“You seriously think I had something to do with Brandon’s death?”
“I’m your alibi for that night.”
“That doesn’t answer my question. Do you think I could kill someone?”
He paused, trying long and hard to read her expression for a hint of an answer to her own question. “Why didn’t you tell me about Wei Zhang?”
“I thought you wouldn’t understand.” She shook her head, removed Calvino’s hand, and walked away. The heat, exhaustion, lack of sleep had broken her control, and she let slip an emotion that she had wanted to avoid. He stood on the pavement watching as Tanny’s shadow was swallowed up in the night. He figured she would return to her mother, who would be working on a patient, believing that her work would gain her merit, and that merit would gain her the justice she wanted for her daughter. They’d become part of a cycle renewing itself day after day.
As he headed back to the main gate, a couple of security men walked just behind him. Close enough to let him know that they were there and were not going to lose him.
He glanced over his shoulder and waved. One of the men reminded Calvino of the men who hung around at the muay Thai center in Washington Square. Calvino smiled to himself. The two men trailed him. Patrolling the grounds was controlling the political space. The men behind him, like the ones wearing red on Sanam Luang, guarded their political space like a muay Thai fighter. Politics was the same—all elbows, knees, kicks and punches intended to knock an opponent down hard and keep him down. After the violence on the street near Parliament, the country had become a huge muay Thai match. People had been divided into two groups, and they circled each other, each waiting to land a winning blow.
“See you guys later,” said Calvino, walking out to find the motorcycle driver.
Calvino sat alone in his office, opening a manila envelope.
He found it with his name written on it at the bottom of the drawer next to his office bottle. When Calvino had taken out the bottle and poured himself a drink, he saw the envelope and opened it to find a copy of a sale-of-shares agreement.
A gift left by Tanny. He sat back, sipped the Scotch, and read through the twenty-page document. Zhang had bought the shares of the Thai company, and the contract listed the names of the Thai nominee shareholders. Tanny Craig had signed under a power of attorney for the sellers: The Sawyer Corporation. He put down the agreement and poured another Scotch. He raised his glass to Brandon, then to Achara, and finally to Tanny.
He slowly typed out an e-mail. He attached his file with a dozen case histories documenting killings during the war on drugs. He wanted her to understand that Thais with no weight to throw around hadn’t survived inside a system with a flaw in its design for rendering justice. He composed a short message: “Background information about the killings. Good luck. Vincent.”
Then he remembered that there was a final traffic lesson she should know. He’d already sent the e-mail. It was the experience that normally happened after walking out of a room, remembering the one thing he’d wanted to say, but it was too late as he’d already left. He’d wanted to tell her about how the taxis sometimes stopped in the middle of the street, switched on their flashing taillights. How the car blocked the road, a back door opened, and a passenger untangled legs and arms like a slow-motion puppet dragon unfolding, as if time had stopped. The cars stacked behind the taxi don’t honk; instead one of the other drivers automatically swung his vehicle into the oncoming traffic lane, without looking. Flashing headlights was a signal that the taxi driver had declared a personal state of emergency and had temporarily suspended the rules of the road. It happened every day throughout the city.
The oncoming driver had no choice but to stop or face a head-on collision. This wasn’t limited to taxis. Delivery vans unloading bags of ice or rice for a restaurant, a BMW driver in blue silk and diamonds stopping to buy fruit, a van stopping while the driver phones to get directions.
People stopped in the middle of the road. It never occurred to them that cars piled up behind them. That wasn’t their concern. They never looked back; only what was ahead of them mattered, and how to stay ahead of those with large weight in a dangerous game of chicken. Rules had their price, too. Tanny had walked into his life as that oncoming driver. When she’d come out of his bathroom wearing only a towel, she’d flashed her lights. Only he hadn’t bothered to see them. He thought it was an entirely different game that she wanted to play. But he knew enough about women:
They liked to play by their rules. For once he was glad for his memory lapse. He would have been telling her about a rule she already knew.
