Bangkok 8

by John Burdett

  She had been complaining about the boredom of country life for quite some time, and her harebrained moneymaking schemes encompassed everything except narcotics, of which she disapproves, although she has developed a taste for ganja in middle life. I’ve discouraged her from illegal immigrants, endangered species, a country brothel, a casino and trying to join a syndicate dedicated to fixing the national lottery.

  Over the telephone recently the hints have multiplied without blossoming into a confession, although the sinister word “premises” has begun to recur with alarming frequency. Now she has had to confess the address because she needs help. Still in pain from the stitches, I take a taxi to Soi Cowboy. The “premises” consist of a small parcel of land between the Wetlips Club and Ride ’Em Bronco, two enormous fun houses employing several hundred go-go dancers in high season. The squashed little pub in between belonged to an Englishman who had inexplicably refused to allow prostitutes on the premises and—my mother explains without looking me in the eye—therefore lost his license because he could not pay the police protection.

  She is wearing black leggings which hug her crotch and bum, a white short-sleeved shirt and a crimson neckerchief. Her hair is in a glistening black plait with a flowery decoration at the tail. Gold hangs from her ears and matches the Buddha who swings from her neck as she yanks at a crate of Singha beer out on the street. She looks fantastic when she smiles at me and smells just like that shop Truffaut used to take us to in the Place Vendôme.

  “But why would he need police protection if he wasn’t running prostitutes?”

  My mother tuts disapprovingly. “You have to maximize profits in this street. Run your money hard, make it work for you. You can’t pursue a romantic dream, that’s the surest way to bankruptcy.”

  I puff out my cheeks and scratch my head. The vocabulary is familiar, but not in her mouth. “You’ve been up to something?”

  “I did a short course in business management. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t need you to mock me and because you don’t have a head for business so you wouldn’t understand.”

  “A course? How?”

  “On the Net, darling. Didn’t I tell you we have broadband now in Phetchabun? A woman doesn’t need to feel in prison at home anymore, she can reach the world with a couple of clicks.”

  I push open the door and see that the building is deeper than it looks from outside. There is a long bar to the right and that atmosphere of dank melancholy which the British like to get drunk in. There is Guinness and a range of English ales on tap behind the bar, nowhere to dance and a romantically old-fashioned jukebox, small tables where balding Anglo-Saxons can have their one-to-ones over their mugs of dark beer and the inevitable dartboard at the end of the room. I know there are such pubs all over Krung Thep and they usually do very well. Not only the British but Dutch and Germans also like to retreat from the flesh trade from time to time into exactly these kinds of oases. On the other hand, it’s true that the rents in Soi Cowboy are amongst the highest in the city, because the street is so successful. My suspicions are mounting all the time.

  “How long did the Englishman run this place, Mother?”

  “Ages. About thirty years. He was ready for retirement.”

  “Just when you were looking for premises?”

  “I’ve been praying to the Buddha for luck for ages. I went to the wat ten times last month and I’ve been burning incense every day.” She looks up at me. “We were gentle with him. Compassionate.”

  “Who’s backing you and what did you do for it?”

  “Sonchai, please, I’m a respectable retired woman. What I did in the past to make ends meet and give you an education is way behind me, you know that.”

  “So how can you afford the rent?”

  A brisk smile and avoidance of eye contact. “I have a partner. A business partner.”

  “Who?”

  “I’d rather not say just at the moment. Can’t you see I’m busy?”

  “Well, I can’t help, can I? I’ve got stitches.”

  She stands up straight after dragging the case of Singha into the bar. Now I see this was a symbolic gesture designed to provoke feelings of tenderness in a loyal son’s heart. A young man in shorts, his bare chest glistening with sweat, emerges from the back of the pub and commences dragging in the rest of the crates which are lined up in the street. “I don’t want you to help with the beer, I want you to help with the plans. They have to be approved by the local police colonel after being endorsed by someone responsible who knows me and can vouch for me. So I thought: Who better than Krung Thep’s most brilliant detective to sign them for me? You know, maybe with a nice stamp or something from District 8.”

