Chai had caught a lucky break the day Aanwat walked into the warehouse with one of the thugs he was working for. He was introduced as the man looking for Suda, and it took everything in Chai’s power to stifle his smile. His job was much easier once he was officially acquainted with Suda’s stalker. As the days had turned to weeks and the weeks into months, he’d watched Aanwat become desperate.
He enjoyed occasionally turning the screws on Aanwat by questioning him about where he had been and how he was going to go about finding her, while simultaneously glaring at him and cleaning his fingernails with the tip of a switchblade to instill an extra dose of fear deep in his mind. Chai knew Aanwat was terrified of him, and that was how he wanted it.
Oddly, Aanwat sometimes spoke of her in a tone that appeared truly concerned rather than simply annoyed that he had to track her down. The guy seemed to worry about Suda beyond wanting to find her to save his own hide, which was of interest to Chai. Did they have a relationship beyond what he knew? He made a note to ask Suda about him again. Was there a weakness there? Maybe he could exploit that to get more information.
Aanwat’s boss, Gan, was on the hook and had to come up with Suda to make good on his promised delivery, but Aanwat, although he tried to hide it, sometimes seemed genuinely worried, which made Chai clench his jaw at the hypocrisy. After all, he was the one who had put her in the shipping container in the first place. And, as he understood it, it was Aanwat who had also been pimping her out every night back in Thailand. But now he was worried? Chai seethed at the thought. As if being cold and alone outside in the night could possibly be worse than being forced to have sex with strangers and getting beaten up on a regular basis. He was constantly amazed by people’s capacity for contradiction. Like when killers begged for their own lives. He shook his head and fumed.
He would have the opportunity to observe him more closely and possibly question him because they would both be at a meeting at the storage facility by the docks, where they kept the drugs smuggled in and out of the area.
When he walked in, he saw most of the guys were already there, sorting and weighing the most recent shipment. He saw Aanwat right away, sitting alone at a table, looking nervous. He had finally gotten himself a jacket, Chai noted, after shivering in the cold for weeks. It was shabby but warm looking; probably something he’d picked up at the Goodwill or Salvation Army. Chai couldn’t get a good read on the guy. He seemed both shifty and earnest, which was a weird combination.
“Hey, man,” Chai said to him in Thai and sat down in the chair next to him. “How’s it going?”
“It’s like she disappeared into thin air,” Aanwat said, looking at the table between them rather at Chai’s face.
“She’s got to be somewhere.”
“Or dead.”
“Yeah, maybe she’s dead.” Chai agreed.
“Hey,” Aanwat leaned close to Chai. “I need a gun. Can you get a gun for me?”
Chai kept his face impassive and gave him a hard stare until Aanwat started shifting in his chair. “Why do you want a gun?”
“I’m staying in a dangerous area. It makes me nervous.”
“Hmmm,” Chai made a noncommittal sound while he took a moment to think.
“So?”
“So what?” he stalled.
“Can you get a gun for me?”
“Yeah, man. I can. It’ll take some time though. To get something that can’t be traced. Give me a few days.”
He saw Aanwat visibly relax into his chair.
“Great. Thanks.”
“You’ll just have to keep dodging the thugs in your neighborhood until then,” he said, deadpan.
Aanwat looked at him, confused as to whether he was joking. “Yes,” he finally said.
When Chakrii came in, everyone abruptly stopped talking. Chai had to look down for a moment to compose his face. It was difficult to hide his hatred of this guy. He was scum, and he could have arrested him ten times over by now, he was so sloppy with his business. But he wasn’t who Chai really wanted. He still hadn’t met the guy the police force was desperate to nail. He didn’t even know his actual name. Everyone referred to him as “Clean” because the police could never pin anything on him, and he was notorious for immaculately clean crime scenes from his earlier days, when he was an enforcer working his way up.
