Brandon took a drink of water and grimaced. “Seems someone put water into my water glass. If I’m evil, does that mean I can’t get a real drink?”
He had the entire back of the room hooting.
“And they’re using clowns like you to front for them,” Baker snapped. “You make everyone laugh so they don’t take this discussion seriously.”
“In the land of sanuk, ‘serious’ is a seriously bad word,” said Brandon. “We don’t want to create a new species of mutants, or superman soldiers, or make small children infertile. The farmers have better yields, pay less for fertilizer, use less oil, and the rice can be warehoused longer. Our technology adds vitamin A and iron and calcium. The Chinese showed that this was possible with ‘golden rice,’ which saves about a million kids’ lives every year in the developing world. The health-cost savings alone to the Thai government is huge. The kids are better able to compete in sports and learn when in school. I don’t know about you, but if that’s evil, we should be fearful of good.”
“You failed to mention the allergic reactions that children have had with the golden rice. No one knows how those changes work on human DNA. And we don’t know what happens when your rice seeds find their way to other fields. You are enabling a mono-agricultural system that will destroy the Thai rice industry. The point is, you have no idea what dangers you are unleashing on the planet.”
Brandon held up his hand and waved at the moderator.
“Can I ask a question?”
The moderator nodded.
“Mr. Baker, what did you study at school?”
“I take that to mean university,” said Scott, his English accent adding the tone of condescension. But he was up against a pro who was used to dealing with drunken hecklers in a New York nightclub.
“If you got that far.”
“I read civil engineering. I’ve worked in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East as a water-systems specialist.”
“What did that teach you about genetics, DNA, and biotechnology? Just because you know how to build a lighthouse, that doesn’t mean you know anything about the shipping business.”
Brandon quietly unscrewed his flask and tipped the neck over the rim of his glass, screwed the cap back on, and took a long sip. More applause echoed from the bar.
“And what are your qualifications, other than money?”
“I have two degrees in biotechnology. A master’s from Caltech and a Ph.D. from MIT. But I couldn’t tell you how to build a lighthouse. An investor came to me because he knew my background. He asked me to help Thailand. I said I would.”
“The point is, the evidence on GMO shows beyond a reasonable doubt that it is a ticking time bomb.”
“No, but food prices skyrocketing are a ticking time bomb. We have a solution. You have fear. That’s not a solution, that’s burying your head in the sand and doing nothing.”
“We can’t risk allowing Frankenfood loose on the ecosystem.”
“Did you have the buffet? I had the buffet. The rice we’re planting won’t be any riskier than those chicken legs. You have a higher risk of getting bird flu from the buffet than infertility from our rice.”
“Accidents happen,” said Scott.
Brandon flinched, going silent, his expression somber as he stared at his hands. Scott’s reply had triggered the thought of Achara. “Accidents can be prevented,” he finally said. “It takes time and money. Our company has invested both. We plan to avoid accidents.”
Brandon, after the program ended, walked over to Calvino’s table, giving him a pretend punch to the shoulder. “Let’s get out of here and find a place where we can drink. Bring along Ms. Dick Tracy—she can talk into her shoe and report back to Marshall about the evening.”
“He’s taking me to see my mother and father,” she said.
Calvino liked her style, and the line hit Brandon harder than the punch he’d stuck into Brandon’s gut inside the office. “Yeah, Tanny’s right. We’re going to meet her parents.”
Brandon winked, pulled Calvino a few feet away from Tanny, and whispered, “This is getting serious. Out of hand. What do you think?”
“It’s not what you think,” said Calvino.
“It’s far more kinky.” Brandon patted him on the back. “I never took you as a guy who’d fall for another sleuth. Go on, slug me again. This time I’ll have witnesses to your brutality.”
“Brandon, no question you can work an audience until you own them. Like tonight—I saw it. But when you go head-to-head, one-on-one, you stumble, shoot yourself in the foot.”
“Let me give you some advice: Never get involved with a woman who wants to be best man at her own wedding,” Brandon said, and turned away.
TWENTY-NINE
THE WIND, HEAVY with rain, caught Tanny’s umbrella, turning it inside out as they reached the gate on Phitsanulok Road. Lights shone from the upstairs windows inside Government House. As they entered the compound, Calvino picked up on the different attitude of the demonstrators.
After dark they were easily spooked, moving along the paths with an edgy suspicion of strangers, avoiding shadows, looking over their shoulders, giving anyone not dressed in yellow a long, hard stare. They walked past several security men armed with a variety of improvised weapons—butcher knives, cooking pots, golf clubs—with a preference for irons over woods. Calvino calculated they were about a five-iron chip shot from the pharmacy, and followed the pathway that ran along the front of Government House. The walls were plastered with anti-government posters and crude cartoons of the ousted prime minister with devil-like fangs and horns.
Twice security guards stopped them. They directed their questions to Tanny until it was clear that if they wanted to communicate, they had to speak Thai to the farang. They reacted with confusion and suspicion, their knuckles white as they clutched their weapons. But Calvino told them in Thai that Tanny was an American and had come to the compound to visit her mother. And the mother, Mem, was one of the heroes of the demonstration. He explained he’d come along as her translator. The security people finally let them go, but seemed unconvinced that they weren’t spies.
