by John Burdett
"What?"
"Never mind. I'll explain when you've got a week to spare."
"I want to know. If you didn't lend him the money, there's no way he could go through with it, right? There's no one else in the world going to put up that kind of dough for him."
I sigh. "Kimberley, if I didn't lend him the dough for a first-class operation, he'd go downmarket. Can you imagine what that means in Bangkok?"
"Sonchai, I just don't understand you. That's one of the most beautiful male specimens I've ever seen." I have a disgusting feeling that the tough hide of the FBI is being corrupted by the worm of do-goodery. "You're such a compassionate man. How can you do this? He'll never be happy."
"Hang on." With all the optimism in the world, it is difficult to believe I am going to survive the oncoming cement truck. Well, I did. "Without a dick? I don't know about that-you seem to manage. The male member doesn't bestow any privileges anymore. A lot of us owners wonder if it's not more nuisance than it's worth."
"Stop trying to be funny. This is serious. We're talking about a young person's future here."
Irritated because I have to get off the bike before my destination in order to carry on talking, I say, "Wait a moment. I'm going to tell you something." I have the driver stop at a cooked-food stall so I can grab a 7UP and sit down to drink it. "It's like this." Handing a reality sandwich to the FBI is not going to be easy, but there seems to be no alternative. "When Lek was five years old, he had an accident. He was jumping onto the hind legs of a buffalo to spring onto the animal's back the way they do in the country, when the animal jerked his legs and sent him flying. He was lucky not to land on the horns and be gored to death, but when he hit the earth, he split his head open on a rock. They had no medical facilities, nothing at all. They assumed he was going to die. He looked dead already. Are you listening?"
"Yes."
"So they called the shaman, who built a charcoal fire near the kid's head and blew smoke over the boy to assist the shaman's seeing. The parents were called. The shaman told them their son was as good as dead. There was one hope and one hope only: they had to offer their child to a spirit who would fill his body and bring him back to life. But after that the child would belong to the spirit, not to the parents."
"Huh?"
"There was only one downside. The spirit was female. Strictly speaking, Lek is not entirely human — he's a female spirit who inhabits a male body."
I take a sip of the 7UP and wait for her response, which doesn't come. I don't think she has hung up, though, because after a while the line starts bleeping until I close my phone. When, a few minutes later, it gives the double-bleep that indicates a message has been received, I open it again with great curiosity. The message is not from the FBI, however.
Did you know that since the NATO invasion of Afghanistan poppy production in that country has increased more than 500 %? Cost of raw sap has halved. My contacts can take the stuff as far as Laos. It would be up to us from there. What do you say? Yammy.
In the reply window I tap out two letters, no, and zing it off.
18
I sit upstairs in Starbucks on a sofa with a good view of the street, waiting for Nok. I am only vaguely aware of other patrons; I'm pretty much glued to the window. I know what she thinks our meeting is all about, and I'm feeling guilty to be deceiving her, but at the moment she might be the only real lead I have. I'm also feeling disloyal to Vikorn, who would obviously prefer that I don't investigate the Damrong video too carefully. Amazing how easy it is to divide one's own mind. There's a fanatic in me who will not rest until I've got to the bottom of that snuff movie; he lives in the same house as the other guy, who would be happy to go along with Vikorn's game plan and live happily ever after with his pregnant wife. The fanatic is winning.
Now I see her and know exactly what she expects by the way she is dressed. In tight jeans and T-shirt, she could not be further from the eighteenth-century mamasan of last night. She has assumed that because I've chosen the Nana area, with its profusion of cheap short-time hotels, we'll go straight into sex: no need for her to dress up. There's a bounce in her step: anticipation of making a little on the side in what will probably be a pleasurable encounter that may lead to something more enduring: maybe I'll even make her my mia noi, or minor wife; give her a salary and a room to live in. Also, since I seem to have decided to betray my wife after all, I must have found her irresistible: pride and dominance in her quick smile at me when she arrives.
