“Robert Tuttle said I played God?”
She refused to reply and swung around in her chair, her back turned to Addison’s camera. He was unfazed and kept the camera rolling.
“Do you think he’ll find Daeng the prostitute?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’ve turned the camera off. You can turn around,” said Addison.
“Good,” she replied, refusing to turn around. Asanee stared at the wall, her arms folded around her breasts.
“Is that all you’re gonna say? Good?”
The phones were ringing. A couple of floors below there was the sound of gunfire. “I’ve decided to go and help my father.”
“Are you crazy? Don’t you hear the shooting? What is this crusade to find one girl in a city of ten million people?”
“Dad was right about one thing about you, Denny. You end every sentence with a question mark like some guy addicted to other people’s answers but not having any yourself.”
“Wow, your father said that?”
“Another question.”
She got up from her chair, as Addison shouldered his camera and followed her out of the control room, into the hallway, and watched her walk toward the bank of elevators. Two Navy marines blocked her way. She stopped, boxed in by the marines, and looked back at Addison filming her.
“Why not show them your grandmother’s tooth amulet?”
Asanee burst into tears and tried to walk around the marines.
They wouldn’t budge. One of the Navy marines with Khmer blue-ink tattoos on his neck told her she couldn’t use the elevators. Radio Bangkok 108.3 music was piped into the hallway. The DJ had put on Muddy Water’s Trouble. She did an about-face, rushed Addison, grabbed his camera before he knew what she had done. She ran three steps and hurled his videocam down the staircase. The ugly crashing noise of plastic, glass, metal exploding on the marble stairs made her laugh and jump up and down with joy.
“Ting rabut,” screamed a voice from below. Someone has thrown a bomb. The scream was followed by automatic gunfire and the sound of boots stumbling down the stairs in a frantic escape.
The marines grinned. Some soldiers had been sneaking up the staircase for a surprise attack. Then Asanee had the good fortune to hurl Addison’s camera down the same passage, and thinking a bomb had been hurled the attackers were routed.
For the first time since the killings started Asanee felt happy. Addison, his mouth open, rotated his head.
“Are you crazy?”
“Try and find the answer yourself,” Asanee said and stormed back to the radio station.
7
INSIDE HQ CROSBY was surrounded by prostitutes. He had bought them all beer and cigarettes. He had given one of them a handful of baht coins for the jukebox. Crosby had everything he ever wanted in life. A teenage prostitute giggled as she bounced on his knee, shaking as she drank straight from a bottle of Singha Gold. The beer spilled out of her mouth and the suds dribbled down her bare throat. As Crosby dabbed Lek’s neck, his hand dipping into her bra, cupping her breasts, Snow sauntered into HQ, having ducked through the back alley entrance. It was midnight. Snow’s Hawaiian shirt was wrinkled and untucked. He ordered a glass of cola, then he waited until two of the prostitutes tumbled out and then slid into the booth across from Crosby. The girls piled back in, squeezing Snow’s arms and thighs, trying to figure out if he was strong, armed, and rich. He nodded to Lek who offered him a drink from her bottle of beer as Crosby played with her breasts. Snow waved off her offer.
“How’s the civil strife business, Snow?” asked Crosby without missing a beat.
Snow shrugged, sipped his drink like a serious artist. “It’s been hell. But war’s like that. File, file, file. So what’s happening in the T-shirt racket?”
“Filing quotes away for future reference,” said Crosby, glancing down at his hand, pumping Lek’s breast.
Snow sipped the freshly arrived Coke.
“At least that wando, Addison, hasn’t been on the air for hours.”
“Maybe he’s dead.”
“Don’t get Tuttle’s hopes up. But I have to say, I was rooting for the Army to shoot him. The reason you have coups is to shoot people like Addison. Radio station cleansing. It’s essential. Looks like the T-shirt business is looking up.” Snow turned one of the girls around, smoothed out her T-shirt and read it. All the girls squeezed into the booth were wearing identical T-shirts with the phrase—Ding Dong and Run on Cash. Underneath was a pile of bank notes from a dozen countries: baht, dollars, pounds, and francs.
