The Godfather of Kathmandu

by John Burdett

  “That’s Zen,” I explain.

  “Really? Whatever.”

  “And what about the gas bottles?”

  “You weren’t supposed to take that literally, dummy. The gas bottles are you: pressurized gas, that’s all any of us is who has not reached the Far Shore.” He scratches his head, apparently genuinely perplexed. “I can’t understand how anyone could get that wrong.”

  He stands up, comes intimidatingly close, and whispers in my ear, “Whatever little mind pictures you’ve got of me by now, kid, you better dump them. I don’t have an ego. Those Chinese burned every tiny little bit of it out of me, every root, every fiber with their cute little cattle prods—in the end I was secretly urging them on. I knew even then there was no way I was going to spend the next sixty years dragging a bleeding, damaged, heartbroken, resentful, miserable stump of ego around. If I had, I would have gotten sick and died thirty years ago. But I didn’t.” He lets a few beats pass while he assesses me. “You need to grow up. That great pile of black karma you’re so worried about, that huge Chomolungma of guilt that’s looming up in your mind and crippling your judgment—forget it. The people who will use this stuff are already dead, can’t you understand? They are stuck in their diabolic continuum because they trafficked in previous lifetimes. Whether they buy from us or someone else has no significance, because buy they must and buy they will—don’t you know that Clive himself is out there somewhere, shooting up in some squalid backroom above a supermarket in Shropshire, just another deadbeat with tattoos, paralyzed by the weight of his karma, helpless without his little brown servants and whores, the classic Caucasian male basket case of modern times? This isn’t my personal payback, this is world dharma we’re talking about. The earth itself is making this happen, otherwise we would never have gotten the stuff past customs.” He pauses for breath. “For my part, you know what I’m going to do? I’m going to suck it all up and transform every last lost life into positive energy using the power of Tantra. And do you know how I acquired the means to do that? I’m not a Buddha, Detective; I’m not a bodhisattva; I’m not even a doctor of Buddhism, only of Tibetan history, and I’m not a monk. Detective, I have to tell you, I am one hell of a lot better than all of those things. I am a man, and I want my country back.”

  He stops for a moment, as if deciding whether or not to speak his full mind. Finally, he leans closer so I can feel his breath on my ear.

  “I am a mystery to you because I am psychically invisible. I show up on no one’s inner radar. I no longer exist in the way you do. I am your dharma. Get the fuck out of here right now and take your stinking pressurized gas with you.”

  When he sees I am on the verge of obeying, he adds, “There’s someone at home waiting for you.”

  I’m about ten paces away already when he calls out, “And don’t forget to watch CNN exactly one week from today.”

  But leaving, it turns out, is easier said than done. I’m on the way to my car when I see that it is guarded by some of Zinna’s soldiers. I figure the game’s up with me, despite Tietsin’s help, and I just stand there for a moment, waiting to be shot or, more likely, taken away and tortured to death. Then I see there are quite a lot of soldiers, far more than Zinna’s quota, pouring in from the street. At the far end of the dock, Tietsin’s men seem to be rushing out of the area, as if they have an understanding with the soldiers. In spite of everything, I feel the need to warn Vikorn. Too late. Zinna is walking toward the Colonel. About five paces away, he suddenly raises one of his arms and clicks his fingers. Great spotlights originating in a military truck on the street suddenly illuminate most of the dock, especially Zinna and Vikorn, who are facing off in stark white light. The spotlights also reveal the extent of Zinna’s treachery: there must be over two hundred well-armed soldiers on the dock now, and a lot more outside the perimeter. Zinna smiles triumphantly, and almost apologetically, at Vikorn: “Looks like I won,” the little General says.

  Vikorn has turned gray and is shaking slightly. When I examine him more closely, I see it is one of those near-epileptic rages that has taken possession of him. I am deeply saddened that he has been double-crossed and defeated; there is nothing to stop the General from simply taking all the smack from under Vikorn’s nose. Zinna is about to wipe him out. You could say he has done so already. Why do I feel such animal loyalty to the Old Man? I’m so depressed I feel ill.

  “Looks like it,” Vikorn says with a groan.

