“Father Ben?” asked Jess. “How did you come up with that?”
“Ben fits you. Even if the shirt doesn’t. Besides, there are no Father Jessies, not even the Jesuits go that far. Ben, that’s a name they can live with. It’s a name you can stay alive with.” The van door opened and Noi climbed out, dressed like a nun, her face dry of tears.
“You really think this is going to work?”
“With some help from Father Andrew and Pratt and a few of their friends, we might just manage to pull it off. Unless you want to organize things by yourself. After all you are Thai and I am just a stupid farang who doesn’t know the story.”
Jess shook his head and smiled. “Get rid of the farang-sized chip on your shoulder. You know the story, Vincent. That much I will grant you.” He wouldn’t know where to start but Calvino’s irony wasn’t lost on him. “A farang and a Thai cop having their people watching the airport to get me out of Thailand. It’s a stretch. But you’re right. I don’t have a better plan.”
Calvino had started to like this LAPD cop.
“Who would have thought LAPD would get cast for the part of a Thai village priest?”
Noi stood awkwardly next to Jess, avoiding his glance.
The nun’s habit fit her perfectly.
“Sister Teresa, you are looking good,” said Calvino.
The white habit transformed her entire being; softened her, brought out an innocence in the line of her mouth, and in her eyes. She looked as if the divine had touched her.
“Father Andrew’s in the shop around the corner,” said Bun. “I don’t think the man die yet. I can’t hear them crying.”
BUN led them along a narrow dirt path, passing empty stone benches and a stone table as the sun disappeared in the late afternoon haze. Under foot were layers of garbage bleached by the sun—discarded plastic bottles, paper cartons, wrappers. Dead leaves had been raked into piles under a bare tree; a rope hung down from one branch. Hundreds of flies buzzed over the garbage, filtering into the open entrance. The front door was decorated with faded Mickey Mouse decals peeling at the edges. They removed their shoes and placed them among the several rows of shoes and sandals near the door. As they stepped inside, they found sixteen or more people crowded into every corner of the small shop house. The dying man lay on a mat at the far end. Friends, family, and neighbors gathered for the deathwatch. Standing, sitting, squatting, leaning against the door frame, they had come running as Father Andrew’s presence indicated the dying time had arrived.
The shelves were stocked with shampoo, Fab, cooking oil, toothpaste, noodles, eggs, and rice. Father Andrew knelt on a mattress, his back to the door; his eyes, closed, his lips moved as a faint sound of prayer filtered across the room. Quietly Jess and Bun joined him, standing at his side. He didn’t acknowledge them immediately. Calvino stayed back, hunched near the door watching the LAPD cop and the Thai singer playing their roles as the other people in the room watched them. He glanced at his wristwatch, and checked his time with the shop clocks. What would the time of death be? Calvino wondered. There were three choices. One green and pink clock with a jumbo elephant had been hung upside-down on the wall. Another clock had a run-down battery causing the second hand to twitch, almost moving ahead but never mustering sufficient strength to move past the number seven. Only one clock functioned as a clock: it had Disney characters on the face, a child’s clock. Calvino figured it belonged to whoever had put the decals on the door. The Mickey Mouse clock kept time right side up. The three clocks made him think about time-rats, the yings, but it was more than just yings who devoured time—a life fell away minute by minute in a thousand small ways like the grains of sand falling down the neck of an hour glass. He looked over at the dying man and wondered how he would account for the hours and minutes when it came to his time.
Behind the Mickey Mouse clock was a table with six Buddha images surrounded by flowers. Incense sticks had been burned down to the red stick base in the cups of sand. All of the images faced away from the dying man. Each Buddha image faced the door.
The dying man lay on his back, bare chest mopped by a relative. His ribs visible under the skin. Another relative wiped the sweat from his face. His eyes were closed, his head turned to the side. He was semi-conscious. He gave every appearance of following through this time and dying.