“I came up with the line myself,” said Crosby.
“It’s difficult to believe you would have stolen it. Anyway, it’s false advertisement. These are all short-time girls,” said Snow. “Why not, ‘Ding your willy on this Dong’?”
Crosby removed his hand from Lek’s breast, took out a piece of paper and wrote down Snow’s suggestion.
“It’s the beauty of test marketing. You receive feedback,” said Crosby. “The Ding Dong Bar has ordered two hundred T-shirts. I started with this dozen.” He stared at Lek’s rumpled shirt. “You think the Germans would understand what a willy is?”
“Beats me, Crosby. What can I tell you? It’s one thing to steal other people’s ideas, but you go the whole distance. You mess with their reality.”
“How else can you make money?”
“The world’s full of hard luck stories,” said Snow.
“Did I tell you Immigration is causing me problems? I was in England when my residence card expired. Only bloody three weeks late. You’d think they wouldn’t bother. People fleeing the country like rats, and this official wants a hundred thousand baht.”
“That’s a convoy of T-shirts,” said Snow.
“I said, ‘I was born here. Where do you expect me to go, Liberia?’”
“Not a good place to get your dong dinged.”
“I like that, Snow.” Crosby wrote down on his note pad. Ding Dong Bar—a great place to get your dong dinged. He ordered another round of beers for the booth. Six girls leaned over and kissed him on the face, laughing and pulling each other’s hair.
“Where you going?” asked Crosby, as Snow pulled out of the booth.
“I’ve gotta file a story. T-shirt tycoon attacked by six terrorists in Ding Dong combat fatigues.”
“War’s a grim business,” said Crosby.
A couple of minutes later Snow returned with Tuttle. They had nearly collided at the back entrance, as Snow’s attention was diverted. Inside one of the open toilets, the door off the hinge, Snow was taking in a glimpse of an HQ girl sliding down her jeans. He was trying to remember if he had taken her when he slammed into Tuttle, knocking his glasses off into his hands.
“Nice catch,” said Tuttle.
“Hey, Tut, what’s happening, man? Find the fair Daeng?”
“I’ve been looking for her in all the wrong places,” said Tuttle.
“HQ is all the wrong places.”
“Seen Crosby?” asked Tuttle.
“That capitalist slut had six Termites attached to his face last time I looked. They were making an awful sucking sound,” said Snow. “I think they’ve discovered his head is made of wood.”
They talked next to the wash basin beside the cracked mirror which hung on a nail. Two girls adjusted their make-up, combed their hair, watching Tuttle and Snow in the mirror, trying to figure out if the play action of the farang might include them.
“I thought you were at the Royal Hotel for the duration,” said Tuttle.
“Things change, man. The Army arrested Chamlong at Paan Fah Bridge. Sanam Luang is empty as doom. The troops are in the hotel. There are rumors the action has moved across town to Ramkhamhaeng. I lost Daeng who was last seen fleeing the Royal Hotel muttering about ghosts,” said Snow. “I never have any luck finding stable women. Maybe there are no stable women. It’s something to think about after the shooting stops.”
“Come on, Snow. I’ll buy you a drink,” said Tuttle
.
The girls in the mirror trailed after them.
“You know the Kok Wua intersection between the Royal and Ratchadamnoen? You should’ve seen it, man. Burnt-out cars, trucks, oil tankers. Torched buses. Heavy damage. The Public Relations Building torched.”
“How many killed?” asked Tuttle.
“Who knows, man? Like in ’76. An old Bangkok hand once said, ‘The average Thai knows to the last baht how much money he has.’ But the generals say it’s impossible to count the dead. Commies and terrorists aren’t counted as kills. So what you get is chaos. Numbers that aren’t numbers. Never try to audit the dead when the Army goes into the street. It’s a rule of thumb. And in case you haven’t heard, the generals are saying the communists are behind this,” replied Snow.
“I heard.”
They stopped at Crosby’s booth. Two of the girls were massaging his neck. Across the table two more girls were massaging his arms which lay stretched out. His eyes were closed and there was a look of pleasure on his face.
