by John Burdett
I think he will not drag himself out of his trance, he takes so long to answer. After about five minutes he seems to hear my question for the first time, and turns his face to stare at the streets through the curtain of rain. Already the drains are overflowing with the volume of water, turning the street into a dirty yellow river. Sukum says, “She killed him long before he finished the movie. She sapped his strength, stole his soul. That’s why he had to die—that big speech at the beginning, that’s just a farang caught in a spider’s web and trying to be smart and rational about it.”
“Moi? How can you know that?”
“It’s what she did to me,” he says, and holds his head with both hands. “The more I worked on her case, the slower my mind became. She was turning me into a zombie. D’you know how many times I screwed up the paperwork to get her prosecuted on tax evasion? And a thousand little things went wrong with my private life. My marriage collapsed, and now it’s just a cold, empty sham. Then she had the tea lady at the station slip me that LSD. Sure, I had a bad trip, but there was a lot more than that behind it. It was a bad trip that’s lasted nearly ten years. My life has never been the same since I investigated her. I’ve had no luck at all. Every day is hard work, battling demons at every turn. I’ve tried every kind of amulet—cat’s eyes, antlers, khot stones, Buddha images. I even had a salika inserted under my skin. And Buddha knows how many monk baskets I’ve donated.”
His fear of Moi is so tangible, I reach out to touch his arm. He turns eyes on me that could be described as limpid pools of paranoia. “Look, maybe you were right from the start. This case has your name all over it. I want you to have it. When I get a chance I’ll ask the Old Man to formally sign it over to you so everyone will know you solved it, not me.” His eyes contract somewhat; he seems to be wrestling with guilt when he adds, “I’m sorry.”
When I continue to stare at him, he says, “You still don’t get it, do you? You lost control of this investigation the moment you visited her at her house. You just haven’t realized it yet. You have no idea how powerful she is.” He lets a few beats pass. “Of course, as a cop I could never tell anyone. They would have kicked me out for reasons of mental health. Or snuffed me. I’m telling you now because you’re already caught in her trap.” He lets a couple of beats pass, then adds, “I think you know what I mean.”
Actually, I don’t have a clue what he means. The case is over, isn’t it? A suicide is a suicide. I’m even more mystified later that day, when Lek sidles up to my desk with a peculiar expression on his face. He makes as if to lean over my monitor, then drops something on my desk, which looks like a piece of paper screwed up in a ball. When I catch Lek’s eye, he shrugs. I sense the need for secrecy, so I whisper, “What’s that?”
Lek whispers back, “Don’t ask me, darling. I’m not even allowed to tell you who sent it.”
I frown. “Who sent it?”
“I’m not allowed to tell you.” At my stern glance he starts to melt, then giggles. “Who d’you think? He made me swear on my next thousand years of karma not to tell you, but here’s a hint: it’s a he and he owns a Toyota.”
“Sukum? Has he gone totally over the edge?” I cast a glance in the good detective’s direction. He appears to be fixated on a file he is studying.
Lek shrugs. “I was beginning to wonder if you two had fallen in love and decided to use me as a go-between. I mean, that’s what katoeys are for, really, isn’t it? We’re just life’s eternal voyeurs, good for carrying messages but not for anything more.” He is giving me one of his prize pouts. I cannot help grinning while I dismiss him. When I flatten out the ball of paper I see it is a printout from Wikipedia:
Padparadscha is a pinkish-orange to orangey-pink colored corundum, with a low to medium saturation and light tone, originally being mined in Sri Lanka, but also found in deposits in Vietnam and Africa. Padparadscha sapphires are very rare, and highly valued for their subtle blend of soft pink and orange hues. The name derives from the Sinhalese word for lotus blossom. Along with rubies they are the only corundums to be given their own name instead of being called a particular colored sapphire.
I am scratching my head. Now I’m carefully tearing the paper into shreds and throwing the pieces into the bin under my desk, in accordance with Sukum’s furtive instructions. When, about half an hour later, I see Sukum get up to go to the men’s room, I follow and stand next to him at one of the booths. He instantly moves as far away from me as he can. When I say softly, “Detective,” he raises a hand, puts a finger over his lips for a brief moment, then zips up and exits without a word.
38
Sorry, farang, if I’ve gotten you excited about Frank Charles all over again; today it looks as if I’m consigliere for the duration.
