by R. J. Jagger
THE WOMEN SLID INTO THE BOOTH across from him and Moon said, “There was a time when you looked at me like that. This is Jamaica Tam.”
Wing looked into the woman’s eyes and felt his life shift ever so slightly.
That had happened before.
He cocked his head and said, “The reason I came to Hong Kong was to meet you in person and decide if I’d produce a video for you. I just decided that I will. So, now we have that out of the way, assuming you’re still interested.”
“She is,” Moon said.
“Is that true?”
Jamaica nodded.
“Yes,” she said. "I'm honored. I didn't think you would do it."
“Okay then, done,” Wing said. “Now to the important part. Moon said you're in some kind of trouble. Tell me what’s going on.”
4
Day 1—August 13
Monday Evening
PRARIE’S BANGKOK CONTACT, Kanjana, turned out to be an attractive woman in her early thirties with raven hair that tended to fall over her face and needed to be flicked off. She didn’t speak French but did speak English as did Prarie, which solved the communications problem. On the drive from the airport, Prarie told her a story.
How she walked the streets of Paris at age seventeen.
How she got picked up one hot, steamy night by a very attractive man in large BMW.
How they fell in love.
How he turned out to be one of the Greek 100, meaning one of the hundred wealthiest men in Greece.
How they got married.
How they moved into a large castle south of Paris.
“It was the beginning of a fairytale life,” Prarie said. “At least that’s what I thought at the time. I was wrong.”
“Why, what happened?”
Prarie exhaled.
“Just small, little things at first,” Prarie said. “It was like his shadow was falling over me, deeper and deeper. Before I knew it my friends were gone, my freedom was gone, everything about me was gone. It got to the point where he monitored my every move—where I went, who I talked to … you get the picture. I didn’t want the money. I never wanted the money. That’s not why I married him.”
The traffic got thicker and crazier as they headed deeper into Bangkok.
The sun was dwindling fast and being replaced by lights.
Streetlights.
Headlights.
Neon signs.
“Why didn’t you just divorce him?”
Prarie stared out the window.
“That wasn’t an option.”
“Why not?”
“He’s not the kind of man to let things go.”
“What are you saying? That he would have killed you?”
Prarie shrugged.
“What I’m saying is that if he can’t have me, no one will,” she said. “Not now, not ever.” A beat. “For a long time, I thought that the only way out was to kill myself. I used to lock myself in the bedroom for hours and point a gun at my head, just waiting for the nerve to pull the trigger. I finally got that nerve, two days ago. Unfortunately, I forgot to take the safety off. Before I could get it off and squeeze the trigger again, my phone rang. It was a woman named Sophia, a friend I hadn’t spoken to in over a year. The fact that she called out of the blue at that exact moment was a sign that I was supposed to live. I told her what was going on and she talked me into running away. She got me set up with Michelle Lecan. And now here I am, sitting in your car.” A pause, “Thanks for helping me, by the way.”
“You’re paying me, remember?”
“Still, thanks—”
Sure.
No problem.
“You’re going to miss the money,” Kanjana said.
Prarie shook her head.
“Money’s overrated.”
“Once you’ve had it you can’t go back,” Kanjana said. “It’s a drug.”
Prarie studied the woman.
“How do you know?”
“I just do.”
KANJANA, IT TURNED OUT, LIVED in a bungalow that that sat on a canal on the west side of Bangkok, easily accessible by road and water. A small deck perched over the water, supported by piers. Below, at the water’s surface, a longtail boat bobbed peacefully in the dark against a tire barrier.
They drank wine on the deck.
Unlike Paris, the heat and the humidity hung in the air, even now, after the sun was down.
Bug buzzed and hummed.
Prarie didn’t care.
She was free.
For the first time in five years, she was free.
“Can you read Chinese?” she asked.
No.
Kanjana couldn’t.
“Why?”
“I have a journal that my mother gave me before she died,” Prarie said. “It’s in Chinese. I’ve never had it interpreted and was just curious what it says.”
“A journal?”
