The Godfather of Kathmandu

by John Burdett

  “Ten,” I say. The number, which did not seem out of the ordinary in the Rose Garden, now strikes me as grotesque.

  “To go with the apartment and the Lexus,” Sukum says.

  23

  Forget men with long magic fingers who listen to the subtle sounds of locking mechanisms with mystic concentration; forget explosives, too. There’s only one sane way to bust open a safe in someone’s home: oxyacetylene. And for that you need steel bottles—one for the oxygen and one for the acetylene—some sheet steel to protect the floor, a guy in leathers with a giant cutting torch and a full face mask—and you need to move all the furniture out of the way.

  Half of reception have come up to watch, and I couldn’t very well exclude Sukum and Lek. Women squeal while men grunt at the great cascade of sparks as the oxygen eats the iron. The cutter is making a circle around the safe’s lock, which glows dull red. The safe is of the kind you can buy on the main street, and not particularly strong. Even so, hardened steel plate doesn’t yield that easily, and I’m wondering if there is going to be anything left inside not charred to a cinder, when the door finally swings open a couple of inches and we are left standing in the particle-charged air with that peculiar stench of burnt iron. Now everyone is looking at me. The cutter hands me a thick wad of leather to use to open the red-hot door. The heat is pretty intense, but localized. What I’m most interested in is a DVD case in the bottom right corner. I gingerly put my hand into the oven, pull the case out. It’s only slightly molten, but when I open it, I see the DVD inside has curled with the heat. No way it’s going to even fit into a DVD player, and the microscopic laser etchings on the plastic will have been destroyed. There is no label on the disc, but someone has written on it in felt-tip pen: “Nepal/Tibet 2001/2.” There is nothing else in the body of the safe except for a sheet of paper that looks as if it had personal identity codes written in hand, but is now too burnt and brown to decipher.

  When I show the disc to the forensic boys, they shake their heads. DVDs are not like computer hard drives; you can’t reconstitute them. I say, “Okay, at least check out the computer, see if we can get into that and onto the Net.”

  So now we’re in the farang’s office with the generic tower PC and seventeen-inch monitor; one of the forensic boys has brought a laptop with code-busting software, which he’s all excited about; he’s never used it before on a real case. We all watch while he attaches a cable from the laptop to the PC, switches on the PC, and red and green lights on the laptop start to pop on and off at an amazing rate. Then the Windows XP screen appears.

  We all koo dutifully as the kid with the laptop grins. Trouble is, we don’t know the code for Internet access, and although we know Frank Charles used Gmail, Yahoo!, and a couple of other engines, we don’t know which one he favored for personal matters, or what the log-on code might be. The kid says his software won’t work on Internet access, the security is too good. I keep quiet, but make a private note to ask Kimberley to help; she has a whole raft of nerds at her command in Virginia, and since the deceased was American, I guess there is a good enough excuse to bust his privacy rights, which he won’t be needing anymore. While I’m thinking, the kid checks out the Windows address book. “Look,” he says to me, and points. I stare. There I am: name, title, address—

  Sonchai Jitpleecheep, Detective in Royal Thai Police, District 8—

  with my cell phone number and e-mail address.

  Everyone looks at me, and I know that Sukum and Lek are both thinking this has to do with the private position I hold in Vikorn’s organization. I myself am merely dumfounded.

  I’m also stung. Embarrassment and fear spur me into action. (If he knew my name and address, what else did he know?) There are things you pick up in ten years of detection that lie in the back of your mind, little techniques you’ve forgotten twenty times already, but which come back when you’ve convinced yourself the case is worth the extra effort. It’s true, I’d not been treating the Fat Farang murder as if it were my own case—until now. I stride back into the bedroom and grab the leather wad to open the safe door again. It has cooled a lot, although it is still too hot to touch. I use the leather to spring open a semisecret tray in the top of the safe, then use one of my own keys to flick out a small metal box, which lands on the protective iron cover the welder has laid on the floor and bursts open. Naturally, we all stare. The contents of the box appear to be small rough stones of a grayish hue. One of the women from reception has gone to the bathroom and returned with a glass of water, which I pore gently over the stones. To the touch they are surprisingly hard, but small and unattractive, the translucent gray of shrimp before they are boiled. I shrug. It is difficult to see what connection they could have with the spectacular murder of Frank Charles. The stones strike me more like something you might pick up on a beach during a seaside vacation, put in your safe, and forget about. They are too small, ugly, and colorless to be precious.

