Salty: A Novel

by Mark Haskell Smith

  When the driver finally skidded to a stop in front of the Bank of Phuket, Turk felt a sense of relief. He shakily climbed out and paid the driver, giving him a ridiculously inflated tip—as if in gratitude for not getting him killed—and carried his suitcase toward the bank.

  He was pleased to see that it actually looked like a modern bank. Like one you’d find in your neighborhood in Wichita or Albany.

  Turk walked through the door and stopped. The air-conditioning was on and the cold, clean air felt so good he just stood there, taking a moment to feel the sweat evaporate from his skin. There was definitely something to be said for air-conditioning.

  The bank manager, a guy with a name overstuffed with vowels and so long that Turk couldn’t remember or repeat it even though it was written down on a business card in his hand, jumped up to meet him. He enthusiastically waied several times—bowed quickly with his hands clasped in front of him—then shook Turk’s hand “Western style,” with a grip so hard that it actually caused Turk’s knuckles to pop and crackle.

  After offering him a cup of tea—Turk declined—the manager checked his passport, had him sign a couple of documents, and then led him past several guards with submachine guns slung over their shoulders into the vault.

  Turk watched as the manager fussed with a set of keys, opening a door about the size of a bathroom cabinet, pulling out a big metal drawer on wheels, flipping the lid open, and then unlocking a second box. It was like one of those Russian dolls: a locked metal box within a locked metal box within a locked metal locker within a locked metal vault within a locked concrete bank.

  All the security made Turk feel a little weird about dragging the money out of the bank in an unlocked suitcase. It wasn’t even leather.

  The manager, Mr. Incredibly Long Name, took Turk’s suitcase and placed it on a table. Then he began handing bundles of U.S. currency to Turk.

  “Mr. Henry. You count, please.”

  Turk held a couple of the bound bricks of greenbacks in his hand and looked at the manager.

  “I trust you.”

  The manager shook a finger at Turk.

  “No. No. Please assure yourself that everything is in order.”

  Turk realized that he’d never counted to a million before. He wasn’t even sure what a million was. A hundred hundred thousands? A thousand ten thousands? When was the last time Turk had been confronted with a math problem? He didn’t even remember taking math in high school, and he hadn’t bothered to go to college. The last math problem he ever solved had involved trying to figure out how many joints he could roll from a dime bag of weed he got off Zoë Levine’s little brother at the video arcade. Turk tried to think of mathematic facts. A kilometer is 1.6 of a mile. Is that right? Or is a mile 2.2 kilometers? Or is a kilogram 2.2 pounds? A liter of soda is bigger than a normal bottle. The big plastic ones at the store were all liters. Weren’t they?

  Turk stood there, trying to make sense of it all as the manager kept handing him money. When he realized that his arms were full, he dumped the load into the suitcase, working quickly to stack them tightly into some kind of order. As he did this he pretended to count.

  It took about fifteen minutes. When the suitcase was full, Turk turned to the manager.

  “That looks good.”

  The manager smiled at Turk.

  “Very funny, Mr. Henry.”

  Turk laughed. He didn’t know why.

  “Twenty-five thousand more.”

  Turk shrugged, embarrassed.

  “You got me.”

  Turk unzipped some of the side pockets on the suitcase and stuffed the cash in. The manager handed him a form and indicated where Turk should sign.

  “This money is your responsibility now.”

  Turk nodded.

  “Thank you, Mr … um, sir.”

  The manager bent in another deep wai. Turk attempted to return the gesture, bowing forward from his hips and almost pulling a hamstring. He stood and opted to shake hands vigorously with the bank manager. Turk zipped the suitcase closed and hoisted it off the table. He let out a surprised grunt: a million bucks in cash was heavy lifting. He plopped the suitcase down on the floor, pulled out the telescoping handle, and wheeled it out of the bank.

