by John Burdett
"What are the names of the Seven Dwarfs?"
I feel I know the answer to this question, but cannot retrieve it without the aid of meditation.
We have ground to a halt in a jam where Wireless Road meets Rama IV. Immediately in front, a small red light swings to and fro at about ten feet above the ground. "Am I seeing what I think I'm seeing?"
"They have to use taillights at night. It's the law."
"I'm feasting my eyes. That must be the only law in Bangkok that's seriously enforced."
We drive around the elephant to turn left into Rama IV, and the stadium is only a few hundred yards further down. Jones' driver lets us out and drives off. The courtyard in front of the stadium is crammed with cooked-food stalls and people eating and drinking, while behind them a crowd roars. Jones flashes her ringside tickets, and we walk through a tunnel which leads directly to the ring, which we walk around. Seats are not numbered, there are a couple of spaces in one corner. The stadium is packed while two fighters are slugging it out. We've arrived halfway through the fight and both men are exhausted. Now I recognize Mhongchai, who is up against his old enemy Klairput. No wonder there is such excitement. In Muay Thai fighters kick when Western boxers jab. Both men are bruised on both sides of their rib cages, and Mhongchai's eyebrow has opened up. It is his main weakness, otherwise he is the stronger fighter. Klairput is too slow with a head kick, which allows Mhongchai to twist his foot between his gloves. The normal tactic is to send him flying to the floor or across the ring, but Mhongchai, the genius, adapts the move by spinning him round and coming in from behind with an elbow smash to the head. Now Klairput is laid out on the mat and the referee is counting. Klairput doesn't bother to get up, he's lost on points anyway so why take more punishment? A great roar from the crowd as the referee declares Mhongchai the winner. In the stalls, people rush to claim their money from the bookies, who stand with wads of banknotes clipped between their fingers, using their knuckles as an abacus. I've always admired the speed of ringside bookies. I used to be one about seventy years ago.
Jones orders a Coke while we wait for the next fight. She sucks a straw while she looks around the stadium and places her spare hand on my thigh. She leaves it there for a provocative thirty seconds before leaning toward me and whispering out of the side of her mouth: "Behind you, at ten to twelve. Wait a minute, then make it smooth and casual." I do as I'm told and scan the seats behind long enough to catch Sergeant William Bradley and his paramour. I sit back in my seat and close my eyes to re-create the image of a huge Negro eating from an American-size tub of popcorn, and the dazzling woman beside him. She has taken the colors and frizz out of her hair and is wearing a green silk blouse, purple shorts. On reflection it is not William Bradley resurrected. This man is not quite so tall and is in poorer shape, gray in his hair. There is a substantial gut under the Hawaiian shirt, his face is puffy and he is slouching. I doubt that William Bradley was a sloucher. The resemblance, though, is uncanny. I look accusingly at Jones.
"It's his older brother. We've been watching him for a couple of days. He took an American Airlines flight to Paris, then Air France to Bangkok, so he's trying to be invisible. I found out from his hotel he was coming here tonight-the hotel sold him the tickets. I never hoped for a double whammy with the woman, though. She probably needs an escort as huge as that, men can't keep their eyes off her. Shit."
What I thought was pique turns out to be professional guilt. Jones looked over her shoulder once too often. Her eyes locked with the black man's for a second, and the giant was on his feet, leading the woman through the stalls and up the aisle to the exit with unexpected agility. There is no way to get to the stalls from the ringside seats, so we rush back through the tunnel and watch while the Negro holds a cab door open for the woman to get in, then ducks in himself, smoothly and quickly. The cab is already driving down Rama IV by the time we reach the curbside. Jones curses. "I never figured he would sit in the stalls. A guy like that always sits ringside."
"Did he recognize you?"
"No, he doesn't know who I am. But he's a professional. He's done a lot of time, he doesn't take chances. That wasn't a runner he did, he was just taking precautions."
