Hungry Ghosts (4 page)

So here I am in Bangkok, having arrived at the
Carlsson Sharifah Hotel for a final briefing session with Ting. My apprehension is growing by the second. Chester G. Tesman III is now in town and will be here for six nights. This evening Ting may get her first chance to make contact; and if she fouls up, there may be no second chance.

It is already after 6pm.

I knock on the door to Ting’s room.

A
thirtysomething woman in a dark grey business suit opens the door. Her hair is in a French pleat and she wears only a little makeup, sufficient to emphasise the Thai eyes and strong cheekbones. Her nails are clear-varnished and the black high heels are not
too
high. Quite a transformation from the scantily-dressed Ting I have been used to seeing swigging out of beer bottles while draped over middle-aged men in Samui bars. She gives me a demure
wai
, and thus relieved I feel my blood pressure lower a tad.

Sh
e might just pull this off.

While I go through the details of her assignment one last time and check she has
studied the photographs and biography of the unsuspecting Chester Tesman, Ting maintains her character. She keeps her voice low and respectful: no hint of the dirty fishwife chuckle I have heard so often before. If she can keep her hands off Tesman’s dick while they are sitting in a bar, the small-businesswoman cover story
might
hold up.

In real life, Ting
’s family owns a woodcarving business in Chiang Mai, so to keep things simple the yarn is that she owns two shops; one on Phuket and one on Koh Samui which sell their products. She is supposedly in the capital to meet European buyers who are interested in importing their goods. She’s been drilled not to embroider the story. If Tesman gets a whiff that she’s telling fairy tales, it’s game over.

I am aware, however, that I am seeking to change some lifetime-ingrained habits here.
She tells me I have a nice tight arse as I leave the room. I suppose I should be grateful she doesn’t offer me a quick blow job. I wonder when was the last occasion Ting spent non-penetrative time in a hotel with a man.

Our mark is the CEO of a Private Equity-funded business which for the last few years has been buying up independently-owned power plants in developing countries, principally in Central America but also in other parts of the globe as opportunities arise. My research tells me that his company, Prieq Power Inc, is heading for an IPO within a year. A listing would doubtless be worth some serious money to Tesman. No wonder his delightfully abrasive wife is sharpening her talons.

Tesman
is at the Carlsson Sharifah in Bangkok for a three-day Independent Power Producer conference at which he is one of the speakers. According to the fragrant Miranda he then has a couple of days in business meetings with other delegates endeavouring to expand Prieq Power’s Asian asset base with a few more acquisitions. His CFO was supposed to be travelling with him but had cried off at the last minute owing to other commitments.

So Chester is on his own.

Before my meeting with Ting, I’d checked out the conference – which is in its first day – and identified Tesman during the afternoon coffee break.

He hardly looks like a Captain of Industry. He is short, with black-rimmed spectacles
and a receding hairline. Given that his hair is ginger, he is probably looking forward to being bald. His suit, however, is sharp and, his height notwithstanding, he appears to command the attention of those he talks to. His cufflinks are engraved ‘CGT III’.

We’ll soon find out if his middle initial ‘G’ stands for ‘Gullible’.

I’ve forked out a few thousand Baht to various members of the hotel staff to ensure that Tesman has a room on a high floor right at the end of the corridor and that he has to pass by Ting’s room on his way to the lift. He is now in his suite sprucing himself up for a conference dinner to be held in a private dining room on the mezzanine floor. Meantime I have to hang around in the corridor trying to look inconspicuous.

Fortunately, I don’t have to stand around for long.

When Tesman’s door opens I speed-dial Ting and she emerges from her room just ahead of the sucker and drops her newly-purchased fake Gucci handbag, whose contents spill across the floor right ahead of him.

“Excuse me,” she says, “I’m so clumsy.”

“No problem,” he replies politely, “here, let me help you.”

They walk together to the lift
, and I follow at a discreet distance.

After we enter the lift, Ting says to the American, “Do you know if they have a nice bar here? I’ve never stayed at this hotel before. I have a tedious business dinner this evening, and I think I will need a drink afterwards.” I can
almost hear Da’s voice. I don’t hear the voice of a Chaweng bargirl.