  …

  Turk popped his sunglasses on as he walked out of the bank. Several tuk tuk drivers waved to him, offering their services. Turk shook his head—this time he was taking a taxi. He wheeled his suitcase—it followed him like a dog on a leash—to the corner and scanned the road for a cab. He realized he should’ve had the bank manager call him one, but he hadn’t thought of it and now that he was outside, he didn’t want to go back in. Turk saw something called a “Resortel” a couple of blocks down the street and figured he could find a taxi there. He’d started to walk down the road when a familiar voice came up behind him.

  “Need a lift?”

  Turk turned and saw Ben Harding, the man from ICE, standing there.

  “I’m fine, thanks.”

  Turk tried to continue on, but felt the suitcase suddenly stop rolling.

  “I can’t let you do it.”

  Ben had grabbed the end of the suitcase. Turk played innocent. It had sometimes worked with police officers; he’d avoided arrest for possession of marijuana several times in his career.

  “I’m sorry?”

  Ben heaved a sigh. He took off his sunglasses and gave Turk his serious, protect-and-serve stare.

  “Remember nine-eleven? The attack on the World Trade Center?”

  How could Turk forget? Metal Assassin’s entire North American tour had been canceled.

  “Of course.”

  “How do you think that happened?”

  “Some pissed-off guys flew planes into buildings.”

  Ben nodded. “Guys who went to flight school.”

  Turk squinted his eyes, trying to see what Ben was talking about. “Can’t say they graduated.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Can’t say they graduated. You know, from flight school.”

  Turk could see that Ben was getting angry, and he tried to explain. “Because they crashed. Which is, in my opinion, what flight school should teach you how not to do.”

  Ben shook his head, slowly, conveying his disappointment. “You’re making a joke.”

  “No. I’m just saying—”

  “You’re mocking America.”

  “I’m not.”

  “Sounds to me like you are.”

  Turk looked at Ben. It was ridiculous, two grown men in a playground argument.

  “What’s your point? You brought up nine-eleven.”

  Ben pointed to the suitcase. “Somebody gave money to those terrorists.”

  “It wasn’t me.”

  “Not that time. But I know what you’re up to, and I’ll give you a chance to do the right thing. Why don’t you turn around, take that suitcase back into the bank, and go home.”

  Turk felt a surge of anger rise in his throat. Who the fuck was this guy to tell him what to do? Turk wanted to punch Ben in the face, maybe a couple of times, hit him hard, bust his lip, break his nose, knock him down. And then kick him in the ribs while he lay there. Maybe stomp on his face, too. And piss on him. Yeah. Motherfucker.

  Turk composed himself; he wasn’t going to get in a fight now.

  “I’m not going home until I get Sheila back.”

  With that, Turk jerked the suitcase out of Ben’s hands and turned to walk away.

  “Turk Henry. You’re under arrest for violating the Patriot Act.”

  Turk turned to face him. “All I’ve done is withdraw some money from the bank.”

  “With the intent of giving aid and financial support to terrorists. That’s conspiracy.”

  “You can’t prove that. Maybe I’m just going down the road to a whorehouse.”

  Several locals stopped to watch the two farangs. A young woman with a cartful of fresh fruit offered them some.

  “Don’t make me do anything you’ll
regret. I’m well trained in the martial arts.”

  Turk couldn’t believe his ears. First Sheila is kidnapped, and now a man from ICE is threatening to kung fu him. Turk said the first thing that popped into his head.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  Ben nodded. “Of course.”

  “Then you know beating up a celebrity is not something you want to do.”

  “You’re not above the law.”

  “I’m not breaking any law. It’s my money, and if I want to take it out of the bank and buy enough beer to fill the Andaman Sea, I can.”

  Ben narrowed his eyes. “You have a history of drug problems.”

  Turk looked at Ben with disgust. “You can’t be serious.”

  Ben adjusted his stance, standing in a way that said he’d seen a few Bruce Lee movies.

  “Listen, Mr. Henry, and listen good. I could arrest you right now and ship you off to a secret detention center in Romania. You wouldn’t have the right to an attorney; you wouldn’t get to make a phone call. You’d be thrown into a dank fucking pit and visited by nongovernmental contractors who could do whatever they wanted to you. No one would know where you were or what happened to you.”

