Currency

by Zolbrod, Zoe

  A hand-in-the-cookie-jar chagrin spread through Robin, and one half of her mouth lifted in a smile. It’d been so long since she’d been with normal, true-blue Americans. Even if she was on the other side of the law, she knew she could talk to these men, explain, and they’d understand at least her words, her idioms, her inflections. They might lock her up, but they wouldn’t let her molder in a dungeon. Ray’s long blue legs stretched themselves out under the table.

  “Yeah, you got it. That’s how.” With their encouragement, she told about Piv, not mentioning his name or nationality-just, “I hooked up with some guy”—and she talked about how she didn’t want to leave Thailand once she met him, but had to in order to renew her visa. She told about how she lacked the means to buy tickets. She said that she had met men who offered to pay for her flight if she’d only carry a suitcase for them. Then she said that all she wanted now was to go home, and that the men had promised her a ticket there, and that’s why she kept carrying the bags, even though she suspected it was something very wrong. Her temples beat as her eyes filled up with tears. She thought that maybe she should let herself cry.

  Ray sighed. “We’ve seen it before. You kids go traipsing around the world and get yourselves in trouble. Eventually you have to come home,” he said.

  “That’s what my dad told me,” Robin answered, picturing a different sort of dad.

  She didn’t disclose anything about her overdrawn, overdue credit cards or her hungry desire for jewelry, and beauty, and pride, and Piv. She didn’t explain how if she’d been willing to let go of these things, she would have been safely home long before. But that was okay. They accepted the edited version; her motives weren’t important.

  “Maybe we’d like to, but we can’t just let you go, you know. First off, we’re only talking to you thanks to the courtesy of these guys here.” Robert nodded toward the Singaporean men who were standing near the door. “There are international laws against what you’re doing. I’ve spent years trying to get countries together on enforcing those laws. Otherwise, the world’d be stripped naked quicker than it’s already going.” Robert lowered his head to look her in the eye. Even in this sterilized, triple-sealed holding tank, he exuded an outdoorsy aura.

  She said that she understood the direness of the environmental situation. In a hurt voice, she claimed that she never would have carried those bags if she had known what was in them. She wished this with a depth of feeling that made it almost true, but Piv’s voice tugged at her: You think it’s something you buy in some store? “What’s going to happen to me?” she asked.

  “That depends.” Ray ran his fingers through his hair again, sweeping back the burnished lock that kept falling sheepishly over one eye. “One thing, you’re going to have to tell us the names of those men.”

  It was a relief, really. “The main guy’s Volcheck. He’s Russian. At least that’s what he said.” She felt lighter after she said his name; he was so clearly noxious. But the two men kept looking at her as if she hadn’t spoken. Ray cracked his knuckles. “And he had friends,” she added.

  “Who?”

  “Africans. From Kenya. Jomo. Yoke.” She paused, surprised at herself for hesitating. “Abu.” Oh, that was why she didn’t want to say it: Abu’s name was the garment covering Piv’s. One more word and she’d be pushing Piv stripped and stumbling into this white inquisition room. But she wouldn’t do that. She wouldn’t. And besides, he didn’t have anything to do with this. Not really. She blinked at the men. They blinked back, and for one horrible second she thought they were going to ask her to continue.

  “You know last names?”

  She exhaled. “No, they never told me.”

  Robert leaned into his fists. “Volcheck Smirnova, Abu Navaisha, Jomo Mwenguo. How does that sound?”

  Robin’s mouth dropped. She needed the earth to stop turning so that she could catch up.

  But the moments kept ticking. Two sets of men were watching her. Ray took her passport from his inside jacket pocket. Robin wanted to reach for it-the ticket to a place whose laws she understood—but she trapped her reaching hand again under her thigh.

  “How do you know who they are?” she asked in a whisper.

  Ray leafed through her passport, tilting back in his chair. Then he let the front two chair legs fall back to the floor with a klunk.

  “Robin, you look like a nice girl. You probably went to college, keep in touch with your parents. Just thought you’d see the world before settling down and getting to work, am I right? But what you’ve been doing is conspiring with international gangsters. Now, you wouldn’t do that at home, would you? Why do you think it’s okay to do it when you’re here?” He stopped talking and shook his big head in disappointment.

