Bangkok Tattoo sj-2

by John Burdett

  I've had no warning about this development and do not know how I'm supposed to reply. "Your English is fine," I say testily. She gives me one of her smiles. I disgust myself by melting and smiling back. She speaks in Thai, I translate.

  "I always wanted to tell the truth about what happened to Mitch, but I was firmly instructed that for reasons of security I should keep my mouth shut."

  "That's quite correct," Vikorn corroborates.

  "As soon as we left this bar that night, Mitch became certain we were being followed."

  "Oh no," from Bright when I translate, who buries his head in his hands and shakes it from side to side. "Wouldn't have been two men with long black beards, would it?"

  "Shut up," Hudson tells him, and nods for Chanya to go on.

  "I didn't see their beards until later-only Mitch saw them at that point. He said he'd been followed before, down in Songai Kolok, that he was sure his cover was blown and that maybe there was some kind of fatwa on his head."

  "I just can't believe they're even trying-"

  "Will you shut it?" from Hudson. An I'll get even glare from Bright.

  "We thought about running away, but Mitch said that wouldn't do any good. The worst would be for them to catch up out in the street. He was sure they wouldn't have guns. He thought that in his hotel room he would be able to handle them." Bright is staring incredulously, making a great drama of holding his head, rocking from side to side.

  Hudson interrupts, looking at Chanya. "Okay, I get the picture. You went back to his hotel, they burst in with at least one knife, slice him up, and cut his cock off. You're embroiled in the battle, but no one wants to hurt you, so you end up covered in blood but unharmed. Let's say all that is a given. Why in hell would you have concocted that statement?"

  I translate for Vikorn, who takes up the story. "Think about it, gentlemen. What has your government been saying about the security risk here in Thailand from Islamic fanatics? And what has that done to our tourist trade already? How much worse could it get if there's a report of a genuine terrorist atrocity, right here in Bangkok? This was not something I'm qualified to deal with myself. I had to go to the highest levels of government, to the chief of our homeland defense."

  Hudson sighs. "So you're saying you were told to cover up?"

  "Yes. What else were they going to say? The entire story depended on the evidence of a whore."

  A pause. "That's all you've got?"

  "Well, there's the knife. The murder weapon."

  Now Bright's jaw has dropped, but Hudson's thin lips have opened just a tad. "Right. We were going to ask you about that. You have it here to show us?"

  "It's in the fridge," says Chanya, and stands up to bring it. It is carefully preserved in a plastic bag, which Hudson holds up to the light. He seems to be wrestling with a smile as he hands it to Bright, who also holds it up to the light. He shakes his head and hands it back. "I still don't buy it. So they found some frizzy black hairs to stick on it. What does that prove?"

  "Anything else?" Hudson asks Chanya.

  "Well, Mitch fought very bravely, and at one point he managed to get the knife off them."

  "He did?"

  "Yes, and when one of them tried to grab it, he sliced off two fingers before they overwhelmed him again."

  Hudson's gaze is steady now, and the smile has gone from his mouth, but there is a subtle difference in the way he is looking at her. "Kept the fingers, did you? In the fridge, by any chance?"

  Chanya walks to the fridge and comes back with another plastic bag and hands it to him. Bright is trying to follow Hudson's lead, but Hudson isn't giving anything away at all. He examines the frozen fingers in the bag, then hands them to Bright. "And when we send the knife and fingers away to the lab, the lab will confirm that these fingers produced some of the prints on the knife, right?"

  "I'm certain of it."

  "So they found some fingers and some hairs from a black beard-you're not gonna-"

  All Hudson needs to do is stare at him this time. Things have taken an unexpected turn, after all, and Bright is no longer so sure of his cynicism. He closes his mouth and leans back on his chair, thighs splayed: Okay, wise guy, it's your show and your funeral if you screw up.

  Hudson stands and beckons to me to join him at the bar. In a whisper: "Please ask your Colonel to join us." I beckon to the Colonel, who is in the process of pouring himself another drink. Vikorn joins us, bending forward and holding his lower back. Hudson says: "Just ask him one question, please. If he were to place a bet on these hairs and fingers turning out to have DNA that the CIA database will confirm is that of a known Islamic terrorist, perhaps one who died recently-if I were to open a book on it, how much would he place?"

