by R. J. Jagger
Bangkok Downbeat
R.J. JAGGER
1
Day 1—August 13
Monday Morning
THE YOUNG FRENCH WOMAN SAT AT A TABLE near the back of the café, trying to appear normal as she sipped coffee and nibbled a croissant. An oversized Gucci purse hung from her chair. Inside that purse was the old Chinese journal her mother gave her before she died. Also inside, hastily thrown in and unorganized, were all the jewels and money she could get her hands on this morning. Her two bodyguards—Jean-Paul and Baptiste—sat at a sidewalk table just outside the front door, ogling the Parisian women as they walked past and occasionally remembering to throw a glance her way to be sure no one was abducting her.
The Left Bank buzzed.
Her heart raced.
A strange feeling washed over her, a complex mixture of fear and freedom. For some reason it make her pull up an image of herself at seventeen, when she first started walking the streets of Paris for money. The feeling she had now was that same one as then, the one she got when a car pulled up and the window came down and strange eyes looked into hers.
She drank the last of the coffee, put a tip under the cup and headed for the WC.
No one was inside.
She looked at herself in the mirror.
An attractive 22-year-old woman stared back—a woman with long straight blond hair, green eyes with a touch of a distant Asian slant, and a healthy body. She wore designer jeans, custom tennis shoes and a white blouse.
“You can do this,” she told herself.
Then she exhaled, opened the door and stepped out. Instead of heading back to her table, she turned left into the kitchen and pushed her way through to the rear exit.
Cooks and waitresses turned.
Someone shouted something.
But no one stopped her.
THE DOOR OPENED into a narrow alley. She ran north until it ended, then walked west on Rue Des Ecoles at normal speed. Two blocks later a blue Toyota pulled to the curb and the passenger window came down. A 35-year-old black-haired businesswoman in an expensive suit sat behind the wheel. “I’m Michelle Lecan,” she said. “Get in.”
She hopped in.
The car pulled into thick Paris traffic.
“Your new name is going to be Prarie Le Nexx,” Michelle said. “I hope you like it.”
Prarie.
Prarie.
“That will work.”
“Good.”
“You don’t look like what I pictured,” Prarie said.
“I never do,” Michelle said. “That’s why I’m still in business.” A pause, then, “I know you’re sitting in my car and have gone this far. But are really going to go through with this?”
Yes.
She was.
“Then you have some guts, woman,” Michelle said. “To throw away everything you have, I mean.”
Prarie frowned.
“Trust me, I don’t have anything.”
“That’s easy to say when you’re rich,” Michelle said. “We’ll see what you say when the money runs out.”
MICHELLE LECAN, it turned out, lived in a small Tudor north of the Montmartre district, with a fully equipped workspace in the basement. It took over an hour, but when they were done, Prarie had a new passport and a new French driver’s license with her photograph embedded next to her new name.
Very impressive.
Then Michelle handed her an envelope.
“That’s your airplane ticket,” she said.
“Where to?”
“Bangkok.”
The word took Prarie by surprise.
She expected New York.
Or Sydney.
Or Rio.
“Bangkok?”
Right.
Bangkok.
“I don’t even know where Bangkok is.”
Michelle patted Prarie on the arm. “And that’s why he’ll never look for you there.” She wrote a name and number on a piece of paper and put it in Prarie's hand. “When you land in Bangkok, call this person from the airport. Her name’s Kanjana. She’s expecting your call. She’s a private investigator. You can trust her. She’ll get you situated.”
“Kanjana.”
“Right,” Michelle said. “She’s a little on the wild side but don’t let her scare you.”
PRARIE PAID MICHELLE her due in cash, a hefty amount but worth every euro. Then Michelle drove her to Charles de Gaulle airport and said, “Not a word of me to anyone, ever.”
“You too,” Prarie said.
“Give me your cell phone.”
Prarie handed it over.
Michelle powered it off and tore it apart. “Kanjana will get you a new one in Bangkok. Remember to stay off the Internet. Don’t send any emails to anyone and don’t check your old ones. The person who used to be you is dead. Here’s the hard part—don’t call any of your friends.”
Prarie grunted.
“That’s actually the easy part,” she said. “I don’t have any friends.”
“You have Sophie.”
“I mean besides her.”
“Don’t even call her,” Michelle said.
“Okay.”
“I’m serious. He might find a way to bug her phone or pressure her,” Michelle said. “For this to work, you have to sever every contact, every single one, starting right now. The old you is dead, totally and forever.”
“I understand.”
“I hope so. I really do.”
They hugged goodbye.
And Prarie boarded a plane to Bangkok.