  Zinna gives the victor’s satisfied nod. “No point in a bloodbath,” he says in his brittle baritone. “Especially when all the blood spilled will be yours.”

  “That’s true,” Vikorn says, nodding. “That’s very true.” He pauses, utters the single word “except,” and gives the tiniest little nuance of a nod toward the nearest ship to his right. Zinna is too wired not to notice; when he looks up at the ship, so does everyone else. At the same time, someone switches all the deck’s lights on. Now they are clearly visible: about a hundred cops who had been waiting in the shadows walk forward holding M16s all cocked to fire.

  While Zinna is taking this in, Vikorn jerks his chin at the next ship. We are not surprised, this time, to see it light up to reveal another hundred or so cops. With the improved lighting we can see a great crowd of sampan ladies in their boats tied up against the two big ships, their silent oars hanging. The old bastard must have sent a secret signal as soon as he knew where the drop-off was going to be. At about the same time Zinna sent his secret signal.

  Zinna has turned ashen, but is not defeated. “Don’t be a fool. I’ve got men on the streets, are you crazy, you can’t defeat me, I am the army.”

  Vikorn nods gravely. “You have men on the street, but my men have cordoned off the whole area. I also have a communications van down the road. If you open fire, the whole country will be alerted that you are staging a coup. I do hope you warned your superiors that they are going to be running the country in the morning?”

  Everyone is watching Zinna. Which way will he jump? An awful lot of guns are pointing at an awful lot of men. Well, at this point we need to bear in mind that he is Asian. He rubs his jaw. “Vikorn, you old fool, you’ve completely misunderstood, as usual. As the most senior army officer present I was just taking care of security.” He waves a hand to take in the whole of the docks. “Just in case. I wasn’t double-crossing you at all. Can’t you understand that I feel responsible for the safety of the operation and everyone involved in it? I can’t tell you how hurt I feel at your mistrust.”

  “I most humbly beg your pardon,” Vikorn says with a glorious smile. “My mistake. Shall we get on with moving the smack, half to your warehouse, half to mine?”

  Zinna nods and with another flick of his fingers turns off the spotlights. When Vikorn gives the signal for the two ships to shut their lights, we’re in near darkness again and I can finally go home.

  Confused is probably the best word to describe my state of mind; very confused. It occurs to me that Tietsin has finally shown me something that should have been obvious all along: he’s not human. Not like you and me, farang; his brain systems are of a totally different order, and my most basic mental images of him seem to be dissolving even as I drive home. Who understands Tibetans? Maybe he is a reincarnation of Milarepa.

  But I won’t deny it, I’m human all the way through, blade wheels or not. Sure, the idea of someone waiting for me at home sweetens the bitter pill quite a lot, and once I’m settled into a good, hot, late-night traffic jam I cool my fevered brain with imaginations of Tara and me romping in the high Himal, chucking handfuls of freezing spring water at each other, arguing and fighting all the way to Shambhala. To say I’m all eagerness when I reach the door is downplaying it: I’m sort of shuddering with gratitude when I burst in.

  Her head is shaved and she’s lost a good bit of weight, but those agate eyes still know how to gleam. She turns on a quizzical expression just for me.

  “Chanya?”

  She lowers her lashes. “I decided to surpri
se you.”

  She is waiting for a welcoming smile. I give it. Now she adopts the humble posture of a woman who no longer has proprietorial rights here, while exercising those same rights in a surreptitious search for signs of another woman. Of course, she has already completed her investigation and concluded there are no indications of a live-in other, so the performance is all for me. She uses a slightly pathetic expression to say, “I’m not interrupting anything?”

  “No,” I say, “nothing.”

  “I’m so sorry, Sonchai. So sorry I had to leave you alone like that with your grief. You’re stronger than me. You took it all without anesthetic. Not me. I needed the wat, the nuns, the hardship, the four-in-the-morning wake-up calls, and the endless photographs of the dead to see me through. But I thought about you all the time. I thought about your body. It amazed me to discover I love you more than Buddha. It’s almost irritating.”