  Robert squinted at her, still tilting and ducking his head to see right into her eyes. “These guys are rough stuff. They’re running a million a year, maybe more, in animal products and this’s just a little sideline for most of them. A lot of our info we get from the FBI. Of course we know who they are. These guys are part of a ring responsible for killing off or displacing more species than any other single entity, and our job is to save those animals. We’ve got files on all of those bastards this big.” Robert made a C shape with his hand and held it in the air definitively.

  The wildlife agents knew a shocking amount. They were aware of the few things that Robin was cognizant of-the names of certain clients, of Mr. Rong, the conference coming up in Orlando—but their disclosure also filled gaps in her knowledge and revealed the lies she’d chosen to believe: Abu wasn’t even really Kenyan; he was a Tanzanian. Animals were often accepted as payment for drugs. Animals were used as a cover and stuffed with heroin. There had been a recent massacre on a Zimbabwean reserve, an inside job, with twenty rhinos gunned down over two days as if hundreds of thousands of dollars of fences and surveillance and guards didn’t even exist. Robert rubbed his eyes with his hand when he spoke of this, and the sight moved Robin. So she wasn’t ridiculous for taking animals personally, as Piv sometimes made her feel.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know.” Tears came into her eyes again. “But if you know everything, if it’s against the law, why don’t you stop them?”

  Robert stood up. He put his hands in his pockets; his trousers were so baggy it looked like there was room for several hands more.

  “You probably do think it’s that easy, don’t you?” He stopped walking and turned to her. “Besides, how would you have made your little pin money, then, huh?”

  Robin looked at her foot, at the two wormy purple veins bulging above the pinch of leather upper.

  “Robin,” Ray said, “I know you want to go home and get yourself on the right track. You don’t want to deal with any trials or fines or lawyers’ fees, and you don’t want to be looking at incarceration overseas. So listen, these guys have given the go-ahead—they’ll let you walk out of here today and eventually get yourself home free if you’re willing to work with us on getting details about the Orlando gig.”

  Trial. Fine. Fees. Incarceration. The words hit with the impact of an auto crash. Her skull jerked forward and back. “Of course. But I told you everything I know.”

  “We need to know more. And you have to make it your business to find out.”

  Robin fluttered her eyes and bobbled her head. She felt an oceanic sway: the fear and poignancy and dismay rolled out on a riptide, while a sense of unfeeling unreality rushed headlong in. She was being blackmailed into double agency. She had a sudden urge to laugh-it was that cinematically cliched and over the top, that impossible. But then that urge turned seaward, too, and she was bobbing in an exhaustion so deep that drowning seemed preferable to struggling against the current. She had never wanted to kill herself, but she wanted now not to be alive.

  Chapter 21

  One day after NokRobin leaves, Volcheck comes. He brings the new girlfriend, and they don’t stay at Star Hotel, no, but Abu and me still spend too much time with them. Abu
takes me to their lounge, Ploy Fun Lounge, not nice one. Inside, I see some electronic games, some blinking lights. Volcheck sees me and says, “What the fucking shit’s he doing here?”

  Abu says, “Easy man, Mr. Pivlaierd is here to help us.” He puts his hand on my shoulder.

  Volcheck makes noise with his nose like some water buffalo. He waves at me to say okay, I can sit down. I don’t like that Russian Vol, no way. But I act smooth. I smile, sit down, act like I want to. Like I should say thank you very much to Mr. Fucking Shit who lets me sit there.

  One African man, one Russian man who’s too ugly, one girl that doesn’t speak anything-what do they say to each other? Without Yoke, Jomo, more polite people, this meeting’s not for fun. It’s for business, sure. So I listen. Abu and Volcheck say half words, very quick. Sometimes, no one speaks. Four people, no one says anything. Vol chews on drink straw. Abu presses on calculator. He shows Vol those numbers, and Vol moves his big head, makes one sound. Not English, not Russian, no language, just animal sound, I think so. He pushes his hand on table and stands up. Abu stands, too.