“I hear a rumor you’re an illegal immigrant,” said Tuttle.
“A farang can’t immigrate to Thailand,” replied Crosby, a slit in one eye opening to find Tuttle. “But my residence card is the subject of a ransom demand.”
“I’m looking for a girl from Nan Province. Daeng. She has a half-moon scar about here on her face. You can’t miss it,” he said, touching his right cheek.
“Nan Province,” purred Crosby. “I once had a girlfriend from Santi Suk. Her father was a gangster. The Burmese killed the old man, and the mother sold the daughter into whoredom. She kept her father’s bones in a mayonnaise jar with a screw-on lid. That’s the way I wish to be buried,” announced Crosby.
As Crosby resumed his comatose state with the girls working his every muscle zone, Snow looked agitated. His legs made the butterfly beating movement, his knees knocking together under the table.
“I’m feeling guilty, man,” said Snow. “I spotted her one night a couple of weeks ago. You were here. Purcell the gun-runner. Crosby and his T-shirt groupies. But I didn’t say anything. Man, if I’d known this girl was so important, I would have delivered her. But I don’t think you’ve missed that much. She’s a loon, man,” said Snow.
Tuttle who leaned on the table, looked up. “I don’t think so.”
“Christ, I took her short-time from HQ on the 17th. You were paddling your boat upcountry. I took her back to the Royal. She stayed with me until the Army smashed into the room. She was cool. She stayed in bed, behaved herself. The usual heavy reading material in her bag—comic books. No sweat. I’m on the phone with you. The Army comes through the door. An officer took her in the hallway, asked her some questions, then she came back. But it must have spooked her,” said Snow.
“Where is she?” asked Tuttle, pulling up a chair and sitting down. His legs felt weak.
“That’s what I’m getting to,” said Snow.
“She buggered off,” said Crosby.
“Did she say where she was going?”
“Why do you care, man? There must be another Daeng here. Another girl from Nan Province. There is an HQ rule that Daengs always come in pairs,” said Snow.
“This is serious,” said Tuttle.
“That’s why I gave you a serious answer.”
“Why did you let her go? You saw what was happening out there,” said Tuttle.
This accusation made Snow smile; he wrinkled his nose, and pushed back his glasses, making his lips thin, narrow and shaking his head as if he were looking at a lunatic.
“She left me for a ghost.”
“That’s a new one,” said Crosby, writing on his note pad.
“Ding Dong Bar—come seance your willy,” said Snow, which stopped Crosby from writing.
“She could be anywhere, Tut,” said Crosby.
“Why do you care?” asked Snow.
Tuttle lifted his head toward the ceiling and wished he knew a simple one-line T-shirt answer to the question. He thought of the old woman and her electric water pump, Old Uncle, his maid and the other Thais who burnt the incense during his absence. He searched all their faces, looking for some mirror where he might find an image he could call his own and which could whisper why this one girl out of the millions was worth caring about.
“Because she matters,” said Tuttle.
“Enough said,” said Snow. In the days when Snow taught at Tuttle’s English school, he remembered that Tuttle put a lot of thought into what mattered in a world where most things did not. “I gotta tell you, she came unhinged. I’m not certain what the Army did to her. Or maybe it was the madness of all that shooting. When she came back to the room, she rabbited on about seeing a ghost. She was strange, man. And her conversation wasn’t with your average, nameless ghoul. But the Spanish sixteenth-century thug suited up in uniform—Cortez—and she said Cortez was talking to her in Thai.”
Crosby stretched his arms around the girls on either side of him in the booth. “And who goes around filling these girls with stories about Cortez and Aztec skull wars?”
“Purcell!” thundered Snow in a rare outburst which scared a couple of the girls wearing the Ding Dong T-shirts into a clutching embrace.
“She was sitting right there in that booth when Purcell was talking about Cortez and his usual mix of weapons and pillage stories. She probably plugged in,” said Crosby.
“Shit, why didn’t I think of that? Sometimes, Crosby, you manage to earn yourself five seconds of respect. Which of course you squander in three seconds flat.”