He had been casually asking about him for months, but no one was giving out even the smallest detail. It was driving Chai crazy. If he could get some strong evidence on that guy, he could get out of his undercover duty, but until then, he was determined to keep poking away, trying to keep the trust of the guys while not compromising himself too much. It was a thin, high tightrope.
Chai’s mind was spinning during the meeting. He couldn’t stop wondering why Aanwat wanted a gun. He also couldn’t decide whether to mention the fact that he was trying to get his hands on one to Chakrii. He didn’t want to get the guy killed. He was a shifty little weasel, but he didn’t want him dead. As usual Chai kept mostly quiet during the meeting. He sat with his arms crossed and a stony expression on his face and listened to the plans to move the product all the while trying not to think about Simone and the pot roast she would be cooking.
He barely made dinner that night, but he had been determined to get there on time while still meticulously covering his tracks. It had been difficult to break away, and he went by the apartment he had as a cover directly from the meeting. The thought of any of them getting hurt because of his sloppiness was something he couldn’t even allow himself to contemplate. He believed his cover was intact, but undercover cops could never be entirely sure. He opened a beer in front of the window, to insure anyone who was looking would get a clear view of him settling in for the night. It was all he could do not to chug it down and head to Hope House, but instead he calmly and deliberately stood and sipped his beer, then closed his blinds as it became dark, then slipped out the back door.
The smell of pot roast hit him as soon as he walked in, and the homey smell alone seemed to help relieve the tension in his neck.
Simone
Simone noticed that Chai seemed less boisterous than usual during dinner—although he still managed to devour a surprising amount of pot roast. He was usually the first one to crack jokes and entertain the group with anecdotes about growing up with a dad who was Thai and an American mom and the funny cultural misunderstandings that happened along the way. Simone noticed that he had a way of turning everyday occurrences into humorous stories. It kept them all laughing, and it was a nice change for the girls, helping them get out of their own heads for a while. She smiled, thinking of the story he told them all last Sunday. It was about his father trying to make spaghetti for the kids when his mom was out one night and using glass noodles instead of pasta. Simone was intrigued by his ability to tell a story that by any standard wouldn’t be amusing, yet somehow he had them all in stitches. It was just a story about using the wrong noodles for a dish, yet the way he told it, they could see the sauce sliding off of the glass noodles and puddling on the plates and Chai and Nittha trying to politely choke it down so their dad didn’t know he’d made a mistake.
After dinner, Simone and Claire were on dish duty, so Chai grabbed a dish towel and started drying the larger pots and pans they’d sudsed by hand rather than putting them in the dishwasher.
Simone’s petite frame contrasted with Claire’s tall, lanky one. Simone’s hair was down for a change instead of gathered into her standard utilitarian ponytail. He noticed her brown hair was shot through with streaks of gold. He spent a lot of time thinking about the spray of freckles across her nose and her light green eyes that were intelligent and always lively. She looked pretty even in jeans, a sweatshirt, and flip-flops—which she wore in spite of the fact that the fog had come in.
Claire, on the other hand, was classically beautiful; she looked as if she could have been a model with her perfect nose, light b
londe hair, and big blue eyes. But to Chai’s eye, she wasn’t as pretty as Simone. Her face had taken on a mask of wariness that made her seem unapproachable—which was probably exactly the way she wanted it, he imagined, after whatever she’d been through to end up in Hope House. Claire’s face was always bare of make-up. She usually wore a baseball cap pulled low. Chai couldn’t help but assume she was trying to hide her looks in an attempt to keep herself invisible. Someday she’d feel safe enough to emerge, he hoped.
He had mentioned his observation to Simone one morning over coffee, and she had looked up at him, startled. “Do you always see the layers beneath the face people present to the world?” Simone asked.
“I don’t know.” Chai had shrugged. “I guess. Seeing what’s underneath people’s exteriors is part of the training.” His tone was offhand, as if truly seeing people was a common skill among undercover agents, but Simone wondered if that was true. It seemed like a unique quality in Chai, and she both liked it and felt vulnerable because of it. What was he seeing in her face? She wondered.
