by John Burdett
His face is quite twisted in agony now. It does not require clairvoyance to see his demon in all its black glory. I whisper hoarsely: "Whip me instead."
A leer from Warren. "Don't disappoint me, Detective. You know it's not as easy as that." He hands me the whip.
"No."
"But you'll be so much gentler than I. If you do it I promise not to lay a finger on her."
"No."
"Not for your life?"
"I don't care about my life."
A long silence during which I think the Khmer are about to execute me, then: "Okay, you win." I feel these last words are intended for Fatima. I glimpse Fatima's hands doing up her bra strap. Her shirt is still undone when she turns to take the whip from him. With a leer of extraordinary cruelty, she tells him: "I told you he's an arhat. You lose. Pick up the tiger and put it on your head."
I watch while Warren does as he is told. He is trembling with the priceless artifact balancing on the top of his head while she takes ten paces toward the back of the shop. I am thinking that perhaps she does not have a lot of practice when she snaps the whip to make it snake out behind her. There is a crash from the alms bowls section of the warehouse, which makes me search Warren's face. He is literally chewing his lips. Suddenly the rawhide is whistling toward us and I instinctively duck as it passes overhead. I don't think Fatima has made any attempt at accuracy, the leather comes crashing down toward Warren's face, forcing him to grab the tiger while he hunches over. The leather tears out a great swath of his jacket and sweater and the shirt underneath, and tears his flesh. Still, he does not let go of the tiger.
"You cheated," Fatima hisses. "Who told you to move?" The whip comes crashing down again, this time on the hands holding the tiger. Still he does not let go, but the leather curls around the plate and she pulls it out of his hands. It smashes to the floor in a thousand pieces. I am standing with my jaw hanging open, my eyes jerking from her to Warren to the fragments on the floor. "He cheated," she hisses at me. "You saw it?" Warren and I both duck as she whirls the whip over her head, then swings it toward us. She hits the shelf full of ceramic figurines, clearing it in a stroke. Warren is hunched, sobbing. He goes down on all fours to try to pick up the smashed plate and mutilated human figures on the floor.
I am given no time to make sense of this bizarre event. The Khmer are beside me shepherding me back to the lift, leaving Fatima and Warren in the warehouse. I am marched out of the shop into the muggy Sunday by the river, where tourists browse and droop and the longtail boats roar up and down. Jones is in the back of her hired car in the open-air car park and does not disguise her relief when she sees me.
48
We drove around aimlessly, Jones and I, while we tried to make sense of my adventure in Warren's shop. We thrashed it around in a hundred traffic jams, drove to Pattaya, lunched at a fish restaurant by the sea where Jones punished me for not sleeping with her by getting into a rant against Thai cuisine (chili in the fish: How can you ever taste anything properly with your whole frigging mouth on fire?), and returned to Bangkok with no explanation of the puzzle beyond a perceptive remark from the FBI: "One thing's for sure, somehow Fatima got hold of that tape Iamskoy was talking about. Take it from an American, no way Warren puts up with that kind of shit if she hasn't got the means to ruin his life."
"And the Khmer, his bodyguards?"
"Over to you, you're our tame Asian."
Night has already fallen as I close the car door on Jones and stroll across the forecourt. The common parts are poorly lit, only the illegal shop with the illegal tarpaulin is bright with lamps which illuminate the motorcycle chauffeurs who are still lolling in their beds and look stoned out of their minds. I climb the steps to my room and see that someone has busted the padlock. Burglars do not normally flatter me with their attentions, because everyone knows I have nothing, even though I'm a cop. It has happened only once before, when a neighbor's TV packed up in the middle of a soap and he broke into my room in the absolute, but false, certainty that I would have a television of my own. Standing in front of the busted lock, I wonder if someone else's TV has broken down, or should I be worrying about something more sinister? I decide that my enemies are too sophisticated to bust the lock and wait inside my room to assassinate me in my own home, but I lack the nerve to act on this comfortable conclusion until I hear a prolonged trombone fart from inside. I open the door cautiously. I cannot see him but an animal sense makes me aware of his vast bulk and I can hear his gigantic breathing. He grunts and rubs his eyes as I turn on the light. Torn cardboard six-packs are strewn around the futon, which is far too narrow for him even though he has dragged it into the center of the room. He overflows on either side, but manages to push himself up into a sitting position with some agility.
