Bangkok Burn (8 page)

I retreated upstairs to the bedroom. It was easier than facing the barrage of silence, and I stank. I stripped off. The 9 hadn't faded. I put on her shower cap and pulled it down low over the stitches around my eye and stepped into the shower. I like to use hot water first and finish with cold.

Pim and I had met at a function for a democratic MP trying to get re-elected. I'd been asked by Mother to go, and Pim was there as the dutiful daughter of the MP. The first thing I noticed, she wore no make-up. She was tall, had long glossy black hair and honey tanned skin. In a room full of starlets, models, and rich daughters she was easily the most beautiful woman. It was lust at first sight. It still is. I leaned forward allowing the cold water to pound my neck into submission. When the adrenalin stops, and just before the pain starts to kick in, on the cusp between the two, we have a chance to look at ourselves for what we really are. I was a fucking idiot.

Pim was the first person in my life who chose me. Everyone else had me thrust upon their lives one way or the other. To Por, Joom, Uncle Mike, and even Chai, I was a responsibility. To their creed of honor, an unavoidable duty. Pim chose me. Against the will of her parents and friends, those who knew who I was, she chose to be with me. I dried off, put on a pair of Levis and a t-shirt. I went back down into the living room and sat on the sofa next to her.

She didn't move and didn't stop looking at the magazine, now the right way up. Holding the magazine in her right hand, her elbow on her hip, her fingers twirled a strand of hair with her left. I swung my legs up on the sofa and slid my head onto her thigh. Not looking at her, I felt her muscles tense when I laid my head down. She turned a page in the magazine, being careful not to touch me, the snap of the page speaking volumes. I stayed still, she hadn't pushed me off.

Three more snaps of the page later, I was thinking of the best thing to say. Everything I thought of was lame:

- I should have called (give me a fucking break)

- I'm sorry (every time I hear those words it reminds me of the song: Is all that you can say)

- I've been busy (Oh please or fuck off - take your pick)

- How are you, baby? Wait a minute. That might actually work. Anything’s better than this deafening silence.

I said softly, almost a whisper, “Pim, how you doing, baby?”

My head hit the sofa as she jerked her thigh out from underneath me. The magazine slammed down on the coffee table so hard the bang echoed off the walls. Jumping up, she spun around, one hand in a clenched fist behind her, the other holding a finger a millimeter from my nose. Her knuckles bone white.

“Fuck you, Chance. You were dead two whole days and you didn't think to call me? No. Don't get up. Don't say a fucking thing before I'm done and I throw you out of here. I had to go to your funeral. Your fucking funeral, Chance. You aren't even dead. You've off doing fuck knows what, with fuck knows who, and when you're done you think you can just come here and it's all okay? Well fuck you. Are you really that fucking arrogant or are you just fucking stupid. For God's sake, Chance, I thought for two days, two fucking days, that you were dead. You can't do that to someone. You leave here gonna go to talk with Por and get out of the family business, blah blah blah. The next thing I hear you've been blown up in a fucking massage parlor on Ratchada. Did you tell Por before or after you fucked the whores? And while you're fucking whores, I'm at your funeral surrounded by all the other stupid whores you've fucked. Snidey fucking looks: at least my boyfriend wasn't killed in fucking massage parlor. Shit. You are shit. You didn't even have the decency to get blown up somewhere respectable. No. You had to get blown up in a fucking massage parlor.”

Pim grew up in London. Where she learned her English.

As I sat up, she slapped me. Luckily on the right side of my face. I sat dead still, looking at her. She slapped me again. I looked at her. She punched me. A guy's punch, shoulder behind it, twisting the fist as she connected with my chest. She pulled her arm back for another go and I grabbed her fist. Pulling her onto me, holding her close, she fought like a cat in a net. She'd never been as beautiful. I twisted us around until I got her back on the sofa, and ripped her lacy black panties down. She let loose a feral snarl and punched me on the jaw so hard I saw stars. Then she was on me.

***

She was kneeling between my splayed legs, a frown of concentration on her face as she daubed iodine onto the cut under my eyebrow. One of her wilder punches had torn a stitch. A satisfied smile played around her lips. She poked her tongue out a little as she concentrated and then done, sat back, her hands palm up on her thighs. The satin gown she'd thrown on, open to the edge of her nipples. The right nipple kept winking in and out. I was getting horny again. She closed the gown with a look.

“Forget it.”

“Okay, I was just thinking.”

“I know what you were thinking, and forget it.” She waved the cotton bud at my eye like a conductor wielding a baton. “You deserved it.”

“I know I did. I'm an idiot.”

“Yes.” She nodded twice deliberately. “You are.” Her eyes steady going with it. “There won't be a next time, you understand me. Next time I won't open the door, because I'll be gone”.

“I know.”

“I mean it, Chance, and I still want you to leave the business.”

“I have to clear up the mess we're in and then after...”

“After, there'll be another mess and another. There always is. You don't tell me what you do with the family and I understand that. I'm not sure I want to know, but I read the papers. I read who's been killed for this or that. I read who's disappeared...”

“Uncle Mike has disappeared. He's been kidnapped and the ransom is a 100 million.”

“Oh.” The cotton bud baton came to a rest on her thigh. “I like Uncle Mike.”

