The Marriage Tree

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The Marriage Tree Page 18

by Christopher G. Moore


  The fact was, in Bangkok, Calvino hadn’t ever seen anyone behind the wheel of a Lamborghini drive much differently. Why shouldn’t Jaruk experience the sudden rush that came with perfectly matching the power of his machine, delivering the message to everyone watching, “Give way! I am untouchable.”

  The luxury car turned sharply into an entry ramp to park inside an office high-rise on Rama IV Road, a building with a bank on the ground floor. A couple of embassies occupied several of the upper floors, but mostly the tower was devoted to grade-A office space for companies that generated the income for expensive toys. Calvino still followed the Lamborghini, watching as it exited on the third floor. Calvino got off at the top of the ramp and gave the bike to McPhail, who rode it up to the fourth floor and parked in the area reserved for motorcycles. By the time McPhail had parked, cleared the stairs and entered the parking lot, the Lamborghini was empty. He found Calvino checking out the car.

  McPhail lit a cigarette and shook his head.

  Man, what’s the mileage on this wagon?”

  Calvino cupped his hands over his eyes and tried to read the dials through the heavy tint.

  “Reads seven thousand kilometers.”

  “Man, that’s new. It’s only taken a few baby steps.”

  Calvino remembered a similar sports car parked in front of the 50th Street Bar in Rangoon. There had been other luxury cars parked alongside. He’d been with Colonel Pratt. Inside, Mya was singing the blues. The Colonel had played the sax.

  “I said baby steps,” repeated McPhail. “Something the matter with you? You look a million miles away. Like you’ve seen a ghost.”

  Calvino checked his watch.

  “I’ve got a feeling our boy is going to be back.”

  He walked around to the front of the car with McPhail a step behind. McPhail dropped his cigarette and crunched it with his shoe.

  “What do we have here?” asked McPhail.

  Calvino knelt down and read the stenciled sign on the wall. Reserved: CEO Thanet, The Diamond Flagship Import and Export Ltd. Parked in the slot next to the Lamborghini was a new four-door silver Fortuner with the plate number 007. The sign for that parking spot read “Reserved for CFO Apichart, The Diamond Flagship Import and Export Ltd.” Calvino took out his cell phone and snapped close-ups of the signs and the plates, and front and side shots of the Lamborghini. He crouched down behind the car, looked underneath. He laughed, “Ed, it looks like someone’s already planted a GPS.”

  “He’s gonna wonder about the parade following him,” said McPhail. Calvino attached the GPS tracking device under the Lamborghini next to the one he found.

  “What we have here is the name of our driver’s boss,” said Calvino.

  McPhail walked over to have a look into the Fortuner parked next to the sports car. The Fortuner used a pickup chassis with an SUV body constructed on top. Calvino crouched down, removed a GPS tracking device from his jacket and attached it under the Fortuner. He put a second device under the rear fender.

  “That should make babysitting easier,” said Calvino, wiping his hands as he stood up.

  “Look at that color,” said Ed. “It belongs on a luxury car. Don’t put silver on a Fortuner. It’s like putting lipstick on a pig. If a car could get plastic surgery, here’s where you’d start.”

  “We just want to follow it, Ed. Forget about the color. Stay on this floor, and when Jaruk comes back, phone me. I’ll pick you up on the ramp.”

  “What if he doesn’t come back?”

  Calvino put a hand on McPhail’s shoulder and squeezed it.

  “In that case we’ve wasted a couple of hours. Life will go on.”

  McPhail lit another cigarette as he watched Calvino take the stairs to the fourth floor. Half an hour later Jaruk returned, got into the Fortuner and pulled out of the bay.

  “Our boy just climbed into Frankenstein’s car,” McPhail said over the phone.

  Calvino switched on the BMW motorcycle, revved the engine, counted three beats, then rode down the ramp just as the Fortuner cleared it. McPhail climbed onto the back and they tailed Jaruk through slow traffic. The Fortuner lacked the power to move mountain and man, and Jaruk was now stuck in a traffic jam. An hour after leaving the building where the Diamond Flagship Import and Export Ltd. had an office, Jaruk stopped in front of a mansion inside Soi 35 Ladprao Road. A metal automatic gate slowly opened. The driver had used a remote. Calvino and McPhail sat on the BMW behind a parked car and watched the Fortuner disappear inside the large compound. The gate closed behind, making a solid prison cell clang.

