by John Burdett
“It’s all right,” Jones says. “He’s saying you’ll be my security. Who’s going to try anything with you on the outside? You could have an army of cops here in ten minutes, and you know who this man is.” She explains the situation kindly, as if to a child. “There’s no danger, really.”
Culture clash. “How long have you known your friends?” I ask Elijah. “A couple of hours?”
He glances at them slowly, on either side. “I don’t need to know them more than a couple of hours, they’re my late brother’s loyal employees.”
“Or jailers. Khmer don’t work for anyone except themselves.”
“In that case, I let you go and you come back with a couple of your colleagues and arrest them, if you feel so strongly about it.”
“You don’t understand.” My eyes revert to the Khmer who is devouring Jones’ legs. Elijah follows my gaze with a frown. “It’ll be all over, and they’ll be back in the jungles of Cambodia while you’re facing a charge of rape and murder, assuming they leave you alive.”
Light illuminates Elijah’s eyes. He looks at the man with the Uzi, whose boredom might be reaching the limits of tolerance. “They kind of picked me up,” Elijah admits. “I know who they are, though.”
I am concerned because of where these two have come from, spiritually speaking. There are pits, and pits below pits, pits so deep only the unspeakable survives there.
“Maybe you don’t. These are fanatics from out of the jungle who believe history started at year zero in 1978. The worst things you ever saw in Harlem would be light comedy to them. There’s nothing I’ve got that would scare them. A Thai jail is like a five-star hotel compared to what they’re used to.”
The man with the Uzi yawns loudly and exchanges a glance with his companion, who nods and slides a knife out of a sheath under his shirt. “Aw,” Elijah says.
“Don’t think you want that kind of rap, Elijah,” Jones says. She is holding herself together, but the blood has drained from her face. “They’re your boys and the Bureau will extradite you.”
“Their English ain’t worth a dime,” Elijah says. “Not if we talk fast. I can’t make enemies of them, though. I have business in this town. Maybe Miss FBI here leaves and you and I talk?”
“That would be a much better idea.”
Jones shakes her head and makes a face. “Sure hate to be the girl.”
“It’s a function of biology,” Elijah explains, “and this ain’t an equal opportunity situation. Better skit. I don’t want the heat and I don’t reckon I can control these guys, now that your man has explained them to me.” Elijah’s eyes have begun to dance from me to the Khmer, to Jones. “Don’t suppose you all had the foresight to bring a firearm, did you?”
Jones and I look at each other and shrug. I don’t think the Khmer have understood a word, now that we’re speaking so fast, but they’ve seen Elijah’s shift of allegiance. A dangerous moment. I stand up and start to shout angrily. I rip off my shirt to show them the long ladder of stitches on the left side of my rib cage, from just under my arm all the way to my thigh. “Did you do this?” I’m yelling. “Did one of you do this?” The man with the knife stands up to take a closer look while Jones makes for the door. He jabbers at his friend in Khmer, and they burst out laughing. Suddenly the man with the knife is hugging me around the shoulders. “It wasn’t us,” he explains. “The guy who did it had to go back to Cambodia, he could hardly walk.” He glances at Jones as she opens the door to leave, but makes no move to stop her. He’s fascinated by my stitches and runs a finger up and down them, shaking his head. I am looking at him with clairvoyant vision now: the elongated snout, the leathery wings. He poisons my wound as he prods.
“Nice work,” Elijah says, nodding sagely. “Maybe you and I can do business. You being such a switched-on denizen of these parts, maybe you’ve got some idea how I might get rid of these goons without bringing the ghost of Pol Pot down on my shoulders?”
“Pay them off.”
“Now why didn’t I think of that? Would you like to do the negotiating? I’m tired of hand signals.”
I explain that the black farang wants to do business alone with the Royal Thai Police Force and would like to thank them for their help and assistance. The one with the Uzi plays with it while he talks about the risk of carrying a firearm in Krung Thep, which needs to be compensated for. Maybe they’ve been out of the jungles longer than I thought, their sense of an itemized account is surprisingly advanced. The final figure is four hundred dollars, which Elijah pays in hundred-dollar bills. We watch them go and Elijah says, “Let’s get out of this museum. How about a walk in a street?”