“Well, I think it’s a journal,” Prarie said. “It’s handwritten.”
“Do you have it with you?”
Yes.
She did.
She did indeed.
“Let’s have a look,” Kanjana said.
5
Day 1—August 13
Monday Evening
TEFFINGER DESERVED to be held accountable for killing Tookta. He needed to spend time in a Bangkok prison or be put to death or endure whatever the Thai laws called for in a situation like this. He knew that, deep down. The specter of punishment made his chest so heavy that his breathing almost stopped, but what’s fair is fair. He would just have to get through it somehow, whatever it turned out to be.
He stood up.
His head spun.
Now what?
Call the cops?
Yes.
That.
There was no other choice.
He fumbled in his pants pocket until he got the phone out, then realized that 911 may or may not be the right number in Bangkok. Suddenly he did something he didn’t expect, he dialed Sydney Heatherwood in Denver. She was twenty-seven, Latino, curvy, and a natural born hunter. Although she was still the newbie of the homicide detail, under Teffinger’s wing she had already cut her teeth on the city’s worst.
Richard Dawson.
Kent Lake.
Billy-Rae Booker.
She answered on the third ring.
Her voice sounded far away and fragile. Teffinger planned to tell her what he’d done and say goodbye, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it and instead hung up.
Thirty seconds later his phone rang.
It was Sydney.
“Did you just try to call me?” she asked.
Teffinger exhaled.
“I DID SOMETHING,” he said, “something bad.”
She laughed.
“What’d you do? Break a heart already?”
He exhaled, told her what he did and said, “I’m going to turn myself in.”
“No!”
“But—”
“No, Nick, don’t do it!”
“I have to.”
“It wasn’t your fault,” she said. “The you that did it isn’t the real you. Whoever slipped you the drugs is the one who’s responsible, not you.”
Teffinger chewed on it.
It made sense, to a point, but he was the one there, he was the one with the blood on his hands, he was the one with a dark side that got enhanced.
“Whatever’s going to happen is going to happen,” he said. “It’s out of my hands.”
“Nick, listen to me,” Sydney said. “If you turn yourself in, there’s no going back, it will be irreversible. They’ll lock you up in some filthy cell and let you rot to death. You’ll never figure out who gave you those drugs or why. Do you really want to let them just walk away? At the very least, stay free long enough to find out who they are. Then you can turn yourself in if you still think that’s the right thing to do.”
“Man—”
“What I’m saying is that you can always
turn yourself in later,” Sydney said. “But right now, you’re not even thinking straight. Just get out of there, let your head clear and think it through.” A pause. “And don’t forget about Aspen Leigh. What’s she going to do if you’re sitting in a cell?”
Aspen Leigh.
Aspen Leigh.
Aspen Leigh.
THE WOMAN’S NAME made Teffinger focus on the reason he came to Bangkok in the first place. Aspen had gone missing, he’d come to find her.
“Maybe you’re right,” he told Sydney.
Then he hung up.
The storm intensified, if that was possible.
Lightning flashed.
Thunder rolled.
Teffinger washed the knife in the kitchen sink, then took a towel and wiped his prints off every surface he could have conceivable touched, including Tookta’s body.
The blood on his pants was too visible.
He took them into the shower and scrubbed them, together with this body and hair, until every trace of blood was gone. He stepped out but let the water keep running to wash stray hairs down the drain. Then he dressed, turned off the water and unlatched the bedroom window.
He looked around one more time.
What had he missed?
Something, undoubtedly, but he couldn’t think.
He studied Tookta one more time.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry.”
He kissed her on the lips.
Then he slipped out the bedroom window, left it open and walked briskly into the storm. Twenty steps later he encountered an older man walking the other way, hunched against the weather. The man looked at him and muttered something in Thai as he passed.
Teffinger said nothing.
And cursed himself for not shielding his face.
6
Day 1—August 13
Monday Evening
JAMAICA TAM STUDIED WING’S EYES, then looked at Moon who shrugged as if to say, Go ahead and tell him if you want. She took a long swallow of alcohol, leaned forward across the booth and said, “If I tell you, I don’t want it getting loose.”