2
Day 1—August 13
Monday Night
NICK TEFFINGER, the 34-year-old head of Denver's homicide detail, got pulled out of a deep, cavernous unconsciousness by an explosion of thunder. He opened his eyes to find he was in a bed in a dark room in the middle of the night. A violent storm raged against the windows. The on-now, off-now pulse of a neon sign snuck around the edge of a window shade and brought the room in and out of a dim focus.
Where was he?
He sat up.
The movement ignited a deep pain in his skull, so severe that he dropped back to the pillow and tightened his eyes.
The room spun.
Something was wrong.
Seriously wrong.
He pushed up again and fought until he got his six-foot-four, Tarzan-like frame to a sitting position with his feet on the floor. The neon was punching farther into the room now and bringing it into better and better focus. He could see enough to know he had never been here before.
A mirror above a dresser reflected his image and made him stare at himself. He wore no shirt. Thick brown hair hung over his face. Two eyes—one blue and one green--stared back at him. His face—normally wildly attractive—was disoriented and confused. There was something on his chest that looked like blood.
Suddenly an object resonated from his hand.
He focused, to find a knife gripped in his fingers.
What the hell?
He dropped it to the floor. A flash of lightning exploded, so close that it lit the room. Next to Teffinger on the bed, lying face up, was a naked woman.
A young woman.
An Asian woman.
Her arms were stretched up above her head and her wrists were tied to the bed frame.
Her chest was covered in blood.
Thunder exploded, so close that that Teffinger shielded his head.
He stood up.
His brain twisted.
His feet went out from under him and he dropped to the floor. He pushed up, staggered to the wall and flipped a light s
witch.
What he saw he could hardly believe.
THE WOMAN HAD BEEN STABBED REPEATEDLY in the chest, a dozen times, maybe more. The horror of her death was still etched on her face. Her eyes were open, staring at nothing, dry and lifeless.
Blood.
Blood.
Blood.
There was so much blood.
Blood on the woman.
Blood on the sheets.
Blood on the pillows.
Blood on Teffinger.
Vomit rose up into his mouth.
He swallowed it down.
The woman was young and firm and beautiful, even in death—his type, no question. Teffinger felt her pulse and got none. He put his ear by her mouth and got no breathing.
I didn’t do this, he told her. There’s no way I did this. Not in a million years.
He paused, almost as if waiting for her to agree.
But she said nothing.
HE EXAMINED HER WRISTS. Each one was perfectly tied to the frame with multiple wraps of a clothesline, not so tight as to cut off her circulation, but far too tight to escape. The loose ends weren’t tied in a square knot, but were instead fixed in a sailor’s knot, the kind that got more secure when it got under pressure, but could be easily released with a single pull on the loose end.
It was a knot that Teffinger knew well.
He swallowed.
He didn’t remember killing her.
That, however, gave him no comfort, because he didn’t remember not killing her either. He didn’t remember anything. He had no idea who she was. He had no idea where he was, even now, taking a good look around the room. He had no idea how he got here.
The fog in his head was too serious to be mere alcohol.
He’d been drugged, that much was clear.
But when?
And why?
And by who?
Did he kill the woman in a doped-up rage?
HE LOOKED OUT THE BEDROOM WINDOW and determined he was in an apartment building on the ground floor, in an city that clearly wasn't Denver. The neon sign was a green dragon with red fire coming out of its mouth, flashing on and off.
The window was closed tightly and hand-latched from the inside. The latch wouldn’t close simply by shutting the window. It had to be turned. He tried it just to be sure, found it tight even when he used strength, and confirmed he was right.
He checked the bathroom.
It had no windows.
He checked the main room, which had one window. It was the same shape and size as the one in the bedroom, and identically hand-latched from the inside.
With a beating heart, he walked to the door and tried the knob.
It was locked.
It didn’t turn.
There was a chain, not dangling, but fastened in the latched position. There was no way it could have been slipped into place from the outside. Worse, there was a deadbolt, again in the locked position. It was a manual lock, not key activated. It was inaccessible from the other side of the door. Just to be sure, he unlatched the chain and the deadbolt, released the lock on the knob and opened the door.
It led into a hallway.
The only keyhole from the outside was for the main doorknob.
He closed the door and relocked it.
HE CHECKED VERY INCH of the apartment to see if anyone else was there—hiding, perhaps.
No one was in the bathroom.
No one was in the closet.
No one was in the bedroom or under the bed.
No on was in the main room.
No on was in the kitchen.
He checked the kitchen cabinets, under the sink, and every other impossible place.
No one was there.
Only him.
He pulled the carpets up, looked for a trap door and found none. He checked the walls and ceiling and found them solid.
The conclusion was inescapable.
He killed the woman.
He was the one.
HE SAT ON THE BED next to her and stared at her face.
Then he ran his fingers through her hair.
She was about twenty-four, too young to die, too nice to die so violently.
Then something flashed in Teffinger’s brain.
