THE FIRST THING that happened after they left for the car park was that a couple of men seized the opportunity to loot Danny’s body, so by the time the police and body-snatchers had arrived at the Emporium, all they knew was they had a dead farang with no ID. As terrified shoppers fled outside, the looters stripped Danny’s wallet, Rolex watch, two rings, his Italian shoes, and cash inside his trouser pockets. They left his designer sunglasses with the smashed lenses. The thing about looting a dead body was that it didn’t take long, as there was no resistance and the only pressure was to finish before another looter came along or the authorities arrived. The police had no way of knowing who the dead man was or his address, nationality or any of the small details that go into identifying someone and notifying the next of kin.
The second thing that happened to Danny’s lifeless body on the ground floor of the Emporium after the police arrived and confirmed that he was dead was that the sergeant called a cousin who worked for one of the body snatcher associations. Twenty minutes later, a white van showed up with two men dressed in what might pass as a North Korean mini-submarine team, each zipped into a one-piece jump suit. They parked the van outside the front entrance. Other body snatcher meat wagons had been dispatched to the underground parking lot to pick up the pieces of the two men who had been killed by the Claymore inside Calvino’s Honda. No one was sure from the body fragments how many bodies had been blown up. Rumors bounced from the hospitals to police headquarters, with the body snatchers monitoring police frequencies and dispatching their men in the race to be first. In the old days there would have been fights and sometimes shots exchanged between rival body snatchers. On the day of the bombing, no one was fighting for the mess in the underground parking lot.
Two body snatchers rolled Danny’s body onto a gurney and pushed the gurney along the marble floors to the main entrance and loaded it into the back of the van. They drove straight to the Police Hospital, passing the Erawan Shrine, and delivered the body to the police forensic lab. Danny’s body was wheeled into the autopsy room with half a dozen polished metal tables with three men in lab coats, rubber gloves, and flip-flops bent over bodies with sharp instruments, performing autopsies. The air-conditioning was cranked up full blast. Thai pop music boomed from speakers near the bank of drawers where the bodies were stored. The frozen smell of chemicals was overpowering, like sticking one’s head into a freezer sprayed with Listerine. All the doctors wore white paper masks. Danny’s body was added to the list for an autopsy. When the police sergeant returned to his office, he phoned the American Embassy and said they had collected the body of a farang who might be an American. A duty officer went down to the Police Hospital and by the time he had arrived, the attendants had stripped the body. On the left shoulder was a tattoo: LA Home Boy. Los Angeles was a large city but there was no way the Embassy could track down the identity of the dead man based on a tattoo. He was one of the forty-two Americans who had died in Bangkok over the past year. Dwight Morgan, the duty officer who saw the body, sighed and thought that more than likely the American Citizens’ Service staff would have to chip in and pay for the cremation. Unless by some miracle a relative would show up and make a positive ID. Morgan called Calvino’s office and asked his secretary if Vincent might be able to help identify a young man who had died in the Emporium. Ratana passed this message to Calvino, who phoned Morgan. Calvino took down a description of the deceased.
“This one isn’t a heroin overdose—he died at the Emporium in a fall—and all his valuables are missing. So he doesn’t fit the profile. But I had a hunch you might be able to help.” Morgan had been the only one in the Embassy who had thought that a serial killer might be injecting Americans with heroin.
Hunch my ass, thought Calvino. Morgan had found out that it had been Calvino’s car that had taken the bomb at the Emporium. “Let me make some calls,” Calvino said.
A couple of hours later Calvino phoned Morgan, “There is an American who was seeing a guy named Danny Ramsey. Wesley Naylor is his name. He’s a lawyer. Danny’s parents sent him to Bangkok because they were worried about their son. Danny had some problems getting over a broken relationship with a bar ying and threatened to kill himself.”
“Naylor really said that?”
“That’s what he told me.”
“Could you bring him to identify the body? Maybe it’s the same guy.”
“Can do. Maybe your dead guy is another victim of a broken heart.”