Zurich/Lichtenstein just called, and would you believe the Swiss banker, who speaks better English than the Queen of England, and with an even snottier accent, actually scolded me for bullying his Ethiopian receptionist into sending the documents, because now he’s received them it is obvious they were incomplete?
“Incomplete? The whole package weighed more than two pounds.”
“She forgot to include a power of attorney.”
“I saw about five different powers of attorney.”
“But none of them in your favor. For you to be legally able to do what you are doing—not that I’m making any assumptions as to what you are doing—although everything is subject to attorney-client privilege anyway—as I say, for it to be legal and aboveboard, I need to see original powers of attorney from both shareholders in your favor.”
I’m not keen. The thought of asking either Vikorn or Zinna to go off to the notary with their ID cards all over again is daunting. Zinna, in particular, has been expressing doubts about trusting me with so much responsibility. Vikorn’s spies report the General is “quite wired.” Read: bag of nerves. The wording of the power of attorney is not without difficulties, either. It gives me absolute power over forty million dollars, for example. I’m not sure even Vikorn will be sympathetic, so to avoid a face-to-face confrontation I send both old men a translation of the power of attorney in Thai, with a notice that this is urgent business. I am feeling exposed, but can’t quite put my finger on it. When, after fidgeting for an hour or so, I don’t hear from either of them, I try to call Vikorn, but Manny says he’s not available. Not available? We’re talking about the deal of the year, if not the decade, and suddenly the boss is not available?
Paranoia comes easily to a mind that has been well prepared. My own has started revisiting the Thai translation of the Lichtenstein power of attorney. Even in English the language is intimidatingly absolute, using phrases like “each and every manner or thing of any kind whatsoever including but not limited to …” and then there’s the bit which says, “the said Sonchai Jitpleecheep shall be assumed to be acting with the full approval and authority of the grantor who will support, confirm, and endorse every such action of whatsoever nature and shall not under any circumstances seek to deny, block, alter, or amend any disposition of the said funds …” Well, in Thai, which tends to repeat important phrases so everyone is clear about them, and which has a certain way of emphasizing absolute power, probably due to Sanskrit influence, the whole thing sounds even more stern, like I’m being appointed the viceroy of India or something. Let me be frank: a poorly educated army type who has spent his career in the mind-set of a gorilla hunched over a sack of bananas might find this legal jargon quite threatening. Indeed, said gorilla might decide it is being ripped off. It does not help when I call Manny and she reports that Vikorn has been on the phone to Zinna for an hour. It was an hour ago that I e-mailed the Thai translation of the power of attorney. I feel a stroll coming on.
Out in the street I feel better for a moment. Everything seems normal, the cooked-food stalls are all set up and ready to do police business: it is shortly before noon. The worst thing I could do would be to start running for no reason other than self-generated terror. Is this what they call a ner
vous breakdown? It’s weird, the way I seem to have lost control over my legs. The worst thing you can do is start to run, it will look bad. The stalls are passing at an accelerated speed as I walk faster and faster. Something is saying, No, not like this, don’t go out like this, like a crass coward, a fool running from shadows, trying to flee his own mind. So I apply that thing called will. It is like finding an iron bar in the middle of a brawl, and using it to cosh the enemy: I use this thing called will, whatever it is, to beat down the accelerated heartbeat, the jumping nerves, the overheated imagination, the legs which at the moment want only to run.
Okay, I’m at the end of the street and everything is under control, except I’m inexplicably terrified. I tell myself this is crazy, there is no one there, no one checking, no one in the street is interested in me at all. Oh yeah? You just sent a document to two of the most senior mafiosi in Thailand requesting them to hand over control of forty million dollars, and you think nobody is watching you? When I force myself to walk back to the station at a reasonable speed, I look up at Vikorn’s window. Sure enough, the Old Man is there, staring down at me. When I get back to my desk, Manny calls: “Get up here.”
Now I’m standing in front of the Old Man, who is behind his desk. A cold sweat has broken out over my face and hands. But I haven’t even done anything. Vikorn lifts a document from his desk and waves it at me. It is the Thai translation of the power of attorney. “Kind of heavy, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” I splutter, “that’s the way farang lawyers do things. I didn’t draft it.”
