The Water Rat of Wanchai (11 page)

The lounge was busy, which gave her an excuse to sit almost directly across from him. She ordered coffee and waited for a chance to attract his attention. But Antonelli was focused on his computer, lifting his head only to look at his watch. When her coffee came, she took a sip and said, “My God, is the coffee here always this bad?”

He took a quick glance at her but said nothing. Then he closed his computer, slipped it into a wheeled briefcase, stood up, and rolled out of the lounge. She watched him exit through the giant glass doors at the entrance. An elderly Thai man stood at the curb. He took the briefcase and put it in the back of a black Toyota SUV. Antonelli, with some difficulty, climbed into the back seat. Then the car drove off.

Well, wasn’t that successful
, Ava thought.

She phoned Arthon and told him what had happened. She could almost hear him smile. “I’ll give it another go in the bar tonight,” she said. “In the meantime I’m going to go shopping, try to catch a nap, and wait for you to call me back with the cellphone information I need.”

“I told you that won’t be easy.”

“One other thing,” she said. “We asked you about Antonelli, but we are also trying to locate a guy named Jackson Seto. Antonelli is our primary source, but it would be useful to know what you can dig up on Seto and his movements both to and from and in and around Thailand. I’ve been assuming he’s still in the U.S., which is why we didn’t ask about him initially. That may have been a mistake on my part.”

“Jackson is an English name. Does he have a Chinese name — a proper name? Because if he does, his passport will likely be in that one.”

“I don’t know.”

“We’ll look under Jackson and see if anything comes up. Where will you be?”

“On this phone or at the Hyatt.”

It was too early to shop at Pantip Plaza, the techie mall almost directly across the street from the Water Hotel, so Ava walked back to the Hyatt. She got
wai
’d at the door,
wai
’d
in the lobby, and
wai
’d
at the elevator.
Wai
is the most basic form of respectful greeting among Thais, palms held together in prayer fashion and accompanied by a bow. The closer the hands are to the face and the lower the bow, the greater the respect being shown. As a woman in business attire, Ava seemed to generate a considerable amount of deference —
from everyone except George Antonelli
, she thought.

When she got to her room, she stripped down to bra and panties and hung up her clothes. Then she napped for a couple of hours. When she woke, she saw no reason to dress up, so she slipped on her track pants and a T-shirt. There weren’t any
wai
s this time when she left the hotel.

At Pantip she ordered all five seasons of
The Wire
— fifteen DVDs — for forty dollars, and then she bought three film-editing software programs for one of her friends. The software cost three dollars for each program; her friend would save a couple of thousand dollars. While she waited for the DVDs to be burned, she went across the street and had a bowl of tom yam kung.

After Chinese hot and sour soup, which ranked as her uncontested favourite, tom yam kung was at the head of the second-tier list. Like a good hot and sour seafood soup, it is made with a chicken stock base and a generous amount of shrimp. Cilantro, straw mushrooms, scallions, fish sauce, lime juice, lemongrass stalks, and kaffir lime leaves are added to produce a flavoursome broth, its surface dotted with a crimson oil slick from the final ingredient, red chili peppers. The soup had a clean, clear aroma, like pure oxygen with just a hint of citrus.

After lunch she went back to Pantip to collect her DVDs. As she was paying for them, Arthon called. He had had no luck with Antonelli’s phone, but they had compiled some information on Seto.

“Can I drop it off at the Hyatt?” he asked.

“Fifteen minutes,” she said.

“More like an hour,” he countered.

“I’ll meet you in the lobby.”

( 12 )

AVA WAITED FOR ARTHON FOR CLOSE TO TWO HOURS.
She drank several glasses of fruit juice and read all the newspapers in the lobby: the two English-language papers —
The Nation
and the
Bangkok Post
— a Chinese paper, the
International Herald Tribune
, and the Asian edition of the
Wall Street Journal
. The news was all the same: the economy was in tatters. This usually made for good business for Ava. Desperate times called for desperate measures.

Arthon came through the front door, leaving his car running right outside. He had clout, no doubt about that. He was better dressed than he had been the night before, in tight blue slacks and a form-fitting red Lacoste golf shirt, with sunglasses perched on his head. If she hadn’t known him, she might have figured him for a dealer.

