless tuk-tuk drivers, political unrest, or armed robbery. The fear had a name: sewers. More precisely, the greatest fear was the one chance in a million of falling into an open sewer during the rainy season. Once the monsoon rains pelted the streets a thick gravy of brown water backed up ankle deep into the sois. Thieves often stole manhole covers for the scrap metal value. Many people were forced to walk out of their sois during the rainy season—they went to work, for food, or for cheap sex—the journey out was like a jungle patrol working a heavily booby-trapped rice paddy. Two farangs several years before had disappeared in a sewer on Soi Asoke. The sheer force of the rapidly moving water pulled them down the hole as if water had carried them down the sink hole of a giant bathtub. A few miles downstream the police and bodysnatchers recovered their bodies. Just two regular guys on their way to getting laid, fate sucked them down an open sewer and coughed them up to the surface dead.

  Ross was the kind of person who befriended only people who refused to succumb to his sewer-death fear. Some people liked people surrounding them who shared their fears, who reconfirmed that insanity and misery caused by hidden secret traps set in everyday life, someone to whom they could rage and cry out against the unfairness of so much personal danger and risk. Not Ross. He wanted people who climbed into the belly of the beast without blinking an eye as if to say, there is nothing to fear but fear itself.

  One of Ross’s friends, Lek, had experience working the sewers of Bangkok. Lek was a sewer diver. His specialty was the sewers near the gem dealers’ district off Silom Road. Lek spent his days panning for gold dust in the sewer waters. Once in heavy rains Lek was trapped in the sewer and nearly drowned. He managed to stay alive by finding a small air pocket and the rain stopped with several inches of breathing space to spare. Two days later, Lek was back in the sewer on a cloudy day panning for gold. Ross liked the fact that this brush with death hadn’t dissuaded Lek from his appointed task. Fuck the polluted water, fuck the rains, and fuck the shit—just keep panning for gold. Lek sometimes found strange fish living in the sewers, which brings us closer to Ross’s fish story.

  When Bangkok sois flooded, which happened every year despite efforts to dig up sois and main roads and install storm drains, the wild life of the sewers floated to the surface. The sois were filled with fifteen different kinds of catfish and many kinds of snakes. The brown water teemed with schools of fish and tangles of snakes like a school child’s drawing of a bad dream. Tuk-tuk drivers and street vendors sat on the high ground and fished the sois. Later they ate catfish that had grown to maturity—shit-eating fish which survived on the bowel movements of gem merchants, tourists, touts, bankers, beggars, peasants and whores.

  The German owner of Lucky Lucy’s Bar, Wolfgang, caught a one-foot-long fish that looked like a cross between a carp, a goldfish, and a catfish—an entirely new genus of fish: Shitemper Sewertums, which was the name Ross called the strange fish. It was anyone’s guess how such a living thing could have emerged on this planet short of eating a steady diet of clogged shit and cross-breeding across species. Wolfgang had the fish put in a special tank. Two days later he left Bangkok on a visa run to Penang. He left instructions with his maid. The strange fish was to be cleaned every day during his absence. Wolfgang had visions of fame with this fish. He felt about Shitemper Sewertums the way Robert Tuttle later had felt about his floating bones. Both assumed their names would be recorded and immortalized in science. The history of science was the ultimate notebook in which people fought for a mention, a footnote containing their name for the discovery of a plant, a fish, a star, a solar system, the beginning of time and why it left no bones.

  Wolfgang had several ideas on how to best capitalize on the creature and the international fame which the creature promised. He thought that the best approach would be writing a letter to a university. Then he changed his mind, because he was, after all, a merchant and not a scholar, and then he thought he would sell the creature to a large foreign aquarium or build a special tank and put the fish on permanent display at Lucky Lucy’s as a way of attracting publicity. Tourists would flock to his restaurant to see a half-dinosaur creature which had emerged from the sewers of Bangkok. After talking with Ross and many other friends, Wolfgang decided to keep the creature in his bar and restaurant and use it as an excuse to boost the price of the Pirate’s brunch to 95 baht.

  Wolfgang was gone for three days. Each day the maid removed the fish from the tank and with a scrub brush and a bar of soap cleaned the fish. The fish died on the second day. The maid sold the fish to a street food vendor for fifty baht and fled Lucky Lucy’s with Wolfgang’s toaster, coffee maker, and staple-gun. She was never heard of again. As they say in the City of Angels, she fled the scene of the accident. When Wolfgang returned to Bangkok, he was heartbroken. He had invested his heart and soul in a new business venture with this creature as his partner. The creature had been the dream of a lifetime. The fish was no longer a fish. This fish meant everything in the world to Wolfgang. A one in a million chance to break out of the ordinary in life; for others to recognize that Wolfgang counted, should be paid respect, honored, and noticed. The food vendor was not to be blamed. She had bought what she thought was a fish; surely a strange fish, but nonetheless a fish. Those who bought fish that day in front of Lucky Lucy’s Bar were hardly to blame for eating Shitemper Sewertums. Indeed, Ross said that Shitemper Sewertums was one of the most delicious fish he had ever eaten in Bangkok or anywhere.

