by Ben Ezzell
“I’m fine. What’s wrong?” Sarah’s voice was worried.
“Nothing’s wrong,” Alex’s voice assured her. “I just needed to talk to you.”
“Badly enough to call Thailand?”
“It’s not that big a deal – small world and all. I tried to call earlier, after we closed, but you were out. I woke up early, so I thought I’d try again. It isn’t too late there, is it?”
“Uh, a little after nine. In the evening,” she added. “The Greens is okay?”
“Everything’s fine. We’re going to close for remodeling of course. They’re going to start today, as a matter of fact. That’s why I had to get up early. I should have called you earlier – yesterday, I mean – but I guess the time difference confused me. Sorry.”
“Why are you calling,” Sarah’s attitude was cool.
“Just that there are some things I need to send you. Some papers you should see. Look if you’re still angry with me …”
“What do you expect?” she snapped, then, “Look, I’m sorry … I …”
“Maybe you could give me an address,” Alex suggested, sounding more tired than patient. “Then I can send these over to you and …”
“All right,” she agreed. “You can send whatever you want to.” She picked a card up from the desk to read the address, then added, “Look, I’m sorry but I just don’t feel like talking anymore. Whatever it is, I’ll look at it when it gets here. Goodbye.” She broke the connection.
Baan Orchid, 10:15 PM
“Problems?” Terry asked politely as Sarah rejoined the group.
“No, nothing really,” Sarah reported. “He just thought he’d try to reach me about some business. No important,” she forced a smile. “Amazing how clear the phone line is. All the way from the States, I mean.”
“Satellite linked,” Terry smiled. “If it weren’t for the slight delay bouncing the signal up to one satellite, transferring it to another and the back to the ground, a satellite link conversation sounds just as clear as if they were next door.”
“I didn’t notice,” Sarah shook her head. “I guess it doesn’t matter. Alex just wanted to know where to send some papers. I gave him the address here.”
“What did you do with your things, dear?” Joan put an arm around the younger woman. “Do you still have the apartment?”
“I put the condo up for sale,” Sarah shook her head. “Furnished. It was all Mother’s stuff anyway. I never had… After Uncle Gary was killed and then… When Alex and I had the fight, I just wanted to get away. I took a few personal items and I … I asked Alex to have a storage company pack up the clothes and stuff and put them in storage. There wasn’t much I wanted anyway.”
“You know, I have a friend here in Chiang Mai,” Terry suggested. “Erlich Reichman. He has a restaurant serving Thai-Swiss cuisine. Gets a lot of the tourist trade – a lot are German tourists wishing a change from Thai – and a lot of local business as well. Funny thing is, everyone orders from the Swiss side of the menu – which irritates Erlich, of course. But maybe you should open an American restaurant. Lots of tourists from the States.”
“Hamburgers, pork chops and fried chicken?” Sarah considered, then shook her head. “No, I don’t think so. But thanks for the thought.”
Loi Khraw Road near Old City, Chiang Mai, 10:40 PM
“You want good time girl?” the samlor driver asked his passenger.
“No, just home,” the passenger slurred his words.
“Ah, you want muscle, mai?” the samlor driver raised one arm to illustrate, patting his bicep with his free hand.
“No, like girls,” the passenger protested. “Yeah, let’s find some girls. Right.”
DragonTree.com Contents
Chapter Eight:
Chapter Eight:
Baan Orchid, Chiang Mai, Tuesday, February 6th, 3:56 AM
“Kun Saanpa? Kun Saanpa? Saawadee krahp?” Khun rattled the gate, peering through the darkness beyond.
There were lights on – a porch light on both houses but there was also a light visible from further back, from the rear of one house. Khun called again, not too loudly, but this time his call was rewarded by a shadow approaching from the rear.
“Who’s there, kahp?” A flashlight came on, waving uncertainly toward the gate.
“Phom cheu Khun Rutnin, krahp,” Khun introduced himself.
“Kry, kahp?” – ‘Who?’