Arthon didn’t apologize for being late — given the traffic, it is understood in Bangkok that meeting times are an estimate at best. “I can’t stay,” he said quickly as he handed her two sheets of paper.

“That’s it?”

“Seto’s comings and goings. That and his hotel stays are all we have on record. He’s been here three or four times a year for the past six years, at first going to Hat Yai and then to Bangkok. He stayed at the Novotel with Antonelli when he was in the south, and at the Water Hotel when Antonelli moved north.”

“Seafood Partners?”

“If he was a partner, he was a discreet one.”

“When was he last here?”

“About five months ago.”

When he was organizing the Major Supermarkets scam
, she thought.

“I have one more thing for you,” he said, passing her what looked like a passport photo. “I didn’t know if you had one.”

She looked at her target. Thick black hair streaked with grey and combed straight back with no part. Long, thin face with a small mouth, looking even smaller under a moustache that drooped on the right. His eyes were almost hidden by hooded lids. He stared right into the camera with a look of defiance.

“Now I have to go,” Arthon said. “It’s payday and I still have some collections to make. What are your plans for tonight?”

“Barry Bean’s for happy hour. Maybe I can get Antonelli to talk to me if he has a few drinks in him.”

“Call me if you need me. I should be free by about seven.”

Ava got to the bar by six, figuring that happy hour would be in full swing. Barry Bean’s was packed but there was no sign of Antonelli. She mentioned his name to her waitress and was told that “Kuhn George” would be along eventually — he hardly ever missed happy hour. She chatted with a German bathtub manufacturer who was thinking about relocating his business to Thailand but was trying to do it without bringing his wife and kids. The problem was that his wife wasn’t an idiot.

At seven the bar staff gathered in one spot, a bell was rung, and they yelled, “Happy hour is over, happy hour is over.” Still no sign of Antonelli.

Ava called Arthon.

“Oh shit, I forgot this was Friday,” he said.

“What do you mean?” she groaned.

“On Fridays he goes to an Italian restaurant near Soi Cowboy. It’s owned by actual Italians and is one of the trendiest spots in town. After dinner he shows up at Nana Plaza for his weekly romp with a katoey.”

“Does he bring her back to the hotel?” Ava asked.

“No. Security checks all the guests brought back to the rooms and holds their ID until they leave. Antonelli wouldn’t want the staff to know he’s into ladyboys. He uses a hotel attached to Nana that rents rooms by the hour.”

That might even be better
, she thought. “Arthon, it might be useful if we had proof of his little habit.”

“What do you mean?”

“Pictures,” she said.

He didn’t hesitate. “It’s worth a try, but I’d have to pay someone, and maybe more than one person.”

“How much are we talking about?”

“Five thousand baht at least, maybe even ten.”

Two to three hundred dollars, Ava calculated. “That sounds reasonable, but only if we actually get the pictures.”

“Let me see what I can arrange.”

“Call me later?”

“Whether I’m successful or not?”

“I need to know either way.”

Ava closed her phone and went upstairs to the Water Hotel’s Italian restaurant that Antonelli frequented. It was deserted. The hostess was happy to have someone to talk to and was very forthcoming about Antonelli, or “Khun George” — a verbal sign of respect, the equivalent of “Mister” in English. It turned out that Khun George ate a lot, was very demanding, and tipped badly. Ava was finding it easy to work up a big dislike for him.

After dinner she walked back to the Hyatt. The streets were even more difficult to negotiate than earlier in the day because the night markets and restaurants — appearing as if by magic on the sidewalks — were in full swing. She shuddered when she saw the level of sanitation. There was no running water, and plates and cutlery were being washed and rewashed in the same tub. Ava had eaten street food once, and it had taken her two days to get over the food poisoning.

She thought about going down to Spasso, and then about going to Zeta. She ended up in her room watching HBO. At around eleven she fell asleep.

Although she felt like she had been asleep for a while, it was only eleven-thirty when the phone rang.

