The Thai Amulet (3 page)

“Then how do you know he’s been missing for months?”

“I suppose I don’t exactly. My lawyer told me he sent off a document to Will for signature at least three months ago, and didn’t get the papers back. So he tried again, this time by courier. The courier tried for several days to deliver it and eventually sent it back as undeliverable. Steven—that’s my lawyer—thought Will was just avoiding us; we were asking for a reasonably substantial settlement, and so he didn’t think anything much of it.

“He remembered he had an old chum from law school living in Bangkok, so he asked him to send someone over to see what they could find. The friend reported back that the shop was dark, there was mail piled up behind the glass door, and according to the shopkeepers in the vicinity, it had been for many weeks. None could remember having seen Will for some time, at least that’s what they told Steven’s friend. They could be covering for William, I suppose, but why would they? The chum tried the home address, too, and didn’t get an answer there either. The woman next door—maybe she was Ms. Praneet—said she couldn’t recall when she had last seen William, but it had been some time.

“Then this package arrived. I didn’t know what to make of it, but I did call the office that’s listed in that lawyer’s letter about the auction to see if it was for real. I couldn’t make out the signature, but eventually I got to talk to someone. All he did was repeat what was in the letter—at least I think that’s what he said. It’s hard to do these things over the telephone when you don’t speak the language. I mean, when you’re there, in person, you can kind of wave your arms around and get yourself understood eventually. I didn’t find him at all helpful, but maybe it was just a misunderstanding. I was able to ascertain, though, that the rent hadn’t been paid in three months before they sent the letter, and as you can see, it’s dated almost a month ago.”

“Was the letter still sealed when you got it?”

“Yes,” she said. “I think that’s what made me realize something might have happened to Will, that this wasn’t just some horrible prank.”

“Have you made official enquiries?” I said. “The police? The Canadian Embassy?”

“I called the U.S. Consulate here in Toronto. Will’s an American, and although he lived here for twenty years, he never took out citizenship. One of the consular officers said they would send something off to Bangkok, but I haven’t heard anything since.”

We both sat looking at the pathetic pile of Will’s stuff for a minute or two. “This really is all that came in the bubble envelope?” I asked.

“There was a letter from my lawyer about the divorce postdated over three months ago. I didn’t think I needed to bring that. It was unopened, too, by the way. Will never saw it. I don’t think you answered my original question,” she said. “Do you think Will is dead?”

“I don’t know,” I said vaguely. What I wanted to say was that I thought that Will had simply chosen to disappear again. After all, the package might contain some strange things, but it was what wasn’t in it that struck me. Things like a passport, a driver’s license, credit cards, the kinds of items that would make you think he was dead if they were there, but the absence of which just made you think he’d made a run for it. I kept these thoughts to myself. To voice them seemed unkind.

“There is life insurance,” she said. “He never changed the beneficiary, so I’m it. And he seems to have kept up the payments, at least until four months ago. It isn’t a huge amount, but it would certainly help a great deal. The point is, for me to get it, he has to be dead. Really dead, with some kind of certificate that says so. I know in cases where people disappear, the death certificate is eventually issued, but it’s something like seven years, and I can’t wait that long. So either I find him alive and see what we can work out, or I prove him dead and collect the insurance. I’m sure that sounds callous, but I’m not in a position to be anything else.

“You asked me if this is all that was in the package. I suppose I should tell you there was one more letter.” She hesitated. “It’s for me. I don’t really want to show it to anyone. It seems so personal. But it’s the one that really made me think something awful has happened, although it doesn’t actually say so, not in so many words.”

The letter was well handled, the fold almost transparent, and some of the ink was smudged.

“Dear Natalie,”
it said.

“I’m sorry. I know how inadequate this is, but if you get this, then probably it is all I will ever be able to say. Tell Caitlin I love her. I have always loved both my girls, no matter what it looked like.”

It was signed simply
W.

I handed it back to her and watched as she carefully tucked it back in her purse. “I know this is an imposition,” she said. “But would you consider making a couple of phone calls or something when you’re there?”