Kaoshan is hopping as usual while we walk side by side. Elijah doesn’t draw more than a glance or two, despite his size. Except for his eyes, he could be an overweight middle-aged American on vacation. His eyes never stop scanning. We stop in a bar halfway down the street and he shakes his head as I order two beers.
“That’s quite a street. I ain’t seen a street like that since the sixties. Harlem is real quiet in comparison. See the two dope deals? What was it, ganja?”
“Probably.”
“Both those dealers were cops, right?”
“How did you know that?”
“Too relaxed, too complacent to be ordinary dealers. Every dealer ever worked for me had to suffer from controlled paranoia or I wouldn’t use him. Those guys had protection. Do the cops have a bust-and-bribe scam and resell the dope?”
“It’s a cottage industry.”
The beers arrive and Elijah turns his up and pours it into his mouth until the bottle is empty. He burps and shakes his head. “My next incarnation I’m gonna put in for Thai cop. Pal, you gotta have the best job in the world.”
I think of my hovel, my yard-long scar and the snake in Pichai’s eye. “Yes,” I agree.
33
“Brother Bill was different. He and I shared the same dad, so there ain’t no rational explanation how we ended up like oil and water, and I’m not talking about him being a soldier and me being in the pharmaceutical industry. I’m talking about soul. I don’t wish to bad-mouth my dead kin, but I have to tell you, since we’re talking so intimate here, and you got me so damn drunk, Bill’s soul was not the biggest you ever come across. Great souls are great sinners, like me. Small souls commit small sins and become sergeants, mayors, presidents. When he was a kid about fifteen I took him under my wing and tried to educate him. I would walk him down a street just like we did tonight and test him afterwards. ‘Did you see those two crack deals go down?’ I would say. ‘Did you see the iron that wop was packing? Did you notice, brother dear, that members of the Boyz Love Money gang were mingling on the corner of 115th and Lexington, which is the sovereign territory of the Hoover Crips gang? Some serious violence about to go down tonight. And did it even occur to you, Mr. Universe, that the cute nigger bitch who was coming on to you outside that hamburger joint and massaging your fantasies till the whole world could see your erection was a smack fiend and after your dough, not your cock?’ Young Billy never saw anything in other people except the effect of his amazing body. He was neat and tidy, a Goody Two-shoes, which is always a cause for concern. A born peacetime soldier. A born sergeant.”
I cast my eyes over the ten bottles of Kloster all lined up around the table and order another. I stopped drinking about an hour ago. “He was brave under fire.”
“You talking about that thing at the embassy in Yemen? He called me afterwards, about the first time in ten years. He was shaking and could hardly talk. Frankly, he was scared shitless. Sure, he acted brave, but it was his training took over. Why d’you think they put marines through that kind of torture in boot camp? Exactly so as they’ll react like robots. I was proud of him, so was Mother, but he was frightened. That was the only time I heard him talk about getting out early. I think he kind of traded his medal for a long-term posting out here. He had his eye on your town for a long time before they finally consented to let him come.”
<
br /> “Why?”
“Why does any man want to be posted here? Billy was all about sex. That was his thing. Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t no prude, I just don’t think it’s appropriate for a middle-aged man to have it on his mind all the time. With Billy it was a kind of sickness. Somehow it went with him being so neat and tidy, so damn perfect. Know what I mean? I told him, ‘Billy, in this world money has got to come first. Put anything you like second, but if you don’t master dough, it sure as hell will master you.’ He saw the light about five years ago, when he first started thinking about life after retirement.”
“With a girlfriend like that, a lot of men might have it on the mind full-time.”
Elijah eyes me sideways. “Fatima, she turn you on?”
“That’s really her name? Fatima?”
“That’s the one she gave.” A slow, careful nod. “Too exotic for me. I like a more earthy mama, someone you can drink beer and watch TV with, who don’t care if you fart. She kind of spooked me.”
“He must have talked about her a lot.”
