“I’m fucking cut!” Silver stands in the middle of the dressing room, screaming, looking down at her chest. She hugs her shoulders as if that will stop her Miracle Bra, her right falsie, and all the rest of her lies from falling out.
Tuki stares at her with blank eyes.
Silver collapses into one of the folding chairs at the makeup mirror. As her slip and bra fall away, she can see that the tail of the comb made a long, red scratch across her chest. Blood is flowing from the top of the cut. The rest is just red and swollen like a claw mark.
Downstairs in the Follies, the crowd is cheering for Nikki’s last number.
Tuki is thinking, “Buddha, be with me …”
Scribbled at the bottom of the report are a detective’s notes:
Aparecio has no witness to the alleged walk on beach when knife was stolen. The friend called Prem is nowhere to be found … and may well not exist. Image on security tape is shadowy but does appear to be Aparecio. Conversations with Richard Guilnor, manager of Provincetown Follies, and victim’s housekeeper (calling herself “Ruby”), confirm that Aparecio was involved in a heated love triangle with the victim and a transvestite called Silver Superstar. SEE SECOND INTERIEW WITH SUSPECT!
Michael jumps up from his chair and stares out the window. He squints over the tops of the roofs to bring Pleasant Bay and the Atlantic into focus. A dark blue long-liner is heading out across Chatham Bars on a trip to Georges.
“God, Tuki! How many ways can you paint us into a corner?”
TWENTY
By the time that the long-liner disappears over the horizon to the east, he has decided that while the case is looking more dismal than ever, there is still a chance that Tuki may have been framed. Silver sounds like a world-class vampire who might do anything to keep her claws in Big Al Costelano. But what about this alleged friend Prem, her alibi for the beach walk? Is this person fiction or real? And why can’t the cops find him/her?
He has to go back up to Provincetown and start talking to a whole pack of people. But first he needs to digest the rest of the bad news about the night of the murder. He read this stuff the day the judge handed him the case, but now it all seems like confetti in his mind. This time he is going to pay better attention, there may well be something important here in a second interview the cops had with Tuki. Something that can clear her.
The lights in the dressing room after the show are off except for the glow of the bulbs around the makeup mirror.
She cracks open a Perrier that Richie sent up, sits on a chair in front of her mirror. She is wearing nothing but a Spider Woman teddy, G-string, and red satin robe that she bought in Chinatown.
Then she sees Alby push open the curtain, come through the doorway. He has a strange look on his face. Maybe the look of a man come to get even. He is smiling, his front teeth biting into his lower lip.
She stops breathing. The disco rocks downstairs, the bass line shakes the building with its pulse. No one will hear her if she screams.
She shouts for him to get out, looks around for a weapon, maybe a fire extinguisher, to scare him off.
But the fire extinguisher hangs on his side of the room. So ngom khem nai mahasamut. She may as well dive for a needle in ocean.
He says he will make her a deal as he is walking toward her with his hard, killer face.
She thinks, “Yes, sure, la. My booty or my life.” Her body is searching everywhere for some way to defend herself.
“Xin loi …”
“Don’t even start with that, la!” She shouts, because she knows from Delta and Brandy xin loi is how Vietnamese people always begin when they are sorry for something. She is not believing a word of an apology … not while he is backing her into this corner. The man is eight feet away and closing. He has a stony look in his eyes.
He does not stop with the Vietnamese. And he is still coming and coming. She is just about feeling his breath and—
“Back off!” She lets him have it. She makes a flamethrower just like she has seen them do in the movies, releases a fog from her can of hairspray toward his face. Fires the sticky vapor with the lighter Silver left by her makeup kit.
POOF!!!
The man wheels backward, his hands pressed to his eyes. Smoke rises from his head. The air stinks of burnt hair. Her mind staggers. What if I killed him?
Suddenly, she feels a softening in her chest. And as he trips and tumbles toward the floor, she catches him.
Now it is her turn to start babbling like the people in The Killing Fields. She says she is sorry in every language she can think of, all the while pressing a dry towel on his hair to crush out the last of the flames. She can hear him panting like a cat. If anyone wants a real reason to keep her locked up in jail, this is it. She tried to kill Alby. She did. An act of passion. An overwhelming desire. The Buddha must be very disappointed with her.
For long minutes they lie together in the shadows of the dressing room. He is on his back. She is tucked up on her knees with her head on his chest, listening to his heart. Telling it to beat. He says nothing. She cries and mumbles. She is sure any moment the police will come in to drag her away. She is more than just a robbery suspect now. Downstairs the DJ has slipped into old-school mode. Barry White, “You’re My Everything.”
“You sure do cry a lot.”
She is so glad to hear him speak, she kisses him all over his face, starts mumbling again that she is so sorry. She kisses his forehead and his eyes and his nose and his cheeks and his chin because … because of lots of things. But mostly because the skin is still all there, not burned. Her flamethrower fired high and only got his hair.
