“We’re running their fingerprints,” said Pratt.
“I am not sure they had any fingers left. What you’re saying is the police know it was my car.” There was a sudden wall of silence at the other end of the phone. “Talk to me, Pratt.”
“The investigators have a theory of what happened.”
“No explanation ever gets organized that fast,” said Calvino as the taxi turned right onto Rama IV, heading towards the Port of Klong Toey. Governments and police specialized in creating explanations. It was one thing they did well. They knew how to exploit the instinctive weakness of people who needed to feel that someone in authority knew what happened and could explain how and why it happened, and most of all they had faith—because there was no alternative—that these explanations were real.
“We are more efficient than you think, Vincent.”
“What’s the official version?” asked Calvino as the crowd thinned out, the taxi slowly working its way through the knot of emergency vehicles. People spilled into the street walking toward the shopping center. What was it that attracted people to a cause of violence?
Pratt gave a summary of what the professional spin doctors had already come up with; they had been working on the right shape to give the basic facts reported from the scene, assessing the best alternative explanations, and coming up with a story, the official version that would find its way onto the TV news and international wire services. Explanations were just words and most of the time words were enough to convince people that action had been taken. That everything was under control. This was the big lie because nothing was ever under control or even controllable.
Calvino guessed the official explanation would conform with the first operative principle: No one in authority was to blame or responsible.
What needed massaging was the raw material of the reality. A Claymore had been intended to kill either Calvino or LAPD officer Jessada. Either Calvino was getting too close to finding out the tourist killers, or Jess had some bad people looking to settle with him for a covert drug bust. What they hadn’t planned for was that a couple of car thieves would break into Calvino’s Honda and take a one-way ride into the next life. The story on the news would be: Two dead commandos, heroes, had been killed on the fifth floor as they tried to capture two heavily armed bombers.
The second operative principle was to always turn the dead who fucked up a mission into the heroes. The official line would be the bombers killed them. It was no good having heroes slaughtered by looters; it reflected badly on the state of preparedness. Some minor loose ends remained, like the dead farang, not to mention the dead men in Calvino’s car. The dog meat inside the Honda became the dead bombers who had accidentally detonated a Claymore mine.
Third operative principle: Use the violence against one’s political enemies. The bombers—believed to have been behind earlier bombings in Bangkok—were part of a clique with a political agenda to destabilize the government. At the time of their discovery, the dead men were unable to plant the Claymore inside the shopping center and the dead soldiers had prevented a disaster from happening.
Everyone would be happy with the story.
“You left out the dead farang,” said Calvino.
No, they had covered the farang. His death would appear in a sidebar. It was good to dispose of the dead farang in sidebars. It kept them out of the main story and that eliminated a potential complication.
Sidebar: In the aftermath of the explosion, there had been panic as shoppers tried to escape, and a farang had fallen to his death while seeking to leave the premises. The police believe the farang may have committed suicide. There were no further details about the identity or nationality of the farang. The sidebar or footnote would run as a related story to the blast.
Main story, sidebar. It all fit together as a package.
Calvino’s Law: In the real world those with fascist tendencies succeed best in owning, managing and shaping the news. Of course, it helps to know how to make allies of the twin demons of uncertainty and irrationality.
It wasn’t a particularly good spin, or even a very good story. But it didn’t have to be. No one was going to confront the men who had spun the yarn. If that was the story they wanted, then that was the story that would be printed and shown on television. Who was going to send in an independent demolition expert who might ask hard questions as to how two car thieves had come into possession of a Claymore mine, or forensic experts to ask how the two bombers had managed to kill two ex-Border Police officers with a .38 police service revolver and a kitchen knife or why these ex-officers were carrying automatic weapons and dressed in bullet-proof vests after the bomb had gone off and then got back into their car to take the full force of the blast.
“Whoever pulled this off has some pretty big balls,” said Calvino. “It’s gonna be tough to control this, Pratt.”
“It will be far easier than you can imagine.” Pratt understood well how the system worked.
“So what’s Plan A?” asked Calvino.
“Keeping Jess and you alive.”
Calvino glanced around at Noi and Jess in the back. “Along with a material witness who knew the dead farang.”
“You have such a witness?”
“That’s right. Plan A calls for two outward tickets.”
“Take them somewhere safe until I can work out some details,” said Pratt
“Don’t forget Plan B and Plan C.” He was looking out the window. The traffic was terrible.
“You don’t have much faith in Plan A working,” said Pratt.
“That depends.” Plans were like explanations; if there were too many inherent contradictions and faulty assumptions then they wouldn’t work.
“On what?” asked Pratt.
“How secure the airport is. There have been some problems,” said Calvino.
“We’re back to your serial killer, are we? And he’s gone from injecting heroin overdoses to blowing up shopping malls? There is no connection, Vincent.”
“Bombers and a backup team commando squad in the same place and at the same time. I’d call that a connection.”
“Connected to what?” asked Pratt.
That was the question. Exactly, connected to what.
He called Father Andrew. “I need help.” He explained that Jess and Noi needed a place to stay for a couple of days; he wanted to blend the two of them into the slum community. Make them invisible.
He didn’t need to explain or say any more. Father Andrew laid out his Plan A without Calvino ever asking. Jess had tapped Calvino on the shoulder and showed him that the red alert light was flashing; someone was tapping into the phone call. “Got to go,” said Calvino, turning off his mobile phone.
CALVINO asked the driver to pull into an abandoned service station. He stopped before a row of boarded-up gas pumps. Jess helped Noi out of the back as Calvino paid the driver with a five-hundred-baht note. All the emergency vehicles—fire trucks, police cars, body-snatcher vans—had caused a massive traffic jam; trucks, motorcycles, delivery vans, and buses came to a halt. Several drivers stood beside their vehicles, looking ahead, wondering if the traffic would ever move again. But with a blazing hot sun on the shadeless road, most of the stranded motorists stayed inside their air-conditioned cars, listening to the radio reports of the bombing.
Noi remained in a state of shock, using one hand to cover her eyes from the direct sunlight. She hadn’t said much since they had left the Emporium. She started shivering, folding her arms together; she stood looking at the road, goose flesh covering her arms.
“She doesn’t look so good,” said Jess.
“We have to get off the road,” said Calvino.
Calvino led them out of the abandoned service station and past a row of shop houses and an open lot filled with garbage. Jess held onto Noi’s hand, which was ice cold.
“We split up here,” Calvino explained. “Keep walking straight and turn left at the next soi, then at the bridge turn right and in another hundre
d yards you will see Father Andrew’s offices. I’ll meet you there in five minutes.” It was important that they were not seen together. For sure someone outside the Emporium who had spotted them would have reported they were traveling together. The people who had sent the bombers and commando squad wouldn’t give up; they would be looking for a farang, a Thai male and a Thai woman. Take the farang out of the equation and suddenly Jess and Noi fell into the deep background of thousands and thousands of other identical couples.
Jess listened to Calvino’s instructions and then said, “For a farang, you know your way around.”
“Hold her hand, Jess. Pretend you are a couple,” said Calvino.
“I can’t walk any further,” said Noi.
“You have no choice, tilac. Jess will help you. There are no taxis. Look at the traffic. It’s very close. You can walk. No problem,” said Calvino. He was starting to sound like a Thai speaking English, Calvino thought as he hurriedly walked away.
HEADQUARTERS for Father Andrew was located in a long, narrow, concrete building that was also home for fifty street kids, runaways, throwaways. A number of vehicles were parked inside the garage: several tuk-tuks with “Amazing Thailand” painted on the front, and a couple of vans. Along the far wall were storage shelves stacked with old computers, printers, and office equipment. Noi and Jess waited outside the garage entrance until Calvino showed up. Then they walked together through the garage and into the main building, passing the kitchen where a large brown and white dog slept under a long wooden table. Two cooks worked at the table, cutting up vegetables and chicken with knives. The large entryway with offices running off to one side was cluttered with schoolbooks, tiny pairs of shoes, school uniforms, and comic books. Old photos of Father Andrew were hanging crooked on the wall. A photo history of the good Father receiving awards, with a group of slum kids, opening a school, shaking hands with wealthy patrons, and in his vestments.
