The Windup Girl (33 page)

"Worse by the minute," Carlyle mutters. His face has gone pale under his tropical tan.

A new wave of white shirts rounds the corner, six wide, a snake extending down the length of the street.

Anderson's skin prickles at the sight of the closed shop fronts. It's as if everyone is preparing for a typhoon. "Let's make like the natives and get inside." He grabs one of the heavy iron gates and hauls against it. "Help me."

It takes them both to drag the gates closed and set the crossbars. Anderson slaps locks into place and leans against hot iron, panting. Carlyle studies the bars. "Does this mean we're safe? Or trapped?"

"We're not in Khlong Prem Prison yet. So let's assume we're winning."

But inwardly, Anderson wonders. There are too many variables in play, and it makes him nervous. He remembers a time in Missouri when the Grahamites rioted. There had been tension, some small speeches, and then it had simply erupted in field burning. No one had seen the violence coming. Not a single intelligence officer had anticipated the cauldron boiling beneath the surface.

Anderson had ended up perched atop a grain silo, choking on the smoke of HiGro fields going up in sheets of flame, firing steadily at rioters on the ground with a spring rifle he'd salvaged from a slow-moving security guard, and all the while he had wondered how everyone had missed the signs. They lost the facility because of that blindness. And now it is the same. A sudden eruption, and the surprise of realizing that the world he understands is not the one he actually inhabits.

Is this Pracha, making a play for absolute power? Or Akkarat, causing more trouble? Or is it simply a new plague? It could be anything. As Anderson watches white shirts stream past, he can almost smell the smoke of burning silos and HiGro.

He waves Carlyle into the factory. "Let's find Hock Seng. If anyone knows anything, it will be him."

Upstairs, the administrative offices are empty. Hock Seng's incense burns steadily, sending up gray silk streamers. Papers lie abandoned on his desk, rustling under the gentle breeze of the crank fans.

Carlyle laughs, low and cynical. "Lost an assistant?"

"Looks that way."

The petty cash safe is unlocked. Anderson peers at the shelves. At least 30,000 baht gone missing. "Goddamn. The bastard robbed me."

Carlyle pushes open a shutter, revealing roof tiles stretching down the length of the factory. "Take a look at this."

Anderson frowns. "He was always messing with the latches on that one. I thought he wanted to keep people out."

"I think he's ducked out of it, instead." Carlyle laughs. "You should have fired him when you had a chance."

The tramp of more boots on cobbles echoes up to them, the only sound now in the street.

"Well, give him points for foresight."

"You know what the Thais say: 'When a yellow card runs, watch out for the megodont behind him.'"

Anderson surveys the offices one last time, then leans out the window. "Come on. Let's see where my assistant went."

"You serious?"

"If he didn't want to meet the white shirts, then we don't either. And he obviously had a plan." Anderson hoists himself up and climbs out into the sun. His hands burn on the tiles. He straightens, shaking them. It's like standing on a skillet. He studies the roof, breathing shallowly in the blast furnace heat. Down the length of the roof, the Chaozhou factory beckons. Anderson goes a few paces then turns and calls back. "Yeah. I think he went this way."

Carlyle climbs out onto the roof. Sweat gleams on his face and soaks his shirt. They make their way over reddish tiles as the air boils around them. At the far end of the roof, their route terminates at an alley, shielded from Thanon Phosri by a winding of the lane. Across the gap, a ladder dangles to the ground.

"I'll be damned."

They both stare down into the alley three stories below. "Your old Chinaman jumped that?" Carlyle asks.

"Looks like it. And then went down the ladder." Anderson peers over the edge. "Long way down." He can't help smiling darkly at Hock Seng's resourcefulness. "Sly bastard."

"It's a long jump."

"Not too bad. And if Hock Seng—"

Anderson doesn't get a chance to finish his sentence. Carlyle flies past him, hurtling across the gap. The man lands hard and hits the roof rolling. A second later he's up, grinning and waving for Anderson to follow.

Anderson scowls and makes his own run at the gap. The landing rattles his teeth. By the time he straightens, Carlyle is already disappearing over the edge, climbing down the ladder. Anderson follows, favoring a bruised knee. Carlyle is surveying the alley when Anderson drops down beside him.