"Did you know we were raided last night, just after you left?"
I shake my head. "Really? Did they find anything?"
"No drugs, but they took away the computer with the member list. The boss has been on the phone all day talking to members who are scared the press will get hold of the list. Someone called Colonel Vikorn is taking money. Fuck cops."
"Right," I say, giving up on the idea of coming clean. "Well, it's not your problem."
She smiles. "Not right now anyway." She waits expectantly. When I do not begin bargaining regarding the price of her services, she examines my face more closely. Maybe I'm one of those confused men who got into a marriage he's not enjoying but is not sure if a mistress is really what he wants? I have not prepared properly for this interview, and I'm conscious of exceeding my authority. I feel more like a bandit than a cop when I take out my wallet and start to lay out some thousand-baht notes on the coffee table. There's a flash of anger at my indiscretion which diminishes as I continue putting the money on the table. She has counted ten thousand baht and now checks my eyes. No one except a farang would offer that kind of money for a midday romp: Okay, I'm special, but I'm not that special. I roll the money up into a tight ball.
"Let's say I'm an investigator," I say. "I work with banks."
Her shift into the new reality is pretty well immediate. "You're trying to protect the members? That's why you were there last night and didn't want to do it? The bankers are paying you?"
"No. Someone else is paying me."
I make a face that she construes as affirmation of her suspicion. Her features have hardened, and there is a new clarity in her gaze. "I'll want more than that."
"I'll double it."
"More."
"No."
"Then I'm not talking."
I puff out my cheeks. Twenty thousand baht would probably be what she averages per month. Most girls would grab it-unless they were frightened.
"Look," I say, "how do I know you have the information I'm looking for?"
"I can guess. If you're not working for the bankers, then you're into some kind of blackmail scam. I don't want to get involved, but I need the money. I'll talk for fifty thousand."
There's finality in the tone. "Okay. I'll have to go to an ATM."
"We'll go together, then we'll go to a short-time hotel. That way everyone who sees us will think you're hiring my body." She pauses to look around the cafe. Three middle-aged white men are sitting with girls they probably picked up in this area the night before. The others are mostly farang men and a few farang women taking a break from the third world and reading newspapers and magazines over a caffe latte or machiatto. We go to the nearest ATM, where a couple of young farang men with eyebrow hatpins watch with amusement while I take out a wad of notes with my whore standing beside me.
She knows the Nana hotels better than I do because she worked some bars here before she went upmarket to the Parthenon. We take a cab to a drive-in, where there are curtains to draw around your car if you brought one, and a hastily constructed set of rooms that give directly onto the underground car park. I pay a guard three hundred baht. Once in the room he asks if I want to watch porn on the DVD player while I'm humping, but I tell him no. Meanwhile Nok has started to feel horny. She sits on the double bed with a teasing smile and looks up at us in the ceiling mirror. I smile and shake my head. She holds out her hand. I give her ten thousand baht and promise to hand over the balance if she has useful information.
There is a gynecolog
ical chair in one corner. In use, it must offer access to the captive vagina from virtually every point of the compass. Nok jerks her chin at it with a complex smirk: Look what we could be up to if you didn't insist on asking stupid questions; maybe we could multitask? I shake my head again. She sighs and lies flat on her back. I join her, so we are both looking at ourselves in the ceiling mirror, which distorts somewhat. Perhaps the purpose is erotic, for everything appears longer.
"What do you want to know?"
"How the Parthenon really works."
Her elongated features in the ceiling mirror give me a shrewd look. "Why don't you tell me what you know so far?"
"I know that there are only a hundred and fifty official members. The subscription fee is not that high, and there's no way such a small number can keep a place like that going. A membership that small couldn't even keep you in your silk gowns."
In the mirror a female demon nods gravely. "You're pretty shrewd. So how do you think it works?"
"Secret membership," I reply. "There are some impressive names on the membership list, but not half as impressive as they could be."