  “We’ll just be a moment, my friend. Take care of the lady,” he tells me.

  I look at the girlfriend. “Hello,” I say. “Would you like anything?”

  “Hello fine thank you,” she says, but she doesn’t understand even one English word, I can hear that from the way she talks. She just learns to say these sounds; to her they have no meaning. She drinks all her Mekong Coke already, so I take one fresh ice cube from the bucket at our table and put it in her glass. I pour from small bottle of Mekong, then from small bottle of Coke. This lady’s big everywhere. Big on top, too big for her shirt. She’s not pretty, but I know ugly Vol only gets her because he pays. Even if they’re not pretty, no girl wants to be with him for free.

  Some minutes later, maybe twenty minutes, Abu and Vol come back. We go to restaurant where the food is as ugly as that Russian. Big meat in one piece. They give you knife, and you have to cut. This is one farang thing I don’t like. Vol points his fork to the ceiling. Big piece of meat on that. He eats from his fork. He talks while he chews. “Where the fuck they get this beef?”

  After eating I wish we would go to Star Hotel lounge, because then it’s no problem for me to say, Excuse me, I’m too tired, I must say good night now. But no. Unfortunate that not my fate. Abu says now we go see Kobjitti at Sweetie’s Basket. I don’t like to go to Sweetie’s Basket, and I really really don’t like to go there with the woman. I try to excuse me from this trip. I smile, rub my eyes, rub my stomach. “This big food makes me too sleepy,” I say. But Abu doesn’t let me, so we all get in one taxi, and I tell the driver where to go.

  When we’re there, I feel embarrass for everyone, everyone in that place. When Kobjitti comes to our table, I feel almost glad to see this dirty man, because maybe now we can leave to visit those turtles. Kobjitti stands and smiles, and Abu takes his hand and squeezes that one. He doesn’t shake; I know the difference, this is one squeeze. Abu’s hand looks black, not brown, in this disco light, and I see Kobjitti’s fingers crush together, bend, silly. His fingers don’t know what to do. Then Abu lets go. He leans and says something to Russian Vol. Music’s too loud, I don’t hear; I don’t know what he says. Kobjitti’s skin looks purple, the color of some flower on the day when there’s no bright sun. Disco lights flash, and his skin goes purple, yellow, purple, yellow. His skin does this and his white shirt.

  Vol says something to Kobjitti and points with his elbow to his Russian lady. She sits there. I don’t know what she sees. Her eyes turn purple, yellow—that’s all. Vol says something again, yelling this time, but it’s so loud that I still can’t understand his words. I only know he swears. Kobjitti wais. Vol’s words are heavy on him, but way he bends his head, holds his body, I know Abu is the one who makes him afraid.

  I get up to go to the toilet, and Abu says something like: where you go man, stay here. But I act like I don’t hear him speak. Inside the toilet, the wall is made from small black tiles. One farang man—blond hair, red color skin, red eyes-sits on the floor and leans his face against that tile. His mouth is loose. He doesn’t move from the time I come in there to the time I leave. I walk past him and walk out the door of Sweetie’s Basket. There’s so many lights on Soi Cowboy that it’s bright like daytime instead of night.

  I buy food from street vendor—egg yolk that they make sweet-and I lean on one wall to eat this. Sweetie’s Basket has only one shop front, but other clubs on this street take up two or three or four shop fronts. These big ones are the new ones, owned by Thai police or by German people. Bar girls are asking people to come inside their club and some Thai boys doing this, too. These boys all wear white shirts and black waistcoats. They speak English. They say, “Welcome inside please sir. Beautiful sexy girls for you.” Now maybe they speak only small amount, but if they’re smart, they’ll learn more. This job gives them opportunity. When I finish my egg, I go inside Sweetie’s Basket again. It’s not nice here-but opportunity, that’s why we come.

  Abu smiles very big, his teeth white-purple, that’s the only thing I see. He pushes Singha across the table to me, says that he orders my favorite when I go outside to breathe.

  “We go see turtles now?” I ask him.