“We all do. Por isn't dead but he's in a coma and he's lost a leg. Someone has been making a move on our territory, a new gang. Now you know what I know. Now do you understand why I can't quit right now?”

“A hundred million baht?”

“No, US.”

“Wow. Do you have that much?”

“Wow, yes, and yes we have that much. It'll wipe us out but if we can't find him first we'll pay.”

“Let me help.”

“I will. Tomorrow you need to go back to the funeral. Take a seat near the reporters and leave your phone on the seat when you go to burn incense for me.”

“Okay, but why?”

“Because your phone is going to have photos of a dead me on it and I need the papers to think that it’s real.”

“You think the reporters will steal my phone? Sorry. Dumb question.”

“It's about the only thing I am sure about. And be careful moving around Bangkok in the couple of days. Someone shot Seh Daeng in the head earlier tonight, and he's not likely to survive. It's going to get bloody out there.”

“I don't get why you want people to think you're dead after you spread the rumor that you're alive.”

“We still don't know who is attacking us. I want them unsure of whether I am dead or alive. If they're sure I'm dead they may make a move that forces me to have to come back from the dead, but if they're not sure, they'll wait. Them waiting gives us time. Honestly, I don’t know if it is helping or not. Just something I can do.”

“Zombie.”

“That's me.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Keep tracking the phones. Find the boat, and tomorrow I've got to go to Singapore.”

“Singapore? Why?”

“I've got Samuel Harper stuff to get done, and I need to clear some of our funds over there. I'll only be gone a day. Fly out in the morning and back in the evening.”

“So I'll see you tomorrow night?” She fixed me with a heavy lidded stare.

“Not sure. Okay? The situation is pretty fluid. I'm following leads where they take me, so I can't promise because I don't know. If I'm not getting anywhere I'll come back here. Is that good enough?”

“Yes.”

I held my arms out and she came in for a hug. I whispered in her ear. “Can you make me some coffee? I've got to get work tracing those phone numbers.” I felt her head move downwards in a nod. We stayed like that for a while.

***

The house in Lat Phrao is one of six I have around the city. Spare clothes, toiletries, instant noodles, cash, and passports, in each of them. Pim had moved into this one three months ago. She'd made it her own, turning my bare walls minimalist approach into something warm and comfortable. She had converted one of the bedrooms on the second floor into the study I was sitting in, watching TV, Bangkok burning, thinking about the data I'd just mapped.

The phone data that Mother had sent me showed the boat tracking down the coast of Thailand until entering Malaysian waters and out of the cells range. My guess was that they were somewhere between Singapore and the border with Thailand. Now that's a big area, and if they were just in a quiet little bay, it would be tough to find them. But I didn't think they would because they could have done that in Phuket and they didn't. There're a relatively small number of marinas between Singapore and Thailand that can take a fifty-three foot boat. I was guessing that Lisp would be at one of them.

The red cell phone rang. It was after midnight. Mother.

“Chance.”

“Yes, Mother. You need to rest. If you keep going like this you'll collapse and then where will we be?”

“Don't worry about me. I got some sleep today. Did you check your mail?”

“Yes. I got the numbers. I've traced them heading down the coast. They entered Malaysian waters. My guess is Langkawi. Do we have anyone near?”

“I'll check.”

“Okay, let me know. I'm going to Singapore tomorrow. How are you going with the money?”

“Slowly, like I said, but I'll be able to transfer about fifteen in the morning.”

“Okay, I’ll clear the rest through Singapore. I spoke to Ken. He'll lend us the cash, here in Bangkok, for 15 days, no interest. That's if we need it. I'd prefer not to take it but we owe him anyway just for offering.”

“Yes, sure. When you see him, please tell him anything he needs to give me a call.”

“Will do.”

“And how are you. How's your eye?”

“It's okay. Itching.”

“That's a good sign. Means it's healing. Have you bought a lottery ticket yet?”

I laughed. “No. You know I never gamble.”

“You should, after surviving that bomb and the assassination attempt. What if you hadn't woken up?”

“If I hadn't woken up, Chai and Beckham would have taken them out anyway.”

“Maybe. Anyway, you should think about it. Your luck is running high. If we have to pay out that hundred million then we're going to be broke for a while. I've got to go. There’re rumors the red shirts are going to move up here and I've got to go talk with some of the residents. They're scared it will hit business and just be bad. It won't take long. You take care, Chance.”

“You too. Bye, Mother.”

It was one in the morning. The TV showed the street in front of the Dusit Hotel ablaze. The rattle of automatic weapons could be heard as the Thai news guy hid behind a phone booth. CNN and BBC were reporting the same old tripe. Rich against poor. They didn't have a clue. Media fiction for ratings. You can't sum up Thailand's political complexity in a thirty second sound bite and these morons weren’t even trying.

I switched the TV off, killed the main light in the room, and turned on the desk lamp. My eyes were sore from all the time spent in front of the notebook. I needed to sleep but my eyes stung. I rummaged around in the desk and found the eye drops. Visine. I tilted my head back and lined up the nozzle. The liquid ran down my cheek but it felt good. I had to be a bit more careful with the left eye. Just as I was about to squeeze the drop in, I heard a noise in the garden outside.

Vultures in the Night

15 May 2010 Bangkok 1 am