by John Burdett
Chinese genes are taken for granted among Thai high society, especially in banking. Khun Tanakan’s porcelain skin, small intense dark eyes—more slitted than those of an ethnic Thai—jet-black hair, sophisticated manners, and beautifully cut suit all place him at the highest level of Thai-Chinese movers and shakers. But Tanakan has something extra: surely his forefathers were not all diminutive Chiu Chow from the Swatow region of fishing folk, for he is almost six feet tall, indicative of ancestors from the north, Manchuria perhaps. It is nearly impossible to imagine uncontrollable passion in this man, but I’ve seen Baker’s video; I have watched that intense, focused ambition morph into a lust of reptilian intensity. In his early fifties, he owns an excellent physique and—ref. the video—a smooth ivory member of respectable dimensions.
“Allow me to introduce my assistant Detective Jitpleecheep,” Vikorn is saying. At the subtlest shift of the banker’s eyes, Vikorn adds, “He will wait here, or perhaps in your own suite, while we chat.”
Tanakan nods. Graciously: “He can sit wherever he pleases. My secretary has her own office. He can sit there, or he can stay here.”
“I think he would prefer your secretary’s hospitality,” Vikorn says, thinking of the range of his equipment.
“Yes,” the banker says, turning to me with a smile of such warmth and hospitality, I could be his favorite nephew. Once in his suite, he introduces me to his secretary at the same time as he shows Vikorn into his office, then firmly closes the door.
She is, I am afraid, quite amazingly attractive. If Tanakan is banging her (which I bet Wall Street against a Thai mango he is), you have to wonder why he needed Damrong.
Or do you? Her long black hair floats on the air when she moves, exactly like a shampoo advertisement. She is dressed in the very latest HiSo business combination (black and white with a dash of color in the jewelry). I’m sure that’s Van Cleef and Arpels distributing subtly perfumed vectors into the air-conditioning. She does not make a single move, or even blink, without reference to some beautician’s code of conduct, and she seems able to type. On the other hand, I have my own insight into the kind of service Damrong provided to the master banker, the likes of which might have shocked this girl into confessing all to her mother; unlikely that she could satisfy Tanakan’s darker needs.
Her instructions include seducing me, at least to the point of bringing me to heel. She has never flirted with a cop before, though, and is having trouble covering her revulsion. I have not helped her dilemma by fishing out my iPod and my Bluetooth earpiece and lounging on the Italian leather sofa under the porcelain lions with my feet stretched out like the yobcop she had me down as from the start.
“Welcome to my humble office,” Tanakan is saying in my right ear.
“It is a great honor, Khun Tanakan,” Vikorn says. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen an office of such beauty. Your taste is impeccable, Khun Tanakan.”
“Oh, you must not be so modest, Colonel. What am I? A banker, a moneyman. Compared to the service a senior police officer of your caliber renders to society, I am the one who should be congratulating you.”
“Ah, Khun Tanakan is too kind. Let us be frank, we belong to different classes. You are porcelain, and I am earthenware.”
“Even if I were to accept that admirably modest statement, Colonel, I would have to add the rider that when porcelain collides with earthenware, it is the porcelain that suffers the most damage.”
“I was coming to that,” Vikorn says softly.
Meanwhile Tanakan’s secretary has started to worry that she might not be following instructions to the letter. She has found an excuse to stand up, turn to the side, inhale, and square her shoulders; her breasts are, of course, perfect, but what am I supposed to do about it? Now she has emerged fully from behind her desk and sees an urgent need to tidy up the glossy magazines on the coffee table just in front of the sofa. She frowns in concentration with Fortune in one hand, then finds she has to explain herself by turning to me with a confused smile. When even that fails to bring me to my knees, she swallows before speaking. “I can’t remember where this goes,” she says sweetly. More than ever I can see why Tanakan needed Damrong.
“Of course,” Vikorn is saying, “there is an attraction between opposites, as the Buddha taught.”
“Correct,” Tanakan admits.
“It goes without saying that humble earthenware feels awe, admiration, even passion for porcelain, not to mention envy, but the attraction that porcelain feels for earthenware is less well documented.”
“Colonel Vikorn’s forensic genius is well known. Your insight into even the subtlest shades is amazing.”
“Of course, what the world does not know is the true nature of the service rendered to society by men like you. All day and most of the night you are laboring to keep our economy healthy. At Khun Tanakan’s level, the pressures are enough to kill a lesser man. You must have some rest and recreation, perhaps of a kind not entirely accepted by piety and ignorance.”
“Not only is the Colonel a great policeman, he is a connoisseur of human nature and the embodiment of compassion.”
“I like to practice compassion whenever possible,” Vikorn says. “However, is it not one of the great insights of the Buddha that even monks need to be sustained? Even compassion needs material help.”
“Certainly. A great deal of help, and it is my deepest wish that I might be able to contribute in some small way.”
“For example,” Vikorn says, “suppose at this very moment a servant entered this office, perhaps an ignorant and uneducated young woman, and in the process of cleaning dislodged that beautiful vase, which, let us say, is about to fall unless a person of practical ability were there to see the danger and save it.”