  Turk swallowed. He remembered something his shrink had told him. A technique he’d used when Steve had started ranting and screaming.

  “I hear what you’re saying.”

  “Good. Now get your ass in the car.”

  …

  Turk didn’t say anything in the car; with the threat of extraordinary rendition hanging over him, he wasn’t sure if he should. It was probably better to just keep quiet until he was out of this asshole’s sight.

  As they pulled into the long circular drive leading to the front door of the resort, Ben finally spoke.

  “I told you I would look into this. All you had to do was lay low.”

  Turk pouted.

  “Sorry.”

  “Consider yourself under house arrest. You can’t leave the resort without my permission.”

  “How long’s that going to be?”

  “I have to talk to my station chief.”

  Ben pulled up in front of the hotel, got out, then helped Turk from the car.

  “What about my suitcase?”

  “Consider it impounded until I consult with Washington.”

  With that, Ben climbed back in the car and slammed the door shut.

  “Can I get a fucking receipt for that?”

  But Ben didn’t hear him. He was already driving away.

  …

  Somporn stood over the American woman’s corpse and shook his head. It hadn’t gone exactly as he’d planned. She wasn’t supposed to die on him. But that’s what happened. Sometime during the night, she’d succumbed to her fever. Somporn realized that he should’ve paid a little more attention to her; she had looked pretty sick. But then, Americans were notorious whiners, complainers, big overfed babies always demanding special treatment, so he’d ignored her condition. Besides, he’d been busy with Sheila.

  Somporn didn’t want his men to think he’d gotten sloppy, carelessly letting one of the hostages die, but he had to admit that his attention had been elsewhere, his mind not as on the ball as usual. But no matter how hard he tried to act the part of ferocious pirate captain, he couldn’t help himself. Watching Sheila shower had become a compulsion. It was all he thought about.

  Not that he was doing anything to her. He was just looking at her, marveling at her incredible white skin. She’d let him touch her last night, smoothing coconut oil on her back. Somporn felt a shiver of delight zip up his spine as he remembered how soft and clean she was. He couldn’t explain why he was so attracted to her milky skin; he just was. It touched something deep in him, her beauty almost moving him to tears. Not that he thought the dark brown skin of his fellow Thais wasn’t beautiful; it was, but it didn’t move some powerful and mysterious thing in him. Who knew why anyone preferred one thing over another? Some people loved chocolate. Somporn preferred the sharp-sour flavor of ripe mangoes. The Buddha would say that he was predisposed to alabaster white skin because of something that had happened in a past life. The attraction was imprinted on his mind stream; it was part of his karma that would follow him from life to life to life until he finally broke the cycle of suffering and rebirth and attained nirvana.

  There were, Somporn realized, worse fetishes to have. There were people who liked to be wrapped up like mummies, women who liked to wear dog collars and eat out of bowls on the floor, men who enjoyed being hog-tied and pissed on by beautiful librarians. He had once met a man who was turned on by watching Japanese women pick their noses. The man had collected hundreds of videos and DVDs of schoolgirls in Sailor Moon outfits, businesswomen, even geishas, all stuffing fingers up their nostrils and pulling out a variety of boogers and stringy mucus.

  The dead woman from Seattle was not a pretty sight. Her body had become a festering bug buffet. Somporn’s first instinct was to take her out past the reef and drop her body into the ocean. The tides, sharks, sea turtles, and gulls would take care of the rest. But that wasn’t the best strategic move. Better would be to make an example out of her, get the rock star really freaked out, maybe up the ransom to two million.

  Somporn decided on a two-pronged approach. He’d release the British couple in town and dump the body in a bay near one of the fancy resorts. It would be a message to the American rock star: There was only one hostage left, and he should expect to pay top dollar for her safe return. Captain Somporn wanted Turk to know he was serious.

  …

  Turk walked through the hotel lobby in a daze. Something was wrong. He could feel it. How did the ICE agent asshole know he was picking up the money? Was his room bugged? His phone tapped? Did someone rat him out?

  Turk went to the hotel bar and plopped into a cushy chair. A waitress scurried over to take his order.