  Although her head is shaved, she is no longer in her nun’s robes. On the contrary, she is wearing a T-shirt and jeans. When she pulls off the T-shirt and bra, I see how thin she has become, how much her breasts have shrunk. How hard Pichai’s death hit her. “Not without anesthetic,” I clarify, suppressing a gulp. “I’ve been stoned since the day you left.”

  “Sonchai, we’re too young to give up on life. Let’s try again.”

  If ever you’re in this sort of fix yourself, farang, I am able to advise there is a good deal of Buddhist teaching in favor of taking the path of least resistance.

  “Okay,” I say. Then, as I’m undressing: “By the way, I bought a Toyota.”

  51

  The next day Tara calls me. Do you think this indicates mind reading, synchronicity, magic? Me neither. I think Tietsin told her to phone me. Chanya and I are in bed, and I have to use that most provocative phrase in the English language: “I’m sorry, I can’t talk right now.” Then, to add a still more sinister note: “I’ll call you back later.”

  So now Chanya is up on one elbow stroking my face with ambiguous tenderness, licking my ear, and murmuring, “Who was that, tilak? You can tell me, you know how guilty I feel, I can forgive you anything in this tranquil state the nuns taught me. Who was it?”

  Well, what can you do except play out the role dharma has provided? Yes, I do tell her about Tara, yes, I do go into detail about how lonely and needy I was at the time; but I do not give the slightest hint of how fascinated I continue to be by the Tibetan dakini. I don’t mention Tantra, much less how intriguing the lady is in bed. Though I say so myself, my confession is a masterpiece of common or garden-variety hypocrisy. Afterward, Chanya of the shaved dome—women’s skull’s are so much more delicate than men’s—lies on her back for five minutes, not saying a word, while I watch her diaphragm move up and down, her diminished breasts rising and falling in that half-starved frame.

  “You’re still fascinated by her, aren’t you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “For a cop you’re a lousy liar.” She stares down at her body. “I’m controlling it, look,” she says, almost excited at proof she has made spiritual progress after all. “All that choking jealousy, that awful dark emotion like soy that’s been fermenting too long—I’m free of it. Fantastic. Thank you, Sonchai.”

  “You’re sure? You used to have a serious—” Then it comes, from out of nowhere, a lightning twist of her superfine body and—wham—open hand to the right side of the face. “What did you do that for?”

  “To make it even easier to forgive you. I’m so sorry, did I hurt you?”

  That was quite a clout. I’m still rubbing my jaw when Tara calls again. “I’m sorry, Detective, I don’t have any money. I want to talk to you. Please call me back.”

  Chanya’s face has tightened. “Call her.”

  “No, I won’t.”

  “Oh yes you will.”

  “What am I going to say?”

  “You’re going to say your wife’s just come back and it’s all over, dummy.”

  I find the number in the phone’s log and call Tara. “Look, Tara, I have something to tell you. My wife came back last night. We’ve decided to try again. We’re in bed right now. I’m sorry.”

  A pause, then: “What are you sorry about? Congratulations. I want to speak to her.”

  I hold the phone away from my mouth and mime to Chanya that Tara wants to speak to her. She mimes back something like What the hell do I want to speak to your little Himalayan tart for? I shrug.

  Now Tara is saying, “Does she speak English?” At the same time Chanya has suddenly become curious about this Tibetan mia noi, or minor wife, who has the balls to try to speak directly to First Wife in a classic three-hander like this. I shrug and pass her the phone. Chanya says yes a few times, then goes quiet. After about five minutes she gives me a quizzical look, says, “Yes, that’s right, I’ve just spent a month in a Buddhist nunnery,” then she gets up, throws me a glance both startled and intrigued, and leaves the room. I can hear her voice out in the yard, but I cannot distinguish her words. The conversation goes on for about twenty more minutes, mostly with Chanya listening to whatever Tara is saying. Then Chanya takes a long cold shower and finally returns to the bedroom, where I am sitting up expectantly and nervously with one of those ridiculous facial expressions we learn in school which says, I didn’t do anything wrong, did I?

  “Lie down, lover,” she says gently. “Now, all you have to do for total atonement is tell me when I get it right. Where is that nerve exactly? Somewhere between the anus and the testicles, she said. Does it really work?”

  “Yes, but you’re not supposed to come.”