“I believe the
River View Bar is a very good place to unwind,” replies Tesman. “I have a tedious business dinner myself this evening. I also may need a drink afterwards.”

Ting smiles coyly.

“Well, perhaps I will see you there.” She holds out a hand, “My name is Ting, by the way. I’m in Bangkok for my company to meet some buyers.”

“I’m Chester,” he takes her hand smiling. “
Very pleased to meet you. I’m staying here for a conference.”

The lift stops at the mezzanine floor.

“Well, I hope I will see you later, Miss Ting.”

“I hope so too.”

Tesman gets out and I descend with Ting to the lobby.

She looks at me.

“Well?” she asks. “How did I do?”

“Impressive.
Very impressive. Friendly, but not too obvious. It went like clockwork. You almost had me believing.”

“Do you think he wants to fuck me?”

I roll my eyes.

*       *       *       *       *

The smartly-attired Thai woman sits at the bar sipping a cocktail. From time to time she checks her cell phone for messages. Classical music plays quietly in the background accentuating the ambience created by the establishment’s low lighting. The woman seems uninterested in the room’s panoramic view of the Chao Phraya River as it meanders its way through the Bangkok night. The bar doesn’t have many customers, but even if it had, the woman would not be paying them any attention. She looks as if she is waiting for someone.

After she has been there half an hour, a Western man strolls into the bar
, indicates the stool next to hers and asks, “Is this seat taken?”

The woman gives a bored shake of the head and the man sits down.

He surreptitiously appraises her body, orders a whisky on the rocks and enquires if he can get her a drink.

“I
have a strict rule of never accepting drinks from men I don’t know,” she answers.

“Well, then perhaps I should introduce myself,” says the man and he holds out a hand.

She looks at the hand and reluctantly touches the fingers.

“My name is David Braddock,” I say.

“I’m really not in the mood for this game today, David,” says a languid Kat Charoenkul, “and anyway, you’re late.”

“I had to see
–”

“I’m not interested in your private eye business narrative,” she announces sternly. “It’s bad enough that you couldn’t take me to dinner. Really, sometimes you just treat me like I’m your whore.”

“Whoa, Kat, that’s not fair.”

She puts a hand on my thigh.

“Shut up,” she says. “Drink your whisky and let’s get to my room.”

Kat’s annoyance is, as usual, more feigned than real. It’s all part and parcel of getting herself worked up before we do the deed.

Since she was diagnosed
with widespread and inoperable cervical cancer, our hotel bedroom sessions have become both increasingly violent and more theatrical in their nature. The therapist in me says this is yet another form of denial for her, that through sex she is shoring up an unsustainable defensive barrier against the reality of her imminent death. The man in me tells me to shut the fuck up and get my clothes off.

Were further proof of
her denial necessary, let me say that Kat has yet to tell her husband – the Samui Police Chief – of her condition. Actually, aside from David Braddock Esquire, only her Bangkok doctor and her friend Sumalee know about her health problem.

Speaking for myself, I often find it hard to believe that her perfect-looking body is being consumed from within by the remorseless advance of the disease. She
looks
perfectly healthy, her sexual craving is undiminished – if anything it seems stronger than before – and she is as athletic as ever during our immoral liaisons. But my Thai Rose
is
sick. Donne’s invisible worm that flies in the night has undeniably found her bed of crimson joy; and his dark secret love will in the end destroy her life.

None of this, I
should
be ashamed to say, affects my ability to achieve an erection with Kat. Aside from the obvious rationale of naked lust, my own motives in no way stand up to scrutiny. Perhaps I am dealing with my own death fears counterphobically; that in penetrating her I find elation at being so close to the essence of my mortality, yet each time returning unharmed from that fatal shore.

Such are the thoughts I have bouncing around my head as I find myself naked, my wrists bound with cord to the bedposts, and a naked Kat astride me scrunching up her silk
panties and stuffing them in my mouth. She wraps thick duct tape around my jaws so that I can’t spit them out.

“Comfortable?” she asks before
tracing a ‘K’ on my chest with one of her sharp nails.

I
can just about breathe through my nose provided a gag reflex doesn’t kick in.

