“You won’t last. You’ll be back on the computer before the day is over.”
“That depends on the other people I’m expecting.”
“Will they come today?”
“I don’t know. People are unpredictable. Sometime between eleven seconds and twelve days from now, they’ll come through the door. Give or take ten percent on either side.”
“And meanwhile, you’re planning to work on that... that typewriter?”
She stuttered, looking slightly amused and horrified at the same time.
Calvino ditched his smart phone in his office safe and removed from the second shelf of the same safe a vintage Nokia circa 1998. The black dumb phone fit like a glove with the electric typewriter. He’d gone back in technological time. His office had a Sam Spade, Philip Marlowe look, as if an ancient film set had materialized. The image of the Maltese Falcon passed through his mind. But his secretary looked like Taylor Swift.
“I want to give them the feel of time travel. Welcome to a Bangkok when the generals stayed in their barracks.”
Ratana shook her head.
“When was that?”
“Figuratively speaking.”
Shaking her head again, she said, “Let me know if you want to check your email on my computer.”
“Don’t blow my cover, Ratana. Could you do your hair up in a bun in the back? And remember, I don’t use email.”
“Right. You want me to lie for you and change my hair?”
He grinned.
“Of course. Both are part of your job description. I am glad you brought John-John to the office today.”
“He asked to come.”
Ratana waited for a knock on the door, but no one came around except for McPhail, who was looking for a top-up from the bottle in the bottom drawer of Calvino’s desk. After McPhail had gone, leaving behind him a whiff of whiskey, Calvino assured her that a couple of strangers in suits would likely come around asking for him.
“Your appointment with General Pratt has been changed to 1:32 p.m.”
“Is he using the department astrologer for lunch appointments?”
She didn’t answer him. Nor did he expect her to.
“I told you he sent his regards, didn’t I?” said Calvino.
“No, you forgot.”
“He sent them. Messages in the old days took longer to be delivered.”
Pratt had rescheduled the appointment for the second time. Calvino read the cancellation and rescheduling as evidence that his friend was under pressure, and getting away from his office wasn’t as easy as in the old days. Generals had different clocks from colonels. He had told Pratt on the phone that he had something about Ballard for him. Pratt had insisted on meeting him outside his office.
Too many foreigners were against the coup. Allowing one to circulate in police headquarters had raised a couple of well-plucked eyebrows. After Calvino had left, another general had asked him about the foreigner. The messenger was more important than the message. The logbook showed Calvino had been to his office; having his name appear there twice in a week would bring more questions. Since Calvino was a person of interest in an open murder case, Pratt could report that Calvino had information for them. Even with that excuse, the suspicion would still have fogged their thinking. Pratt had a long history of association with this foreigner named Vincent Calvino.
Other senior officers regularly stepped out of the office for meetings with astrologers, monks or gurus who forecast their future. Fate readings, always popular, had taken on a sense of urgency in the department. It now took a week to book an appointment with a famous astrologer. Martial law was a time to monitor future threats so those in the prediction business had more business than usual. Such an orientation fit well with a belief in astrologers, who predicted disasters, misfortunes and the intentions of enemies. Pratt never dismissed the predictions of certain astrologers outright. He was, after all, Thai, and he said there were over a hundred references to astrology in Shakespeare. There were probably a thousand references to swords there as well, but that seemed beside the point. Something deep inside the new general told him that astrology, like swords, had limited use in the modern world. Yet astrology made for a great cover story. Checking the karmic weather report was a good reason to leave the office.
General Pratt told his orderly, Lieutenant Pim, “I haven’t paid my respects to Brahma at San Phra Phrom Erawan. One thirty-two p.m. is an auspicious time. Please arrange for a car.”
Her smile signaled her approval.
“Yes, sir.”
He’d be left in peace to pay his respects. Calvino would be just another farang gawking at the devotees carrying out ceremonial offerings at the base of the four-headed Brahma statue. The shrine, it seemed to Pratt, was an inspired choice for a meeting venue. He wasn’t above wishing to impress Calvino with his improvisational abilities, which weren’t limited to the saxophone.
Before Calvino had a chance to leave the office and join Pratt at the auspicious time, two visitors inauspiciously arrived, flashing US embassy ID cards.
Ratana looked up from her computer.
“Do you have an appointment?”
“Tell your boss we’re from the American embassy and we’re here to discuss the death of Andrew David Ballard.”
“Mr. Calvino only sees clients by appointment.”
“We aren’t clients, and we aren’t asking for an appointment.”
John-John looked up from his book, cocked his head to the side. The younger agent smiled at him. “No iPad?”
“My son likes books,” said Ratana, a cold ripple coloring her tone of voice. “As I said, you need an appointment.”
Calvino stood in the doorway.
“It’s not a problem, Ratana. Why don’t you come into my office?”
The two men in suits stared at him.
“Are you Vincent Calvino?”
“Ratana, these gentlemen want to know who I am.”
“You’re Vincent Calvino.”
They looked disappointed.
“Does that answer your question?” said Calvino.
“You’ve got an attitude.”