  All that remained of Shitemper Sewertums were some bone fragments. How could Wolfgang be certain those bones were from his creature—the creature he had found and belonged to him—as opposed to being the bones of a strange, ordinary fish? The short answer, given by Ross, was that he couldn’t. Wolfgang was advised that he had two choices: offer a reward for the return of either the absent maid and/or Shitemper Sewertums or wait until the rains came and hope he might be able to capture another creature of the same species. Every rainy season, Wolfgang searched for another Shitemper Sewertums but God had apparently made only one. Wolfgang never found a second one. Every resident had heard Wolfgang’s fish story and imagined him knee deep in the shit water near the sewer opening, camping out and wa
iting for the same kind of fish to return. Wolfgang was glad to tell the story to anyone who would listen. Since only Ross and the maid had seen the fish, Wolfgang had put himself in the position of buying Ross beer anytime someone new didn’t believe his sewer story and Ross had to be brought in as Wolfgang’s lawyer for verification. Ross always ended the story by telling the newcomer that Shitemper Sewertums was the most tender, tasty fish he had ever eaten in his life. Every time it flooded Wolfgang was outside Lucky Lucy’s in short pants with a fishing net sifting through the dirty water looking to find a fish like the one his maid had cleaned into the next life.

  By the time Ross had finished his story about Shitemper Sewertums the bar was about to close. He ordered a final drink as Tuttle leaned in close.

  “About Addison,” whispered Tuttle.

  But Ross cut him off. “You can’t force a Shitemper Sewertums out of a sewer. But if one comes out of its own free will and turns on you, then you either master the courage to kill the sonofabitch or let it drag you back into the sewer with it. Addison is a Shitemper Sewertums. I think we should put him in a tank or eat him.” The last drink came and Ross raised his glass to Tuttle. “But what do I know?” There was a sparkle in his eye. “On the other hand, what you think you know about Thailand and weird people like Addison? A piece of free advice...forget you have this knowledge, and let me take care of the fishing gear. Addison won’t get away. I can take that sonofabitch.”

  10

  CROSBY WAS INSIDE HQ. His worn black briefcase was stuffed with several glossy color brochures of T-shirt projects, sales projection figures, financing schedules and, zipped into a side pocket for special expat customers, was an English produced two-hundred page catalogue. The “Bird Book,” as he called it, was bait. What Crosby called his customer list. It was well thumbed, dog-eared, and filled with London (King’s Road) telephone kiosk name cards—Luscious & Juicy, Fresh & Fruity, Ripe and Ready; Naughty Miss Tease Loves to Please, Open Late Tottenham Ct. Road; Come Play with Me, 42” Firm Bust; Kim Busty Blonde, Mon-Fri from 1.00 pm.

  He thought of the Bird Book as a deal closer for non-exclusive rights to sell his T-shirts in England. The best salesman required motivation; Crosby had developed the profile of the ideal farang salesman—university educated (redbrick university), over 40, divorced from two white women, an aging baby boomer who was looking for that last chance for romance with a stunningly beautiful, exotic, erotic Asian lady. The Bird Book contained two hundred pages of snapshots. Asian girls, along with their basic, bare-bone details, including age, breast, waist, and hip measurements, hobbies, interests, languages, horoscope, address and a P.O. box number. There were photos and descriptions of Thais, Chinese, Malays, Javanese, Koreans, and Filipinos in the catalogue.

  Crosby knew how to find the new face buried deep in the HQ farang crowd.

  “I don’t know about being your representative agent in England. I’ve never sold shirts before. I work for an estate agent. I mean, I know nothing about clothing,” said the farang across the table from Crosby. He was an Englishman from Leicester, who had just finished his second divorce.

  “You like Thai women?” asked Crosby.

  He nodded.

  “England’s filled with Asian women,” continued Crosby. “And Englishmen who would pay any amount of money for a little memory of Bangkok. This isn’t clothing; it’s about remembering the good times. It’s really quite simple.”

  “If it were simple, then you would do it yourself,” said the Englishman.

  “As you can see, I’m a manufacturer,” said Crosby, flipping through the T-shirt catalogue at a table with this farang who fitted the profile. “These are the export quality. This is the quality sent abroad. Look around this room. You see my T-shirts being worn. Now examine the Bird Book. When you go back, then you have an excuse to talk to all of these girls.”

  The farang looked at one picture of a girl in front of an old brick semi-detached house with dark clouds in the background. It made him shiver. The girl was wrapped in a long scarf and wore a thick coat. Her face looked red from the wind. “They look different in England,” he said.

  “She’s a beauty. You’d sell her a bundle of shirts,” said Crosby.

  “I thought you said the market was for Englishmen?”

  Crosby winced. “My friend, the Thais buy them for Englishmen, and for themselves.”

