by Yigal Zur
“Do you know where she is?” I asked.
That made him laugh, and the laughter made him cough until he was almost choking. “You’re killing me,” he said, coughing up more phlegm and spitting it out. “If I know, that means they know, and as far as you’re concerned, it’s already too late.”
He took a final drag on the cigarette and crushed it out regretfully. The guard stood up and said something in Thai.
“I have to go,” Malachi said.
“One last question. Who set Sigal up with Weiss?”
He gave me a hard look. “I thought you knew,” he said. “I thought he was a friend of yours.”
“Who?” I asked, shocked by his answer. “Reuven?”
He nodded, stood up, and began walking away, dragging with him the shackles and their horrific noise.
I was standing outside the Bangkok Hilton. The river in front of me didn’t offer any comfort. I felt as if someone had brought a five-ton hammer down on my head. It’s impossible, I thought. Sigal Bardon and Reuven? How could that be?
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
LIFE IS FULL of surprises. Some are so mind-blowing you don’t think they’re possible. Things like that only happen in movies. Certain types of movies, that is. By the time I left Bang Kwang Prison, it was already late afternoon. The trip back to Banglamphu took about an hour. From there I took a motorbike taxi to the corner of Silom and Patpong. Whenever I hire the services of one of the drivers waiting for fares in their bright blue or orange jackets, I feel like I’m taking my life in my hands. I also get an adrenaline rush. The former comes from knowing that most of them are addicted to ya-ba amphetamines, and the latter from speeding among the smoking buses and tuk-tuks moving laboriously through the heavy traffic. Along the way, your trousers brush up against the barely moving vehicles, and you may very well fold back the side mirror on a cab, but you keep racing forward.
Late afternoon is a strange time. The hot, humid morning and midday hours drain all life and sensuality out of you. But as the day goes by and the sunlight becomes more muted, people are lured out of their cooler holes and the city opens like a flower.
I headed for Patpong 3, the street where Micha Waxman had been killed. I’m not quite sure what brought me there. Maybe I hoped that if I went back to the scene of the crime, I’d find something I missed the first time.
Sitting in one of the bars flanking the narrow street, you can see everyone sauntering by, and everyone sauntering by can see you observing them. Everybody’s eyeing and being eyed, watching and being watched. There’s nowhere to hide. I found Shmulik, the embassy security chief, in the bar adjacent to the site of Micha Waxman’s murder.
Bingo number two.
I took the stool next to him. For a while, he just looked at me without talking. Eventually he said, “Want a drink?”
“Beer,” I answered.
He gestured for the barman, who came over with a broad grin on his face.
“Glass?” he asked.
I shook my head. Don’t drink from a glass in Bangkok. You never know what’s lurking on the rim: herpes, gonorrhea, or just undefined gunk. A minute later, a cold bottle of beer in a felt sleeve was sitting in front of me.
“The embassy knows,” Shmulik said. “I never kept it a secret.”
“I didn’t know,” I said. “You managed to surprise me. When did you come out?”
“When I started traveling the world. That’s why I took a job with the Foreign Office. I knew it meant I’d be in places like this, places like Bangkok, where no one cares about your sexual orientation.”
“Not even if you’re a security officer?”
“As long as you pass your annual polygraph, who cares?”
“Who cares?” I repeated, my voice rising a little. “You’ve been here a while so you must have known Micha Waxman.”
His response was immediate. The blood drained from his face.
“I knew him,” he whispered. “He was such a pretty boy when I met him. Sweet. All heart.”
“And you didn’t know anything about him? You? The embassy’s chief security officer?”
Shmulik exploded. “How was I supposed to know he’d start selling his body? How was I supposed to know he’d get hooked on heroin?”
“Are you delusional?” I was well aware of the contempt and loathing in my voice.
“I let you down, huh? You can’t deal with the fact that there are gays in the agency. You’d be happier if I turned out to be a maniac and you didn’t have to find out that one of your former agency colleagues was gay.”
“You talk too much. How did you meet him?” I asked
“A friend of a friend had a garden party at the Hilton,” he said with a laugh. “All the Israelis living in Bangkok were invited. I exchanged small talk with a few people, had a drink or two. Didn’t find anyone I really wanted to talk to. I was fed up with the usual conversations. You know what it’s like when Israelis get together overseas. All they do is gossip. I wandered outside. The hotel has a beautiful tropical garden, palm trees, elephant ears. The best part was that the whole garden was suffused with the scent of honeysuckle. To this day, I remember the perfume. It was like I had to cut through it as I walked, it was that thick. At the end of the garden, on the bank of a canal, is one of the strangest shrines in Bangkok. A mass of lingams, phalluses, symbolizing the Hindu god Shiva. It’s an impressive collection, every possible size, shape, and material. Micha was there, sitting on a bench. Handsome, well built, surrounded by erect penises and enveloped in the most intoxicating scent you can imagine. He was magnificent, not the scared strung-out junkie you knew.”