  “I don’t want to, Sonchai. I don’t want to come ever again. That friend of yours makes so much sense. I have to admit, I stayed away so long because I wasn’t sure I wanted to sink back into flesh. What I really wanted was to be with you on a genuine spiritual path. I think the Buddha sent this friend of yours as an answer. If I press right here, is that the point?”

  “Forward a millimeter,” I mutter. “She told you her mantra, didn’t she?”

  “Yes.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’m not telling you.”

  “Try to remember me from time to time. Bliss can be pretty impersonal, you know.”

  “Mmm, thank Buddha for that.” Then, when she’s settling down prior to the primeval rhythm: “You have to send her money for the phone call. The poor thing’s incredibly poor. Imagine having a mind like that and no money. She understood everything about me. She’s changed my life with one phone call.”

  “You moved your finger.”

  “Sorry.”

  (Try this at home by all means, ladies, but it might not work without the mantra.)

  Well, farang, you saw it all yourself on CNN, just like me. Those were Tietsin’s prayer flags you were looking at on your TV at the opening of the Olympic Games—not only all over Beijing, but in a motley Tantric network all over the country, from Tibet to Shanghai, from Canton to Manchuria, from Yunan to Beijing, from Kashgar to Fuzhou, from Hailar to Lhasa, from Hohhot to Haikou, unmistakably Tibetan in their shaggy insistence, the majestic curved sweep of their cables from earth up to the highest available point, most frequently a telegraph pole, and in the universal magic of their colors: blue for sky, white for air, red for fire, green for water, yellow for earth, generally (but not always) in that order—which are having such an effect on the world. Did you get a chance to see viewers’ e-mails and text messages? I guessed immediately that the forty million dollars to invade China was spent not on the prayer flags themselves, but mostly on bribing a whole raft of Chinese officials to look the other way when the flags were hoisted for the benefit of the world’s cameras. Not that Tietsin will be too worried about the publicity. What interests him is the exercise of subtle power, the silent invasion of China by Tibetan thought, the promise to its misguided people of a better heaven than that offered by Marx, Mao, or Friedman: the slow but certain remodeling of the World Mind, starting with China, into something mo
re civilized. To Tietsin’s way of thinking, he can’t fail. It’s only a question of time—and he’s Tibetan. You did send a message of support, even though there’s no oil in Tibet, didn’t you? I know how committed you are to freedom and democracy.

  Farang, it’s time to wind this up. I know you are itching to find out more about my spiritual development. I’m still with the blade wheel—I fear it will be my companion for many incarnations—but, as I’m sure you guessed, Chanya made a family decision that I would give up the position of consigliere. We have discovered the hard way that names matter. As a free spirit, buzzing around Vikorn’s ear urging restraint, I feel more myself; call me his consigliere, give me a quarter-million baht a month—and I feel enslaved. In my personal form of Buddhism, morality is organic and impossible to codify. You cannot grasp the way with your hand, nor even your mind; you have to let it lead you.

  Oh, by the way, Rosie McCoy is still inside, but has adapted with genius: she has bribed the head screw to give her a private cell with computer and Internet connection. Her webpage charges three dollars a pop to download pix of her naked body in various erotic poses. Mary Smith is now in the same holding prison and has somehow managed to find favor with the big Nigerians, who protect her. Although the Frank Charles case remains officially a suicide, Sukum did get his promotion and became impossible to live with for a week, but he has not yet exchanged his Toyota for a Lexus; there is hope for his next incarnation.

  Do not judge me too harshly, farang. (You know how you are.) In the wasteland where narrative rots, Good Thief may be the highest aspiration. Let he who is without karma cast the first stone.

  I am yours in dharma, Sonchai Jitpleecheep.

  Epilogue

  Farang, I have a question for you: do we have a happy ending? I myself cannot decide, but it might help your deliberation if I share with you yet another anonymous package which arrived a couple of days ago. It is a single yellow Tibetan prayer flag, which has been unstitched to reveal the tiny paper prayer within. The prayer is in Tibetan and Chinese script; fortunately, the anonymous sender has provided a translation in English and Thai. I am not an expert, but I would guess the incantation to be unusual: