“Just one. His name was Palm. He’s half German and half Thai. Gave me the creeps.”
“Why?”
“The way he looked at me. Dad says that he got mixed up with the wrong people here, that he’s wanted by one of the gangs or something.”
“Mafia?”
“I just know that he is somebody I don’t like. Mom says I have a good instinct about people. Look, here comes the food already.”
Mom got it right. The burgers arrived and they ate in silence for a few minutes. Joe took out the picture of Monica. Showed it to her. “Have you seen this woman before.”
“Is that Dad’s girlfriend?”
“Have you seen her before?”
Janey stared at the picture pensively. She swallowed some of her food: “I don’t know her. Is she a prostitute?”
“No. She’s just a ghost from the past, Janey. Nothing to do with your father or anybody else.”
“She’s cute. Is she your girlfriend?”
“Used to be.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.”
Joe watched two backpackers play a game of pool. He paid the bill, they stood up, and walked back out onto the street. She followed. The sudden sunlight was offensive.
“Janey, does your father rely on your mother financially?”
“Nowadays, yes. Dad lost his job in London. Mom’s family has money. It was partly her idea for me to come out here. Now I wished I’d stayed at home.”
“Why don’t you go back?”
“I will, soon. When will I see you again?”
“When I have some answers. You just try and enjoy yourself here. Us expats call it the Zone.”
“Why’s that?”
“It’s a secret,” he told her and walked towards a yellow and green, opened the back door, waved goodbye, and headed towards the Oriental.
THIRTY-SIX
JOE FOUND Francis at the Oriental Hotel sipping a cocktail on the terrace looking over the river. The afternoon had twisted into a purple smog that teased the oily waters. The sun was visible between two clouds like Turner’s Chichester Canal. Riverboats bobbed up and down along the banks. An aeroplane flew overhead.
He was sitting at a table for two. Joe sat down opposite him and asked a nearby waiter for the menu. Joe ordered a soda water and a basket of boiled quails’ eggs, and spoke. “Joseph Conrad used to stay here. Women are the perfect curse, don’t you think?”
“I think Joe was right. They are the perfect curse. Somerset Maugham also stayed at the hotel. Back then, this was the only hotel that western travellers repeatedly used. Astonishing to imagine that one of greatest writers of English literature was a Pole. Conrad’s third language was English you know? He was often in debt and travelled extensively. A captain of many vessels.” He had a notebook computer in front of him. He looked at the screen, smiled, and looked up. “But enough of literary talk. Onto business. I’ve always been one to hit the cricket ball straight down the wicket. I was educated at Eton, Oxford, and then in the army. This is where I learned the art of honour and integrity. I have always handled personal relationships the same way I have handled business relationships. Honest, up front, and dignified, as is the British way. As for the Thai way? There’s this curious culture based around deceit. It is perfectly normal for two Thais to lie to each other, both knowing that the other is lying. It is expected. Now, this is cultural. To avoid an unpleasant situation, the average Thai would rather lie to the effect of telling someone that they enjoy the situation, rather than tell the truth that the situation is unpleasant. Rather than deal with criticism on a case-by-case basis, they rather ignore criticism and let it build up until there is a bank of negativity from which there is only one way to withdraw – through violence or immediate withdrawal. It is very unhealthy. The Thais are perhaps the most well-mannered people in the world, and by paradox, one of the most vicious.”
“Is this what happened with you and Monica? Did she get vicious, angry, or violent? You had to defend yourself as best you could. It got out of hand. The perfect curse? A brief moment of madness turned into a disaster?”
“No. These are just observations from having lived in the kingdom for a little time. That whore took the money. She stole from me as I slept. She was a brazen opportunist. A simple whore. Joe, I need that money back. It is in a briefcase. Do you think if I killed her, I would be hiring you to find the briefcase? It doesn’t make sense for me to do that. It’s irrational...Idiotic.”
“We live in an irrational and idiotic city. Were you alone with her that night?”
Francis avoided the question and lit a cigarette. “She was a prostitute, I know, but I travel a lot and I have been researching sexual behaviours around the world. I am writing the book as you may know with the aforementioned title: Sexual behaviour around the world. Has a nice ring to it, don’t you think? Now, this is how I see it, Joe, try to keep up with me here. It may bore you but I need some feedback from a man with a mind - lord knows such men are in short supply here. I need a man with a mind that understands literature to listen to me.” Francis took a good drink and launched into it:
“Attitudes towards sexual behaviour tend to move in circles in most countries. One generation finds sexual freedom a good thing; the next generation condemns it. Look at the English example. The Victorians were embarrassed by the Georgians’ pursuit of pleasure and brought about a strict moral code, which wasn’t reasonably challenged until the 1960s’ cultural and sexual revolution. If you go back to the Roman libertines, then you will see that the Dark Ages was a reaction against their excesses. To put it simply, it’s the younger generation being embarrassed by their parents’ sexual freedom, for a generation, and promoting proper behaviour. Then the next generation rebels against their parents, and demands more sexual freedom. You see, if little Johnny knows that his mum and dad are at it hammer and tongs every night and he can hear them pounding away, then that is going to have a deep psychological effect on the little chap. He will endeavour to keep his own sexual endeavours secret or at least not audible to his children, should he have children. So, Johnny’s kids grow up wondering why their parents never touch each other and why they seem so cold towards each other. Of course, Johnny junior knows nothing about his father’s exposure to his grandparent’s libertarian behaviour. So little Johnny decides to experiment and let his family see the extent of his sexual freedom. He grows up. He does not marry, but he has a child out of wedlock. He has a succession of girlfriends that walk around the house naked. His son is shocked and grows up intent on keeping all of his carnal activity behind closed doors.” Francis sipped his drink. “Do you see the trend? Am I boring you?”