Now he is sitting up.
“I want you to keep the dha, Tuki. Keep it as a souvenir of a truly great night when … But it would really sort of help me get out of a jam if I could give Silver back her DVDs and—”
The hammer of his suspicion smacks her in the chest. Why did she ever care about this faithless eff?
She curses him in Thai, throws her robe around her shoulders, runs down the steps of the Painted Lady … to the beach, to the fog. It is about midnight. And he is still alive.
TWENTY-ONE
Before he knows it, his fingers are punching in the numbers for a phone in Bangkok. It rings about eight times before someone picks up. The voice starts in with a machinegun barrage of Thai.
“Detective Samset, please. This is attorney Michael Decastro calling from the United States.”
A grunt.
“You know what time it is in Bangkok, attorney?” The voice sounds ripped apart by a dream. “Middle of damn night.”
He lifts the portable phone away from his ear. His finger is on the talk button. Part of him wants to hang up just like he did before, doesn’t want to know anything more about Tuki Aparecio. He wants to quit the case again. It is too much, especially with his own wedding looming.
But now he has given away his identity. He swore an oath before the bar to do his duty for his clients. And there is something about his client that fascinates him. Everything about her and the world she lives in seems so alien, so decadent, so strangely familiar, ripe, terrifying to him. Beyond the makeup, the drag, the exotic settings, the lifestyle … there is a vulnerability and innocence about Tuki that he has never seen before. She almost seems like someone out of a fairy tale.
“I … I’m so, so sorry. I didn’t realize the time. This was my first chance to return your call—”
“Don’t bullshit me, Decastro. You think we do not have caller ID in Thailand? You called me yesterday and hung up. What’s the matter? Afraid of what you do not know? That little dragon ho got you spooked or wrapped around her finger yet?”
“Look, I want to apologize for—”
“Save it, attorney. Before your case is over you will be on your knees begging before more people than Varat Samset. Call me tomorrow morning … my time. I need my sleep.”
“But what about the danger that you—”
“I have a name for you. Prem Kit
tikatchorn. Ask your client if he has made contact. And duck if you hear shooting. Good night.”
He feels adrenaline jolting through his head. So the mystery alibi has a last name. Kittikatchorn.
He is marching along the beach beneath Highland Lighthouse, trying to keep pace with her. The sun is high. Hot. She is wearing a red bikini top and loose jeans rolled up almost to her knees. She’s walking right at the edge of the tide line, letting the water rush around her ankles with each new wave breaking ashore. She told him that if he wanted to talk today, he must come along while she gets her exercise, cleans her soul. So here he is in a faded old Red Sox shirt and his jams, chasing the dragon lady around the very tip of Cape Cod.
“Hey, hey Tuki. Slow down, huh? You going to tell me who this Prem is or not?”
“It is none of your business, la.”
“Hell it’s not. Some detective calls me all the way from Bangkok to say you’re in danger. Asks if this Prem has made contact yet. Tells me to duck if I hear shooting. Damn right it’s my business.”
“Watch your mouth.”
“Jesus. Did you or did you not tell the police you were with this Prem? Walking, when the security camera supposedly caught you stealing Silver’s DVDs and the murder weapon, the Vietnamese dha, from Costelano’s bedroom?”
“I made a mistake. Forget Prem. He is gone now.”
“So Prem is a guy?”
She lowers her eyes, looks at the surf crisping on the sand.
“He was here?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“What does it matter?”
“Because he’s your alibi. Because he might hurt you! How’s that?”
“Prem is a cowardly lion. He cannot hurt anybody … except maybe …”
“Stop, dammit, Tuki. Look at me!”
She takes four steps out into the water. A wave rushes through her legs, soaks the thighs of her jeans as she turns to face her attorney with a squinty-eyed, resentful look.
“I am looking at you now, Michael Decastro. What do you want me to see?”
He is thinking, screw this. He is tired of playing twenty questions. “Well?”
“Why are you protecting this Prem? We are down to the same old question we have been dealing with for three days aren’t we? What happened in Bangkok? Why is it coming back to bite you now?”
He stares at her, waiting for an answer.
She is sucking on her bottom lip.
“All right, Tuki. Don’t tell me. I’ll get the story from that Thai detective when I call him tonight. He seems like a big fan of yours. Called you the dragon ho. In fact, I can’t quite figure out why he cares to warn us that you are in danger.”
Suddenly tears are rolling down her cheeks. She is wiping her eyes with her hands.
It is an instinct. He wades out to her and hugs her. He hugs her the way he hugs Filipa when she cries. He lets himself mold around her, the way his mother taught him.
