Rawson was not in the lobby, but one of the CSIS or Canadian-embassy types still was. He looked about 30 years old; on a first overseas posting, probably, and determined not to mess up today’s assignment. He came over when Delaney came out of the elevator carrying a sports bag and his laptop.
“You off?” he said. He sported trendy tiny rectangular glasses and precision sideburns. “I’m Ted Green. I’m based here.” He offered his hand. Delaney shook it.
“I’m going out to the airport,” he said.
“Your driver’s outside,” Green said.
“And my tail.”
“Yes. White Land Cruiser. Two guys inside.” Green looked very pleased with himself.
“Thanks for that, Ted.”
Delaney wanted no company whatsoever at the airport—Thai, Burmese or Canadian. He told his driver to take him to the Regent at Siam Square, the Oriental’s arch rival for the title of best hotel in the city. The driver looked surprised.
“No airport?” he said, lowering his sunglasses to look at Delaney over the back of the seat. “No. I’m going to the Regent.”
The driver pulled out and the Land Cruiser pulled out with them, making very little pretence now of not following. It stayed back five or six car lengths. Their little convoy moved out of the parking lot, down the curved side street at the back of the hotel and into the morass of Bangkok morning traffic.
When his driver pulled up at the Regent, Delaney got out quickly and said: “I’ll be about an hour, maybe two. Meetings.” The driver still looked dubious. He pulled his silver Peugeot into the shade of the hotel’s entrance archway. The Land Cruiser sat in the intense sunlight across the street.
Delaney went directly through the lobby, around the main ground floor restaurant, past some function rooms and out onto the back terrace. He hurried past sunbathers sipping morning cocktails at the pool, past the pool attendant and the gardeners and the lawn sprinklers to the employee parking lot hidden behind a high row of hedges far out at the back. A security man at a gated break in the hedge looked startled when Delaney asked to be let through.
“Staff parking here, sir,” he said. “Do you need a car, sir?”
“No, I want to go through this way. I’m getting the Sky Train.”
Bangkok’s elevated light rail train had been installed a few years earlier and had failed to make much of a dent in the city’s world-renowned traffic problem. But it was fast and efficient and cheap and it transported thousands of workers each day who would otherwise have driven to their jobs in the city at hotels, offices and construction sites.
“I think car is better for you, sir. Taxi is better. I will get you a taxi,” the security man said.
“No, thank you very much. I will go out this way and get the Sky Train.”
Delaney moved through the gate. He could see the security man was weighing up whether it was worth offending a hotel guest or best to let this eccentric Westerner get lost on local mass transit and lose his wallet to pickpockets. He opted for the latter.
“Please watch your belongings on the train, sir,” he said.
Delaney hurried through the parking lot and out onto a narrow back street. He turned left toward a main street and then hurried up the steep steps to the elevated station platform. There was a long queue for tickets so he simply walked straight on through the barrier area and onto a waiting train. The gate attendant did not even bother to ask the sole Westerner if he was carrying a ticket.
The train headed west to the National Stadium. Delaney got out there and moved quickly down to the street. Lines of Toyota taxis waited there and he climbed into one. “Airport,” he said.
Delaney had not actually waited in a crowd at an airport arrivals gate to greet anyone for a very long time. He allowed himself to enjoy this slightly domestic experience, along with all the families and drivers waiting with him. He found himself, like many in the midmorning crowd, craning his neck eagerly to see who was emerging next with laden baggage trolleys, to see who would be greeted with hugs and smiles and cries of delight.
Kate looked concerned as she came out, pushing a trolley with one small bag on it. Her hair was tied back and she wore a denim jacket, white T-shirt and a brown-and-white floral print skirt. An undercover Mountie, far undercover.
She scanned the heaving crowd, looking anxiously, as do all arriving passengers in a strange city, for the familiar face that would instantly humanize and soften the first moments. When she saw Delaney waving from far at the back, her broad smile locked onto his broad smile and the magnetic pull drew them swiftly together, parting the throng.
They kissed and embraced unself-consciously, like student lovers.
Delaney had reserved a room at the Amari airport hotel. It was just a short indoor walk away, no cab ride required, nothing to alarm or annoy them, nothing to delay their coming together.
As Kate showered, Delaney sat enjoying the upmarket order of their room, the absolute anonymity and comfort of a good business hotel. The intense quiet, the immaculate carpet and linen, the basket of fruit, the silver ice bucket, the booklets and menus and guides carefully laid out on tables and desk. The promise of peace and safety and ease.
Kate looked terrific in an oversized, over-luxurious white hotel bathrobe.
“Welcome to Asia,” Delaney said.
“I think this is going to be all right,” she said, towelling her hair with a huge white towel.
“No one in the world knows where we are,” he said.
“That is a lovely, lovely feeling,” she said. “How long can we stay here?” “As long as we like,” he said.
Kate draped her towel on a chair. The robe, too, she draped on the chair. Her skin glowed from the steaming hot water of the shower. Her face glowed. He couldn’t take his eyes off her.
“Is this too much like a scene in a movie, Francis?” she said.
“This is the part I like the best,” he said.
“She stands naked. They fall hungrily into each other’s arms, do not emerge from the hotel room for hours, days even. They survive on ferocious, passionate, perfect sex and occasional room service meals.”
“Exactly,” he said.
It was, in fact, almost exactly like that.They began to think about emerging from their room only late the next afternoon. They did not act quickly on the idea. Kate lay in the bed with her right ear to Delaney’s chest and her left arm around his hips as he tried to read the Bangkok Post.
“Did you think they were going to kill you, Frank?”
He put the newspaper down.
“I thought I might end up dead. But I didn’t think they would purposely kill me.”
“And your friend, Nathan Kellner?”
“They never told me what he died of and I didn’t ask. He looked like he had taken a few beatings.”
“You saw his body?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In a morgue in Rangoon.They took me there to show me.”
“Did it scare you?”
“Yes, it did.”
“Oh, Frank.”
“Everything’s OK now. Everything’s fine. A few loose ends to tie up, then we can have a little holiday and go back to Montreal.” “Should you be scared still?”
“No, not really. Careful, yes. Scared, probably no reason anymore.”
“Even after you write your story?”
“Even after that,” he said.
He had told her most of it and, like anyone, she could not fathom the craziness of it, the craziness of Kellner’s obsession with Suu Kyi, the lengths to which he was apparently willing to go in order to indulge that obsession.
Kellner’s other lady, his daylight woman, would have to try to fathom that obsession. Mai was one of the loose ends that still needed to be tied up. Delaney needed to go to her, to tell her the story, to try to help her underst
and what had happened to the man whose life she thought she was sharing.
Delaney had decided even before Kate arrived that she should come with him to see Mai—because he had no secrets from her anymore, except for his involvement with CSIS, and because the presence of another woman would help.
His mobile phone had rung occasionally as they hid out in their airport hotel room. Rawson had given the phone to Delaney when he arrived back in Bangkok. His own phone had been lost somewhere along the way to northern Thailand. It could only be Rawson calling, so he ignored the calls until he and Kate were ready again to join the real world.
When Delaney did check, he found that Rawson had left a number of voicemail messages, all essentially saying the same thing. Delaney was a fool to drop out of sight like that and forego close protection. Delaney should come back to the Oriental at once. Delaney should finish up his business with the Thai authorities and get himself and Kate back to Montreal as soon as possible. Delaney should write no stories about this whole affair. Delaney should call Rawson immediately.
They reluctantly checked out of the hotel and took a slow city train from the airport to downtown. Delaney could see no sign of anyone following them and no one would expect them to use the local train, which took about an hour for the run from Don Muang, across the highway from Terminal 1, to Hualamphong Station in the city centre. From the train station to Kellner’s apartment, Mai’s apartment, was a short taxi ride. It was at the apartment that Delaney knew they would have to begin to be very careful.
He had the taxi driver let them off on Thanon Sathon Boulevard at the U.S. Information Agency, far up the long adjacent soi from Kellner’s building. They walked cautiously down the soi, Delaney looking ahead and behind for any cars, for anyone following on foot. He saw nothing. No one was parked outside the courtyard of Kellner’s building either, when they eventually came up on foot.
The watchman was in his usual place, reclining on the wooden bed frame, reading a Thai newspaper. He jumped up when he saw Delaney and the Western woman approach. He looked nervous. He offered no wai.
“We’ve come to see Khun Nathan’s lady,” Delaney said.
“She is inside,” the watchman said.
“Is she alone?” Delaney asked.
“Yes.”
“Has she had many visitors?”
“Yes, many.”
“Western or Thai?”
“Both. Farang and Thai.”
“When? The latest ones.”
“This morning.”
“Who? Farangs.”
“Yes. In a big car.”
“A tall man, very short grey hair, nice dress-up clothes? Canadian?” “Yes, this morning.”
Delaney knew they were taking a chance coming to Mai. Rawson had already been by, but the real problem would be the others. He began to wish they had arranged for Mai to meet them somewhere else. He looked over at Kate. She did not seem frightened.
“Anyone in a white Land Cruiser with dark windows?” Delaney asked.
The watchman shook his head. Kate looked back at the entrance to the courtyard. Policewoman now. “Do you have a cell phone?” Delaney asked.
“Yes,” the watchman said.
Delaney wrote down the number of the telephone Rawson had given him.
“Here, take this. If someone comes, please call me fast on this number, OK? We will be inside Mai’s house. Let us know who is coming, all right?” He gave the man a U.S. 20-dollar bill along with the piece of paper with the number. “Very important.”
The watchman looked at the paper with the number on it and looked at the money.
“Khun Nathan is dead, correct?” the watchman said. “Mai has been very sad.”
“Yes, he’s dead,” Delaney said.
“You know who did this?”
“I think so.”
“I know that you tried to find him first.”
“I did nothing. It was too late,” Delaney said.
The watchman shook Delaney’s hand. “I will call you if someone comes,” he said.
“Even if it’s police,” Delaney said.
“Even police.”