“So your daughter gets to grow up with a neurotic fear of sex and you get to play in the Red Zone to your heart’s desire. Sounds like you got this all worked out.” Joe’s drink arrived. “It’s possible to justify any behaviour, right? We are after all, just animals here to reproduce?”
“I never told you I had a daughter.”
“You didn’t need to.”
“Janey, poor girl. I blame her mother and the move to the States. An American school is not the place to bring up a child. We should have stayed in the UK, but the money was too good to turn down.”
“What would happen if you wife and daughter knew what was going on here?”
“I won’t tell them and neither will you.”
Silence for a few beats and Francis continued.
“As an aside, it seems interesting that the most historically important works of art, both European and Asian, were created during times of sexual freedom. Take a walk around Angkor Wat,” Francis looked out towards the boats on the river, massaging his moustache. “My wife and I have an agreement when it comes to our sexual relations. We are from the sixties generation. Before your time, Joe.”
Joe watched the grey cone on Francs’ cigar increa
se in size. He flicked the ash on the decking and continued. “According to Freud’s thinking, art is built on the repression or sublimation of sexual impulses; the sexual energy is focused in another direction, towards creativity. I don’t agree with this. I doubt there is any relation between sexual freedom and art. And besides, what constitutes art is also a debatable question.”
“It’s a three letter word.”
“Indeed. But there is a reasonable sexual freedom in Thailand, more than in most Western countries. Especially among people in the villages who don’t have much property. High society people have more to lose, so there are stricter rules. Well, there may be a tendency for hi-so people to impose their values and norms downwards. You know, Jack the Ripper was a high society man who went east to get what he couldn’t get west.”
The eggs arrived de-shelled. Joe dipped one in soy sauce. “Does this agreement between your wife and yourself include in its terms that you can sleep with transsexuals?”
Francis looked at Joe across the table. His hands began to shake.
“I take that as a no.”
He snapped down the screen on his notebook computer. “Now, look here. I have paid you in good faith to investigate a robbery, not my bloody private life.”
“Well, it came up during the investigation. I must follow all leads to try and trace this briefcase. Maybe Lady Luck and Monica were working together. There were twenty-six women found dead across the city. Did they all have a briefcase?”
“Just what are you getting at?” He raised his screen back upwards. His eyes narrowed.
“Lies are like cockroaches. When you find one there is always seventeen more lurking around. Your first lie was to tell me you hadn’t gone to the police. That you didn’t know that she was dead. I’m figuring you are in this thing so deep you haven’t touched the bottom.”
“I panicked. What else do you know?”
“About Monica? Well, she has bar pedigree. Left home at the age of fourteen and worked the bars. No children. No parents. Age twenty four. Casual drug use. Smoke and drank. But of course, you knew all that. She dabbled with black magic, just as Jack the Ripper did. What do you know about the Demon Dreams?”
“Nothing.”
“Okay, play it your way. I visited the morgue. Seems like the authorities are happy with suicide. The experts aren’t. It wasn’t a suicide. She was murdered. Strangulation and S&M is bad for the tourist industry. But I’m not telling you anything you don’t know. Who killed her, Francis?”
“This is preposterous. I paid you in good faith, young man.”
“Sure, and I’m doing the job you paid me to do. To get that case, I need to know a little of its history. Well, I’ve spoken to the proprietors of the Demon Dreams. Interesting couple. They simply adore you. They have the case and are prepared to do a deal. Will you play ball?”
“What kind of deal?”
“You give me the codes. I go into the bar and open the case. I give the Adams family their magic potion and they give me the cash, which I return to you.”
“No. This is absurd. Just take the suitcase. Go in there and get the bloody thing. And why you are at it, find out what happened to that poor girl.”
“We know about the girl. The briefcase code?”
“No. I had committed them to memory, but after the other night, you see… What I mean to say is that, I seem to have…”
“Forgotten them?”
“Precisely.”
“Well can you tell me how many digits there are in the codes?”
“Yes, that I can do. There are eight.”
“And, Sir, can you tell me if the first three digits are 101?”
Francis looked at Joe quizzically for a moment and then frowned. “But, how could you…”
“Enjoy the sunset.” Joe stood up.
Francis sighed and turned his attention to the notebook computer. Pretended to start typing. Joe took two steps away from the table. He thought of one more question. He turned around and walked back up to him.