Father Andrew finished his prayer and sat up, nodding towards Jess. Then making a half turn, he nodded in Noi’s direction. He had this funny, wan smile. It must have been seeing his priest and nun outfits on the two of them. Jess knelt with his hands folded in prayer and Noi, following Jess’s lead, knelt beside him, her hands folded, the long painted nails touching. The red fingernails stood out like cockroaches on the side of a wedding cake. Calvino couldn’t decide whether anyone in the room had noticed Noi’s manicured nails. The three of them prayed over the dying man like the three clocks marking time.
The shop phone never stopped ringing. A thin ying in a white blouse with sweat dripping down from her brow answered the phone but no one was on the other end. She wore ankle high plastic boots; she had a middle-aged, defeated look, and the skin on her right arm was webbed as if the flesh had been melted. Each time the phone rang she reached for it with her damaged arm. Two Thai nuns stood together inside the back door, watching, rosaries draped over their hands folded in prayer. One of them stared at Noi, wondering who she was and why she was kneeling next to Father Andrew on the mattress. The middle-aged nun was stern looking; the other still young, innocent—she had not seen as much death and her face had a pale beauty, her eyes a clear deep brown. School children in white shirts and pressed shorts watched from a corner. The heat made the children listless. They sat quietly on their knees eating snacks from plastic bags. Several relatives of the dying man hovered near the mattress where the man lay.
Father Andrew rocked forward on his knees, his stocking feet sticking over the edge of the mattress, muttering prayers and sprinkling water. The nuns crept into the room and joined him in praying. The dying man groaned, his eyes closed as he moved in and out of consciousness with the same random irregularity as the clocks in his shop; his bare chest heaved up and down as if he could not catch his breath like a drowning man. His thin legs stuck out of the blanket like they belonged to a cartoon character on the door to his shop. One relative fanned the dying man with a magazine, another relative on the opposite side fanned him with a piece of cardboard. A scent of death and sickness clung in the heavy, still air. The close, confined smell of the slums mingled with the smell of the dying man. The relatives tried to circulate the heavy, stale air. But their efforts were wasted, useless. Even the small fan at the foot of the mattress did not bring any relief from the heat or the smell.
The prayers and sprinkling of holy water came to an abrupt halt. Bun looked unhappy; Father Andrew had performed the last rites for the third time and still the man refused to die. As he slowly rose from the mattress, Father Andrew motioned for Jess and Noi to do the same. He introduced Father Ben and Sister Teresa to some of the man’s relatives before turning around and walking towards the front door. He looked at the back of the shop house, picked out Calvino, and made his way back to greet him. Jess and Noi trailed behind, making a religious procession. Father Andrew waited until everyone was outside the shophouse before he said anything.
“Sorry I couldn’t meet you at my offices. But this man’s family requested I perform the last rites. No, he’s not dead. He probably won’t die today. With AIDS you can never know when a man will die. It’s not like the movies where the priest arrives and the dying man obliges everyone and dies after ten minutes.”
Outside the shop Father Andrew examined various plastic bottles of medicine that the woman with the damaged arm showed him. He shook his head. “They prescribe this stuff for AIDS? It’s vitamins.” He handed the bottles back to the woman, found his shoes, put them on, and walked back along the path. “Don’t worry, it was good it worked out this way. Another priest and a nun coming to his last
rites was a good thing. His family will get a lot of face from that. And you will get equally good cover from the community. Or at least that is the idea. But I have to warn you; the slum is the least anonymous place in Bangkok. No one disappears in a slum. You are assimilated or accepted but you can’t hide. Everyone knows the movements of everyone else. No police state was ever as well organized or as efficient in intelligence gathering as the good citizens of Klong Toey slum.”
They reached Father Andrew’s car. It was a short ride to his house.
“You two look the part,” said Father Andrew trying to find something positive to say. “But looking the part and playing the part are two different things. Jess, I remember thinking there is a fine young man when you came with Pratt to my house. I didn’t think I would be seeing you again so soon.”
“Or that someone would like to make sure that I never return to LA.”
“Or that I don’t find the serial killer,” said Calvino.
“I’m worried this could be dangerous for you,” said Jess.
Father Andrew smiled. “No doubt. I specialize in dangerous people.”