  One of the regulars in her late 20s, a slash and burn application of lipstick on her lips, green eye shadow, and long, false nails—a shark—came swimming alongside the table, flashing a torso fin. Like Crosby she could smell the scent of money about to come loose and she came in for the kill. She wrapped her arms around the farang’s neck. Crosby recognized the girl; she had recently returned from a year in Germany. She looked down at the catalogue.

  “That’s Toom,” she said, pointing at one of the snapshots.

  “You know her?” asked the farang.

  “She work here two, three years. And that is Noi,” she said, turning the page, “and Koy, Lek, and ... I forget her name.”

  “Why did they leave?” asked the farang.

  “Boyfriend or husband take them away.”

  “Then why are they in this catalogue?”

  The girl laughed. “They make business.”

  “What kind of business?” asked the farang. “T-shirts?”

  She laughed again, shaking her head. “Same as here. Maybe their husband, he knows. Maybe not. Depends on many things.”

  The farang locked eyes with Crosby who regretted what he figured was a blown sale.

  “These demonstrations at Sanam Luang. Things could turn quite nasty,” said the farang. “I can’t say people back home will be in any mood to buy T-shirts with obscene messages about Thailand.”

  “The Thais are the most gentle people in the world. In a couple of days it will blow over. And the messages aren’t obscene.”

  “You really don’t think this problem with the military is a problem?”

  Crosby smiled, shaking his head. “Toom, tell this gentleman whether you are scared.”

  Toom nudged in closer to the farang, running her hand down his leg. “Thai people never afraid. Maybe farang afraid. But I say, why afraid? There is no trouble in your country? Where is perfect? You show me on a map the country called Perfect, then I go there with you.”

  The farang studied the brochure again. “I’d like a dozen T-shirts with ‘No family connections. No education. No prospects of work. Call me hopeful,’” he said. “And two dozen of these.” He pointed at the brochure as Crosby wrote up the order.

  “You sure?” asked Toom.

  “One hundred percent,” said the farang, as Crosby slid the contract across the table.

  Floating bones heading toward the sea.

  11

  THE LAST THING Snow expected as he huddled near the window, his eyeglasses on the end of his nose, a phone to his ear, filing a report with a newspaper in San Francisco, was that Daeng would return, that he would ever see her again. He tried to comfort himself that he had only taken her short time, and that she had been taken by her own people and there was little he could do to intervene on her behalf. But return she did. Wrapped in the white hotel sheet, looking like a figure from the back row of the chorus in a Greek tragedy, she came through the door, walked over to the bed, and sat down. Snow pushed his glasses up and stared at her as if she were a ghost.

  “You okay?” he asked, walking across the floor on his knees. Nothing appeared to be missing.

  She didn’t answer him.

  He reached her feet and laid his head on her lap, looking up at her face in the darkness.

  “They hurt you?”

  She shook her head.

  “They asked you questions?”

  She nodded.

  “Like what you were doing naked with a farang at the Royal Hotel?” asked Snow.

  She nodded again, and stroked his hair with her fingers.

  “You’re pissed off at me,” he said.
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  She gave nothing away.

  “Because I didn’t believe your ghost story.” Then it struck him. “My, God, the soldiers believed it, right?”

  She smiled and said nothing, tugging at his ear, wrapping a thin strand of hair around the lobe.

  “Okay, okay, I’m an asshole. Tell me what you told them. What did the ghost look like? Did it have a name? A belly? A beard? Was it naked or did it wear clothes? What’s the story?”

  Her hand stopped playing with his hair.

  “Cortez,” she said.

  “Cortez?” asked Snow.

  “The ghost tell me its name,” replied Daeng.

  Snow sighed, then groaned, struck the floor with his heels like a small child having a fit of temper. He had a good idea about this ghost which wasn’t a ghost but a correspondent one floor below named Jack Howrey, a VOA hustler, a part-time guy, who had spent ten years in Costa Rica and sometimes used a fake Spanish name after smoking grass when he picked up bar girls. Howrey was a free-lance whoremonger; his sense of humor hungered for nightmarish visions, simulated torture, and paranormal tricks like bending spoons and disappearing cards, and was fed by uneducated country girls. Jack fine-tuned the connection between magic tricks and getting laid. He got laid a lot because he made girls scared and laugh at the same time.

  “This Cortez talked to you?”

  Daeng nodded. Sure, this was definitely Howrey fooling around, the scumbag, thought Snow.

  “Yes, sir, he talk to Daeng,” she said.

  “What did Cortez the ghost say? You go with me short-time? Boom, boom. Snow not know? You have beautiful body? You like me like monkey like banana?” Snow was getting himself worked up over the possibility someone had been poaching his short-time girl who ten minutes before he had already written off as a casualty of the insurrection in the streets; he covered an urban street war from his hotel window, a young Thai Army officer had asked him to help the demonstrators and get the news out about the killings, and the officer had returned his girl—all this had happened to Snow at the Royal Hotel. Yet what was fixed inside Snow’s mind as the HQ girl was knotting his hair in braids? How had Howrey pulled this ghost trick off? That was what was on Snow’s mind.