The reception area wasn't that big and it was crammed with all kinds of deadbeats, drunks and hookers. The deadbeats was mostly Thai men. And the drunks was all Western guys, even though a lot of 'em could of been fitted in the 'deadbeat' section too. It looked more like a whore house than a hotel. And it was only four in the evening.
A little bell-guy in uniform took 'em over to the elevator, and when the doors opened, there was two half-dressed women in there. It was kind'a their office. They must of rode up and down all day preying on tourists. When they saw Waldo with Saifon, they assumed what most people did, that he'd already gotten his gal.
The semi-naked broads was angry. This was their territory. They said something to Saifon in Thai. She answered 'em in English.
"I'm sorry. I don't understand." She smiled even though she knew what they'd said.
"You no Thai? You looks like Thai."
"Where you come from?"
"I'm American."
"Yankee? Right on."
They looked at the big fella.
"You wanna go three way?"
"Maybe four. Okay?"
"No. Thank you."
In the surprisingly nice room, the bell-guy showed 'em how to switch on the TV, and the air conditioner, and offered 'em things to smoke, swallow, inhale or inject. They politely refused.
It hadn't occurred to either of 'em to get two single rooms. The two beds was so small, when Waldo lay down on one, he looked like a hippo on a wafer biscuit.
"Maybe we should of gotten two doubles," Saifon shouted from the bathroom. She was bursting for a pee, but I guess you really didn’t need to know that.
"No. It's okay. I'm so bushed I could sleep standing up. Hey, Saifon."
"Yeah?"
"What's a three way?"
She laughed.
"It's where you get to be the beef in a burger."
"Oh. I see." (He didn't.) "Ain't you tired?"
"Yeah. But I got a call to make first."
-o-
By the time she got around to it, there was more noise coming out of Waldo asleep than out of the pig waiting room at the meatworks. So she went down to reception and called from there. It weren't much quieter.
She made her appointment and was feeling pleased with herself until this scrawny little English guy from Yorkshire or some other darn place where people ain't learned how to speak right, come up to her. He was wearing a string singlet and soccer shorts. He'd been out in the sun for the first time in his life and was glowing like a stoplight. He breathed beer in her face.
"All right. Come on. You'll do."
"I'll do what."
"Blimey. One who speaks English at last. How much for sucky sucky?" He demonstrated with his thumb.
"Sucky sucky?"
"Aye. Hurry up. I'm already half mast." Before she could stop him, he grabbed her hand and put it on the flagpole. She pulled away and got that evil look in her eye that spelled trouble. She cleared her throat and straightened her spine.
"Well, hell. We'll sure have to do something about that, won't we." He had barely enough time to raise a smile before her knee solved his half-masting problem for the day, and probably many more days to come. He went down like a blown tire and his stoplight red turned to green.
She wasn't sure he could hear her but she told him anyway,
"There's whores, and there's ladies. Ninety-nine point nine percent of women in this part of the world are ladies. I'm a lady. You should'a asked."
38
Look, I'm gonna have to call me a time out here. It's crossed my mind that most of you out there got no idea where Laos is, or what the heck was going on there when Waldo and Saifon was in the region. There's probably some of you don't give a hoot.
But I believe, if you're planning to enjoy the rest of this book, you gotta really understand what the hell I'm yakking on about. I guess I could put in bits of knowledge here and there so you pick it up accidental like. But you probably spotted already that I ain't exactly Hemmingway, and I ain't much good at being subtle.
So, here's what I'm gonna do. I found this book, see. It's like a history book but it don't use no fancy words. So even you can probably understand it. I found a bit that talks about Laos in the sixties and seventies. Well, I copied it out and I'm gonna stick it in about here.
I know. I know what you're thinking. But it ain't exactly stealing you see. My dear departed English teacher taught us all how to do para-sailing or something-or other. All you gotta do is change words here and there and no one can tell.
You might notice a slight change of style round about here. Hope it don't spoil your reading.