  “What’s the use of a stamp from District 8 when this is District 6—” I stop in mid-sentence because I’ve understood. “Why can’t Vikorn sign the plans if someone from District 8 is what you want?”

  She is backing away down the bar as I advance toward her. “He doesn’t want his name appearing directly—everyone will understand when they see—you know—that you’re my son and that you’re in District 8.”

  “Which happens to be where your new business partner is the colonel in charge. Muscle, in other words. Did this all get negotiated in the corridor of the hospital by any chance?”

  Touching her hair. “Of course not. We were both so worried about you, and he would call me up when he couldn’t get to the hospital himself.”

  “Which was every day except one.”

  “Well, you see how precious you are to both of us.” Tossing her head. “I told him I was looking for a business opportunity in town and he told me he had some money to invest, venture capital is what they call it, you know. It was symbiotic.” She uses the English word a little tentatively.

  “What course were you on, exactly?”

  “It was some special thing run by the Wall Street Journal. You can enroll over the Net.”

  I might not have a head for business but I know the street well enough to doubt there really is room for another girlie bar. I also know Vikorn well enough to doubt he would invest in anything that wasn’t guaranteed to succeed. I decide to proceed artfully. “So what d’you want me to do?”

  Enthusiastically: “Well, darling, you know the trade as well as I do. I thought we’d rip out all this nonsense, go for some color, interesting lighting, a nostalgia theme, we could have a little stage right at the end . . .”

  She trails off, at the same time giving me an adoring beam. I’m understanding a little better minute by minute. “You’re going to have an upstairs, aren’t you?”

  Touching her hair again. “Well, it would be silly not to, don’t you think? With this kind of protection, who’s going to bust me?”

  “The police colonel in charge of District 6, that’s who.”

  “My partner advises that that is unlikely, but thank you for worrying about me.”

  “Unlikely? Why? Oh, I know why.” I have remembered that Colonel Predee, who runs the very lucrative District 6, owns a piece of a casino in District 8 and is therefore dependent on Vikorn’s grace. No wonder Vikorn was able to muscle the Englishman out of his license.

  “Yes, well, I don’t know anything about the politics of course. I suppose the two colonels are just very good friends.”

  She follows me up some narrow winding stairs to the second floor, and now I see there is a third floor. “How many rooms were you thinking of?”

  “Ten on each floor.”

  “Ten?”

  “Too cramped?”

  I measure out the length of the corridor, off which there are only three rooms at present. “Mother, they will have to be on top of each other before they enter the rooms. You’re going to have about five feet from wall to wall. The rooms are going to be all bed.”

  “What else, darling? If you think ten is too many, I suppose I’ll settle for nine.”

  “Seven. I’m not putting my name to plans with more than seven. That still only leaves seven feet of
width for each room. You have to give them space to undress. You can’t have them stripping in the corridor, this isn’t the country, you know.”

  “I suppose.” With a sigh: “Very well, let’s settle for seven. I’ll tell the Colonel you insisted on seven. He’s not going to be exactly delighted, you’ve just cut the profits by thirty percent.”

  I clamber up to the third floor, which is a chaos of old mattresses, plastic beer crates, some aluminum beer barrels and musty-looking books. We make our way down the stairs back to the bar. I am shaking my head. “What am I doing, signing plans for a brothel? I hate brothels.”

  “I know, my love, but it’s still the number one business. I’d love to have an Internet café or something, but they just don’t pay. Imagine, you have a room full of farangs who could be renting girls at a thousand baht an hour and instead they’re tapping at keyboards for forty baht an hour. It just doesn’t stack up.”

  “I suppose. What are you going to call it?”

  “Ah! I’ve a surprise for you. We’re calling it the Old Man’s Club.”

  “The what?”