He was careful not to look at or make eye contact with any of the women in Hope House for more than a fleeting moment because he never wanted them to feel uncomfortable with his presence, think he was checking them out, or, God forbid, hitting on them. So, as usual he was just joining in on their conversation while he dried and put away the pots and pans.
As they were finishing, he asked Simone if he could grab Suda for a quick chat.
“Of course. Is anything up?”
“I don’t think so. I just want to ask her about that guy she used to work with in Thailand who’s here. Aanwat. I mentioned him a while ago.”
“Oh, my God!” Simone almost yelled and then put out her hands as if to stop herself short. She set down the sponge and turned off the water. “I’ve been meaning to tell you about a guy who’s been in. He was in once last week, and he was back today.”
“That Thai guy?” Claire asked, suddenly thinking of the man who came in for tea earlier in the day.
“Yeah.”
“What did he look like?” Chai asked.
“Slight, maybe in his twenties, kind of handsome,” Claire paused, “but also, kind of shabby. Like he’d come from the school of hard knocks. You know?”
“I got a picture of him!” Simone said and ran upstairs to get her phone.
Chai pulled out a chair and sat down. While he waited for Simone to get back, he pulled out his own phone and ran his finger across the screen, searching through his photos until he found the one he wanted. He held his phone up to Claire, showing a photo he’d surreptitiously taken without Aanwat’s knowledge.
“That’s him!” Claire confirmed.
“Wait!” Simone interrupted. “I want to see.” She peered over Chai’s shoulder at the screen and gasped. “Yes, that’s him. Look!” She held out her phone, and there, too, was Aanwat’s photo. It wasn’t as good as the one Chai had gotten, but it was undeniably the same man.
“Does he speak English?” Chai asked, cop tone in place.
“A little bit. Heavy accent,” Simone answered.
“Yeah,” Claire said. “I tried to chat with him but couldn’t understand much.”
Simone added, “He seemed nervous.”
“Yes!” Claire said. “Definitely nervous. Shifty maybe.”
“Fuck,” Chai said, and then quickly, “Sorry … sorry. I didn’t mean to swear. Hazard of the job.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Simone said.
“Yeah, I say it all the time,” Claire told him, and Simone shot her a look.
“What?” she asked feigning innocence to Simone’s nonverbal scolding
Simone watched Chai as he ran his hands across his face. His expression was grave, and it scared her. His mind was clearly processing the information they’d just given him.
“Okay,” he said after a minute. “The fact that he’s been here could be just a coincidence, but that seems far-fetched. The man you’ve just identified is in fact Aanwat Chamrueangdej.”
“That’s a mouthful,” Claire said.
Simone looked at her with an expression that said, Really? Now’s the time to be snarky?
“He’s the one who pimped out Suda and is now here looking for her,” Chai admitted.
“Oh, my God,” Simone closed her eyes for a moment, attempting to gather herself in front of Claire.
“That weasel,” Claire said. “I should have put poison in his tea.” She crossed her arms across her chest.
Simone sat down next to Chai. “If it is him, what does that mean, practically speaking? What do we need to do? Should we move Suda?”
“I think it’s time for me to involve my captain.”
“Will you be in trouble?”
“Probably, but it was worth it to get Suda out of there.”
“Maybe we should make a plan before you talk to Suda. I don’t want to terrify her. And I don’t want her to end up in a detention center for illegal immigrants while it all gets sorted out. Because, as you said, it could be a coincidence, right?” Simone asked without a speck of belief in the probability that Aanwat just happened to go to Hope Bakery to get a cup of tea.
“Here’s what I’m thinking,” Chai said. “I want to talk to Suda to get more information on him, but let’s not mention to her anything about him coming into Hope Bakery for now.”
Simone and Claire both nodded their agreement.