“I am gardener so you can go Surat Thani, krahp,” Khun amplified, trying to remember what name Baw had used when setting up the deal. “You must catch bus, krahp,” Khun directed.
“Not expect you so early, kahp,” Saanpa fumbled with the keys, finally dropping the key ring.
Khun retrieved the ring which had fallen through the gate, then opened the padlock. “Come on,” he instructed, gathering his bag with one hand and taking Saanpa’s arm with the other. “I’ll help you get ready and you can show me around. Don’t want you to miss the bus, krahp.”
4:25 AM
Very nice place, Khun decided, locking the gate. Maybe he would make a duplicate key. Then he could come back some other time … sometime after this job was finished. But, for now, he reminded himself, he was gardener. Yes, Khun nodded, he would be very good gardener for present.
But, first, he must write letter. Khun patted the letter Saanpa had written. Yes, this letter was good model but wrong explanation. Mai pen rhy, Khun would write better explanation.
4:40 AM
The moon, a thin late-rising sliver coming through the east windows showed Bren sleeping soundly, sprawled across the double bed like a doll carelessly abandoned by a child.
Jeffery stood looking at his somnambulant lover, holding the bathrobe closed against the predawn chill. He was still such a pretty boy, Jeffery thought, resisting the urge to awaken him with a gentle stroke. But that was what had happened yesterday morning.
No, this time, Jeffery decided, let him sleep. Besides, neither of them were that young any more and a few hours sleep simply weren’t enough to recharge the vital energies.
Had they ever really been that young?
They had, of course, but it had been an awfully long time ago. He remembered when he’d first met Bren.
Bren had been so handsome, muscular but also gentle. He hadn’t been Jeffery’s first lover, true, but there’d been something special about him – something about the way he smiled? Or had it been …
Well, that wasn’t important. What was important was that they’d been together for twenty-odd years. That they’d built a business together – businesses really – and that they’d worked hard.
But there wasn’t any rush, was there? For now, the important thing was to rest and recuperate. Just him and Bren, he looked at the sleeping figure again. No point in disturbing him – let him sleep.
Maybe, Jeffery considered, he could find some fruit or something if he raided the kitchen. A little snack and then he’d go back to bed.
Jeffery crossed to the window facing the other house.
There, down in the garden, two figures and a flashlight. Now they were opening the gate. And one of the figures was putting something in the back of a pickup and climbing in on the left side. That was the passenger side, Jeffery reminded himself. Here they drive on the left, not on the right. Like England, yeah.
The pickup, finally showing lights, drove off on the left side of the road.
As the pickup departed, Jeffery could see the remaining figure doing something with the gate. Locking it again, the watcher decided. A bucolic nighttime scene, Jeffery thought.
It was life with Bren that hadn’t been bucolic. Not that bucolic was important, just that what they hadn’t done in twenty years – not until now – was take a vacation. Or a honeymoon, for that matter. Not that they were married exactly – not legally – but they thought of themselves that way.
Of course, there had been the commitment ceremony. That had been just after they’d opened their third Chez Watz, when they’d invited half
of Seattle – half of the gay half anyway – as witnesses, catering the event at Chez Watz #1. Briefly Jeffery had never thought he could be happier.
Except that – the next day – it had been Bren who had been called to #2 to handle a row between their head chef and their manager and it had been a week before they’d been together again. And it seemed like the next decade and a half had been just more of the same – always one of them off somewhere training a new staff, settling a dispute or looking for a new location. Often it had been both of them – Bren off troubleshooting at one location and Jeffery at another. Sometimes, their Seattle condo had seemed more like a way station than a home.
Down below, the figure was using the flashlight to examine both yards, the second gate, the van … and finally disappearing around the rear.
Invisible in the darkness inside, Jeffery leaned against the iron grillwork and continued watching.
A few minutes later, the figure reappeared, still using the flashlight to illuminate his steps, crossing back to the main house and going inside, where the light was visible in the servant’s quarters.
