The Thai Amulet (10 page)

“You’re talking to the wrong person, I’m afraid,” I said, softening at the thought of Jen. “I’m just a dealer, and I’ve purchased this for a client. If you’d like me to ask him if he’d be interested in lending or renting it, then send me the details.” I handed her my card.

She stared at it for a moment. “I guess that’s it then. I’ll have to come up with something else. This is not my day.”

“Could I give you a lift somewhere?” I asked her as my car pulled up. “It’s air-conditioned,” I added. She was looking rather hot in that red suit.

“I was just going back to work,” she said. “I could probably walk.”

We both looked down at her red suede high heels. “I’d take me up on my offer if I were you,” I said.

“So much for power dressing,” she said, smiling for the first time. “I accept.” She gave directions to my driver in what I took to be passable Thai, because he nodded and pulled away.

“I work for a travel agency,” she said. “It’s not too far, although in this traffic, it will take awhile.”

“I thought you were in films,” I said.

“So far, that’s really just a dream,” she said. “I’m sure that the project I’m working on will change all that.”

“Have you been in Thailand long?”

“A couple of years. I came out here to work on a film, actually. That’s what I did in the States. I fell in love with Thailand, everything about it, even the heat. So when the time came to go back, I quit and got the job with the travel agency. I manage two of their offices. It’s not the best job ever, but it’s not bad, and it allows me to stay here awhile longer.”

“So what is this film about?” I asked. “The one you need the sword for.”

“I can’t tell you that,” she said. “It’s all very hush-hush.”

“I see,” I said. “It will be difficult for me to convince my client to lend you this if I can’t tell him what it’s about. I’m sorry to have to say that a card with Tatiana Tucker, Producer, on it is not very reassuring in terms of lending an exceptionally valuable antique.”

“You really would talk to him?”

“Sure. I have no idea what he’d think of the idea, but yes, of course I would as him. So is this a historical drama of some sort? Sixteenth-century Siam or something like that?”

“Sixteenth century!” she exclaimed. “Who cares what happened that long ago?”

“I do,” I said. “Perhaps I delude myself, but I can’t help feeling there are others like me.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’ve offended you again.” She looked about as if she thought someone might be hiding in the trunk with a listening device, or that the driver might be a spy. “Helen Ford,” she whispered.

“What?” I said.

“Helen Ford,” she repeated. “You probably never heard of her, but you will.”

“Isn’t she the one who… ?” I paused, searching through my memory to the newspaper clippings Will had sent Natalie.

“Chopped her husband into little bits? That’s her. Don’t you think it’s a fabulous idea? I’ve pitched it to a major studio, and they’re interested, but they need more before they make a final decision. Docudramas are huge right now. I’m thinking I might even be able to find her.”

“But she’s dead,” I said. “She was executed March 1, 1952.”

“No, she wasn’t. There was an appeal, and the sentence was commuted. She was supposed to serve life in prison, but I think she was only there a couple of years, maybe three, and then she just disappeared. I think this is really interesting, don’t you? I mean normally when a
farang
is charged with something and found guilty, they are simply deported to their home country to deal with, particularly when the crime is against another
farang,
if you see what I mean. But the whole expat community was up in arms about this crime, and it really was horrendous. So how did she get off, and where did she go?”

“Back to the States?” I said.

“Maybe, but there is no record of her doing that.”

“That was fifty years ago. She could be long gone.”

“Yes, but if she’s alive, she’s only seventy-eight. That’s not impossible.”

“So what gave you this idea?” I said. “I went to an Independence Day party,” she said. “At the apartment of an antique dealer, just like you. He told me all about her, or at least I managed to extract the information out of him after a few drinks and a lot of eyelash batting. He was writing a book. He gave me a copy of the first chapter. He had an agent and everything, Rowland, some name like that. The agent was at the party, but I didn’t like him. Will said that what was really interesting was not the murder but the fact that she’d been able to just disappear. He said somebody must know where she went, even if they hadn’t talked in fifty years, and he had a pretty good idea who might know, even if she wasn’t saying. I told him it would make a fabulous documentary, and he agreed. I sent an E-mail proposal off to a couple of studios right away, and got a semipositive reply. I was hoping Will—that’s his name—would be a consultant and help me out a bit, but I haven’t been able to get in touch with him since. I don’t want you to think I was just stealing his idea, or anything.”