"That way goes back to Thanon Phosri and our friends," Carlyle says. "We don't want that."

"Hock Seng is paranoid," Anderson says. "He'll have a path worked out. And it won't be on main streets." He heads in the opposite direction. Almost immediately, a slot between two factory walls appears.

Carlyle shakes his head in admiration. "Not bad." They squeeze into the narrow way, scraping along for more than a hundred meters until they reach a door of rusted tin. As they push aside the crude gate, a grandmother looks up from a bundle of washing. They're in a courtyard of sorts. Laundry hangs everywhere, sun pouring a rainbow through damp fabrics. The old woman waves at them to proceed past her.

A moment later, they're out in a tiny
soi
, which in turn gives way to a series of maze-like alleys that twist through a makeshift slum for the coolie laborers who work the levee locks, transporting goods from the factories to the sea. More micro alleys, laborers crouched over noodles and fried fish. WeatherAll shacks. Sweat and the dimness of overhanging roofs. Burning chile smoke that makes them cough and cover their mouths as they forge through the swelter.

"Where the hell are we?" Carlyle murmurs. "I'm completely turned around."

"Does it matter?"

They thread past dogs lying dazed in the heat and cheshires perched atop refuse piles. Sweat runs down Anderson's face. The buzz of afternoon alcohol is long gone. More shadowy alleys, more tight walking spaces, twists and turns, squeezing around bicycles and scavenged piles of metal and coconut plastics.

A gap opens. They spill out into diamond sunlight. Anderson sucks at the relatively fresh air, grateful to be out of the claustrophobia of the alleys. It is not a large road, but still, there is traffic on it. Carlyle says, "I think I recognize this. There's a coffee guy somewhere around here that one of my clerks likes."

"No white shirts, at least."

"I need to find a way back to the Victory." Carlyle says. "I've got money in their safe."

"How much is your head worth?"

Carlyle grimaces. "Eh. Maybe you're right. I need to get in touch with Akkarat, at least. Find out what's going on. Decide on our next move."

"Hock Seng and Lao Gu both disappeared." Anderson says. "For now, let's make like the yellow cards and lie low. We can take a rickshaw to Sukhumvit
khlong,
and then take a boat to near my place. That will keep us far away from any of the factory and trade areas. And far away from all those damn white shirts."

He flags down a rickshaw man, not bothering to bargain as he and Carlyle climb aboard.

Away from the white shirts, Anderson can feel himself relaxing. Almost feels foolish for his earlier fear. For all he knows, they could have just walked down the street and never been bothered. No need to go running across rooftops at all. Perhaps. . . He shakes his head, frustrated. There's too little information.

Hock Seng didn't wait. Just gathered up the money and ran. Anderson thinks back on the carefully planned escape route again. The jump. . . He can't help laughing.

"What's so funny?"

"Just Hock Seng. He had it all worked out. Everything set. As soon as there was trouble—Shooo! Out the window he goes."

Carlyle grins. "I never knew you were keeping a geriatric ninja."

"I thought—" Anderson breaks off. The traffic is slowing. Up ahead, he catches a glimpse of white and stands for a better view. "Hell." The starched whites of the Environment Ministry are in the road, blocking traffic.

Carlyle pops up beside him. "Checkpoint?"

"Looks like this isn't just the factories." Anderson glances behind, hunting for a way out, but more people and cyclists are piling up, jamming the way.

"Should we make a run for it?" Carlyle asks.

Anderson scans the crowd. Beside him, another rickshaw driver stands on his pedals, studying the scene, then settles back on his seat and jangles his passing bell irritably. Their own rickshaw man joins the bell ringing.

"No one seems worried."

Along the road, Thais barter over piled reeking durian, baskets of lemon grass and bubbling buckets of fish. They, too, seem unconcerned.

"You just want to bluff through?" Carlyle asks.

"Hell if I know. Is this some kind of power play of Pracha's?"

"I keep telling you, Pracha's had his teeth pulled."

"Doesn't look like it."

Anderson cranes his neck, trying to glimpse what's happening at the road block. From what he can make out, someone is arguing with the white shirts, gesturing as he speaks. A Thai man, deep mahogany skin and a flash of gold thumb rings on his hands. Anderson strains to hear, but the words are drowned out as more cyclists pile into the jam and join in the impatient ringing of their bells.