For once, it wasn’t his concern. Jeffery took a deep breath, consciously relaxing. For once, they were on vacation.
They’d tried taking vacations before but, when they had thought about a vacation – like the two weeks in Cancun which had been cut to two days by a waiters’ strike – something had always interfered.
That was one of the big reasons for selling the chain – it was just too much strain. Neither was getting any younger and they needed a little time to themselves.
But they’d finally done it. The contracts were final – Chez Watz was someone else’s headache now. All twelve of them.
And he and Bren could – if they wanted – retire on the profits.
Except, Jeffery sighed to himself, neither one of them was cutout for retirement.
No, they’d take a long overdue vacation – they were taking a long overdue vacation – and then they’d go back to planning their new restaurant. But, this time, just one – just one where they could find a good assistant manager and assistant chef; where, once in a while, they could take some time to themselves.
After several minutes more, deciding that the figure was settled, Jeffery went quietly down the stairs and out through the front door, pausing to step into a pair of shoes. Following Thai custom, shoes were not worn inside and the guests at Baan Orchid had quickly learned to leave their shoes on the porch as they entered, retrieving them again as they went out.
The moon was enough that he didn’t need a flashlight as he crossed to the other house.
Outside the lit screen door, Jeffery paused for a moment, watching.
Inside, a young Thai – presumably the figure Jeffery had been watching – seemed to be busy working on something. He had a letter spread out on the table and was carefully writing on a pad of paper.
Unwilling to break the man’s obvious concentration, Jeffery didn’t interrupt. But, he thought for a moment, the young Thai was cute … and he’d heard stories … But, no … this was neither the time nor the place.
Feeling his way inside the darkened kitchen – a little light seeped through the door from the adjoining room – Jeffery found a generous hand of small bananas suspended from a hook and cord descending from the ceiling.
Pulling two of the small fruits from the clump, Jeffery returned to the other yard, finding a comfortable spot on the front porch to sit while he consumed his booty.
All around him, the night sounds were so different from home – no traffic, no radios, no TVs. He leaned against the post relaxing. Even the smells were different – fragrant – fresh and cool.
Suddenly, the night silence was broken by a loudly stuttered ‘gek-gek-Gek-GEEK-KKOOO’, bringing Jeffery jerking to his feet.
The strange guttural call was repeated twice more, seemingly originating somewhere over the wall separating the compound from the neighboring house.
Jeffery watched for several minutes but no lights appeared; there were no sounds of disturbance, no footfalls … the only light visible was the single room in the servant’s quarters at the other house.
Finally, Jeffery shook his head to dismiss the mysterious event and went back upstairs to bed.
6:15 AM
“Kun Mam, mai krahp? Phom cheu Khun Rutnin, krahp.” Khun wai’d respectfully, then offered the neatly folded letter. “I am second cousin of Saanpa, krahp. I am sent tell him come home most urgent and take place as gardener while Saanpa gone, krahp.”
“Someone not well, ka?” Mam guessed, accepting the paper.
“Grandmother of Saanpa very ill, krahp,” Khun told her. “Saanpa go see her most urgently, krahp.”
“Then he go Mae Chaem, mai ka?”
“Grandmother in Mae Sai,” Khun corrected, choosing a city in the same direction but located further north. While helping Saanpa pack, Khun had asked about Saanpa’s family, learning that they had come from the north, near the Myanmar (Burma) border. Mae Sai was very close to the border. “He will send word, krahp,” Khun assured Mam. “While he gone, I do Saanpa’s job, mai krahp?”
“Very well,” Mam decided, scanning the letter. “To begin, you can help Plah with breakfast, ka.”
8:35 AM
“Well, everybody awake?” Nolan looked around the table, running a mental head count. “Uh, except for Greg? Has anyone seen him? Or is he sleeping it off?”
The only response was headshakes.
