by Bill Moody
“There are bigger and better clubs in the Quarter,” he said. “Restaurants that serve better food. Why this one?”
“I happen to own a small piece of this one.”
“Oh.”
“So tell me, what are the better clubs with better food?”
“I put my foot in my mouth. Sorry.”
“That’s all right,” she said, with a smile. “After all, you’re here. You must like the music and the food.”
“I do,” Sangster said, “but mostly I like the size.”
“Yes,” she said, “it is...manageable.”
That was a good word for it, Sangster thought. The club was manageable. He was able to enjoy his food, the music and see everyone in the room. The other larger, more crowded clubs and restaurants offered too much possibility of danger.
The waiter reappeared carrying their plates, and they leaned back to allow him to set them down. He noticed that the lady had ordered shrimp creole. He could smell the spices across the table. But his own jambalaya looked more appetizing to him.
The group began to play, making conversation impossible, so they ate and enjoyed the music together.
SIX
Sangster found himself laughing.
He hadn’t laughed in a very long time. They finished their dinner, had some dessert, more drinks, more music, and he was laughing.
Her name was Lily. He remembered while they were eating. He saved it, though. Wouldn’t say it until later, when she was convinced he had forgotten. It was then Sangster realized he was not only laughing, he was being playful.
He thought it was very unlike him, but then decided it was just unlike the man he used to be. He didn’t know if it was unlike Sangster, because he still wasn’t sure what Sangster was like.
They were finishing up their desserts when the group took a break.
“Do you want to meet them?” she asked.
“Why?”
“Because as part owner I can have them come to the table.”
“No,” he said, “that’s okay.”
“Why not?”
“I enjoy the music,” he said. “I don’t enjoy making small talk.”
“Isn’t that what we’re doing?” she asked. “Making small talk?”
“I don’t know what we’re doing,” he admitted.
She studied him for a moment, then said, “You don’t, do you?”
He shrugged.
“You’re a rare man, you know?”
“How so?”
“Well, for one thing, you don’t seem to have an ego.”
“And for another?”
“You seem to be fairly honest,” she said. “Unless this shy boy thing of yours is an act?”
“‘Shy boy?’”
“Don’t be ashamed,” she said. “I’m finding it...refreshing. And genuine. If you turn out to be a player I’m going to be very disappointed.”
“A ‘player.’” These were terms that had never before been used to describe him. He had been a player in his own business for many years, but not in the way she meant.
“I get the feeling you’re a man out of time,” Lily said. “Like...you were just thawed out yesterday. Were you?”
“Was I what?”
“Thawed out?”
He took a sip of his coffee and said, “Not yesterday.”
Sangster stayed for another set, some more coffee rather than another beer. Lily did the same, eschewing another martini for coffee.
When the band broke for the night to a smattering of appreciative applause from those who had remained for the final set, Sangster said, “I have to go.”
“Really?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said, “I have to get back.”
“Wife?”
“No.”
“Roommate?”
“No wife,” he said, “no roommate.”
“Then what’s the hurry?”
“I came for the music,” he said. “The music is done.”
“Stay for another reason,” she said, looking him directly in the eye. “I live upstairs.”
He stared across the table at her. In truth, she had become more and more appealing as the night went on, especially that overly long upper lip.
But he couldn’t stay. He’d been avoiding personal conflict for three years. Getting involved with a woman was inviting conflict. He had let his guard down with Burke, but that had worked out. What were the chances it would happen again?
“Okay, then,” she said, sitting back. “We don’t close for another hour or so. Let me know if you change your mind.”
“I’ll get the check—” he said, raising his arm for the waiter.
“Forget it,” she said. “On me.”
“Why would you do that?”
She grinned and said, “I’m a sucker for men who play hard to get.”
He stood up and said, “I’m not playing.”
“Yeah,” she said, “I know.”
“Good-night, Lily.” It was the first time he let her know he remembered her name.
He walked to the front door, stopped and looked through the glass. His eyes scanned the street, the shadows across the way, the shapes in them.
He turned and walked back to Lily’s table.
“I changed my mind.”
Click here to learn more about Upon My Soul by Robert J. Randisi.
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Here is a preview from Murder in the Slaughterhouse, the second Matt Chance thriller by Tom Crowley:
Prelude
The pick-up truck careens along the mountain road. Forest cover hangs down to the road on one side, but on the other side there is a hundred foot drop.
Inside the pick-up are four kids—fearful and hopeful but mostly just curious to see what’s beyond the next corner. Previously, thirty minutes was a long trip for them; the five hours on the road thus far is an impossibly long time. The children are from Lisu hill tribe homes in a remote northwest corner of Thailand. The vehicle is a battered Toyota pick-up with an extended cab. The male driver and a woman they just call Auntie sit in front, the four teenagers sit in back. They are all young and slight of build. It isn’t crowded even with the carry bags they were allowed to bring along with some changes of clothes and a few other personal possessions. They have been in pick-up trucks before, but this is the first time any of them have ridden inside the cab. When the groups from their hill tribe villages went to market, the kids lucky enough to go along sat in the open back of the pick-up, exposed to the sun and rain, but happy and excited. This luxury of riding inside is new to them.