  “You wouldn’t understand, my love, we’ve studied the market. We’re going for a niche. We won’t bother to compete with those glitzy things next door, they can have the thirty-to-fifty crowd. We’re going for the retirement funds. You’ll see. I explained it all to the Colonel after I finished my course—I got the best grades by the way. He went away and thought about it and he agrees. In fact, he thinks I’m brilliant.”

  I’ve been backing away from her as we speak, an obvious subconscious reaction—Is this really happening? Am I really doing this?—and now she has shepherded me into the street where the light is better. I can see it in her face now, I am witnessing that metamorphosis that women’s books sometimes talk about: for more than ten years she has led a peaceful, idyllic life in the country, with all the unbearable boredom that implies, while a great reservoir of ambition has slowly risen in her, co-inciding with the onset of middle age. Her jaw is set, there will be no stopping her now. She is working the strings, I am the puppet. She still looks terrific. She knows she has won by the way I kiss her on the cheek.

  From Soi Cowboy I ride a motorcycle taxi to the Hilton International, where the FBI has summoned me. I take the elevator to her suite on the twenty-second floor, where she is working at her desk on a collection of metallic objects which, I realize after some concentration, are the insides of a gun. The barrel and stock sit calmly in one of the massive armchairs, presiding over their own disembowelment, and she sits me down in the other. The gun and I—I think it is a Heckler & Koch submachine gun, about eighteen inches long with a forged steel stock and parabolic magazine—stare at each other while she talks. On the hotel blotter she takes apart the subassembly and hammer mechanism and stares at them for a moment, before reaching for the ice cream. Mesmerized by the gun, I did not notice the pint of Häagen-Dazs macadamia nut brittle on the corner of the desk. Such is her training that she is able to poke at the mechanism with one finger whilst dipping a plastic spoon into the ice cream with the other hand. To eat alone is a sad and pathetic condition in my country, evidence of social and emotional dispossession. To do so in front of another without offering to share is an obscenity and almost impossible for me to watch. I feel the blood draining from my face as she gulps down a miniature Everest.

  “What’s the matter, you scared of guns?” She takes a small can of gun oil from the desk drawer and expertly allows a single drop to fall on the subassembly. “Oh, I get it, you don’t think I’ve got a license, right? No need to worry, Rosen discussed it with one of your capo di capi, I’m allowed to keep it so long as I use it with discretion. If I do have to use it, there’ll be one of those Thai cover-ups which you know all about. You sure you’re okay? I didn’t think a gun would disgust you all that much. It’s a sprayer, I know, but so are most short barrels, the H and K MP-5K is about the best. Anything larger and I’m going to look conspicuous, aren’t I?” A couple more drops for the hammer base, then she reaches for the barrel and stock and begins to slide the subassembly into the guides of the receiver. “See, I haven’t taken it out since I picked it up from the embassy—they had to send it over for me in a diplomatic bag and you never know how well they treated it. One thing they always tell you at Quantico, look after your piece.” More ice cream. “Anyway, what I wanted to talk to you about is, generally, how do you see the case shaping up?”

  I watch, nauseated, while she eats more macadamia nut brittle, picks up the completed gun, hangs it round her neck from the cord and stands in front of a full-length mirror. From a loose hanging position she is able to aim and fire and perforate herself with a thousand shots in less than—oh, I don’t know, nanoseconds anyway. Quantico meets Hollywood. The unexpected drama triggers one of my perceptions and I see a whole string of previous incarnations standing behind her. American cops are identical to Thai cops at least in one respect. We’re all reincarnations of crooks.

  She catches my gaze. “This really isn’t turning you on, is it? Okay, no more guns, we’ll go for a walk. There’s something in the garden I need you to explain to me.” She strides over to the Häagen-Dazs for a couple more mouthfuls, catches herself. “You want some?”

  “No, thank you,” I reply with relief, feeling as if something very unpleasant has been removed from the carpet.