“But, ideally I would like one of the two of you to be up front when the bakery’s open, if possible, so if he comes in again you’ll recognize him. If he does, call me immediately,” he paused and then added, “and 911.”
“I don’t have your number,” Claire said and handed him her phone.
As he added his number into Claire’s contacts, he casually asked, “Do you have any weapons here?”
“What? No!” Simone said.
Claire pulled the knife she kept in her pocket and flipped it open. “I carry this.”
“What?” Simone said again, looking at Claire as if she were a complete stranger.
“Don’t judge me, Simone,” she said. “If I ever see Nick, I can’t guarantee I won’t plunge this into his heart.”
Chai looked at Claire. “Okay, you and I are going to talk about that later, but for now, keep the knife handy.” Then he looked at Simone. “Sorry, Simone.”
“Fine,” she agreed, tight-lipped. Perhaps she’d put one of her chef’s knives behind the counter as well, although she hated the thought of violence and would do everything in her power to prevent it.
Just then, Simone’s phone buzzed in her pocket. “When it rains, it pours,” she said, pulling the phone out. She looked at the screen, frowned, and answered.
“This is Simone,” she said in her professional voice, which put both Chai and Claire on alert. They stood silently while Simone listened. “Oh, no,” she said and then closed her eyes. “Is she alive? Thank God.” She paused and listened. “Okay, yes. Thank you. Keep us posted.” She slid her phone back into her pocket and then breathed in deeply and exhaled. “I’ll be right back,” she told them. “I need to talk to Grace for a minute.”
As Simone walked out of the room, Claire and Chai looked at each other. Both speculating, but neither saying a word.
“Be right back,” Claire told Chai and then silently slunk off in the direction Simone had gone. Claire knew Simone wouldn’t tell her what was going on. She was strict about “protocol” as she liked to call it, but Claire didn’t like being kept in the dark. After she left Chai standing in the kitchen, she snuck farther down the hall and listened to Grace and Simone quietly talking in what they jokingly called the office. The small space was really a desk and several file cabinets shoved alongside the washer and dryer in the laundry room, but it served its purpose.
But when Claire heard what was being said, she backed
slowly away, horrified. The whispered words were Hailey and overdose. She had done nothing to stop it.
Claire
Claire wasn’t kidding about the fact that she might plunge her knife into Nick’s heart if she ever saw him again. She assumed he was long gone because the police had looked high and low for him when she finally came forward, but he couldn’t be found. She’d had too little information to give them. His name, Nick Sinclair, was one of hundreds in the area and might have been an alias at that. He had moved into their apartment and started paying the rent with a cashier’s check rather than from a personal bank account, so the landlord didn’t know it was no longer her mother paying. The landlord had probably been relieved rather than inclined to ask questions, because the rent was finally being paid on time.
She imagined Nick must be in another state now. She hoped that he wasn’t doing the same thing he’d done to her to some other girl. The thought of that sometimes kept her up at night.
He didn’t have a car because, according to him, the parking was too much of a pain in the ass in San Francisco, and it was easier to take public transportation. In hindsight, Claire realized it was probably so he couldn’t be traced through a vehicle. They didn’t have a landline, and when Claire gave the police Nick’s cell number, it turned out to be to a burner phone with no phone plan.
When Claire thought back to everything that unfolded after that horrible morning when she woke up naked in a strange hotel room, she could never understand, in retrospect, why she hadn’t gone to the police immediately.
She and her therapist had gone over and over it, and all she could come up with was paralyzing humiliation in the beginning, which gradually became terror for her own life and her friends’ lives once Nick had her in his control. Threatening to hurt her friends was one of Nick’s favorite tactics to get her to stay in line. Then once he had her addicted to Percocet, it was over for her. At least that’s how it had felt. The sweet contentment she got from the opioid was the lovely reprieve she needed to keep on going—until the police had picked her up and gotten her to finally talk about what had happened to her.
Across the Deep Page 17