"I lied to you," he says in that throaty Harlem drawl.
"I know you did. Leave me any beer?"
He turns around and I notice a new addition to my menage: an ice cooler. He dips his fingers in what has already turned to water and hands me a dripping can of Singha.
"That's the last one. Want me to get some more from the shop? I kinda made friends with the owner and those kids on the beds. It ain't so far from Harlem. I said: What are you on, fellas, meth or ganja? But I already knew it had to be ganja, no way they was so lethargic on meth. They offered me some meth, but I told them I don't do drugs. So they offered me some women instead, like how many did I want? Kids were ready to get on their bikes and bring me half a dozen. A nigger could feel at home in this country in no time. Poor Billy had a point after all. How'd you know I was lying and what was I lying about?"
"Your reason for being here. The FBI told me you changed planes and airlines in Paris, so you were trying to be incognito. You could have done the journey much more economically if you'd stayed with one airline all the way, and I don't think you stopped off to admire the Eiffel Tower."
A grunt. "So you figure I'm here 'cos I was involved in Billy's meth business?"
"No."
Silence. "I better go get some more beer."
By the time he's on his feet he fills my hovel. I'm reminded of a Buddha statue in a cave that's too small. I have to stand aside to let him out the door. When he returns he is with a couple of the motorcycle kids, who are weighed down with stacks of six-packs and bags full of ice. Elijah reaches into his pocket and takes out a new padlock with keys dangling from it. "Sorry about the other one. There wasn't any comfortable lobby or anyplace I could wait."
"Never mind. How'd you break it so cleanly? I didn't see any marks on the door."
He snorts. "That little thing? I did it with my fingers. Muscle power, my friend, still opens doors from time to time."
"What did you say?" I ask, suddenly transfixed by the ice cooler.
"I adored Billy," Elijah says. "Probably because he adored me. We hardly knew our father, so I was the only role model he had. We were inseparable until I got my ass sent to reform school, just a little smack deal that went wrong. I was fifteen years old. When I came out they gave me a good probation officer, a black who understood where I was coming from and knew my mother. He says to me: 'You might have the smarts and the speed, but what you gonna do to your kid brother? You gonna destroy him? No way young Billy can take the kind of shit you're gonna take. You're dragging him down to hell without a ladder.' I didn't need to think about that because I knew he was right. I started to put some distance between me and the kid, even though it broke my heart. I can't say I was thrilled when he joined the Marines, but it was a load off my mind. It hurt when he started acting so superior and looked down on me and my wicked ways, it hurt a lot, but it was still a load off my mind. Even when he stopped calling me or talking to me, it was still a load off my mind. I felt like a father who has done better for his son than he ever could do for himself. I was so thrilled when he started calling me again, it was like ten years didn't count for nothing. We was pals again. Since he died I wake up with the sweats thinking about breaking the people who did th
at to him. Breaking them across my knee, one by one."
It is 2:34 a.m. and we've drunk most of the beer. Elijah has told me how to cook meth, how to set up a network, how to find cops to bribe in New York. In particular I am now an authority on glassine bags (they have to be the right size-too big and the price is too high for the average crackhead; too small and you're giving yourself too much work-above all, don't get fancy and put your own proprietorial stamp on the outside, like gold stars or something, because the courts will assume organized crime). He's told me everything I need to know if I ever want to deal in drugs in the United States, and now he has finally told me why he is in my country. He has come to tell me because he has realized his quest for vengeance is impossible. With greater speed than the FBI he has understood that crucial thing about Asia: we play by different rules and we are two-thirds of the world. He has come to say goodbye.
