Bangkok Bob and the missing Mormon

by Stephen Leather

  Thailand is famous for its beautiful women, and there are head-turners in every department store and on every street corner, but my stomach still turns over whenever I see Noy. When I first met her hair was almost down to her waist, jet black and glossy, but she’s had it cut since so that it’s just down to her shoulders. She’s got high cheekbones and a cute nose and skin the colour of milk chocolate and a body with curves in all the right places. She was wearing a red dress that ended above the knee showing off one of the best pairs of legs I’ve ever seen. There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t thank the Lord that I found her and married her.

  Actually, she found me.

  I first met Noy when she came into my shop and bought a small nineteenth-century Burmese Buddha. She asked me lots of questions about its authenticity and how it had come into the country, and then she asked a few similar questions about my own authenticity. I figured she just liked to talk and I was happy to stand and listen and gaze at her.

  She came back a week later and bought a Khmer wall hanging that I’d had in the shop for almost three years. She barely looked at it and spent most of the time asking me about which restaurants I liked and where I went for holidays. I thought she just liked to talk. On the way out she gave me her card. Back then she was working for one of the glossy magazines that were full of advertisements for dresses that cost twice the national average wage. She was a stylist, whatever that meant.

  I had two assistants back then, middle-aged sisters called Start and Stop. They were born two years apart and yes, the first one born was optimistically called Start but the second was delivered by Caesarean and the mother had decided that enough was enough. I’d only been in Thailand a couple of years and my Thai wasn’t up to much so when the two sisters put their heads together and started laughing I didn’t know what had amused them but figured that it almost certainly involved me.

  The next week Noy was back. I was dealing with a German who wanted to take two eighteenth-century Buddhist statues back to his loft in Paris and neither my French nor my German were as good as my Thai so it was taking forever to explain the regulations about taking religious figures out of the country. Noy wandered around the shop apparently aimlessly but she always seemed to be in my field of vision, smiling, brushing her hair behind her ear, cocking her head coquettishly. Start went over to see if she could help but Noy said that she was just browsing. She browsed for a full fifteen minutes until I’d finished with the German, then started talking to me about an antique Khmer dancing figure that I had in the window. It was bronze and I was pretty sure that it was more than two hundred years old but there were some very clever forgers working out of Vietnam so I had to admit that I wasn’t absolutely sure of its provenance I’d found it in an old house in a small village about thirty miles outside Udon Thani, and persuaded the old lady who lived there to sell it to me, along with half a dozen wooden carvings that were easier to date.

  We chatted for a while and she was asking me about restaurants in the area. She told me that she was thinking about changing jobs and becoming an estate agent and she asked me where I lived. Back then I lived in the small apartment above the shop but I told her that I was looking for somewhere bigger. She bought the statue and she paid me in cash. I boxed it for her and took it out to her car, a new model Porsche SUV. It was one hell of a car and I figured it must have belonged to her husband, which shows you what a chauvinist I was back then.

  After she’d gone, Start and Stop came over, grinning like they knew something I didn’t. Which as it turned out, was absolutely the case.

  ‘She isn’t interested in the statue,’ said Start.

  ‘She’s only interested in one thing in the shop,’ said her sister.

  The giggled like naughty schoolgirls.

  ‘What?’ I asked, totally confused.

  They giggled even more and finally I realised why they were laughing.

  ‘Oh come on, why would she be interested in me?’ I asked.

  It was a fair point, all things considered. I was probably ten years older than her and while I’d managed to hang on to my own hair and teeth I’d also managed to pile on a few extra pounds.

  ‘She was looking at you all the time, Khun Bob,’ said Start.

  ‘All the time,’ said Stop, for emphasis.

  ‘She’s beautiful,’ I said.

  ‘Very,’ said Start. ‘You should ask her out next time she comes in.’

  ‘Why do you think she’ll come back?’ I asked and they both giggled.