THIRTY-SIX
CALVINO STOOD INSIDE the main lobby of Tanny Craig’s hotel looking at his watch. He’d been pacing near the front door. He had wanted to surprise her with a gift to take back to New York—it was a Thai bullet coin, one that Brandon Sawyer had given to him. He’d polished it, studied it under a jeweler’s loupe. The coin looked like a slug that had slammed through a body and smashed against a wall. Like people, Thai coins were valued according to their weight. For reasons he didn’t fully understand, Calvino wanted her to remember Brandon, the night they’d gone to the Foreign Correspondents’ Club and heard him speak, and the time they had spent together. But the surprise had been on Calvino; she hadn’t been in her room, and the front desk said she hadn’t been back that evening, nor had she checked out. That left Calvino floating near the door, deciding whether give her more time or forget the whole idea and go out for a drink.
It hadn’t helped much—it made him edgy—that all the members of the security detail at the front door had taken their turns to give him a dirty look. They didn’t like farangs who weren’t guests hanging around the lobby. It smelled like trouble. The security personnel—four or five of them, in cheap suits, with earpieces and attitudes like the luk nong of an upcountry politician—did little to hide that they were clocking his movements. Besides the security were several bellboys dressed in wine-colored, Nehru-collared uniforms, who opened doors for people. Vans pulled up, people climbed out clutching cases, looking disoriented, walking through the open door into the cold air of the lobby. Calvino looked to see if Tanny Craig’s was among the faces of those coming into the lobby. It wasn’t. But the sudden chill of the air-conditioning revived the tourists as if they were wilted roses put in water. They cheered, smiled, and shed the burden of the thick night air, exhaling it from their lungs.
If the bellboys looked like a downscale boy band, the security detail, in their cheap black suits and shoes with plastic soles, hair cut short, were likely moonlighting cops, watching the people come and go. They watched as Calvino walked over and eased himself into a soft chair on an elevated area overlooking the front doors. Like a Roman emperor with a commanding view of the battlefield, he watched the men dressed like pallbearers at a gangster’s funeral. They never smiled, never cracked a joke. Someone had switched off the feed to their sanuk valve, turning them into watchful, humorless machines, alert and suspicious.
A Japanese man with overly straight posture, combedback white hair, and a dark suit stopped at the door and gave one of the security men a white envelope. The Japanese man bowed, the security guys, all four of them, bowed. Funny hotel, thought Calvino. It could be somewhere in Tokyo. A middle-aged clerk with reddish dyed hair who worked the transportation desk looked up and nodded to the man holding the envelope. Then he buried his head back in a large open ledger book, adjusting his glasses as he read. He glanced at Calvino, his thick, black, arched eyebrows like hairy banana spiders acting out a mating ritual on his forehead. He had a way of squinting and twitching his nose, making the spiders squirm. The clerk said something, a whisper out of earshot, to a member of the security staff.
Then they huddled. A minute later a Thai woman with a tiny waist wrapped in a traditional silk dress and a ton of makeup came up to Calvino and asked him his room number. He told her that he was waiting for a friend. That was usually enough to satisfy hotel security. But it wasn
’t cutting much ice with the security of this hotel. Calvino felt as welcome in this fancy lobby as a uniformed Greyhound bus driver in a Las Vegas casino—assuming he didn’t own the company. Then Tanny walked into the lobby. At first she didn’t see him as he stood on the platform area to the side of the main door. Zhang followed a step behind her. He was dressed in a beige tailored suit with padded shoulders, and as he came inside, the security gave him the wais reserved for Buddha images. There wasn’t a crease in the suit, not a drop of sweat on his brow, his hair perfectly combed. He carried a brown leather briefcase monogrammed with the Roman letter initials WZ. Tanny turned and faced Zhang, offering her hand, which he took, European style, and kissed.
It suited him perfectly well that she remained oblivious to his presence. But Zhang spotted Calvino on the platform, the newspaper now bunched up on his lap. “And that is our owner, Khun Wei,” said the greeter who had been keeping an eye on Calvino.
