Glaring out of the front page was this big picture of old Waldo's smiley face with teeth all over the frigging place and some brown woman holding onto his arm like they was married or something.
"What the f …? What's it say?"
"It says they were rescued."
Saifon sort of collapsed on the couch like all her joints come unglued at the same time.
"But …but I saw the frigging body. There was blood all over the place." She didn't know whether to cry or dance.
"It says they faked the death pictures."
"They faked ..? The sons of bitches. They kept me awake for three frigging nights."
"Ah. Now I understand why you've been such a pain in the bottom since you got here. You thought Waldo was dead."
"I tell you. He really will be when I get my hands on that big burnt sienna son of a …" Tears was streaming down her face like Niagara Falls. "He won't have to fake nothing when I'm done with him." Mrs. P hugged her.
"You should have told us, dear. You should have shared your grief."
"I ain't that good at sharing." She was pretty damned good at shaking though.
64
It took the freighter three weeks to get to the US. It didn't go to New York like they did fifteen years before. It went straight to Norfolk so it could start loading up with supplies for Nam. The Customs was never too fussy about searching an empty American ship when they had so many full foreign ones to keep 'em occupied. So, as usual, the crew just marched the kids down the gangway to a waiting station wagon. The driver took 'em overland to a place just outside Washington where they got fed a real meal and cleaned up. The next morning they was dressed up real pretty and dragged on over to the Lido.
The Lido was a private cinema, the type of place you could rent for functions or dirty film showings. The owners just took your money and left you alone. This morning in question there wasn't no film showing. There was a meat market. There was an auction of little girls. Since the early days of mistakes in New York, the smugglers had streamlined the business. They only dealt with Asian or Asian-American brokers. They was all regulars and they knew when the next shipment of girl meat was coming in. The goods was inspected, the dealing was done fast, and the satisfied customers would leave with their property in under two hours.
The security was strict, but for once the FBI operation didn't get screwed up. They rounded up eighteen guys in suits and rescued nine girls. At the same time there was a series of arrests at the docks in Norfolk. Then there was CIA monitored arrests at the docks in Bangkok, raids at the houses of all the company officials, and a commando-style raid on the compound in Mukdahan.
The arrests in Washington pushed over a whole goddamned domino trail of contacts and suspects and villains all the way up through to New York. They all sung like canaries, cause basically, guys that do this kind of thing are all chicken-shit cowards. Let's face it, if a guy's gotta use a nine-year-old girl to get his rocks off, he sure ain't a man. Know what I mean?
65
Saifon forgive Waldo for being dead when he got to Bangkok, but she sure made him suffer first. The case of the kidnapping and trafficking of little Lao girls saw so much attention in the papers and on TV in Bangkok, Jaroon the shipping clerk was already tried and convicted by the population. But, back then, it didn't matter a queer coyote what the population thought. All that mattered was how much he was prepared to pay to blindfold old lady justice. If they didn't lynch him on the way to court, he had a fifty-fifty chance of getting let off.
So on the second day of the trial, after folks'd read in shock about what went on the day before, even more of 'em turned out to show their support. They was everywhere, up trees, balancing on fences, trying to catch sight of the witnesses and the accused. There was press and cameramen and ladies in bleached out skirts selling charred chicken wings.
It weren't like in the US where they have ushers to keep out the rabble. If you was rabble and you could squeeze in, you squeezed. There was a hundred or so people crammed in the twenty-foot square room. They'd been smart enough to get there early. There was one ceiling fan doing its dangdest to stir up the stale breaths that filled the court already. But it was hotter'n hell in there.
Waldo sat beside Saifon on the front bench. It was supposed to be for witnesses but there was rabble there too. Cameras was flashing at 'em, and questions was flying at 'em, and by nine of the morning when it was all supposed to start, there was a circus feeling in that little room.
The two prosecutors sat up front on their perch on the left, and the two lawyers was on the right. One of the lawyers sat behind a red nose that generated as much heat as the sun was doing. He reminded Waldo of Divine and wondered if he got his from gin, too. They was all flapping official documents in front of their faces to try to cool things down. But them long black capes they was all wearing didn't help none, less they was packed in ice underneath.
The four little girls, just arrived back from the States, had faced their interrogation on day one. Saifon wasn't allowed to be in there with 'em 'cause she was a witness herself. That rosy nosey lawyer bamboozled them poor little girls with big language. He called 'em liars and had 'em all crying and tripping over each other's stories.
By the end of the day, they was so confused not one of 'em could positively identify Jaroon the clerk, even though they all knew it was him. Don't forget these was Lao girls. Thai and Lao languages got a lot in common, but they didn't understand most of what they was being asked. In them days, nothing in the law said the lawyers and the judges had to make things simple for 'em. So they was answering yes when they meant no, and no when they meant yes.
-o-
It was nine thirty on day two by the time the accused turned up in the room. There was booing and hissing from outside before he appeared through the back door. It was probably wise they didn't bring him through the front. He was chained by the ankles and had to hold it up so he didn't stumble. He was wearing dark blue pajamas and a nasty smirk. He didn't look too concerned about his situation, if you know what I mean. He looked at Saifon but he didn't recognize her from her visit to his house.
