by John Burdett
"Smoking opium?"
He grunts, unwilling to say more.
I follow him around the rest of the flat while he throws glances of contempt into odd corners. We find the terrarium on a shelf against a back wall in the spare bedroom. Mustafa peers at it, then shakes his head. "Nobody fed them." I peer into the rectangular space behind the glass: dried corpses of hairy tarantulas, a scorpion with babies on her back, other spiders dead in their webs as if in the aftermath of a cataclysm.
In a cupboard Mustafa finds a cheap telescope of the kind that can be bought in department stores. Our exchange of glances is a classic example of telepathy. If Mitch Turner needed a good telescope, he would have persuaded the CIA to supply a state-of-the-art model. So he used this one for what?
"Checking out the action around the police station," Mustafa grunts.
There doesn't seem to be anything else of immediate significance, nothing that would explain Mitch Turner's violent death anyway. I observe that there is no laptop, but Mustafa says whenever Turner left the apartment for any length of time, he took a laptop with him, probably following standing orders to check it into a bank vault or safe-deposit box. Well, there doesn't seem to be much more we can do tonight, so we leave the apartment and Mustafa locks the door.
Out on the street the night is in full swing. The whole town is alive with disco music and flashing neon signs from cheap hotels. A tall and very thickset Malay in his late thirties is ushering three girls into his hotel as we pass. Three? I shoot a glance at Mustafa, but he's in whatever space he uses to block out unacceptable aspects of reality. I wonder if he saw them at all, those three very attractive girls who seemed to be enjoying themselves? I guess that within his superstition those women would be seen as pure evil, seductive emissaries of Satan. Well, looks like that Malay and those girls are going to be merrily rolling in it for the next few hours, after which all participants will retire satisfied and sleep the sleep of the just. I do not explain to Mustafa that in the Game women often prefer to share their labor-they may even see it as a kind of perk in that they demand extra for doing less. It's more fun, too, if you have a friend or colleague to chat with in your own language while you're working the john. For country girls there's an echo from the rice harvest, when everyone has to pitch in, and there's a lot of chatting and flirting and you tell jokes to pass the time, hardly noticing what your hands are doing. I think of the big dark Malay laid out like a rice paddy while the girls work him and discuss the dollar-baht exchange rate across his erection. I pity Mustafa, who so resolutely rejects the simple dance of life, the humor. At the same time I wonder how Mitch Turner, the confused American spy, took it all.
There don't seem to be any cafes with spare tables and chairs, not with any privacy anyway, so we end up in the lobby of our hotel, which has been transformed into a kind of anteroom for a gigantic brothel. Girls are sitting on all the sofas, and as we watch, dark-skinned young men with pencil mustaches approach one or another. They are different from farang in that the deal is done so quickly, usually within five minutes. No romantic buildup, more an Asian-style business deal. The woman is happy enough with that, since it might mean she can fit in more than one customer tonight. Some of the couples start immediately for the lifts, but most wander out into the street in search of a disco, where the young gallant can demonstrate his expertise in karaoke and the lady will applaud with adulation in her eyes.
Mustafa doesn't want to look at it, so we find an empty table in a corner. He still has some explaining to do, so I give him the silent treatment.
"You are wondering why we took such interest in one individual, when there are hundreds like him in Thailand?"
"Yes."
"You must ask my father for a full explanation. According to him, the farang Mitch Turner was a fascinating product of the West. He said that just as intelligence agencies like to take terrorist bombs apart to see how they are made, so we should look into the soul of this strange fish, this human bomb, to see how it was made. After all, he didn't invent himself-he was a creature of his culture."
"His naIvete, confusion, lack of center?"
