Provincetown Follies, Bangkok Blues (Cape Island Mystery)

by Randall Peffer

  The tide is in so they are running along at 30 knots in the shallows on the west side of the island. He has heard that the southern tip of the island is swarming with stripers. So he has his casting rod, and he thinks that if they can get into the fish, maybe the thrill of a couple of bass on the line will take his mind off this madman with a cannon. He is going to love teaching Tuki how to lure, hook, fight, and land a couple of big fellas. She will just eat it up. Then when they are high on the ocean and the stripers, they will drop anchor. He will crack a bottle of Pinot Gri. They will graze on the lobster salad they bought for the picnic. And forget about the rest of the world. He had thought that he would be sharing all of this with Filipa. How things change.

  There is a moderate breeze out of the southwest. Two- and three-foot waves are starting to crest, slap the side of the Whaler. He is standing, steering, not noticing that Tuki has the hood of her sweatshirt pulled up to shield her hair and is hugging his waist hard with her right arm to keep her balance. It is like the wind and waves are not even registering with him. His mind keeps replaying last night’s shooting. He sees the blood running down the side of her face. Over and over again …

  He is watching it drip off the horn of her jaw when something like a haystack in the sea breaks right on the starboard bow and sends a sheet of water over the boat. It rips off his sunglasses and soaks them both. The fishing rod gets carried away. There is a foot of water in the boat. The engine coughs, groans with the new load.

  “Shit. Just shit!”

  “What’s the matter, Michael?”

  He looks at her. For a second he is seeing a double exposure. Her bleeding face overlaid with this other. The sweatshirt is pasted to her chest now. The hood torn back off her long curls. They fly in the wind. Water streams off her golden skin. But in a funny sort of way, she looks beautiful to him.

  “I know better than to take a wave like that at this speed. Christ, my father would banish me to the fo’castle!”

  “What?” She is hearing his words, but they make no sense.

  He eases the throttle forward. The bow pitches up. Water that has been swirling around their legs races out the drains at the back of the boat. When it is almost gone, he adds more power and swings the boat in a sharp arch back toward Chatham.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Taking us home.”

  “Why?”

  “I can’t concentrate. I’ve lost my focus. I can’t even run a boat anymore.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I can’t get my mind off you. Everywhere I look, I picture your face dripping with blood. Or I see someone who looks like you dancing in a dark bar. I have this terrible feeling that some really bad stuff is coming. And I only have about five days left to stop it. You’ve got to take me to Prem, Tuki. And you have to tell me why you are protecting him.”

  FORTY-EIGHT

  “You know a place called Nantucket, la?” She faces him over a table, toys with a glass of seltzer with lime in front of her.

  “It’s an island.” His eyes skip away from her face, dart around the room to see if anyone is watching them. Then he swills on his bottle of Corona.

  In P-town he does not think twice about being out in public at a restaurant or pub with Tuki. But in Chatham it feels dirty and wrong. It is not because she is a tranny. He has almost ceased to care about the details of her plumbing, or what people would think of him for keeping such company. It is just that now, since more than half the summer has passed, people around town recognize him. They have often seen him with Filipa. Some know he is engaged. That is why he has picked this roadhouse for their conversation. It is a little dive four miles from Chatham village … away from prying eyes. And right now it is in the rarest of summer moods. Nearly empty. Almost the last of the lunch crowd has left. Bob Dylan echoes softly from the sound system at the bar, singing, “Lay Lady Lay.”

  He loves this song. But he hates this sneaking around, wonders if she knows why they are here and not at the Chatham Squire in the village. Nantucket? He bets he wouldn’t feel this way if they were in Nantucket where nobody knows him.

  “What about Nantucket?”

  She stares at her hands.

  “If you want him, he will be at this place Nantucket now. His family keeps a house there for vacations when they are in America. He always told me I would see it. Now, I guess I will.” She gives a little grin. Nerves. He is learning to read the moods of her smiles. Lines of salt, left over from her dousing in the Whaler, crinkle at the corners of her eyes.