Yet another persona is inhabiting Jones' body. She is taut, focused, disciplined. The T-shirt and hot pants belong to the woman she was ten minutes ago and are now redundant as she dials her driver from her mobile to tell him to pick us up. She folds the mobile and says: "Okay, here's what we do. We go to Bradley's house now and hang out there. There's no way Elijah flies fifteen thousand miles without checking out his brother's house, and I'm sure he hasn't done that yet. He'll go at night, try to be incognito. He probably came to the kickboxing to pass the time until he figures it's the moment to go to the house."
"Muay Thai," I correct as we get in the Mercedes.
In the back of the car, Jones says: "They're both Harlem boys, William and Elijah, who chose radically different paths. Elijah has run ice, snow, crack, smack-big-time. He started as a teen and by the time he was twenty he was a millionaire with his own gang. Somehow William wasn't even tempted. A very private personality, very straight. It seemed like he would use sport to get him out of the slum, but he was one of those men who are brilliant all-rounders but don't have a specialization. He was just too big and slow for heavyweight boxing, not lithe enough for professional basketball, too big for anything else. He joined the army at age seventeen and seemed to find his element. He was one of those men who just naturally take to the military life when young, maybe without foreseeing the downside. He was ashamed of big brother Elijah and we think they didn't communicate for more than a decade. William mellowed, though, got disillusioned with the Marines. They talked over the telephone a lot the past few years."
"Elijah is under surveillance?"
"More or less full-time. I managed to get some of the transcripts by e-mail this morning."
"But there was no e-mail between the two on Bradley's files."
"I know, which makes me all the more suspicious. The telephone conversations are mostly bland and carefully nonincriminating. They were up to something. They probably used e-mail addresses we don't know about through Internet cafes. There are just a couple of moments in the telephone conversations when Bill lets his guard down. That guy was seriously worried about income after his retirement. He talks a lot about how expensive his lifestyle is, wonders how he's going to make ends meet-there's a very authentic tone of worry in the early conversations which reaches a pitch when some loan sharks start to threaten him. Then the fear disappears. It's the voice of a man who sees why his big brother did what he did. A man very very disillusioned with the system he's served all his life. Then all of a sudden the tone changes, the sun has come out, William Bradley is happy again."
"Did that coincide with contact with Warren?"
She nods her head slowly and profoundly. "Pretty much."
It takes more than an hour to reach Kaoshan in the traffic. As we approach from the river side I say: "Doc, Happy, Sneezy, Dopey, Bashful, Grumpy, Sleepy."
"Good," Jones says, distracted.
We force our way down Kaoshan and slip into the narrow soi which leads to Bradley's house. I'm impressed that Jones knows to take off her shoes on the outside steps, and even more impressed that she has a key to the downstairs. She opens the door softly and motions for me to follow her inside. We pad across the room, which is in near-total darkness, and arrange some cushions on the floor. She props herself up against a wall while I squat, waiting for my eyes to adjust. A click when Elijah Bradley switches the lights on.
I take in the big Negro, then my mind automatically discounts him as it focuses on his two companions, who wear red checkered headscarves around their necks. Bradley is seating himself uncomfortably in one of the leather chairs after crossing the room from the light switch, while the two Khmer squat on either side. One of the Khmer is holding a machine pistol which could be an Uzi, the other stares at Kimberley Jones. Jones is staring at Elijah,
who is staring at me. Slowly Elijah reaches into his enormous shirt and takes out a stiff brown envelope, which he throws to me. I open it and pull out a legal document in Thai script, which I read. Jones glances at me.
"It's the last will and testament of William Bradley, who bequeaths all property located in Thailand, including this house, to his brother Elijah."
"Which means you all are trespassing, right? Don't you think a little explanation is in order, before we throw you out?" His voice is deep and heavy. I'm surprised at the mild note of hurt.
In Thai I explain to the man with the Uzi that I'm going to reach into my pocket for my police ID, and wait for a consenting nod before I do so. I show Bradley. "And who's the lady?"
"FBI," Jones says.
Elijah nods slowly, frowning. "Well, well, well. I just knew you were all wrong the moment I set eyes on you at the boxing. You don't have any legal right to be here at all, do you?"
