Bangkok Tattoo (18 page)

Whether the girls are allowed to dance topless (or naked) in a particular club depends entirely on the whim of whichever police colonel is running the street. This is not Vikorn’s street, but no one is going to interfere with his bar, so here the girls are all topless. They don’t bother to put their bras on when they come down to the floor to mix with customers, and yet they always seem in control. Strange how these wild-looking young
farang
men, who with their tattoos and body piercings and alcohol abuse might be barbarians on a break from sacking ancient Rome, don’t dare to grope any of those oh-so-tempting young mammary glands as they wobble and swing past their eyes—not without a franchise from the owners, anyway, which always costs a couple of drinks.

The mamasan points upstairs, and we manage to squeeze past the wild hordes to the far end of the bar, then up two flights to a reception room, where they have prepared Vikorn’s supper. We sit cross-legged on the floor, as we were both brought up to do, at a low benchlike table that is already laden with
yam met ma-muang himaphaan
(yam with cashews),
naam phrik num
(a northern dish consisting of a chile and eggplant dip),
miang kham
(ginger, shallot, peanuts, coconut flakes, lime, and dried shrimp), Mekong whiskey with
chut
(ice, halved limes, and mixers), and some
phat phet
(spicy stir-fry).

No sooner are we seated than two of the dancing girls appear, wearing T-shirts and bras now, to ask what we want to drink in addition to the Mekong. Vikorn orders a couple of beers, to be followed by a cold white wine from New Zealand. (This is all my fault. I started him on wine a few years ago, and now he cannot eat his
kaeng khiaw-waan
without it.) I ask between mouthfuls if he has any idea how exactly Mitch Turner died.

He looks at me as if I’m a particularly slow-witted fellow who needs help. “What does it matter how he died? We’re dealing with theater, not reality.
Farang
gave up on reality when they invented democracy, then added television. What matters is what we tell the world. Handle it right, and we all live happily ever after. Handle it wrong, and . . .” He opens his hands, indicating just how tragically unpredictable life can be for nonmanipulators. The girls arrive with his green curry with extra chili along with the wine in an aluminum ice bucket, stir-fried mixed vegetables,
tom yam,
Chinese kale, a spicy duck salad, mouse-shit peppers, and some shredded
kai yaang
(grilled chicken).

“So how do we handle it right?” I ask, humbled, irritated, and relishing the feast all at the same time.

He makes a gesture with his left hand that might appear obscene if one did not know its country origins. What he is actually doing is tickling a fish—fishing by hand was his favorite sport as a boy. It takes a quite incredible patience—merely getting close enough to the fish to tickle its belly is only the beginning—fools make a grab and lose the catch—only the cool stay the course long enough to mesmerize the fish,
then
grab it. All you need is a heart as cold as the fish’s.

“What do you want me to do?”

“Just concentrate. Our friends from the CIA will come calling very soon now. Follow the road signs and keep your mouth shut. Or do you want them to drag Chanya off to Guantánamo Bay?”

“They wouldn’t do that.”

“Why not? Turner was CIA checking out Muslims. He was murdered. She did it. They could leave her to rot over there for the rest of her life, or until she’s totally insane.”

He is using Piercing Eyes to stare at me. I know he’s playing three-dimensional chess and probably has me mated on every level; but he needs something, that’s why he’s taken me to dinner.

“If you’re a good boy and stick to the Mitch Turner case, I’ll tell you why my Indonesia trip will protect Chanya.” I gasp at his ruthlessness. He leans forward. “You think you’re so smart? You’ve been in love with that whore since the day she came to work for us. I know it, your mother knows it,
she
certainly knows it, and so do all the other girls.”

I fall strategically silent. Then with what I think is fine timing and a not-bad display of low cunning, I say: “So how’s the
mia noi
?”

Feigning indifference: “Which one?”

“The fourth one who lives in your mansion in Chiang Mai.”

“Oh, her.” Frowning. “She’s fine.” For a moment I’m foolish enough to believe I’ve hit a nerve, but this is Police Colonel Vikorn—he doesn’t seem to have any. Flashing me a grin, he launches into a brilliant parody of his paramour, mimicking perfectly her screechy voice when in the throes of a tantrum:
“ ‘You shit, I’m giving you the best years of my life, and you don’t appreciate it, you keep me cooped up here in this hick town when I could be in Bangkok, what d’you want me for, some kind of trophy? You haven’t fucked me for a month, my body’s going to waste, I’d rather be on the Game than your personal property. What d’you think this is, the fucking Middle Ages? Why don’t you give me some decent money at least? Just because I don’t want your kids, you’re punishing me with exile from everyone and everything I love, as if you haven’t got plenty. You’ve got more dough than twenty Chinamen, you have. I’m going to have an affair with one of the security guards, that’s what I’m going to do. I’m a young woman, and you’re a miserable old fart who can’t get it up. I’m going to have the biggest tattoo on my ass and a silver ring in my pussy whatever you have to say about it. I could have men crawling at my feet, I could . . .’ “

What can I do? I’m doubled up and coughing from laughing too hard. It’s as if she were here sitting at the table with us.

In the Bentley on the way back to the station, Vikorn gives me an unusually tender tap on the shoulder. Reaching into the door pocket on his side, he brings out a small satchel and hands it to me. I peek inside. It is a Heckler and Koch machine pistol. I gulp.

“It’s just a precaution. Keep it with you when you can, especially at night. Take this too.” It is a piece of paper with a number on it. “Plug that into your autodial numbers, so you can call it just by pressing one button. There won’t be a reply, but I’ll bring some of the boys to find you, so make sure you’re either in your apartment or in the club. Nothing’s going to happen before I get back from Indonesia.”