When he heaves himself to his feet I need help from the wall to do likewise. I have felt great love for this gigantic man with his gigantic heart, and this love has compelled me to match him beer for beer. I've never been so astonishingly drunk in my life. I am also grateful that he has helped me solve one detail of the case which has been nagging at us for weeks, the FBI and me. On rubber knees I follow him to the shop and we hug each other goodbye near the motorcycle taxis. Only the largest of their bikes, a 500 cc Honda, is strong enough to sustain him, and there is much grinning and wonderment when he sits on the back, crushing the suspension. I watch him and the driver wobble off into what is left of the night, then I stumble back to my cave, where, with superhuman concentration, I press the FBI's number into the keypad of my mobile. I wake her from a deep sleep and it takes some moments to convince her I'm not some Thai variant of a dirty phone call. She is fully awake by the time she has made sense of my drunken mumblings.
"Saw it when Elijah busted my padlock," I explain with sloppy pride.
"The cobras were in a steamer trunk? Bradley thought he was doing a standard pickup from the airport? The python was there to bust open the trunk?"
" 'Xactly."
"But what about the whole problem with injecting the snakes with yaa baa?"
"Weren't injected. Packed in straw between ice. Snakes hibernated. Ice smelted. Snakes woke up thirsty. Drank water from smelted ice. Water had yaa baa in it. Yaa baa drove python crazy. Bust the locks no prob." I cackle. "Must have been fucking terrifying."
"What about those two dead snakes you found-the ones that were beaten to death?"
"Squatters had to snatch trunk before we arrived. Some snakes left in back of car. Rest all over Bradley. Killed ones in back with stick or something. Steamer trunks was the way they brought in the yaa baa every few months-that's why Old Tou had enough to build his hut."
"Some trusted squatters snatched the trunk out the back door despite the snakes, because it would have blown their whole operation if you'd found it? Yes, I can see that. But that drunk never mentioned anything like that?"
"Maybe he wasn't so dumb. Maybe they schooled him. Who knows, he's a drunk."
A pause which I think must express wonder at my forensic brilliance, or my advanced toxicity-I'm not sure which I'm most impressed with myself.
"No kidding. Well, nice work, partner. We'll talk when you've slept it off. Maybe in a week or so?"
49
A knock on my flimsy door. Someone calls my name, trying out Sonchai, then Detective Jitpleecheep. I must have fallen asleep fully dressed on my futon. My head is killing me. It takes twenty minutes to emerge crumpled from my cave. Without windows I tend to lose all sense of time, especially when I've been pissed out of my brain. I'm traumatized by the bright sunlight. Out in the forecourt just in front of the shop and the motorbike kids I see that the Colonel has sent a car with motorcycle escort. It is the same Lexus as the one in which he recently abducted me, with a different driver at the wheel.
There are four motorbikes this time and the traffic cops have been warned to make way for us. I am surprised to find we are heading for the domestic airport, but there is nothing I can do about that. I wish they wouldn't be so gung ho with their damned sirens.
I am escorted firmly but politely from the limo to the check-in desk for flights to Chiang Mai, where one of my minders pulls out a first-class ticket in my name. The minders use their police IDs to pass through into the waiting area, where we all sit down. Even when it's time to board they accompany me as far as the airplane. The flight lasts thirty minutes and there is another limo waiting at the other end. The driver is Vikorn's usual trusted man. I'm sobering up by the minute, leaving no alcohol buffer between me and my triple-A headache.
I have never been to his house in Chiang Mai and I'm surprised at how far out of town it is. We travel parallel to the Ping River for about ten kilometers until we come to some of the best riverside property in the world. From time to time they appear for sale in the classified pages of the newspapers, these million-dollar mansions in their own leafy grounds with river access and five-car garages. Some of them are renovated teak houses, some are imitations of Thai style, but most of them are imitations of Western luxury houses, perhaps from Malibu or the suburbs of Los Angeles. Gangsters own all of them. The Colonel's is a two-story with vast sloping roofs in red shingles, white walls and floor-to-ceiling windows. Two cops with walkie-talkies stand guard at the electric gate, which opens as we approach.
Vikorn's driver gets out of the car and walks across the gravel in a relaxed mood, as if returning home after a day's work. The Colonel in a loose linen shirt, baggy black pants and old leather slippers comes to the door, looks at me waiting in the car and beckons me in. A few minor clues-the way he shuffles, a lazy left eye-tell me he is drunk. Must have been something in the stars last night.