An old woman appeared from the shadows and tied a yellow headband around Calvino’s forehead. He leaned down and let her adjust it so that it didn’t cover his eyes.
“How do I look?” he asked Tanny.
“Like the pirate in Peter Pan.”
“Welcome to Never Never Land. Is that what I’m supposed to say to Wendy?”
“Keep the umbrella up. That’s enough.”
It was slow going in the rain and dark, avoiding puddles and being splashed by others who hurried as if chased by ghosts before disappearing into the night. More security staff stopped them, and again Calvino explained the purpose of their presence as Tanny shook her head and looked agitated.
She had a New Yorker’s lack of patience for bureaucratic roadblocks that slowed her down. Each time, Mem’s name had proved to be the right passport. Everyone seemed to know who she was. And for Calvino, he was happy enough to be waved along without blocking a three-iron swung at his head. Patience was finishing the course without getting injured.
The ongoing state of emergency hadn’t changed life inside the compound. Neither the senior officers in the police nor in the army had the stomach to use tear gas, let alone M16s against the grandmothers, office workers, students, housewives, and retirees camping at Government House. They had rightly figured that they’d be blamed for a bloodbath, and no officer wanted to load up an elephant train’s worth of the bad karma that would result from shedding a fellow Thai’s blood. Calvino studied the situation and shrugged; what spark would ignite the killing?
No one ever knew in advance what caused the first man to aim his rifle and open fire. As they walked in the rain, Calvino thought about Achara’s lions. True violence meant lions tearing you apart. But here tonight, with everything soaked from the rain, with nothing looking flammable and no wild animals, Calvino thought the chances were they’d get in and
out without incident.
Tanny squeezed his hand as the path darkened. “Are we lost?” she asked.
“Everything looks different in the dark. A couple of minutes and you’ll see the Red Cross sign.”
She nodded, pointing at a row of abandoned tents.
“Maybe people are going home. Living rough like this in the rain is miserable. No one could blame them for leaving.”
“Or they’ve gone to sit in front of the main stage to watch the band.”
The sound of the guitars and drums rolled from the distant stage.
It was nearly midnight by the time they reached the pharmacy.
Music blared over loudspeakers, interrupted by an emotional speech by one of the leaders about corruption and betrayal. Midnight in the rain, but those onstage had kept the fire burning in the belly.
“The government’s authority doesn’t reach inside here,” said Calvino.
“It’s surreal,” she said.
“It’s Thai politics. Food, pop music, rants. Everyone feels at home. They call each other brother and sister, mother and father, grandfather and grandmother.”
She shook her head.
“The government can’t use Government House. So they’re going to set up operation at the airport.”
While there was technically a state of emergency, no one in the government, the police, or the military had taken any responsibility for said emergency, and once a certain delicate moment had passed, once the crowd settled in for the duration, it was like a boxing match with no one able to deliver the knockout blow.
“Why the airport? Are they planning to leave Thailand?”
Calvino laughed. “No, they are waiting for something to happen.”
“Waiting for what?”
“A miracle.”
The choice of the airport had been an inspired one; it fit the image projected: A government in transit, on its way to another destination. Thais predicted that the government would collapse or be removed. At least the government had one good plan—it was only a runway away from climbing aboard a Boeing 777 and flying off to England and setting up a government in exile.
Tanny’s mood had relaxed by the time they reached the pharmacy. She freed her hand from Calvino’s and waied the woman behind the counter.
“We’re here,” she said.
Calvino stopped cold.
“Something wrong?” Tanny asked.
He walked ahead, around the orange cones and the rope, to the back where the cots were folded out. Manee, Pratt’s wife, sat on a plastic chair, a mug of tea balanced on her knee. Next to Manee was Ratana, who smiled, looking at the yellow band around his head, nodding as he walked up. Both women were dressed in yellow, each one sporting a yellow band. He pulled up two more chairs and sat in one. Calvino faced Manee. He shook his head and grinned.
“Hello, Vincent,” said Manee. “We’ve been expecting you.”
“Maybe one of you can tell me what’s going on. Does Pratt know you’re here?” He could tell from her expression that Pratt probably didn’t directly know. He might have picked up a possible clue, but that was work; he was at home, and he had absolutely no desire to resolve contradictions—such as she’s in the house but she’s not in the house.
Tanny waied her mother, then embraced her, sitting down beside her on the cot.
“This is my daughter, Bum,” Mem told Manee, her face beaming with pride.
Ratana’s umbrella was still dripping against a plastic chair.
Calvino figured that they hadn’t been waiting long enough for an umbrella to dry. But long enough for Mem to have covered Tanny’s fate as an infant adopted by Americans and the second daughter murdered in the war against drugs. Manee held out her hand, and Tanny was grateful for the gesture.
“And this is …”
Manee nodded at Calvino. “Yes, this is Vincent. “We’re late. They’re waiting in the meeting room,” said Manee.
“Who are we meeting?” asked Calvino.