  “Gimme a beer. Please.”

  “Thai beer?”

  Turk nodded and she went off to get his drink. He stared off, out the giant open doorway, at the ocean. Turk realized that he was in over his head. He needed some advice, a reality check. Turk normally trusted his instincts, his intuition, and right now his instincts told him that the agent was full of shit. Terrorists don’t kidnap tourists on an elephant ride. There’s nothing terrorizing about that. Terrorists blew up trains in Madrid or buildings in Nairobi. They got their money from exporting Afghan opium and Kashmiri hash. Sheila’s kidnapping seemed like your typical criminal enterprise. Snatch a rich guy’s wife and make him fork over some dough. It’s a crime, pure and simple, not the clash of civilizations.

  Turk didn’t think they’d send him to a secret prison somewhere. He was a rock star. But he wasn’t sure he wanted to press his luck either. Who knew what these bureaucratic zealots were thinking?

  Turk needed to talk to Heidegger. He needed advice, pronto. But it was a risk. If he met Heidegger in the resort, the ICE agent would overhear everything. Turk needed neutral ground. He needed to get out of the resort. Turk didn’t want to violate the Patriot Act, but it wasn’t like he had a choice. Sheila was out there.

  He thought about what his mom used to say: “You want scrambled eggs, you gotta break ’em first.”

  The waitress came back with the beer. Turk thanked her, picked up the Singha, and headed toward the manager’s office.

  Turk entered without knocking. The Frenchwoman looked up at him and offered a sympathetic, concerned smile.

  “Ah! Mr. Henry. How are you?”

  “I need to use your phone. And I want to be moved to another room.”

  The manager nodded. “Of course.” She stood up and offered her desk to Turk.

  “Thanks.”

  Turk sat down and dialed. The manger gave Turk an apologetic look as she knotted her long brown hair into a ponytail.

  “Do you require privacy?”

  “What’s the best hotel in Bangkok?”

  The manager thought about it for a second.

  “I
would stay at the Oriental.”

  Turk waited until he heard Heidegger answer on the other end, then spoke into the phone.

  “Bangkok. Oriental. Tomorrow night.”

  Turk hung up the phone and looked at Carole.

  “You didn’t hear that.”

  “Of course.”

  There was an awkward pause.

  “Will you be leaving us?”

  Turk shook his head.

  “I’m keeping a room here until I get my wife back.”

  …

  Jon Heidegger looked at his cell phone like he’d just gotten a transmission from Mars. What the fuck was that about? It was obviously Turk’s voice, but why the code, the cloak and dagger? Bangkok. All right. That was the city in Thailand. Oriental. Yeah. It was in the Orient. So? But tomorrow night? Was he nuts? Heidegger couldn’t just drop everything and go see what Turk wanted halfway around the world. He’d sent him the money. What was the problem?

  Even though it was ten o’clock at night, Heidegger decided he needed to do a little research. He called Karl at home and learned that the money had been sent and that Turk had received it and signed for it earlier that day. Then he got out his laptop and Googled the words “Bangkok” and “Oriental.” The Bangkok Oriental hotel popped up as the first answer.

  It occurred to him that perhaps Turk wasn’t very good at the cloak-and-dagger stuff. He wouldn’t be able to get to Bangkok tomorrow; that was for sure, not with the launch of Rocketside’s new CD. But that didn’t mean he wouldn’t be represented. Jon Heidegger prided himself on being a good manager, the kind who takes care of his clients even if they’ve gone crazy and talked in spy code. He flipped open his cell phone and dialed Marybeth.

  …

  Ben should have taken the money back to the bank and had it secured in the vault. That would have been the official protocol. But he was tired and didn’t feel like going to the bank. Besides, he was curious.

  He dragged Turk’s suitcase into his hotel room. He bolted the door behind him, plopped the suitcase on his bed, and unzipped it. He gasped when he saw the money; his legs got wobbly and he had to sit down. There was so much of it. A pile of greenbacks; a huge block of Benjamins. Ben had never seen anything like it. As he gawked at the cash, his awe and amazement only served to harden his resentment of Turk.