By 1970, the population of Laos had declined (that means 'got smaller') by a third, to a little over two million. Those who hadn't died in the bombing had fled to neighboring Thailand. Although the news hadn't made it into the newspapers back home, America had been using Laos as a secret base to attack North Vietnamese positions since 1964. That was bad news for the Lao as the Vietnamese supply route, the Ho Chi Min Trail, ran plum through Laos.
During their secret war, the Americans dropped two million dollars worth of bombs on Laos every day for nine years. Shit. That worked out to half a ton of ordinance for every man, woman and child in the country. As the pilots were instructed not to bring back any B52s, those that weren't used on the enemy were dumped indiscriminately. The Air America pilots all based inside Laos wore no uniforms and didn't appear on US Government payrolls. Officially, they didn't exist.
The war was coordinated by the CIA from a headquarters near the Lao border in the Thai province of Udon Thani. In order to limit the influence of Laotian communists, the CIA had been shoring up a number of corrupt and inefficient Lao governments even long before the secret war began. The Royal Lao Army was funded almost entirely from Washington, and the capital, Vientiane, enjoyed an inflated war time economy that the rest of the country didn't get a share of. Vientiane in those days was a city of drugs and brothels and uncontrolled profiteering.
The Lao socialist movement, the Pathet Lao (PL), was largely a Vietnamese creation. It's senior members all had direct or familial connections to North Vietnam and were trained by the Viet Cong. But the Pathet Lao found sympathy and ready recruits to join its ranks among rural Lao families bombed for no damned reason by supposed allies.
Another reason for public interest was the royal presence of Prince Souphanouvong as a leading cadre of the Pathet Lao. The "Red Prince" had been converted to communism whilst working on the docks at Le Havre along with another convert, Ho Chi Mihn. While the Red Prince led communist troops in the North, his half brother, Prince Souvanahphouma (and you don't have to learn all these names) was heading various CIA puppet governments in Vientiane.
Because of a natural Lao reluctance to wage civil war against its brothers and sisters, the CIA was forced to recruit most of its ground troops from minority, Hmong villagers in the mountains. It was thanks to the Hmong the CIA was able to hold off the Vietnamese as long as they did.
There were still around 200,000 US troops in Vietnam as we entered 1971 (when Waldo and Saifon arrived in Bangkok). While Nixon refuted accusations that Laos and Cambodia had suffered incursions, there were constant US supported South Vietnam raids across both borders to hunt out Viet Cong bases. In February, a massive invasion of Laos was planned.
So you see when Waldo and Saifon arrived, they didn't know nothing about what was happening in Laos cause it was all a goddamn secret. (This is me speaking again by the way) Now you gotta hand it to them CIA guys, hiding a whole frigging war for nine years. It's hard enough hiding an illicit moonshine still in the woods. You'd think someone would of heard something wouldn't ya?
It sure didn't get to Waldo and Saifon's ears. They thought they was perfectly safe. They thought there was two fat ass countries between them and the war. But they was heading right for it. Exciting or what?
-o-
Saifon thought she was getting everything sorted out. She had this phone number you s
ee. It'd been with her for fifteen years. When she first got away from the traffickers and she was being uncooperative with the social services, this woman come to see her.
They was looking for a place for Saifon to live. Some family dumb enough to take in a wildcat without no English. You can imagine folks like that weren't queuingaround the block.
So this Lao wife of someone important comes all the way from DC just to see her. She couldn't understand why. And this pretty old lady sits Saifon down and talks to her. She just talks. Don't ask no questions or nothing.
There'd been this interpreter come to see her before. He weren't that friendly and he asked all these direct questions she didn't feel like answering at the time. She didn't know where she was or why, so why should she answer questions? But this old bird didn't ask her nothing. She talked on about where they was, and what was happening there, and the price of milk, and all.