"All those things, but what most interested my father was his spiritual agony. You must understand that although my father is very learned, he hardly ever meets farang, especially not American spies. My father is a great imam, which is to say a connoisseur of souls. Mitch Turner interested him a lot. Until he met Turner, I think he doubted that farang had souls. When he saw what a mess Turner was in, what he called the 'great howl of agony' at the center of this man, he felt he'd understood why the West is the way it is." A ghost of a smile. "It was as if he'd cracked a code and now could read the Western mind." Staring into my eyes: "He told me he would never have believed it was possible for a man to be so tormented and still live, still function." Excited now, sharing a passion with me for the first time: "He also said that without a war, America would descend into total confusion and would have to turn itself into a police state to survive, because its people no longer have any internal structure. Americans can never be defeated by war. It is peace they find intolerable."
"He reached these conclusions on the basis of one specimen?"
"Why not? True knowledge comes from Allah. It does not need scientific method, only a clue, a hint for the spirit to follow."
As he speaks, I note that he is watching the action in a totally unseeing way, like a show in a language he does not understand. For me, though, it is impossible not to take a professional interest in what is going on all over the rest of the lobby: the young men approaching the girls, the big ironic smile on the faces of the women; the man's complex mixture of shyness, courage, arrogance, urgency, and anticipation, the woman's searching eyes, trying to guess what sort of lover this one will be while they negotiate; the mutual relief that is almost a kind of orgasm when they reach a deal; the abrupt change of body language when they put their arms around each other and make for the lifts or walk out into the night. I know that Mustafa, if he sees anything of interest at all, sees only sin, which will no doubt be eradicated sooner or later by Allah-along with a whole range of other activities that I consider merely human.
When I tell him I'm going to sleep, he stands up immediately, like one who has been released from a dirty job.
14
B ack in my room I made the mistake of drinking a couple of Singha beers from the minibar. They knocked me out for a few hours, and now I'm awake with quite a thirst and a slight headache. (Drink Kloster or Heineken, farang, when you come for your vacation-they're cleaner brews.) The worst of it is, I'm fully conscious, and when I use the remote to switch on the TV, I see from the information bar that it's four-thirteen in the morning. As I lie on the bed I remember my dream, in which Chanya came to me. The quality of light, the expression on her face, the whole atmosphere of the dream, tell me it was a communication from her of some kind, though I cannot decipher its meaning. She and I occasionally discussed Buddhism. She was a keen meditator herself, and our backgrounds were so similar we often speculated that we had known each other in previous lifetimes, perhaps a great many. We were too shy to say it, but we both wondered if we were not soul mates of the kind that meet up lifetime after lifetime. Only when karma is very favorable do such soul mates succeed in having a full-blooded relationship; after all, that would be the next best thing to enlightenment itself. More often we look out for each other from a distance, like guardian angels. I feel I'm her guardian at the moment, but in the dream it seemed the other way around. Restless, I pull some clothes on and go down to the lobby.
All the girls are gone, except for five who are hanging around on a couple of the sofas. From their snippets of conversation that I overhear, it seems that only two of them had customers tonight; the other three have not been lucky and are moaning about the number of women in town. There just aren't enough men to go around. At the reception desk the clerk is asleep in his chair, his head resting on his folded arms on his desk. He starts when I try to wake him and g
ives a sullen shake of the head when I ask to use the business center where there is Internet access. I offer money, but still he refuses. The business center doesn't open until nine in the morning. I'm in a stubborn mood and toy with the idea of threatening to bust the whole joint, but that would not be playing the game. Instead I cajole him, make him laugh, offer some cash again, and this time he consents to let me use the hotel's Internet access from behind the reception desk.
I'm so keen to check my e-mail because I want to know if I've got a reply from Superman. When I check the list of new messages, I feel a dull, bruised sensation in my heart because there is nothing from Mike Smith, even though with the eleven-hour time difference that is hardly surprising. I take a couple of minutes to scan through the usual business stuff (another gang of unruly old men who had such a good time six months ago, they want to come back for Christmas), before I notice the new correspondent: [email protected].
Her message is very brief: Sonchai, here is the diary I told you about. Chanya.