By the time I reach the front door only the driver is there. He leads me through the house to a huge room on the river side which spans the length of the house. The wall is entirely of glass and looks onto an old wooden jetty on a bend in the river on which a couple of fishermen are paddling a small teak boat. It's like a painting from former times, the dense green of the jungle nodding over the slow-moving loop of brown water, two preindustrial fishermen with their nets and paddles, a serenity so profound it is as if time has stopped.
The room is so big I have to search for him; he is in a leather armchair at one end, smoking a cheroot and looking out. An empty bottle of Mekong whisky sits on a coffee table. I walk silently across the teak floor and take a seat in the armchair opposite his: Italian leather, cigar-colored, as soft as a baby's skin. The gun on the coffee table between us is an old-style army revolver with a barrel about twelve inches long. The Colonel does not look at me.
"You're angry with me, Sonchai?"
"You lied."
"Not really. I told you I'd never met a woman of Fatima's description. Fatima is not a woman. Not to an old-fashioned man like me, anyway."
"She was your contact for the yaa baa Bradley was moving?"
He raises his arms. "What could I do? I had to have someone. I had my doubts about employing a farang, but in some ways it made a lot of sense. As a marine at the American embassy he was never under suspicion, but how far can one trust a foreigner? I needed someone to tell me what he was up to, moment to moment. I recruited her at the same time my people agreed to use him."
I nod in my turn. This much I have understood. "What I don't understand is why you had Pichai and me follow Bradley in the first place."
"Because of what you were, the two of you. By that time I was sure she would kill Bradley and I expected the Americans to demand a full investigation. Any other cops might simply have arrested Fatima, but you two devout Buddhists, I knew you would not have the heart to prosecute once you knew what had happened. Naturally, I didn't want her in jail where she could be interrogated by my enemies. Her crazy thing with the snakes took me completely by surprise, though. I had no idea. I'd like you to believe that. I knew she would kill him, but I didn't know how."
"You knew she w
ould kill him? And you used Pichai and me because you were feeling compassionate? I don't understand."
He covers his mouth to burp. "I'm getting old, Sonchai. I'm talking to my brother again these days. I sent him a mobile telephone more than six months ago. He almost never switches it on because it would disturb his meditation, but he uses it to call me now and then, when he can get someone to charge the battery at the nearest village. He doesn't have electricity in that Stone Age monastery of his. He told me I'd be lucky to be reborn in the human form at all, after the kind of life I've led. Maybe a deformed beggar was the most I could hope for, but something in the animal kingdom was more likely, or even an insect, a bug of some kind. He's pretty merciless, as you know."
"Go on."
"I asked his advice when I realized what Warren and Bradley had in mind for Fatima."
"How did you realize that?"
"That tape of Warren the Russian mafia made. They made it because they thought it would be a good idea to blackmail Warren on the basis of his sex with a prostitute. What they ended up with was a recording of a murder. Warren was desperate. He saw his whole life collapsing. He asked his good friend Colonel Suvit to get the tape for him, to deal with the Russians. The urkas have business here, they need us much more than we need them, but Suvit is not exactly a diplomat. You know what he's like. So then Warren asked me to help for old times' sake-perhaps the FBI told you about all that? So I was the one to negotiate the return of the tape. Apparently the urkas have their standards, their honor. If they say there's only one copy, then that is supposed to be reliable. I don't know, I've never dealt with them before, but they do run a lot of prostitutes here, and they move a lot of their heroin through Thailand, so they need to keep us on their side. It was smart of Warren to have us negotiate the return of the tape on his behalf. And the money they received for the tape should have been enough to shut them up. Warren paid three million dollars for it, less our commission. I saw the wire. I got the tape, but I refused to hand it over to Suvit or to Warren. Suvit was furious and so was Warren, but what could they do? I told Suvit: 'Look, we'll keep the tape to keep Warren under control. So long as we have it he'll do as he's told.' " A wave of the hand. "But then I started talking to my brother. He started to dismantle my mind, the way he does. And that tape, you know, what they did, Warren and Bradley, it's very Western, very cruel, very un-Thai." A sigh. "We've killed a lot of men, you and I, but no women as far as I can remember. And what did it amount to? We simply sent them on to their next lives a little sooner than expected, usually without pain or suffering."