“Gabe and Kowit were buddies, right?” asked Calvino.
She nodded. “Kowit came around to the bar. Gabe told me that Kowit was a silent partner.” It was interesting how she had dropped the polite form of address, “Khun”, which Thais always added before the name of the person they were talking about. Either she didn’t respect him or she had become Americanized, where this form of respect would have seemed old-fashioned, not cool.
“What do you think that Gabe meant by that?” asked Jess.
“That Kowit put money into the business and let Gabe make all the decisions about how to run it. I guess that’s how he meant it. I never saw Kowit ordering anyone around the bar.”
“But Gabe gave Kowit a cut of the take?” asked Calvino. “Kowit would come in and bring in cash? And then take out cash? Is that how they worked?”
“I wasn’t their accountant. I don’t know about the money. Who got what, I don’t know.”
“You lived with Gabe. A woman living with a man knows his business,” said Calvino, and he was walking around, getting pissed off that she was being evasive.
“Once, I asked Gabe about Kowit, and he told me to leave the fucking business side to him. He was angry when he said this. Like I overstepped the line. So I backed off. That side of it had nothing to do with me.”
“But it had a lot to do with your brother. How did your brother get mixed up with Kowit?” asked Jess.
The question left her silent for a moment. “It sounds stupid.”
“What does?” asked Calvino.
“They both like to gamble on cock fights. There was a group of Thais that met every Sunday at wat Thai. Cock fights and betting on them was illegal but Kowit got my brother to help arrange the place, help with security, that kind of thing. He bought my brother a prize cock and my brother won money for him at the cock fights.”
“Then Kowit moved your brother into another illegal business. Drugs,” said Jess.
A look of hate crossed her face. “You already know that. You arrested him.”
“Would he testify against Kowit if I could get him immunity?” asked Jess. “Trust me, I can make this happen.”
Here was another man asking her to do something based on trust. She didn’t trust anyone. How could she trust the cop who had busted her own brother? Then she remembered some basic reality—that she was alone. She had almost no choice. It didn’t matter if she trusted this LAPD cop or not. She had nothing to lose. Her eyes clouded over with tears that spurted out and rolled down her checks.
“I don’t know. I don’t know anything. If I did, do you think I would have got involved in any of this? I am scared and I am sad. And I know you think that I am bad and that I helped them plant the bomb. I didn’t. Please believe me.”
Calvino sat in a chair near the door.
“About Danny?”
“I don’t know. Don’t ask me about Danny. I am worried about my brother, myself, my son. What will happen to my son? What if they try to hurt him to get back at me and my brother?” She paused and looked at Jess and Calvino. “I don’t want to go back to LA. I have to stay and protect my son. Please understand me.”
“Where is your son?” asked Calvino. “Pratt will make certain nothing happens to him.”
“Should I believe you?” she asked.
Jess looked at him.
“You have someone else in mind who is going to keep your kid safe?”
AT Lovejoy, Naylor sat next to a member of the Cause. This was a weekly mini-convention that members had when in town. They bullshitted each other about their conquests, going into the details of how many yings they had taken, the price paid, the performance, the quality, rating the last issue of yingzine. They could have been a middle-aged group of dog breeders talking about the awards they had received from their last show. The bond of their membership was clear: it was ying bonding. And there was a guy, a retired professor, named Arnold (with one of those family names that was two vowels short of being pronounceable) from Spring Lake, New Jersey, who nursed a Kloster Beer firmly wedged inside one of those moulded foam coolers the dek serve called “condoms.”
“The only yings I’ve ever sustained a long term relationship with are the ones that I never fucked,” said Ted. “Once bodily fluids are exchanged, the die is cast; nothing can ever call back the balance, the fidelity, the trust that preceded that act of coupling. What replaces this is a monstrous deterioration as if a slow-working poison had been injected into the veins, and the imbalance, the improbable scenes, the irrational behavior are the by-product of sex for which there is no cure.”
“Whatever the fuck that means,” said Naylor.