  “Didn’t think you did. Ice cream really isn’t you, is it? No chili, no lemongrass, no rice, just a pile of Western junk like sugar and dairy products with a ton of artificial flavoring. Tastes great, though.” The Häagen-Dazs goes into the small fridge under the credenza. From a wardrobe she takes out a black fiberglass briefcase which turns out to be custom-molded on the inside for the H&K. She slips the magazine out of the gun, places it in its hollow, then does the same for the gun itself. I see two people here: a girl who loves ice cream, and a consummate professional taking loving care of the tool of her trade.

  Now that the gun and the ice cream are out of sight I take in the view while she disappears into her bedroom. It’s not a New York or Hong Kong skyline, although it’s a modern city these days. I’m put in mind more of Mexico or South America in the way soaring tubes of steel and glass preside over ragged bits of park, hovels, shacks and squatter dwellings. Its true signature, however, is the permanent skeletons of unfinished buildings, their bare bones turning black in the pollution, as if the Buddha is reminding us that even buildings die. It takes training to see the metaphysics behind a failed construction project, though, and I decide not to share my insight with the FBI, who emerges wearing white linen shorts and a white and navy tennis shirt with a YSL label which may or may not be a fake. We ride the lift down to the lobby (Kimberley, the gun and I), and I wait while she checks the black briefcase into the hotel vault.

  Kimberley returns minus the gun with her blond hair bouncing and a smile which could almost make her sixteen. She indicates that we are to descend into the well of the lobby with the subtlest brush of her fingers against my forearm, and we walk side by side out into the swimming pool area. Adjacent to the pool is a canal which is part of the hotel grounds and which leads to a large spirit house festooned with marigolds.

  “Okay,” says the FBI, “could you tell me what these are all doing in the grounds of the Hilton hotel?”

  There may be as many as three hundred of them, ranging from six inches in length to one which is all of ten feet tall. They are arranged in a semicircle around the spirit house and even form a kind of low fencing around the flower beds. They are parabolic with bulbous glans, a tiny slit at the top, and some are on gun carriages with balls hanging down. Some are stone, at least three are concrete and most are wood. Some are painted lurid reds and greens. To the left is a gigantic ficus tree, its aerial roots tangled in passionate embraces.

  “The spirit house is dedicated to the spirit of the tree, which happens to be male.”

  “And this is a Buddhist country?”

  “Buddhist with a lot of Hinduism and an
imism underneath.”

  “I’m surprised the Hilton management put up with it.”

  “They wouldn’t have had any choice. You don’t destroy important shrines—it’s incredibly unlucky. No one wants bad luck, especially not senior management of international corporations.”

  “So who brings all these cocks? Who adorns them with fresh marigolds?”

  “Local women.”

  The FBI walks up to one and stares at it. “Women bring giant dildos to dedicate to the male spirit of the ficus tree? Hmm, food for thought.” She extends a finger and traces the loop of the glans where it meets the shaft. She checks me with a half smile. I think the effects of that antiflirting course are wearing off. I decide not to return the smile, not even my half of it, and am shocked by the anger-cloud which passes over her face. She recovers in an instant and now we are walking briskly back to the lobby and the coffee shop. I’m thinking about the Heckler & Koch when she snaps: “There’s a meeting at the embassy tomorrow, Bradley’s senior officer is going to tell us what he knows, if anything. In the interests of information-sharing, you’re invited to attend. I’ll tell Rosen you’re coming.”

  I think I’m being dismissed, without discovering why I was summoned in the first place. Despite decades of study, I still find the Western mind hard to take, close-up. The expectation that the world should respond to every passing whim (ice cream, cock, target practice) is shocking to this son of a whore. Like most primitive people, I believe that morality arises from a state of primeval innocence to which we must try to be faithful if we are not to be lost altogether. I fear such a conviction would be quaint and pathetic to the FBI, if I ever dared to express it. In Western terms Jones and Fritz are poles apart; to me they are almost identical: two infantile bundles of appetites—except that one is a catcher and the other got caught.