  I shake my head and tell Sukum I’ve seen as much as I wanted.

  “Where are you going?”

  “First the Rose Garden, then Kathmandu,” I say, sparing a brief glance at Lek as I leave the condo.

  From Soi 8 it’s only a half-mile walk to the Rose Garden on Soi 7; I call my travel agent as I’m walking. I’m also thinking that Frank Charles walked this way himself, probably every day, for there’s nowhere to park a Lexus at the Rose Garden—or did his weight force him to take a cab? By the time I reach the bar I have a ticket to Kathmandu for that afternoon.

  It’s ten-thirty in the morning, which is early in this part of Bangkok. There are a couple of girls sitting at the bar, both of them reading Thai newspapers and taking a quiet moment for themselves before getting in the mood for action. A lot of the women here make a point of putting in a full day’s work, arriving at ten and going home at six, whether they have had a successful shift or not. I order a beer and watch the entrance while I’m waiting.

  The Chinese-looking girl, who goes straight to the Buddha shrine under the bohdi tree, lights her incense, wais, bows, takes a seat at the bar, and orders a coffee. She is not from Isaan but from Phuket, where her family owns a mini-market. She got bored with filling shelves and working the checkout register and finds prostitution more exciting. The girl behind her, very dark, almost Indian in her features, is from Nong Kai, on the Mekong and next to the border with Laos. She used to be married to an Englishman, who dumped her for another whore six years younger. She nods to me in recognition; when she smiles she reveals her diamond-studded braces. Now here is Sarlee: her whole family, including herself and her two kids, lived off her brother, a fanatically hardworking entrepreneur on a motorbike, until he got killed in an accident. Without any kind of life insurance to claim, the family agreed Sarlee would have to sell her body. Good-natured Sarlee didn’t object; she had been working in a clothing factory wondering why the Buddha had made her beautiful and itching for an excuse to do something more interesting—but prostitution was forbidden until karma and despair beckoned. If her father doesn’t get his heart drugs regularly, he will be unable to work the rice fields, and if that happens not even Sarlee’s body will save the family from hunger.

  Now here, striding across the threshold, is a tall, skinny Indian man in his late thirties; I happen to know from eyewitnesses that he is exceptionally well endowed, and only a few of the girls (proud, in turn, of their own prowess) are prepared to repeat the martyrdom-by-member after the first tryst. This does nothing to suppress his bright-eyed, oat-driven eagerness as he looks around the bar for his eleven-o’clock lay. He is followed by a youngish, heavyish Englishman, who is so overpaid in the profession of boilermaker in Essex that he spends three months of the year here, which sojourn is easily recompensed in tax rebates. His vacations begin with modest lechery and end in unrestrained alcohol abuse. I deduce from the signs that he is at the beginning of this one; when he reaches the bar he takes out a copy of the Daily Mirror and casts shy glances at the entrance from time to time. Now, finally,
comes Pong, then behind her, Nik, Tonni, and O.

  I take Pong to a side table, buy her a drink. “That time the farang Frank Charles took ten of you back to his condo, do you remember when it was?”

  She frowns. “Not sure. It was during Khao Phansa; I remember because my brother is a monk and we always visit him for a day during the rainy season.” Her face brightens. “But you can check with his passport. It was his birthday, I’ve just remembered. That was his excuse for having ten of us in that tub at the same time.”

  “What kind of mood was he in?”