She produces a black blindfold and I shake my head vigorously.

Her response to this is to grab a handful of my hair none-too-gently.

“Now, David,”
she says in a Mary Poppins voice, “don’t be a bad baby for your Katty.” She ties the blindfold expertly over my eyes. She puts her mouth close to my ear and whispers, “Otherwise Katty will have to hurt you.”

I am very hard as she puts me inside her and starts to ride me.

Her obvious intention is to make me come in as humiliating a fashion as possible, but the whole control thing has got her really turned on, and I can feel her motion quickening and her body trembling. Her breath starts to come in gasps and she is beyond the point of no return. She no longer cares whether I come or not, and with final energetic thrusts she climaxes and drops onto me. She bites my ear and calls me something obscene.

Then Kat
sits up, rips away the duct tape, pulls the panties from my mouth and takes off my blindfold. She props a pillow behind my head and becomes businesslike.

“Now watch
me,” she orders. “Or I’ll tape your eyelids open.”

For the second night in succession I find myself awake while my female bed-mate sleeps.

Kat’s
naked brown body is turned away from me in the darkness, and I trace the line of her spine delicately down to her small, perfect buttocks. I muse that, regardless of all the perverse things we have done to each other in bed, Kat has never agreed to any
butt stuff
. I suppose that would involve her giving up too much control. And to
me
, of all people.

In spite of the fact that my body feels tired, and not a little sore, my mind is
too active for sleep. I think about sex and death, and the relationship between the two; and how death seems to have been my constant companion in recent years.

Specifically I think about my part in the murder of a policeman on Samui a few weeks ago.

My fingertip reaches the bottom of Kat’s buttocks.

“Don’t even
think
about it,” she says.

4

Situations

Kenneth ‘Geordie’ Sinclair was in a sprightly mood as he made his way through the crowded street of Fisherman’s Village.

The place was buzzing
. The evening air crackled with possibility. Smartly-dressed Thai women beckoned tourists into restaurants with promises of fresh seafood, live music or sport on large-screen TVs. Street vendors offered pancakes and sticky rice with mango, and Indian tailors accosted the more dilatory passers-by with unbeatable offers on made-to-measure suits.

Although
families and tour groups comprised most of the crowd, Sinclair’s eyes were drawn irresistibly to the couples walking arm-in-arm; joking, jostling, occasionally arguing, but generally having fun.

That could be me soon
, he thought.

His evening outing was intended as a small but significant start
to a new phase in his life. He was looking to the future and turning a page on his past; a past that included a messy divorce from a vindictive woman who continued to deny him access to his children. After many futile confrontations, and with his heart full of bitterness, Sinclair had looked around for a bolt-hole; somewhere to go where he could be invisible, in a place where no-one would know him. He had packed a suitcase, left England and made his way to the small Thai island of Samui.

That was a decade
before. Two lifetimes ago, in fact.

His second start in life had been a happy one, marrying
a local Thai woman – Nok – with whom he had produced a son. But that idyll was not to last. Sinclair’s new-found happiness had terminated violently and abruptly after only a few years when Nok was killed in a hit-and-run accident.

In the aftermath of his loss, d
enial and anger had given way to depression. His personal world had folded inwards, tugging Sinclair towards reclusion. Daily existence tended to the minimalist; taking care of his son and his
Smiley Cars
business but shunning any social contact. He had grown morose and his old bitterness had returned. Appearance-wise he let himself go. He began to entertain thoughts of selling up, of returning to England, of haunting his ex-wife and her new husband to make their lives as desperate as his own.

But the need to raise his son had stayed his hand. He loved the boy.
Fah was the only link to Nok that remained aside from some photographs kept in various places around the house to invoke her presence. Some days it felt to Sinclair that Nok had never really existed; that she had been nothing more than a happy dream. Only the physical reality of Fah served to reassure him on this, although there were times when the boy’s strong resemblance to his dead wife evoked bittersweet feelings in the Northerner’s heart.

Two months ago, however, that had changed. In a chance encounter he had met a lady
whose sweetness of character had thrown open the dusty windows of his solitude.