Elijah downed another bottle. “Nope, not once. I guess he knew I thought he was kinda weird about that sort of thing. I had no idea who she was or what she looked like or even that she existed. All I had was a mobile number he sent me over the e-mail one time. I called it from New York after they told me he was dead. It was his mobile, but I figured someone might be using it. She answered and told me she’d meet me at the hotel after I landed. It was her idea to go to the boxing.”
“You don’t have an address?”
“Not even a phone number. I tried calling her again before you guys showed up, and there’s a Thai voice telling me in English that the number’s no longer available.”
“First you were with her, the next thing you’re with some Khmer?”
“She called them when I freaked a little at the boxing. I knew that friend of yours was wrong, Miss FBI. I have street instinct. Three of them arrived on bikes. She goes off with one of them and leaves the other two to mind me. They weren’t such bad fellas. Maybe a little undisciplined.”
“I can guarantee no problems for you if you want to talk a little about what your brother was up to. It might help find his killers.”
“Been waiting for you to say that. Actually, I don’t have a problem because I wasn’t involved, whatever Miss Hot Pants might have insinuated. These days I work in a hermetically sealed environment. I don’t risk contamination from anyone, not even blood relations. I sure don’t risk doing business with a beginner, which was what Bill was. I just gave him some advice, that’s all, the kind I hoped would keep him out of trouble. Guess he didn’t take it, huh?”
“What kind of advice?”
Elijah is not as drunk as he claims. His vast body has now absorbed twelve bottles of beer, without much effect on his alertness. “Well, I guess he’s dead, right? Nothing can hurt him now. He had some idea that meth could be safely imported into the States. What’s that crazy name you got for it over here?”
“Yaa baa.”
“Right. Great name, maybe we should call it that. He had all these detailed plans on how to smuggle yaa baa, through Hong Kong, through Shanghai, even through Tokyo. He was a real details man. He believed he had some special insight because of all his work at embassies and knowledge of how diplomatic immunity works. He talked just like any amateur who gets the bug. He got all excited because he had some contacts here, people who could bring in unlimited quantities at knockdown prices. I explained to him, I says: ‘Billy, don’t matter that you’re not moving heroin, you’re in the region of the Golden Triangle, you got more FBI, CIA, DEA per square inch out there than anywhere in the world. Not a good idea, Billy. Forget it.’ When I saw he wasn’t going to forget it, I made a few inquiries. I called him to give him some names and addresses of people out here with experience of moving stuff. I explain business to him. I say, ‘Look, settle for a five percent handler’s fee here in Bangkok, don’t get involved in the overseas shipping, just move the stuff from address A in Bangkok to address B in Bangkok. So it doesn’t make you rich overnight, you still get a good income, given the quantities you’re talking about, and you sleep better at night. Maybe when you’ve been in the business a few years, maybe then you can think about something a little more ambitious.’ I thought he got the point, but obviously I was wrong.”
“Why d’you say that?”
“Sonchai, my man, he fucked up, didn’t he? My kid brother did what any dumb, middle-aged desperado does who don’t want to go on another learning curve. He jumped into the snake pit thinking he was going to solve his cash flow problem in one fell swoop. I seen it happen so often it’s boring. The only fell swoops that work are the ones that have structure, that have been set up over a period of years, maybe decades. I know, I sat at the feet of black professors in the university of the penitentiary. But you can’t explain that to a guy who secretly thinks he’s superman, who spends his whole life looking in a mirror. And just so as we can remain friends, you and I, I’m going to anticipate your next question. No, I ain’t gonna tell you who I told him to get in touch with out here.”
“I wasn’t going to ask,” I say, hurt.
Another bottle empties into his mouth, with just a little spilling from the corners. “No, come to think of it, I don’t believe you were. Accept my apologies for offending your professional pride. Where would you recommend to eat around here? Don’t give me anything with chili, I’m a New Yorker.”