“General Suchart’s wife, Khunying Tamarine. The meeting starts at three minutes after midnight,” she said.
Calvino raised an eyebrow. “Sounds like Khun Tamarine’s astrologer has been working the charts.”
“I like midnight meetings. I like astrologers. I’ll not cause you to lose to face.”
The Thais loved meetings, couldn’t get enough of them—talking, eating, joking—they were a kind of party that ended with a decision to hold another one. The possibility of losing face was about the worst thing for a Thai going to a meeting with an influential person. Meetings with the police, though, didn’t always turn out for the best. It was a thought Calvino kept to himself. Ratana dropped back and walked beside him as he’d followed alone, guarding the women ahead of him. Their umbrellas touched as they walked with the easy rhythm of a couple, each accustomed to the other’s walk.
“It wasn’t easy for Manee to arrange the meeting. General Suchart. He has authority over the investigation of what happened.”
They followed the path in front of Government House around to the back. The building looked medieval at night, haunted, light pooling in the shadows, rain falling, dripping from the eaves. Calvino walked alongside Ratana. “Manee did this for you, too,” said Calvino. “It shows how much she values you as a friend.”
Ratana shook her head. “No, she did it for you. You are her husband’s friend. You asked him for something he couldn’t give you. That is a bad thing for a Thai. Manee saw how her husband had suffered because he couldn’t help his friend. And yes, maybe a little, she knew it would make me feel better after what happened to Nueng.”
“I don’t like it.”
“The general’s wife can help Mem.”
It was that hope which was dangerous. Hope based on a connection through a friend. Ad hoc, uncertain, openended—lottery-ticket hope.
“What if it backfires? What happens to Manee and Pratt?” Calvino asked.
Ratana had been carrying a wicker basket in her free hand.
“Give the basket to the general’s wife and follow that with a respectful wai. The one I taught you to give.”
Ratana smiled and walked ahead, joining Manee.
At the back entrance, two security men blocked the path. Manee told them who she was and whom she was having a meeting with, and after one of the men confirmed permission with someone on his cell phone, the security detail let them pass into the main building. People talked in the corridors, ate and slept in the corridors. It looked like an emergency shelter zone after a cyclone had blown through, dragging along a two-mile trail of debris. People cocooned inside sheets and blankets. If the outside looked derelict, in here the evidence of bodies curled up, still and deep in sleep, littering the floors, made it look as if a massacre had just been carried out.
Calvino walked beside Tanny. “Do you know what to expect?” he asked her.
“My mother and I are meeting a woman who can help us find my sister’s murderer,” she said with the firmness of a guard shutting a prison cell’s door.
He thought, Will this general’s wife promise to find and catch Tanny’s sister’s killer? That kind of promise had more back doors than a Chinese gambling den. They proceeded like an overseas tour group through the foyer and climbed the stairs to the second floor. One of the security guys had taken point, walking with a firm, military clip—all that was missing was the little flag that guides wave overhead so their charges don’t get lost—Manee marching behind, shaking her umbrella as she followed him like a raw recruit locking onto her platoon leader. They passed through the door of a conference room, where the general’s wife and two other women sat at a table. Several candles were lit, decorating the battered conference table. The room looked like a good place to hold an inquisition. Security guards against two walls, looking like golf pros at a seedy Chonburi clubhouse. The judges seated at the table.
The woman in the middle, a small, thin woman of about fifty in a blouse and a yellow jacket, looking like the girl’s racquetball t
eam coach, spoke to the woman on her left before turning and speaking to the woman on her right.
Then she went quiet, watching the stream of visitors, fighting back a yawn but failing as a crinkled web of lines scattered like buckshot around her eyes.
“That’s Khunying Tamarine,” Ratana said in a hushed tone. Her husband was rumored to having connections with one of the private militias financed by an upcountry powerbroker.
Tamarine looked exhausted, like a Marine who’d been on the front line a week too long. She nervously fingered a pen as they took their places by the table. The impact crater of age had buried most of Tamarine’s girlish features—the pouting lips turned down like a sadly-made bed—that once resided on a face that still retained dignity as it dispensed with beauty. Unofficial meetings made for tension.
The first ten minutes were spent sorting out names and family connections to power and influence. After the rank was established it took only a couple of minutes to follow the power to the general’s wife. “Is this the dead girl’s sister?” she asked, looking at Tanny.
Manee corrected the error, nodding at Tanny. “This is her older sister. This is the mother.” She looked at Mem.
“She works at the nurses’ station.” She didn’t bother with a list of distinguished connections because Mem’s family had none.
“We’ve heard very good things about Mem. We are pleased with your valuable contribution to our cause. And if it weren’t for that, I wouldn’t be here tonight.”
Mem smiled and waied the khunying. “It is my honor,” she said. Sakdina rituals ran in the blood, humbling an excommunist before a general’s wife.
Tamarine’s tired eyes shifted to Calvino. No man got to be a general without a wife talented in sweeping the terrain for traps; it became instinctive, something that could be done in her sleep—though from this woman’s look, it didn’t appear that the khunying was getting much bedtime.
The Corruptionist Page 24