A minute later, three old guys in black robes come in through that same back door which set a lot of people wondering. They climbed up on the highest perch right at the front of the room and set the ball rolling. The audience shut up at last, 'cept for the babies.
The judges spent a while summing up what happened the day before. Waldo didn't understand nothing and Saifon wasn't of a mind to interpret all the legal stuff she was struggling with herself. While they was waiting for the trial, Mrs. Porn had give her lessons in law jargon and how to stay polite, even when you're fuming inside.
The time come for Saifon to go sit on the witness chair, and if she'd heard right, things was looking good for Jaroon the clerk. She was the only other eye-witness and what she'd seen was sixteen some years before. There was a lot of space for error there.
When they called her name she stood and walked forward to the witness seat. She was looking real elegant and poised in a nice dark silk suit Porn leant her. She sat down real calm and crossed her ankles so them horny judges couldn't see up her skirt. She smiled at the lawyers and waited.
She got through the basics without no mistakes; name, age, nationality, and all that. But then rosy nosey started to get frigging personal.
"What do you do for a living, Miss Saifon?"
She waited for the prosecutors to object but they just sat there.
"I'm a professional singer."
"And what kind of establishments do you sing in?"
"What type? I sing in music restaurants."
"Music restaurants? I've never heard them called that before." He laughed. The prosecutors didn't object to that, neither. "Isn't it true that you were working in a brothel in Savannakhet for the past month?"
She didn't even flinch.
"No."
"No, what? No it isn't a brothel or no you weren't working there?"
She lo
oked up at the judges.
"Sirs? I thought I was here as a witness in the trial of that scumbox over there. I didn't realize I was on trial myself."
Rosy nosey got in before they could answer.
"Judge, I need to establish the moral background and therefor the reliability of the state's prime witness."
"Why, hell," she smiled. "Why don't you just ask me if I'm a whore?"
The lawyer's nose kinda spread to the rest of his face and the audience chuckled.
"Very well. Are you, or have you ever been a prostitute?"
"No."
She was doing a real good job of not thumping that tomato of a nose.
"I remind you, you have sworn to tell the truth."
"Well, that's an interesting mess you gotten yourself into, ain't it? Here you are checking on my morals to see if I can be trusted to give evidence against your client. But now your telling me I swore to tell the truth so I can't be doing no lying. That means you ain't gonna believe me one way or the other.
But let's suppose I am a prostitute. You know it don't make a shit of difference as to how honest I am. There's honest whores and there's lying whores. Just like there's honest lawyers, and lying ones. 'Cept you don't get to see too many honest ones."
The audience let out a little whoop and she swore she saw two of them judges smile. The prosecutors just sat there like they was poached. It was getting obvious where Jaroon the clerk had his money invested. The lawyers gathered 'emselves for a counterattack.
"Miss Saifon, when do you claim you saw the defendant, Mr. Jaroon?"
"I claim I saw the defendant in June, 1955."
"You must have a remarkable memory. Can you give us the exact date, please."
"Well, I'm sorry. I can't "
"You can't give us a date? Then how can we establish where the defendant was on the day in question?"
"Well, that's easy. I can tell you. He was beside me on a cot with his hand up my skirt." The audience kinda booed when they heard that, and the middle judge told 'em to shut up again. Then he told Saifon to just answer the questions that was asked. She thought she had. Rosy weren't finished.
"If it was such a big day in your life, pray tell us why you can't remember the date."
"I was an eight-year-old girl straight out of Laos. We didn't have no electricity, no newspapers …"
"No education."
"No education don't make you stupid. A lot of stupid people graduate from universities."
"Of course we aren't suggesting you're stupid. Your imaginative use of our Thai language tells us how brilliant you are." He laughed at his joke and waited for the audience to join in. They didn't. "So, let me see …"
-o-
The way we heard it later, them lawyers went through every little detail of Saifon's twenty-four hours in Bangkok. She had to admit it was a crazy twenty-four hours. So many things was confused. She spent most of her time locked inside things without no windows; the truck, a room, the hold of the ship. She didn't see a lot of daylight. She sure as hell didn't see the Grand Palace or the Emerald Buddha. Sightseeing weren't included on that tour. She'd heard stuff, folks talking, traffic, the radio, enough to convince herself where she was, but not enough to convince a court.
By the time they'd pulled them twenty-four hours to pieces, the lawyers had convinced the judges that she probably hadn't been in Bangkok at all. She could of gotten on a tanker anyplace, if indeed she did get on a tanker. If indeed she was trafficked.
Clutching for straws she said,
"I recall one of the sailors saying how many hours, how many days we was out of Klong Thoey docks."
"Oh, thank God. So all you need to do is produce this time-keeping sailor and all your problems are over. You have kept in touch, I hope."