Tookta.
That was her name.
Tookta.
Tookta from Bangkok.
He remembered now.
His eyes fell to her wrists and his brain flashed again.
He remembered her saying, “Tie me up.”
He hesitated.
But she insisted.
“Tease me,” she said. “Make me beg for it.”
“Are you sure?”
“Oh, yeah.”
He remembered the sound of her voice now, so soft and sensual and full of life. The memory came in quick broken bursts, almost as if illuminated by a strobe light, but the clarity was there.
He remembered buying her drinks at a club.
He remembered walking from there to here through a hot sweaty Bangkok night as they groped each other.
He remembered tying her wrists to the frame.
Just like she wanted.
He remembered using the sailor’s knot so he could release her easily afterwards.
He remembered straddling her stomach and running his fingers down her arms and across her breasts and around her abdomen—slowly, teasingly, as she strained against the ropes.
Don’t stop!
Don’t ever stop!
THEN HE REMEMBERED WHAT HAPPENED NEXT. He remembered having a knife in his hand as he straddled her stomach. He remembered raising into the air, high, as his brain spun. He remembered stabbing it down into her chest with all his might, again and again and again, as her blood splattered and a muffled voice screamed from behind her pretty little lips.
The memory made him drop to the floor.
He balled up.
And rocked back and forth in the terror of what he had done.
He had crossed the line from detective to murderer.
His life was over.
Forever over.
3
Day 1—August 13
Monday Night
WING BOONMEE LANDED at Hong Kong International Airport just as the sun set and the neon began to glow. His wore his usual attire; an expensive tailored suit, a crisp white shirt, a silk power-tie and black leather shoes. At five-eleven he wasn’t tall, but his 28-year-old body was taut, sculptured and python-strong. His hair was thick, black and clean cut, except for one unexpected blond section that hung down the right side of his face.
He checked into the ultra-chick InterContinental on the Kowloon side of Victoria Harbour and called Moon as he perused the neon nightscape of Hong Kong Island across the water.
“I’m here in town,” he said in Chinese.
A pause.
“Something’s come up,” she said. “I don’t think Jamaica’s going to be able to make it.”
“Why not?”
Moon exhaled.
“She got in some trouble. There are some people after her.”
“Who?”
“It’s complicated. Look, I should have called you. I didn't realize how serious everything was. This is my fault. Let me send some women over to your room, my treat,” she said. “We’ll reschedule when the smoke clears. We’ll do it in Bangkok so you don’t have to travel again. I’m sorry this happened, I really am.”
He exhaled.
"Do you know how my flight was?"
No.
She didn't.
"Choppy," he said.
A long beat.
Then Moon said, “There’s a hostess bar on Bullock in the Wan Chai district called Pretty Eyes. Be there in an hour."
WING GOT TO PRETTY EYES ten minutes early, took a booth near the back where the lights hardly reached and ordered a double Jack. The place was crowed, mostly with businessmen sealing deals while the women fawned over them, but also with a few misplaced Expats looking for sex.
; A young bar girl came over.
Sensual.
Firm.
Money in her eyes.
She sat down next to him, slid over until her leg rubbed against his, and ran her fingers through his hair.
“I’m Sutoya. Do you like me?”
He did.
But not right now.
He had business to take care of.
She slipped him a piece of paper. He unfolded it to find a phone number written in blue ink. “I’m friendly here,” she said, “but I’m even friendlier when I’m not here.”
Wing slipped the paper into his pocket.
“Good to know.”
Two minutes later Moon walked in, spotted him through the smoke and headed over. Wing hardly recognized her. Gone was the chic exterior she wore as the agent for half the music stars in Hong Kong, now replaced with jeans and a T.
He focused on her, but only for a second.
He was much more interested in the woman at her side.
Jamaica Tam.
SHE WAS A STUNNING WOMAN, not fully Asian, but a mix of Asian and something else.
Portuguese, maybe.
Or Spanish.
Even though she wore loose khaki pants, a white shirt and baseball cap, there was no mistaking her curves. The camera would love her. She was Moon’s most recent find, halfway through cutting her first CD and getting personally groomed by Moon to take the music scene by storm.
Wing didn’t believe Moon when she first told him about her.
Then she sent him a sample song.
Say It.
And he was a believer within eight bars.
Moon wanted to start production now on two or three music videos to be released simultaneously with the CD.
That’s where Wing came in.
That’s what he did.
That's what he did better than anyone, in fact.
In Hong Kong.
In Tokyo.
In Bangkok.
He attributed much of his success to the fact he was song specific, not star specific. If the song electrified his emotions, he’d produce the video; otherwise he wouldn’t, no matter who the star was, or how many hits they had hanging on their wall, or how much crazy money they threw on his desk.
Life was too short for mediocrity.