She nods. "Correct. Not many people know about it, not even the girls. Nothing is written down."
"Tell me how it works."
"We call them the X members. Actually, they are the founders. It's their money that keeps the place going. For them it really is a private club. They get the pick of the girls, anytime, anywhere, any kind of service, on call 24/7. One of the mamasans gets a message from the manager: such-and-such a girl is to go to such-and-such an address at such-and-such a time. The girl does as she's told-she doesn't know anything about X members. She doesn't mind because she gets paid double and is given the next night off. Sometimes the assignation is upstairs at the club. Usually she won't know who she's sleeping with. We're all simple country girls-we don't know much about HiSo."
"You mean a private room like we used?"
"No. These are the real private rooms. You get to them by private elevator."
"Who are the X members?"
"Who do you think? The highest fliers in Thailand-senior army officers, very senior cops, bankers, businessmen, politicians. Pretty much the same sort of men as the official members, but much more senior."
"So the official members are basically fall guys?"
A shrug. "They get their money's worth. Very often they're business associates of the secret members, so it pays for them to join."
I turn to examine her face. "Do I need to ask you how you know all this?"
A shake of the head. "I'm quite popular with the X members. I talked them into making me mamasan so I didn't have to go with the official members anymore. Better one big bastard once a week than a little jerk every night."
"And Damrong?" I ask. "She was popular with the secret members too, no?"
She turns away and speaks to the wall. "Tell me what happened to her. Is she dead?"
"Yes."
"I thought so. Are you investigating for her family?"
"Not exactly."
She turns to study me. "She wasn't popular with everybody. A lot of men saw through her, and women didn't think she looked special."
"But the rest, among the X members?"
"Suppose she was popular with one of them, what about it? What difference if she's dead?"
"It's my job to investigate."
A pause, then: "She was a kind of genius prostitute. The genius was all in her instinct, which was so fast, so accurate, she was more like a wild animal. She would know in a single glance if a man was going to fall for her or not. The ones she couldn't reach in the first ten seconds, she ignored. They ceased to exist for her. That gave her time and energy to concentrate on the others. The suckers. She understood what a lot of girls don't, including me." I raise my eyebrows. "The bigger they come, the harder they fall. I never would have believed it if I hadn't seen it with my own eyes." As she speaks, her left hand seeks out mine. "She was my friend, though. She was very kind to me. She protected me."
Now we are looking at each other eyeball to eyeball. "From what?"
"A pig. I told her I didn't think I could carry on with him. I was losing all self-respect-of course I was never told his name. He paid big money, but he was brutal. She seduced him herself, got him away from me. She didn't seem to mind sadism. Maybe she was kinky that way. Or maybe I'm just too sensitive. She even shared with me the money he gave her the first time he had her. That's the kind of woman she was. Jai dee mark mark." Shaking her head: "But I didn't think anyone could reach him the way she did. For me he was hard as diamond."
"What does he look like?"
"Thai Chinese, tall, slim, about fifty, still very handsome in a vicious kind of way."
I let a couple of beats pass. "I think you know who he is."
"I found out."
"Khun Tanakan?"
She seems reluctant to repeat the name and gives only the briefest nod.
"But at the same time one of the official members was crazy about her-the lawyer Tom Smith. You told me about him."
"That moron. He has no idea how close he came to being bumped off by the Thai Chinese. He didn't know who his rival was, or he would have kept his mouth shut. He would go crazy whenever he came to the club and she wasn't available, started making threats. Farang are like boys-they have no self-control."
"Did Tanakan know about Smith?"
"Sure. That kind of guy knows everything. He pays."
"But he didn't do anything about Smith?"
"Smith is still alive, isn't he?"
"Did he do legal work for the Thai Chinese?"
"How would I know a thing like that?"
"Of course. Sorry." I hold up the remainder of the banknotes. "Who organizes all this? There has to be someone in control?"