Rosy nosey was looking real smug and cocky. Jaroon the clerk leaned back in his seat and looked across at Saifon with that same smug expression. She knew if they didn't convict him after all this effort, she'd have to kill him right there in the courtroom. She wasn't gonna let him walk out of that place a free man. Rosy was still showing the audience how clever he was.
"So your presence in Bangkok, the validity of your abduction, and the guilt of our client, all comes down to whether you can prove you met him in 1955. Tell us, how did he look then, when you saw him as he slept ' beside you on a cot'. That seems very close."
He was getting to her. She might as well kill him too.
"He ain't changed much. He's got the face of an old pig now and he had the face of a young pig then. A pig's a pig." The audience snickered.
"Really? So in 1955 he looked very much the same as he looks today?"
He reached back to his satchel and pulled out a large black and white photo. It was of Jaroon with a full head of long hair, glasses, and a lot less meat. It was taken at a party while he was fooling around, pulling some stupid frigging face. Of course it didn’t look like him then or now. "This is a photo of Mr. Jaroon in the year 1954. He certainly doesn't look the same to me."
He handed the photo to the court cop who stood there looking at it. The other lawyer poked him and told him to take it to the judges. They passed it around. Saifon looked at the two silent prosecutors. They was obviously only there for balance. She was on her own.
She cleared her throat and straightened her spine. Waldo had seen her rear for an attack enough times to know something serious was about to happen. When she spoke, it was in a new voice that hushed all the mumblers behind her.
"We didn't sleep." The lawyers looked up, smiling.
"I beg your pardon?"
"I said we didn't sleep. He wasn't on the cot long enough to sleep."
"I don't think we need any more …"
"You asked me what he looked like then."
"Yes. Well …"
"Yes, well he didn't look like that jolly guy in the photograph. I'll tell you how he looked. He looked naked. That's how he looked. And to a little girl, a naked pervert is the biggest and scariest thing there is."
The accused spoke up.
"I never …" The lawyers shut him up in a hurry. Rosy come to his rescue.
"I think we've already shown the witness didn't know the accused in 1955. She's obviously never met him. There's no …"
Saifon looked into the creep's eyes.
"His hair was greased back then and he stank. He stank of aftershave lotion. I'll never forget that smell." One of the judges opened his mouth to speak, but she give him one of her stares and he backed off. "You think I'dforget a thing like that? You think his face would ever go away? You think I wouldn't see it in every nightmare for the rest of my life? You think I could be mistaken about the most frightening moment I ever knew?
"Prove it? You want me to prove it, Mr. Tomato nose? All right. I can prove it."
The room was so quiet you could hear the fly ramming the screen on the window. She looked over at the prosecutors. "One of you stuffed owls care to give me a pencil? A sharp one."
There was something about the way she said that, give Waldo the heebie-jeebies. One of the prosecutors bought her a pencil and a bit of paper and she burned a hole in his double-crossing head with her eyes before snatching 'em from him. She put the pencil in her right hand and smiled at Jaroon the clerk. One of the wheels seemed to fall off his wagon, there.
She looked at the empty paper for a second then leaned over it and started to draw. The fly at the window stopped ramming so's he could listen to the scratching of the pencil. Even the babies was mute. All them necks was straining trying to get a peak over her shoulder.
When she leaned back so did everyone else in the damn room. She called over the cop and folded the paper in half before she give it to him.
"Take 'em this."
He give it to the middle judge who opened it slow and studied it. His eyebrows took off like dragonflies. The other two judges couldn't stand it so they stood up and come over to sneak a look too. They was just as shocked. The middle judge fixed his old eyes on Saifon.
"Could you explain what this is all about."
"Well I ain't no artist, judge, but surely you can see what it is."
"It looks like …"
"It's his dick."
For a few seconds there weren't no air in the room 'cause everyone sucked in at the same time.
"I don't …"
"Them circles on the side. They're moles. I got a real close look at 'em in 55. I can't never forget 'em. Show me two men with a little dick like that and two big moles on one side and I'll surely believe in miracles."
There was a whole mess of confusion in that room for a while. Rosy went to consult with a seriously sweating Jaroon. The other lawyer went to look at the picture along with the two crooked prosecutors. The judges got into a huddle, and the audience was excited as hell. That excitement got out of the room and into the street and the crowd outside suddenly filled up with hope.
Saifon turned around and give Waldo a little smile. He just couldn't wait to find out what the hell was going on. The judges climbed down from their perch and two of 'em went out through the back door. The other one called over to rosy.
"We'd like to see your client in the back room for a few seconds." Jaroon weren't too pleased about that prospect.
"I ain't going." He weren't looking quite so smug now. In fact he was looking real pale. It was like someone had found his tap and drained all the blood outa the guy.
He was still screaming and objecting when the two cops hauled him kicking out to the back room accompanied by the cheers of the audience.
"I ain't showing you nothing. She never saw that. I never …"
And the door at the back slammed shut and the yelling got muffled and the audience buzzed.
Pool and its Role in Asian Communism Page 19