An hour she talked and no one's sure if it was because Saifon was afraid she wouldn't never stop talking, or if she just got ready, but she started talking back. Everyone was amazed. She didn't tell the pretty old lady what happened to her. No, she wasn't ready for that. But she talked a lot and it made her feel better. The woman never pushed. She told her if she was ready to talk about stuff she should give her a call. She wrote down her name and number in Washington. She wrote it in Lao and English and both of 'em was equally useless. Saifon couldn't read then.
-o-
Fourteen years passed before she was ready to talk. In them fourteen years she'd run away from a state home and three do-good church-going foster families, quit school, had a million jobs, and lived more on the street than under a roof.
She'd been raped, but she'd never whored. She had some damn fool notion inside herself that her body wasn't something for sale. Somewhere along the line she'd picked up dignity. It weren't the 'not living in cars or peeing in bushes' kind of dignity. It was the 'too proud to beg, too proud to sell your booty' kind.
God knows she could of bought herself out of her shitty life if her dignity hadn't stopped her. She saw other girls living okay by spreading their legs, but they looked kind'a naked to her, even when they was dressed in their expensive clothes. They didn't have no dignity and she did. If she lost that, she'd be frigging nothing.
So it was. After them tough fourteen years, once she'd decided to be Bat Woman and save the world, she phoned the number in Washington. It was the goddamned Lao Embassy compound. They told her the woman had left the States some ten years before. But after some very persuasive cussing, they hunted around and found a number for her. It was a number in Bangkok, which was odd, but better than nothing.
-o-
There in the reception of the Malaysia Hotel she'd phoned the number without a lot of hope in her heart. Old people got a nasty habit of dying. She was already old back then in New York. She would of been old plus by now.
But what do you know? This crunchy old voice answers the phone. The conversation went something like this:
"Hello?"
"Is that Mrs. Pornsawan?"
"Yes it is. Who's speaking please?" Saifon got kind'a choked up for a while. "Hello."
"Yeah. Well, you probably don't remember me, but my name's Saifon."
"Yes?"
"I met you fourteen years ago, in New York. I was about eight at the time and … you come from Washington to talk to me. You give me your number. I guess you don't remember."
"On the contrary. I remember you very well. You were giving the social services people a hard time. I believe you bit a nurse who was trying to test your blood." Saifon laughed.
"Yeah. That must of been me."
"And are you ready to talk to me yet?"
"If you got time to listen."
39
Mrs. Pornsawan give her the address and they arranged to meet the next day. That's why Saifon and Waldo was on a dirty cream-coloured bus jerking its way through the crazy streets of Bangkok. The bus was crowded so there weren't nowhere to sit. Waldo took up so much space he stopped ten normal-sized Thais from getting on. He was still getting a kick out of all the sweating. The folks on the bus and in the street looked at him like he was Godzilla. It didn't worry him none. He just smiled at 'em and they smiled back and not one bird dropped out of the sky.
"Hi. How you doing?" he asked 'em, and they laughed and he felt happy. It didn't occur to him once that they might of been making fun of him.
Saifon wasn't embarrassed. She wasn't the embarrassing kind.
They arrived at Ngam Duphli Street a long time after they should of. The bus didn't move no faster than the houses in Mattfield traveling down to Roundly's. Plus when they got to where they thought they was going, they found out they'd given 'em the wrong information at the hotel. In fact the address they wanted was about four minutes' walk from the frigging hotel. Saifon was pissed. Waldo was happy as a drunk. This sure beat Indiana in his book.
They arrived at the big old brick house a couple of hours after the appointment. Saifon hated being late. But she got the idea it was expected in Bangkok. Mrs. Pornsawan opened the door herself. She was a lot skinnier than Saifon remembered her, real old in fact. Her skin was stuck to her bones like tissue paper. But them pretty almond eyes was still in their sockets smiling at her guests.
She welcomed Saifon in Lao, then for Waldo's benefit she switched to English.
"Welcome to my house. My goodness. You've grown into quite a beautiful young lady." Saifon blushed out loud. Waldo beamed and held out his hand.