They hadn’t been inside more than a minute before Bun, a former street kid herself, greeted them with a wai and a smile.
“I take you to meet Father Andrew.”
“Where is he?” asked Calvino. He was surprised that he wasn’t waiting to meet them at his office. He had just talked with him on the phone and he had been in his office. Bun sensed Calvino’s disappointment.
“He not forget you, Khun Vinee. But he has emergency. Last rites for a dying man. This man has AIDS. This is the second time he gives last rites. This time, I think he kreng jai Father Andrew and die. Make Father Andrew give last rites, three, four times. Crazy. I think no good. Even God bored with such a guy.” She smiled with a big buck-toothed grin. Few men could move as fast as a priest dispatched to administer last rites. Even for one who was only thinking hard about dying.
Bun rattled her keys, pointing through the open door at a white van parked down the narrow lane outside the main building.
“How did Father Andrew get through the traffic?” asked Calvino.
“He uses the horn. Everyone let him go.”
Calvino slammed the van door and Bun gunned the engine and pulled away from the curb. The sun had been beating down and the seat was hot. Calvino rocked from one side to the other as the heat passed through his pants and into his thighs, legs, and ass.
“I turn on air-con, Khun Vinee. And some good Thai music. Seems you want to dance, Khun Vinee,” said Bun, as she gunned the van. “farang get too hot in Thailand.”
“Except Father Andrew,” said Calvino. “And I am not dancing. I am being burnt at the stake.” He liked to remind Bun that her hero was also a farang. Only this line of argument always ended the same. He could hear what she would say before she said it.
“Father Andrew isn’t farang. He’s khon Thai.” She didn’t disappoint. In Bun’s eyes, and every Thai’s at his center, Father Andrew had become a “Thai.” A status granted for having lived more than thirty years in Klong Toey; not that he had gone native, but he understood native games, thinking, schemes, survival techniques. And he fought for them, saw they got food for their family and education for their children, buried their dead, bought medicine for their sick and dying. Even if they couldn’t quite swallow Christianity, it didn’t matter. They believed in Father Andrew. He was the only person in authority who had never abused his position for personal gain. That alone made him a living saint.
Bun turned the van onto Rama IV, hitting the horn, crossing over to the far lane as the traffic had started to edge forward. After turning off the main road, she drove over a narrow bridge; on the other side they entered the outer perimeter of Klong Toey slum. They drove past the slaughterhouse—which was a row of low buildings with stained, broken concrete floors and metal fences and gates—Bun made another right turn and slowed to a crawl. Calvino recognized Father Andrew’s Toyota in the parking lot off the main road. Some slum kids played on a broken-down, rusty set of swings nearby. Bun steered the van into the nearly empty parking lot and turned off the ignition.
“There are clothes for you two in Father Andrew’s car,” she said, looking back at Jess and Noi.
“What kind of clothes?” asked Jess.
“They’re hanging in the back of Father Andrew’s car. Inside the plastic bag. You’ve just become a priest,” she giggled. “And lady, you get to be a nun.”
Noi just stared ahead without blinking, without responding.
“Better get changed,” said Calvino. Turning around in his seat, he looked straight at Noi. A confused, uncertain expression crossed her face.
“I am a Buddhist,” Noi said in almost a whisper.
“You’ve just been converted. You have been on stage. You know how to pretend a role. That’s all you have to do for a couple of days. Pretend you are a nun,” said Calvino.
“I don’t know what a nun does,” she said.
“She pretends to know the difference between right and wrong,” said Calvino. “And is convinced she knows the dividing line between good and evil.”