The attachment, on the other hand, is more than five hundred kilobytes, nearly as long as a novel, and of course it is in Thai script. As I start to read, I'm impressed by the clarity and simplicity of the writing. Only a noble soul writes like that. I am also totally absorbed. When the clerk starts to get restless, I have to bribe him again to let me print out the whole of her diary, which I take upstairs to my room and spend the rest of the night reading. I'm hollow-eyed by the time I meet Mustafa in the hotel lobby in the morning.
Out in the street, on the way to Turner's apartment, Mustafa's cell phone rings; well, actually, it makes no sound, merely vibrates in his pocket, and he fishes it out in an instant. A few words in the local dialect, and he closes it again and slides it back in his pocket. "They're here already."
"Who?"
"Who do you think?"
As we turn a corner into the street where Turner's apartment is located, he nods toward the building. Two farang in tropical cream business suits, white shirts, and ties are on the point of entering the building.
"You see what I mean?" Mustafa says. "It is more arrogance than stupidity. They might as well have 'CIA' stamped on their jackets, but they cannot believe we're smart enough to work out what they are."
Maybe he has a point, but we'll have to abort our examination of the apartment. Not at all sure what to do next, we stroll a little closer to the building and find a cafe with a view of the street. I order a 7-Up, and Mustafa orders water. We're both wondering how two farang in business suits are going to negotiate their way past the concierge.
Not easily, it seems. Within minutes they're leaving the building with frowns on their faces. Worried frowns, it seems to me. Mustafa looks at me with a touch of insolence: Okay, cop, now what d'you want to do?
"Watch," I say. I go to the door of the cafe and call out in English, "Can I help you?" as the two men pass. They stop in their tracks, a little surprised but pleased to find a fluent English speaker in this remote town.
"You guys look a little lost," I say, using the kind of smile that's supposed to go with words like that. (I can't decide on my accent-I can do British or American. Generally one uses Brit when talking to an American and vice versa: the two cultures seem to intimidate each other quite well. On instinct, though, I use American with Enthusiastic Immigrant coloring, and in a flash they decide I have Green Card written all over me; obviously, I'm the best they can hope for down here.)
They start to talk. Now we are all doing Sympathetic American Abroad, a specialized genre in which the superiority of farang culture, the stupidity of the native population, and the poor health standards and the appalling state of the plumbing are all expressed subliminally, without a single politically incorrect word passing anyone's lips. Using basic cues, I give the impression of a native son-Buddhist, not Muslim-who has returned from the United States on vacation and despises his hometown. Mustafa has retreated into a psychological shadow and throws me hostile glances from time to time.
While we're talking banalities, I take in the two Americans. The older is in his mid-fifties, slim and wiry, a military fitness about him, a short spiky haircut, and intelligence of the ruthless variety about those thin lips. And something else that I cannot put my finger on. Something not quite American. Or human. Does it surprise you, farang, that a good ten percent of the entities you see walking around in human form are not human at all? It's been going on for a few hundred years now: immigrants from the Outer Limits, with their own agendas. Call them Special Forces from the Other Side. The final conflict won't be long now.
The other is young, perhaps not as young as he looks. To a tropical type like me, that blond hair and simplified Nordic face-you've seen that jawline in cartoons-looks maybe seventeen, but I suppose he must be mid- to late twenties.
All of a sudden I am key in the Americans' pursuit of happiness. Big smiles and an obscene parody of Oriental humility and deference as they introduce themselves properly, shake hands, enter the cafe, and sit down at the table. Well, at least they're smart enough to be polite.
"Like I say"-I still have that smile plastered all over my face-"I'm just here on a discover-my-roots trip. I was born here, but Mom and Dad escaped stateside when I was still a kid, thank God."
Unable to resist this patriotic call, the younger one gives a sincere smile, while the older one simply nods.
They order Cokes. Their body language indicates they're quite ready to lose Mustafa, who remains silent as if enveloped in an invisible chador and clearly makes them nervous.
Making it up as I go: "I'm thinking of doing a trip down south myself, planning to take that jungle train the books talk about. Supposed to be quite something."
