His nod was a jerk of the head and Gina stepped back.
“What the hell was that?” Kannon asked.
Gina made for the door. “An attitude adjustment. Leave him. We need to find out everything we can about this witch doctor, and I know just the person we should talk to.” She stopped, realizing something. “That is, if she hasn’t gotten herself eaten yet.”
LWIN KINJO SMILED beatifically at the Siamese crocodile as she stroked its snout. Though the old woman was an even one hundred years of age, she handled the huge reptiles around her like they were kittens.
Gina and Kannon watched from a safe distance up the bank. “Puts my little dip with the sharks in perspective, doesn’t it?”
Lwin cooed to the beast, even as its tooth-lined maw opened in a satisfied yawn.
“Jesus.” Kannon cursed with total reverence. For the first time ever, he sounded impressed. “My father had a way with animals, but even he wouldn’t do anything like this.”
What? Kannon had dropped a bit about his past. Another first. Gina smothered her glee, and pretended that it was natural for him to do that with her. “Oh, she’s one tough battleaxe. It’s her gang that pretty much runs sporting events in Bangkok.”
“I knew about The Smiling Crocodiles, not about their boss. I wouldn’t bet against her.”
“Not many would.” Gina hesitated, unsure whether or not to continue. Kannon was Yakuza, and he might be a tad sensitive about his heritage, and right now, they were actually having a nice conversation.
“What is it you want to tell me?”
“Am I that obvious or are you that good?”
For the second time that day, he almost smiled. “Let’s go with it’s obvious I’m good.”
“Huh. Okay, this is it. Lwin has killed hundreds of your countrymen.”
“What? Her?” Kannon frowned.
“Yep. All by her lonesome. In the 40’s Lwin lived on a Burmese island called Ramree,” Gina began. “Place was a Japanese stronghold, and the soldiers didn’t treat the locals very nicely. Took anything they wanted. Raped the pretty girls. Shot or beheaded anyone who stood up to them. That said, when the Allies attacked she went to the Japanese commander and offered to lead his troops to a place the Americans and British wouldn’t dare follow.”
Again, Gina hesitated. This time for dramatic effect.
“Gina—” Kannon stretched out her name warningly.
“A mangrove swamp. She led about a thousand Imperial troops right into the heart of it, then when night fell, she disappeared.”
The old woman tossed a fish into a crocodile’s mouth which snapped shut. “Her pets attacked, I’m guessing.”
“Hordes of them,” Gina said. “Outside the swamp, the marines could hear rifles firing. Men screaming. Crocodiles splashing and rolling in the water, drowning their catch. In the morning, Lwin led about twenty soldiers out of the swamp to surrender. They were all that was left.”
Lwin nuzzled her croc, then stood and walked calmly toward them through the tangle of reptiles sunning themselves at the water’s edge.
“Why did she save the soldiers she did?”
“They say she spared the ones that had shown kindness,” Gina said. “Apparently a few of them had treated the locals with respect and didn’t deserve to die.”
The woman arrived at the top of the bank, and pressing her hands together, Gina bowed deeply. To her surprise, Kannon did the same.
Ancient eyes sparkled amidst the deep wrinkles of Lwin’s tan face. “Gina,” she said in Thai, “So good to see you again. Who’s your handsome friend?”
“Kannon Takahama. Alak Montri’s man. You heard he was kidnapped?”
“Who hasn’t? The work of his best lieutenant.”
“It was, and someone else, we believe. Do you know anything about an Ek Chouen?”
Lwin’s twinkly softness vanished and she suddenly spat. “Yes. Come.”
At the pace of someone half her age, she led them from the pond to a modest thatch house overlooking the water, its light frame set on stilts. How the place stood up to the tropical storms that battered the area had always been a mystery to Gina, but Lwin had lived there for over five decades without issue—ever since she’d married one of the soldiers she’d saved from the Ramree swamp. Gina made a mental note to tell Kannon about that happy ending. Maybe on their first date.
