At Kamala Beach, a mile away, it was a different story.
When the tide pulled out—impossibly far out, farther out than he would let his oldest son drive the jet ski, three, four hundred meters at least—the locals rushed with their plastic buckets and their palm-leaf baskets, collecting fish that were flopping about on the sand. They filled their baskets and brought them up to the beach road, rushing back out onto the wide sand and mud plain with anything they could find, laughing and waving and shouting to their children to hurry and help with the unexpected harvest, too busy to notice the wall of water on the horizon coming in as fast as a fighter jet. And there were tourists out there as well, heads down, looking for shells. Backs to the ocean, they never saw it coming, and if they did it wouldn’t have made a difference. More people died on that one stretch of beach than the rest of Phuket combined; but at his house, just around the rocky outcrop of Laem Mai Phai, the wave that killed a hundred thousand rinsed the sand off his children’s flip-flops.
Jarin turned the car down Nanai Road, slowing down on the busy commercial street. There were no souvenir shops here, just wholesalers and restaurants only the locals ate at; car repair shops and two-story warehouses that supplied the hundreds of hotels and guesthouses that were the heart of the island economy. He turned down a narrow road that took him farther from the beach, pulling up behind a row of warehouses he had bought a week after the tsunami, giving the grieving widow and her family more than he would have paid her husband, but still far below its actual value. Business, after all, was business.
Laang and the bodyguards jumped out of the car before he even had it parked, falling over themselves to open his door, pounding on the steel door of the warehouse like impatient children, the door swinging open, the men inside and the men outside arguing over who was more irresponsible, neither group watching as Jarin stepped out of the car and climbed up the wooden staircase to the second floor offices. It was cool, even cold in the office, the AC units humming louder than the police scanner on the desk. The men sat up as he came in, trying to look busier and more important than they really were. He passed through the room without giving them a glance, heading down the central hallway and through the door marked Private.
Taped to a folding chair—a golf ball-sized welt growing under his left eye, his lower lip swollen and split—JJ looked up as Jarin entered the room.
***
“That was a smart idea, putting them up in that other hotel,” Robin said as they crossed the street and climbed the steps of the City Hotel, the glass doors sliding open, the chilled air blowing out to greet them. “All three of them in one room for eight bucks. That’s a hell of a lot less expensive than having them all stay here. Besides, for them that hotel’s probably like staying at the Hilton.”
A step ahead, Mark looked back at Robin as she pulled her long hair through a fat rubber band. She didn’t notice him shake his head. “I wasn’t thinking about the cost. It’s safer if we split up. There can’t be too many American couples traveling around with a Thai woman, her nephew, and her grandfather.”
“Safe? You’re not worried about that gangster guy, are you? So you snuck out with one of his hookers, big deal. I’m sure there are plenty more where that came from.”
Mark grunted. It had been a good day, no sense on ruining it with information that would tie her to a homicide; Thai laws about accessory after the fact probably just as picky as the ones in the States.
They had set out from the fishing village an hour after lunch, the old man coming down to the beach to see them off, helping push his son’s long-tail out into the surf, handing Pim a basket of fruits and a bottle of water for the trip. Without a compass or a map on board, the fisherman pointed the bow of the boat toward the southeast and gunned the four-cylinder engine. There were enough clouds in the sky to break up the all-blue monotony, and in every direction Mark could see green islands shooting straight up out of the water. The fisherman’s course brought them close to one island, the sheer limestone cliffs undercut by the current, creating massive overhangs and hidden grottos, everything topped with arm-thick vines and jungle vegetation. He had seen some spectacular natural landscapes in his travels—Kashmir valleys with waterfalls as cold and clear as glacier ice, African lakes turned pink from all the flamingos—and he had seen some dull landscapes turned spectacular with horizon-wide oil fires and crisscrossing tracers. Maybe it was the warm sun or the sound of the water sluicing along the wooden hull, but somehow he knew that he’d try to hold on to this view longer than the rest.
Without thinking, they had taken the same seats on this long-tail that they had during their late night trip, with Mark at the bow, Pim and her nephew in front of the engine at the rear, and Robin and the grandfather in the middle. From the moment they set out, the boy could not stop grinning, and the fisherman, through words and gestures, asked him if he wanted to steer. The boy jumped up and grabbed hold of the steering bar, eyes front, watching the sea for sudden squalls or pirates on the starboard bow, never noticing how his great-grandfather beamed or how the fisherman kept the boat on course, readjusting the propeller shaft with his foot.
An hour out they passed between two large islands.
“That is Ko Yao Yai, home of my ancestors,” Pim said, pointing to the larger island to the south, breaking the restful silence. “And that is Ko Yao Noi.” She pointed to the north. “Perhaps that is where Shawn and I will live one day.”
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Robin said, shorts again rolled up high on her thighs, the strings of her bikini top dangling to the side as she lay on her back. She dropped her arm over the low hull and let her fingers cut a sharp wake in the flat water alongside the boat.
“Miss, you have very lovely rings. Very sparkly.”
Robin sighed but said nothing.
