Bar and Winnebago followed her with their eyes and then turned to Eddie.
“What do we do?” Winnebago asked.
Eddie thought for only a second, maybe two. “We go,” he said.
They followed Short Time through the door and found themselves in a narrow alley behind the Little Princess. Garbage was strewn everywhere and water from an outlet pipe dripped into an open sewer. Short Time was waiting for them, sitting astride a red Suzuki with the engine already idling. She revved the motor and pointed toward another motorcycle propped against a dumpster piled with Singha boxes. The bike was muddy and the make unidentifiable, but it looked serviceable.
“Who drive that one?”
The three of them looked at each other until Winnebago shrugged, climbed on, and kicked it over. Eddie settled himself on the Suzuki behind Short Time and they all looked at Bar, who didn’t seem all that happy.
“I should have taken my chances with the guys inside,” he said.
“Yeah, well,” Eddie said. “That’s still an option.”
“Oh fuck!’ Bar sighed. “The bag is still in there. I got to go back for the artillery.”
“No! Go now!” Short Time began to edge the Suzuki out of the alley toward the main road.
“Forget it,” Eddie shook his head at Bar. “She’s right.”
Looking miserable, Bar slipped onto the back of Winnebago’s bike. He wedged one hand as tightly as he could into the small handle behind the seat and wrapped his other arm around Winnebago’s waist.
Winnebago racked the motor a couple of times and grinned over his shoulder. “Hold on tight, baby.”
“I can see it all now,” Bar sighed, tilting his head back and closing his eyes. “After forty years of beautiful Thai women, I’m going to die with my arms around a Indian named after a fucking motor home.”
“You crazy bastards,” Short Time said.
Then she gunned the Suzuki hard and squealed down the alley blasting brown fountains of water to both sides as she crossed a sewer. Looking neither left nor right, she shot straight across traffic, dodged a slow-moving bus jammed with school children, and screamed into a hard right turn. A small army of Korean tourists wearing nametags filed through a crosswalk just ahead of her and Short Time aimed the big Suzuki right at them. Eddie was wondering whether the nametags would help in identifying the bodies when the Koreans scattered in terror.
Winnebago and Bar roared off right behind Lek, and then they just did their best to stick as close as they could.
Thirty-Two
THE outer wall was old and cracked. Some of the large sandstone blocks that had been locked together to form it on a day long forgotten had given up entirely and yielded gracefully, perhaps even gratefully, to time and gravity’s pull and turned back into piles of loose sand once again. The breaches they had left in the wall were of no real importance since the structure only marked a boundary of sorts. It had never been meant to keep anyone in or out.
The compound’s outer courtyard was outlined with seated Buddha figures, every face frozen eternally in benign tranquility. The images were larger than life, and the bright saffron of the cloth sashes draped around them was luminescent against the cool white of the stone. Deeper inside there were walled pathways over which other ranks of Buddha images stood watch. These pathways were arranged geometrically, forming a series of concentric boxes. It was exactly at the center of those boxes, at the very core of the compound, that something extraordinary stood.
The Buddhist temple, the wat, looked nothing at all like the dour edifices with which Western religions browbeat the docile. It was more like something straight out of a child’s drawing of heaven. Its golden spires sparkled with light; its roof was tiled in vivid orange and green; its lines arched steeply to an impossible peak; and its blindingly white-washed walls seemed to pulse against the glazed cobalt of the sky.
Behind the flamboyance of the wat were the simple wooden huts where the Buddhist monks lived. They were arranged in modest rows, each structure raised above the ground on short stilts and bare inside except for a sleeping mat and a small chest. Every wat had a complement of monks who lived in huts such as these caring for the temple and its grounds and occasionally conducting funeral rites or dispensing blessings. Some of the men had been monks since they were children. Others had chosen later in life to flee the terrors of the world and retreat to a wat to live for a few months or sometimes even a few years.
