18mm Blues

by Gerald A. Browne

  Then she found it, kept the tip of her fingernail on the tiny lettering that designated Bang Wan. It was situated on the west coast where Thailand narrowed, about two hundred and fifty miles to the south. “Shit,” Julia said sobering. “That’s by no means a short drive.” She traced the ocher-colored highway that the map indicated was the only way to reach Bang Wan. “And the road’s no interstate, either,” she added.

  Grady merely glanced at where Bang Wan was, and he only half-heard Julia. He was distracted by the name of a village he’d come across on Thailand’s east coast. An out-of-the-way settlement, nothing important or large close to it. “Here’s that place you mentioned,” he said.

  “What place? When?”

  “When we were in Rangoon checking in. You said you’d stayed in a better room in Lam Pam, remember?”

  “Nothing of the sort. You’ve insisted on this before, but believe me those sounds have never come out of my mouth.”

  Grady looked her straight in the eyes.

  Her eyes defied him to see Lam Pam in them.

  Grady had the feeling that he did.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  At nine the following morning when Grady and Julia went down with their luggage Kumura’s car was waiting in front. A white Bentley Turbo R, stretched to order and otherwise customized. The driver was standing his best attentive stance at the open rear door, had a hold on its handle ready to perform the duty of enclosing. He was tastefully liveried in a perfect fit of dove gray gabardine with black accessories, kid gloves and all. He was a Korean, typically chunky, his broad nose and chin emphasized by the shiny black overhang of the beak of his cap.

  As soon as Julia stepped into the roomy plush of the Bentley, her concern over having to endure a daylong drive to Bang Wan was considerably lessened. She took a whiff of the sprig of jasmine that was in a tiny crystal vase permanently attached near the window on her right. She thought there’d surely be a thoughtfully packed lunch in the burled chestnut cabinet. She felt the smooth regardful surge of the Bentley as it got under way. She decided it wasn’t too soon to remove her shoes.

  However, twenty minutes later she was slipping her feet back into them as the Bentley arrived at a private area of Don Muang Airport where a Falcon 50 jet was all checked out, warmed up and idling sibilantly.

  From an impeccable takeoff to an impeccable touchdown at the airport at Muang Mai took only a half hour. There, a similar driver and another white Bentley awaited to transport Grady and Julia, as though they were precious, fragile cargo, up Thailand Route 4 and across the Sarasin Bridge and onward north. Over a paved swath through verdant countryside and every so often a village (Klok Kloi, Wang Thang, Lam Pi and Phan Yai) that speed both brought into view and within seconds stole away.

  Forty minutes of that.

  Then the Bentley turned off Route 4 to be on a freshly paved private road, which after a short ways presented what had to be the start of a developed property—a woven steel fence not quite concealed here and there by a crowded growth of oleanders. Twenty-foot-tall oleanders fronting a twelve-foot-high fence. The sort of perimeter a discrete institution would have, Grady thought, to prevent some from getting out, others from getting in.

  He assumed this was Kumura’s place, didn’t care for the feel of it. He acutely wished he hadn’t been persuaded by his curiosity and Julia to make the trip. All the way he’d been on the verge of that feeling but this was as close as he’d come to retreat. Stop! his imagination ordered the driver, turn around and take us just as nicely back to Bangkok so we can get on with our better life. But to turn back now that they were within a throw of their destination would require a spectacular excuse, he thought. Even if he convincingly feigned something like a slipped disc he’d surely be taken on to Kumura’s.

  He gazed at the monotony of oleander and fence and, finally, those were interrupted for a gate, a heavy high gate with imposing piers. The Bentley didn’t slow for it, proceeded on for at least another mile of oleander and fence before coming to another gate, this one as impressive as the first but for some reason not with the same forbiddance. Perhaps the reason was the pink jasmine that was climbing frivolously up its piers or the more delicate design of its lighter-gauge grillwork, or perhaps it was the way it parted and swung open voluntarily with what seemed to be more hospitality than ritual. Next came the crunching of the pebbled drive beneath the wheels and two gentle bends. The second brought the house into view. It was miniaturized by distance, situated beyond twenty tended acres mainly made up of lawn. The sort of estate-size house one would expect to find in Palm Beach or Santa Barbara and even in those places in an age past. No less than thirty rooms distributed over various levels, winged out and, in the main section, two storied. White stuccoed exterior, red tile roof, arched double windows. Though hemispherically out of place it appeared comfortable here, congruously settled.