Wayan Lastri was
from Bali and the housekeeper of Samui’s private investigator, David Braddock. In spite of Sinclair’s initial concern that she might be Braddock’s mistress and a clumsy false start in his pursuit of her, a friendship had developed.

This in turn had led Sinclair to step back and take a long, unforgiving look at himself. What he saw was a man consumed with self-pity who
appeared older than his years; a man sleepwalking his way through a quotidian existence, touching no-one. He thought about his marriage with Nok, and for the first time in years permitted in feelings that he had buried beneath layers of protective indifference. Then he thought about his son and
his
needs. And he resolved to give life one last try.

First, however, he needed to smarten up. No self-respecting woman would want to be seen with the grizzled husk that Geordie Sinclair had become, and he had no need of the
other sort of woman. Moreover he had long ago acknowledged that in the game of wooing he had never had much skill. He was too blunt, too tongue-tied in female company. He lacked small talk. Social situations filled him with anxiety.

Wayan
for her part was always kind and gracious and seemed to understand his hidden pain. He knew she wouldn’t judge him, but that of itself was not enough. An acute awareness had grasped Sinclair that there needed to be changes on his side if things were to progress. Improvements were required. He had to push back on his limitations. He had to make an
effort
.

Geordie had examined his wardrobe and found it
pathetically lacking. He went out and bought new linen shirts, some crisp chinos and two pairs of deck shoes. There was little he could do in the short-term about his stubbly head, but he started taking more of an interest in some of the smaller things, like plucking out his abundant nose hair. He purged his fridge of beer and high-calorie fast food and instructed his elderly maid to buy only low fat milk. For the first time ever he went to a spa for a manicure.

He wondered how best to approach Wayan with the proposition of
going on a date
with him. While they had met up several times over the previous weeks in one of Chaweng’s many coffee shops, it had always been during the day and inevitably on the flimsy pretence that he was ‘in the neighbourhood’.

The whole idea of asking her out
officially
terrified him, and he had no real sense of how she would respond. She was too kind to laugh at the idea, he was sure, but it might signal the death-knell of the coffee shop get-together if he handled it badly. He felt like a gauche teenager again, fretting over the latest crush. But Wayan was no mere crush: she was more important to his future than that. Sinclair needed to do this right, and that meant thinking hard about somewhere suitable to take her. It also meant resuscitating his inadequate social skills and fragile self-confidence, both of which had been on life-support for years.

However, a recent conversation with Wayan had suggested a possible solution in his mind for the choice of venue. She had
mentioned that Braddock’s temporary receptionist – a young lady by the name of ‘Jingjai’ – fronted a group called the
Silk Thais
who played regularly at Bophut Jazz in Fisherman’s Village.

While Sinclair’s musical taste ran more to traditional English folk music, it struck him that this might present him with an opportunity to ask Wayan out without actually seeming to.

You know you were saying about Jingjai playing at Bophut Jazz? Would you like to go over there one evening and give her some friendly support?
We could have a bite to eat while we’re there, if you like.

He would check it out first.
If the band was really awful he might need to think again, but at least he could get a decent steak in the meantime.

“Hey, Geordie boy,” boomed out the New York voice of Charlie Rorabaugh,  Jazz’s owner. “So it really
is
you. When my man told me you’d booked a table for tonight I thought he must have been smoking something.”

“No, it’s me. It’s been a while.”

“A fucking lifetime, pal,” said his rotund host slapping him on the shoulder. “A fucking lifetime. I thought you must have gone vegetarian on me.” He looked Sinclair over. “You’ve scrubbed up too,” he observed wryly. “Are you meeting a lady or something?”

“Not tonight, Charlie,” Sinclair answered feeling the embarrassment colouring his cheeks. “Just me tonight.”

“Hey, boy, you never know. You might get lucky.”

Charlie
settled him at a corner table, and he started to relax. He caught sight of his reflection in the restaurant’s window and he thought he looked presentable, perhaps even happy.

Well, I’m no David Braddock
, he mused.
But at least I dress like him now
.

He hoped Jingjai’s band
would be good.

He permitted himself a smile.

*       *       *       *       *

Kat Charoenkul examined herself critically in the large mirror of the ladies’ room.