A pause. Tanakan replies, “Such a service of compassion would be rewarded to the value of the vase and beyond.”
“What is the value of the vase, Khun Tanakan?”
“It is a long time since I had it valued. The Colonel is no amateur when it comes to evaluating such items, however. What value would the Colonel put on it?”
“May I?”
“Certainly.”
I assume Vikorn is now holding the vase. “Look how perfectly the potter designed these dragons more than a thousand years ago. No one in this modern age would have that kind of skill and patience, much less such an eye for beauty. Exquisite. I would say a million dollars, wouldn’t you?”
An audible sigh of relief. “Certainly, I think the Colonel has valued the vase with great precision. A million dollars, no doubt about it.”
“I’m afraid Khun Tanakan misunderstands,” Vikorn says with irritating humility. “I was referring to each of the dragons being certainly of the value of one million dollars.”
Tanakan, dully: “How many are there?”
“Quite a lot, Khun Tanakan, quite a lot.”
“Would the Colonel do me the great service of counting them?”
“Not today, Khun Tanakan, not today. I would need to study the vase in much greater depth to be able to make an assessment.”
Voice cracking a little: “Greater depth? I am afraid I do not understand.”
“Well, Khun Tanakan is known to be a very prominent collector of such objets d’art. Therefore would he agree with me that two vases may look and even be identical and yet one may fetch a far greater price because of the stories associated with it? Is that not so? Fame, even notoriety, adds so much false value these days, like Elvis Presley’s guitar. Is it not so?”
“I am afraid I am no longer following Colonel Vikorn’s brilliant train of thought.”
A polite cough. “Suppose we change the analogy somewhat. Suppose that the servant girl herself were holding it up high and threatening to smash it. Certainly Khun Tanakan would, in such circumstances, be entitled to take whatever measures necessary to protect his property.”
“Yes?”
“On the other hand, if Khun Tanakan’s measures were unfortunately to result in the untimely
death of the girl…”
A strange silence. “Death of the girl?”
“I am afraid so, Khun Tanakan. I am profoundly sorry to be bringing such sad news at such a time. I think it would be insensitive of me to attempt to evaluate your exquisite vase at this moment. Another day, if Khun Tanakan will be gracious enough to spare the time?”
Defeated: “Whenever the Colonel wishes. I am at your disposal.” A hesitation, then: “Is the Colonel aware that I was in Malaysia on business for the whole of last week?”
“I was not aware of that, Khun Tanakan.”
“Might that be a factor in reducing the value of the vase?”
“It might, Khun Tanakan, it might. Clearly, the whole valuation needs mature consideration. Good afternoon, Khun Tanakan.”
“Please, let me show you out.”
As her boss opens the door, the secretary leans toward me to offer the most brazen come-on I’ve seen outside of the Game.
In the back of the old patrol car, Vikorn says, “How did I do?”
“Brilliant as usual. You saved his face with that vase thing. But he can say he never admitted anything.”
“Sure, he could say that in court and bribe the judge to make sure he got away with it. But nobody would ever believe a word he says again, especially in the international banking community, and he loves being Mr. Big-in-Banking more than he loves life.”
Vikorn and I look out of separate windows while thinking the same thought.
“Was he convincing?”
“About not knowing the girl was dead? Unclear—he’s so luak yen, anything he says is going to sound artificial. And he’s probably telling the truth about being in Malaysia last week. Anyway, what does it matter? The point was to show him there is more than an indiscretion for him to deal with—there’s a corpse as well. I’m selling absolution from a higher crime.” He passes a hand over his great wise head. “Tell you what, Sonchai. This case is getting to be one of your greatest gifts to me, and that was just so much fun with Tanakan. How about I give you twenty-one percent for charity?”
“Fine.”
“Oh, I forgot to ask. Have you been down to the river to see Yammy yet?”
“Not yet. I’m still looking for Baker, remember?”
Vikorn grunts. “Oh, I forgot to tell you. We found him.”
“We did? That was quick.”
My Colonel taps his forehead. “Some of us are still cops, Sonchai. I told Immigration to identify all those crossings to Cambodia that don’t yet have isometric software to check mug shots. There are only five, and only one of those is commonly known to farang crooks. So I told the boys over there it was worth a hundred thousand baht.” His smile is the embodiment of wisdom and compassion. “Motivation is everything in human resources. I had to let them soften him up a bit, as part of the bribe. He should be pretty compliant by the time you reach him.” A couple of beats pass while he wrestles with irritation caused by the upholstery. “No hurry—he isn’t going anywhere. I want you to check up on Yammy before you go.”
12
When Superman morphs into Godot, you can be sure you have reached a deeper, more nuanced level of the American initiation: ask the Iraqis. It’s been one excuse after another from my biological father, aka Superman. I contacted him more than a year ago, in the teeth of outraged objections from Nong (“If he wanted to know us, he would have got in touch decades ago”), and to my astonishment he replied with true Yankee enthusiasm and promised to visit as soon as his legal practice gave him a break. Since then it’s been one excuse after another. Nong has begun to doubt that he really intends to come see us at all, and now we’ve just received an e-mail to say he’s had to postpone again on the advice of his doctor. We’re in the Old Man’s Club at about six-thirty in the evening, and Nong is ranting about farang men in general and him in particular: “Why do they make these stupid promises they don’t intend to keep, as if we’re children who can’t take reality straight? This is the problem with their whole culture—they think the rest of the world is as childish as they are. A Thai man would have told us to get lost, and we would have forgotten about him by now.”