  “Oh, he was really lapping it up, fondling and kissing and telling us how happy he was and that we were his only family and could it get any better than this, that a man could have ten beautiful lovers as close family? Then, later on, the Viagra wore off and he burst into tears and we all left. He didn’t seem to react to alcohol very well, and he’d drunk almost a whole bottle of champagne because none of us liked it. He said it was the most expensive champagne in Bangkok and it cost more than three hundred dollars and he had a refrigerator full of it for the party, but to me it tasted awful, like drinking perfume or something, and none of the other girls drink alcohol either.”

  “Did he suffer from mood shifts generally?”

  Pong thinks about that, then shrugs. “How can I know?”

  “You slept with him regularly? More than the others?”

  She nods. “Yes. At least, I was his favorite at that time. He went through phases, as if he was looking for a wife but got addicted to the search.”

  “After sex, was he melancholy?”

  Now Pong is concentrating. I think she wants to make sure she’s got the right farang when she says, “I’ve worked here five years and I’ve never met a farang who was at peace. I suppose it’s because they’re not Buddhist like us? Sometimes I wondered …”

  “What? If he was gay?”

  “No, no, nothing like that. I wondered if he was looking for a mother.” She flashes me a self-conscious look: amateur psychology is not popular with our working girls. “He talked about a film, once. One he was making. I think he said it was in the Himalayas. He told me it was the most important thing in his life. But he couldn’t complete it. He told me he kept a copy of a half-finished version in his safe and watched it every day hoping for inspiration. He said if he ever did finish it, he would feel whole again and would probably find a Thai wife to live with. I think he wanted me to believe there was hope for me. But when I talked to other girls who had been his favorite, they said he spoke to them in the same way. So I suppose it all depended if you were the flavor of the month or not. I guess the film really was the most important thing in his life. But sometimes he would let slip something about a woman in Nepal.” She shrugs. “It was all so vague, though. After sex men go vague, if they don’t fall asleep.”

  I ask if Frank Charles ever mentioned me, or asked for the name of a Thai cop—or if, generally, she knew of any connection at all between him and me. She shakes her head with the right element of confusion—why would he have anything to do with me?—so I get her to run through all the girls who attended the American’s sixtieth birthday party, and any others who she knows to have gone with Frank Charles. Then, one by one, I call the girls over, slip them a hundred baht, and ask the same questions. The exercise takes up the whole morning with zero results: none of the girls is aware of any connection between the dead man and me, and they certainly would have remembered if the American had ever used my name. I am experiencing guilt by association, as if I have been fingered as a suspect. I need to speak again to Doctor Mimi Moi. I call the travel agent to cancel the Nepal trip.

  24

  Doctor Moi has vacated the Oriental and returned to her place by the river. (Sukum has reluctantly admitted she was probably not on the run after all, merely playing one of her elaborate games with him—or maybe she really was having her house refurbished?) I could make an appointment to see her, but her capacity to elude is legendary and I have a feeling she was not planning to grant me a second interview. Everyone knows that witches are best approached by water at night without prior warning, right?

  Which, in the case of Doctor Mimi Moi, just happens to be possible. I know the address because I once had to spend a few days at a crime scene over in Thonburi, not far from her house. After she collected on the deaths of the two husbands she denies murdering, she broke yet another taboo of her class by buying a piece of land on the unfashionable side of the river right next to a klong, a canal, along which a large shantytown had grown up. Mad Moi’s land abuts the shantytown: rickety wooden huts on stilts, filthy kids, and subsistence car-repair businesses, which spread inland for at least one square mile. Little by little she has built up a position of godmother to the locals. She is known to provide free medicine for the needy, communal feasts on holidays, and even legal advice for those who have fallen foul of the cops. Everyone owes her, everyone worships her, and no one is going to betray her if they intend to go on living in the shantytown. Nobody knows how many packages containing what chemical exoticum are carried to and from her house by little old ladies paddling sampans across the river and up the klong.

  I take a cab to Klong Toey, to a point on the river, then walk down a path by the side of a bridge that brings me out on the riverbank where a couple of motorized canoes are waiting. I agree on a price with the ferryboat man—an emaciated alcoholic in his late sixties who has not shaved for three days—and he starts the tinny little motor with a pull on a cord. Now we are turning upstream in order to take account of the current, with the high black bows of cargo ships, mostly Chinese and Korean, looming up at us as we pass the docks.