“Sex with any woman changes the equation. Afterwards all the numbers cling together, the demands are not far behind, and marching side by side with the demands are strange fears and desires, an army of demands fully capable of committing the worst atrocities.”
“All I know is that I’ve got the sickness,” said Naylor, squeezing Jep’s thigh. “An abnormal desire to spend all my money on drinking, bar fines, and paying for the medicine, food, housing and spending money for a woman I haven’t even fucked.”
“Live with her and in two years she will despise you. Guaranteed,” said Roadster, a youngish guy with one of those huge shit-bag guts like someone had opened his belly and stuffed a large piece of luggage inside and sewn him back up. “Live with her for five years and you will despise yourself.”
“Live with her for eight years and she will own everything you’ve got, including your pension,” said Skeleton, a speed freak who had never been seen eating any solid food and weighed about 120 pounds.
A member nicknamed Kashmir was eating a leg of chicken with greasy fingers, making sucking noises as he used his teeth to tear off strips of flesh and chew. He belched. “I’ve done eighty yings this year. All this talk about living with a ying is a perversion. You can’t live with a woman anymore than you can breathe carbon dioxide.”
Wes stroked the hair of Jep who, straddled his knee, resting on her pelvic bone, and was talking to the whore who was giving Ted a neck massage while watching the TV above the bar.
“Kashmir, you’re full of shit. Roadster, buy the future Mrs. Naylor a lady’s drink.”
“Is that ying Eric’s?” asked Weasel, who was sitting in the back.
That accusation brought quiet to the bar. It was laid on the table. Had Naylor breached the YINGS? “She says they broke up.”
“A ying is known to lie. What does Eric say?” asked Weasel, moving down the bar. He kept a close eye on the future Mrs. Naylor.
“I know what you are doing,” said Naylor. “Since you fucked Mucus’ ying you are trying to shift the blame. Am I right? I have not had sex with her. Not once. So I am clean. You understand that? Clean.”
“Mucus isn’t ever gonna show up, so it don’t matter,” said Kashmir.
Calvino walked into the bar and took the stool vacated by one of Jep’s friends. He sat next to Naylor. “Well, well, Vincent Calvino. Welcome to our meeting. We were just talking about the problem of relationships.”
“A relationship is like a massacre,” said Kashmir.
“A war crime,” said Roadster.
“A sickness,” said Ted the Professor.
“A court case,” said Weasel.
“I heard you closed the deal on the hotel,” said Calvino, pointing at the bottle of Mekhong above the bar.
“That Chinese family finally listened to reason.”
“You mean they listened to McPhail,” said Calvino.
“This is one of my ex-bodyguards,” Wes Naylor said to Ted. He was like a guy bragging about owning a sports team or race horse. “Where’s Jess?”
“With our assignment finished, he’s booking his return to LA.”
“Tell him that I wish him luck,” said Naylor.
“He needs some help getting back,” said Calvino.
Naylor’s brows knitted together and he looked mean. “What am I, his travel agent?”
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Naylor’s tiny pig-like eyes flashed with annoyance. He pushed back Jep’s hair and kissed her neck. Calvino let him alone for a few moments. Sucking on Jep’s earlobe seemed to calm down Naylor. “Let’s go outside.”
“I’m in a meeting,” said Naylor. “I can’t just go outside. Besides, last time I went outside with you it got very dangerous.”
“Okay, remember the guy you pushed over the side at the Emporium?”
Naylor lifted off his stool. “Let’s go outside.”
Once they were outside, Naylor looked like he wanted to punch Calvino.
“Jesus, you can’t go around broadcasting that I killed that guy. Are you totally nuts? There are guys in there who will post that on the Net.”
“You just admitted it. You killed him. Threw him over the side.”
“He was trying to kill you.”
“I told Colonel Pratt that’s your story. But there are reports to fill out. It’s not like the movies, where the police just forget the paperwork when someone is killed. You have any idea how many forms the police have to fill out?”
“You told the Thai cops that I killed that scumbag?”