  "Three million dollars, even money," Vikorn says brightly, forgetting his backache. "Want to?"

  "No," Hudson says slowly, "we don't have that kind of cash to play with. Certainly not on a stone cold loser." He gives me a nod, surprisingly friendly.

  "What will you do about your colleague?" I ask in my most polite tone. He doesn't answer except with a subtle alteration in his facial muscles. I'm not an expert on encryption, but I think that look might translate as: Bright doesn't want to spend the rest of his career in the field either. I say sotto voce: "Would a video help?"

  A true pro, he takes in my meaning with lightning speed and shakes his head. "Keep it as backup."

  "He's a jaw-grinder on the home stretch," I report, still deeply in awe of my mother's detailed knowledge of the male rampant.

  A quick grin builds around Hudson's mouth and is as quickly wiped off by professional discipline. "She could tell that just by looking at him, couldn't she?"

  I have a feeling Hudson will be back.

  "Well," says Hudson in a louder voice, indicating to Bright to stand up, "obviously, this evidence isn't something we can afford to ignore. At the same time, our government is sensitive to any economic damage Thailand might suffer if this sort of thing hits the news." A look at Bright. "Frankly, this is going to take a while to sort out. There will be top-level meetings, Homeland Security will be involved, it'll go to the Joint Chiefs, probably the president. Any officers associated with it will attract attention." A smile. "Hopefully of a positive kind."

  Bright nods thoughtfully. Perhaps he deserves his name, for his change of posture is instant and very convincing. He shakes Chanya's hand, calls her and my mother ma'am, and generally demonstrates courtesy all around, even gratitude as he makes for the door.

  When they have gone, I confront Vikorn. "You've put the blame on Muslims. You could start a war."

  He shakes his head. "Grow up, Sonchai. I took your delicate little heart into account and fingered the Indonesians. None of your new friends in Songai Kolok is implicated. You should be pleased."

  When I call Mustafa, I make the same point. "But he blamed Muslims," he says, and hangs up.

  30

  I n case you didn't get it, farang, that was the end of the Main Plot. (You remember, the Cover-up-but don't worry, I feel a Coda coming on.) Vikorn did not, of course, expect to be believed with his cock-and-bull story, but as we all know, that is not the way the intelligence industry operates. Belief is for choirboys. What you need (apparently) is a fantastically complicated and enticing distraction that will make it quite impossible for anyone to draw a conclusion one way or the other but at the same time will offer itself as a vehicle for promotion. (I don't need to tell you this, farang. I think you invented this game, no?) I guess Chanya is safe for a couple of decades while they mull it over. Doesn't Vikorn just take your breath away sometimes?

  As a consequence, things are a little slow here, but just at the moment I'm rather fascinated by the homely family atmosphere that has been developing at the club this past week, thanks to Hudson and Bright.

  Bright first. Nat reports to my mother, who reports to me, that he's quite a good boy really. Nat's challenge to his virility punched a nice big hole through his ego, and with the ensuing flood of light w
e now have a brand-new picture of dear Steve, who fell apart immediately after coitus on the third date and confessed that he's not the great tough larger-than-life patriot he appears to be (You're not? exclaimed Nat with an expression of shock; No, he admitted in a tone that recognized that some people would find that hard to believe); au contraire, as Truffaut used to say, the poor young fellow is all bent out of shape from a particularly ugly divorce in which she made the usual baseless allegations of abuse in order to get the house, the car, and the bank account and full custody of his toddler daughter, with only supervised access for him.