This left Tuttle wondering if Harry Purcell had taken Daeng; if Harry Purcell, weaving his stories of Cortez, might be the man she would run to if Cortez’s ghost had come to Bangkok for a haunting time.
“You remember what time she left?” asked Tuttle.
“After the buses were torched,” said Snow. He closed his eyes tight, set his jaw, mouth half open. “After I talked with you on the phone. Say, early morning. One moment she was there, and the next…gone.”
8
WHEN DAENG HAD walked out of Snow’s room at the Royal Hotel she had known that she would never see him again. She felt a profound sense of relief that she would not go back. Something had touched her life, turned it around, and she followed the voices which had spoken to her. The officer who pulled her from Snow’s room said she would be in danger if she stayed. His commander had told him that soon the Army would come and take everyone away. Unless she left, the Army would throw her into prison. His eyes looked sad as he spoke these words of warning. Daeng thought the officer seemed like a brave, kind man. She thanked him and returned to say goodbye to Snow. She didn’t bother to ask him for money. For the first time since she arrived in Bangkok money wasn’t on her mind.
In the hallway, she slumped against the wall, thinking about what she should do next. Then she remembered her father’s photograph. The one he had taken before he left Thailand to work and die abroad. She had wrapped it in a piece of silk and kept it inside a secret pocket in her handbag. She had taken it out and asked her father’s photo, “Father, I must go. Do you mind if I go? I have this hurt.” Then she put it back, descended to the lobby, stepped around the bodies. Some were dead, or at least not moving. Others had blood-soaked clothes. Doctors and nurses, blood up to the elbows, worked on the bodies; they had turned the main lobby into an emergency operating room, attaching drips, tearing open the bloodied shirts, and removing bullets. The doctors had worked around the clock until they could no longer stand straight. The nurses worked at their side, giving comfort to the wounded and the dying. Daeng saw that this was the moment when people found out what they were made of and what made them cry and what made them stay or run.
She slipped out a side door. The night sky was lit with fires. A pre-dawn Bangkok morning with fires raging as far as she could see. The smell of fire clung in the air. Thick smoke rose from burning cars and buses. Razor wire—the kind with tiny razors raised at hundreds of angles—had been strung near the brackish canal.
Hundreds of sandals and shoes lay in the street. As if the people wearing them had taken flight and flown away, leaving their launching pads in the streets. The death litter of street battle, whirlwinds and eddies of killing debris blew across the field of vision like sagebrush in the old west; a horizon of smoke, paper cartons, stones, broken bottles, pieces of wood, smashed motorbikes, and charcoal-black wreckage twisted from heat. She turned down a side street and walked no more than a hundred meters before she saw a dead boy wrapped in a Thai flag. He was fourteen, fifteen years old and lifeless in the street like the sandals and shoes among the abandoned rubbish. He was like the boys she remembered who played on the river banks before she came to Bangkok. A farang was taking a picture of the dead boy. The farang was snapping his camera and crying at the same time. He shook his head, and said over and over, “Why, why, why? Jesus Christ, why?” She didn’t know the answer to the why question which made any sense, and walked on, kicking old newspapers drenched in blood. One of the papers stuck to her leg. She pulled it off and saw that her hand was stained with sticky blood. A thin blue wisp of smoke floated out of the sewer, and Cortez materialized, blocking her path.
Cortez told her, “Daeng, you have been chosen.”
“Why little Daeng? You know what I do? I sell myself for money. I’m ashamed.”
“Tonight you will get out,” said Cortez.
“Where are you sending me?”
“Out of the temple.”
But she couldn’t hear his reply over the gunfire on the street ahead. She saw a man running and a hail of bullets cut through his body. He fell, rolling like a rag doll, trailing a blood spray. By the time the shooting was over, Cortez had vanished into a column of heavy smoke.
9
THE WAITER BROUGHT to Crosby’s booth another jumbo glass mug filled with ice cubes and seven small bottles of Kloster. Snow, his Hawaiian shirt untucked, walked over to the jukebox and pushed the buttons. When he came back, the sound of A Wonderful Life filled the background.
A Haunting Smile Page 19