“Phone me when you are on the way. I will meet you at the morgue. Let’s see if the lawyer identifies the body,” said Morgan. He paused as if waiting for some reassurance that this was going to happen. Calvino didn’t say anything, and Morgan continued, “Prepare him before taking him inside the morgue. The last time I took a civilian in they were sawing off a leg, then opened the wrong drawer and there was bloated body that had been dead for over a week. The guy passed out. His legs buckled and he went down hard. They carried him out to the hallway for fresh air.”
“I was at the Emporium when the bomb went off,” said Calvino.
“So I heard,” said Morgan.
Calvino suspected he had already heard a great deal of things, and calling him had something to do with that inside knowledge.
“Meet us at the morgue in an hour.”
“You don’t want to phone and confirm?”
“I’ll be there. Guaranteed.”
THE Police Hospital staff working the morgue knew Calvino. He was one of the few living farangs they had seen more than once or twice. All the rest of the farangs were either dead, passing relatives, or Embassy staff who usually burnt out after six months of dead-American duty.
“What I have to do is identify the body of that guy I dropped?” asked Wes Naylor. He made it sound like a piece of crystal that had slipped out of his hands. Like it has been some kind of an accident. Naylor stank of stale beer as he sat in the back of the taxi next to Calvino. “But I don’t know the guy. Never seen him before.”
“His name is Daniel Ramsey. Thirty-four years old. Born in Los Angeles. His father’s name is Bill and his mother’s name is Patricia. You have just become their family lawyer. I have already phoned Ramsey’s parents and explained the situation. I told them an American lawyer was making the arrangements for their son. You can bill them when you get back to LA.”
“I dropped that cocksucker and now you want me to bill his parents?” Ever since they had left Roadster, Skeleton, and Kashmir back at Lovejoy, Naylor had gone sullen, mean-spirited. He didn’t want to be doing this. He hated himself for caving in to Calvino. And now he simply wanted to get it over with as soon as possible and get back to the Plaza.
“Up to you,” said Calvino.
“What do I have to say?” asked Naylor, working his jaw with his right hand.
“That’s Daniel.”
“What else?”
“And that you are the family lawyer. You came to Thailand on behalf of the parents to find Daniel and bring him back home. The American Embassy will have a duty officer and he might ask a few questions. His name is Dwight Morgan. I know him. Dwight might ask you about how does he contact Danny’s parents or wife or next of kin.”
“I don’t know who they are or where they live.”
“His parents live in the Valley. I have their phone number. Give the number to the duty officer.”
“Who is the duty officer?”
“Dwight Morgan. You are going to handle this just fine.”
“What if Dwight calls the parents? They don’t know me. I’m fucked. Defrauding the US Government is a serious fucking offense.”
“There’s no fraud, Wes. I’ve already talked to Danny’s mother. I explained the situation to Mrs. Ramsey, and that you are bringing her son back to Los Angeles.”
“You didn’t tell her that I killed the little bastard,” said Naylor.
“I left that part out.”
DWIGHT Morgan was waiting outside the autopsy room. He sat in a chair, reading The Asian Wall St
reet Journal and sipping a diet coke. A career officer half-way through his second year at the Embassy in Bangkok, Dwight wondered why, after a distinguished record at Harvard, destiny had led him to morgue duty in Bangkok while his classmates were getting rich doing M&A work, buying into Internet IPOs, and starting up e-commerce companies. America was about commerce. And here he was shipping back dead Americans for a living and calling himself a diplomat. As Dwight spotted Calvino walking in with a Foodland plastic bag, he folded the newspaper and rose from the chair. Naylor was walking next to Calvino. Morgan thought Naylor didn’t look much like a lawyer with his shirt unbuttoned to his navel with a fifteen-baht gold chain the size of a horse collar around his neck.
“Dwight, this is Wesley Naylor, the LA lawyer who represents the Ramsey family,” said Calvino.
Dwight extended his hand. “Sorry to meet in such unfortunate circumstances and to put you through this ordeal, Mr. Naylor. But when is the last time you saw Mr. Ramsey?”
“Yesterday. The day he died,” said Naylor without a moment’s hesitation. The conviction of truth rang in his words.