Elijah is the reincarnation of a southern planter who treated his slaves well but was unable to transcend the racism of his times. He spent two incarnations as an African American, neither of them illustrious. Deep resentment toward the system carried over from those lifetimes and drove him to crime in this one. These perceptions came to me while he was cramming some stuffed potato skins into his mouth at a diner off Sukhumvit. We’ve come all the way across the city because this is the only New York–style deli I know. It is 3:21 a.m., but Elijah’s jet lag makes him as fresh as a daisy. The deli, come to think of it, is not New York. It is sand floor and potted plants and there is chili on the menu, but Elijah has not noticed as he tucks into a forkful of quesadillas.
“See, I’m a child of the sixties. A black man in those far-off days had to make a decision early on in life: sport, religion, jazz or crime. Brother Billy was born five years later, and already things had started to change. It killed me at the time that my kid brother was a patriot. I still don’t look on my way of earning a living as criminal. Where’s the victim? I supply a demand. Can I help it if the psychology of modern America has created a demand for escape at any cost, particularly amongst the white yuppie class? Billy didn’t see it that way, and the second time I went to the penitentiary he stopped talking to me. It’s one of those things that just when I’m mellowing toward the good old U.S., Billy is developing a black power mentality. I guess he was always kinda slow on the uptake. He even talked about becoming a black Muslim. Maybe he did, he wouldn’t have told me because I don’t like Muslims and neither does Mother, who’s one churchy nigger.”
Elijah picked up a chicken leg and examined it for a moment. I said: “Did he talk to you about jade?”
He took a big chunk out of the thigh, chewed briefly and swallowed. “Jade? A precious stone, right, from Laos or Burma or something? He mentioned it. It was a kind of hobby of his. He wouldn’t have talked about it too much to me, because I never shared his taste in jewelry. That was another thing about him. Nigger can wear gold, pearls, what the hell he likes, if he does it to strut his stuff, that’s okay. But Billy was serious about jewelry from an early age. It was small, you get what I’m saying? Part of his smallness, which I didn’t appreciate.”
“D’you know who Sylvester Warren is?” A shake of the head while he’s stripping the rest of the bone with his teeth. “A billionaire jeweler and art dealer, knows presidents. He comes here once a month.”
Elijah’s face is blank. He shakes his head again before starting in on
the nachos. With his mouth full: “We got a lot of billionaires who have to leave America to get their kicks. It ain’t like it used to be. We got media, mind police, electronic surveillance. White boy like that who knows presidents can’t afford even to look at his secretary the wrong way. They ain’t as broad-minded as us niggers. They really fucked themselves all up. No wonder he comes here every month, this Warren. Did he know Billy?”
“They exchanged e-mails.”
“Think he was the one had him killed?”
I shrug. “No one can think of a motive.”
Elijah pauses with a forkful of potato salad. “Me either. Let’s face it, Billy tried all his life to be as big as his body, but at the end of the day he was a little guy. A sergeant in the Marines who liked to hire cheap pussy out of Third World go-go bars. He wasn’t important enough for a rich white boy to kill.”
“Tell me this. Was your brother more than averagely scared of snakes?”
“More than average? I dunno. I guess every nigger in Harlem’s scared of snakes. The African jungle is quite a few generations back. Sure, he was scared of snakes, same as me. I used to tease him that if he went ahead and joined the army he would be sent to the jungles of Southeast Asia where boa constrictors roamed on the loose. Freaked him out but it seems like I was right.”
“Do you intend to avenge your brother’s death, Mr. Bradley?”
My question, perfectly reasonable to me, has astonished him. He puts down his fork and pushes his seat back a foot to stare at me. “You mean like a vendetta?” He scratches his head by way of answer. “Only time I had anyone rubbed out was because they double-crossed me. In the business, when that happens you don’t have any choice, but to tell you the truth I been regretting it ever since. I’m not a man of violence. Most of the time, being this big, I don’t need to be.”
“You didn’t love him?”
“I don’t know. He was my brother but we weren’t close. I came over to sort out his estate. I get the feeling we’re dealing with a cultural difference, here, Detective. Only Sicilians do that vendetta stuff in the U.S. We blacks prefer to rely on the rule of law. What you gonna do when you find who did it?”