  We watched while he went through a schizophrenic period when he was not at all sure whether he should keep up appearances or not (or whom he should keep them up for; I myself was treated to a testosteronic strut and a sad droopy shamble in the space of an hour), but I'm happy to report that thanks to Thai therapy, he did not take more than a week to return to the human family and now he arrives every night on the dot at eight, pays Nat's bar fine, and takes her upstairs, where she rewards him with an orgasm including all bells and whistles. (We can hear her in the bar if we turn the system down. Bright knows this, of course, because Hudson told him, but cured of hubris by my country and my women, the dear lad reappears after his heroic coupling with no more than a grateful beam on his square Nordic features.) Nat asked me to ask Vikorn how much American spies get paid these days.

  But Hudson, of course, is a different kettle of fish. Talk about many-layered (and multifaceted). I have to be humble here and admit I don't know any Asian who could keep a column of oiled billiard balls in the air from day to day the way he does-or who would want to. In the finer points of mental self-abuse, farang lead the world. He does it all by remaining close-lipped and secretive, of course, which provided a challenge for my mother, the courting of whom has been so unobtrusive-and secretive-that no one knows if they've actually done it yet-or even if he is actually courting her or not. (Nong turns uncharacteristically coy whenever I challenge her on the point, which is more than academic to me considering how close we are now to the visit from Superman. I wouldn't put it past her to use Hudson in order to get back in form for Dad-or vice versa, depending on what sort of shape Dad is in after all these years. She hasn't resumed her diet yet, which is certainly a clue of some kind, if indecipherable at the time of writing.) No, my mother has been no use at all in the Hudson study, and I have had to build on what I've been able to glean during those very brief and few moments when he has let his guard down. See if you can work it out, farang. He:

  1. Brightened once when he heard Wan and Pat talking in their native tongue, which is Lao;

  2. Spared a glance which was neither negative nor judgmental when one of the old codgers inadvertently flashed a large bag of dope in the bar one night;

  3. Has found it necessary to interview Vikorn unaccompanied by Bright or any interpreter on numerous occasions, which seemed to leave both he and Vikorn in good spirits;

  4. Is fifty-six years old;

  5. Joined the CIA in his early twenties and was sent to Laos after graduating from the academy.

  Oh, and there's a sixth point. In a quiet moment in the bar one evening, when I was forlornly checking the e-mail for signs of Superman, he leaned over my shoulder.

  "Want to do a deal? I'll tell you something you need to know if you put in a good word for me with your mum."

  "Fuck off. I don't pimp for my mother."

  "Sorry, that's not at all what I meant. I admire her, I respect her. She makes me tingle in places I thought were dead. So I'll tell you anyway. Listen. D'you really think Mitch Turner sat twiddling his thumbs all day down there in Songai Kolok without making any contribution at all to our glorious Agency?"

  "I did wonder about that."

  "Of course you did, you're a first-class cop in your own very unique way. So think about it. What do all members of the secret world have in common? We're compulsive gossips, that's what. And who can we gossip to? Only each other. Security clearance can be a pain in the ass. You've no idea what total junk most so-called intelligence really is. Now with encryption and e-mail, a guy with Turner's clearance can listen in to every damn piece of trivia that our bugs and agents pick up all over Asia. An American woman mugged in Nepal, a dumb Yank gets into a brawl in downtown Tokyo, an American child abducted in Shanghai-stuff that shouldn't be part of our work at all but still flashes across our screens."

  "Turner sat reading that junk? It doesn't sound like him."

  "He had no choice. Intelligence sifting was part of his job. He would have to give an opinion on it all: valuable or not, if valuable how many stars? The whole game is basically as dumb as that. Because of the need for security clearance, guys with Ph.D.'s do stuff a schoolkid wouldn't find challenging." That thin smile of his starts to build. "Drugs too, of course. We still have to do a lot of narcotics work, the DEA are such dummies."

  I stare at him, not having the faintest idea where he's going here.

  He leans a little closer. "What the hell do you think she was doing with herself while he was stoned out of his brain on the opium she brought him? All she needed was his log-in code. He probably told her the number himself when he was on the dope. Opium can do that-you see the world from a whole different perspective, one hundred and eighty degrees different. Yes, I've had my moments." I've stopped working the mouse. "She's a very very smart lady. For supersmart street sense, Chanya's the finest I've ever seen." He lets the smile spread some more. "Put in a good word for me, and I'll tell you more."