“It won’t.”
She paused, looking for lies.
“I mean ever,” she added. “You take it to the grave.”
“Now you really have my interest up,” Wing said.
“Promise me.”
“The grave,” he said. “But hopefully not for a while.”
She smiled.
Then got serious.
“I’ll tell you, but only because it’s only fair that you know who I am if you’re going to do a video for me,” she said. “After I tell you, if you don’t want to do it, I’ll understand.”
“I already told you I’d do it,” he said. “Nothing’s going to change that.”
“We’ll see,” she said.
Her eyes fell on a couple of the hostess girls slipping into a booth with two older men, then she focused and said, “Last Saturday night I was out at a club with a girlfriend named Syling and ended up meeting a man from Tokyo named Kong. We hit it off and he took me to a yacht named Crazy Lady moored in the Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter, his yacht to be precise. Two men were on board when we got there. He sent them to shore in the dinghy so we could have some privacy. Down in the main stateroom, two impressionistic paintings hung on the wall. Kong told me they were original Monets that he bought on the black market some time back. Anyway, we made love. He said he’d be in town for a couple of weeks and wanted to see me again. I said maybe, and that was that.”
She took a swallow of alcohol.
“Are you with me so far?”
Wing nodded.
He was.
He was indeed.
“Is Kong the one after you?”
“No, Kong’s dead,” she said.
“He is?”
“Yes,” she said. “I killed him.”
“You killed him?”
Yes.
She did.
“HEAR ME OUT BEFORE YOU JUDGE ME,” she said. “What happened is that I told Syling about the paintings and she got seriously interested in them. She researched them on the net and found out that they actually were genuine. They had been stolen from the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam ten years ago. Two guards were killed during the theft. There was a substantial reward out for their return.”
“Really?”
Yes.
Really.
“Was Kong the one who stole them?”
“I don’t think so, because he said he bought them on the black market and seemed to be telling the truth,” Jamaica said. “But it’s not important, either way. What happened is that Syling came up with a plan to steal the paintings, return them to their proper home where they could be enjoyed by the world, and claim the reward money in the process.”
Wing shrugged.
“Sounds reasonable,” he said.
Jamaica nodded.
“The plan was for me to get back on the boat with Kong on the hopes that he’d send his men to shore again. I’d keep him busy in another part of the boat. Syling would then motor out in a dinghy until she got close, then she’d turn the motor off and row in the rest of the way. She’d tie up, remove the paintings and row back out into the dark. That’s the plan we set in motion Wednesday night and the plan that worked, until something went wrong.”
“As in what?”
“As in, Kong heard something at the last minute and ran outside just as Syling was casting off in the dinghy. He got on the edge of the boat and was set to jump in. Just as he did, I pushed him. That sent him off to the right instead of straight. His head landed the outboard motor with a terrible crunch. He fell into the water, went down and never came back up.”
Wing pictured it.
Then said, “It was an accident.”
“Yes and no,” Jamaica said. “I talked to a criminal defense lawyer about it afterwards. He said that even though Kong possessed the paintings illegally, it was still illegal for me and Syling to steal them from him. He ended up dead while we were committing an illegal act. So we’re criminally liable for his death, irrespective that we didn’t intent for him to die when we started out.”
“Ouch.”
“Right, ouch,” Jamaica said.
“So what happened next?”
“You don’t want to know,” she said.
But she was wrong.
He did.
He very much did.
“KONG’S BODY WASHED UP two days later, Friday morning, right next to the Star Ferry dock of all places,” she said. “We had the paintings stored at Syling’s apartment until we could figure out what to do.”
“So, she has them?”
“No, Syling’s dead,” Jamaica said.
“She is?”
Jamaica nodded.
“I stopped over there yesterday afternoon,” she said. “I knocked, turned the knob and walked in. Syling was gagged and tied in a chair, being interrogated by two men. One of them slit her throat just as I stepped into the room. I turned and ran. They chased me, but I got away.”
“Were they the men from the yacht, the crew guys?”