  ‘She’ll come back,’ said Stop.

  ‘For sure,’ said Start.

  They were right.

  Three days later she was back in the shop, this time to look at a Japanese stair tansu, a chest in the shape of stairs. It was a good piece, the wood polished to perfection and the fittings made of aged bronze.

  Start wasn’t in the shop when she came in but Stop was and she wagged her finger at me to let me know that I shouldn’t waste any more time.

  I felt like a gawky teenager even thought it had been more than twenty years since anyone had described me as either gawky or a teenager. I stumbled over the words because I was sure she was going to turn me down but I asked her if she’d go for dinner with me one evening and she said she’d love to and she sounded as if she meant it.

  We had dinner in a terrific Italian restaurant down the road from the shop and a few days later we had dinner again and then we went to see a Martin Scorsese movie but for the life of me I can’t remember which one because all I could think about was Noy and the fact that she was on a date with me.

  Two months after we first met she introduced me to her parents. We flew up to Chiang Rai and I slept in a hotel while she stayed in their house because her parents were very traditional and, frankly, so was she. Three months after that, we were married.

  Anyway, that was then and this is now. If anything I think Noy is even more beautiful now then when I met her. She’s confident, smart, and can make me smile without even trying. I can’t imagine living without her.

  She finished playing and stood looking out across the Bangkok skyline, the violin at her side.

  ‘Beautiful,’ I said quietly.

  ‘Bach is always beautiful,’ she said, turning around.

  ‘I meant you,’ I said. I stepped forward and kissed her on the lips. She pressed herself against me, holding the violin to the side.

  ‘I missed you today,’ she said.

  ‘I missed you, too.’

  ‘No, I really missed you,’ she said, pressing herself harder against me.

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘Nice?’ she said, caressing the back of my neck. ‘I’ll give you nice.’

  So what did I tell Noy? About the hospital?

  Nothing.

  Not a damned thing.

  I carried on kissing her.

  We went to bed.

  We had great sex.

  Then we went to sleep.

  I didn’t think about cancer the whole night. Until I woke up.

  CHAPTER 19

  I got to the Betta English Language School at just after six o’clock. The list that Petrov’s secretary had given me showed the first classes starting at six-thirty and I figured that the teachers wouldn’t be turning up much before then. I was wearing my English teacher’s outfit. Cheap khaki chinos with imitation leather belt, fake Lacoste polo shirt, scuffed shoes and carrying a canvas briefcase. I nodded at the security guard at the main entrance and headed up the stairs. The door to the school was locked but I only had to wait fifteen minutes before Petrov’s secretary arrived. She was wearing a pale blue skirt suit with a white bow holding her hair back in a ponytail.

  ‘You are early,’ she said.

  ‘The early bird catches the worm,’ I said.

  She frowned and I explained the proverb as she unlocked the door.

  Once inside she unlocked the door to the staff room for me before walking along the corridor and opening the classrooms.r />
  I closed the door and went over to the metal lockers. Most had name tags glued to them, other had names scratched into the metal. Jon Junior’s name was on a locker on the bottom row. Padlocked. I’d seen the padlock last time Petrov’s secretary had shown me the room so I had come prepared.

  I figured the padlock was significant.

  If Jon Junior had quit or been sacked, why would he have left his locker padlocked?

  It was a combination lock with three dials. Nine hundred and ninety nine combinations. A thousand if you included treble zero. You wouldn’t have to be a safecracker to open it, just patient. But I didn’t have time to go through all the combinations so I took the boltcutters out of my briefcase and snipped the cheap steel hasp.

  There was a photograph taped to the inside of the locker. Jon Junior in his graduation get-up, father to his left with his hand on his shoulder, mother beaming proudly at the camera from underneath a wide-brimmed hat. There was a blue laundered shirt on a metal shelf next to a plastic bottle of ozone-treated drinking water and a dog-eared copy of a John Grisham novel. At the bottom of the locker was a squash racquet and a pair of old tennis shoes.

