Good Friends

by Leeanne Moriarty

  The dark woman went in with another kick, catching her opponent on the temple. The shorter woman stumbled and it looked like the fight was over when the African pounced with three well placed punches to the body.

  Charlie was already celebrating when the Thai woman found the strength from somewhere to land a stinging uppercut and skip backward out of range. He could hear the rasp of her breath, and see flecks of spittle on her bloody lips.

  The women danced around one another, the mob pushing forward, closing the ring.

  The shuffle continued, neither fighter prepared to engage, and the elbow of the African brushed Charlie’s arm as she bobbed and weaved.

  The crowd voiced its displeasure and this goaded the blonde woman to leap into the air and land a kick to the side of her opponent’s skull.

  The African’s head snapped back and a necklace of blood whiplashed from her nose, landing on Charlie’s cheek in a hot, nauseating tendril.

  As he rubbed his face, he was pushed in even closer to the fighters by the men who were baying for more blood.

  The blonde gave it to them.

  She gouged at the eyes of her opponent and he heard the wail of the dark woman over the bellows of the gamblers.

  The blonde straddled her, taking her cropped head in her hands, yelling something unintelligible.

  The men were chanting as one, the room reverberating with their animal howls.

  Then they fell silent and Charlie could hear the panting breath of the blonde and the sobbed pleas of the African.

  He heard his own beseeching voice.

  The crack as the Thai broke her foe’s neck echoed through the cavernous room like a gunshot.

  The crowd went wild.

  Charlie tried to push through the yelling men and make his escape, but they were as impenetrable as a phalanx. Then he found a gap, and he burrowed like a rat through the stinking bodies and out into the night.

  He was suddenly terrifying sober and knew he should do a runner before Tua Hea sent one of his killer dogs after him

  So Charlie ran and didn’t stop until he found the Vespa.

  12

  Caroline walked along the beach. It wasn’t yet 9:00 AM, but already the heat was oppressive, the sun glaring off the sand. Even though she wore sunglasses she was squinting.

  Michael had left before she’d risen.

  She’d heard the hiss of the shower downstairs and then the rumble of his SUV starting and the whine as it disappeared

  Her leg spasmed suddenly and she stopped, bending and massaging her thigh.

  “Hi, Caroline?”

  Turning, she saw their blonde neighbor striding toward her, waving.

  She wore a floral bikini that did a poor job of hiding her body. She was too tan, surely, to have recently returned from wintry Europe?

  “Hi, I’m Liz. Liz Keller.”

  Caroline stood upright, trying to wish away the pain in her leg. “Hi.”

  “I’ve been keeping an eye out for you,” Liz said.

  “Well, here I am.”

  “Yeah, here you are.” Liz smiled, showing very white teeth.

  Did they resemble one another? Yes, in a general way. Maybe some shared Nordic ancestry. Their blonde hair was the most obvious similarity, although Liz Keller’s was a little darker and longer. They were both tall, but Liz was fuller bodied, with bigger breasts and wider hips.

  Their features, at a glance, were not unalike. But there was something unmistakably sensual about Liz Keller’s face, her mouth full-lipped and frankly wanton.

  “I met Michael yesterday,” she said.

  “Yes, he told me.”

  “He’s quite the catch.” Liz put a hand to her mouth. “Sorry. No filters.”

  Caroline shook her head. “It’s okay.”

  She broke eye contact, looking toward a motorboat tied to the jetty in front of the Keller house.

  “That’s mine,” Liz said. “Well, it was my husband’s.” She shrugged. “He’s dead. In a boating accident, actually.” She waved her arm, bangles clinking. “Not here. Switzerland. Lake Zürich. He drank too much and went too fast. Shit, there I go again.” Another flap of the arm.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” Caroline said, resenting this woman for forcing her to mouth the empty platitude.

  Liz Keller waved this away. “Do you have any plans today, Caroline?”

  Caroline blinked at this sudden swerve in direction. “No, why?”

  “I’m going to do some shopping at Central. You know Central?”

  “The mall?”