Inside she watched as Kannon’s normal deadpan expression was suffused with surprise and admiration. The place was a tattoo parlor, though not a typical one. Every wall was covered with photographs of Thai kick-boxers, some of them recent, others dating back to the 1960’s, and all were adorned with tattoos depicting crocodiles in one form or another.
Gina came alongside him. “She does magical tattoos. They protect from bad luck and curses. Give people strength or courage or a long life. That kind of thing. She did mine.”
“I don’t think many here would need magic to win,” Kannon said, looking at a particularly fierce boxer in a black-and-white photo. “Look at his hands. You can tell he trained seriously. Very seriously.”
Lwin gestured for them to sit with her at a table. Gina took a seat across from her, expecting Kannon to stand as usual. Instead, he made a series of unusual moves. He sat down right beside her, so close their knees almost touched. He took off his sunglasses and pocketed them. And then he turned his dark liquid eyes on Gina. Looking into those eyes was like plugging herself into a socket.
“Tell Mrs. Kinjo that she does exceptional work,” he murmured, his pillow-talk voice making her tummy clench.
“Should I also tell her you make my heart go thumpety-thump?”
The flash of his warm eyes sent more sparks through her. “No.”
Gina stuck to the original message and Lwin bestowed him with the same affectionate smile she’d given her pets. “What can you tell us about Ek Chouen?” Gina continued. “I hear he’s a very bad man.”
Lwin looked ready to spit again. “He is. And very big. They say he’s strong enough to strangle an elephant. But it’s not just him that you have to worry about. His whole clan is cursed.”
Oh no, bad juju. “Yeah?”
“He and his people are descendants of the rakshasas,” the old woman explained. “Reincarnations of people who made pacts with demons, polluting their souls and coming back as monsters.”
“Sounds familiar,” said Gina, thinking of the sharp-toothed berserker held prisoner aboard The Pink Pussycat, and the men they’d encountered at the defiled temple.
“Sadists. Cannibals. Black magicians. Very dangerous people. Nothing they won’t do.”
“They’re a clan you say? Like a crime family?”
Lwin shook her head. “No. They raise no children. Rather they corrupt the lineages of others.”
“I don’t understand. How?”
“Their seed is tainted, Gina,” the old woman explained. “They do not know love. They father their children through rape, and when the resulting child grows, it seeks out its own kind. Over the centuries Hindu, Muslim and Buddhist warriors exterminated them, till the last of them hid in the Dângrêk mountains between Thailand and Cambodia.
“Their numbers had almost dwindled to nothing when the Khmer Rouge came to power, and naturally they became part of Pol Pot’s genocide. Under their reign they tortured and murdered hundreds of thousands, and they impregnated countless women, creating a whole new generation of rakshasas to plague the world.”
Gina didn’t go much for ghost stories or black magic, but Lwin was no fool. Whatever the truth behind the rakshasas was, she was probably getting a good part of it. “So Ek Choeun is their leader?”
“Their true leaders are demons that dwell beneath the mountains,” said Lwin. “As far as I know, Ek is the greatest of their servants. He came to Bangkok a year ago. Easier to serve his clients, I suppose. Rakshasas make deals with ordinary people all the time, but they only ever form partnerships with other rakshasas. As traitorous as he might be, I wouldn’t think this Wakai
was one of their kind. Don’t think Alak Montri would have ever dealt with a character like that.”
Gina turned that fact over in her head. “Are there such things as female rakshasas?”
“Oh, of course,” Lwin replied. “Rakshasii. They show their heritage less than their brothers, but they’re every bit as corrupted. According to legend they’re why the rakshasas have to breed the way they do. The females have a habit of eating their young.”
Gina felt sick to her stomach. Thank God she’d abstained from the website. “Even crocodiles carry their babies in their mouth.”
Lwin nodded. “Even crocodiles. That was why I’ve left him alone, and he me.”
What? “You knew about what he did and let him carry on?” She expected it of the hacker, not of the woman from the Ramree swamp.
Lwin’s expression maintained its usual Buddha-like calmness. “I’m a hundred years old and have killed a thousand monsters. After all your training from so many of us, can you not deal one with one?”