  The drive carried into an ample stone-paved courtyard. The Bentley stopped precisely at the main entrance, which had four wide, deep steps up to a landing.

  There was Kumura.

  As the Bentley’s rear door was opened Kumura came with a smile down three of the steps, meeting Grady and Julia more than halfway. “How delightful that you could come,” he said with moderate enthusiasm, as though their arrival hadn’t been a certainty.

  Grady was sure Kumura had been assured of their coming every phase of the way.

  “And on such short notice,” Kumura added a bit apologetically.

  He and Grady shook hands. Grady introduced Julia. Julia extended her hand for an equal shake. Kumura pumped. “I trust it wasn’t a trying trip,” he said.

  “Quite the contrary,” Julia tossed brightly, “we never had to lay a hand on our luggage.” It was evident to her now why Kumura had used the word fetch in his note. He spoke with an educated British accent.

  In appearance, however, he was unmistakably Japanese. Somewhat taller than average but typically slight. His hair was white, not variegated or here and there, but every strand white. Fine hair, a bit receded and sparse. He wore it middle parted. White as it was it helped his impression of immaculateness, possibly even purity. As did his complexion, so scrubbed and healthily pampered it seemed nearly to have a translucency. When he’d greeted Grady and Julia he’d removed his gold wire-framed sunglasses so the warmth of his reception would also be discernable in his eyes. He hadn’t especially dressed for their coming, was wearing white slip-on sneakers, a pale pink short-sleeved linen shirt and tan shorts held by a web belt of a cerise shade.

  Grady put Kumura’s age somewhere on the other side of sixty but not beyond sixty-five.

  “I’ve been looking forward to your visit,” Kumura said as he led the way into the house. “There are so few people I’m able to exchange interesting discourse with these days, particularly in these parts.” He hesitated for a second thought. “But I suppose that’s equally true wherever I might be. Except London, of course, and on rare occasions New York. I invariably get my fill in London.”

  The man seemed to have the world, if only his own, by a string, Grady thought. He’d had no preconception of Kumura, hadn’t, in fact, pictured a Kumura person. It had always only been the pearls, with whoever was behind them anonymous and unapproachable. If he had visualized someone it certainly wouldn’t have been this man who was, now that Grady considered it, too much on the money, analogously pearllike with his pure white hair and rather translucent complexion.

  They were now inside the house, pausing in the spacious reception hall to get used to the sudden gentler half light. The dark patina of polished terra-cotta tile floors and walls of plain white assisted in sustaining the airy coolness of the atmosphere, and like all houses, even those of grand size, this one had its distinctive fragrance.

  Julia inhaled deeply to enjoy the arrangements of cut flowers that occupied the matched pair of gilt consoles off to each side. Grady glanced up at the crystal chandelier, so huge it made him uneasy to be directly beneath it. Ahead were left and right s
taircases that curved up to a second-floor landing.

  “Take whatever time you need to get settled in,” Kumura said, “then come down and find me on the main terrace.”

  Two servants saw to the luggage and showed Grady and Julia the way. Up to the second-floor landing and a wide hallway, past what must have been a dozen closed doors to a large room that was considerately remote. All its windows and doors were as open as possible, and the playful breeze that was entering had the sheer white panels billowed and the mosquito netting around the bed waving at itself.

  Grady looked out the window to get his bearings. Down an easy slope about two hundred yards from the house was a beach, marked by several sizeable cabanas, the portable European type, bleached muslin fitted over a metal frame. The long blue and green split pennants that streamed from the peaks of the cabanas provided a festive touch. The beach wasn’t right on the ocean, but rather on a bay of it. Two miles across the way was what made it a bay, a barrier strip of land, only visible now through the haze because of its darker color. Beyond that, Grady decided, would be the open sea. A nice layout, he thought.

