Colonel Pratt fingered the mouthpiece on his sax. A strong feeling passed through him that he was about to hear something he’d rather avoid, but he knew he couldn’t. Like waiting for a punch when you know you can’t raise your hands to block it.
“The night of Yadanar’s birthday party, you and I were separated.”
“I remember. You were there, and I looked around and you were gone.”
“I went upstairs. Kati was in the room with Yadanar, Mya and a couple of Yadanar’s men. Kati and a couple of Thai men had been tied up, hooded. When the hoods came off, I saw they’d been beaten up. They’d worked Kati over real good. Her face was a mess. I saw her eyes staring at me. Pleading, begging, desperate. Mya had a gun. She walked over to Kati. She squeezed off one round. A head shot. Bang. Kati fell over dead. It was for Rob, Mya said. She’d killed Kati for me, she meant. If I’d gone back to the guesthouse where Rob was hiding out, he might have lived. He was my responsibility. I should have protected him. I should have known. And I should have told you. I don’t know why I didn’t. But I couldn’t for some reason, and I can’t figure out what that reason was. Another thing...”
They exchanged the look of two old friends.
“Mya appears with my visitors. She always says the same thing. I owe her. In a way she’s right. I do. There was a real connection.”
Colonel Pratt stared at his saxophone, raised it as if to play, stopped and shook his head.
“Kati came to my room. I don’t know how it started, her dress, the light on her face, the perfume, but we made love. She asked about you. I told her that you weren’t at the hotel. She remembered seeing you at the Savoy Hotel Bar. I told her you weren’t staying at the Savoy but nearby.”
“Mya must’ve known. The way she was beaten, Kati would have told Yadanar’s men everything,” said Calvino.
Colonel Pratt shrugged.
“Someone texted Manee that I slept with Kati in Rangoon. They attached a picture of the two of us. I was going to tell you. But what was the point? You were going through your own hell.”
Calvino closed his eyes, shaking his head.
“You should have told me, Pratt. I know I should have told you about that night. So what do we do now?”
“Selling the place and moving away is her way of dealing with it.”
“Do you have any idea who texted Manee?”
“Someone who wanted to cause me maximum harm,” said Colonel Pratt. “There were people who didn’t like that we were shutting down the cold pill smuggling business. Or going too deep into the car bombing. There’s a long list of possibilities.”
Before falling asleep each night, the Colonel had tried to trim the long list to a short one. The people who gathered around his end of the water cooler were the people who he talked and listened to. But in the policing game the water cooler crowd included strangers, informants, commanders and support personnel. He’d reviewed the parade of acquaintances stretching from Bangkok to Rangoon. There were also too many anonymous faces. People from his sessions at the 50th Street Bar where he’d sat in as the sax player, for instance. They’d seen him in the distance with Kati at his table. Strangers like those peering from their high-rise windows above his compound. He’d catch a glimpse of their movement, but he didn’t know them, and they’d disappear from sight. How could he isolate the person on his list who had sent the message to Manee? The reality was he couldn’t.
“You’re tougher than me, Pratt.”
Colonel Pratt shook his head.
“I don’t think so. And even if it were true, what does toughness matter? Most of the time, being tough doesn’t help. It gets in the way.”
Calvino wondered if that was the first time a cop anywhere had ever said something like that. He watched as Colonel Pratt wetted the mouthpiece on the saxophone and played the opening of Sonny Rollins’s “The Freedom Suite.” He lowered the sax and smiled.
“We both had our Rangoon secrets,” the Colonel said. “What do we have to show for them now? Only that they messed with our minds and lives. There’s a lesson.”
“The lesson is that what happened in Rangoon isn’t going to leave you or me alone,” said Calvino. “They know we’ll find a way sooner or later to get them. That’s the lesson. Don’t imagine that the Rangoon business stopped when we left. It hasn’t stopped. And won’t stop. There are people who want you to take the money and retire to the beach. They have me boxed in with the crazies. We’re making it easy for them, Pratt.”
