The Godfather of Kathmandu

by John Burdett

  “Did Frank Charles often join you here?”

  “Mmm.” The murmur is so low it is almost inaudible. “Lots. He loved it here. He even tried to buy me out. I said no. Anyway, he could never have survived next to the shantytown—they would have eaten him alive. He was a bourgeois, he didn’t know how to deal with slaves. He would have been too nice.” She lets a beat pass. “He used to smoke cannabis here that I got for him from Humboldt County. He would smoke dope, get despondent—his love problem kept cropping up—and then, of course, the whole beautiful evening was forgotten. One would have to watch his mind shrink all the way back into his testicles—which, being a farang, he mistook for his heart.” A grimace. “You know, I would never consent to be a man. I’d simply have it all cut off and become a katoey.”

  “You’ve never wanted children, Doctor?”

  She shudders by way of answer. “Pets die. Children are a pain in the ass for the duration.”

  She seems unwilling to leave the balcony or to waste time on talk, and I feel pretty much the same way. I try to intuit my way into the skin of Frank Charles: how exotic it must have seemed to him at first, to hang out under a tropical moon with an authentic Chinese murderess—and a beauty, in her austere way—who spoke better English than he and whose conversation was wittier than his. And a pharmacist, too! Surely he would have wanted to develop the relationship further? Not sexually, of course—Moi was not joking when she said she despised carnal love—but I think he sought one of those kinds of friendships farang nowadays dream of: more reliable than family, and a lot more fun. “Did he talk much about his film?” I mumble, hardly audible even to myself, but I’ve noticed how good Moi’s hearing is.

  “Mmm.”

  “You know the one I mean, Doctor?”

  “Mmm.”

  “What did he say about it?”

  “I can’t remember. Mostly it was the artistic self-pity thing with him. How much he’d put into it in money and effort. How it consumed him but he never got it finished. He liked to make sure I realized it was not a schmaltz production like the others, it was serious, he was giving it his best shot, every detail had to be perfect.”

  She takes a toke of her cheroot and exhales so slowly I’ve given up hope of more information, when she adds, “He couldn’t seem to get the ending right.”

  Maybe she feels she’s said too much, for she stands slowly and invites me into the house. We cross the great polished teak balcony together and she steps inside to formally welcome me with a wai.

  A finely carved Taoist temple table in blackwood: incense writhes upward and curls around two portraits of a man and woman in Qing dynasty costume, with their hair pulled back in queues, staring at us out of the past. I cast an eye at Doctor Moi.

  “My great-grandfather on my father’s side, with his third wife, my grandfather’s mother. If not for Mao and the revolution I probably would have been brought up on the family estate in Swatow, with ornamental gardens and pavilions where one spent the summer. I might have had my feet bound, and I would certainly have been an opium addict.” She looks at me. “I long for that lost elegance. After all, I love opium and I never walk anywhere.”

  She has taken the cheroot out of her mouth and straightened her back, as if the portraits are realer to her than the living and more deserving of respect, while I take in the rest of the room. There’s an underlying masculinity in the discipline, but the colors are subtle and fine. I say, “I’m looking for a teddy bear.”

  She nods thoughtfully, as if in agreement. “I know. For the past twenty years I’ve kept him in a syringe.”

  She takes me to a small and cozy library and even offers me a peek at the main bedroom. I’m wondering why she is being so hospitable, when I feel a sudden lift in the area of my brow. I turn to her in surprise.

  “That wasn’t cognac in the cocoa, Doctor.”

  “Did I say cognac? I must have had a blonde moment. Don’t worry, you didn’t drink anything I didn’t also drink.” She snorts. “And anyway, we’re not married, so there’s no need to kill you.”

  “Can I at least know what it is?”

  “No, it’s too rare and exciting, and the name wouldn’t mean anything to you.”

  “What’s it going to do?”

  “It’s going to solve the case for you. Isn’t that what you want?”

  I don’t know if the reason I can’t concentrate is because the drug has started to work on me or because I’m afraid it has started to work on me. “Can we go back out on the balcony?”