After a long time she says she met Prem Kittikatchorn in the Patpong. It is a long story. But she can start it for him if it is important. Khwan pha sak. Sometimes you have to call a snake a snake.
One night after a show, a chauffeur in a baby-blue suit knocks on the stage door that leads from the dressing room right into the street. He asks for Tuki, presents her with a dozen flaming tulips and a note written in big smooth looping English words. Dear Miss Aparecio:
I would be most deeply honored if you would join me for dinner at the barbecue on the terrace of the Oriental Hotel tomorrow evening. I have no illusions about your gender. But please do not think of me as one of those foul men who hoot and whistle at you or make you indecent proposals. Mine is not a hasty or lewd offer. Since I first heard you sing two weeks ago, I have thought of little else but the sound of your song. If your mind is as clear as your voice, and your heart as rich as your music, as I think they are, then you will know with what deep sincerity and hope I write these words.
If you are agreeable to my proposal, please tell Pon where and when we can collect you tomorrow for dinner.
Most Sincerely,
Prem Kittikatchorn
The Oriental. Many times she has heard that this hotel is the most glamorous hotel in all the world. And most of her life she has passed by the riverside deck of the Oriental on her way to the water taxi landing, dreamed of eating cold crab and grilled steak among all of those rich and beautiful people. But she is not accepting … even though she feels the truth and sincerity in this man’s offer.
She tells the chauffeur in Thai, who is standing at attention all the time she is reading—and re-reading—Prem’s note, that she is very honored by the gentleman’s request. But she does not even know whether the fellow writing this letter is a prince or a frog. And he should understand that she must be introduced before she could consider such a request.
He bows and strides back to the dark blue Mercedes limo. Pon opens the back door of the limo and says a few words to someone inside. Then she sees a tall, thin man in a cream-colored suit step out of the car. He is in his early twenties, with fine features, black hair slicked back from his forehead. His eyes twinkle in the streetlights even from this distance. As he walks slowly up the street toward her, she hears the click of his shoes on the pavement and sees a sad little smile on his face … like the look of a sick child coming to take his medicine against his will.
TWENTY-TWO
Everything seems to be happening in a great rush—but the world is in slow motion at the same time. It is a Monday, the quietest night in the Patpong. And even quieter tonight because Bangkok is in the lull of early December, a couple of days after all the craziness of the King’s birthday celebration when the Patpong was filled with crowds. This Monday is the calm after the storm, one of the only nights when a showgirl can get some time off. It is the dry season. For a change, the air feels almost fresh in Bangkok. The sun stays up until nearly nine at night. Tuk-tuks drone through the streets.
He is coming at eight because she tells him she wants to watch the sun set over the river as they eat on the terrace at the Oriental. It is seven forty-five and she is wandering around the little fourth-floor apartment in a silk slip.
“You very crazy crazy girl, la!” says Brandy. “Dinner at Oriental!”
She shakes her head like this is something impossible for a Patpong queen.
“Help me with my hair.”
“Oh, now she such big shot she give us orders, too!” says Delta rolling her eyes. “She think she got a rich boy on kite string.”
“Pa-leeeease!”
Tuki is not much more than a kid. This is her first real date. Dinner with a man who looks like a tall, thin lion.
“This no good!” says Delta. “This boy just want take advantage.”
“I think we go, too. Chaperones, la!”
Oh, dear Buddha, she thinks, why did I ever tell my mothers about this date. I could have just said I was taking a night off to go to the movies.
“You not ready for this! You just baby.” Brandy grabs her comb and shakes it in Tuki’s face.
She grabs her own comb and shakes it right back at her. Then she unloads. How stupid do they think she is? Do they think she can live here in the most famous meat market in the world for just about all her life and still be just a baby? Do they think she can strip to a G-string six nights a week in front of crowds of drooling men and not know what drives them wild, what crazy and terrible things they can do when they are following orders from the hard little general between their legs?
Do her mothers think she has had her eyes closed when the live sex acts were onstage in some of the sleazier clubs where they used to work? Does she not see when the bar queens go down on someone in the dark corners of a club? Does she never hear the squeals of the hoes putting out in the lala rooms down the hall from her dressing room? Do Brandy and Delta think she really believes them when they come home from “dates” bruised or bloody or crying, saying they got mugged by someone on the streets? Does she n
ot hear the cries of the young girls and little queens who have been “bonded” to the Patpong pimps? Is she not there when a dozen queens and whores they know whither away and die from AIDS? Was it some other Tuki who saw the body of Ingrid’s mother seeping blood all over the barroom floor?
“I swim in this water, la!”
“You know only pictures,” says Delta.
“You not know how a man can feel in your heart or in your body.” Brandy shakes her comb. So you know nothing at all. Men like pung chao—like heroin, la. They always make feel good at first—”
Provincetown Follies, Bangkok Blues Page 9