"The footman at the door. Take a look at him. He's smart. He carries the names of every secret member in his head, and he's the one who takes the girls to the assignations. The secret members pay him big bucks to keep his mouth shut. Of course, he wouldn't dare to talk anyway."
I'm holding out the wad of notes but clamp it between my fingers when she reaches for it. "Khun Kosana, the advertising mogul, he is an X member, isn't he?"
She blinks for a moment and swallows. "Yes. He was a close friend of Khun Tanakan."
"Was?"
"He's disappeared. Everyone thinks he's dead."
"Did Tanakan do it?"
A flash of anger. "How the hell do I know?" Calming herself. "Khun Kosana was the main reason the club hired katoeys. I think he only pretended to like girls — I only ever saw him hire katoeys. He was a kind of slave to Tanakan. They say he didn't really have a head for business, Tanakan had to bail him out plenty of times. But he was very clever with the media. Tanakan used him to buff his public image."
I hand over the balance of her money, then peel off some more notes and hold them up. "Get me into the secret part of the club, where the escalator leads to the private members' rooms."
"What for?"
"Just to look."
Now she has changed her mind about me all over again. "I think you must be a real cop. That's where she was killed, isn't it? In one of the private rooms."
"How would I know without taking a look?"
She snatches the money out of my hand. "I would do it for nothing. Come to the club tonight. Call ahead to ask for me personally, and reserve a room for us."
We leave the short-time hotel separately. Lek is calling me on the cell phone, asking if I'm coming back to the station because the duty calls are starting to come in. I say I'll be there in twenty minutes. Sergeant Ruamsantiah is running the response teams today.
I'm in a cab when my cell phone starts to vibrate in my pocket. It's Ruamsantiah with a bust. "It's a damn funeral casino," he says, his tone full of apology.
"I thought we stopped busting them."
"Unofficially. We got a report from a cop-must be a disgruntled relative who wasn't invited. It's not something we can ignore. Y
ou can go as easy as you like, just make sure you take down names and keep notes so we can say we acted promptly on the information." I call Lek to tell him to meet me at the Skytrain station nearest the address.
Sorry to lay a culture shock on you halfway through the yarn, farang; funeral casinos work like this:
You are a newly minted ghost all alone on the Other Side without a body, feeling understandably disoriented. There is still plenty of connection with your living relatives through subtle lines that science will not be able to detect for a few hundred years yet, but after your loss of vital functions, the communication operates largely through transfer of emotional energy: urges outlive reason. Without a body, though, you are dependent on a certain residual awareness filled mostly with separation anxiety. Now, what do you most not want? Answer: you most don't want to be alone. Relatives who might have irritated you profoundly before you became a corpse now acquire an important-nay vital-function. It is the duty of close family to surround you with as many people as possible for the duration of the wake, which can go on for forty-nine days, at the end of which you will have found a new bivouac in someone's — or something's-womb. Now, there is one activity and one activity alone that will keep your average Thai coming to your home day after day for seven weeks, especially if they didn't much like you in the first place. The other advantage to buying a few roulette wheels and offering a private gambling service is for the bereaved spouse to use the profits to pay for the monks, the food, and the roulette wheels and to put together a fistful of baht to see close family through the difficult postwake period.
All of which explains why Lek and I find ourselves outside Nang Chawuwan's third-floor apartment in a modestly appointed building on Soi 26. Lek snooped around and confirmed there is a fire escape from the apartment by means of the back door. By banging loudly on the front door, therefore, and yelling, "Police," we are able to cause an immediate evacuation. Sounds of Sunday-best shoes slapping on the wrought-iron fire escape on the opposite side of the apartment, excited whispers, some giggling. The exit goes on for about ten minutes, which probably indicates that more than a hundred guests are now legging it down the soi. We bang again on the door, and this time it opens on an exhausted, tearful, but spirited woman dressed in traditional Thai costume; Nang Chawuwan is all of five feet tall.