  “We know where his boss works and lives,” said Calvino.

  “Thanet must be a filthy rich bastard,” said Ed. “You sure you want to fuck with someone like this?”

  “Maybe he doesn’t know his driver has a sideline business as a cleaner.”

  “What if it isn’t a sideline, and he was following orders?” said McPhail.

  Calvino nodded.

  “Cleaner for who? You’re right, that is the question. Ed, don’t think too much, it’ll give you a headache,” said Calvino.

  McPhail recognized the old bargirl line for when a customer shifts from the sabai, sanuk state of mind to a serious, questioning mode. The fail-safe bargirl mind wants to float along a flat, effortless, problem-free road, and a foreigner comes along, maybe a customer paying for fun, who wants to shift the mindset to twisting, bumpy mountain roads with cutbacks that look down at an abyss.

  “Who are you thinking of asking?”

  “I think I’ll start by asking the driver a few questions,” said Calvino.

  “That’s not going to be easy. He lives in an armed fortress.”

  “After a little talk about his options, he might come to see this place isn’t all that safe.”

  “And see his boss as the man in charge of death row.”

  Calvino nodded, observing the high stone wall with long spikes that protected the compound like the hide of an armadillo. He counted four CCTV cameras covering the street. Calvino photographed the cameras and the entrance gate. An hour later the gate opened and Jaruk walked out. He’d changed into a T-shirt screaming in large blue letters “I am Awesome,” blue jeans and Nike track shoes. Jaruk pressed a cell phone to his ear.

  Ten minutes later, the receptionist from Dr. Nattapong’s office showed up in a red Honda Civic. Sukanya parked her car away from the compound’s surveillance system. Jaruk opened the door on the passenger’s side, got in and then leaned over and kissed her on the lips. The brake lights flashed, and the car pulled slowly away.

  “Lovebirds,” said McPhail.

  “Even vultures show each other affection,” replied Calvino.

  Calvino slipped on his helmet, started the BMW 1200K and turned it in the direction of the Honda Civic. He followed the Honda to the Big C at Ladprao and watched Sukanya park it. They both got out and walked slowly, talking. McPhail tailed them inside to a pizza parlor on the ground floor. They sat at a table next to a window that looked out at the foot traffic in the mall. McPhail sat two tables away and ordered a Hawaiian pizza with extra pineapple and cheese and a Coke. After the waitress left, he plugged a wire into his cell phone and pushed an earbud into his right ear. Then he positioned the directional mike, adjusted the frequency until he captured their voices and cleaned out the ambient noise until their conversation was as clear as a bell ringing from the tower of a distant cathedral. It was like sitting in the confessional booth, and he was the priest listening to a couple of sinners spilling their guts. Neither one was asking for forgiveness, though they were singing from the same hymnbook. It was an ancient song about how to get away with murder and a suitcase of stolen money.

  TWENTY-NINE

  YOSHI NAGATA PAID for Judy and Mon Hla’s airfares from Mae Hong Son via Chiang Mai. For Mon Hla it was a first experience of Thailand outside the camp. Bangkok’s traffic, buildings, noise and speed confused and frightened her. The temple grounds were a refuge, but she still clung to Judy’s side. A
t any other time she’d have been happy to visit the wat. There had been no funeral for her parents and brother. Her sister’s funeral came at a time of great sadness for several reasons. When she met Nagata, her lower lip quivered and she hugged him, squeezing tears from her eyes. Judy handed her a tissue. Mon Hla blew her nose and wiped the tears from her face while Nagata spoke to her in his yoga voice, a decibel above a whisper.