“I told Colonel Pratt I saw you throw Daniel over the railing. Of course, I have tried to put in a good word for you. I don’t think you would have to serve any serious time. I am willing to say that you acted in self-defense. Sometimes things go in weird directions in Thailand. Not that long ago the police kept a German locked up for months, saying he was a drug dealer but never charging. The German said he was innocent. The police said he was dirty. A stalemate. Who do you think wins in that situation? The farang or the Thai police? It’s like this, Wes: it’s hard getting a farang the police don’t like out of jail.”
“But if they like me, then my problem disappears?” asked Naylor, who looked worried. He no longer was joking around with Jep. Calvino had his full attention.
“If you help us, I think the police are going to love you. No problem.”
“Fuck, Calvino. What do I have to do?”
“First, we go down to the morgue at the Police Hospital. A duty officer from the American Embassy needs you to identify the body,” said Calvino.
“Tell Jess and the cops to go fuck themselves. I ain’t identifying any dead body.”
“You look at the body and say, that’s Daniel Ramsey,” said Calvino.
“For all I know this is some kind of confession that I killed someone and they will fuck me over for money. That’s what this is about, isn’t it?”
“No, that’s not what it’s about. You are the dead man’s lawyer.”
“I don’t do estate work.”
“The Ramsey family has authorized you to arrange their son’s return to Los Angeles.”
“You are a sick fuck. You’re threatening me. You’re coercing me, Calvino.” The full implication of falling off the Causeway into the void of the legal system in Thailand finally began to sink into Naylor’s skull. And this vision, this new vision of prisons and dirty cells and leg irons, made his stomach churn, his skin go cold.
Calvino paused for a moment, his hands on the railing, looking down at the Plaza. He could sense that Naylor was slowly giving in. He wanted to make it easy for him. Let him keep his face because he had to go back into the bar and tell his friends and Jep that he couldn’t stick around. “This will take about twenty minutes of your time. I think you owe Jess one, Wes,” said Calvino. “He saved your ass.”
Naylor clenched his jaw so the bone showed through the skin. He stared hard at Calvino.
“I need to see the papers.”
“I have arranged for that,” said Calvino.
“I am not sure I wanna get near any papers you arranged. They might be like your car.”
Calvino nodded to the bar. “Let’s go back inside. Finish your drink. Settle up with your friends. Trust me. This will be different. Calm down. Relax. You get too excited. You could have a heart attack from too much excitement.”
They sat back at the bar and Calvino took a drink from his Mekhong and coke, and took out the papers and slid them across the bar to Naylor. “Just sign the power of attorney.”
Roadster, Kashmir, and Ted watched as Naylor put on his glasses and read the paper.
Naylor leaned in close to Calvino and whispered, “This says I am appointed by the deceased’s next of kin to act as their attorney. Is this a joke? I killed the cocksucker. I can’t fucking sign these.”
Naylor’s fists lay on the document in the dimly lit bar.
“Why not? As you said, you killed the bastard. All this is about is returning the dead man’s remains to the States. Is that such a bad thing?”
Naylor glared at him, looked down at the paper. “Why is it I don’t trust you, Calvino?”
“You would be dead if it hadn’t been for Jess and me.”
Naylor leaned over the bar and signed the power of attorney and other papers in fourteen different places. He shoved them back across to Calvino. “What else do you want?”
Calvino stood up from the stool and shoved a hundred-baht note in the chit cup. “Let’s go to the morgue. Tomorrow we take the coffin to the airport and see that it gets loaded onto the right plane.”230
“Remember the last time on that airport road, someone shot at us?”
“I thought that didn’t bother you.”
“Well, it didn’t. It didn’t seem real.”
“Not real? Every time someone has shot at me, it seemed real. I never confuse the real with the pretend, the dead with the living, a lie with the truth, or a bar ying’s pitch with what actually happened to fuck up her life.” Calvino finished his drink, nodded at Jep, who leaned forward, her hands clasped around Naylor’s thick neck. She was laughing; she was taking him for a ride and her mosquito bites were healing. Roadster was eyeing her the way a predator eyes a meal strolling down a jungle trail. If Wes Naylor could violate the yings, why couldn’t everyone else?