  As soon as we get there I slip with a sigh into the wicker chair and become mesmerized by the moon. Now I’m beginning to understand the mood she was in when I arrived. “You were already on this stuff when I showed up, weren’t you?”

  “Mmm. How do you like it?”

  “It’s too good. You’re a witch.”

  “Mmm. Now, what was it you were saying about a letter from Colonel Vikorn?”

  “It’s not going to work, Doctor, I’m not giving it to you until you’ve done a lot of explaining. That’s what I came to tell you.”

  “A pot of cocoa for the letter?”

  “No.”

  She lets a few beats pass. “Do you realize that without my help you will never in your entire life feel as good as this again?”

  I groan. “Yes.”

  “But unlike earlier versions of this family of molecules, with this one you remember every ecstatic minute the next day, in glorious color, but without the ecstasy, which is replaced by an unendurable nostalgia for the lost high that will have you crawling up the wall.”

  “I see.”

  “But the worst of it is, you are only at the beginning of the trip. It’s going to get better and better and better—so good you won’t believe it. And then it will end. Unless I give you some more cocoa.”

  “I got the picture, Doctor Moi.”

  “And don’t even think of trying to bust me. That stuff is prescribed by my personal physician in Amsterdam, and it’s not my fault you came here uninvited and drank my cocoa before I could warn you what was in it.”

  “I already know what your defense will be.”

  “You have unusual resistance,” she says with a touch of chagrin.

  “Whatever this is, it can’t compare to the blade wheel.”

  “Blade wheel?” She repeats the phrase as if she has heard it before and tuts irritably.

  “It cuts through everything. Even your chemicals.”

  After a long, languid pause. “I see. Well, what was it you wanted to know?”

  I find I am unable to answer, not because my mind has gone blank but because it has acquired such a crystalline clarity, such a sharpness of definition in both thought and sense, that I don’t want to waste the moment on work. Especially when I can read the file in the night sky. Time passes, but I have lost the measure of it.

  “Solved everything yet?” Doctor Moi inquires.

  “Yes.”

  “There never was a problem, was there?”

  “No.”

  “More cocoa?”

  “Yes.”

  “Letter first.”

  “No.”

  “Detective, I believe that letter is addressed to me.”

  “It’s addressed ‘To Whom It May Concern,’ and whether you get it or not is entirely up to me.”

  We hang there like that for fully two hours. It really is good stuff. Finally, Moi says, “Just tell me exactly what you want from me.”

  “A sign, Doctor, a word, anything that will confirm that what I’ve just read in the sky is all true. That it isn’t just chemicals screwing my head up.”

  When I raise my head as a follow-up to my words, I see she is thinking profoundly. She picks up a little bell to ring for the maid, who brings a new cheroot and helps her light it, then goes back into the house without a word. Moi stands up to look at the river, which is black and shiny as an oil slick under the climbing moon. All I have of her is a three-quarter back shot with her long black hair
trapped loosely in a tortoiseshell clip with silver inlay, the white silk of her cheungsam catching the moonlight thread by thread.

  “The life of a pariah is not easy, Detective, even if you are lucky enough to be a rich one. He and I understood one another. We even talked about it. He told me that when he made his films—not the one good one, but the two dozen schmaltzy ones—he always kept a typical member of the public in mind. That person, for him, was a middle-aged librarian he met just once in Arkansas when he was running around the country promoting his first movie. She was a woman with a college degree whose taste remained mainstream and somewhat redneck, a product of a tribe and culture so complacent, so certain of her own goodness—because everyone in her vicinity agreed she was good—that he was able to identify her as a perfect ersatz muse. Although she didn’t know it, she was the golden one for whom he made the films. And she, in her unlimited mediocrity, is the one who made him rich.”

  Moi turns to me for a moment to show the mirth on her face.