  Judy translated as Mon Hla nodded, fighting back more tears. Without the right Bangkok connections to smooth the way, she would never have received permission to leave the tent city built on the edge of the burnt-out refugee camp. Colonel Pratt had phoned one of his old classmates, and a couple of hours later a pass was signed, granting a forty-eight-hour travel permit on humanitarian grounds. She’d flown to Bangkok to attend the funeral of her sister and to cooperate with the police investigation into the rape and murder case.

  McPhail, Ratana, Colonel Pratt, Bow and Bow’s boyfriend made polite conversation at the sala. A handful of people had come to pay their final respects. Neither Dr. Nattapong nor Sukanya showed. Not that Calvino expected them to; they’d washed their hands of young Ploy. Nor did the man who had bought her from her family bother to show up. Why should he? What he’d paid for no longer served any purpose. Junk it. He was the kind of man who thought nothing of ordering his men to blow up a car. Such men were called psychopaths or sociopaths, and Bangkok was overpopulated with them.

  McPhail couldn’t stop himself from sneaking glances at Bow, who was all shapely legs, up and down.

  Shaking his head, he said, “You look totally different.”

  She wore a short skirt and high heels. Her long black hair touched her shoulders, and her lipstick and eyeliner were transforming. Her accommodation for the funeral was a black armband. Otherwise, she could have just walked off the stage at Tiffany’s with a crown.

  “The university has a stupid rule,” Bow said.

  Her boyfriend looked bored, fighting back a yawn.

  “You speak English?” McPhail asked him.

  “A little.”

  “You take good care of Bow. She’s a sweet, sweet girl.”

  “How do you know that?”

  The boyfriend’s face had a permanent smile, making it difficult to read the tone in his question.

  “Calvino told me. How is it that all of Ploy’s friends are good people? How does someone like that die? Calvino asked me that. But I think he was asking himself, and he wasn’t just thinking about Ploy.”

  “You think Bow has a problem?”

  For the first time the boyfriend showed an emotion. It could have passed as anxiety.

  “Keep an eye on her,” said McPhail.

  McPhail had attended too many funerals with Calvino. He’d gone along with Calvino to Mya’s funeral and watched the smoke rise from the crematory chimney. He’d watched as Calvino said goodbye the best he could. Again at Ploy’s funeral, he witnessed Calvino drawn to a dead person he’d never known in life but who had the capacity to draw him to her burning. Fire on flesh, blood and bone signaled a sacred purity, a cleansing of form in preparation for the final journey into the eternal loop of nothingness. When Calvino talked about the scent of wet ashes, McPhail knew exactly what an existential loop smelled like.

  Nagata said a few words before the crematory’s metal door closed with the coffin inside and the flames ignited: “Her family named her Mi Swe. We knew her as Ploy. She lived in a refugee camp. She knew that world. I myself was born in a relocation camp my parents had been sent to. We understood each other in the way of people with no home in a land, who are mistrusted and despised by local people. If she were standing with us today, Ploy would say, do not weep or cry for me. I am free. Beyond pain, doubt, suffering and regret. When I spoke at my mother’s funeral, I reminded her friends and family that death is release. It is not to be feared. It is natural. Death releases us from suffering. As Buddhists, we believe this is our highest achievement. Our lives are a path to the closing of the cycle of birth, death and rebirth in endless time. We gather here to pray for Ploy’s release down that path. To be redeemed from redemption is not a contradiction. It is the key equation we must learn.”

  Nagata raised his arms slowly, making a perfect wai toward the coffin.

  “Ploy, you will remain in our hearts and our memory. You touched our lives, graced them with kindness and love. We gather at this ceremony to witness your release to be as one with eternity.”

  After the cremation ceremony ended, they looked up at the sky to watch the last tails of the smoke, twisting, spinning as they coiled from the blackened mouth of the chimney. The heat from the crematorium and the sun left Bow and her boyfriend listless, their energy sapped. They waited for the right moment before making excuses. After they left, Colonel Pratt asked Judy if she and Mon Hla would join him for lunch.

  Looking over at Calvino, Judy said, “Vincent, you join us too.”

  She relaxed and managed a smile. They stared at each other as two people who had misjudged one another only to come to the conclusion they’d been wrong. It was hard to admit. She reached out with her hand and Calvino grasped it.