Shmulik fell silent. His rugged face looked softer and his boxer hands rested lightly on the table. He picked up his bottle and guzzled down the beer, as if talking, or his memories, had dried him out. Then he went on. “I wanted to fuck him right there. And I would have, if two stupid girls hadn’t shown up and started giggling at the penises. Dumb blonds who don’t have time for anything except themselves and the fake Gucci bags in the stalls. I detested them for ruining the moment. I didn’t dare approach him after that. All I had left was the scent. Then one day I ran into him again in one of the bars around here.”
I remembered the odor that hung in the air over Micha’s body. I never knew murder could smell like honeysuckle. Was it Shmulik? The boy said he saw a fat, bald foreigner.
“He could see I was salivating with lust,” Shmulik said resentfully, “and it made him laugh. I hated that laugh. We got together every night after work for two months.”
“Where?”
“Here, or someplace else. Bangkok is full of places only the gays know about. We’d have a drink and then go to one of the love hotels and fuck.”
“When did you find out he was a junkie?”
“When he started asking for money. In the beginning, I thought he was in love with me. After a while I understood that all I was for him was an ATM. He was no different from all the other whores in Thailand.”
“When was the last time you saw him?”
“About a week ago. He was going on about being able to get his hands on a large sum of money. He wanted a sex change operation. He said he gave me love and I didn’t give him anything in return. If I didn’t help him, he’d have to do something terrible.” He looked down. “But I didn’t pay it any mind. He was always moody.”
“What did he mean, something terrible?” I asked.
“I have no idea. Who cares,” Shmulik said.
I put three hundred-baht notes on the counter and got up.
“What are you going to do?” I asked.
“Don’t know.” I could hear the sadness in his voice.
I walked away down the street, not turning to look back. I don’t think I wanted to hear any more. Not then, at least. I just wanted to get as far away as possible, away from the filth all around me. I didn’t want to know who killed Micha Waxman, and I wasn’t even sure anymore that I wanted to know where Sigal was hiding and why she had
run. It all seemed too dark, like I was swimming in a huge cesspool. All I wanted was to breathe fresh air.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
THE EARLY EVENING is the best time of day to sit beside the pool at the Oriental. Elliptical Chinese lanterns sway from the branches of the coconut palms, casting a red glow on the still water. On the horizon, you can see the sun setting quickly over the Chao Phraya, lighting the sky in its vivid colors. The hotel workers start collecting the empty cocktail glasses and removing the mattresses from the deck chairs.
She was stretched out on a chaise, long and serene. Her straw hat was on the deck beside her, along with an open book on the life of Buddha. I glanced at the title of the chapter, “Mission and Death.” She looked every inch a tourist without a care in the world.
“To your credit, you look very relaxed,” I said.
She laughed. It sounded like marbles rolling down a hill, gently tapping against each other. This is the first time I’ve heard her laugh, I thought.
“Would it help if I looked upset?” she asked.
“No. It wouldn’t change things one little bit.”
I was dying to pass my fingers over her smooth skin. Everything about her stimulated the nerve endings in my body. Her thighs were the most sensuous things I’d ever seen. I imagined myself kissing her fingers, one by one. Her round shoulders looked absolutely perfect with her long hair curling gently over them.
“You’re devouring me with your eyes,” she said, looking me straight in the eye as no other woman ever had.
“You’re right,” I said. “I don’t know what’s come over me.”
She laughed again and I envisioned myself picking her up in my arms and carrying her back to her room, kicking the door closed like the hero of some romance novel before falling onto the bed with her. After everything I’d seen in the past few days, I was hungry for her, for human warmth and sensibilities. But I also knew it was best to wait. Wait until it was all over, and, most importantly, wait so I didn’t screw up another relationship before it even began. I was very good at that.
“Sigal’s alive,” I said.
Her breath caught for so long that I started getting worried. “How do you know?” she asked finally.
“The guy I went to see in prison let it slip.”
I told her about Malachi Razon and about the unexpected, and unexplained, connection between Sigal and Reuven.
“Do you know what Reuven’s doing in Bangkok?” she asked.
I told her about Mama Dom and how she called him the angel of the Israelis. I had to admit that I still didn’t know what she meant.
“Maybe he helps Israelis in trouble,” she said.
“Maybe,” I agreed. But that was extremely unlikely given the Reuven I knew, the Reuven in my past.
My cellphone rang.
“Are you alone?” I heard Aliza ask.
“No,” I said, without going into details. I glanced at Reut who was bent over, massaging her toes. “But you can talk.”
“Shmulik is dead,” she said, letting out a primordial wail. “They found him hanging from a rope in the embassy parking garage.”
I didn’t respond.
“It looks like he got up on the car with the engine still running, and then pushed it out from under him with his feet. Someone went down to the garage and found him like that.”
There was nothing I could say. I hadn’t come here to uncover the guilty secrets of the people who crossed my path. And I’d had no intention of leaving a trail of bodies behind me. It wasn’t my fault that Micha was a whore and a junkie or that Shmulik was a lonely gay. And I had no way of knowing who else was going to get hurt in the course of my investigation. I was here to find Sigal, c’est tout. Whatever else was going on, I didn’t know, and to be honest, I didn’t really care.
