The Windup Girl (23 page)

These are his thoughts as he turns over Pracha's card, as his own heart closes in on itself, like a block of stone falling inward, as though the center of himself is plunging down a well, dragging all his innards with him, leaving him hollow.

Chaya.

Curled against a wall, blindfolded, hands behind her back, ankles tied before her . On the wall, "All Respect to the Environment Ministry" is scrawled in brown letters that must be blood. There is a bruise on Chaya's cheek. She wears the same blue
pha sin
that she had on when she made him a breakfast of g
aeng kiew wan
and sent him on his way this morning with a laugh.

He stares dumbly at the photo.

His sons are fighters, but they do not know this warfare. He himself does not know how to skirmish like this. A faceless foe who reaches out to touch him on the throat, who strokes a demon claw along his jaw and whispers
I can hurt you
without ever showing its face, without ever presenting itself as an opponent at all.

At first, Jaidee's voice doesn't work. Finally, he manages to croak, "Is she alive?"

Pracha sighs. "We don't know."

"Who did this?"

"I don't know."

"You must!"

"If we knew, we would already have her safe in hand!" Pracha rubs his face angrily, then glares at Jaidee. "We've received so many complaints about you, from so many quarters, that we just don't know! It could be anyone."

A new terror seizes Jaidee. "What about my sons?" He leaps to his feet. "I have to—"

"Sit down!" Pracha lunges across the desk and grabs him. "We've sent men to their school. Your own men. Loyal to you only. The only ones we could trust. They're fine. They're being brought to the Ministry. You need to have a cool heart and consider your position. You want to keep this quiet. We don't want anyone to make sudden decisions. We want Chaya to come back to us whole and alive. Too much noise and someone will lose face and then her body will surely arrive in bloody pieces."

Jaidee stares at the photograph still lying on the desk. He stands and starts to pace. "It has to be Trade." His thinks back to the night at the anchor pads, the man, watching him and his white shirts from across the landing fields. Casual. Contemptuous. Spitting a stream of betel like blood and slipping into the darkness. "It was Trade."

"It could have been
farang
, or the Dung Lord—he never liked that you wouldn't fix fights. It could have been some other godfather, some
jao por
who lost money on a smuggling operation."

"None of them would stoop so low. It was Trade. There is a man—"

"Stop!" Pracha slams his hand on his desk. "Everyone would like to stoop so low! You've made a lot of enemies very quickly. I've even had a c
haopraya
peer from the palace complaining. It could be anyone."

"You blame me for this?"

Pracha sighs. "There's no point in assigning blame. It's done now. You made enemies; I allowed you." He puts his head in his hands. "We need you to make a public apology. Something to appease them."

"I won't."

"Won't?" Pracha laughs bitterly. "Put away that foolish pride of yours." He fingers the picture of Chaya. "What do you think their next move will be? We haven't had
heeya
like this since the last Expansion. Money at any cost. Wealth at any price." He makes a face. "Right now, we may still be able to get her back. But if you continue?" He shakes his head. "They will surely slaughter her. They are animals.

"You will make a public apology for your actions at the anchor pads and you will be demoted. You will be transferred, probably to the south to process yellow cards and handle internments down there." He sighs and studies the picture again. "And if we are very very careful, and very lucky, perhaps you will get Chaya back.

"Don't look at me that way, Jaidee. If you were still in the
muay thai
ring, I would place every baht I own on you. But this is a different sort of fight." Pracha leans forward, nearly begging. "Please. Do what I say. Bow before these winds."

12

How was Hock Seng to know that the
tamade
anchor pads would be shut down? How was he to know that all his bribes would be wasted by the Tiger of Bangkok?

Hock Seng grimaces at the memory of his meeting with Mr. Lake. Of crouching before that pale monster as though he were some sort of god, kowtowing obeisance while the creature shouted and swore and rained newspapers down on his head, all of them with Jaidee Rojjanasukchai on their front pages. The Tiger of Bangkok, a curse in his own right, as bad as one of the Thais' demons.

"
Khun—
" Hock Seng tried to protest, but Mr. Lake cut him off.