  “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

  Two cars delivered the mourning group to a restaurant on a sub-soi deep inside Soi Thonglor, where they parked and entered the Cheesecake House. The staff recognized Colonel Pratt, who lived nearby. The owner asked him about his wife, Manee. Pleasantries accomplished, Colonel Pratt asked for a big table. The staff pushed two tables together and the group milled around, uncertain where to be seated. Colonel Pratt invited Yoshi Nagata to sit at the head of the table. It was the Colonel’s way of acknowledging that Nagata was senior to him. With his speech at Ploy’s funeral, he’d also established himself as a respected elder, making him both the keeper and messenger of the soul of the deceased.

  Nagata accepted the honor with a slight nod and sat down. Calvino pulled out the chair between McPhail and Judy, who had Mon Hla at her other side. On the opposite side, Calvino faced Colonel Pratt and Ratana, who had opened their menus.

  Colonel Pratt was hoping for a private talk with Mon Hla, but that would have to wait. As a Thai he understood that before serious business is discussed, the social side must be attended to. He was a patient man. A passage from The Winter’s Tale came to mind: “What’s gone and what’s past help should be past grief.” Shakespeare would in some ways always be a farang in Thailand. No Thai could conceive of letting go of the past, as grief never ended with the smoke up the chimney.

  Judy ordered a banana shake and the salmon pasta for Mon Hla and an ice coffee and salad for herself. The post-funeral lunch was a quiet affair. Not so much awkward as washed out by a collective feeling of futility and exhaustion. Food arrived at the table, and only then did real conversation begin.

  Turning to Judy, Calvino said, “Any more news on what caused the fire at the camp?”

  “Mon Hla saw a helicopter drop fire from the sky. I talked with a couple of other witnesses who also saw it.”

  “Officials I’ve talked to say the fire was caused by an overturned cooking stove,” said Colonel Pratt. “Other stories, of helicopters and bombs, bring more attention. I can understand the desire of refugees to want others to have sympathy for them.”

  Two versions of the fire had circulated through the media for days. The authorities had said there was no need for further investigation into the cause of the fire. No Thai person in the area had logged a flight plan for a helicopter, and no Thai person had witnessed a helicopter flying in the area on the day of the fire. In the battle of facts between the Burmese and the Thais, there was little doubt who would win. The standoff between the conflicting stories would soon disappear like smoke. Colonel Pratt was the kind of man who said the agenda was always open. “Show me the evidence” could have been his motto. But he couldn’t consider conflicting evidence just now, as the people around the table had gone silent. Who would contradict a Thai police colonel?

  After lunch was finished, Colonel
Pratt saw his chance.

  “Vincent said you saw a helicopter just before the fire started in the camp,” he said.

  Mon Hla nodded.

  “I saw it drop a sparkling flare. It made a silver color against the sky. It hit the top of our house. My mother, father and brother were inside. They died.”

  Colonel Pratt sat silently, glancing at Calvino, then back at Mon Hla.

  “Sometimes people think they see something, but it’s not really there.”

  “I watched the helicopter,” she replied firmly.

  She was young and scared, but she held her ground.

  The reality was that no one other than a couple of Burmese refugees had claimed to see the helicopter. What was Mon Hla’s credibility? If she or the others had wanted the spotlight, then claiming they’d been attacked in a refugee camp guaranteed international press. An overturned cooking stove wasn’t news on that scale, even if a lot of people had died. Colonel Pratt believed she had seen something.

  With Judy by her side, Mon Hla seemed confident, more than she’d been when she had first arrived at the wat. The Colonel saw no point in further questions about the cause of the fire. For now he had only one more question for Mon Hla, but it was on another subject.

  “Do you have any information about the man who paid money for Ploy to leave the camp and move to Bangkok?”

  Mon Hla shook her head.

  “I don’t know his name. It was a secret. The day she left the camp, I was helping at the clinic. We never had a chance to say goodbye. My mother told me that Mi Swe had left with a man who’d found her work in Bangkok.”

  “Your parents never talked about who she was with or where she lived?”

  “I don’t think they were told.”

 

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