  “Tell me the rest.”

  “What?”

  “Why are you protecting him? I have to know, Tuki. Help me.” His voice drills her. “That guy wants to kill us!”

  Tears well in her eyes. Then she says, “That is why.” Her voice is not much more than a whisper.

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I was … I was trying to protect you. Not him.”

  “Me? I’m your lawyer. I don’t need protecting. I—”

  “You are getting married in two weeks. What would your girlfriend do if …” She cannot continue.

  He realizes that he has hardly thought about Filipa for two days. Tears have begun to roll down Tuki’s face.

  “Tuki? What’s the …”

  She shakes her head.

  “Nothing. It is just silly girl business, la. Go away. Do not look at me. I cannot stand …” She flashes him a teary grin. Then she covers her face with her hands, gets up, starts racing for the women’s room.

  He catches her by the hand just as she reaches the restroom door. She flails at him with her free arm for a second or two. Before she melts against his chest.

  “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “I told Prem.”

  “What?”

  “I promised myself to him.”

  “That’s all over.”

  “No, I told him last night I would come to him … if he just let me have one more day with you. Now I have to go to Nantucket. He is dying.”

  Michael almost says, “Good. Screw Prem.” But then he remembers the case. This guy could be the real killer, or a star witness. “Do you think you can get him to talk?”

  It is almost dark when the ferry from Hyannis lands them on Nantucket. Tuki has called in sick to the Follies. As if Richie cannot figure out that after all of the shooting last night, she may not be coming back for a while … if ever.

  “Now where?” He asks this question like she is his guide.

  “I’m starving.”

  “You’re kidding. What if he gets away?”

  She gives him a look. This is an island, la. Then she takes his hand and squeezes it. “Please.”

  He understands what she is asking, feels it. She wants just an hour or two more with him, before who knows what. Their fishing trip was a bust. The stop for drinks was sick with tension. They both slept on the ferry trip over here. Now their time is running out.

  He sees men and women in the throng on the street by the ferry dock eyeing her. He knows they are wondering if she is Halle Berry or Tyra Banks. She looks that good. Delicate leather sandals, pale yellow cotton slacks, baby blue boatneck cotton sweater. Her sun-streaked braids and curls pulled up in a ponytail. No makeup. Sapphire studs in her ears.

  But it is her eyes that get him. They sparkle now as she looks at him, runs her hand up his forearm, and hooks him close to her. “I would touch you forever, if you were my man.”

  He flinches.

  He knows his way around Nantucket Town. Has come here a dozen or so times with his father and Tio Tommy on the Rosa Lee to find shelter from storms. But what he knows best are the bars like the Rose and Crown and the Atlantic Café. Finding a room or a place to stay is virgin territory. But they do not walk three blocks from the ferry dock before Tuki spots a vacancy sign on an inn called the Jared Coffin House. It is a Federal-style brick mansion. There has been a last-minute cancellation. Sudd
enly a room of colonial splendor is theirs for the swipe of a Visa card.

  The desk clerk smiles at Tuki as Michael signs in. “Newlyweds?”

  She smiles.

  “We’re wondering about a quiet place for dinner,” he says. “May I recommend our dining room or perhaps room service?” Suddenly he is tired of feeling like a fugitive, or lawyer for the mob, when he is with her.

  “What do you say we eat out?”

  “Please, Michael. Take your time!” Her hand reaches over the table, grabs his as he lifts his wine glass for another swallow. The entrees have not arrived yet, and he has single-handedly downed well over half the bottle of Merlot. They are sitting near the storefront window of a quiet little restaurant called Black-Eyed Susan’s. A soft violet light bathes India Street outside. Couples stroll the sidewalk, flickering in and out of the glow of the street lamps that have just come on.

  “Sorry.”

  “You don’t have to get drunk.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I need you tonight. What is the matter?” He puts down the wine and looks her square in the eyes. “It’s not worth talking about.”