A gradual smile crept over Zhang’s face, causing Tanny to turn and look around. He walked over to Calvino. “Mr. Calvino, I am surprised to see you. I thought you’d be at Montri’s with your grandfather’s paintings.”
“Great-grandfather.”
“All grandfathers are great.”
Tanny watched the two men talking, her face expressionless as she regarded Calvino. Then she looked away as if she’d just glanced at a stranger. “My security chief tells me you’ve been waiting for some time,” Zhang said.
“Patience is one of my favorite virtues. But, like any virtue, it can be misplaced, and when a virtue becomes lost, the universe is no longer in harmony.”
“I once got the same fortune cookie. But I went ahead and ate it anyway.”
“You are a brave and loyal man, Mr. Calvino. Your misfortune has been to serve men whose qualities do you dishonor.”
“No need for the Flatiron Building when you have hotels like this as part of your personal empire,” said Calvino, his eyes looking around the immense lobby, raising his hands in a sweeping gesture.
“If you will excuse me, I must go.” Zhang turned away from Calvino, as if dismissing a servant. He said something to Tanny, and the security men and bellboys lined up, forming an honor guard as Zhang walked out and climbed into the back of a sleek black luxury van.
“He’s taking me to the airport.”
“Why do I have the feeling he’s taken you to a few places in between?”
She slapped Calvino’s face.
“Feel better?” he asked.
“Why did you come here?”
“I didn’t know that Zhang owned the hotel. Google doesn’t reveal every detail about a businessman. Only their major crimes and connections.”
“What does it matter, Vinny?”
“I found the copy of the contract you left in the office. It took style to put it in the office whiskey-bottle drawer.”
“Women have a habit of leaving things behind in your condo. I didn’t have an earring to spare. I like you. I wanted you to know I’m not without sympathy. Brandon could have avoided the problem. Like Achara, he was stubborn.”
“And Wei Zhang has a way of dealing with stubborn people.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to. You’ve been working for Wei Zhang and Marshall Sawyer. It seems Marshall didn’t waste any time after Brandon’s death in getting a power of attorney authorizing you to sign over the company shares to Wei. I’d say you got bonus money from both ends. If you ever think about a second act, you ought to come and work in Thailand. You’ve got an interesting set of skills.”
Tanny held out her hand. “Good-bye and good luck, Vinny. I mean that. Don’t hate me.” She searched his eyes, looking for something like understanding, if not forgiveness.
“You’ve picked up on what makes the Chinese tick. Guanxi. You go for the right connections to high places.”
“You were my role model, Vinny.”
He watched as her luggage came on a trolley and followed her out to Zhang’s van. “I hope your mother finds the person who killed your sister.”
Tanny stopped, slowly turned around. “She will. Wei has made certain of it. And thanks for your e-mail with the case histories. Illuminating.”
Then she was gone. That had been the deal: She had turned to Zhang for a favor, and in return for his assistance she had delivered the shares. Achieving harmony sometimes meant special arrangements had to be made; Tanny Craig and Wei Zhang had come up with their own formula. He didn’t hate Craig; he couldn’t blame her for playing the card she knew would win the game. And maybe she was right—and he didn’t want to face it—he had his own guanxi racket, and without Colonel Pratt he’d have his head underwater in some klong where a guy like Scott Baker was scooping out samples to check the pollution levels. Calvino told himself that no one working the streets had to bother testing the waters to find pollution, as it was mostly guanxi that contaminated the air, the water, and the land.