  “Well, shall I unpack or what?” Julia was saying. She had the luggage zipped open.

  “Huh?”

  “Are we going to stay or just stay overnight?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “If it’s going to be only overnight we could rough it, don’t you think, live out of our suitcases? At least I know I could.” She toed off her shoes again. “You, though, I don’t know how you’d be able to find what you need in this mess.” She plucked a soiled sock from his crushed and disordered things. “Are you all out of clean undies too?”

  “Yeah. I’m wearing the not too awfully dirties.”

  “Can’t have that.”

  “I figure as long as I keep my person clean I’ll last until home.”

  His person, she thought. Her person, she thought. An old heavy thought. She dropped it. “So are we or aren’t we?” she asked. “Do I or don’t I?”

  “You call it.”

  No indecision. She went right at it, transferring things neatly to the drawers of the commode and hanging whatever required hanging in the closet. She was sure his suits, especially his linen jackets, were wrinkled beyond recovery.

  Grady, meanwhile, had flopped deadweight faceup on the bed. “I could do with a nap,” he said.

  “You slept well last night.”

  “How do you know? You were sleeping.” He did a major sigh. “I feel wasted, really.”

  “Low blood sugar,” said Julia, giving her diagnosis.

  “Low, that’s for sure,” he mumbled.

  “How’s the bed?” she asked.

  “Better than Burma but the mattress is too soft.”

  “Want me to ask for some boards?” she said with a tinge of strained tolerance.

  “To put under it you mean?”

  “Yeah.” She was unpacking nonstop. “Is it the kind of mattress that we’ll both end up sunk in the middle of?”

  “Won’t we anyway?”

  “Not if you’re wasted.”

  “I’ll revive. You’re probably right, low blood sugar.”

  “Doesn’t matter, not as far as I’m concerned. I’m for a fortnight of celibacy.”

  He waited a long beat before saying “Me too,” drawing the words out as though at last he was reprieved. He got up and hugged her from behind. She used total impassivity to get free. He did a nonchalant shrug and decided to help by taking their toiletries and other such needs into the huge marble bathroom. “What do you want, the left or the right sink?” he asked out to her.

  “The right,” she said, definitely, as though it mattered.

  Ten minutes later, after freshening and changing into shorts, they went down and found their way to the main terrace. It was hardly missable, as the better part of the rear of the house opened onto it. A linear terrace thirty feet deep, two hundred long, the roof of it supported by a series of graceful arches. From anyplace along it the rear grounds, lawn, planted beds, cascades and all, were accessible by way of eight shallow steps. Blue wisteria and pink bougainvillea had captured the columns that formed the arches, and huge to incidental stone planters were grouped around to have mock orange, camellias and hibiscus close by.

  Kumura was at the far end of the terrace seated at a large round table covered by pale blue linen. He noticed Grady and Julia immediately and beckoned them to him, as though anxious to have them near. He dabbed at his mouth with a napkin as he stood for Julia and acknowledged Grady. Thus far, none of his mannerisms or gestures had been Oriental. He offered them chairs with a sweep of his arm. “Normally,” he said, “I breakfast late or lunch early, whichever suits the whim of my appetite. You’ll have to tolerate me.”

  It occurred to Grady that if he had Kumura’s means he’d sure as hell set his own hours. He noticed an edition of the Manchester Guardian lying on the table and folded just so; propped up in a silver holder to permit reading it hands-free was a London Times.

  “I do hope you’re hungry,” Kumura said pleasantly. “I certainly am. Mind if I continue?”

  “No, please do,” Julia told him. “I’m famished and Grady has terribly low blood sugar.”

  No sooner said than the servant standing by at a side table prepared two plates with portions from several covered sterling silver dishes. Shirred eggs, Irish bacon, Scotch sausage links and scones. The scones were nearly split through. Grady watched Kumura load one with strawberry jam and dollops of cream. Grady followed suit.