This impressed the duty officer. Morgan took another sip from his diet coke. “Then you should be able to tell us whether the body of the man inside is that of Mr. Ramsey.”
Naylor simply nodded.
“Let’s get it over with,” said Dwight Morgan.
As they walked inside the morgue, Dwight Morgan walked ahead and, speaking in fluent Thai, asked one of the attendants to open the drawer with the dead farang from the Emporium. The attendants led them to the far end of the room and opened a drawer. Naylor was gagging and coughing from the smell. It was ice cold from the air-conditioning set on high.
“You okay?” asked Calvino.
“How can you stand that stink?” His faced twisted in horror.
“Try breathing through your mouth,” said Calvino.
“It doesn’t taste any better than it smells,” replied Naylor.
Morgan stood to one side as the attendant opened the stainless steel drawer. Inside was the body of the one of the Thais who had been blown up inside Calvino’s car. Several of the steel ball bearings bounced off the side of the drawer making the ping sound of a pinball machine. The balls must have fallen out when the staff placed the body inside the drawer, thought Calvino. There were about 700 ball bearings in a Claymore mine, and the ball bearings that didn’t rip the body apart at close range had lodged in the flesh and bone. The mangled body inside didn’t look human; a mistake in cloning, yes, but a human being that had been born of a ying, no, that wasn’t what Naylor stared down at inside the drawer. He gasped, spun around on his heel, bent over and vomited. Calvino looked inside the drawer, then at Morgan and the attendant. Was this a setup?
“I don’t think this one is an American,” said Calvino, staring down at the blown up body. “We came to identify a farang.”
The attendant checked his clipboard. Sure enough the number was one digit off Daniel Ramsey’s number. The attendant and Morgan discussed the mistake in Thai. Morgan then explained that there had been a foul up and the attendant was sorry. Naylor, who was still half doubled over, was leaking beer from his nose and mouth onto the floor. “They have a number of bodies that came in from the Emporium,” said Morgan. “It’s been a busy day. The foreigner is in the next drawer.”
The attendant pulled out another drawer and this one contained Daniel’s body. “Do you recognize this man?” Dwight Morgan asked him.
Naylor stood straight, cupped his hand over his mouth and nodded. His breathing was labored, and he was sweating, dripping sweat on the floor. The sound of loud pop music and the flip-flops on the floor caused Naylor to spew again.
“For the record, could you tell me who this man is?”
“This man is Daniel Ramsey of Los Angeles, California.” His voice was low and hoarse. The voice of a sick, defeated man.
“You are sure. It is important that we don’t make a mistake,” said Morgan.
“For fuck sakes, I am sure,” said Naylor, stopping himself one impulse short of saying he had seen the fuck’s face for an instant as he had gone over the fifth floor railing.
Morgan asked the attendant to close the drawer. “We can go now,” Morgan said.
Once outside the morgue, Naylor retched in a wastepaper basket but nothing came out; he had the dry heaves. Naylor slumped back in a chair, his legs sprawled out, and wiped his mouth with the Asian Wall Street Journal Morgan had left behind.
“It’s never easy doing this. Sometimes I have had people faint. You did very well, Mr. Naylor, given the circumstances.”
“I could use a drink, Calvino,” said Naylor, making a grab for the plastic bag.
Calvino pulled the bag back and Naylor was too weak to go after it. “I’ll buy you a drink later.”
“Now what do I have to do?” moaned Naylor, looking up at Morgan and then reaching for the Foodland bag, pulling out the bottle of Johnny Walker Black. Calvino grabbed the bottle away from him and put it back in the bag.