“One more thing: I wouldn’t bring Jep along to the morgue.” Calvino pointed at an unopened bottle of Johnny Walker Black set against the mirror.
Roadster broke into a wide, shit-eating grin of a smile. About five thousand dollars worth of dental work might have made it a pretty smile.
The waitress thought Calvino wanted a drink from the Johnny Walker bottle and she started to open it.
“I want the bottle. Don’t open it,” Calvino said to her in Thai.
As he paid for the bottle, Naylor leaned over and said, “You are an odd sonofabitch. You drink Mekhong in the bar, and take Johnny Walker Black to your hong to drink alone.”
Calvino paid for the bottle and asked the waitress to put it in a plastic bag.
“We have some business to finish,” said Calvino.
“You have business. Mine is finished.” Naylor liked to challenge him; there were men for whom this was part of their nature—they could never give any ground, it was deep in their nature to throw back whatever someone said to them like it was a tennis ball. It was a game to see who would give in first, who would lose his cool. Calvino knew Naylor’s game and he declined to play, as the stakes were too high. He needed Naylor’s help or none of the plans would work, so what he did was let Naylor have his victory in front of his friends. Guys like Naylor were made controllable by allowing them to win. It only had to be a surface win for them to do a victory dance. Winning was their way of life, their face, their way of seeing themselves in a world where everyone was ultimately a loser. Kashmir and Roadster watched from the bar. As Roadster’s hand crept over and touched Jep, Naylor slapped it away.
As Calvino headed for the door, he turned back and said, “You’re right, Wes. I am the one with a problem. And I need your help. I am asking you because I have no other choice. You hold the winning hand. A full house and I am holding crap. But I don’t think you will hold that against me. I’ll wait for you outside.” He went outside and stood besides the railing opposite Lovejoy Bar. He leaned back and waited. After a couple of minutes, Naylor hadn’t
come out, so he went back into the bar and stood near the staircase leading up to the private living quarters. Naylor looked annoyed as he saw that Calvino had come back inside. He moaned, reached for his wallet and started to take out cash to pay the bill. “Okay, okay. Chek bin. Bring me the fucking bill.” One floor up Jack and his wife were fighting about money and her relatives and her fucking around. Jack was calling her a whore, a slut, a liar. Something made of glass smashed against a wall.
Naylor slammed the money down and said to his friends. “Meeting’s adjourned. Case against Weasel dismissed. Insufficient evidence and the complainant failed to show.”
Calvino let Naylor walk past him and out the door. It had started to rain and down below people were scrambling for cover. Calvino followed, stepping into the heavy night air of the plaza. The wet air smelled of garlic and palm oil and hamburger meat. On the landing, Calvino looked inside the beauty parlor where several yings were having their hair done. Below, the Plaza was filled with punters wide-eyed, grinning, negotiating the narrow corridor between the tables and bar entrances on the second floor. The corridor and landings were thick with beggars, kids selling gum, men selling flowers, and bar yings smoking cigarettes. A couple of katoeys in tight short-shorts patrolled the far end of the Plaza, trapping a couple of tourists and trying to drag them into their bar. Clouds kept the moon and stars hidden. Bright neon lights reflected off the wet pavement. Pretty Girl. G-Spot. Rainbow. Spirit House. Spider’s Web. Hollywood. There were no stars on the walkways. Only wannabe stars appearing in their own scripted world, lining up the next farang for an audition, pitching him the story of their life. Like Noi had pitched hers in the hotel hong. There was a dreary sameness to the pitch. It was as if it should be in capital letters: THE PITCH. Every night, rain or shine, the pretty ones would get chosen. And the plain ones would dance until two and go home alone until they learned that the new farangs who had never heard the pitch would take them. That made all the difference in the world.
THIRTEEN
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