“What do we have? We have a couple of videos. We watch an anxious doctor and his receptionist talking about the cover-up of a death caused by a surgical mistake. We have a couple of men in masks and gunshots. That’s not much to connect someone powerful to a murder.”
“Thanet’s companies are a conglomerate that earn out from secret dealings—cold pill smuggling—China, Burma, Thailand. Human trafficking—Burma, Thailand, Malaysia. Weapons sales—Thailand, Russia and America. Have I left anything out?”
“If we suspect this is true, where is the evidence? It’s not in the videos, Vincent.”
“What if I told you someone had the data on all three—cold pills, Rohingya trafficking and arms sales? And she can give you the evidence. Emails, text messages, phone logs, memos, videos. All the evidence leads to Thanet’s office as the operational center.”
“It’s public knowledge that one of his companies is a middleman for the sale of attack helicopters to the government,” said Colonel Pratt. “He’s a clever man. He is protected, Vincent. That’s no secret.”
“You asked me for evidence,” said Calvino. “Simple. You can look through the evidence and ask yourself how many serious crimes you count.”
It was never that simple, they both knew. Everyone broke a law a couple of times every day. Things stayed easy so long as the small money squeezed out of people remained small. In the big cases, things were different. In a big-shot family evidence is only one factor in determining whether someone has broken the law.
“You know how the system works,” said Colonel Pratt. “Depending on who you are and what you’ve done, you are exiled, disappeared, killed or arrested. There’s a VIP gray area where an important person is invited to come to talk to us with his lawyers. He holds a press conference with his supporters and important people. The public loses interest. No charges are filed. Finally there’s a special category. Not all VIPs are equal. There exists a place ten kilometers above the surface elites. That’s the place where men like Thanet operate. Men like him can’t be touched. They are the gods. We know one when we see one, just as you know pornography when you see it. You don’t need a definition. It’s stares straight through you without fear.”
“You’re saying that Thanet is in the god category?”
“A celestial being protected by forces way beyond our resources. To take down a god, you don’t need evidence, you need another god to give the nod.”
Colonel Pratt guided Calvino down the shore of Thai culture and into its shallow waters. He could only take his friend so far. But Calvino accepted his limitations, like a man wading knee-deep into the sea admitting the experience doesn’t make him an oceanographer.
“On Sunday you talked about being a failure,” said Calvino. “I’ve been thinking about what it means. You know, what it means to fail.”
“What does it mean, Vincent? You realize the gods are untouchable. Whatever you do to challenge them will never be enough.”
“Despair is the one drug that should be outlawed. I won’t give up. I won’t give in.”
“Your video of the men in the white masks disappeared.”
“I have a backup.”
Colonel Pratt shrugged.
“You don’t understand. It doesn’t exist. Back the video up to eternity and it will remain lost.”
“There is always a way, Pratt.”
“I admire the American attitude in so many ways. But it makes you ill-suited to stay alive in the Thai world of Bangkok lowlifes.”
&nbs
p; “Leaving behind some kind of mark of hope isn’t American. It’s human.”
“That was a different age, Vincent.”
“Every age is different and the same. Why can’t it be enough to have had an ordinary life? Why has that become a failure?”
“We expect too much. We don’t want to accept what is. That makes us troublemakers.”
“When I left New York, I was washed up. I had nothing,” said Calvino. “If that isn’t the definition of failure, then what is? I didn’t give up.”
Colonel Pratt looked back at the main house. Manee stood near the door looking at the sala and the grounds, her arms folded. She had a still, faraway look as if she were already on a distant beach watching the tide wash over the sand or waiting for a boat to appear on the horizon.
“That’s true, Vincent. You never gave up or asked for pity. You’ve been a very good, loyal friend. Let go of what happened in Rangoon. Let go of the car bombing. And the dead girl you found on the Tobacco Monopoly Land. Let it all go.”