The Thais seem to believe this is nothing but an irritating traffic jam. No one is frightened, just impatient. More bicycle bells tinkle and chime, surrounding him in music.

"Oh. . . Shit," Carlyle murmurs.

The white shirts yank the arguing man off his bicycle. His arms flail as he goes over. His thumb rings flash in the sunlight and then he disappears under a knot of white uniforms. Ebony clubs rise and fall. Blood whips from the clubs, glistening.

A doglike yelping fills the street.

The cyclists all stop ringing their bells. The street noise fades as everyone turns and cranes their necks to see. In the silence, the man's ragged pleading carries easily. Around them, hundreds of bodies shift and breathe. People glance left and right, suddenly nervous, like an ungulate herd that has suddenly found a predator in its midst.

The dull slap of the clubs continues.

Finally, the man's sobbing breaks off. The white shirts straighten. One of them turns and motions traffic forward. It is an impatient gesture, businesslike, as though the people have stopped to gawk at flowers or a carnival. Hesitantly, cyclists push forward. Traffic begins to roll. Anderson sits down in his seat. "Christ."

Their rickshaw man stands on his own pedals and they start forward. Carlyle's expression has gone tight with anxiety. His eyes flick from left to right. "Last chance to run for it."

Anderson can't take his gaze from the approaching white shirts. "We'll be obvious if we bolt."

"We're fucking
farang
. We're already obvious."

Pedestrians and cyclists inch forward, merging through the chokepoint, shuffling past the carnage.

A half-dozen white shirts stand around the body. Blood pools from the man's head. Flies already buzz in the red rivulets, sticky winged, drowning in the surfeit of calories. A cheshire shadow crouches eagerly at the periphery, blocked from the congealing pool by a white picket barrier of uniformed trouser legs. All the officers' cuffs are spattered red, dew kisses of kinetic energy absorbed.

Anderson stares at the carnage. Carlyle clears his throat nervously.

A white shirt glances up at the noise and their eyes lock. Anderson isn't sure how long they stare at one another, but the hate in the officer's eyes is unmistakable. The white shirt raises an eyebrow, challenging. He slaps his club against his leg, leaving a bloody smear.

Another slap of the club and the officer jerks his head sideways, indicating that Anderson should look away.

20

Death is a stage. A transience. A passage to a later life. If Kanya meditates on this idea long enough, she imagines that she will be able to assimilate it, but the truth is that Jaidee is dead and they will never meet again and whatever Jaidee earned for his next life, whatever incense and prayers Kanya offers, Jaidee will never be Jaidee, his wife will never be returned, and his two fighting sons can only see that loss and suffering are everywhere.

Suffering. Pain is the only truth. But it is better for young ones to laugh a while and feel the softness, and if this desire to coddle a child ties a parent to the wheel of existence so be it. A child should be indulged. This is what Kanya thinks as she rides her bicycle across the city toward the Ministry and the housing that Jaidee's descendants have been placed in: a child should be indulged.

The streets are patrolled by white shirts. Thousands of her colleagues out on the street, locking down Trade's crown jewels, barely controlling the rage that all in the Ministry feel.

The fall of the Tiger. The slaughter of their father. The living saint, fallen.

It's as painful as if they had lost Seub Nakhasathien again. The Environment Ministry mourns and the city will mourn with them. And if all proceeds according to General Pracha's plan, Trade and Akkarat will mourn as well. Trade has finally overstepped itself. Even Bhirombhakdi says that someone must pay for the insult.

At the Ministry gates, she shows her passes and makes her way into the compound. She cycles down bricked paths between teak and banana trees to the housing quarters. Jaidee's family always kept a modest house. Modest, as Jaidee was modest. But now the last whittlings of his family live in something infinitely smaller. A bitter end for a great man. He deserved better than these mildewed concrete barracks.

Kanya's own home is much larger than Jaidee's ever was, and she lives alone. Kanya leans her bicycle against a wall and stares up at the barracks. It is one of several the Ministry has abandoned. In front of the place, there is a patch of weeds and a broken swing. Not far away is a weedy
takraw
court for the use of Ministry men. At this time of day, no one is playing, and the net hangs limp in the heat.