“Just one question, Francis, how much money was in that case?”
Francis looked down and massaged his temples. “My life is in that case.”
“And is there anything else, any secrets that you aren’t telling me about?”
“I don’t have secrets. If there is some kind of mumbo jumbo nonsense in that case, it’s because that tart put it in there, not because of any of my doing. Just give them what they want and get my bloody money.”
Joe swung himself around and let his feet carry him to the pier.
THIRTY-SEVEN
THE GHOST eye pans across the city rests on a hotel window, zooms in through glass stained pigeon-shit yellow.
Lek lays on the bed, her make-up has run down her face. Black mascara smears across messed-up blusher. Her wrists and ankles are tied to the bed posts. Her mouth open, green tongue stud, her body quivers as the thin man advances.
He straps on an old wooden phallus, ancient Khmer script along the shaft.
“You freak! My father will have you hunted down. He will destroy you.”
“A bit dramatic… I know of your father, he’s on the pay roll. Cut you off long ago. No one wants a whore shaming the family name. But I digress. Say hello to my little friend,” the thin man says while lubricating the shaft. “My own is, shall we say, out of action. I still have the urge now and again just like any other man.”
“You freak,” she screams again.
He enters her with one powerful dry thrust. He gags her with a pillow case, finds a rhythm and continues.
She loses consciousness. Her peroxide blonde hair fans across the pillow.
The thin man takes off the strap-on and dresses into a suit. He takes out a syringe from a medicine kit. Shoots the morphine straight into her main line.
The bitch can wait.
He decides.
THIRTY-EIGHT
HOTEL LOBBY.
The thin man sat on a wicker chair. He stood up suddenly like a boy who’d been caught with his hand in the cookie jar. He approached Joe with the charisma of a body organ salesman. Smiled like a lizard.
Smelled like an ashtray.
“Mr. Dylan. We must talk. My name is Khun Palm,” Palm was somewhere between thirty and forty with a low hairline. A cheap tailor-made suit with red-striped shirt and black spats. He was luk-krung – half Thai half Caucasian. His accent had a vague Germanic ring to it. He was clean-shaven and had the mannerism of a commodity broker on the skids. He offered Joe his hand. Joe looked at it for a moment, thought about it, and decided it wasn’t worth shaking.
The man smiled. There was something familiar about the smile as if they were old friends and the smile referred back to those good old days.
“You’re Francis’ man, right?” Joe asked him. “You’re the guy that took a swing at me from a moving motorcycle. This better be good. I’ve had a bad week.”
“He calls me his assistant, but I’m not sure about it. Maybe it is he that assists me. I hope so. If you have a moment then we must talk. I’m sorry about the case. I couldn’t let you have it. Turns out, I’ve now lost it. I know a place not far from here. Please follow me.” Palm turned around without waiting for an answer walked briskly through the doors of the hotel and back in the direction that Joe had just travelled. Joe followed him for two blocks into what looked like a Pizza restaurant. They walked upstairs and took a table with a red and white checkered tablecloth and a view across the road. Joe took his jacket off and put it over the back of the chair. His piece was in the jacket pocket. He thought about putting it back on. There were no other customers in the dive.
The thin man ordered himself a coffee. Soda water for Joe. The waiter was a middle-aged Chinese Thai who looked like he’d been defrosted from the Ming dynasty. Palm waited for the drinks to arrive before giving it to Joe. “The contents of that
case are important, Dylan. I had it in my hand and then I lost it, just like that.” He took a toothpick from the table and weaved it around his fingers. He closed his hand into a fist. He then stretched out his fingers like a magician performing a slight-of-hand trick. The toothpick had disappeared.
“That much I figured out. I saw you with that case in your hands. You may recall you took a swing at me with it. How much scratch was in the case?”
“There’s something more valuable than cash in the case, J.D. Something that money can’t buy. The fact is, I lost it. There are some things that money can’t buy, JD.”
“Love?” Joe said.
“Yes, if you want to call it that. I would describe it more as desire. The contents are powerful, but also dangerous,” Palm took a tiny sip of his coffee and then stared at the cup thoughtfully as if assessing it for value.
“And the Demon Dreams?”
“A monstrous place where sick things happen. I am not here to clean or tidy it up. My interest is the briefcase. And more importantly, what’s inside that briefcase.”
“I’m still not sure I understand what’s in there, mister.”
“A snake venom is needed to create anti-venom. In a similar way, the spell can be used to cure demons or it can be used to unleash new monsters. Or it can be used to make the world a safer place. The potential uses for that spell are astonishing, Joe. Beyond belief. The important thing is that it is used wisely. You want to know what is in there? I will tell you, Dylan. Magic is in there,” his eyes twinkled.
“Right. I heard a story about some kid cooked up a spell like the one you are so keen to get your hands on. Things didn’t turn out to dandy for her. It’s my belief that a dancer called Monica also used the spell. She also ended up doing the big dance. It was a dance of two halves. I used to like her.”
Red Night Zone - Bangkok City Page 17