The afternoon, like most afternoons, was hot. There was little movement in the compound other than freshly laundered saffron robes of the monks flapping from laundry lines and a few scrawny dogs searching for shade. There would have been no other sign of life at all had a nondescript man, thin and stooped, not begun slowly, even painfully, edging his way down a short ladder that led from one of the huts to the ground. The man did not wear the cloak of a monk. He was dressed instead in the drab clothes of a Thai peasant with a wide-brimmed straw hat pulled low over his face. From his size and build and the deep tan of his skin, he looked like a farmer on his way to the rice fields.
When the man reached the ground, he stood absolutely motionless for a moment and raised his head like an animal sniffing the breeze for danger. If that was what he was doing, he evidently found nothing to make him uneasy because he soon lowered his head and began to shuffle slowly across the courtyard. When he reached a gap in the wall between two of the stone Buddhas, he paused respectfully. His hands formed a wai, a graceful gesture in which the palms of the hands are pressed together almost as if in prayer, and he bowed his head briefly to each of the images. Then, displaying an agility he had not before appeared to possess, he slipped through the wall and was gone.
***
SHORT Time maneuvered the bike skillfully through Bangkok’s narrow streets for a few kilometers then, after making a sudden left and an equally sudden right, powered up a short, sharply-inclined ramp and emerged on what looked to Eddie exactly like the sort of nondescript interstate highway that looped around most American cities. All he had to do was squint slightly and he might have been back in San Francisco wheeling onto the Bayshore Freeway from the Van Ness onramp and heading south toward San Jose. On the other hand, if he had been in San Francisco, he seriously doubted he would be hanging onto the back of a Suzuki driven by a middle-aged Thai whore who had just used a sawed off shotgun to rescue him from two heavily armed Chinese thugs. That was an important point to keep in mind, he figured.
Eddie bent forward and shouted into Short Time’s ear over the noise of the bike. “Where are we going?”
Short Time didn’t respond, so Eddie cautiously unhooked his right hand from the handle on the seat and wiggled it in front of her. “Where are we going?” he tried again, speaking as distinctly as he could into the powerful slipstream.
Short Time shot a quick smile over her shoulder, a rather nice smile Eddie noticed, gave a brisk nod, and then returned her full attention to piloting the bike. As they slalomed around the tailgate of a dark blue van moving very slowly in the middle lane, Eddie decided that she was probably making a sound choice. But he couldn’t help but wonder what the nod was supposed to mean.
***
THE man walked to a dusty road near the wat and stood patiently until an old bus came rattling along and lurched to a stop. The bus was crowded, as it usually was, people pressed into every crevice of its interior; but if that bothered the man, he gave no sign. Climbing the steps, he dropped several coins into the driver’s out-stretched hand and worked his way back along the aisle until he found a spot that was, at least comparatively speaking, unoccupied. One or two of the other passengers glanced at him, wondering for a moment if the man was a Thai or a farang, but because of the way he was dressed and the likelihood that no foreigner would ever be on such a bus they soon lost interest.
As the bus bounced away, the man made himself as comfortable as he could, rocking forward slightly and shifting his weight directly over his center of gravity, the way a man stood when he w
as accustomed to standing. And he remained that way, hardly moving, during the entire two-hour trip into Bangkok.
After they reached the city’s Eastern Bus Terminal, the man climbed down from the bus and slapped the circulation back into his legs. Then he set off up Sukhumvit Road walking steadily. A little less than an hour later, he turned right and almost immediately left again, entering a short soi from which traffic had been blocked off at both ends.
Neon tubing outlined many of the buildings along the soi and huge signs stuck out from most of them. Names like LOVE SCENE, TOY BAR, AFTER SKOOL, LONG GUN and SUZIE WONG hinted at the delights to be found inside these shophouses, but it was still early. A smoky, mango-colored sunset washed the little street in a wan light, and the neon was dark and motionless.