"How are you ma'am? My name's Waldo. I'm Saifon's daddy." The old lady shook his big old hand and didn't look in the least surprised.
"I'm so pleased she found a daddy with such a nice smile." Waldo laughed. "Won't you both join me for a cool drink in the garden. Mr. Waldo, I can see you're finding our tropical heat a little moist."
"I'm sweating like a hog on a spit, ma'am." Saifon nudged him in where his rib could of been and he got the idea he'd spoke in bad taste again. But Mrs. Pornsawan seemed to enjoy a bit of bad taste. She chuckled all the way to the back of the house.
"The yard was like a little jungle with one of them white gazebo things in the middle of it. There was a big fan on the ceiling and the temperature out there was some ten degrees cooler than the street.
Once they'd got settled, there was Saifon and Waldo, Mrs. Pornsawan and a little quiet guy sitting round a white iron table on white iron chairs. She did introduce the quiet guy but it was one of them names with more letters than the entire alphabet, so Waldo decided to forget it before it over-taxed his mind.
The quiet guy was about the same age as the old lady with dyed black hair and a black pencil moustache. He must of been good looking in his day but he was squeezing the tube now.
Saifon blurted out the people-smuggling story as soon as she could. The others sipped on tall glasses of iced red stuff. A little square girl in a long skirt kept on running out of the house and topping them up.
When Saifon was through and any questions was answered, the old lady nodded her head.
"I thought something like this at the time. I wish you'd been able to talk about it then." She caught Saifon's frown. "Oh. Don't worry. I understand perfectly why you couldn't."
"Why'd you come and see me in New York?"
"You were the only live one we had." Waldo's straw had buckled and he was sucking like his life depended on it. He give up and looked over.
"You had dead ones?"
"Yes, Waldo. There were possibly two before Saifon. One was certainly Lao. She was able to say a few words before she died at the hospital. There was an expatriate Thai nurse on duty in emergency that night. If she hadn't been there, we would never have heard about it. The nurse recognized the language and went over to listen. She managed two sentences; 'They sold me,' and 'The Chinaman bought me.'
Then she gave in to her injuries. She had been repeatedly …abused over a long period. There were no missing children reports so the police came to see us at the embassy. My husb
and was the Lao ambassador at the time. He was busy with the matter of rescuing the country so he handed the matter to me."
Waldo felt sick about the story but real proud to be sitting next to an ambassador's wife. Given Waldo's normal social circle, this was almost as good as a queen, he reckoned. He got super respectful.
"That was a shocking story, your majesty, but …"
"Waldo, you may call me Porn."
He was honored, but he didn't think he could ever bring himself to call a high class lady something dirty like that. She went on.
"Following that first death, the police were looking for repeats. There was one other, a girl around the same age. They found her washed up in New York Harbour. She could have been Lao. She wore wrist strings typical from a Lao ceremony. But she was dead so we couldn't be sure.
You, Saifon, were the third. That's why I went to see you. The police and the embassy really needed some help to solve these murders." Saifon raised her eyebrows.
"Gee. I'm real sorry."
"As I said, it was no fault of yours. You were quite traumatized."
"Why do you suppose they'd go to the trouble of smuggling kids all that way, Mrs. …Porn?" Waldo asked.
"As they were all girls around the same age, I have to assume it was for sex." Waldo went through four shades of brown before landing on something purple.
"Sex? But … but these was little girls."
"Exactly."
"Waldo's got a real pretty view of the world, Mrs. Porn. He don't see people for what they really are," Saifon put in. "It's been fifteen years. You don't suppose them people are still selling kids do you?"
"It's unlikely. The embassy in Washington didn't hear of any more cases after yours. But, as I truly believe people will continue to do wrong for as long as they get away with it, it isn't completely out of the question. And with the ongoing war, there's more access to orphans and to transportation. There's plenty of money to be made in trafficking people."
Pool and its Role in Asian Communism Page 9