Time for another Botox injection in my forehead
, she thought.

Several times
a day she gazed into mirrors, shop windows, car windscreens, the compact she kept in her clutch-bag. She sought out reflective surfaces with an urgency bordering on obsession. She had a need to see her own reflection regularly. This was not for vanity, but for reassurance.

Kat Charoenkul needed to convince herself she still existed.

The doppelgänger that looked back at her from the mirror was immaculately dressed and styled. Aside from some small laughter lines around the eyes and a slight trace of wrinkling on the brow, the face was smooth and youthful, framed by long brown hair tied in a ponytail. The eyes were bright and the lips sensuous; the makeup expertly applied.

She looks just like me
, Kat thought.
Or how I used to look
when I was still alive.

She knew, of course, this was all fanciful
magical thinking, the product of a mind still struggling to come to terms with a timetabled extinction. Yet she could not throw off the feeling that she was already a ghost. The sight of herself in a mirror had served to reassure her of her continued existence, but lately even that support had begun to fail her. In recent days the image she saw did not
feel
like Kat Charoenkul, but rather an imposter inhabiting the glass and sent to mock her.

The air of unreality that swirled around her brain was made all the more
confusing by the fact that she did not feel ill. Although her cancer was advanced she had as yet suffered little by way of symptoms, and she
looked
exactly the same – or at least the woman in the mirror looked exactly the same.

Some mornings she would wake up feeling refreshed and enthusiastic until she remembered. She was dying.

Kat sighed and applied some lipstick. She needed to get back to her friend in the restaurant, or she would start to worry.

Sumalee had been trying to convince her that it was time she told her husband about her illness.

“I will soon,” Kat had replied.

“But
when?
” Sumalee had asked.

This was not a question Kat could answer, so she had made her excuses and gone off to the ladies’ room.

Kat took one last look in the mirror, then waved goodbye to her twin and went back to the table.

As Kat took her seat,
Sumalee read her friend’s expression and promptly decided to drop the previous topic. Their conversation reverted to small talk.

When the coffee arrived, Kat let the other woman chatter while her thoughts
meandered towards her husband Deng, the top policeman on the island of Samui.

Ever since she had discovered the true nature of her condition, Kat had begun to question certain aspects of her life. One of those
aspects was her relationship with her husband.

She was finding Deng Charoenkul increasingly irritating; although she managed to hide this expertly, no doubt as
countless wives have to do. She had become more mindful of his ludicrous vanity and his ceaseless speculations about the prospects for a promotion to Bangkok. Some weeks ago, in a moment of devilment, Kat had suggested he would look even more handsome if he turned his pencil-line moustache into a bushy one, and that he should grow a goatee beard to complement it. Suitably flattered, he had complied with enthusiasm. Now she thought he looked like a cross between a pimp and a pirate.

And then there was David Braddock …

Kat reflected that in recent weeks it was only during her time with the Englishman that she felt
real
; then there was no need for her to look in mirrors to encounter herself. She found the reassurance that she was living through the brutality of their sex sessions; as she bit him, slapped him, scratched him, drew blood; and as he in turn penetrated her with an animal ferocity. Nothing was hidden and nothing was spared, and afterwards there was the quietness and the stillness of two bodies drained of longing.

In those silent hours, and in spite of the sadomasochistic f
renzy which preceded them, Kat felt calm inside.

In those silent hours, with
the Englishman’s arms around her, she might even have loved him, in her own way.

She had only once shared her vulnerability with
Braddock, and that was in the very same hotel where they had spent last night. Afterwards she had regretted her weakness. Not that he hadn’t been kind, he had. But it felt out of place. The bond between them was a sexual one, she had told herself, nothing else. Besides, she hated the sensation of dependency, of neediness that it engendered in her. Moreover, any finer feelings were ultimately pointless: there was no future in their association. How could there be since she had no future?

Yet for all that a niggling sense of jealousy
hovered around her relationship with David Braddock, and not a little curiosity. Did he have another mistress? His appetites suggested an affirmative answer; but then again, maybe not. Outside of her liaisons with Braddock, Kat herself managed to get by with only her husband’s nocturnal fumbling to stimulate her.