“We will handle everything.” Morgan explained, watching the tug-of-war over the bottle of scotch. He told Naylor that the Embassy took the responsibility for making all of the necessary arrangements for the body to be returned for burial in the States. Most of the time the Embassy recommended a number of funeral homes, including one run and operated by a Thai-Chinese family. A father and three sons, two of whom had been educated in the States, understood that Americans expected a degree of decorum in funeral parlor operators. They had to dress and behave like American funeral parlor operators. The father and his sons wore dark tailored suits. They were well-groomed: no hair growing out of their ears or nose, or goatees; their nails manicured and haircuts conservative and they knew how to stand, walk, and be silent like preachers. These funeral men were efficient and knew they were in the business of selling compassion and kindness. They inspired trust. Nothing like a pair of plastic sandals, shorts, nose-picking, coughing up lungers and spitting to shatter trust or faith that the deceased would be accorded proper respect. Morgan explained how the Embassy had complete faith in this family; they let them arrange a new suit of clothes, a coffin and the embalming. Unless the body was to be cremated. Most relatives of the deceased preferred the cremation option. It was far cheaper. Morgan also remarked that the father and three sons always had a small rose in the lapel of their suits, giving the faint impression they had just come from a wedding. The Embassy liked the cut of their suits, best of all they liked that they used a new Nissan carryboy supercab—they had the windows tinted and there were no dents or scratches on the Nissan—Americans hated the thought of their dead being transported to the airport on a flat bed pick-up truck tied down with rope so it wouldn’t bounce off.
“How much does this service cost?” asked Wes Naylor.
“With embalming, it comes to four thousand dollars,” said Morgan. He seemed to like that Naylor wanted to talk about the money part. It made him trust that Naylor indeed was an American. “But if you go the cremation route, then it is six hundred dollars.”
“Cremation,” said Naylor. “We shouldn’t burden Daniel’s family.”
“That’s what most people choose. Shipping a eight pound box of ashes isn’t all that expensive,” said Morgan.
Their conversation about saving money began to annoy Calvino. The whole point was not to cremate the body. He had neglected to tell Naylor: go for the embalming. We need the body; we need the coffin. Before Naylor completely blew that option Calvino cleared his throat and stepped forward.
“Wes, remember, we talked about this earlier,” Calvino said.
Naylor was about to contradict him and say they had never talked about the money when Calvino rammed on, cutting off the sputtering start of a reply. “You said that the Ramsey family wanted Daniel’s body for a funeral. They have a religious thing against cremation. Remember? That means we pay the higher amount. They authorized you to advance the money. You asked me to keep the cash in my office safe
because you didn’t trust the security box at your hotel. Remember?”
Of course Naylor didn’t remember a goddamn thing as he was hearing all of this for the first time.
“Yeah, sure,” Naylor, smiling. “Embalming. Of course, we want the body embalmed.”
“Do you have the four thousand?” asked Morgan.
Calvino nodded, looking straight at Naylor, wanting to knock the smirk off his bloated face. “How soon can the body be shipped back?” asked Calvino.
Morgan outlined the steps and the time needed for each one. “As soon as we have the death certificate, the body is embalmed, then a suit is bought, the body is dressed, a coffin ordered, arrangements made with an American airline, and finally the funeral parlor arranges for transportation of the body to the airport.” He paused for a moment. “Minimum of say two or three days. That’s super fast track. Usually it takes a week.”
“The body goes to the airport?” asked Naylor, playing stupid—which wasn’t a stretch for him. He blinked, looked at Calvino, then at Morgan, the way a child looks with his mouth open upon learning clouds travel at five hundred miles per hour.
“Not to the passenger terminal. The coffin goes as cargo.”
“How about tomorrow?” asked Calvino.
“Yeah, tomorrow is what we need, his family is in deep mourning,” said Naylor. “And the Ramseys, my clients, want to get this sad affair over as quickly as possible.”
Calvino removed forty hundred-dollar bills from his wallet and counted them out. Four thousand dollars. He handed the money to Dwight Morgan. Naylor hadn’t looked so happy since he had Jep bouncing on his knee. Watching Calvino hand over his entire bodyguarding fee made him positively glow with happiness. Calvino avoided looking at him as he began to re-count the money. Morgan seemed to have second thoughts as Calvino counted the notes for a second time. A couple of attendants in the corridor stopped to look at all that money. It made Morgan a little nervous; he being a public official taking all that cash in a public place from one farang with a beat-up face and another wearing a huge gold chain. A photograph of that moment circulated around the State Department would destroy his career.
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