Chapter 2

I remember vividly the first time I saw The Royal Palace of Ayutthaya. My dear mother told me often how I stood, transfixed by the sight of the soaring buildings, the gold, the exquisite carving, the splendor of it all. It was the most beautiful and astonishing sight of my young life, and I confess I have never lost the feeling of awe that I felt at that moment. The city has the power to overwhelm me still.

Now that I have been forced to some introspection, I see that my enchantment blinded me to the raw ambition, the poisonous intrigue that rested so close to the heart of the palace. The signs were there, even then, and certainly later, but as a boy in a place so very different from anything he had known until that moment, I lacked the ability to read them.

It is a fact of life that being in the antique business puts you in touch with wealth, and those who possess it. While scouring the world to find the perfect objets d’art to grace the showroom of McClintoch & Swain, I’ve been in homes that are palaces, yachts the size of the average house. I have met people with more money than most of us can even imagine. By and large, with the exception of a few pangs of envy from time to time, I like to think I keep my feet firmly planted in reality, and I am always glad to get home to my little house in Cabbagetown with its tiny garden, and my store, even if, at 3,000 square feet, it would fit into the living room of some of the mansions I’ve visited. I have never, however, seen anything like the residence of the Chaiwong family. Nor am I likely to forget it, or them.

I was met at the airport by a car and driver and quickly whisked away from the masses of humanity that one finds in international airports: the travelers; their friends; the totes selling transportation, hotels, visits to “special” shopping places with the best of prices. In the car was an English-language newspaper, the
Bangkok Herald,
a damp towel, neatly packaged in plastic, for my hands and face, and a bottle of ice-cold water.

“I hope you will enjoy the journey to Ayutthaya,” the driver said. “Please rest, and if there is anything you need, you will tell me.”

“I’m fine, thank you,” I said, sinking back into the leather seat. I would have liked to enjoy the sights, but there wasn’t much to see. We took a major highway, heading north from Bangkok, and as it was ten o’clock at night, all was in darkness. After thirty-some hours of traveling, it wasn’t long before I dozed off in the cool comfort of the backseat.

I awakened to the sound of the driver’s voice speaking quietly into his car phone. He saw me in the mirror and said, “Only five minutes more. I have alerted the household of your arrival.”

We pulled up in front of what looked to be an office tower or perhaps a hotel, ten stories of attractive enough white stucco at the summit of a slight incline on a circular driveway. Two stone elephants about three feet high marked the entranceway, which was also lined with orchids. In my jet-lagged state, I couldn’t figure out why I would be at such a place, but I didn’t have time to wonder for long, because within seconds of my stepping out of the car under the portico, I caught sight of a familiar blond head hurtling toward me.

“I am so glad to see you,” Jennifer said, hugging me tight. A shy young man hung back a few feet.

“Hello, Chat,” I said, giving him a peck on the cheek. “It’s nice to see you again, too.”

He blushed. I would have to remember that public displays of affection were frowned upon in Thailand, and now that he was back home, my greetings should be less effusive. “Hello, Aunt Lara,” he said. “I am very happy to welcome you to my home.”

A very efficient-looking man in a crisp beige suit came forward, his palms pressed flat together and up to touch his forehead in the traditional Thai greeting, the
wet.
I find it difficult sometimes to tell people’s ages in foreign countries like Thailand. My usual reference points are gone. But I would put him in his late thirties, with rather owlish glasses over high cheekbones and a quite distinctive somewhat flattened nose. “I am Yutai,” he said. “Secretary to Khun Wongvipa. I am most pleased to meet you. You are most welcome to the residence of the Chaiwong family. The family has retired for the evening, except for Mr. Chat here, but I will see you to your room. The family hopes you will sleep well, rest tomorrow, and that you will join them for dinner tomorrow evening.”

I turned back to the car, but my bags had already disappeared. “Your suitcase will be brought to your room,” Yutai said. “Please,” he said, gesturing toward the entrance, an enormous carved wood double door, which swung open as if by magic, but in fact was opened by two young men in uniform. A gold sign beside the door said Ayutthaya Trading and Property.

“Wait until you see this place,” Jennifer whispered.

I found myself in a marble lobby. The ceiling was wood, painted in the most extraordinary colors of gold and coral and blue. Ahead were two elevators, and beyond that, glass doors through which I could see banks of computers and office cubicles.

