“Two men tried to kill me. It didn’t turn out that way. I saw my client’s son, Rob, tied to a chair in my hotel room with a bullet hole in his head. Isn’t that enough violence to cause anyone’s mental gears to slip and slide?”
Dr. Apinya’s tongue touched the end of the pen.
“In your line of work, you’ve witnessed violent deaths before?”
Calvino sighed.
“It’s inevitable.”
“When is the last time you saw an actual dead body?”
Calvino rotated his shoulders, looked at his hands, glanced at his watch.
“About an hour ago.”
The answer caught her off guard.
“That’s why I was late for my appointment.”
She tapped her polished nail on his folder.
“I see. Okay, as I was saying, in those other circumstances, you walked away each time without any issues.”
He nodded.
“I am feeling pretty normal.”
“You can’t be normal if you are hallucinating. You have a mental health problem, and until you admit the problem, you will continue to see ghosts. You need to admit to yourself what happened and accept it. I feel you are holding back on something that happened to you in Rangoon. Something terrible is bottled inside. I want you to let it out.”
“I’ll try.”
She smiled, put down her pen and removed her reading glasses.
“You’re working again,” she said.
She’s talked to Pratt, he thought. It seemed to him that confidentiality in Thailand was as rare as freshwater dolphins swimming in the Chao Phraya River.
“I’m helping a guy who’s in trouble work things out with the police.”
“I hope you are getting more cooperation from him than I am from you.”
Deen Alam was a hard case, he thought. For the first time Dr. Apinya had said something that actually reached him in the place where he lived with himself.
“All clients are difficult. That’s why they come to me. To help them out of a jam they’ve put themselves in. They are convinced everyone else is confused why it happened the way it did. ”
“We are in the same line of work,” she said, leaning back in her chair.
“Everyone in this city is in trouble. The question is whether they know it and can do anything about it.”
“I’m not convinced,” she said. “But I do know you are troubled. Who’s helping you?”
“You are, doctor.”
TWENTY-ONE
INFORMATION WAS BECOMING ever more free—if you were plugged into the grid, it would leak out. In Calvino’s world the problem for private eyes, who worked on the margins society, was accessing information about people who lived off that grid. Calvino opened up his own channel and waited. The kind of information Calvino sought came through on multiple frequencies. He’d been checking his latest feed about the burnt-out refugee camp near Mae Hong Son—scrolling through websites, Facebook, Twitter, blogs and emails. All formats, like a row of cherries on a slot machine, were lined up on his computer screen—each with a name and address and the information supplied. As he read the file, Calvino received a Skype call from Mae Hong Son.
“Mon Hla has told me more, but maybe not everything,” said Judy. “She doesn’t know whom to trust. She’s afraid, and who can blame her?”
It made sense that she would relieve herself of whatever burden she’d been carrying. Her family was dead; she’d lost everything and everyone. She had been happy to see Judy, a familiar face, and that had meant everything to her.
“Did she give you the name of the guy who bought her sister?” asked Calvino.
“No, she either doesn’t know or won’t give it to me. But I have the name of someone she trusts.”
“Where is he?”
“In Bangkok.”
“How does she know him?”
“She’s never met him. But Ploy knew him well.”
“How did you get her to cooperate?”
“I told her the truth. It is the only thing that works to convince a woman to violate an oath to keep a sister’s secret.”
“What truth was that?” asked Calvino.
“I told Mon Hla about you. If she wanted to know who was responsible for her sister’s death, she should trust a guy named Vincent Calvino.”
“Give me the name, Judy.”
After a brief silence he watched as she leaned out of the camera frame and then reappeared.
“Yoshi Nagata. Ploy trusted him. I don’t have specific details other than he’s a teacher. He might be able to help, but I don’t know that. Don’t be upset if he can’t.”
“Judy, you’re doing your best. How could I be upset?”
As soon as he asked the question, he started to count the ways that could happen.
A couple of hours later Calvino had tracked down Yoshi Nagata in Bangkok.
That word “trust” rang inside his skull—Ploy had trusted this Japanese man—as he stood in the elevator next to a security guard on his way up to Nagata’s condominium on the twenty-second floor, with a brief stopover on the ninth. The neighborhood’s bars, clubs, restaurants and shopping malls gave off the vibe of a young, wealthy person’s patch of Bangkok, one staked out by the Japanese. Little Tokyo declared its stylish affluence like an artistic tattoo of a tsunami wave on the hip of the Bangkok night. Calvino had breezed past the front desk security guards, flashing a badge.
“I’m checking the condition of the common areas for Mr. Matsuda from Tokyo. He’s the big boss. Mr. Matsuda hired me to report on the status of the swimming pool, exercise room and sauna before he buys five units.”
The security detail in the lobby had given Calvino a blue visitor’s badge, which he’d pinned to the lapel of his suit jacket, and then a second guard had buzzed him in. Calvino had thought of the old woman selling fried bananas in the lobby of Anal’s walkup. She was friendlier. Much to Calvino’s surprise, the second guard had followed him onto the elevator and pressed the ninth floor button. A little sign above the button bore the English words “Swimming Pool” with the Japanese script underneath. As the doors opened on the ninth floor, the security guard had walked out. Calvino called after him, “See you in a couple of minutes. I need to check the roof.” He pushed the close button and the number 17 and the rest of the numbers above that, all the way to the penthouse.