"No, no I don't," Jones admits.
"The Thai cop don't have no right either, except a cop can do anything he likes in this town."
I'm fascinated by the cultural divide. For Bradley and Jones I've ceased to exist, just as for me the two Americans have no immediate claim on my attention. I do not take my eyes off the Uzi except to check the other Khmer, who has undressed Jones about twenty times already. Elijah spends a long moment thinking, staring at Jones, biting his lower lip, shaking his head.
"Okay, here's what we do. The cop leaves, you and I have a good old American-style rap and see if we can explore some common interest. Right?"
"Okay," Jones says.
"No," I say. The two Americans gaze at me.
"It's all right," Jones says. "He's saying you'll be my security. Who's going to try anything with you on the outside? You could have an army of cops here in ten minutes, and you know who this man is." She explains the situation kindly, as if to a child. "There's no danger, really."
Culture clash. "How long have you known your friends?" I ask Elijah. "A couple of hours?"
He glances at them slowly, on either side. "I don't need to know them more than a couple of hours, they're my late brother's loyal employees."
"Or jailers. Khmer don't work for anyone except themselves."
"In that case, I let you go and you come back with a couple of your colleagues and arrest them, if you feel so strongly about it."
"You don't understand." My eyes revert to the Khmer who is devouring Jones' legs. Elijah follows my gaze with a frown. "It'll be all over, and they'll be back in the jungles of Cambodia while you're facing a charge of rape and murder, assuming they leave you alive."
Light illuminates Elijah's eyes. He looks at the man with the Uzi, whose boredom might be reaching the limits of tolerance. "They kind of picked me up," Elijah admits. "I know who they are, though."
I am concerned because of where these two have come from, spiritually speaking. There are pits, and pits below pits, pits so deep only the unspeakable survives there.
"Maybe you don't. These are fanatics from out of the jungle who believe history started at year zero in 1978. The worst things you ever saw in Harlem would be light comedy to them. There's nothing I've got that would scare them. A Thai jail is like a five-star hotel compared to what they're used to."
The man with the Uzi yawns loudly and exchanges a glance with his companion, who nods and slides a knife out of a sheath under his shirt. "Aw," Elijah says.
"Don't think you want that kind of rap, Elijah," Jones says. She is holding herself together, but the blood has drained from her face. "They're your boys and the Bureau will extradite you."
"Their English ain't worth a dime," Elijah says. "Not if we talk fast. I can't make enemies of them, though. I have business in this town. Maybe Miss FBI here leaves and you and I talk?"
"That would be a much better idea."
Jones shakes her head and makes a face. "Sure hate to be the girl."
"It's a function of biology," Elijah explains, "and this ain't an equal opportunity situation. Better skit. I don't want the heat and I don't reckon I can control these guys, now that your man has explained them to me." Elijah's eyes have begun to dance from me to the Khmer, to Jones. "Don't suppose you all had the foresight to bring a firearm, did you?"
Jones and I look at each other and shrug. I don't think the Khmer have understood a word, now that we're speaking so fast, but they've seen Elijah's shift of allegiance. A dangerous moment. I stand up and start to shout angrily. I rip off my shirt to show them the long ladder of stitches on the left side of my rib cage, from just under my arm all the way to my thigh. "Did you do this?" I'm yelling. "Did one of you do this?" The man with the knife stands up to take a closer look while Jones makes for the door. He jabbers at his friend in Khmer, and they burst out laughing. Suddenly the man with the knife is hugging me around the shoulders. "It wasn't us," he explains. "The guy who did it had to go back to Cambodia, he could hardly walk." He glances at Jones as she opens the door to leave, but makes no move to stop her. He's fascinated by my stitches and runs a finger up and down them, shaking his head. I am looking at him with clairvoyant vision now: the elongated snout, the leathery wings. He poisons my wound as he prods.
"Nice work," Elijah says, nodding sagely. "Maybe you and I can do business. You being such a switched-on denizen of these parts, maybe you've got some idea how I might get rid of these goons without bringing the ghost of Pol Pot down on my shoulders?"