“I would hate to see you lose your lovely rings.”
Robin sighed again, louder. “Don’t worry, they’re not going to fall off.”
“Of course not, Miss,” Pim said, smiling at Mark as she spoke. “The barracudas will take the whole finger.”
Robin sat up, her hand flying out of the water, the other trying to catch her falling top. Mark hadn’t laughed that hard in months.
The sun was setting when they motored up the swift-moving river toward the Chao Fa Pier; but once ashore, the fisherman paid and tipped, it hadn’t taken Pim long to find a cheap hotel and for Robin to find a better one. Thirsty, sun-baked, and sticky with sea-salt and sweat, they waited as the hotel clerk apologized to the guest in 311 who was not pleased with the poor selection of pay-per-view movies.
“Just one room,” Robin said as she handed the clerk her credit card. “But two beds.”
Chapter Fifteen
He was late but he was still surprised to find her waiting for him in the lobby.
“Where is Miss Robin?” Pim asked. If she was pleased or disappointed that he had come alone, Mark didn’t hear it in her words.
“The sun kicked her ass. She fell asleep as soon as she hit the bed.”
“Ngern, too.” She noticed Mark’s expression and added, “My nephew. My grandfather even looked tired.”
“How about you? How you doing?”
“I have been waiting for this for more than a year. I am ready.”
He gave a slight bow and waved his hand, allowing her to lead the way through the lobby and out into the humid night.
Across the street, strings of bright bulbs lit up the night market, and a slow-moving crowd brought traffic to a standstill. There were markets like this in every corner of the world, all of them alike, all of them different. Some were deadend mazes of filthy stalls; some, like this one, were orderly and, if not clean, at least not as bad as they could have been. The tourists always went looking for monkey heads and skewered rats roasting over hot coals, disappointed when they found pizza stands and ice cream vendors. Mark and
Pim passed stalls of fresh fruits and vegetables, some he knew, some he couldn’t identify, and they cut down a fragrant row that sold nothing but flowers. There were few tourists in the crowd and he towered over the shoppers, ducking to avoid the extension cords and speaker wires that passed from booth to booth. He couldn’t understand a word but he knew what was being said as the shoppers haggled for the best deal, positive that they and they alone were being ripped off, paying top bhat for second-rate goods, every shop owner insisting just as passionately that they were losing money on the sale. They stopped to eat, Pim inhaling a bowl of rice and fish, Mark downing three Thai-sized hamburgers and a quart of Pepsi.
“I do not think Miss Robin likes me,” Pim said as they ate.
Mark shrugged. “I’m not so sure she’s fond of me.”
She stopped eating and held her pose, her chopsticks steady above the plastic bowl. “Is it right for a sister to be jealous of her brother’s happiness?”
Mark said nothing, ignoring the question, hoping she wouldn’t repeat it.
“If my brother was married, I know that I would be happy for him and would make his wife feel welcome. I would not be mean to her or say cruel things, and I would not turn my eyes when she spoke to me. I would want to know about her and become her friend. She is the one who makes my brother happy, so I would want her to be happy.”
“She doesn’t know you, that’s all.”
“If my brother was married, I would want to get to know his wife. It would make me happy.” She sat still a moment longer, then shook her head, the idea falling apart. “But my brother is dead so it does not matter.”
Mark set down his burger, wiping his hands clean on his khaki shorts. “Robin’s got a stack of pictures. I don’t think she’ll miss one.” He pulled a photo out of his shirt pocket and dropped it on the picnic table, careful to miss the splatters of ketchup and green spices. Pim set down her empty bowl and with both hands she lifted the picture. She stared at the image, different from the one he had given her before—a close-up of Shawn, shirtless, grinning for the camera, his shoulder raised and his arm angled in like he had taken the picture himself. Mark watched as she studied the photo, saw the light that sparked behind her eyes and the watery line that formed below her eyes.
“I was working at my father’s clinic when we met. He had been rock climbing near the beach and had lost his footing. He slid and cut his leg badly but he was fortunate and nothing was broken. His friends had brought him to the clinic, but my father had taken the ferry to Phuket that day and would not be back for hours. His friends wanted to take him to Dr. Stubbs, the Australian, but Shawn told them no, he wanted me to take care of him. I explained that we were not doctors, that my father was just a pharmacist and that I was still in university, but he said that it didn’t matter, that anyone with such beautiful eyes had to be an angel.” She looked up and smiled. “I know. It is a silly thing, but it worked.”
Mark could tell her that it wasn’t just her eyes, that this Shawn guy was a lucky bastard for having met her and an idiot for leaving her behind. But he knew enough to say nothing.
“He came back the next day,” she continued, “and my father replaced his bandages. He asked my father if he could take me to dinner. I was so embarrassed.”
“Sounds like a gentleman to me.”
“For you, perhaps. But that is not how it is here. For us, such formalities mean that the man and woman are ready to be married. My father pretended not to hear. Shawn thought that this meant no, but that night we ate at the Two Palms restaurant on the beach. It was the best restaurant on the island. It is gone now.” She took a last look at the photo and handed it back to Mark. “Thank you, but I do not need more pictures to remember.”