“Sleeping it off then, I suppose,” Nolan reached for a wedge of lime to squeeze over his papaya. “Well, if everyone’s agreeable, we can go to the market this morning. Then, this evening, I’m planning a simple dinner – traditional Thai dishes. Since our cook is no different than cooks everywhere…” he paused for a moment, receiving nods and smiles from the restaurateurs around the table, “…we’ll use the second kitchen. And, of course, I’ll invite Plah to join us for dinner. As a judge so to speak.”
“What are you planning?” Sarah inquired.
“We’ll start with tom yum goong – a spicy soup using shrimp, lemon grass and mushrooms – and follow this with meing kam – the traditional seven flavor salad. For an entrée, ped yang – crispy duck – with pad thai noodles. Last, for dessert, I propose mangos with sticky rice. The pad thai – Bren, Jeffery – is Burmese but also one of several noodle dishes which you’ll find worth noting.
“By the way, since you missed dessert last night…” While Nolan was describing lodi – a pastry stretched from a lump of dough like a pizza crust, cooked on a grill, then doused with condensed milk and sugar and served from street corner carts as quickly as it could be prepared – Khun was quietly raking the lawn, remaining within easy ear-shot of the lanai.
Khun was not a mystery fan – not that mystery novels, in the western sense, were a popular staple in the east. If anything, Khun was a spy thriller buff, very much enjoying such Hollywood exports as Die Hard and such Tokyo exports as the indefatigable Jackie Chan.
However, had Khun been familiar with the mystery genre – and also, perhaps, of a more introspective nature – he might have considered the similarity between his position and that of an English servant. And he might have thought – perhaps with some small measure of satisfaction – about how English mystery novelists have so often had their detectives note how little attention is paid to the servants and, therefore, how much servants are able to overhear while remaining effectively unnoticed.
Alternately, in America – and in more modern mysteries – where servants are rare at best, a similar role is sometimes filled by waiters in restaurants; unnoticed but ubiquitous presences. Rather obviously, however, since for an assembly of chefs and restaurateurs, the presence or absence of a waiter would not pass unnoticed, the comparison – in present company – might well have been inappropriate.
Of course, hand that same person a leaf rake or a broom, change their attire and place them on the grass and they instantly acquire the same characteristic: present bu
t unnoticed, functionally invisible.
Still, because Khun was neither as cosmopolitan as he might have believed nor was he particularly introspective, these theoretical comparisons simply did not occur to him. Instead, on an almost instinctive level, Khun realized the effect without considering the cause.
Not, of course, that Nolan nor any of the others assembled thought of themselves as having anything to hide.
In any case, after hearing the menu for the evening described, Khun smiled to himself and, pausing raking for a moment, cast a glance toward a clump of shrubbery behind the second house. Their preparations had been reasonable enough – only the timing and opportunity had been unknown – but now both were being presented. Perhaps he would not be a gardener for very long at all.
9:45 AM
“Kun Greg not here,” Mam reported. “His bed empty. Tahm say Kun Greg not come in last night.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Terry supported his wife. “Might have found someone interesting and gone home with them. You said you’d left him in a bar, right?”
“Yes,” Nolan agreed, smiling wryly. “And you’re probably right. However I seem to remember leaving you in a bar one evening so I could catch my flight back to the States. Then, a month later, I was back here trying to get you out of a Burmese jail.”
“Out of jail?” Bob looked up suddenly from the camera he was tinkering with. “Burma?”
“It was a long time ago,” Terry tried to dismiss the subject, his voice losing volume abruptly.
“Couldn’t have been that long,” Rosalyn observed. “Neither of you are old enough for it to have been long. So, what were you in jail for? Smuggling? Surely not that,” she decided.
As Terry mumbled something inaudible, Mam smiled and linked her arm though his. “You tell, Kun Nolan,” she insisted, smiling. “You get Terry out, you tell.”
“Second the motion,” Jeffery stepped in. “Sounds like something interesting.”
“Absolutely,” Bren agreed. “What happened?”
The remaining ladies present said nothing but their attention was unmistakable.