The four teenagers don’t know the driver or Auntie. The arrangements for the trip had been made by their parents, or in the case of the twin fifteen-year-old girls, Aom and Nang, by their stepfather. Their mother had cried but agreed as the money to be gained from their jobs working at a restaurant in Bangkok would be a big help now that she had two younger children from her new husband and couldn’t work as much to earn money. Also she knew, though she had never said anything, that her new husband had been molesting Aom, who had become increasingly quiet and withdrawn, over the past two years. Aom’s mother thought her daughter would be safer in the city. Their stepfather had even been paid an advance on their salary, a large amount of money: twenty thousand baht, about six hundred and eighty dollars.
Of the two boys, Joe is bigger and taller than Pan and has broader shoulders indicating that when he fills out he will have a strong body. Pan is not only of much slighter build; he is attractive, almost pretty, in his good looks. The boys don’t know the girls or each other though Joe remembers seeing the twins at the farm market the previous summer. The Lisu girls in their colorful clothes had stood out for that as much as for their cuteness. For hill tribe girls, fifteen was not too young to be thinking of marriage. Joe had been too shy to approach them initially and by the time he had snuck around and had some mountain whiskey to drink and built up some whiskey courage, they were gone. The boys are from different villages, but
of the same mountain-dwelling Lisu hill tribe group as the girls. They are also fifteen years old. For some reason, the payments to the boy’s parents were only half of those paid for the girls since they were from different villages. This was not general knowledge. The important point to each family is the promise of money flowing back to the village from Bangkok. All of the children had finished school with the sixth grade since it was deemed to be enough education.
In the cab of the pick-up truck, they sit divided—the boys on one side and the girls on the other—with the girls’ bags in between them as a barrier. They haven’t spoken to each other very much at all. Then Joe speaks to the girls in the Lisu dialect asking what village they are from. Aom, still cast in the role she has taken with her stepfather of protecting her sister Nang, replies and names her village. The Auntie turns around and yells at them to keep quiet, adding that if they have to talk they can only speak Thai from now on. Startled, the children all nod in frightened agreement. Nang starts crying softly. Aom holds her and comforts her, telling her it will be okay.
The road continues to twist and turn and finally descends to the city of Tak and the broad plains covered with rice fields. It is the first time the mountain born and bred teenagers have seen open countryside and now the sense that they are going to a different world and life gains strength within them.
At Tak the pick-up joins the North-South highway. Shortly afterwards, the driver pulls over to a rest area. The kids are let out but told to stand next to the pick-up and not wander away or go inside the food mart. Auntie takes the twins to the restroom and then brings them back. Then the driver does the same with the boys. After that they wait while Auntie goes inside and buys drinks and snacks for all. No food orders are placed. The kids will eat and drink what they are given and do it as the pick-up drives along. As soon as their food and drink arrives, they are ordered back in the pick-up which proceeds south on the highway, through the ancient capital of Ayutthaya, and on to Bangkok.
The shadows from the receding sun grow longer as the pick-up races down the highway and darkness is falling as they come to the northern outskirts of Bangkok. The kids have all fallen asleep as they ride through miles of lush green rice fields. The driver curses as he slows suddenly to pay a toll and they catch up with the remnants of the evening rush hour on the city’s expressway. The kids wake up, eyes wide open at the number of cars and buildings and lights. It’s a Disneyland without joy. They had never imagined there could be so much of everything. Finally, after several toll stops, starting and stopping and more cursing at traffic by the driver, they come to the exit indicating the port area of Klong Toey.
It’s complete darkness now. The bright lights of the upmarket areas of the city are left behind as the driver winds through congested, dimly-lit streets, across a railway track and pulls up in front of a dilapidated three-story Chinese shophouse which has a few colored Christmas lights hanging outside to mark it as a night spot. The ground floor has some tables and is being used as a bar. Men are sitting around several tables drinking. A small shrine, lit by red lights and an altar with a picture of a Chinese Buddha, is set up in the far corner. This is primarily a Chinese slum area in the port district. Stairs in the back of the shophouse lead to the upper floors. The driver and Auntie herd the kids to the front area and Auntie asks a question using a strange dialect the kids don’t understand, not Thai. One of the men grunts at her and points a finger up the stairs. Auntie leads the kids around the small tables; the men drinking and playing cards are all looking closely at the hill tribe kids. One man picks up on the fact that the girls are twins and makes a comment to those at his table, resulting in raucous laugh from all. The kids don’t understand the language but Aom is familiar with the nature of the look. The man could be as dangerous as her stepfather. She puts her arm around Nang in a protective gesture as they walk along.
On the second floor, there is a hallway with doors to three rooms, a bathroom and in back a kitchen area with a table. The stairs continue up to a third floor divided into the same arrangement. Auntie leads the kids to the kitchen table where five men are drinking and playing cards. One of the men, a bit more carefully dressed than the others and a bit older, in his mid-fifties, looks at Auntie and the kids. He speaks to Auntie in a Chinese dialect.
“These are the hill tribe kids? Do they all understand Thai?”