"You told me you had everything arranged!" he shouted. "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't fire you!"

Hock Seng huddled under the assault, forcing himself not to fight back. Tried to be reasonable.
"Khun
, everyone lost material. This is the doing of Carlyle & Sons. Mr. Carlyle is too close to Trade Minister Akkarat. He is always goading the white shirts. Always insulting them—"

"Don't change the subject! The algae tanks should have cleared Customs last week. You told me you paid the bribes. And now I find out you were keeping money back. This wasn't Carlyle, this was you. Your fault."

"
Khun,
it was the Tiger of Bangkok. He is a natural disaster. An earthquake, a tsunami. You cannot blame me for not knowing—"

"I'm tired of being lied to. You think because I'm
farang
that I'm stupid? That I don't see how you work the books? How you manipulate and lie and sneak—"

"I do not lie—"

"I don't care about your explanations and excuses! Your words are shit! I don't care what you say. I don't care what you think, what you feel, what you say. All I care about is results. Bring the line up to forty percent reliability within the month, or go back to the yellow card towers. That's your choice. You have a month before I fire your ass and find another manager."

"
Khun—
"

"Do you understand?"

Hock Seng stared bitterly at the floor, glad the creature couldn't see his expression. "Of course Lake
Xiansheng
, I understand. It will be as you say."

Before he had even finished speaking, the foreign devil was stalking out of the office, leaving Hock Seng behind. It was enough of an insult that Hock Seng considered pouring acid on the great safe and simply stealing the factory plans. In his white-hot rage, he got as far as the supply cabinets before good sense reined him in.

If harm befell the factory, or the safe were robbed, suspicion would fall to him first. And if he ever hopes to forge a life in this new country, he cannot have any more blackness attached to his name. The white shirts need few excuses to revoke a yellow card. To kick a beggar Chinese back across the border and into the hands of fundamentalists. He must be patient. He must survive in this
tamade
factory for another day.

So instead, Hock Seng lashes the employees forward, approves repairs that bleed more money, uses even his own carefully embezzled stores of cash to grease the skids so that Mr. Lake's demands will not escalate, so that the
tamade
foreign devil will not destroy him. They run tests on the line, rip up old drive links, canvass the city for teak that can be repurposed as a spindle.

He has Laughing Chan offering a bounty to every yellow card in the city for rumors of old Expansion properties that may have crumbled and revealed structural items worth harvesting. Anything that will allow them to bring the line back to full production before the monsoons finally pour down and make river transport of a new teak spindle practicable.

Hock Seng grinds his teeth with frustration. Everything is so close to fruition. And yet now his survival depends on a line that never worked and on people who have never been successful. It's almost enough for Hock Seng to attempt a little arm twisting of his own. To tell the
tamade
devil that he knows something of Mr. Lake's extracurricular life, thanks to the reports of Lao Gu. That he knows every place Mr. Lake has visited, of his trips to libraries and old family homes in Bangkok. Of his fascination with seeds.

And now this strangest, most astonishing thing. The news that sent Lao Gu scurrying to Hock Seng as soon as it occurred. A windup girl. An illegal piece of genetic trash. A girl that Mr. Lake pursues as if he is drunk on the transgression. Lao Gu whispers that Mr. Lake brings the creature to his bed. Does so repeatedly. Pines for it.

Astonishing. Disgusting.

Useful.

But a weapon to be used as a last resort, if Mr. Lake attempts to truly eject him from the factory. Better to have Lao Gu watching and listening and gathering more information than revealed and fired. When Hock Seng first arranged Lao Gu's employment, it was for just this sort of possibility. He must not waste this one bit of leverage just because he is angry. And so instead, even as his face feels as if it has been thrown on the floor, Hock Seng jumps like a monkey to make the foreign devil happy.

Hock Seng grimaces as he crosses the factory floor, following Kit to another point of complaint. Problems. Always more problems.