THIRTY-SEVEN
A HANDFUL OF young men—tall, slender and fit—wore black T-shirts and pants and stood in the shadows like a Special Forces team, disciplined and silent, assembled and waiting for the signal to carry out their mission. The men didn’t look Thai. Too tall, too quiet, and too serious to pass as Thais. It didn’t take an advanced university degree in personal security to tag them as Wei Zhang’s private security detail, who’d been ordered to wait for Calvino in the hotel’s underground parking garage. They stood about five meters from where Calvino had parked his Honda City. Men as combat fit as these didn’t sign on to work as hotel security guards. The professional team loomed like an elephant’s shadow on a mouse. Calvino prepared himself for getting jumped and stuck his right hand inside his jacket on his .38. He controlled his breath, counting his steps until he’d drop to one knee and assume the firing position, with the full recognition that a .38 would have little effect against the firepower he’d face from these men. Calvino smiled, thinking that this made about as much difference as fastening a seat belt while the plane spiraled toward the ground. His finger brushing against the worn leather shoulder harness, he kept on walking right past them. Nothing happened. None of them moved. Calvino stood beside his car and had to take his hand out of his jacket to get his keys. And he wondered if that had been the trap.
“Those Beijing Olympics were something,” he said.
None of the men replied.
“You guys remind me of the Chinese basketball team. Except you’re kinda quiet for basketball players. No ball. No hoop. Guess you’re looking for a game, but the coach is keeping you back. That’s a good call. Don’t want to make a mess in the hotel parking garage.”
They continued to stare at him, not revealing whether they’d understood a word he said or, if they had, giving no indication of what they’d do next.
Calvino took a deep breath and let another long minute pass before fishing his car keys out of his jacket. He got in the car, closed the door, and started the engine. The men stood passively, eyes on the car. He watched them in his rearview mirror until he turned a corner and they were gone. Then he waited a couple of minutes before driving down the ramp and handing the attendant his parking ticket.
He checked his mirror again, but no one had tailed him, so he drove past the school on Soi 22 before turning right on Soi Sai Nam Thip 2 and followed the winding road that led back to his condo.
Calvino slowed as he started into the turn around the blind corner, hugging the gutter that snaked beside a sandcolored adobe condo wall as thick as a medieval fortress. A large black van with tinted windows and no lights veered into his lane, coming straight at him. Calvino pushed the accelerator to the floorboard and swung the steering wheel sharp to the right, clipping the front of the van. The van driver lost control and crashed into the condo wall.
Calvino’s Honda spun around and stopped along the edge of the road opposite the van. The driver’s head, pierced with shards of glass, bloodied and raw, had gone through the windshield. Calvino got out o
f his car, pulled his .38, and ran across the street to open the door. He checked the driver, pushing him back from the steering wheel. He was dead. Two men in the rear hadn’t been wearing seat belts, and their bodies were twisted at odd angles, both were alive but semi-conscious, groaning and moaning, leaking blood.
One had a busted head. Calvino holstered his .38 and pulled out the man who’d been sitting directly behind the driver and sat him on the road.
Then he returned to the van and crawled inside. He saw boxes of fireworks—big Roman candles, rockets, and paperwrapped crackers—scattered across the back of the van.
The impact had thrown a bag against the window. Calvino saw a Taser exposed and grabbed the bag. The remaining man grimaced with pain; his shoulder was broken, and part of the bone had punctured the skin and the fabric of his black shirt. His thumb came down on a cigarette lighter. The flame moved toward one of the boxes. He smiled as he ignited a Roman candle. His eyes met Calvino for one long second. Calvino dived back to the front of the van and rolled out with the bag onto the street. The Roman candle showered the interior of the van with hot, white light. The van exploded into a huge fireworks display mostly contained inside it, with flares arcing out the open door and crashing against the side of the condo. Fire found the fuel line and erupted into an orange fireball that climbed up the fortress wall, illuminating the curve.
The neighborhood became awash in a fusion of red and green and yellow streaks of light as the larger pieces exploded, firing their load skyward through the broken windows, spinning wheels of color along the center of the curve and slamming against a retaining wall across the street.
It was the kind of display reserved for major holidays. But there it was—no holiday, no parade. From the surrounding buildings, the cannon-like boom from the explosion and the spirals of light merged overhead.
The Corruptionist Page 30