He is looking at me curiously. “It gives you exclusive power over forty million dollars. You could do a lot of damage if you abscond. You would wipe out Zinna and cripple me.”
“I know,” I groan. “I just knew he would take it the wrong way. What can I do?”
Vikorn stands up, comes around his desk with his hands in his pockets, looks me up and down. “I saw the way you were walking, down in the street.”
“You saw the way I was walking?” My hands are clammier than ever.
“Yes, I saw the way you were walking.”
He is now very close. “How was I walking?”
“Like a man thinking of running.” He puts a hand on my shoulder to force me deeper into the chair and gazes at me for a long moment. “It’s not really Zinna who is making the green balls run down your trouser legs.”
“No? So what is it?”
“The power of forty million dollars. You are a monk manqué, you have survived so far by dodging reality. Your life can only be sustained as long as you believe your hands are clean. But they’re not. In truth, nobody’s are, but people like you, dreamers, like to kid themselves. Well, now you can’t kid yourself anymore, can you?” He leans over his desk to pick up a bundle of documents in English from his in-box. “Here.” I see they are the powers of attorney, signed and notarized by both Zinna and Vikorn. I look up at him, baffled. “You said it was hyper-urgent, so Zinna and I both got notaries to come to our offices, and Zinna sent me his copy by motorcycle messenger. We were afraid you would scold us again for being third-world morons who don’t understand high finance, so we jumped to it. Now you are a plenipotentiary for forty million bucks. Careful how you spend it.”
“Th-, th-, thanks,” I say.
He is merciless. He won’t stop staring at me, but he won’t dismiss me either. Finally, he says, “It’s okay, Zinna isn’t afraid you’ll cheat us.”
“He isn’t?”
“No. He’s afraid you’ll snap and do something even stupider, like have a nervous breakdown. That would really be hard to deal with. A fraud we could handle in the usual way; a psychotic meltdown would be a problem.”
“It’s guilt,” I explain. “Guilt is warping my mind.”
Vikorn frowns. “Guilt? About what?”
“Oh, nothing in particular,” I say, shaking my head. How could anyone possibly feel guilty about trafficking in forty million dollars’ worth of smack? What a pale and cloistered fellow I must be. “Like you say, I’m a monk manqué. May I resign?”
“No,” Vikorn says.
“But it must be such a liability to you, having an honest man as consigliere.”
Vikorn points to the documents. “Honest? Those papers prove you’re a crook, like the rest of us. Maybe that’s what you were trying to run away from.”
Obviously, he is enjoying this most excruciating initiation of mine. He even lets me have a jolly Take care, now as I leave his office with the powers of attorney.
Back at my desk, though, a sense of relief sets in. Apparently I’m not going to be kidnapped and tortured today. I order an iced lemon tea from the tea lady, and sit back for a moment. Now another side of my mind is getting creative. Forty million! Imagine. I could get on a plane to Zurich right now, have the dough transferred to a numbered account, dedicate—say—ten million to personal security (there are semisecret corporations which employ people like retired SAS and Navy SEALs), buy five different properties in five different countries, all in proxy names, and live happily ever after, right? Wrong. Not with an imagination like mine. When my endlessly calculating mind projects itself into such a future, I see only sleepless nights during which I am convinced the maid is a spy for Zinna and the security guards all secretly work for Vikorn. Forget it. Cowardice will keep me an honest consigliere.
The silver lining to this unnerving day comes in the unlikely form of a text message from Sukum:
Keep tonight free. You will be contacted.
Except that I’m not supposed to know it’s from Sukum; he has used someone else’s SIM card. I let that cook in the right lobe while the left organizes the dispatch of the powers of attorney. Even this minor chore is not without complications. I certainly cannot use the police dispatch department, nor can I have a courier company visit the station. Now I have to lie about where I’m going—suddenly I am harboring a kind of internal schoolmistress who frowns at every tiny transgression—and I feel quite Macbethian as I sneak out to get on the back of a motorbike to go find a FedEx or DHL courier office: Returning were as tedious as to go o’er, or something like that. At the same time I am able to tell myself that all I am doing at this moment is sending off a bunch of legal documents to a lawyer in Zurich. I’m a white-collar gangster. So why do I feel so awful?