Manee went back into the house.
“Manee has let it all go,” he said. “Pay attention to the present. Live in the now.”
“Shakespeare?”
“The Buddha.”
Calvino leaned forward, thinking of the two-headed statue of Janus. Did one face eventually surrender, or were the two in eternal conflict, fighting for the present to pay attention to the past or to the future?
“You’re right,” said Calvino. “As long as we have life, we’ve won the best thing. Take a guy like Thanet. How’s he different from you or me? He’s yoked to the same twenty-four-hour day. He sleeps and eats like us. But he needs something the rest of us don’t. He lives for the recognition that he’s special. That he’s entitled to swim in a sea of awe and respect.”
“Gods rarely are found with the fishes in the bottom of the sea. That’s why they’re gods, Vincent.”
Calvino nodded. He got the message—the law had little traction when it came to dragging the powerful to justice. Was it so different anywhere else? The earth had long ago been colonized by local gods. Therein lay Colonel Pratt’s despair.
“The gods have their weaknesses,” said Calvino.
“Where will you find his Achilles’ heel?”
“The hind legs of the elephant,” said Calvino.
Marley’s work decoding Sukanya’s iPhone had disclosed a herd of elephants standing on their hind legs.
“Elephants never forget an enemy,” said the Colonel. “An enraged elephant charges without mercy.”
“As happened with the firebombing of the refugee camp in Mae Hong Son.”
The Colonel looked at his watch.
“I’m off to the office. I need to sign some papers,” he said. “Despite what people think, an inactive position has as much paperwork as any other position. Be careful, Vincent.”
He reached over and gave Calvino a bear hug. That was uncharacteristic for a Thai, Calvino knew, even one educated in the West.
“And thanks for telling me what happened that night in Rangoon.”
“I think the ghosts are gone, Pratt.”
“That’s why you’re feeling hopeful.”
Calvino grinned.
“That’s a good space to be in, Pratt. It’s large enough for more than one.”
THIRTY-NINE
AKASH SARU RODE a bus from the prison to Pratunam. His intention was to temporarily blend back into the great throng of poor immigrants and wait for the final arrangements to get him out of Thailand. He told himself that Wednesday had always been his lucky day. May Day, the day set aside for workers, was the day of his release. Akash Saru should have been transferred to immigration jail, held in a small cell with forty other detainees and deported to India. But a sudden turf battle between immigration and the police had temporarily closed down the administrative processing that connected the two.
Akash walked out of the prison not believing his luck. Then, halfway from the bus stop to his apartment building in Pratunam, he ran into a Burmese friend who told him about Anal Khan. The smile vanished from Akash’s face. His lucky day suddenly filled with dark, threatening clouds.
Akash Saru, the Rohingya smuggler whose real name was Deen Alam, should have felt on top of the world, but he was sweating hard. Fear galloped through him like wild horses. He phoned two people, both farang—the white-skinned, privileged clan that the police and gangsters mostly left undisturbed.
As Calvino ordered lunch, he took a call from Akash. McPhail was on his second gin and tonic, smoking a cigarette and flirting with the waitress who’d come to tell him he had to put it out.
“When did you get out?”
Calvino looked warily at McPhail.
“An hour ago.”
“Where are you now?” asked Calvino.
Akash told him.
“Who are you with?”
“I wait for my friend.”
“Who’s the friend?”
“Sarah from Wisconsin.”
He said it as if he were pronouncing the first, middle and last name of a person.
“Who does Sarah from Wisconsin work for?”
“Sarah’s a missionary.”
Calvino repeated for McPhail’s benefit.
“A missionary from Wisconsin.”
“Praise be the lord,” said McPhail, crossing himself. “Ask him if she makes cheese.”
Akash gave him the building number and, as another call came in, said, “It’s Sarah. I have to go. But please come to see me this afternoon. I have something to give to you, and I won’t have another chance to repay you for all you’ve done for me.”