  Nothing that you’d particularly want to take with you if you did a moonlight flit. I picked up the book. There was a Foodland receipt among the pages. A bookmark, halfway through the novel. Not many people gave up halfway through The Firm.

  So maybe Jon Junior hadn’t had time to clear out his locker.

  Or maybe somebody had prevented him.

  The door handle started to turn and I quickly shut the locker.

  It was Petrov’s secretary.

  ‘I can use any of these, can I?’ I asked, pocketing the padlock.

  ‘Any that aren’t already being used,’ she said. She was holding a computer print-out. ‘Your first class isn’t until eight.’

  I feigned surprise. Opened my mouth. Raised my eyebrows. Hardly Oscar-winning material but she got the message. ‘You thought you had an early class?’ she asked.

  ‘I thought seven,’ I said. ‘Oh well, I might as well go home and come back later.’

  She smiled brightly. ‘We have a class at seven and the teacher has just called to say that he’s sick today.’

  ‘Right…’ I said hesitantly.

  ‘So you could teach the class.’

  I smiled. I shrugged. I frantically tried to think of a reason to turn down her offer but nothing sprang to mind.

  ‘I thought classes start at half past the hour,’ I said. ‘Seven thirty?’

  ‘Not always,’ she said. ‘It’s in room four.’ Her smile widened. ‘The early bird really does catch the worm, doesn’t it?’

  Indeed it does.

  By the short and curlies.

  I looked at my watch. Three minutes to seven.

  She held the door open for me. ‘Most of the students are already here.’

  Terrific.

  I followed her down the corridor and she showed me into one of the classrooms. ‘This is Khun Bob,’ she said, by way of introduction. ‘He will be taking your class today.’

  The door closed behind me with a dull thud. I smiled. Twelve faces smiled back. Three teenage boys. Nine girls. I looked at my watch. One minute gone. Fifty-nine to go.

  So far, so good.

  ‘So what did you do in your last lesson?’ I asked.

  No one spoke. A boy with shoulder-length hair and a diamond earring in his left ear opened his book at Chapter Five and pointed at it.

  ‘Right then, let’s open our books at Chapter Five,’ I said.

  I walked over to the girl nearest me and looked down at her book. The chapter was headed ‘At The Post Office’.

  Half of the pupils had photocopies of the text book, the pages stapled together. Twelve faces looked at me expectantly.

  Right then.

  How hard can it be, teaching?

  ‘So, who’s been to a post office then?’ I asked.

  No reaction.

  ‘Some of you must have been to a post office. To buy a stamp. Post a letter.’

  Twelve smiles.

  ‘Hands up who’s posted a letter?’

  Nothing. Just smiles.

  I was obviously going about this the wrong way.

  ‘Why don’t we read the first paragraph out loud?’

  Blank looks.

  I pointed at the books. ‘Read,’ I said slowly.

  The students haltingly read through the first paragraph then looked at me.

  I looked at my watch again. Fifty-five minutes to go.

  ‘So, are there any words there that anyone doesn’t understand?’

  Twelve smiling faces.

  ‘Anything at all?’

  I sat down on the table and smiled amiably. ‘How long have you been studying here?’ I asked. This time I spoke in rapid Thai. A few of the girls exchanged looks of surprise. I presumed that they hadn’t come across many English teachers who spoke their language fluently.

  ‘Three months,’ said a girl with shoulder-length hair and a Gucci bag.

  ‘How many hours a week?’

  ‘Five.’

  ‘What do your teachers do in class?’

  ‘We just read from the book,’ said one of the boys.

  ‘Which other teachers have you had?’

  ‘Khun Bill,’ said the boy with the earring.

  ‘Khun Peter,’ said one of the girls.

  ‘Khun David, from New York.’

  Several of the girls nodded excitedly. Khun David of New York had obviously left an impression.