“It’s okay, you can handle it,” said Jess, gently squeezing her hand.
Calvino got out of the van and walked over to Father Andrew’s car. Bun had already located the small magnetic key holder under the rear bumper to Father Andrew’s Toyota, opened it and took out the key and unlocked the car.
“Here are your clothes,” said Bun, handing a bundle to Jess. Then she leaned over the back and emerged with a plastic carry-on bag. “Yours are inside,” she said, handing the bag to Noi.
“Jess, you go first,” said Calvino, standing next to the opened van door. “It’s time to ditch the earphones. We’re no longer on bodyguard duty.”
“We need to stay in communication.”
“No Jesuit priest walks into the slums with an earphone. It will attract attention. People notice things like that. We don’t want to be noticed.”
Jess took out the earphone and removed the mic and the rest of the gear, handing them to Calvino. “Take care of this for me. That’s five hundred dollars’ worth of equipment.”
Calvino nodded. “I’ll see you get an official receipt.”
“I better get changed.”
“Good idea. Then Noi can have her turn. And we get our chance to see if this works.”
“And if it doesn’t?”
“We’re in about the same situation as we are now.”
“Why do I have the feeling you’ve done this before?” said Jess.
“Remember when we talked about how the movies get things wrong?” Calvino slammed the back door to Father Andrew’s car. “Like how does Father Andrew know your size? In a movie you never ask that question. Because you never think about it. But in real life it is an issue.”
“How does he know?”
“He doesn’t. So the clothes won’t look like they are tailored. You aren’t going to look great but you’re not supposed to look great. You’re supposed to look like a slum priest and slum nun. This isn’t a movie. If we get it wrong, there is no retake. So Jess’s a priest. Noi’s a nun. You’re here from America. An
d Noi’s gotta pull herself together. Because a lot of people are taking a load of risks for her. She better be worth the investment.”
Jess climbed into the van and closed the door. Calvino watched Noi leaning against the back of the van, holding her nun’s habit in her arms.
“I can’t believe Danny’s dead,” said Noi. The blood had come back into her face.
The loud drone of trucks on the road going towards the port nearly muffled out the word “dead.” Calvino didn’t need to hear it; he could read it on her lips. Dead. Danny’s dead.
“I’d stop thinking about Danny and start worrying how you are going to get out of this,” said Calvino. “I don’t want to scare you, but Danny’s friends aren’t going to be your best friends. You have a problem with the people you’ve been doing favors for, Noi. And you can either deal with your problem by doing what we say or you can find a taxi back to the city and do whatever you have to do.”
Jess opened the door and looked out dressed in a clerical collar, black shirt and jacket.
“I am sorry . . .” she started to cry.
“How did you ever get involved with Danny and Gabe?” Calvino asked. “Did you know they were going to put a bomb in my car?” Then he regretted asking the question. She only wept more openly.
Jess had been listening to the exchange. He stepped down from the van looking very much like a priest.
“Khun Bun, would you help Noi get dressed?” asked Jess.
Bun helped Noi into the van and closed the door.
Jess pulled out his 9mm and checked the clip. “We can’t stay here. I can’t see this ‘movie’ of yours working, Calvino.”
“You have a better script?” asked Calvino. Gabe had been his client and the sonofabitch had set him up, thought Calvino. He got Noi to pull a string, betting that Jess and Naylor would be on the same end of the rope. So who was he really trying to hang?
“As a matter of fact, I do. We go straight to the airport. And we board the first plane to LA.”
“You got your passport? Has Noi got her passport? Of course not. So how do you get through Immigration?” Calvino stared at the gun. “Put the gun away. Father Ben.” Jess frowned. Being called Father Ben threw him off, and he slipped the gun underneath his belt and pulled down the cleric’s black vest. It was for a smaller man and crept up over his stomach. Not exactly a tank-top look but short enough for someone to notice and think the priest might pray for a new tailor.
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