“Pre-adjusted attitudes are the latest problem in Thailand,” said Calvino, gesturing toward his office. “Please come in.”
The agent in charge looked forty years old, and his partner a decade younger. Clipped nails, short haircuts, wedding rings, and when they opened their mouths, American accents, flat and angry, carried an echo of menace. The senior agent filed in first, his junior a step behind. Calvino closed the door after them and sat down behind his desk.
“Give me a moment,” said Calvino. “I was just finishing a letter.”
On the other side, Ratana heard the sound of Calvino’s electric typewriter. The two men, still standing, exchanged glances, the junior guy biting his lip as he tried not to laugh. The blond-haired agent, the senior suit, nodded at his brown-haired, blue-eyed partner, who whipped a line of sweat from his forehead. The typing stopped and Calvino read the line, pulled out the paper, crumpled it up and threaded in a fresh sheet.
“Made a mistake. It’s hard to type when someone’s watching. It’s like taking a piss in a public restroom. It’s one of my personal quirks. We all have them. Let me have one more try,” he said.
Picking up the handset of a rotary phone, he dialed Ratana.
“Tell my guru I’m running a little late.”
“Guru?” asked the senior agent.
“My astrologer. I’ve been in Thailand a long time,” said Calvino.
“Sorry. Take a seat,” Calvino said.
“We want to ask you a few questions about Andrew Ballard,” said the senior agent, ignoring Calvino’s request, “and we’d appreciate it if you’d give us your attention.”
Calvino looked at his typewriter and sighed.
“Okay, I’ll finish the letter to my mother later.”
“Your mother? You expect us to believe you’re writing a letter to your mother?” asked the j
unior agent.
Calvino nodded, looking at the younger man, who was close to drawing blood as he pinched his own arm, half a second away from losing it.
“What, you don’t write your mother?”
The senior guy raised a hand.
“Stop. No more of your corny bullshit, Calvino. We have a thick file on you. Stop trying to fuck us around. It isn’t funny. We aren’t laughing.”
“What do you want to know?”
“We already know that Ballard stayed as a houseguest at your condo. Two nights after he left your residence, he was dragged out of the Chao Phraya River. A couple of slum kids skinny-dipping not far from the ferry pier found his body. According to the autopsy, Ballard drowned, but his face was beat to a pulp. Whoever killed him was a professional. We take the loss of an agent personally. We won’t let up until we find his killer. Am I making myself clear?”
The senior agent snapped his card on Calvino’s desk like it was the ace of spades and he’d hit twenty-one. He slid it across the desk with two fingers as if he wished to avoid any direct contact with Calvino.
“I thought the DEA fired him. Or was it DARPA? You should retire the letter D in the agency racket. It’s confusing.”
“You still don’t get it.”
“I was sorry to hear what happened.”
So much for the exchange of pleasantries. There would be none. That was how they’d decided to play it.
Howard, the blond with the kind of attitude that came with a diplomatic passport, a gun and a badge, displayed a look at contempt.
“Sorry? If that’s the case, you won’t mind helping us with our inquiry.”
“Whatever I can do.”
Calvino blinked as he looked at Howard.
The other agent, named Davenport, reached across the desk and handed Calvino his name card. Calvino stared at the two US embassy cards. He made a point of studying the cards, giving each of the men time to size up his office. From a puzzled expression on Davenport’s face, Calvino guessed he’d never seen a typewriter up close.
“Feel free to take a picture, Agent Davenport.”
“Are you really typing a letter to your mother on that?” asked Davenport.
“It was a graduation present from her,” said Calvino.
Howard shook his head.
“We aren’t here to discuss your mother or your typewriter.”
Calvino’s old-model mobile phone rang and he answered it, pressing it against his ear. Osborne was on the other end, wondering what General Pratt had told him about Fah.
“I haven’t seen my guru. No, I don’t have a lucky number to give you. And yes, I am in a meeting.”
He cut the connection to Osborne, visualizing him at the other end shaking his phone and wondering if he’d experienced a weird connection to another universe.
Davenport snapped a photograph of the old phone.
“No Facebook, no website, no Twitter,” he said. “Is that what you wish us to believe?”
“Distractions. Time wasters.”
Calvino laid the old mobile phone on the desk. He carefully picked up each name card; each one showed an affiliation to the political section at the embassy. Americans from that section had been trained to make local house calls when necessary to find information beyond what technology could capture. Up to five years ago, men just like them had supervised enhanced interrogations at safe houses in Bangkok.
“The Internet killed the last Philip Marlowe in your line of business years ago. You should get out more, watch more TV,” Davenport said, shaking his head.
“I don’t have a TV, Mr. Davenport.”
“You’re one of those analog holdovers I read about on Huffington Post. What they call pre-Internet farang. Someone who got lost in the shuffle of time,” said Davenport. “How do you receive the alerts the embassy sends US citizens by email?”
“I look out the window, and if I see riots in the street, I know it’s time to be alert.”
Davenport clenched his jaw like a Hollywood action hero.
“I’m probably wasting your valuable time,” Calvino continued. “You could be writing alerts or checking your email or your Facebook timelines.”