  ‘And they all just get you to read the book?’

  Twelve nods.

  Right then.

  ‘Anybody remember a Khun Jon? From America? Jon Clare’

  Twelve frowns.

  I took the photograph from my jacket pocket and handed it to the girl on my left. She looked at it and handed it to the girl next to her. The fourth girl to look at the picture smiled and nodded. ‘Khun Jon,’ she said. ‘From Salt Lake City.’

  ‘He taught you?’

  The girl nodded.

  Three of the girls in the class and one of the boys said that they remembered Jon Junior. None of them had seen him in the last two weeks.

  ‘Does anyone know where he went?’ I asked.

  ‘I thought he went back to the States,’ said one of the girls.

  ‘Did he say that?’

  She shook her head. ‘I just assumed…’

  ‘Did he have any friends at the school? Anyone he was close to?’

  The girl with the Gucci bag giggled and whispered something to the girl next to her. It sounded like ‘Tukkata’.

  Doll. That’s what Tukkata means.

  The theme from James Bond started playing and one of the boys pulled a cellphone from his pocket. He started talking into it in Thai, his hand cupped over the phone. He was obviously talking to his girlfriend. I wagged my finger at him and he flashed me a dirty look and turned away.

  ‘Can you take that outside?’ I said.

  He ignored me and carried on whispering into his phone.

  I walked over to his seat and tapped him on the shoulder. ‘Outside,’ I said in Thai.

  ‘I’m on the phone,’ he snapped sullenly.

  ‘I can see that,’ I said. ‘Take it into the corridor.’

  He glared at me and left the room, still whispering into his phone.

  ‘Do your other teachers let you use your cellphones in class?’ I asked the rest of the students. I’d given up speaking to them in English.

  ‘They don’t care,’ said one of the girls. The one who’d said Tukkata. ‘They don’t care about much.’ She looked me in the eye without a trace of shyness. A teenager going on thirty-five. The others looked away. It’s not in the Thai psyche to be critical. Especially of one’s teachers.

  I stood up again. ‘Okay, let’s forget the textbooks. Close them. Close your books.’

  They did as they were told.

  ‘Let’s not talk about the Post Office. Le
t’s talk about people.’ I held up the photograph. ‘Let’s talk about Khun Jon,’ I said in English. ‘I want you to describe him in as many different ways as you can.’ I was faced with confused looks so I repeated what I’d said in Thai.

  ‘American,’ said one of the girls.

  ‘Good,’ I said.

  ‘Handsome,’ said one of the girls, who blushed and hid her mouth with her hand.

  ‘Tall,’ said another of the girls.

  ‘Good,’ I said. There was a black marker pen on a shelf below the whiteboard. I wrote on the board. ‘American’. ‘Handsome’. ‘Tall’.

  ‘Teacher,’ said a boy with gelled hair and a silver chain around his neck.

  I wrote ‘Teacher’ on the board.

  ‘Yellow hair,’ said one on the girls.

  ‘Blond,’ I said. ‘We say blond.’

  More words were thrown out. ‘Serious’. ‘Kind’. ‘Lonely’.

  Interesting.

  The girl who’d said lonely was in her late teens with short hair and a gold Rolex watch. Like the rest of the girls she was wearing a white shirt and short black skirt with a leather belt. There was a small gold pin on her shirt pocket that showed she went to one of Bangkok’s most prestigious schools. It wasn’t the most expensive but it was one of the hardest to get into. You needed connections to get your children accepted. The sons and daughters of Thailand’s top politicians and generals were on the school role and the school’s alumni ran many of the country’s top companies and financial institutions. I asked the girl her name. ‘Kai,’ she said.

  Kai. It means chicken.

  ‘What makes you think he’s lonely, Kai?’ I asked. She was one of the girls who’d nodded when she’d seen Jon Junior’s photograph.

  ‘He used to sit on his own sometimes, reading.’