Here and there, small groups of Thais lounged at broken tables or on the curb eating and chattering among themselves. A girl who looked like a teenager sat sidesaddle on a parked motorcycle jiggling a sleeping baby in the crook of her left arm while she smoked a cigarette. A man in rubber boots wielded a garden hose against the accumulated grime around the entrance to one of the closed bars and, when the stream of water splashed too near, the girl shouted at him in machine-gun Thai. He grinned and kept sweeping the water over the concrete. The baby never stirred.
The man in the clothes of a Thai farmer seemed to be well known in this little village and he acknowledged each greeting with a small smile or a nod. After he had passed, some of the girls laughed self-consciously as if they were embarrassed to have been surprised by the man at such a mundane moment. When he reached the shophouse that was apparently his destination, a gray bunker-like structure wedged between two darkened bars deep in the soi, he ducked quickly into it and disappeared.
The occupants of the street returned to their eating and chattering, all except for two young Thai men who stood slowly, picked up their bowls of noodles, and moved to a pair of metal chairs flanking the door through which the man had just passed. Neither young man was particularly imposing physically, both being small and slightly built, but the way they moved and sat conveyed an unmistakable message to anyone who might have been watching: to pass through that door would mean dealing with them, and dealing with them would not be easy.
***
IT was the third time they roared past a Holiday Inn before Eddie got the idea. When he finally did, he kicked himself that it had taken so long.
He was just thinking how odd it was to find three Holiday Inns on the same stretch of road when he suddenly realized that there weren’t. It was the same Holiday Inn and he was seeing it for the third time. Apparently they were on a freeway that looped the city, and they had been circling around and around it for nearly an hour.
Before Eddie could think of a diplomatic way to ask Short Time if she had any idea at all where she was going, she swung behind a bus, shot diagonally across three lanes, and blasted down an exit ramp. From the angry chorus of car horns that broke out immediately behind them, Eddie gathered that Bar and Winnebago were sticking close.
Back in the rutted streets of the city, Short Time slowed to an inconspicuous speed and drifted along with the evening traffic. She still seemed to be riding without any clear direction, Eddie thought, and it was starting to make him fidgety. Finally, he put one hand on her shoulder and pointed to the curb in an obvious suggestion that they stop and talk things over. She shook her head and kept going.
Before long, however, Short Time was forced to slow the bike to a crawl and edge it through a narrow bottleneck where a fruit vendor was jostling for sidewalk space with two blind men selling lottery tickets. Eddie saw his chance and he took it. He reached around Short Time and flipped off the bike’s ignition. The motor died immediately and, palming the key, Eddie jumped off. Short Time had to drop her feet quickly to balance the bike; then she twisted around on the seat and held her hand out to Eddie for the key. He shook his head.
Winnebago and Bar caught up and stopped just behind Eddie who was standing with his arms folded across his chest. Beyond Short Time, a crowd of Thais had already started to gather, sensing that something interesting was about to happen. When the attraction was a farang arguing with a Thai, the dog packs formed fast.
“You give,” Short Time said, her hand still extended.
“First, tell me where the hell you’re taking us.”
Bar nervously eyed the gathering crowd. His skin had never in his life seemed quite so pale as it did at that moment.
Winnebago glanced around. “Where are we?” he asked Bar.
“I’d say about a mile from where we started,” Bar whispered.
“You mean we’ve just been riding in circles for two hours?”
“That’s about the size of it.”
“You think she’s setting us up, Eddie?” Winnebago called out, giving Short Time a hard look.
The crowd momentarily shifted its attention to Winnebago and Bar tried to make himself as small as possible.
“I save your ass!” Short Time snapped.
“Yeah, but maybe just so you can hand it over to somebody else,” Eddie said.
Short Time’s eyes blazed. “What you want we do after Little Princess? Check into Sheraton maybe and go for swim?”
“I want to know where you’re taking us,” Eddie repeated, his voice even.