“Will Beauchamp,” I said. “You know him? No kidding!”

“I know him. He’s gone missing, I’m afraid.”

“Oh dear,” she said. “What do you mean by missing?”

“No one seems to have seen him since the July fourth party.”

“No kidding? I’m really not having much luck here, am I? He had a portrait of her, Ford, I mean. It was really eerie, kind of scary even. It was going to be a real feature of the film. I was going to get someone to scan the image and then computer age her, to see what she might look like now. I don’t suppose you know where that picture might be.”

“I have no idea,” I said.

“I remembered the artist’s name: Robert Fitzgerald. Will told me that he was the painter of choice in those days when the rich and famous wanted their portrait done. I phoned Fitzgerald, asked if he happened to have another, or a photograph of it, but he didn’t. I was hoping it would be part of the auction, but no such luck.”

“The artist is still alive after all this time?”

“Sure, although now that you mention it, he didn’t sound all that old. He knew which portrait I was talking about. I told him I’d seen it at Will Beauchamp’s place, and he didn’t argue with me or anything. But he said it was an original and there were no photos and no copies. I didn’t tell him who I thought it was, though.”

“So you haven’t seen Beauchamp since July fourth either?” I asked.

“No. I’ve tried. We exchanged phone numbers. He gave me two, one for his store and one for his home, but I haven’t been able to reach him at either. I thought he was kind of interested in me, if you get what I’m saying. As a potential lady friend, I mean. I was surprised not to hear from him. I wasn’t really interested in him that way, though, although I’ll admit I flirted a bit. He was kind of old. Oops, I’ve done it again, haven’t I?”

“I’m sure he was too old for you. He was also married, with a child.”

“Eew,” she said. “He didn’t tell me that.”

“He was trying to forget it,” I said. “Is this it?” I said, pointing to the street as the car pulled over and the driver turned to look at us. “Give me your work number, too. We’ll talk again soon. You might like to join my sort of stepdaughter and her boyfriend and me for dinner one evening.”

“Wow,” she said. “That would be great. Thanks. I really hope I’ll hear from you.”

“You will,” I said. “Is there any chance you might let me read the first chapter of Will’s book? I would like to find him, and maybe that would help. I realize this is grasping at straws.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said. “He gave it to me in confidence. Let me think about that, okay? You aren’t with a rival studio or anything, are you?”

“No, I promise, and I also promise to try and get you the sword once you’re ready to film. By the way, why would you need a sixteenth-century sword in a film about Helen Ford?”

She looked at me as if I was really dim-witted. “Will was almost certain he had the sword that she used to chop up her husband,” she said. “I’m assuming this is the one.”

“Sorry to bother you, David. I know we just parted company a few hours ago, but I really have to show you something,” I said. “Can I meet you somewhere just for a few minutes before I head back to Ayutthaya?”

“Is it in connection with the Beauchamp business?”

“It is.”

“Then, sure,” Ferguson said. “Why don’t we start the cocktail hour a little early?”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Have you ordered yet?” he said a few minutes later.

“No. I just got here.” Here was the lobby lounge of Bangkok’s Regent Hotel, a most cool and beautiful spot filled with flowers and graced with a wonderful mural depicting scenes from the life of Prince Rama and ceilings hand painted in gold and cream, green, blue, and coral. A young woman in a
phasin
hovered nearby.

“For the lady?” Ferguson said, looking at me.

“A glass of Chardonnay,” I said.

“And a single malt scotch on the rocks,” he said. The woman brought her hands, palms together, up to her nose and bowed her head in a
wet
before backing away to get our order.

“This is nice,” I said. Upstairs on the mezzanine overlooking the lobby, a quartet was playing lovely afternoon tea—type music. The noise and heat of Bangkok could be neither heard nor felt, and Natalie Beauchamp’s problems seemed very far away. I could have stayed there forever.

“Thought you’d like it. Now, what have you got?”