  Although the Doctor’s land abuts the Chao Phraya River, it sits on a loop which forms a kind of bay and protects her from the wash of heavy ships. As we navigate the river, slowing to allow a loud and brightly lit restaurant boat to pass on its way to the Grand Palace, we head for a specific patch of dark emptiness on the other side, then slow the motor to a tick as we slip across what could be a black lagoon.

  When we turn toward the bank, I see the house. Although constructed of modern materials, it is strictly in the old style, sitting on high stilts with a riverfront terrace about twenty feet deep which runs the length of the building and gables that look like garudas’ beaks. As we approach it is obvious that Doctor Moi’s fine eye has produced a kind of perfection of form: a soft golden light illuminates a generous window through a gauze curtain; classic Chinese furniture in blackwood can be glimpsed from moment to moment, along with chaise longues with pastel upholstery. There is a vast abundance of hanging plants on the balcony, mostly orchids, which gives a forest atmosphere, and a maid in full livery appears for a second to serve a beverage to the figure in a rocking chair, a bare-shouldered form in white jacquard silk cheongsam (high collar, pearl dragons writhing), smoking a cheroot and reading a magazine. When she hears our motor she looks up languidly. It is not until we have docked at her jetty that she sees it is me, but she shows no sign of surprise. Indeed, she even sends the maid down to the jetty to greet me and bring me to the house. Little Red Riding Hood must have felt the way I do now.

  The maid is about ten years older than her mistress, which is to say in her fifties, quite tall and slim like Moi, silent—she does not speak to me—and very Chinese; I doubt there is a single Thai gene in her porcelain flesh. She wears the white cap, white blouse, black skirt, and white apron of domestic service, as if she works for an English duchess.

  Doctor Moi gets up to welcome me as I climb the stairs onto the balcony, and I give her a high wai. She does not seem put out by my visit; on the contrary, a faint smile hovers around her thin lips. Nevertheless, she says, “What a surprise, Detective.” She is way too cool to ask why I didn’t telephone first. “Won’t you sit down to join me? I’ve just told the maid to bring a pot of cocoa with cognac.”

  “Thanks. I thought you didn’t drink.”

  “My British husband got me addicted to cognac in cocoa before he t
ragically died. Something about brandy makes one feel rich.”

  I sit down on a wicker chair with a silk cushion in exactly the right place to support the lower back; the sense of instant relaxation is increased by the silence. A gibbous moon hangs over the black river, the rest is emptiness; I can see why Moi likes it here. When the maid comes back, a ginger tomcat emerges with her and jumps heavily into the Doctor’s lap. I mumble, “I was expecting a Persian female,” because I can’t think of anything else to say. While the maid is pouring the cocoa—her hand is long, pale, with skinny fingers; there is a curious ring on the index finger of her right hand, a band of silver in which eight tiny orangey-pink gems have been set—Moi clears her throat. “I haven’t even had him neutered. He’s the happiest tom in Thailand. He goes slumming and gets laid twenty times a night, but comes back here for silk sheets and gourmet fish.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Hofmann, after the chemist who first synthesized LSD. But Hofmann prefers smack, don’t you sweetheart?”

  Right on cue, Hofmann growls and buries his head under her arm. I let a few beats pass. When she makes no attempt to speak, I say, “Doctor, I have a document here signed by Colonel Vikorn—”

  To my surprise she holds up a hand. “Please, let’s not do business yet. So few distinguished visitors come by river, I feel a need to show you around. And it’s such a beautiful moment in the evening.” A gracious smile without a hint of irony.

  So we just hang there for a while, the Doctor and I, suspended in the night as if we were swinging on hammocks slung between stars, drinking our cocoa. Moi seems in a kind of trance, unwilling to face the practical challenge of standing up again. It occurs to me that by this time in the evening she might have taken something stronger than cocoa with cognac. I insert my first forensic question as gently as I can, hoping to reach a mind which has dropped its defenses.