  “When he first told me that I thought it was so funny—and so clever of him—I couldn’t stop laughing. He didn’t see it that way, though. He told me that this middle-aged librarian in Arkansas had come to dominate his whole life. He had thought that after his first ten million he wouldn’t give a damn about anyone in the audience anymore, but somehow it didn’t work out like that. This librarian had avatars everywhere, especially inside his head and among the matriarchs of Hollywood. He’d done a deal with the devil, you see? That’s who she was, that perfect, good, clean-living, no-nonsense, mainstream, somewhat-redneck librarian from Arkansas. For any pariah, especially an artist, she was the opposition. Poor Frank had done a deal, and the devil had kept her part of the bargain. Frank Charles was very rich. And very lost. There was no way he could get back to that other Frank Charles, the young one who was going to shock and delight the world with his originality and genius. That was all gone. Sold.”

  “No way out?”

  Doctor Moi nods slowly and profoundly. “He begged me, you know, over and over again. He kept begging me to help until I finally gave in.”

  “Yes,” I say, “I can see that.” And so I can. Moi’s mood of sorrow penetrates me as if her aura has quite eclipsed my own. I do not analyze what she might mean by “help;” I feel it with such intensity that no analysis is necessary—or possible. I can actually see Frank Charles here on this balcony in a morose mood, begging Moi, and Moi, elegant and gracious to a fault, doing all she can to help; it’s like watching a scene from a play, with the balcony as stage, but instead of dialogue there is a visible exchange of emotion. I experience her “help” more as a kind of mood of infinite abundance than as anything with practical application. It occurs to me that the drug may be compromising my mind, but then instantly discard the idea as too ridiculous for words. I say, “Are you really telling me the truth, Doctor?” while at the same time asking myself if she has actually “said” anything. But as I speak I’m holding Vikorn’s letter over her shoulder. “Just nod, Doctor, just nod once. You’re far too stoned to lie.” She nods, but I take back the letter. “Just tell me one real thing, Doctor. One real thing.”

  She stares at me. I think she is a little annoyed that I still retain some resistance. “There is a film,” she says, as if the statement has cost her dearly. “He finished it in the end. I have a copy.”

  As I hand over the letter, I say, “What will you do with it?”

  She bites her lip. “Watch it a few more times, then destroy it. I have the only copy in the world. It’s not the sort of thing that could ever go on general release. Even though it’s a masterpiece. He trusted me to destroy it—but he had to have at least one viewer, do you see?”

  “For this film, you were the ideal viewer?”

  “Exactly. I was the devil he had to deal with for this very special work. I was his authentic muse. You could say he made it just for me. The first time I watched it, I couldn’t believe that any man could portray life so accurately.” She turns back to speak to the moon. “He escaped, you see? In his way, he finally escaped. You may not believe me, but that was the real reason I helped him. If I’d wanted his money, I could have married him, couldn’t I?” She lets a long beat pass. “It was a kind of love we had. Not sexual, much better than that. Artistic, you might say.”

  “Doctor, please, may I see the film?”

  “No. Never. I promised him. I don’t break promises to the dead.”

  I make as if I’m about to leave when I ask, “Khun Doctor, why did you give Frank Charles my name?” The question has startled her, and now she is blinking rapidly. “Of course, I am not certain it was you, but there really is no one else I can think of who might have supplied him with my name and address. No one at all.” Now she is looking at me as if I am slightly crazy. “My name, private telephone number, and home address were found in the Microsoft address book on his computer.”

  She turns her head to one side with a frown, then smiles. “Ah! Detective, you are a little too smart for your own good. I remember now. No, it was not me who brought your name to his attention, it was you. You used to be a film buff, no? I think a long time ago you wrote a review of the only film he was proud of—his first one. What was the name? Black Wednesday, no? I think you accused him of plagiarism.”

  “I did?”

  “Ages ago. You must have hardly been out of the academy.”

  It’s coming back to me. It is years since I made a point of remembering the names of directors, or the plots of old movies. I sort of remember an American noir entry at a film festival. It’s very vague, though. If I remember correctly, it was well put together but disappointing in that it seemed to imitate other films. Not very original. Did I really say “plagiarism”? I was one of those passionate young men who mistook the movies for a form of religion.