“You know that portrait you talked about in Will’s apartment, the one with eyes that followed you?”

“Sure,” he said.

“I don’t suppose the woman in the portrait would bear any resemblance to this one,” I said, pulling a newspaper clipping out of my bag and pointing to a photo.

“No question in my mind. They are one and the same. I’m as certain as I can be without having the portrait in front of me,” he said. “Who is she, and how would you come to have this?”

“It’s a portrait of someone by the name of Helen Ford. She was an American, convicted here in the early fifties for hacking her husband to pieces and possibly killing her child.”

“You’re kidding! Will Beauchamp had a painting of an axe murderer in his bedroom?” he exclaimed.

“I’m not, and he did, if this is the same person.”

“Whew,” he whistled. “I thought it was bad enough the way she stared at you. Funny, isn’t it? I found that portrait disturbing, but I didn’t know why. Now that I know who she is, I’m wondering if you can sense these things, just looking at a picture. I’d like to think Will didn’t know about her grim past.”

“Actually, he did. He sent the clippings from the
Bangkok Herald
of that time to his wife as part of the package of junk I told you about. That’s why I have them. I spoke to the young woman who was my competition for the sword, and—”

“You didn’t happen to get her name, did you?” he said.

“Tatiana Tucker, film producer,” I said. “She was at the Fourth of July party at Will’s place.”

“Right. That’s why she looked familiar,” he said. “If I remember correctly, Will was all over her. Did you get her phone number?”

“I did, and I’ll ask her if she’s interested in meeting you. She would confirm that Will was interested in her, yes. She managed to extract from him the information that he was writing a book about Helen Ford and that he had a portrait of her. I really just needed your unbiased confirmation.”

“I can confirm it, but I wish I couldn’t. An axe murderer! Over his bed! He looked like a perfectly normal guy,” Ferguson said. “I think I need another scotch,” he added, signaling for the waiter.

“I’m sure it’s not as bad as it sounds,” I said. “Will may simply have picked the portrait up at a sale somewhere, because he was captivated by it as a work of art, and then started researching to find out who she was. That kind of research would hardly be unusual, or even particularly difficult, for someone in his business.”

“If you say so,” he said. “You couldn’t just give me that phone number? I’m a nice guy.”

“I know you are. I’ll talk to her. I have to warn you, though, that she thought Will Beauchamp was an old geezer.”

“Oh. Scratch that one, then. Forget I mentioned it. What has this Helen Ford business got to do with Beauchamp’s disappearance, do you think?”

“No idea. It’s all I’ve got, though.”

“Be careful,” he said.

Chapter 5

Peace in Ayutthaya came to an end the year that I reached the age of the ceremonial cutting of the topknot, that is, thirteen years of age, and was forced to move from the inner palace. The king generously saw to it that I had a position as a page in the outer court. Nonetheless, it was a wrenching time for me and for my mother who stayed on to care for Si Sin, only three at the time. I craved the prestige of being a part of the life of the inner palace, hated my life as a servant, and missed Yot Fa greatly. I believe it is fair to say, no matter how self-serving it may sound, that he missed me as well. We found ways to meet outside the palace, using my mother as messenger, and made secret excursions to the elephant kraal, or even more exciting, down to the harbor where ships from faraway lands berth, bringing with them exotic goods from afar. We loved to watch the rice barges ply the three rivers that embrace our good city, and to visit the bustling markets in the port.

While my unhappiness with my personal situation consumed me, there were much more important events taking place that would affect me more deeply, even if I did not appreciate that at the time. It had become apparent that the Burmese regarded their defeat by our King Chairacha as a temporary setback only and were consolidating their power through the amalgamation of Pegu and Toungoo.

If that were not enough, the kingdom of Lan Na to the north was disintegrating, and the king’s advisors told him that it was only a matter of time before Lan Na fell to the evil Shans, or even, perhaps to Lan Sang. Neither alternative was good for the fortunes of Ayutthaya.

Thus, only seven years after he had routed the Burmese, and when Yot Fa was nine years old, King Chairacha was forced once again to go to war. I was old enough for military service, but Yot Fa was not to be separated from me and begged his father to leave me at home, a request the king granted.