"Pay them off."
"Now why didn't I think of that? Would you like to do the negotiating? I'm tired of hand signals."
I explain that the black farang wants to do business alone with the Royal Thai Police Force and would like to thank them for their help and assistance. The one with the Uzi plays with it while he talks about the risk of carrying a firearm in Krung Thep, which needs to be compensated for. Maybe they've been out of the jungles longer than I thought, their sense of an itemized account is surprisingly advanced. The final figure is four hundred dollars, which Elijah pays in hundred-dollar bills. We watch them go and Elijah says, "Let's get out of this museum. How about a walk in a street?"
Kaoshan is hopping as usual while we walk side by side. Elijah doesn't draw more than a glance or two, despite his size. Except for his eyes, he could be an overweight middle-aged American on vacation. His eyes never stop scanning. We stop in a bar halfway down the street and he shakes his head as I order two beers.
"That's quite a street. I ain't seen a street like that since the sixties. Harlem is real quiet in comparison. See the two dope deals? What was it, ganja?"
"Probably."
"Both those dealers were cops, right?"
"How did you know that?"
"Too relaxed, too complacent to be ordinary dealers. Every dealer ever worked for me had to suffer from controlled paranoia or I wouldn't use him. Those guys had protection. Do the cops have a bust-and-bribe scam and resell the dope?"
"It's a cottage industry."
The beers arrive and Elijah turns his up and pours it into his mouth until the bottle is empty. He burps and shakes his head. "My next incarnation I'm gonna put in for Thai cop. Pal, you gotta have the best job in the world."
I think of my hovel, my yard-long scar and the snake in Pichai's eye. "Yes," I agree.
33
"Brother Bill was different. He and I shared the same dad, so there ain't no rational explanation how we ended up like oil and water, and I'm not talking about him being a soldier and me being in the pharmaceutical industry. I'm talking about soul. I don't wish to bad-mouth my dead kin, but I have to tell you, since we're talking so intimate here, and you got me so damn drunk, Bill's soul was not the biggest you ever come across. Great souls are great sinners, like me. Small souls commit small sins and become sergeants, mayors, presidents. When he was a kid about fifteen I took him under my wing and tried to educate him. I would walk him down a street just like we did tonight and test him afterwards. 'Did you see those two crack deals go down?' I would say. 'Did you see the iron
that wop was packing? Did you notice, brother dear, that members of the Boyz Love Money gang were mingling on the corner of 115th and Lexington, which is the sovereign territory of the Hoover Crips gang? Some serious violence about to go down tonight. And did it even occur to you, Mr. Universe, that the cute nigger bitch who was coming on to you outside that hamburger joint and massaging your fantasies till the whole world could see your erection was a smack fiend and after your dough, not your cock?' Young Billy never saw anything in other people except the effect of his amazing body. He was neat and tidy, a Goody Two-shoes, which is always a cause for concern. A born peacetime soldier. A born sergeant."
I cast my eyes over the ten bottles of Kloster all lined up around the table and order another. I stopped drinking about an hour ago. "He was brave under fire."
"You talking about that thing at the embassy in Yemen? He called me afterwards, about the first time in ten years. He was shaking and could hardly talk. Frankly, he was scared shitless. Sure, he acted brave, but it was his training took over. Why d'you think they put marines through that kind of torture in boot camp? Exactly so as they'll react like robots. I was proud of him, so was Mother, but he was frightened. That was the only time I heard him talk about getting out early. I think he kind of traded his medal for a long-term posting out here. He had his eye on your town for a long time before they finally consented to let him come."
"Why?"
"Why does any man want to be posted here? Billy was all about sex. That was his thing. Don't get me wrong, I ain't no prude, I just don't think it's appropriate for a middle-aged man to have it on his mind all the time. With Billy it was a kind of sickness. Somehow it went with him being so neat and tidy, so damn perfect. Know what I mean? I told him, 'Billy, in this world money has got to come first. Put anything you like second, but if you don't master dough, it sure as hell will master you.' He saw the light about five years ago, when he first started thinking about life after retirement."