  Moi nods. “When we were on cocaine together one evening he told me about it. He was sort of laughing at his own chagrin, that a third-world Eurasian cop would have the effrontery, et cetera—all quite ironic. Don’t ask me where he got your details from, I’m sure it was nothing sinister. More likely he intended to ask you out for a drink one day and never got around to it. He was very civilized, you know, an urbane bon viveur when his chemicals were properly balanced. If only puppy love hadn’t screwed him up.”

  I take my leave, but instead of asking her to call a cab, I decide to go back by river the way I came. She calls a ferryman to take me across. When I’m home and preparing for bed, I remember her threat, that the drug would haunt me the next day with its memory of a lost nirvana. When I wake up in the morning, I experience no symptoms at all. As a matter of fact, I feel terrific. It occurs to me she was lying. Not only about the drug, but also about everything else she said last night. Did Frank Charles really make that film? Does she really have a copy?

  25

  So I’m finally on a plane to Kathmandu and settled in a window seat (on the right), with my camera this time, and I have a moment to allow my stressed-out brain to relax. I let go of everything using Tietsin’s blade wheel technique, and only then I notice a question that the subconscious seems to have been working on without telling me. Something suspicious, it seems, that someone told me during the past twenty-four hours? Ah! Yes, here it is: the thought emerges like a worm dragged out from a hole. Picture it this way: you are a financially successful filmmaker who got caught in flagrante delicto by your third wife at a time when a good percentage of emotional and forensic energy in farangland was dedicated to punishing men like you and Bill Clinton, and as a consequence you find yourself suddenly in need of dough. So, do you rush off to Nepal to make what could never be more than an art-house-type documentary or feature film, more or less destined to flop commercially even if you do put it on general release, which you don’t? Does this make sense? If you are the king of schmaltz and it’s schmaltz that got you where you are today, wouldn’t you just turn on the taps in the schmaltz factory until you’d paid your debts? If you had a twinge of conscience
and wanted to help the poor enslaved people of Tibet, or the poor free people of Nepal, come to that, wouldn’t you put that on the shelf until after you’d reestablished yourself financially? Hmm to that. And no way the film would explain all those Nepali visas: to make a movie does not usually take up more than three months on location, so Frank Charles should have used up only one visa, maybe two; his passport contains about ten, which cover a six-year period. He seems to have stopped visiting regularly about nine months ago. About the time he reached sixty.

  As I relax further another strange fact rises to the top of my mind and escapes like a trapped wasp into the free air: none of the movies that Frank Charles directed was in his collection at the penthouse on Soi 8, not even his very first feature film, Black Wednesday, which, according to critics other than myself, was a very decent attempt to transpose French and Italian noir into an American genre. None of his schmaltz features on his shelves either. If he had been a man sensitive to opinion, one might have deduced he was ashamed of his life’s work and didn’t want to flaunt it before discerning friends. But as far as we know, Charles brought few guests to his enormous condominium, and they were usually Thai working girls who could not read English and knew nothing of Western intellectual snobbery. Maybe the one person whom he didn’t want to see his own movies was himself?

  My mind flips back to how fat he was. To hate oneself in a complete way is impossible; to hate one half of oneself with the other half is not only possible but frighteningly common among farang. But I cannot take the thought any further because I’m slowly falling asleep. When I wake, it is because people are rushing around the plane trying to take pictures. The mountains are back. I fumble with my camera for a moment, then decide to concentrate on seeing them. They’ll be here on the return journey.

  At the Kathmandu Guest House I take a suite on one of the upstairs floors near the antiques showroom. The first thing I do, as a kind of homage before I begin unpacking, is to climb to the flat roof of the guesthouse to look out over the city. Nepal is two hours behind Thailand, so it is just at the point of twilight, when translucent indigos and purples repaint what little is left of the mountains, and other people on other rooftops bring in the washing and prepare the evening meal. From the rooftop I call Lek.