Gina felt the soft rebuke like a blow. On the drive to Lwin’s she’d chatted to a mostly silent Kannon about her past. As part of her training with Dr. Chai, he’d sent her to his old friend. Lwin, who’d already seemed ancient to the adolescent Gina, steeped her in the legends and culture of Southeast Asia, taught her the traditions and the superstitions that ultimately had Gina believing nothing but respecting everything.
When she’d left Bangkok a decade ago, Lwin, like Dr. Chai, hadn’t said one word to stop her. At the time, it seemed as if she was giving her blessing. Looking into those small dark pools of brightness now, Gina realized that Lwin had waited ten years to speak her mind.
Kannon tapped her knee with his. “What’s going on?”
“She’s—she’s telling me things I need to hear, that’s all.”
“Something I need to hear, too?”
“I—yes. Maybe, later.”
He gave a soft grunt and frowned at Lwin. She smiled and waved.
Kannon’s mouth twisted. “I see where you got your deeply rooted fear of nobody from,” he said to Gina.
Having dealt with Kannon, Lwin turned back to Gina. “There is a long friendship between Alak Montri and your father. And I understand why your family would seek to free him. But don’t underestimate Ek Chouen. Even my markings cannot protect you fully from their kind of evil.”
Considering her tats couldn’t ward off mosquitoes, Gina wasn’t disappointed. “I promise we’ll be careful. Very careful.”
Her old mentor wasn’t yet satisfied. “Ek Chouen is a born killer and leads an army of born killers. To kill him you will need to kill a thousand. You will need to become like me.”
Gina bowed her head. She’d left Bangkok because she couldn’t accept the life she was being groomed for. Now, a decade later, she was right back in it. Nothing had changed. This time she couldn’t run. Otherwise she was no better than the hacker she’d exiled. “A monster hunter.”
Lwin reached across the table and touched Gina’s chest where the tattoo was. “No. A crocodile tamer.”
Gina managed a weak smile. “Ah, much easier.”
Lwin sat back and said gently. “For you, so easy.” Her voice became brisk. “Ek works out of an underground club called Triple Nine.” She rattled off an address Gina immediately inputted into her phone. “He comes and goes, sometimes for weeks at a time. Still, that is where you’ll find him. And believe me, you’ll know him when you see him.”
“Thank you, Lwin. Please let me know if there’s ever anything I can do to repay you.”
“I will.” Lwin pointed a thin, chicken-bone finger at Kannon. “Tell me, is he your lover?”
Gina could feel Kannon straighten, and she put her hand on his thigh to calm him. His muscles there tensed. “Now what’s she saying?”
“She wants to know if we’re lovers.”
Deep lines between his eyes appeared. “How is that her business?”
Gina translated his question back to Lwin whose smile grew as wide as a crocodile’s. “Anyone who answers a question with another question doesn’t like the answer he’d have to give.”
“Are you saying that he wants us to be lovers?”
“Tell me, how does he feel underneath your hand?”
For the purposes of research, Gina let her hand travel down Kannon’s thigh which produced very tense muscles. “Hard.” She ran her hand down again. “Large.” And again. “Twitchy.”
With each descriptor, the old woman’s merriment grew until she burst into cackling laughter. “You’ve taken him to the mat, girl!”
Gina couldn’t help from joining in. That was enough for Kannon. He set his hand on hers to stop her. “You two laughing at me?”
Gina automatically flipped over her hand, catching his. “She said we’re destined to be lovers. No use fighting it, Kannon.”
She expected him to snap back at her or even get up and leave. Instead he gripped her hand tight in his and the look he gave her this time—forget the socket, she was hooked to the grid.
“Tell the tattoo lady this,” he said. “Tell her I’m not fighting it. I’m timing it.”