We are sitting at a table near the bar that is empty except for Marly, who is taking a break from her new porn career with Yammy, and Henri the Frenchman, who has sneaked in early because he’s heard that Marly is here. Henri is one of those who decided tragically early in life that they wanted to be an author and didn’t notice the passage of time until it was too late. Now he is short, bald, and forty-three. As is often the case with literary genius, especially the unpublished sort, Henri has no disposable income at all and just about makes ends meet through a little English-to-French translation work over the Net, which he considers a serious threat to his psychic health and intolerable for more than an hour a day (“another fucking microwave manual, mon Dieu, I don’t have to translate the fuckeur. I know by heart a fucking large fucking potato takes cinq minutes, and if you wrap it in aluminum, you can expect a wonderful little firework display with lots of fine crackles and pops—there are days when I would give my membre virile for a little ambiguity, double entendre, obscure literary reference, even a well-placed adjective, nom de Dieu”), and lives in a tiny room on the notorious Soi 26, a stone’s throw from the still more notorious Klong Toey area (they almost pay you to live there). He is, for reasons of impecuniosity, therefore not the most popular customer among the girls, which might explain the pining quality of his prose. He does, though, to give him his due, own not a little of the elegance of the nineteenth-century Paris he so much wanted to inhabit and when sauced can charm them with his silver tongue:
Henri to Marly (I suspect the secret heroine of his perpetual work in progress): “When they told me you were going to be here tonight, I abandoned my work and rushed over.”
“Lork?”
“Yes, and what is more, this anguish seems to have sharpened my perception, because when I saw you, I experienced all over again that joy, that leap of recognition which I experienced the very first moment I set eyes on you.”
“Lork?”
“And I even love the way you say lork. On the lips of another Thai woman it is just as dreary as that pathetic English word really, but from you it possesses the intangible quality of nirvana.”
“Do you want me tonight? I have time for a quick one, before I start filming down by the river.”
Henri forces his features into an exaggerated beam. “I’m saving up. Three more microwave manuals and five DVD players, and you will be mine, chérie. On the other hand, why don’t you extend to me a little credit? The orders are in, I just have to do the work.”
Marly, who thanks to Yammy’s irresponsible encouragement has set her sights on Hollywood, raises her eyes to the ceiling in disgust and turns away. I smile at her and invite her to join us, in the hope it will put an end to Nong’s moaning. “How’s the filming going?”
“Fine, I think. Yammy’s ting-tong—I mean, the guy is totally nuts—but he really knows what he’s doing.” She checks her watch.
“Give me a ting-tong Jap any day against a two-faced farang,” Nong growls. I feel sad because I know where her anger comes from. She didn’t expect much from renewed contact with the young American soldier she fell in love with more than thirty years ago, only a certain belated sharing, a pride in the son they made together—I haven’t turned out that bad after all, compared to most leuk kreung from the Vietnam War—a chat about old times. It’s his meanness of spirit she resents with its racist implication: would he have been so neglectful of a white American girl? Marly looks at me, and I raise my hands to convey helplessness. Luckily, at that moment Greg the Australian walks in. Nong has the same soft spot for him as I have for Henri, and she gives him a big welcoming smile. He responds with an inept wai that makes Nong grin and shake her head. Without waiting for his order, she goes behind the bar to open a cold bottle of Foster’s and hands it to him without adding it to his slate; she is using this gesture to change her mood. “Lov
e the way you look after me,” Greg says. “You’re better than twelve mums.” The idea of someone having twelve mothers tickles Nong’s funny bone, and she cackles at him.
A word about Greg. Endowed by nature with a metabolism that keeps him slim no matter how much Foster’s he drinks, he looks quite a bit younger than his thirty-eight years. A product of what I believe his countrymen call “the tall poppy syndrome,” he manifests normality to a morbid degree. He drinks beer with men, has sex with women, loves rugby, football, cricket, and gambling on what he calls the jee-jees, and is always bright and friendly with a ready “G’day” in all stages of inebriation except the last.
It is Lek, usually, who rescues dear Greg from his fits of uncontrollable sobbing at the end of a Foster’s-intensive evening, usually in the lavatory, when he feels no embarrassment at being hoisted from the pit of suicidal despair by an exceptionally effeminate transsexual:
Greg says to Lek, “I’m all in fragments, mate, atomized. Me mum drove me dad away when I was a kid. Then she worked on me mind, mate. She hates men, see. All Australian women do—there’s something in the food down there. Must be the mushy peas.”
Lek shudders in revulsion. “Mushy peas? Oh, you poor thing.”
“I never really had a family,” says Greg, “grew up all by meself. I’m like the product of a Saturday night bunk-up. You’re the only family I’ve got—that’s the god’s honest truth.”
“How awful. Don’t worry, love, we’ll take care of you.”