  “Yeah. Want to come along?”

  “Thanks, no, I...”

  Another wave of the arm. “Hey, no worries. Have a nice day. Bye.”

  “Bye.”

  Caroline watched the woman turn and walk away.

  Then she surprised herself by calling, “Liz?”

  Still walking, her neighbor looked over her shoulder. “Yeah?”

  “Can I change my mind?”

  “Hell, that’s what minds are for, girl!” A bawdy laugh. “I’ll swing by your place at around ten thirty. That sound good?”

  “Perfect.”

  With another wave she was gone.

  13

  Charlie woke to lukewarm water dripping onto his face. He groaned and opened his eyes. Above his head a black stain like a giant melanoma spread across the sagging yellow ceiling board. The foul smelling water dripped relentlessly from the middle of the stain. He had no bloody idea why. It hadn’t rained in months. Each day he moved his mattress around the squalid room to avoid the drip, but it followed him like a malevolent spirit.

  Charlie, dressed only in a pair of befouled Y-fronts, dragged the mattress away from the drip, which landed on the tiled floor with the unnerving tap of a blind man’s cane.

  The events of yesterday and last night penetrated Charlie’s industrial strength hangover. He dashed to the Asian-style squat toilet, a reeking rectangle sunk into the bathroom tiles, and puked operatically.

  Emptied, he sat against the wall and pushed his sweaty bangs away from his face.

  Jesus, Charlie, you really do know how to royally fuck things up, don’t you old cock?

  It was bad enough to have Murray Muldoon on his tail, but now he owed a fortune to the Lizard. And the Lizard did not forget.

  Charlie went back into the other room. It was furnace hot. This place didn’t boast an aircon, and the standing fan, creaking and wobbling as it swiveled uncertainly, did little more than stir the heavy, stale air.

  The only furniture in the room was a red plastic chair. Charlie sat down and searched through the pile of dirty clothes on the floor beside the chair until he found his cigarettes and matches. He fired up a Dunhill, and sucked on it until the nicotine seeped into his bloodstream.

  Not nearly enough to calm him down.

  Only alcohol could do that.

  He was hit by a coughing spasm and hacked until he cried.

  When it was done he stubbed the cigarette out on the floor, wrapped a once-white towel around his middle and opened the front door. He peeked outside, past where his Vespa was parked on a concrete strip, to make sure the coast was clear before he went in search of his clothes.

  The room was one of a row of ten up a narrow road in Thalang. He was the only farang in residence. An object equally of fascination and pity.

  The two bar girls who lived next door crouched against the front wall of their room, squabbling in the Isaan dialect as they pecked at street food like chickens. They wore T-shirts and tiny shorts and looked like teenagers, although they were probably in their thirties.

  “Khun Charlee,” one of them said, and made a kissing sound.

  Charlie grunted and cursed when he stepped on a freshly gnawed chicken bone. The girls laughed like drains as he limped on.

  He came to a room that had two ancient top-loader washing machines standing outside, sloshing and churning.

  “Phi Malee?” he called into the open door.

  He heard t
he sound of a throat being cleared and a slattern of indeterminate age appeared in the doorway, wearing floral pajamas and a lime green hairnet.

  “My washing please,” he said in Thai.

  “First money,” she said in English.

  “This afternoon, I promise,” he said favoring her with his most boyish smile. “I’ll be going to the bank.”

  She shook her head. “No money. No clothe.”

  “Please,” he said, “I can’t go to the bank like this.” He gestured at the molting towel.

  Malee hawked and spat a blob of phlegm, narrowly missing his foot and disappeared into the dank interior. She reappeared with a shirt and a pair of pants, freshly washed and expertly ironed, draped over a hanger.

  “A million thanks,” he said and grabbed the hanger and scarpered before she changed her mind.

  Charlie’s shower was a nozzle in the same room as the toilet. He washed his body and lathered his hair.

  When he was dry he squeezed the last of his jock itch lotion from a tube, applied it to his groin, and dressed in the clean clothes.