  He laughs. He shows with his hand where the ladies dance on one shelf with big mirror behind them. “All this, and you want to see turtles?”

  I look at the shelf one time fast, but then, wow, I look again. I see Vol’s Russian lady! She’s not wearing any clothes-no tight shirt, nothing. Just her underpants. Her feet stand still, but her middle part moves. She’s not looking at anything. I sat with her already in Ploy Fun Lounge, when she has clothes on. I don’t want to see her like this.

  But, I don’t know why, I look again. I have seen many farang woman, sure. I make something with them, and they don’t wear clothes when I do that, of course. And on Ko Samet, Ko Phangan, many girls take off their shirt on the beach. They don’t wear the top part of their bathing suit, and even if I don’t want to, I have to see that. But I have never seen one as big on top as this Russian lady. I don’t like it. I like someone more small, with the Thai-style body. But I can’t stop looking.

  One song keeps playing too loud. I think I never heard this one before. At first, I cannot understand the words, but I try hard to listen. Slowly the words come clear. They sing, Do it funny lady. Then the guitar makes the same sound as those words: Do it funny lady. Again and again this repeats-the voice and then the guitar singing back-and I think of NokRobin. Way she talks, way she moves her face, way she laughs, that’s funny. She’s my funny lady-the words in the song are strong-but that doesn’t mean she stays with me. I listen hard to the music. Soon I can separate everything out: guitar part, bass part, drum, words. Maybe I can teach this to Fallow band. Outside Sweetie’s Basket, if Fallow plays this song, it will make good rock and roll.

  Do it funny lady: those words are in my head when Abu picks up my Singha bottle and bumps it down on the table. He puts his other hand and his mouth close to my ear. “How does that sound to you, Mr. Pivlaierd?” His voice so close it’s like one long stick poking hard into my brain.

  I look at him. That song’s finished. Disco song plays now, no more rock and roll. Abu turns from me and speaks to Vol, loud: “I give him what he’s been asking for, and he looks at me like it’s nothing.”

  Vol lifts his big shoulders and makes sound with his lip like one horse, then turns back to look at the shelf where the ladies dance.

  “What?” To talk here is like yelling. I smile. “What you give to me?”

  “You’re going to go to the Philippines, my friend. I have an errand there for you. Isn’t that what you wanted? Aren’t you the young man who wants to see the world?”

  Abu laughs and puts his hand on my shoulder and shakes it. It’s hard to hear in this place, hard to know for sure that it’s true, that Abu says it’s my turn now, my chance to go. I smile slow.

  “It’s my turn now?�
� I say.

  “It’s your turn to do some work, man. And I’ll schedule you a couple days of sight-seeing as well, to oblige your interest in foreign cultures.” Abu nods toward the Russian lady and laughs, even though she’s not the funny one. “Let’s talk more over a nightcap at our regular,” he says to me.

  Star Hotel lounge is quiet-at this time me and Abu are the only customers-but the Sweetie’s Basket noise is still in my ears, like some rock concert very far in the distance. Sometimes when I hear this distant noise, after seeing Fallow band, Buddy Guy, Ax Zone, I feel lonely because the fun thing is done, the music in the distance is only some ghost. But this night when I hear it, I think maybe I will get close and closer to that music. Soon I can attend it; soon I can hear it, all the different parts.

  Abu tells me the schedule. Tomorrow NokRobin comes back. He says I can have my lady friend for three nights if I want that. Then I fly to Philippines alone. She cannot come with me, because Abu thinks she might not be cool about my business there, which is to get many snakes and one small lizard, live ones, and carry those on the plane.

  “Sure,” I say. “Okay. While I’m in Philippines, it’s NokRobin’s turn to wait in Bangkok, like I do now.”

  “Ah, but perhaps we should consider whether it’s worth keeping her waiting. I’ve got others scheduled to meet me in the U.S. Why should we risk her, when she continues to fan her delicate sensibilities?”

  I know Abu is the reason NokRobin is still in my country, so I laugh very polite when he says he does not need the one it took me so long to find. I make my head low. I answer the first thing I think, very quiet: “We dream together.”