Mark hesitated a moment before taking the photo. “If you change your mind…”
“Why are you here?” She was still smiling, but the words were firm.
Mark slid the photo back into his pocket. “I didn’t want you to go snooping around alone. I know this is your country but there are—”
“No, Mr. Mark,” she said. “Why are you here in Thailand? Why are you helping Miss Robin?”
“She hired me to find her brother, that’s all.”
“Was she a friend of yours?”
“No. I didn’t know her.”
“So why did she come to you?”
“A friend of mine sent her to me.”
“You do not sound pleased.”
“Let’s just say that me and this friend are now even.”
Mark finished off his hamburger, washing it down with the last of the Pepsi. She waited till he was done wadding up the wrappers and tossing them the ten feet into the open barrel, then said, “What do you do, your job?”
“Little of this, little of that. Lot of nothing.” She nodded, but he doubted that she understood.
“When you were young—like Ngern,” she said, hesitating before she continued. “Is this what you thought your life would be like? This and that and nothing?”
“No.” He laughed as he said it. “I sortta woke up one day and there I was.”
Pim looked down at her hands and nodded. “Me too.”
“Come on, let’s get started,” Mark said, picking up Pim’s empty rice bowl, standing as he spoke. “I don’t want to be up all night.”
They continued through the stalls, coming out at the far end of the market, the bars and hotels on this side lacking the bright neon and familiar names that pulled in the foreigners. There were fewer people walking around, and the ones that leaned against the concrete walls of the empty shops or sat along the curb watched them approach: street corner toughs, cigarettes dangling from their lower lips, slack-jawed teens in dirty shirts and bare feet, pinpricks for pupils, old men in baggy clothes, gums chomping on air, a few women who called to him from the shadows, staying out of the revealing arc lighting of the street lamps, a few others who didn’t give a damn what they looked like, walking right up to them as they passed, telling Mark the things he could do to them for five hundred bhat. Pim reached out for Mark’s hand and he guided her along the street, holding open the door of one of the smaller bars on the strip.
There was no bowling alley, no Odenbach beer sign, no jukebox loaded with 70s rock CDs; and none of the bartenders had on a flannel shirt, but there was something about the nameless bar that reminded Mark of bars back home. It wasn’t the low-hanging cloudbank of cigarette smoke—New York was smoke-free now anyway he heard—and it wasn’t the four bottles of Thai whiskey that sat on the otherwise empty shelf behind the bar, but there was something about the place, a deadend vibe that decades on a bar stool had taught him to recognize. There was a handful of patrons, none of them looking up as Mark and Pim took a seat at an open table, enough problems of their own that they didn’t need any more from this big ferang and his whore. The men were hunched over their Chang beers, straining their will power, trying to make one bottle last the night. The women—all four of them—were tired versions of bar-beer girls, worn out on the tourist trade, hanging on to the only career they knew. Mark scanned the crowd, wondering which pair of drooping shoulders belonged to the Thai version of himself.
“It would be best if you stay here while I ask questions,” Pim said, standing. “Please, may I have the photograph?”
He took the photo of Shawn from his pocket and held it out to her. “Do you recognize anyone here?”
“I have never been to this place,” Pim said. “But places like this are all the same. Someone here will have the information or they will know the person who does. It may cost money.”
He took a stack of bhat from his wallet and handed it to her. “You learned a lot at the Horny Monkey.”
“Yes,” she said, turning to leave. “Things I never wanted to know.”
***
The fourth beer was awful—as bad as the first t
hree—but he drank it anyway, more out of habit than desire. What he really wanted was a cigar, not because he liked cigars, but it would mask the second-hand smoke from the low-grade Chinese cigarettes. He could ask at the bar but didn’t feel like being sociable, and he could cut back to that all-night 7-Eleven across the street from the hotel, but that would mean leaving Pim alone in the bar. Not that she needed him. The lights were dim but he could see her in the far corner, sipping her can of Pepsi through a bent-neck straw. She leaned forward as she spoke to the man, and now and then he could make out her high-pitched giggle. The tip to the bartender got her introduced to the bouncer, and after fifteen-minutes of small talk and another tip, she was escorted past the men playing pool to the wobbly table near a propped-open fire exit where a potbellied man in rose-tinted aviator glasses sat with his back to the wall, chain smoking Thai cigarettes.
Mark knew the type. Middle-aged guys who saw themselves as players even though they were never in the game, guys who quoted Tony Soprano and dressed like they stepped out of Scarface, guys with Welsh-Irish surnames who said mingia and forgetaboutit like they grew up in Little Italy, who were too scared to cheat on their taxes but who hinted at back-alley deals and bodies in trunks. But they stayed on top of the real local mob scene, dropping names as if they were old compagnos, collecting scraps of information like they were baseball cards. And if you could sit through their bullshit, they’d tell you what they knew. As he watched the guy light up another cigarette, he hoped Pim knew the difference.
Noble Lies Page 9