It happens there is a FedEx office not far from Nana. After I’ve sent the docs I feel the need for a beer, so I hang out for an hour at a bar at the entrance to the plaza. It’s too early for the go-go bars, and the girls who serve in the beer bar are not especially pushy, although any of them would “take a shower” with me at one of the short-time hotels if I asked nicely. Suddenly they all seem so innocent. Even the older, more hardened women who have been on the Game for a decade reveal themselves to me as essentially innocent: women who got stuck in the continuum of prostitution but never really allowed it to contaminate their souls. I’m in a bad way, and the best future I can see for myself would be something totally clean and spiritual with Tara. Indeed, she has suddenly popped into my mind as a perfect representation of a pure human soul: inconvenient proof that such a thing is possible in this filthy lifetime.
For the first time in the Fat Farang Case I’m actually pleased to hear from Sukum, even though he is using yet another anonymous SIM card. His text reads,
Under the bridge near the Port Authority buildings at Klong Toey tonight at ten p.m.
The bridge is directly opposite Mimi Moi’s house on the Chao Phraya River.
39
We are waiting under the bridge at Klong Toey. Sukum has not shaved today and is wearing baggy army-surplus shorts, an old black T-shirt, and flip-flops. He is doing river peasant, in other words, and flatly refuses to say where we are going. On the other hand, he has made it clear that he is risking life and limb by taking me to wherever he is taking me; he will not confirm or deny that Mad Moi’s house is our destination.
The ferryman, when he arrives, is stunningly ugly. His canoe is old and a couple of the
seats are smashed, as if it has been rescued from a wreck; his bare arms and chest are covered in prison tattoos and there are vicious facial scars which spell knife fight to a cop’s eyes. He doesn’t speak when we climb into his boat, and starts the tinny little outboard with a vicious pull on the starter cord. We cross the broad black river in silence except for the motor, which the boatman cuts when we are about a hundred yards from Moi’s jetty. Now there are only the faintest river sounds: the diminutive wash of the boat’s bows, a fish or water rat breaking the surface, voices from the opposite shore faintly carrying across the river. Moi’s house is in darkness. Instead of aiming for the jetty with the motor cut, however, the ferryman takes out an oar and maneuvers us silently around a headland so that we end up tied to a stump of tree, facing Moi’s place across the water. I watch in disbelief as Sukum reaches into a bag he has brought and shows me a pair of night-vision binoculars. He raises them to his eyes, makes a few adjustments, and hands them to me.
As my eyes adjust to the green tincture, I see nine monks sitting in a semicircle on Moi’s terrace, with their backs to the house, facing the river. They seem to be chanting, but in such low voices they are inaudible even across the water. But they are not monks. I made that assumption because they are sitting the way monks sit and wearing robes. But those are not monks’ robes, I now realize. They are black gowns with hoods which obscure the faces of the chanting men. Sukum urges me to scan the rest of Moi’s property. When I do so I see that the path from the jetty to the house has been modified so that there are now three makeshift bamboo arches, which you would have to pass under if you were planning to reach the house from the river. I’m frowning at Sukum to ask for some kind of explanation, when the first of the boats arrives. It is a snakehead boat about sixty feet long, and seems quite full of people, who get out at the jetty and stand around, waiting. Now another boat appears, a rowboat, with only three people in it. One of the people—they seem all to be men—is blindfolded and has to be helped from the boat to the jetty, and then led carefully along the jetty to the land. One of the prisoner’s minders pulls off the blindfold, causing me to gasp. It is a member of parliament who recently changed political parties. I turn to Sukum, but he shakes his head vigorously and urges me to keep watching. I stare as one of the officials of the ceremony, who seems to act as a kind of hierophant, shows the new initiate a piece of bamboo; it must have words written on it, for the neophyte is reading from it, after which he makes a humble wai three times in the direction of Moi’s house, then takes off his shoes, socks, and upper garment. Bare-chested now, he is taken under the three arches, at each of which he stops and recites a few words, apparently repeating each phrase three times. Eventually he reaches the terrace of the house, which has been modified for the occasion. Moi’s ancestor portraits are now hanging there over the blackwood shrine, which has been brought out from the interior. Moi and her maid are sitting in large rattan chairs with peacock backs that look like thrones. The ones in black gowns continue to chant. There is a pile of something on the blackwood shrine which glitters greenly in the night-vision glasses. The balcony is full of people sitting on the floor, all of whom seem to be men except for Moi and her maid.