  “My favorite, Devonshire splits,” Kumura said.

  “Mine too,” Grady fibbed.

  They toasted with their scones before taking bites. Grady found it impossible to not be sloppy, got jam and cream down his fingers all the way to his palms. Kumura was practiced, didn’t nibble but his bites were gentler.

  “Fortnum and Mason sends me things each week,” Kumura said, “delicacies and what I consider staples, certain spreads and tins of stuff. It knows my tastes by now. I bloody well panic when at least one cupboard isn’t full.”

  A concurring mmmm from Julia, as though that had also been her experience. Now, having heard Kumura more she was even more off balanced by his long a’s and o’s and short i’s. No doubt, she thought, he’d been educated in Britain, probably sent there by his family, however that wouldn’t have entirely swept the Japanese from the corners of his vocabulary. He must have gone on practicing and perfecting and erasing accent long after his school and university years.

  Kumura paused from eating, looked Grady’s way, anticipating what would be next because it was time for it. The question.

  “How did you know I was in Bangkok?” Grady asked.

  “An acquaintance, well, actually I should say a connection at the Oriental informed me. When anyone of interest or importance stops over there I’m apprised of the fact.”

  “Why?”

  “In case I might consider it useful.”

  “Useful?”

  “Being in this off-track part of the world for any length of time has its pleasures and advantages, however it can get to be a sort of creeping mildew if you allow it. Thus, one must reach out for diversion, make the most of what comes.”

  That seemed reasonable to Grady. Interest or importance Kumura had said. Grady doubted he qualified for either, considering Kumura’s league. “What do you know about me?” he asked straight across, expecting Kumura either to admit he knew nothing or, more kindly, claim having heard good things generally from various people and hope Grady would let it go at that.

  Instead, Kumura recited, without commentary, Grady’s past fifteen years in one unpunctuated sentence, from when Grady chose Larkin and gems over landscaping to his severance from Havermeyer and Gayle and even on to Grady’s efforts to establish his own business in the Phelan Building. Kumura ended it with a signal to the servant for more coffee.

  Grady was overwhelmed and perplexed and flattered that so much of him had been in Kumura’s head. He
decided to heed his dealer’s side and not ask Kumura to take him further down this road. There was a lot more to it, had to be, but it would come out.

  “Now me,” Julia challenged. “You know absolutely nothing about me.”

  “Ahhh, you,” Kumura charmed, “You’re like a Foujita sketch in invisible ink.”

  Julia enjoyed that.

  Grady was feeling much better now that he’d eaten. Perhaps low blood sugar really had been his problem. More likely the restorative had been Kumura’s words. Whichever, he was thoroughly relaxed and it had been a good five minutes since he’d given a thought to either the lost rubies or San Francisco.

  Julia and Kumura were now discussing the merits of Tsuguharu Foujita, who’d lived and painted in Paris in the early years of this century. That was out of Grady’s conversational repertoire, so he just let them go at it. He looked down to the bay. The sun was striking it differently now, and he could see several small motorized boats on it, some stopped, others buzzing around. Also, the surface of the water, the uniform texture of it, was interrupted in some places by rectangular sections of some sort of floating material. The distance prevented Grady from deciding those were bamboo rafts, until Kumura told him. “This afternoon I’d like to show you around our operation.”

  “You’re pearl farming here?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Is that well known?”

  “It’s far from a secret, but we do keep a low profile.”

  “Looks to me like a great location for it,” Grady said to help the impression that he wasn’t totally unknowledgeable. What he knew about pearl farming was what he’d read, which was considerable, but here with Kumura he was on actual unfamiliar ground.

  “I have a hundred-year lease on the water and I’ve owned outright the land all around since 1970,” Kumura said. “The instant I set eyes on this bay I realized how ideal it would be for the growing of pearls.” It was one of Kumura’s business victories, and he liked talking about it, went on to describe the special characteristics of the bay, how it was protected from the temperament of the sea and the fury of storms. “We had damage from a particularly vicious typhoon several years back but that’s been it. More than I can say for the original Kumura installation at Ago Bay.”