“What he’s saying is that someone tried to blow up my car and then sent a commando unit after us,” said Calvino. “We still don’t know who they want to kill. Except it’s not Wes Naylor.”
“But it could be Naylor,” said Jess.
“You two don’t seem to agree on much other than that these dangerous people will probably try to kill someone tomorrow or the next day, or the day after that. If you can all stay alive long enough, then Jess will go back to Los Angeles, and Vincent back to delivering birthday cards and then you both will have truly been blessed. I can’t guarantee you anything. I can’t control what will happen. Any more than I can tell you whether the man back there will die tonight or tomorrow. All I can tell you is that he will die.”
Father Andrew pulled into a parking lot jammed with flatbed trucks loaded with containers. Not that many years ago the parking lot had been a slaughterhouse. Pigs squealed throughout the night as workers cut their throats and butchered them for their meat. Father Andrew stopped in front of a vendor’s stand and left the engine running.
“So is someone going to tell me why someone is trying to kill you, Jess?”
“It’s connected with a case in Los Angeles,” said Jess.
“A drug case involving Thais,” said Calvino.
“Drugs,” repeated Father Andrew. “I know something about that. What kind of drugs?”
“Heroin,” said Jess.
Like the original Opium Wars, modern drug wars were waged by local Mafia who had learned history’s lesson on how to successfully colonize the poor.
Dogs slept along the narrow concrete walkway leading to Father Andrew’s house. Low corrugated roofs sagged in places, causing them to bend their heads as they walked underneath. Below the foundation was bilge water as evil as the end of time. Not even the rains diluted the foul water. Smells of cooking drifted from some of the houses. In front a woman cooked fish in oil. The crackling sound of the oil filled the air. A shirtless old man with a gold chain and amulets suspended from it squatted on a stool, watching as they passed. The eyes of the slum watched Father Andrew and those with him. The word circulated as they walked together that he had a Thai priest and nun in tow that no one in the slum knew or had met before. But that was Father Andrew, who always had strange guests, foreign journalists, news crews, politicians, patrons, overseas visitors coming to his house deep inside the slum. Reaching his house, Father Andrew unlocked his door and let Noi and the others go in first. His house didn’t look like a slum. A modern kitchen and redone living room with fans and electric lights and air-conditioning. He went to the fridge, took out a plastic water jug and filled several glasses, gesturing for everyone to find a chair.
“Make yourselves at home,” he said.
Noi sat at the dining room table beneath a photo of a single Chinese man in a white shirt facing off against five Chinese tanks. It was the famous Tiananmen Square photograph of one man’s defiance against the brute forces of repression. Noi was gradually coming out of her shock. She no longer stared straight ahead into the mid-distance. Some song was floating through her mind and she was humming the tune to herself. Somewhere in her mind she was on stage performing before an audience only she could see. She had sought refuge from a state of overwhelming fear, going to that place where she felt strong and in control. On stage. She had some men in the background who had been ordering her to do things she didn’t want to do and for some reason, she could not resist. Be lost until we tell you to be found. Be a whore. Be at the Emporium. Be a nun. Sing a song.
Jess sat a few feet away in an armchair, hands folded on his lap. On the wall behind him was a framed vestment: red brocade. From the old Latin church, from the days when priests were run over by tanks during the Cold War.
Calvino stood in the entrance to the kitchen opening a bottle of wine left over from his birthday party and poured a glass for Father Andrew.
“Jess is collecting evidence for the trial in LA,” said Calvino.
“And a big-time drug smuggler doesn’t like that idea, am I right?” asked Father Andrew, sipping the wine and looking straight at Jess.
“It’s looking that way, Father,” said Jess.
Father Andrew swirled the wine around the glass, held it up to the light, and said nothing for a moment. “The overdose cases. The farangs had all been injected with heroin. That means you are helping Vincent solve this terrible airport serial killer case?”
Jess, looking confused, looked over at Calvino.
“Yes and no,” said Calvino.
“That is a very Thai answer, Mr. Calvino,” said Father Andrew.