  He slid on his sunglasses and stepped into the espadrilles that waited outside the front door. The Vespa kicked to life immediately and he roared off, giving the bargirls a cheery wave.

  Once he was away from the sordid lodgings he almost felt his debonair old self again.

  Living in penury was not the style of the man who now called himself Charlie Hepworth.

  When he’d arrived in Phuket a few months ago he’d been pretty flush and had rented a swanky condo in Chalong, built at the foot of the towering white Big Buddha statue.

  But a series of wrongheaded wagers and an ill-advised fling with a boy whose beauty was only eclipsed by his avarice had left him in a parlous state and he was reduced to living like a peasant.

  But this was only temporary. His ship was about to come in.

  No, make that a bloody supertanker.

  He grinned as he threaded the Vespa through the traffic to his favorite breakfast spot, a little hole in the wall off Thep Krasatti Road, with two plastic tables and the best food on the island. Way better fare than the tourist-style papaya salad he’d foisted on the American blonde at the hospital yesterday.

  Not that she’d known the bloody difference.

  He was hardly off the Vespa when the smiling woman behind the counter had prepared his usual tiffin of kanom jeen, boiled rice noodles served with spicy fish curry, and a cold Chang beer.

  Seated at his favorite of the two tables—the one with a view of the road—Charlie chugged back the beer and waved the empty bottle for a refill.

  As he nibbled at his breakfast he kept a weather eye open for both the Australian and the Lizard. Muldoon was unlikely to penetrate this maze of narrow streets, but Tua Hea had eyes everywhere.

  As Charlie sat the itch in his groin flared up, and he knew he was going have to venture into the very heart of the expatriate world to get a new tube of salve from the only chemist in Phuket that stocked it.

  Still, the booze and the spicy food lifted his mood. He felt a glow of optimism as he sat drinking his third beer, watching the joss sticks burn down on the little wooden spirit house that stood on the sidewalk outside the food shop.

  It looked like an ornate wooden dollhouse on a pedestal, painted gold and red. Figurines, representing the spirits, lived inside.

  In every corner of Thailand there are said to be spirits who need placating. The Thais, with their brand of Buddhism shot through with animism, respected ghosts and spirits, and prayed to them. These spirits expected daily sustenance such as hands of bananas, fresh coconuts or balls of sticky rice.

  The offerings were placed at the front of the spirit houses in the morning, along with incense and garlands of marigolds and jasmine.

  On a whim Charlie waved to the shop owner.

  “A strawberry Fanta for Kuman Thong,” he said.

  The woman smiled and waid. She opened the glass bottle of soda and placed it on the sidewalk in front of the spirit house.

  Kuman Thong, a young boy with a topknot and pantaloons, was one of the more popular spirits. He was represented in the house by a plastic doll with cherubic features.

  In days gone by his worship used to involve the preservation of stillborn babies with layers of lacquer. The practice of using fetuses in rituals had been outlawed but had still been seen in recent years. An entrepreneurial fellow had been arrested in a Bangkok hotel room a few years ago with six male fetuses that had been roasted and covered in gold. It was his intention to sell them to well-heeled Thais for their spirit houses.

  Anyway, the little lad was meant to bestow good fortune. And he was said to favor the sickly sweet red soda pop.

  Charlie raised his beer to the spirit house and then emptied it.

  A load of old bollocks of course, but if there was good luck on offer, who the hell was Charlie Hepworth to say no?

  14

  The mega mall was the kind of place that gave Caroline a migraine. A gaudy, over-lit shrine to consumerism.

  And her leg was killing her after being dragged in the wake of Liz Keller who rushed through a blur of designer stores—Versace, Alexander McQueen, Balenciaga, Bulgari—leaving behind her a litter of browbeaten shopgirls.

  Liz never seemed to buy anything. She tried on clothes, scoffed and spurned them, dumped them on the attendants and charged onto the next place.

  When Liz disappeared into a cell phone store Caroline took a moment to sit on a bench outside and rest her leg. Pride forbade her to tell Liz about her injury and ask her to slow down.