All around them, the activity of repair echoes. Half the power train has been torn out of the floor and reset. Nine Buddhist monks chant steadily at the far side of the building, stretching the Thais' sacred thread that they call
saisin
everywhere and imploring the spirits that infest the place—half of them likely Contraction
phii
who are angered that the Thais are working for
farang
at all—begging them to allow the factory to work correctly. Hock Seng grimaces at the sight of monks and the expenses he is incurring.

"What's this new problem?" Hock Seng asks as they squeeze past the cutting presses and duck under the line.

"It's here,
Khun
. I'll show you," Kit says.

The salty warm stink of algae thickens, a humid reek that hangs heavy in the air. Kit points to the algae tanks where they stand in damp ranks, three dozen open surface breeding vats. Their waters are coated with the rich green skim of algae breeding. A worker is dragging her net across the surface of the tanks, drawing off the skim. She smears it across a man-sized screen before hoisting it up on hemp ropes to hang overhead with the hundreds of similar screens.

"It's the tanks." Kit says. "They are contaminated."

"Yes?" Hock Seng eyes the tanks, hiding his distaste. "What is the difficulty?"

With the healthiest vats, the skim is more than six inches thick, a pillowy vibrant chlorophyll green. The voluptuous scent of seawater and life emanates from them. Water trickles down the sides of the translucent tanks, thin lines that damp the floor and leave salty white blooms as they evaporate. Streamers of still-living algae trail down drain channels to rusty iron grates and disappear into darkness.

Pig DNA and something else. . . flax, Hock Seng thinks. It was flax that Mr. Yates always believed had been the key to this algae. That made it produce such useful skim. But Hock Seng always liked the pig proteins. Pigs are lucky. This algae should be, also. And yet it has caused nothing but trouble, despite its potential.

Kit smiles nervously as he shows Hock Seng how several of the tanks have lowered levels of algae production, an off-color skim, and a fishy reek, something more akin to shrimp paste than the verdant salty smells of the more active tanks.

"Banyat said they should not be used. That we should wait until the replacement supplies came."

Hock Seng laughs harshly and shakes his head. "We won't have any replacements. Not with the Tiger of Bangkok burning everything that comes off the anchor pads. You'll have to make do with what we have."

"But it's contaminated. There are potential vectors. The problem could spread into the other tanks."

"You're certain of that?"

"Banyat said—"

"Banyat walked under a megodont. And if we don't have this line running soon, the
farang
will be sending us all out to starve."

"But—"

"You think another fifty Thais wouldn't like your job? A thousand yellow cards?"

Kit closes his mouth. Hock Seng nods grimly. "Make this line work."

"If the white shirts inspect us, they will see that the baths are impure." Kit runs his finger through a gray froth coating the rim of one of the tanks. "We shouldn't be seeing this. The algae should be much brighter. None of this bubbling."

Hock Seng studies the tanks sourly. "If we don't get the line running we all starve." He's about to say more, but the girl Mai runs into the room.

"Khun.
A man has come looking for you."

Hock Seng gives her an impatient look. "Is it someone with information on a new spindle? A teak log ripped from some temple
bot
, maybe?" Mai's mouth opens and closes, stunned at his blasphemy, but Hock Seng doesn't care. "If this man doesn't have a winding spindle, I don't have time for him." He turns back to Kit. "Can you drain and scrub the tanks perhaps?"

Kit shrugs noncommittally. "It can be tried,
Khun
, but Banyat said that if we don't have new nutrient cultures, we can't start completely fresh. We will be forced to reuse the cultures that come from these same tanks. The problem will likely return."

"We can't sieve it? Filter somehow?"

"The tanks and cultures cannot be fully cleaned. Eventually it will be a vector. And the rest of the tanks will be contaminated."

"Eventually? Is that all? Eventually?" Hock Seng scowls at him. "I don't care about 'eventually.' I care about this month. If this factory fails to produce, we won't have a chance to worry about this 'eventually' you speak of. You'll be back in Thonburi, picking through chicken guts and hoping you aren't hit with flu, and I'll be back in a yellow card tower. Don't worry about tomorrow. Worry about whether Mr. Lake throws us all out on the street today. Use your imagination. Find a way to make this
tamade
algae breed."