The subterfuge turned out to be unnecessary. Yoshi Nagata had been expecting someone to contact him about Ploy.
After a long wait the door opened partway. Calvino had his first glimpse at the sparrow-like Japanese man in a blue and white kimono, who greeted him with wet hair and barefoot . He looked like someone’s grandfather.
“Yoshi Nagata?”
“That is my name.”
“I’d like to ask you a few questions about a young Burmese woman named Mi Swe. She also went by the Thai name Ploy.”
The security latch clicked, and Yoshi Nagata opened the door and invited Calvino inside. As Calvino removed his shoes, a pure white light from a bank of windows washed over the white walls and marble floor of the foyer. He stepped around an Oriental carpet stretched in front of the door. Calvino positioned his shoes next to several pairs of sandals, perfectly lined up, and followed Nagata into a living room decorated with backlit shoji screens and finely woven bamboo mats and cushions on a floor of burnished-copper mahogany. Nagata sat on one of the mats, and Calvino eased himself down onto the floor nearby. The slender Japanese man sat in the lotus position, arms folded, saying nothing.
Yoshi Nagata observed Calvino for a long couple of minutes, until the moment arrived when the silence shouted for the companionship of words. He’d got the impression that Calvino had come to his door with good news—that he had located Ploy, who’d disappeared for more than a week.
“You’ve found Ploy?”
The more Nagata studied Calvino’s expression as it darkened, the more he sensed the messenger of good news had arrived with a package wrapped in thin black
rice paper—the wrapping in this case showing on Calvino’s face. Ploy’s whereabouts didn’t include a living and breathing Ploy. He saw that now clearly.
“She’s dead, Mr. Nagata. Her body’s at the morgue awaiting positive identification from a relative. Only that’s a problem. Except for her sister, her family are all dead. And her sister’s stuck inside a burnt-out refugee camp. That leaves you to perform the duties.”
Calvino watched as the old Japanese man sucked in his breath and stared down at the teacup on the table before him and to his left. On his right another table had a dozen small figures in rows: godlike figurines made from bronze, porcelain and gold. A grade way above what people put in a spirit house. One of them was Ganesh, the Hindu elephant god. Behind was another table with a guestbook and a pen, and a wooden stand that held half a dozen samurai swords.
“You want me…” his voice trailed back to the box of silence.
Nagata had picked up a two-headed figure, rubbing his thumb over the two faces.
“Not me personally. But the Thai police may ask you to identify her body. She’s now listed as a Jane Doe.”
Calvino watched for some sign that Yoshi Nagata wasn’t in shock, that he already knew about Ploy’s death and for his own reasons was disguising his knowledge.
“You didn’t know?”
Nagata replaced the figure on the table. He shook his head, his eyes meeting Calvino’s. He didn’t blink.
“Poor Ploy. How did she die?”
“The police say that she was murdered.”
Nagata smacked his lips twice and slowly shook his head.
“That is unfortunate. Terrible news. Poor girl.”
Calvino saw the opportunity to make his play.
The sincerity of his “poor girl,” “poor Ploy” responses had to be tested.
“Her sister in Mae Hong Son says you were the only man Ploy trusted here. And the sister could always contact you in case of an emergency. Sounds like you two were living together. Money changed hands. You bought her from the family. Paid cash. She got pregnant and the relationship went in the direction of Okinawa. She died. You disposed of the body.”
“Mr. Calvino, I am Ploy’s yoga teacher.”
He paused to compose himself.
“I was her friend, not her boyfriend. I am gay. And I am not from Japan. I was born in Canada, Vancouver. If Canadians wish to express regret for a tragedy or something ‘going south,’ we say things are going in the direction of the United States.”
Calvino looked at the old, thin Japanese man with long, white hair, a small white goatee and a broad, shiny forehead, dressed in ceremonial yoga whites. He had the serene smile of an ascetic who had climbed a mountain and witnessed an internal truth that existed at the beginning of the trail below.
“You were her teacher?”
Nagata nodded.
“For nearly a year she came to my studio for two-hour yoga sessions.”
“In a group or on her own?”
“She asked for private lessons.”
“Do you have an address for her? The name of her husband, boyfriend, associates?”
“She told me that she lived in the area. As for her personal life, she did talk about it in general terms. I knew that her family were in a refugee camp along the Burmese border, and her dream was to find a home for them outside Thailand.”
Calvino leaned forward, trying to get comfortable on the mat.
“Why would she talk to you about the Mae Hong Son camp and not about her life in Bangkok?”
Nagata showed the faint hint of a smile.
“It was understood that her Bangkok life was off limits. She had her reasons.”
“But she confided in you that she came from a refugee camp? That’s admitting she was an illegal. Why would she trust you with that information and not tell you her boyfriend’s name? It doesn’t make sense, Mr. Nagata.”