Aliza was alternating between gasping and moaning. “Aliza,” I said in a soothing tone meant to calm her down a little. “Why did he do it?”
“Because of the pictures.”
“What are you talking about? What pictures?”
“Weiss took pictures of him with young Cambodian kids and said he’d go public with them.”
I could imagine what was going through her mind at the moment: What was she going to do when it all came out?
“Something wrong?” Reut asked. I motioned for her to give me another minute.
“Stay away from me,” Aliza said in the voice of someone whose world was crashing down around her. “I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I don’t want to end up like him. I don’t deserve that. And you, wherever you go, you leave scorched earth behind. I don’t want to have anything more to do with you.”
She disconnected. I put the phone back in my pocket.
“Shmulik, the security chief at the embassy, he committed suicide,” I told Reut.
She gave me a quick look, and I could see the thoughts racing through her head. “Does it have something to do with Sigal?”
I nodded. “I don’t know how, but it’s all connected. Tightly connected. Everyone I’ve met in Bangkok is in it up to his neck.”
“What about Reuven?” she asked.
“That’s a good question. I guess it’s time to go talk to him.”
I leaned down and gave her a fluttery kiss on the brow. She smiled.
“Will you come get me later?” she asked.
“Yes,” I answered. “Later.”
I left without looking back. I knew that if I turned my head, I’d see her exactly as she was when I arrived, long and serene. She would stay there, stretched out on the chaise, gazing at the water and the sky and thinking about her sister, knowing that whatever happened was meant to happen and nothing could change that, not even me. She’d lie there knowing that miracles only happen when you stop being afraid.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
AN EMBASSY WORKER led me to the underground parking garage, a small, cramped space with room for no more than a few cars packed close together. It was even more cramped now, teeming with local policemen and embassy security officers. I recognized Major Somnuk with his elephant ears. He turned his pockmarked face to me and gave me a sadistic smile.
“Oh, you again.”
I just nodded. It didn’t seem like the right moment to cement our friendship.
Shmulik’s body was swaying gently from the end of a pale rope. There was something ludicrous, even comical, about the sight. His face was distorted, as if right before his death he could see the headlines when the news got out: “Chief of Security at Israeli Embassy in Bangkok Commits Suicide.” The item below would read: “The body of S. was found hanging in the embassy building. The Foreign Office is working with local authorities to investigate the incident. S. had an impressive career in security.”
All that was left of the mountain that was Shmulik was the hairy pot belly of a man who liked his beer, which protruded from his unbuttoned shirt. He was finally able to expose it shamelessly to the world.
Who was he thinking of when the rope began to tighten around his neck and the buzzing started behind his eyes? What was going through his head when the life began to drain out of him and the clock started counting down? I closed my eyes and tried to envision the Shmulik I once knew, when we were all still naïve, when we operated out of belief in the cause, without much self-awareness. We simply went into action and we were proud of what we were doing, no self-torment, no reservations. Again, I felt the familiar thrust of Major Somnuk’s radio in my side. The bastard.
“So, Mr. Israeli investigator. A friend of yours?”
I had to give him credit. He had the intuition of a real pain in the ass.
“He was,” I said.
“Was, yes,” he said with a laugh. “Now he dead. Your ambassador not understand nothing. He get in my way since I come. Fucking falang.”
He gave me another look, then peered musingly at his radio, raised his eyes, and threw me another one of those smiles I didn’t like. “No need it,” he said, pointing to the radio. “I not apo
logize for last time. I just be professional. You do same thing to me if I not respect you.”
I kept quiet. Maybe, maybe not.
“We know things your ambassador not know yet,” he said, gesturing toward the hanging body.
I looked him in the eye.
“We have big file on him, good pictures, too,” he went on. “Your friend like to fuck little boys, especially from Cambodia. You know, they darker than us. Make them more attractive. He know when new goods arrive. Take the youngest, or the older ones that look like children.”
I let out a whistle, or maybe I just exhaled noisily. I was furious with Shmulik. A pedophile? I thought of all the years he kept his perversion a secret. Despite the myths about how people like him form communities and maintain covert contact with each other, I always suspected that their life was the very opposite of communal. They harbored a secret for most of their lives, an obsession they had to keep hidden and could never share with anyone else.
Abhorrent images took shape in my head. I could see Shmulik sitting in a bar, his eyes settling on one of the boys whose freshness shines on their faces, boys who know there will always be a horny falang nearby. I could see him offer the kid a drink, well aware that the young ones can’t hold their liquor. He orders a Heineken for himself and a vodka and Red Bull for the boy. When it comes to drinks, they’re like girls; they go for the sweet ones. The alcohol affects them quickly. After one or two drinks, they’re wasted. The scene played out in my mind, and I saw the pervert hailing a cab, the boy leaning on him, and then putting his arms around him to help him in, looking left and right by force of habit. Even before the cab starts pulling away, Shmulik’s hand is between the boy’s legs while the kid smiles drowsily. By the time he leads him into a room, the boy is already dozing off. As Shmulik tugs off the boy’s trousers, the boy mutters something, but doesn’t object. The boy knows from experience that if he lies still, it will hurt less, so that’s what he does.