No.
They weren’t.
“I never saw them before,” Jamaica said.
“They were after the paintings,” Wing said.
“That’s my guess,” Jamaica said. “They didn’t get them though, because when I returned to my place, they were there.”
“How’d they get there?”
Jamaica shook her head.
“Syling must have transferred them there, but I don’t know why.”
Wing considered it.
“She must have known someone was following her or something and decided to get them somewhere safer,” he said.
Jamaica shrugged.
“That’s possible.”
“So the paintings are there, now?”
Jamaica shook her head.
“No, I gave them to Moon, and she put them someplace safe.”
Wing looked at Mo
on.
Who nodded.
“Where?” Wing asked.
“That’s for no one to know,” Moon said.
WING RAN HIS FINGERS THROUGH HIS HAIR and said, “Come back to Bangkok with me. I’ll keep you safe until this blows over.”
Jamaica looked at Moon.
“What do you think?”
“That makes sense,” Moon said. “We’ll put the recording studio on hold for a week or two. Write a few new songs, if you’re up to it.”
7
Day 1—August 13
Monday Evening
KANJANA OPENED PRARIE’S JOURNAL and said, “This writing is in Thai, not Chinese, it’s an older script though.” A pause as her eyes ran over the page, then, “This can’t be what I think it is.”
“What do you mean?”
“Wait a minute—”
Kanjana read silently to herself, transfixed, then turned the page and kept reading. Prarie shook her arm and said, “Come on, what’s it say?”
Kanjana shook her head in amazement.
Then she turned back to the first page and said, “Here’s how it starts. I’m going to have to translate it to English, so it won’t be perfect.
MY NAME IS SHI XIANGGU. I WAS BORN IN 1785 BUT MY LIFE DIDN’T REALLY START UNTIL 1801 WHEN I WAS SEVENTEEN. AT THAT TIME, I WAS WORKING AS A PROSTITUTE ON A FLOATING BROTHEL IN THE GUANGDONG PROVINCE. PIRATES CAME AND PIRATES WENT, IN FACT THEY WERE ONE OF OUR MAIN CLIENTELE, BUT THEY NEVER TOOK US. ONE DAY, HOWEVER, TURNED OUT TO BE DIFFERENT THAN THE OTHERS. A GROUP OF PIRATES TOOK US, ALL THE WOMEN IN THE BROTHEL, INCLUDING ME. THEY TIED US UP AND TOOK US TO THE SHIP OF ZHENG YI. I KNEW HIM BY NAME AS THE MAN BEHIND THE FORCES THAT WERE TERRORIZING THE CHINESE SEA, AND KNEW THAT HE HAD HUNDREDS OF PIRATES UNDER HIS COMMAND, BUT HAD NEVER SEEN HIM IN PERSON.
HE WAS THE MOST BEAUTIFUL MAN I HAD EVER SEEN, TALLER THAN MOST, WITH LONG BLACK DREADLOCKS, A PROMINENT NOSE AND A BROAD, WHITE SMILE. HE WAS THE FIRST MAN I’D EVER SEEN WITH BLUE EYES. LOOKING BACK ON THAT DAY, I THINK IT WAS THE EYES THAT MADE ME FALL IN LOVE WITH HIM, BUT WHATEVER IT WAS, THAT’S WHAT HAPPENED, LITERALLY WITHIN MINUTES. I RESOLVED TO HAVE HIM, TO SPEND MY DAYS AT HIS SIDE AND MY NIGHTS IN HIS BED. I PICTURED MYSELF AS A PIRATE, FIGHTING AT HIS SIDE.
AT THAT MOMENT, HE LOOKED AT ME. MY FACE WAS YOUNG AND PRETTY AND NICER THAN MOST. MY BREASTS WERE FULL AND FIRM. NONE OF THAT MADE AN IMPRESSION, HOWEVER. HE LOOKED AWAY AS QUICKLY AS HE LOOKED, AS IF I DIDN’T EXIST. I WAS CRUSHED AND COULD HARDLY BREATHE.