  Liz had roared up to Caroline’s front door in a sporty little red BMW at close to eleven and honked loudly. Caroline had to scoop Starbucks cups and junk food wrappers off the front seat before she could settle herself beside Liz, who offered no apology for the mess.

  She drove too fast, and seldom looked at the road, jabbering on about everything and nothing as they navigated the traffic clotted streets of the island.

  Speeding down a ramp at the mall she’d stolen a parking space from under the nose of an irate German man in a Jeep.

  “Fuck him,” she’d said, hurrying toward one of the entrances, Caroline battling to keep up.

  “Hey, girl.” Caroline looked up to see Liz standing over her. “You got your passport with you?”

  “Sure, why?”

  “They’ve got some idiotic law here that foreigners have to show their passports when they’re buying SIM cards. I forgot mine at home.”

  Caroline stared at her. “And you want to use mine?”

  “Yeah, don’t worry. Just a formality.” She held out her hand.

  Caroline hesitated, then she dug in her bag and took out her passport. “You’re sure it’ll be okay?”

  Liz laughed and opened the passport at the photograph and held it next to her face.

  “Now who the fuck is going to say that’s not me?”

  She was gone and Caroline felt a nameless punch of anxiety, but in minutes Liz was back and returned her passport.

  “Easy peasy. Thanks.” She smiled. “How about a coffee?”

  “Sure.”

  Liz led her down an escalator to a chic coffee shop, all blond wood and white tiles. They sat and a Thai waitress in black jeans and T-shirt appeared with menus.

  She smiled at Liz. “Sawadee kah, madame. Good to see you again.”

  “Yeah, you too.”

  The waitress regarded Caroline. “And this she is your sister?”

  “Yes,” Liz said, “my little sis!”

  When the waitress left Liz laughed, and pointed at the mirrored wall. “What the hell, we could be sisters. Especially to them. The Thais. They think we all look alike anyway. Like we think they do, with their boy’s bodies, their blow-dried black hair and their simpering fucking ways.” She held up a hand. “Sorry, I’m being a super bitch. It’s just that Jürgen... well let’s just say that Jürgen did his more than his bit for Swiss-Thai relations and leave it at that.” She saw Ca
roline’s face. “Sorry, have you had something like that happen to you?”

  “God no. Michael’s just not wired that way,” Caroline said, shaking her head.

  Liz laughed sourly. “Oh come on! He’s a man, honey, they’re all wired that way.”

  Caroline saw Charlie Hepworth walk in, wearing one of his chic Eurotrashy ensembles.

  She waved at him. He looked a little taken aback, then he turned on a smile and came over.

  “Caroline! Hi,” he said. “What a lovely surprise.”

  “Hi, Charlie. Do you know Liz Keller?”

  He shook his head. “No. Hi.”

  Liz nodded a greeting.

  Caroline said, “Want to join us?”

  Charlie looked at his phone, “I’d love to but I’ve just got a text from a client. He wants to meet over in Kamala before he buggers off to Paris tonight. A rain check?”

  He waved and was gone.

  Liz narrowed her eyes. “Where do you know that guy from?”

  “I met him yesterday at the hospital.” She waved a dismissive hand. “I was just doing a bit of therapy on my leg. He was very friendly, but he seemed off today.”

  “Probably because you were with somebody,” Liz said, shrugging. “They can be pretty possessive.”

  “They?”

  “Yeah, those gay guys.”

  The waitress was back with her notebook.

  “The lattes here are just about drinkable,” Liz said. “Okay?”

  “Sure.”

  Liz ordered the two coffees and stood. “I’ve just got to make a quick call.”

  Caroline nodded. Liz walked out, dialing on her cell.

  The coffees arrived and Caroline thanked the waitress. Through the window she saw Liz pacing back and forth, phone to her ear.

  15

  Michael sat in the stalled traffic and scratched at the heat rash on the back of his neck and did everything not to think about what had happened—hadn’t happened—with Caroline the night before.

  And, of course, it was all he could fucking think about.