“After we leave, other girl call someone meet you. I keep you move until he get there. Seem smart to me, but you fuckers smarter maybe. That right? You smarter fuckers than me?” Short Time’s voice rose to a scream. “Maybe you just told me your better idea we all be happy now!”
The crowd continued to grow, drawn by the spectacle of three white guys who looked to be picking a fight with a Thai girl. A few of the young toughs started edging toward the front, spoiling to be the first to take on the farangs. Four of them split away and slipped behind Eddie.
Bar recognized the signs all too well.
“Either make up fast, partner,” he called out to Eddie, “or we better get the fuck out of here right now.”
Eddie glanced at the boys behind him and saw Bar’s point. After a second’s hesitation, he flipped the key back to Short Time. She caught it, and Eddie cut his eyes behind him and then back to her. Short Time grinned and snapped at the boys in Thai. They immediately went quiet and shuffled around elaborately until their backs were to Eddie. As far as they were concerned, he had just ceased to exist.
“So you scared of few skinny Thai boys, huh? And I think you big, tough marine.” Short Time shook her head in disgust. “Shit.”
“Where are you taking us, Short Time?”
“You no tust me?”
“I no tust anybody.”
And for some reason that seemed to mollify Short Time completely.
“Okay,” she said. “No problem.”
Short Time returned the key to the ignition and fired the starter. The Suzuki turned over immediately and settled into a gentle rumble.
“I take you see someone fix everything. Someone you tust.” Short Time goosed the bike a little and raised her voice just enough to be heard over it. “Another five, maybe ten minute. No more.”
Bar and Winnebago looked at Eddie.
“You go with me or you go fuck yourself,” she snapped. “Same same to Short Time.”
Eddie briefly considered the alternatives, then he let out a long sigh and climbed back on the Suzuki behind Short Time.
“We’ve come this far,” Eddie called back over his shoulder to Bar and Winnebago. “A little further can’t hurt anything.”
“The fuck it can’t,” Winnebago mumbled, but he was firing up the bike when he said it and no one heard him.
***
SHORT Time rode steadily for another ten minutes, then coasted the bike to the side of a quiet, tree-lined street and stopped. She killed the engine, hopped off, and locked the Suzuki to a metal ring cemented into the front wall of a shophouse. With everyone trailing behind her, she walked briskly along the side of the building until they emerged
on the sidewalk of a wide, crowded thoroughfare. The pavement was lined with vendors’ carts and piles of dented metal chests, all of them pushed against the curb and covered with plastic sheeting.
“Where the fuck are we?” Winnebago whispered to Bar.
“Soi Asoke, off Sukhumvit Road. Up that way…” he pointed in the direction Short Time was walking “is Soi Cowboy.”
Winnebago lifted an eyebrow and gave Bar a long look.
“No, really, that’s what it’s called,” Bar said. “Tourists go to Patpong, locals come to Cowboy.”
“Then at least maybe I can get laid before anybody else shows up to kill us,” Winnebago muttered.
Short Time turned left, slipped through a scattering of folding tables and chairs set up by a sidewalk food vendor with ambition, and walked quickly down the same narrow soi along which the man from the wat had walked not long before.
About halfway down, she approached the doorway through which the man had disappeared and spoke quietly to the two boys sitting beside it. One nodded immediately and reached over to open the door, while the other watched the farangs suspiciously as they trooped in behind Short Time.
There were no lights inside the building and it took a few moments for their vision to adjust enough to the grey dimness for them to see clearly. When they could, they realized that they were in an abandoned go-go bar and, from the dust and grime everywhere, it had apparently been abandoned for quite a while. There were tables and chairs shoved around; a darkened stage ringed by flaking chrome poles; stacks of cardboard beer cases along the wall; and a long bar with a dirty mirror behind it.
It wasn’t until Eddie started slowly across the room that Bar and Winnebago saw the man sitting alone on a stool, studying them in the mirror behind the bar. Eddie stopped directly behind him and they held each other’s eyes in the mirror for a long time. When the man on the stool finally spoke, it was without turning around.
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