“She trusted me about the camp because I had personal experience of what a refugee camp does to a person. During the Second World War my parents were shipped from their home in Vancouver to a concentration camp in Alberta. Everything they’d worked for and owned—house, furniture and car—was lost in British Columbia. My father’s life lost meaning. That’s something I suspect you have never experienced. An absence of meaning destroys the reason for living, Mr. Calvino. Ploy’s mother and father also had this experience. Ploy found that I understood what she’d experienced and what her parents had gone through. People who’ve not lived in these circumstances rarely do.”
“The fact is, her family sold her to a buyer in Bangkok. I need the name of the man who bought her.”
“I know nothing about him. But I understood how that family decision came about. You judge Ploy’s family too harshly. That’s understandable. For me, it was a perfectly natural decision for her father and mother to make. If your life no longer has any purpose or meaning, and you have lost any means to sustain your life, what is left to live for? You can kill yourself, and some do, or in order to survive, you do whatever is necessary. Selling your daughter is a terrible thing when your life is full of meaning and the money is used to buy a pickup or something to give face or comfort. That’s evil. You can’t judge Ploy’s parents as evil. No, you must have experienced what it is to live with all hope and dreams stripped away, and then ask yourself, what would you do?”
“Ploy admitted that her parents sold her?”
Nagata blinked twice and nodded in a bow.
“She loved them.”
“They’re dead.”
“That is sad news. We can never foresee another’s destiny.”
Resistance or acceptance, the fork in the road, and she had to go down one or the other lane. In the end it hadn’t mattered. Nagata had a point—if she hadn’t died in Bangkok, she likely would have died when the refugee camp went up in flames.
“She sent them money every month. Any idea how she worked that?”
Nagata quietly refilled his teacup.
“An NGO friend of mine helped.”
“One of your clients?”
“Yes, but I wouldn’t want to involve her.”
“You might not have a choice. The person I want to meet is the man who bought her. Any idea at all where I can find him?”
“None.”
Nagata’s voice, cold as a winter chill, an echo against a mountain, turned one word into a library of Babel.
“You are looking for him?”
“I’ll find him.”
“I am confident that you will, Mr. Calvino.”
“Could her buyer have introduced her to you?”
Nagata sipped his tea.
“No, Bow introduced her. Bow was Ploy’s Thai teacher. She’s a student from a respectable family and like Ploy has been one of my regular yoga students.”
“They came to yoga together?”
“Only occasionally. Ploy had more flexible hours. And as I said, Ploy preferred private sessions.”
“Any idea how Ploy and Bow met?”
“I never asked.”
Calvino stared at the old man, who displayed no guile or evasion.
“You weren’t curious?”
“It had no relevance to yoga. How people meet is mostly a matter of chance. To ask why is to ask why the wind blows from the south today and from the east tomorrow. Students come to me to practice an ancient art. Like most people, since the time they were children they saw all around them that they’d been born into a world where dreams died. Long before the physical death, we bury our dreams one after another. I teach my students how to mourn their dead dreams and to move on.”
Nagata was in the same line of work as Dr. Apinya. Who hadn’t watched innocence bleed out?
“Had Ploy moved on?”
“I can’t speak for her. Her dream was to take her family to freedom.”
“Ironic.”
“Less a matter of irony than what desperate people do as they watch their dreams slip away.”
Calvino rose to his
knees and had a closer look at the collection of small gods.
“Is this part of the yoga class?”
“Spirituality is the essence of yoga practice. It is physical, very physical too, but inside a mental space that is difficult to achieve.”
“Those figurines, except for one of them, don’t look like Buddha.”
“The Buddha might have replied that he saw no separation. Each one was his manifestation over time and space. A lesson. A guidepost on the path that leads to another path that otherwise is invisible.”
“If you learn which of those paths might lead me to Ploy’s boyfriend, you’ll let me know?”
He rose to his feet and looked down at Yoshi Nagata.
The Japanese man looked up with a serene smile.
“You won’t need me to tell you. Follow your own heart and observe what it reveals.”
TWENTY-TWO
BOW’S EXCUSE FOR not meeting Calvino was straightforward.
“I’m graduating from university. I receive my diploma tomorrow. Very busy. No time. Next week, maybe.”
“You’re getting your diploma at Queen Sirikit Centre?” Calvino asked on the phone.
“How did you get my number?”
“Yoshi Nagata, your yoga teacher, gave it to me.”
“Why would he do that?”
“I have a few questions about Ploy I’d like to ask you.”
Click.
She’d cut off the call. He auto-redialed the number and heard a busy tone. Nagata had given him Bow’s full name, number, email and the name of her university. She was graduating with a BA in English literature.
TWENTY-THREE
COLONEL PRATT HAD waited fifteen minutes outside Calvino’s apartment. He hadn’t phoned ahead. It was a Thai inclination when in the area of a friend to unexpectedly arrive at the door. Calvino emerged from the elevator on his floor and saw the Colonel looking out the window at a vast stretch of slums—shanty houses, corrugated roofs, a uniform rusty brown like a huge interlocking nest.
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