"Is that right?" Politely, but sharing glances with each other.
"Yeah. What are you two guys doing here? Going south yourselves, or have you just come up from there?"
Sharing that glance again: "Oh, well, we're here on business, actually."
"You are? In a town like this? Well, I'm not going to ask, but I can't imagine what kind of business an American could have here. Hell, it's all Muslim, you know. Except at night when it's all sex, ha-ha."
Sheepish grins. "Yes, well, we only got here last night. Took the plane to Hat Yai from Bangkok, then a four-hour taxi ride. We didn't really know what to expect. Neither of us has been here before. Actually, we're looking for a colleague of ours."
"Oh yeah? An American?"
"That's right. I wonder if we could, ahm…" The hint is for Mustafa to lose himself, but he doesn't take it. One more glance, and a nod is exchanged. "Look-ah, frankly we're a little worried about our friend. We haven't heard from him in a week now, and well, to look at he's pretty obviously an American, and this is a very Islamic town."
"Oh, that's too bad." I give them a big worried shake of the head. "How awful."
"Yes, well, we don't know if it's awful or not, but we were wondering…" It seems it's hard for them to say exactly what they were wondering with Mustafa sitting at the table.
"Would I be right in thinking your colleague lives in that apartment building over there? The one I just saw you come out of?"
"Correct. That's what we were wondering, if there might be an informal way of taking a look at the apartment, without necessarily getting the police involved, just to check that there's been no foul play."
"Informal?" I'm frowning with my head to one side.
Coughs. "Yes, look, we're not all that familiar with your country, and the last thing we want to do is to cause offense, but if there were some way in which a person of influence could talk with that concierge… You're from around here, you speak the language. Maybe he has a key? We just want to make sure our friend's okay."
I'm still frowning uncomprehendingly, but I've added that special gleam of Third World Greed.
"Oh, we'd be willing to pay for your time, wouldn't we?"
"More than willing. A quick glance into that apartment would be worth quite a lot to us, I'd say." I raise my ey
ebrows. "Oh, we'd make it worth your while."
"Keep your money," I say with a smile. "Let's just wander over and see what we can do, shall we?" I frown in concentration. "But just in case the authorities get involved, I ought to know exactly who you are. Do you have your passports with you?"
"Passports? Sure."
"Could I take just a quick peek at your visas?"
Two blue passports with eagles on the front appear. I see they are both holding business visas. The older one is named Hudson, and the young blond is Bright. I hand the passports back. "What is your business? Are you working in Thailand?"
Their command of their mutual cover story is really quite smooth. It seems they are executives in the telecommunications industry, more on the infrastructure side than marketing. Mitch Turner is stationed down here to get a general impression of the political situation right on the border. Nobody wants to invest in heavy engineering costs only to find that civil strife or terrorism has ruined the project.
"So he's a kind of industrial spy?" I ask.
The word does not faze them at all. No, not a spy, that would be overstating it, let's say the advance guard of a feasibility study.
"I see," I say. "And you think our local Muslims might have taken a dislike to him?"
Deep frowns. I seem to have hit a nerve. "That would be the worst case. It could be anything. He could be in his bed right now suffering some kind of seizure. He could have gotten hit by a truck. Until we get inside his apartment, it's going to be hard even to hypothesize."
The four of us cross the street together. Mustafa finds a way of guiding me into the concierge's office, then out again triumphantly holding the key. "Money talks around here," I explain.
Up three flights of stairs with everyone sweating in the tropical heat, then we're in Turner's apartment. A quick look, and it is obvious that Mitch Turner is not here. They seem to be on the lookout for something specific, which I would guess to be Turner's laptop, and don't take much interest in anything else. Mustafa and I watch them rummage around in a wardrobe. They pay some attention to the empty silver picture frame but soon give it a shrug. Finally the older one, Hudson, gives me a brief smile. "Well, he's not here, and there are no signs that he left in a hurry."