  "I don't care."

  A chuckle as he grasps my shoulder in a manly grip. "You're a lousy liar, and I love you for it."

  With the CIA apparently on my side, I take the opportunity to ask that question that never seems to go away: "Does the name Don Buri mean anything to you?" He looks convincingly blank and shakes his head.

  Later that night, with Hudson gone and the bar almost empty, Su emerges from one of the upstairs rooms with something in her hand.

  "Know what this is?" Su asks when I'm half in, half out of the bar, fishing something out of her handbag. Instantly I step back in, breaking into a sweat of excitement and relief, for it is none other than the Super Secret Sony Micro Vault. You wondered about that, didn't you, farang? You said to yourself: where is that damned Micro Vault he made such a fuss about chapters and chapters ago, surely that was a Road Sign if ever there was one? Well, the embarrassing truth is that I lost the damned thing, and I've been searching all over for it ever since. Of course Hudson and Bright have been grinding on at me daily forever (nag, nag, nag: Has he found it yet? Nah: how typical, dah dumb third-world cop lost dah Micro Vault), but I wasn't going to put that on record out of sheer shame. I've practically turned the club upside down-now our laziest whore is holding it in the palm of her hand.

  "The john was humping me so hard in room five a couple of hours ago, I had to hold on to the mattress, and this thing dropped out. I thought maybe it would vibrate, but it doesn't."

  "No," I say, taking it and stepping behind the bar, "it doesn't."

  "So what is it?"

  "It's a Micro Vault."

  "Oh."

  She leans over me while I slot it into the computer and double-click with bated breath. Su and I exchange an astounded glance.

  "It's a man's back," she explains, drawing on deep experience.

  "I can see that."

  "Pretty muscular, damned good bod, actually. What are all those green lines?"

  "It's a kind of grid."

  I click and click, but there really is nothing more to it.

  31

  O ne night, after the two a.m. curfew, the bar is empty save for Hudson and me. He is drunker than I've seen before, though still more or less in control. Sitting on a stool, he starts to talk, as if continuing a conversation, probably with himself.

  "Freedom? What kind of dumb all-purpose Band-Aid is that?" With pleading eyes: "I mean, what are we selling exactly? Money is the state religion of the West. We pra
y to it every waking minute-and we're gonna make damned sure every last human on earth gets down on their knees with us. All our wars are wars of religion." A pause. "Want to know why I'm still here, at my age? I'm just a few hundred miles away from where I was thirty years ago in Laos. Look, I've made no progress at all, not financially, professionally not much, romantically not at all, not even geographically. Why am I still here?"

  I shrug.

  "Same reason the other guys couldn't go back. All over Southeast Asia there are American men who never go home. We simply can't. Because when we look into the eyes of your people, we see something, call it what you like. Soul? The human mind before fragmentation? Something sacred we farang habitually amputate like tonsils because we don't understand its function? Maybe it's your damned Buddhism. But we see something. Now tell me this, Detective. When you look into the eyes of farang, what do you see?"

  When I fail to reply, he sniggers. "Yeah, that's what I thought."

  Three days after this conversation, everything changed. Hudson and Bright arrived at the bar that evening, looking gloomy. They ordered a couple of beers, which they took to a corner table, where they whispered together. Finally, Hudson came over to the bar with his news.

  "Your Colonel's little game worked too well. Maybe he's a kind of a genius. Well, we'll see. They're sending the Boss."

  32

  I 've been summoned to the police station, and I'm on the back of a motorbike listening to Pisit, who is on the warpath over a Hollywood film star who headed a campaign to stop a factory in the north of Thailand from employing underage children. She put pressure on a certain sportswear retailer, who canceled orders to the factory, which had to close down. Now the parents of the newly unemployed kids are having to sell their daughters into sex slavery in Malaysia because of lost revenue from the factory:

  Anyone out there with information on those algorithms in the English language that make its native speakers so self-righteous, or indeed on the psychopathology of crusading in general, give me a ring on soon nung nung soon soon nung nung soon soon.