Kannon had seen plenty of women drink from a bottle of sugar cane juice but none of them worked it like Gina Zaffini was doing right now with hers. They were standing down a short ways from Soi Cowboy, one of Bangkok’s popular red light districts, and across the street from Triple Nine. Ryota had gone inside twenty-six minutes ago to check the exits and make sure Ek Chouen was there. Twenty-six minutes in which Gina suctioned her full lips around the neck of the bottle, rolled the cold dewy glass across her sweaty upper chest, lapped up spilled drops. And all the while she texted, taking in updates from Ryota and whoever else. She had a different chime for each contact, and so far he’d heard a half-dozen.
“Pensri says ‘hi’.”
Kannon growled. “Can we get back to business?”
Gina looked around. “We haven’t left it.”
“How about we focus on it, then?”
“What do we need to do that we’re not already doing? We’re standing here watching and waiting, and blending in, which you in your suit on a hot, muggy night in Bangkok among thousands of horny tourists doesn’t work.”
She was right, which irritated him to no end. “You certainly dressed for the part.” She’d switched into a party dress. A gold deal that barely covered her butt, and she had enough bling on her to be a walking jewelry kiosk. She’d even glittered her tats. Normally he detested tattoos on women, not in small part because he had so many. But like everything about Gina, she made them into something desirable and totally hers.
She squeezed the bottle between her breasts and the way her dress was wired made it stay in place. His cock shifted. “Ah,” she breathed out. “You have no idea how good this feels.”
“I think I do.”
“Why, Kannon, you need to stay focused.”
He looked away. She was right again. He needed to finish this job. Get this rakshasa to spill Victoria’s whereabouts, dig out Victoria, find her brother and get Alak Montri back home. There’d be consequences for not keeping Montri safe but not much because he had stayed loyal and, just as importantly, alive. He’d deal with them, bring his daughter out of hiding and then get on with getting it on with Gina Zaffini.
It was hard enough holding out against her constant sexiness, but what threatened to undo him were her sudden exposures of sadness and worry, like when she saw the state of her father and her revulsion over 70 Rai. He wanted to protect her from all that ugliness, as he had with his wife. Except with his wife, she hadn’t wanted to know about his life. It was easy to hide what no one wanted to find in the first place. The problem with Gina is that there was no saving her from anything.
Two full-blooded Aussies rounded the corner, their arms wrapped around a pair of Thai hookers in white cowboy hats and boots and little else. So engrossed were they in their purchase of the evening, one bumped into Gina. He immediately apologized and took in
Gina’s bottle.
“Hey there, mind if I have a sip?” Everyone in the group, drunk or pretending to be, laughed, and Gina joined right in.
Kannon came up beside her. “Drink from your own bottle.”
The Aussie immediately threw up his hands. “No worries. Didn’t know she was with you.”
“You know,” Gina said, as they disappeared into the happy crowd, “I could’ve handled that.”
“You could’ve but you don’t need to when I’m here.”
Her phone chirped and she smiled at its message. “Pensri again. She wants to know how our first date is going.”
“I may be bad with women but even I can do better than this.”
Gina laughed and began typing.
“Don’t tell her that.”
“I’m telling her we’re across the street.”
“At Ek’s club?”
“No, silly.” She lifted her head long enough to point to a flashing neon sign with bubbles floating upward. Outside, Thai girls in skimpy nighties were blowing bubbles at potential males. “The Bubble Boat.” The signs carried by two girls read ‘Pop my bubbles! Happy endings!’
“Yeah, it belongs to my dad. Pensri made her start there.”
“Why am I not surprised?”
“What can I say? Good times are our business.”
“What I mean is that it would be right close to Ek Chouen’s place. Anybody you’re not connected to?”
She bumped her behind against his groin. “There is one.”
“You come on to every man like this?”
Gina made a sweeping gesture. “Look around you. Look at the business I grew up in. I’m a product of my environment.”
“You don’t care about girls becoming hookers?”
Gina tugged out her bottle from its boob holder and took a long pull. “I hope you’re not suggesting that hookers don’t deserve respect.”
“I’m asking what your answer is to those that might think that.”
Gina Takes Bangkok (The Femme Vendettas) Page 11