“Those are the offices,” Jennifer said. “Ayutthaya Trading. The offices are on the first six floors; the family lives on the top four. We go this way.”

A separate lobby with another two elevators was off to one side. Yutai beckoned me into one, and using a key, pressed Nine. “The guest floor,” Jennifer explained. “There’s just you and me, and we have the whole wing to ourselves. I’m really glad you’re here. It was a little daunting all by myself.”

“Khun Wongvipa would like you to have the gold room, if it is to your liking,” Yutai said, as the elevator door opened to an entranceway the size of my living room. The walls were stenciled in gold, figures of some kind of deities as guardians, perhaps. Extraordinary carved wood doors led off the foyer on either side.

“This way,” Yutai said, sliding out of his shoes before turning left. I stopped gawking long enough to follow him. Jennifer, beside me, giggled.

The gold room was just that. It was paneled in teak, but then gold leaf had been rubbed into the wood to give it a rather sensuous sheen. There was a canopy bed in black lacquer, already turned down. In addition to the bed there was a sofa, a coffee table, an armchair with a reading light, and a desk. There was a platter of fresh fruit on the coffee table and a large bouquet of orchids on the desk. Heavy silk curtains were pulled against the darkness. “Your dressing room,” Yutai said, leading me into another paneled room with rows of hangers and a bench where my suitcase already rested. Beyond that was a huge bathroom with tub, glass shower stall, two sinks, and a toilet and bidet. Fluffy white towels and a bathrobe awaited me. A spray of orchids graced the space between the sinks. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

“And now I will leave you, if there is nothing else I can do for you,” Yutai said. I assured him there wasn’t. “I have arranged for jasmine tea to be sent up. It will be here in a minute or two. Extension forty-three,” he said, pointing at the phone beside the bed. “Call me at any time, day or night, if there is something you require, or, if you wish, you can come to my quarters, which are on this floor on the other side of the foyer. In the morning when you wish breakfast, dial forty-two. The cook will have whatever you like sent up. There is a small kitchen, again on the other side of the foyer, which you are most welcome to use. There is bottled water and some light food in the refrigerator. Dinner is at eight P.M. tomorrow evening on the tenth floor. This key activates the elevator. In the meantime, the car and driver are at your disposal if you wish to do some sight-seeing while you are here.”

“I, too, will leave you,” Chat said. “I look forward to seeing you tomorrow and hearing about your journey, Aunt Lara. Also telling you about ours,” he said, smiling at Jennifer.

“Isn’t this something else?” Jennifer said as their footsteps faded. “Rather grand, wouldn’t you say? Especially after the dump we stayed in on the beach near Phuket.”

“This would be rather grand after Buckingham Palace,” I said. “So where is your room?”

“I’m just down the hall. The silver room, my dear. Do join me, won’t you?” she said, affecting a veddy British accent. “Oops, here’s the tea.” A pleasant woman in bare feet knelt by the coffee table and set down a tray, then poured tea into exquisite little celadon porcelain cups, before backing out of the room.

“Who is Khun Wongvipa?” I said.

“Chat’s mother,” she said. “The woman I have been incorrectly referring to as Mrs. Chaiwong. You’ll meet her tomorrow. I don’t know what you’ll think of her. I find her kind of scary. His dad seems nice, but he’s really old. Everybody calls him Khun Thaksin. I call him sir.”

“What do you mean by old? Marginally older than your father and I?”

“Even older than you and Dad. Like ninety or something. Well, eighty anyway. His first wife died, and he married Chat’s mother. Chat has a half brother, the first wife’s son—I haven’t met him—and a younger brother named Dusit, and a little sister, who is a bit of a brat, called Prapapan. Her nickname is Fatty, if you can believe it. I have no idea why. She’s actually rather tiny.”

“What do they call you? Miss Jennifer?”

“Yes,” she said. “It’s just as well. They’d have trouble with Miss Luczka. It comes out sort of Roocha.”

“I love this room, this suite, I should say,” I said, walking over to a carved chest. “I think this is quite old, and rather fine. It’s a manuscript cabinet, did you know that? It’s used to store religious manuscripts, or would have been at one time. The gold and black lacquer is wonderful. Probably mid- to late eighteenth century.”