“We are working together but not on the heroin overdose cases.”
“I don’t think the cases are related,” said Jess.
“Interesting. So what I am hearing is that you two are working on two separate heroin cases but haven’t bothered to tell each other about your cases,” said Father Andrew. Setting the wine glass on the table, he sat down opposite Noi. “If I am going to help you, I need to know exactly who I am helping and why they need help. Those are the rules. They apply to the street kids. They apply to people after heroin dealers, and particularly to those whom heroin dealers are after. So we can’t afford to be even a little confused. I believe, as you might expect, that confession is good not only for the soul but for keeping people alive and healthy.”
Jess thought about this as he looked over at Calvino. “I had no idea that I was being set up. I never intended to drag Vincent into my heroin bust. I’ve done bodyguard assignments before. This was another job. Naylor seemed to warrant protection. He had received death threats. On the way from the airport, there was another attempt on Naylor.”
“We thought it was on Naylor,” said Calvino.
“What I am saying is this didn’t start out as a covert operation. I had a chance to talk to Pratt about my heroin case. He had some ideas. We exchanged some information. He showed me some of his data.”
“Why not follow up the leads?” asked Father Andrew. “That’s what you were thinking.”
Jess nodded, broke into a grin. “Exactly.”
“Pratt has good contacts with a colonel in a special Narc unit. Pratt started looking into the possibility of a serial killer with access to heroin. He was using the stuff to overdose tourists. What he found was that the heroin came over the border with Burma and then vanished. As if the white powder had gone into thin air. There was too much product gone missing. Where had it gone? Was the disappearance linked to the five overdose cases Vincent had him worried about? He had all of these questions and no real answers. I told Pratt about the guy I had arrested in LA with a kilo of heroin from the Golden Triangle, and we started to work on establishing a possible connection between a pending drug case in LA and missing heroin coming in from Burma. Was it the same stuff? I said I didn’t know. My problem was I had arrested a low-level dealer who, as I
said before, only had a kilo on him. But that’s a lot of money on the street. This guy looks like he will fall and do the hard time rather than tell us where he got it. His trial comes up in a couple of weeks.”
“In sixteen days,” said Noi.
The three men looked at her. “How do you know that?” asked Jess.
“Because he’s my brother.”
“Interesting,” said Father Andrew, breaking the silence.
“It’s funny that Gabe never mentioned your brother was in jail,” said Calvino. “Now it seems you were never lost. Your job was to lead us to the bombers.”
Looking at Noi dressed as a nun made it difficult to believe she had drawn them to the Emporium in order to have them killed.
She shook her head, “I told you before. I really didn’t know. jing jing. You have to believe me.” She was pleading, searching the faces, looking for some glimmer that at least one of them believed her. yings like to say jing jing. It’s true, it’s true. When most of the time it was an outright falsehood.
The assignment had started as innocently as the look on Noi’s face. Why not make some money from a bodyguard assignment in Thailand? After all, asking Jess to go to Thailand made sense, he was an ethnic Thai, and so was Dr. Nat. They understood each other. Dr. Nat had been his doctor ever since he was fourteen years old. He never stopped and thought the full implications through. Now it was obvious. He had been stupid not to realize that putting Calvino and him on full expenses plus the cash was too good to be true. If he had been smart, he would have started on day one looking for what had to be another agenda. Even now, in Father Andrew’s house, Jess wanted to believe—and continued to believe—that Dr. Nat didn’t know about the real setup. Dr. Nat had been used. And if Dr. Nat didn’t know, maybe Noi was telling the truth. Both of them had been used. In reality, whoever was afraid of Noi’s brother testifying had to be busting his guts laughing; here was the arresting officer taking four grand for four days to arrange his own execution. A cheap price to fix a drug case. A Thai who happens to be on LAPD is a lot easier to whack out in Bangkok than in Los Angeles. In Bangkok, the masterminds knew the chances were in their favor that they would get away with the crime. They would be protected. No matter what was found, the case wouldn’t go forward because of insufficient evidence. In Los Angeles, the evidence would be found and they would get the needle and the big sleep.
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