Calvino set out for Akash’s room in Pratunam in the early afternoon. McPhail came along as backup. After all, Anal Khan had been found dead on the floor below in the same building. On the way there Calvino stopped by his condo and found Marley waiting for him. Calvino pulled out his shoulder holster and checked his .38 Police Special. Colonel Pratt made a judgment to return the handgun. He didn’t need to say anything. The unspoken condition was—don’t make me regret this decision. Without trembling, Calvino held the gun at arm’s length, the barrel pointed at the head of a woman in a painting. His arm and hand were dead steady. He holstered the .38 and, checking his face in the mirror, told himself it was time for his face to turn from the past and look into the future. He’d gone several days without any hallucinations. The past was another head, another space and time. He’d never felt better.
Marley had been watching him, leaning against the wall. He turned to face her. The way she looked at him, he sensed she was seeing something that she’d missed before. With a half-smile she concealed whatever emotions had arisen from crunching the data inside her head.
“Are you okay?” he asked her.
She nodded.
“I’m not used to seeing someone with a gun.”
She left it at that.
“I won’t be long.”
Marley moved away from the wall.
“I’d like to come along,” she said.
Calvino thought for a moment.
“Where I’m going isn’t the best part of Bangkok.”
“I’ll have a bodyguard,” she said. “You are armed.”
Calvino wasn’t so certain it was a good idea. She stood a few inches away—the distance only sanctioned by a certain level of intimacy.
“Sure, come along. But stay close. I don’t want you disappearing into a harem in the Middle East.”
They were out the door and down to the parking floor, where McPhail waited next to the car. At last he’d found a place where he could smoke.
“Marley’s coming along.”
“She can shop for clothes while we have a talk with your boy.”
“I have all the clothes I need,” said Marley.
“My name’s Ed,” McPhail said. “You know, you could do a lot better than this guy.”
“Get in the car, Ed,” said Calvino.
McPhail climbed into the back seat of the
car.
“He told you on the phone he had something for you,” said McPhail, lighting a cigarette. “Any idea what that might be?”
Calvino glanced in the rearview mirror.
“No idea, Ed. What were you thinking? A pound of hash?”
“That would be nice.”
“He’s joking,” Calvino said, looking over at Marley. “There are parts of Pratunam crawling with junkies and drug dealers. It’s not a place for the average tourist.”
“It’s a third world dump,” said McPhail. “Bums, beggars and blow. Expect the unexpected.”
She lowered her window. The heat of the day sucked out the cool air-conditioned air like a giant straw, pulling McPhail’s stale cigarette smoke from where it hung frozen in the chilled air. Calvino drove through heavy traffic and finally gave up, parking his car at a nearby shopping mall. They walked the last three hundred meters until they entered Akash Saru’s building—an eight-story concrete box with grills covering windows glazed with dirt, laundry still as death hanging on balcony clotheslines and the sound of a baby bawling barely audible above punk rock music blaring from an upper room. At the elevator a sign had been taped to the door saying “Out of Order.” It was an old sign.
The woman who sold fried bananas on the ground floor recognized him and waied. She had a good memory. A couple of weeks had passed since she’d seen Calvino in the lobby. On that day the police had come and removed a body on a stretcher. Calvino figured the authorities had probably returned twice since then to collect other dead bodies.
“Good to see you, son,” the old woman said in Thai.
“Is there anyone you don’t know?” asked McPhail.
“Mae, have you eaten yet?” Calvino asked her in Thai, addressing her respectfully as “mother.”
Her red-rimmed-teeth smile hinted at the wad of betel nut tucked into the pocket of her cheek.
“Not yet,” she said.
Calvino bought fried bananas and handed them to McPhail and Marley.
“An energy boost before we climb the stairs.”
He pulled up a photo of Akash on his iPad screen and showed it to her.
“Have you seen this man?”
The Marriage Tree Page 26