  “Please, la.” Her hand is on his again. “Do not shut me out. Not tonight. Just talk to me.”

  “You really want to know what’s wrong?”

  “I am so afraid.” Her eyes stare at the flickering flame of the candle on their table.

  “So am I, Tuki. That’s what’s wrong. I feel all torn up inside. I’m scared as hell. ‘Face your fears and they will shrink to the size of bugs,’ my father always told me. I have always believed him. But now I … I don’t know. This is too crazy.”

  “What?”

  “I think I’m in way over my head.”

  “You want me to get another lawyer again? Want me to see the police? Tell them Prem is here. The shooter is here?” He hears a hitch in her voice.

  “It’s too late.”

  “Buddha says it is never too late.”

  “Buddha isn’t getting married in twelve days.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Something rises in his throat. He tries to swallow, but the words rush out. “I don’t know.”

  FORTY-NINE

  He is the first to wake. He hears a raw wind whir around the eaves of the inn, smells the morning fog swirling over the island. Tuki lies on the far side of the bed wearing his Red Sox shirt. She has her head half-buried under a pillow. Her breathing is fitful, but she seems asleep. He does not want to disturb her. Knows what she has been through, fears what is still to come for her today.

  But Jesus. This is crazy. He can picture the sneer on the D. A.’s face when he asks him to describe the sleeping arrangements for attorney and client in Nantucket. When he says, “We shared a bed out of desperation. I never touched her. We are not romantically involved.” They will probably toss him off the bar. Filipa will send him packing. He cannot even imagine what his father will say.

  Part of him wants to just get up and sneak out of here. But he has made her a promise. For her, and his own self respect, he has to see this through. Stand by his obligations. It is the only thing that feels right to him. He wonders if this is all about an over-developed need to please.

  But maybe it is about something more basic. Something that he cannot put his finger on yet. One thing he knows for sure, it is not about physical attraction. Tuki is easy on his eyes, no question. But he has not gotten used to her touching him. He still cringes every time. Feels himself start to sweat, a lump forming in his throat, when she flirts. He thinks he knows what physical desire feels like, it is the lightning that shoots through his arms and legs when he is within ten feet of Filipa. There is none of that lightning with Tuki. It is something else, some other kind of bond.

  He wishes he could understand it. But right now he has a more immediate problem. He has to find Prem Kittikatchorn and get him to explain how he killed the Great One and set the fire. Maybe he can still get Tuki, and himself, out of the spider’s web once and for all.

  There is only one Kittikatchorn in the Nantucket phone directory. On Madaket Road. The house is somewhere out at the west end of the island. By nine o’clock in the morning they are hunting for the place in a rented Jeep. Michael has a small tape recorder in one pocket of his khaki windbreaker. It is still foggy. Very foggy. The headlights of oncoming traffic come and go, phantoms in the thick mist.

  “There!” she says, after they have been cruising back and forth between the beach community at Madaket and Nantucket Town for almost an hour. The fog has only lifted slightly, but now he can see houses, set back from the road along driveways. There is a motorcycle parked in one. “That is Prem’s.”

  His first notion is to jam on the brakes and make a sharp turn into the driveway. But that would eliminate the element of surprise. Who knows what condition this guy is in? He might come out shooting with that cannon of his.

  “I’m going to stop farther up the road, okay?”

  She nods. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees that she has begun smiling like a crazy woman. This isn’t good.

  They park the Jeep in the public lot on Madaket Beach and decide to hike up the strand, approach the house from the ocean side. Even in the fog, it is not hard to find the place. It is a stilt house with two wings and an A-frame in the middle, its seaside wall is an array of sliding doors and glass. Stairs lead up to a deck that surrounds the main floor of the house. You can take the stairs leading from the driveway or another set from the beach.

  They approach the house on a path through the beach grass. Their shoes are in their hands as they circle around among the stilts beneath the house, listening for signs of activity. The melody of Lionel Richie’s “Stuck on You” seeps softly down over them. Tuki smiles, has a memory of a night in a limo in Bangkok. The River House. This is his music. His place. He is waiting for her.