Davenport hadn’t smiled once since coming into his office. Calvino made him for one of those hard young men who had no doubt about the nature his assignment. Only the technical, operations parts mattered—and of course, muscle. And Calvino, in Davenport’s assessment, was no more or less than another name in a power point presentation with the heading “Ballard.” What Calvino had missed was the self-inflicted pain that kept Davenport from dissolving into a puddle of hysterical laughter.
“I’ve known a fair number of Americans who’ve died here,” said Calvino. “But this is the first time a delegation from the embassy comes to my office with a briefcase stuffed with questions. I met Ballard at a jazz festival in Bali a couple of years ago. When I was drunk, not an uncommon state, I invited him to stay with me should he ever come to Bangkok. He was drunk too, but not so drunk as to forget my offer. He showed up out of the blue. I could’ve told him to get lost. If I knew he was going to get himself killed, that’s exactly what I would’ve done.
“The fact is, Ballard didn’t stick around long, and I didn’t spend much time with him for the few days he was there. I gave him a key and he came and went as he pleased. Then he moved to the Oriental Hotel. I guess my place wasn’t good enough. Maybe he needed a bottle of ’86 Lafite. It’s a good year. Same number as the embassy car registration plates, and much better than the ordinary plonk I poured him. Who he saw or what he did or what he planned to do are questions I can’t help you with. It’s too bad he’s dead. I liked him.”
“How do you feel about the coup, Mr. Calvino?” Howard asked, retaking control of the questioning.
“I thought you were here to ask questions about Ballard,” Calvino said.
The two agents were under the cover of the political section. Neither of them looked like political scientists.
“Unless you think Ballard had some connection with the coup,” said Calvino. “Now that would be interesting news.”
“Answer my question. How do you feel about it?”
“Feel? I don’t feel much of anything. I’ve been through three coups. It’s like getting a divorce. After the third one you’re no longer shocked. You get the idea that it’s hard to make a marriage or a coup work out the way you’d hoped. And the divorce is always messy.”
“But you personally came out on the side of the winners. Isn’t that right, Mr. Calvino?” said Howard. “You’ve got the power on your side.”
“You’re talking about my friendship with General Prachai, right?”
“General Prachai can do nothing for you. Dr. Marley Solberg is another matter,” said Howard.
“She’s the one who gave you the encryption no one can break,” said Davenport.
“Dr. Solberg could have sold it for a fortune. Instead she chose a different way, one that isn’t in anyone’s interest but hers.”
Finally they had produced the business end of the official sword.
“I’ve got no immunity, special or otherwise,” said Calvino. “Does it look like I need encryption?”
He tapped his typewriter.
“Let me share what I’ve learned about Thai politics. Keep a distance from those doing a victory dance in the end zone unless you understand their game, how it’s scored and how many players each side has. If you can’t figure out the rules of game, you won’t know when the game has started and when it’s over. ‘Don’t put a bet on a game you don’t understand’—I had a cousin in Queens who used to say that.
“My cousin, according to my mother, made his share of lousy bets. When he was killed in the Vietnam War, I thought about what he used to say. Don’t you find that in your line of work? It’s one of those things people used to say years ago, and seemed kind of stupid at the time, but later on you think there was wisdom in it. The past comes back to haunt us. You probably don’t re
member, but half a dozen years ago, maybe before either of you could find Thailand on a map, there were people in the embassy and JUSMAG honing their water-boarding skills at a black site here in Thailand. When I heard about it, you know what I did? I shook my head, and said, ‘Can’t be true.’ ”
Davenport leaned forward, but Howard stopped him from a knee-jerk reaction.
“You’re playing to an audience that isn’t in this room. We don’t fucking care about your politics except if it links to Ballard and his investigation into Dr. Solberg.”
“You asked about the coup.”
“We are only interested in your relationship with Dr. Solberg and subsequently with Ballard.”
“I didn’t have a relationship with him. Nor do I know whether he was gay.”
“Why do you say Ballard was gay?”
“It’s like with Alan Turing. Things turn up unexpectedly, and suddenly the state decides on an official castration.”
The two agents exchanged a glance.
“Who is Alan Turing?”
“Someone who delivered lectures on mathematics to a teddy bear.”
“Mr. Calvino, are you trying to convince us that you’re crazy?”
“My mental state, like my clients’ business, is confidential.”
“The facts indicate otherwise.”
“Meaning?”
“We know you have a history of mental health problems. Dr. Apinya says you’ve improved, but improvement is a matter of degree,” said Davenport.
“In other words, you can cut out the bullshit and answer our questions,” said Howard.
Calvino sat back in his chair, hands on his desk. They’d visited his old psychiatrist, Dr. Apinya. He wondered what she’d told them, or had they found another way to access her psychiatric patient files?
“Go ahead. Ask your questions.”
“What were Ballard and you planning to discuss over dinner? You were going to give him information about Marley Solberg, isn’t that right?”
“I don’t know what Ballard intended to talk about. I had an idea of what I wanted to ask him.”
Howard leaned forward.
“And what was that?”
“In between keeping up with the latest advancement in waterboarding technology, do you and Agent Davenport find the time to read novels?”
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