Mai was where she always was, on the big lounge with her cats, watching satellite TV in the dim light. She cried great streams of tears while Delaney held her, the two of them standing together in the middle of the living room, cats darting to and fro at their feet. She wet the shoulder of his shirt with her tears.
Kate and Mai were instantly close, as women can be in such situations. Kate had probably also had her share of such encounters with grieving loved ones, post-criminal acts. She watched quietly as Mai cried and hugged Delaney and then she went over to hug Mai herself. Kate’s shoulder was wet then too.
Kate also watched quietly later as Delaney told Mai most of what he knew. He did not tell her about the morgue.
Eventually, the three of them sat on the balcony with glasses of iced tea.
Mai said: “He went to Burma only because of the lady, didn’t he, Frank.”
“To make some money first, then because of the lady,” Delaney said.
“He was going to be a hero,” Mai said.
“I’m not sure about that, Mai,” Delaney said.
“He wanted to be a hero for her,” she said again. Kate said: “I think he probably wanted to be a hero for you too, Mai.”
“It wasn’t my story. It was her story he wanted to be a part of.”
“You were in his story too,” Delaney said. “For a long time.”
“Now you have to write this story, Frank,” she said.
“I intend to.” He looked over at Kate.
“You have to make sure people understand why he wanted to do this thing, Frank,” Mai said. “He was, what have you said, obsessed by her but only because he wanted to do something good, to help her and to help Burma. And then he got killed because of that. That’s what you will say in the story, isn’t it Frank?”
“Something quite like that, I think, Mai. It is a very unusual story and hard to tell right. Not the usual hero story.”
“If someone dies trying to do something for someone else, that is a hero, isn’t it, Frank?”
“Yes.”
“That’s a story, isn’t it? People should know about that, shouldn’t they?”
“Yes.”
They stayed with Mai that night. She made them a small meal and then they drank some icy Thai beer on the darkened balcony in a humid breeze.
Like Mrs. Yong, Kate wanted to know when the body would be returned from afar.
“I don’t know if they will ever return it to Thailand, Mai. I’m sorry.They haven’t even said officially that he’s dead.”
She looked stricken. Her attitude was not quite like Mrs. Yong’s on these matters.
“I want to see him one last time, Frank,” she said.
“You may not be given the chance to do that, Mai,” Delaney said. He looked over at Kate. Ever so slightly, she shook her head. Enough.
Kate said she wanted to have a look at Nathan’s bulletin board and desk and went inside, apparently playing policewoman for a time. Frank and Mai sat quietly for a while. Mai smoked marijuana from a small brass pipe. They watched the smoke curl up into the night air.
Eventually, Mai said dreamily: “Kate loves you, Frank.” She touched him on his leg. “You are lucky.”
For some reason, Mai’s words sent an alarm through him. He pondered the implications.
“Nathan loved you too,” Delaney said eventually.
“He would not have stayed with you for so long if he didn’t.”
“No, farang men don’t do that here, do they?” she said.
“They don’t, Mai. Here or anywhere. Farangs or not.”
“Kate will stay with you for a long time,” she said. “If you want her to.”
Delaney pondered the implications.
“Take good care of her,” Mai said. “Don’t let her go away.”
In the guest bedroom that night, with their door closed only halfway to catch the breeze from the balcony, they heard Mai moving here and there in the silent apartment as she got ready to sleep. They heard the cats wrestling and tumbling with each other, racing each other across the waxed tiles.
Kate lay with her right ear on Delaney’s chest. “Mai loved him very much,” she said.
“Yes,” he said.
“But he was obsessed with someone else.”
“It happens like that sometimes,” he said quietly.
They lay in silence for a moment.
“Do you think you can love me, Frank?” she asked.
“I think I can, yes,” Delaney said.
“Just me?”
“I think I can.”
“I don’t need you to be obsessed by me. Just for you not to be obsessed by anyone else. Is that fair?”
“It’s fair.”
“Would Natalia have thought that was fair?” He waited for a long time before answering that one. He felt an eyelid blinking on his chest, someone’s breath on his skin. It reminded him of something, of a quiet and close and gentle time with another woman a long time ago. He couldn’t quite remember anymore exactly when or where that was. That was a good thing.
“If Natalia could see us tonight, I think she would have advised us to fall in love,” Delaney said. Emotions gripped him; some happy, some not.
“A wise woman,” Kate said.
“Yes.”
They all slept very late. It was only the ringing of Delaney’s mobile phone that woke them. He lay listening to it ring many times before remembering that it could signal trouble outside, serious trouble. He jumped up and answered, expecting it to be the watchman sounding an alarm. It was Rawson, with a lecture.
“Francis, for Christ’s sake, where are you? You can’t pull stunts like this on us, OK? We moved heaven and earth to get you out of that scrape in Rangoon and now you’re traipsing around Bangkok like nothing at all has happened. This thing is not over yet. I’ve had the Thai police and the embassy people on my case for two long days. You’re not being fair to any of us and not fair to Kate. You don’t know who’s going to make the next move. None of us do. So you better come back in where we can watch you and get you the hell out of here back to Canada. What are you up to anyway, for Christ’s sake?”
The Burma Effect Page 27