  Michael is getting a creepy feeling. When they retreat into the brush off to the side of the house, he pulls out his cell phone.

  “What is that for?”

  “I’m going to call the police. We’ve done our job. We’ve found him. Let them take it from here.” She grabs the phone away.

  “Rit luat kap pu. You can’t squeeze blood from a crab. He won’t talk to them. He’ll kill himself either with the gun or too much pung chao. Then what, la?”

  He sees her point. Prem is the lynchpin in his defense. Everything has been leading up to this moment, getting a confession out of him. If the man dies, the case folds. She goes to prison for about twenty years … or gets sent back to a death camp in Thailand.

  “Let me go to him. Give me the tape recorder. He still loves me, he will talk to me. You go up to the deck from the beach side. I will get him to talk in the front room. You can watch us. If anything gets crazy, you call the police.”

  He does not like the strange, high-pitched note of confidence and urgency in her whisper. She is faking it. She is scared to death. But he does not have a better plan.

  She holds out the phone to him, flips it open. “Come on, Michael. Nam khun hai rip tak. When the water rises, hurry and collect it.”

  He stares at the offered cell phone and scowls. This is bad.

  Her eyes plead.

  He turns his eyes away, takes the phone back, folds it closed, fishes in his pocket for the tape recorder, and passes it to her.

  She leans toward him and kisses his cheek. Then she is just a silhouette in the fog mounting the stairs from the driveway.

  He can hear them talking as he tiptoes toward the immense plate-glass windows and sliding-glass doors that look out on the deck and the ocean from the center of the house. Pressed against the wall at the edge of the window, he can see the back of Prem’s head as he sits on a couch. But most of the room is blocked from his view. Prem is smoking. The scent of burning tobacco drifts out through a screen door. He can hear her voice perfectly, but he cannot see her or understand a word. She is speaking in Thai. Damn. He cannot tell how things are going … or remember whe
n he draws his phone, pointing the little antenna like the barrel of a gun.

  For a while she speaks in soft tones. Her voice sounds tender, earnest. Maybe pleading.

  Prem grunts, says something abrupt, disdainful, or sarcastic.

  Tuki fires back at him with hot words.

  He throws his lit cigarette over his shoulder with the whip of his arm. It strikes the screen door, leaves a smudge, falls to the wooden floor, and continues to burn. It is not ten feet from where Michael is hiding.

  Suddenly Prem shouts something, just two or three words, then jumps to his feet. He comes around the couch. Starts jabbering again in fast short bursts. His voice rising with each new salvo. He looks as pale as a drowning man, scrambling for the fresh air as he heads toward the screen door, the deck. And he has a snub-nose revolver in his hand.

  Michael presses himself back against the outside wall of the house, raises the phone in front of him, punches in 911. His right index finger is ready to press the send button.

  Prem snaps the barrel of the pistol to his temple, closes his eyes.

  Tuki shrieks. Just two words. “Mai! Chi!” Suddenly, she is at his side. Tears are running down her cheeks as she tears at the gun in his hand, hugs him, soaks his face in kisses.

  Something claws at Michael’s stomach. She’s still in love with the man. Jesus Christ.

  In the blink of an eye, the prick collars her around the neck with his free arm and presses the gun to her head. He is crying wildly as he pulls back the hammer of his pistol with his thumb. His face contorts like that famous photograph of a prisoner being executed by a Vietnamese officer.

  Michael leaps—right through the screen door. His arms flailing. His body hitting Prem and Tuki with a loud slap. The gun discharges.

  Now they are in a heap on the floor. He can feel a burning sensation shooting all the way up his left arm. But his right hand still holds the cell phone, and now he is shoving it up under the unshaven chin of Prem Kittikachorn like it is a weapon, screaming at this fucking asshole. The man is as limp as a sick child, and his breath stinks of tobacco and whiskey. His gun has flown from his hand, skidded away across the room.