“Yes, it was all we could get on this trip, but I have two or three more whose parents I’m still talking to. Maybe on the next trip.”
Auntie turns to the kids and tells them to come closer so the old man can inspect them. He deliberates for a few seconds, walking around the kids to look at them from behind. As he does so, Aom reflexively puts her arm around Nang’s shoulder again as if to shield her from the old man’s gaze. This move is noted. The old man thinks to himself, “This is her weakness. She’ll do anything to protect her sister. Well, we’ll give her a chance to do everything.”
Then he turns back to Auntie, “It’s okay. They will do. Put the two girls in the same room to start. We’ll put the pretty boy in the room next to them. Make sure they get some food and get washed up, especially the girls. Show them how to wash their pussies. I’ll see to the boy myself. We’ll start training them later. There will be a lot of customers interested in playing with the twins at the same time. They’ll bring in good money.”
Turning to the driver the old man gestures to Joe, “This one isn’t pretty enough for our customers. Get him a meal and then put him back in the truck and take him down to Ranong. He goes to work on the fishing boats in the morning. We have people down there waiting for new crew. You know where to go.”
He reaches into his pocket and gives the driver a handful of blue pills. “These will help to keep you awake on the drive down.”
The driver and Auntie both nod and turn away with the kids. It’s time for the kids to start their new life; though it will not be the life their parents have been promised.
Act 1—Thailand
“Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.”
—Matthew 19:14
Chapter 1
In most cities of the world, you could say as the dawn eases its way above the horizon that the city begins to stir. In Bangkok, that wouldn’t be precisely correct. The mystical mix of the city’s night beat continues through the verge of dawn and the pace of the city only hesitates. There is a somewhat perceptible pause in the city’s life movements as the often desperate human night activity slows to a crawl, around dawn, as the night people complete their retreat with the last of the seductively clad sex workers and transgender beauties scurrying out of the growing light into the back of taxis. But the beat is taken up virtually immediately with the morning traffic of the day people as they begin to reclaim the city.
As the sun’s first rays reflect from the many pieces of colored glass and Chinese porcelain embedded in its structure and pagoda towers, Wat Arun, Bangkok’s ancient temple of the dawn, glows and provides a show of dancing light from its location on the west bank of the Chao Phraya River. The lights provide a beacon to the boat traffic on the still dark river below. Not all of the City of Angels shares this brightness, however.
At the slaughterhouse across the river, miles to the east in the city’s largest slum area, Klong Toey, the sun is also just breaking over the horizon. Long shadows cast from two blocks of run-down apartments just to the east interrupt the first streams of light to find the rough concrete floor of the old structure. The building is open on the sides with only a sheet metal roof above to keep out the rain and a four-foot high, rusting, iron-railed fence around the pens to hold the pigs and secure the killing ground. Concrete gutters run down the sides so the blood not captured for pig’s blood soup, and the other liquids expelled by the dying pigs, could drain down to the outlet. Water hoses used at the end of the night’s slaughters ensure the waste washes completely through the gutters and the outlet drain and into the nearb
y canal. The canal itself is bordered by slum shacks which provide their own donations to its septic waters as it seeps into the Chaophraya River. It has rained the night before. The moisture hangs in the air and a mist rises from the wet concrete as the early morning sun warms the air. The rank odor of blood lingers and grows stronger with the warmth of the sun.
It is quiet now. The squealing of the pigs, the shouting of the laborers gaffing, slashing, killing and rendering the pigs ended hours before, around midnight. The trucks loaded with pig carcasses then immediately departed for the fresh markets throughout the city. Now there is the silence of dawn. Birds, magpies mostly, are hopping along the gutters and floors picking at loose remnants of flesh caught in the rough concrete. The rats, competing with the birds for the loose bits of flesh, are becoming more hesitant as the light slowly increases. They are dashing back to hide in holes in the drains, watching beady-eyed for moments, and then dashing back for another morsel to carry to their den. As the light intensifies, they will leave the killing ground to the birds and wait for the next night’s slaughter to begin.
Twenty yards away, up the rough concrete ramp leading out of the slaughterhouse to the road above, commercial life is beginning to stir. The sidewalk vendors selling plates of rice, bowls of noodles, fried chicken and pork and morning snacks and drinks are setting up their stands and starting to cook the food the morning crowds, on their way to work in the city, would need. However, down below, one carcass still remains sprawled just inside the rusted rail of the pen nearest the exit to the road adjoining the slaughterhouse. The carcass is on its back, one leg sticking out under the lowest of the iron rails, a bare foot pointed towards the road above. It is the body of a tall, slim boy—a teenage boy. His corpse is nude and he is lying with his head thrown back and hands out to the side, his adolescent genitals exposed. The body seems posed for a crucifixion, awaiting a cross. His head is unnaturally thrown back probably due to the gash cutting almost completely through his throat. There is a gaff, one of those used to hook the pigs and pull them to the slashing, stuck in his mouth and his blood has drained out and pooled around his body. His eyes gaze up sightlessly, not squinting from the early morning sun. Except for the birds strutting their macabre dance around his body, there is no movement at all.