“Bingo,” Arthon said. “And with one who hasn’t completed the surgery — she has tits and a cock. Our guy burst into the room when they were in the middle of their fun, both of them completely naked and Antonelli staring right into the camera. He is one very ugly
farang
with no clothes on. His tits are almost bigger than hers.”

“When can I get the photos?”

“Tomorrow morning. I’ll drop them off first thing.”

( 13 )

ARTHON CALLED AVA AT EIGHT THE NEXT MORNING
to say he was on his way. She had already been up for two hours and had gone for another run in Lumpini Park. Saturday morning was even busier than Friday, and after two laps she walked the third so she could take in more of the sights and sounds. She hadn’t known there were so many variations of tai chi.

When she got back to the hotel, she showered and changed and then camped out in the lobby to wait for Arthon. She was reading the
Bangkok Post
, which had an article in the lifestyle section about a katoey
rock band. From the photo she couldn’t have guessed that it wasn’t just another gorgeous all-girl band.

Aside from his nasty violent streak, Ava had no issue with Antonelli’s sexual tastes. She also knew Thailand well enough to be sure that the Thais wouldn’t care either. Katoeys
were a part of everyday life, an accepted third sex. Ava had been in public buildings that actually had three washrooms: for men, women, and katoeys.

A small cottage industry had developed around the katoey, and partly because of them the plastic surgeons in Thailand were some of the world’s best. They had been lucky to catch Antonelli with one who hadn’t yet completed the surgery. If she had, no one would have believed she was transgender.
Then again
, Ava thought,
maybe we weren’t lucky. Maybe Antonelli likes them half and half.

Arthon arrived on time, wearing the same clothes as the night before. He looked tired, and Ava guessed he hadn’t slept. He slumped onto the couch next to her and groaned.

“Rough night of police work?”

“I wish,” he said. “It’s month-end and I had to make my collections. I’m responsible for the gambling joints, and some of them don’t open till midnight.”

“How much time do you spend on actual police work as opposed to running all these side businesses?”

“It’s about fifty-fifty, although at month-end it gets crazy.”

“And I didn’t think gambling was legal in Thailand,” she said.

“It isn’t,” he said as he passed her a large brown envel-ope.

There were five photos. She winced as she looked at them. Antonelli was even more repulsive with his clothes off than she had imagined, and even though she already knew about his partner, it was still a bit of a shock for Ava to actually see her.

“Wonderful,” she said.

“Do you want me to be with you when you drop this on him? He might not be too pleased.”

“It should be okay. What you can do for me is find out his room number at the Water Hotel. I’ll slip a picture under his door and then arrange to meet him somewhere public where he can’t go off on me.”

“He’s in room 3235.”

“Thank you.”

“I’m going home to get some sleep. If you need me, just call.”

“Here, I owe you this,” she said, giving him a roll of baht.

“Forget it. I talked to my boss and he said he’d kill me if I took anything from Uncle.”

She shrugged. “Give it to a temple or something.”

“I can’t do that,” he said. He stood up and stretched wearily. She noticed some of the female staff eyeing him. He noted them too and smiled and
wai
’d.
Wai
s all round ensued, and one of women, who looked about sixteen, drifted towards him. A few words were spoken in Thai and then she laughed, took his card, and walked with him to the front door. Ava could only admire how aggressive these women were.

She went back to her room and changed her clothes; the linen slacks and pink Brooks Brothers shirt would create the right impression. She went outside, intending to walk to the hotel, but the sky was clear and the sun was brutal. She didn’t want to get there covered in sweat so she took a taxi, even though the ride would take longer than the walk.

She caught the elevator to the thirty-second floor. The corridor was empty save for the room maid’s cart. Ava stood outside Antonelli’s room for a moment, her ear pressed against the door. She heard faint noises coming from what sounded like a television. She had left one picture in the envelope, on which she had written:
Meet me in the lobby downstairs. I’m Chinese, a woman, and I’m wearing a pink shirt.

Ava slid the envelope under the door, rang the doorbell, and then used the nearby exit to run down the stairs. She got out on the thirty-first floor and pushed the elevator button, hoping she’d get to the lobby before him, and hoping even more that he wouldn’t get into the same elevator car as her. It took less than a minute to arrive.