“Zinna?”

“What you’re calling Plan C—I’m afraid he may not take it too well.” Vikorn has to concentrate to wipe the grin from his face. He catches his driver’s eye in the rearview mirror. The driver is stifling a guffaw.

25

T
hus have I heard: the faithful Ananda one day asked the Finest of Men: Lord, how is it that in the animals we see all the gods represented—the ferocity of Kali in the tiger, the strength and endurance of Ganesh in the elephant, the cunning and strategy of Hanuman in the monkey—but nowhere do we see an animal that reflects the Buddha? With a nod the Tathagata gazed over the world with an omniscient eye, then described to Ananda an animal living on another continent that was the size of a monkey, owned only three toes on each foot, and was capable of hanging upside down from the treetops for weeks on end; that ate only the leaves rejected by other mammals; that had a metabolism so slow, it took a week to digest each meal; that put up with pain and indignity without complaint; and that was constitutionally incapable of haste.

Tell me,
farang,
can there be greater proof of enlightenment than that the man with the universe at his feet chose the three-toed sloth as role model? If he so completely extinguished ego, why cannot I?

In other words, all of a sudden I find myself quite cured of the defilement of ambition. I worked on it over the weekend, meditated my way into tranquillity, swam for as long as I could in the ocean without a shore—and smoked a couple of joints. It was a struggle, but I got there. No, I don’t want promotion anymore, I don’t want the hundred thousand dollars, let
her
have it (the bitch). If she wants to defile her soul by serving Vikorn’s sordid (and largely irrational) vengeance, so be it, but let her watch out for karma. Next time around Lieutenant Manhatsirikit will be my pet goldfish. (It still hurts that she’s closer to him—and smarter—than me: what could the Plan C consist of?)

Back at the club, with nothing better to do, I make that call to Fatima.

She drawls into the phone: “Darling, it’s been so long.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I was beginning to think you were ashamed of me.”

“Never. You’re way out of my league these days. I’m intimidated.”

“Don’t lie, darling. Nothing intimidates you. But you must want something, no?”

I explain to her what I have in mind for Lek. I’m quite pleased with her momentary hesitation. “An Elder Sister? Me? You know, I’ve never done that for anyone. I’ve never wanted to. It’s a tough path.” A giggle: “I’ll do it if you beg me to. I want you on your knees in drag.”

“I can’t beg. I don’t know if it’s the right thing or not.”

“Darling, don’t start talking like a
farang.
There’s no right or wrong—either young Lek is a natural or he’s not. If he is, and he certainly sounds like it, then a whole army could not stop him. Bring him to me. I’ll know what to do the minute I set eyes on him.”

“When?”

“Now.”

“But it’s past midnight.”

“Can there be a better time?”

I call Lek, who gasps with awe, excitement, and fear. We take a cab to Soi 39, where Fatima owns a three-story penthouse apartment in one of the city’s most prestigious developments. On the way I’m seeing Lek the way Fatima will see him; he’s just too damn beautiful for his own good.

Bastard son of a Karen bar girl and a black American GI she’s never met, Fatima is tall and chocolate brown. Of course she is ravishing in her favorite kimono (crimson with a great white sash), her long tragic face, scrubbing-board stomach, long finely manicured hands, exaggerated mascara, and eyes that have seen the very depths of desolation. She stands at the door holding Lek at arm’s length. I’m already an irrelevant spectator. How to explain to the spiritually sightless the extraordinary event that takes place when Lek’s guardian spirit recognizes this ancient soul? Fatima leans against her doorjamb; behind her: a vista of rare art objects, mostly priceless jade items on pedestals, leading to a floor-to-ceiling panoramic window filled with city lights and a yellow moon.

“Oh Buddha,” she says, still holding Lek’s hand. I cough. “You can leave us now,” she whispers hoarsely, without taking her eyes off Lek.

When I get back to my hovel, I can’t sleep. I have lived and worked in the heterosexual division of the sex trade all my life, I have seen all the things that men and women do to each other—and none of it approaches the intensity of
katoeys.
I don’t want to worry about Lek anymore, or what Fatima might do to him. He’ll have to follow the complex rules of his new world. By contrast, the assassination of Mitch Turner seems a more penetrable mystery—almost mundane, but no less compelling for that. I take out the fat wad of A4 paper I collected in Songai Kolok and start to read Chanya’s diary all over again.

FOUR

Chanya’s Diary

26

C
hanya begins her diary thus:
There are two Chanyas. Chanya One is noble, pure, and shines like gold. Chanya Two fucks for money. This is why whores go mad.

She refers to herself in the third person, a permissible device in spoken and written Thai and very common in the humbler classes:
Chanya has always wanted to go to Saharat Amerika.

I seriously thought about translating the whole thing word for word for you,
farang,
but the style didn’t fit with the rest of the narrative, and I know how you love congruity (I also got frustrated because I couldn’t stick in any comments of my own), so I’ve opted for an impressionistic rendering of the kind deplored by all true scholars, if that’s okay?

America was a dream that infected her soul via a television screen while she was still a child. Starting with the Empire State Building and the Grand Canyon, her mind had collected a million brilliant images of a nation with a genius for self-promotion. One fine day, when she had saved enough money to keep her parents for a few months, and had paid for her sister’s college fees for that semester, and had bought a piece of land in her village near Surin where she would build her trophy house on her return, and had bought a laptop with Thai word processor, she contacted a gang who had a reputation for honesty and reliability. Their fees were high—nearly fifteen thousand dollars—but they provided the full service, including a genuine Thai passport with a genuine entry visa to the United States, a return air ticket good for one year, a minder who accompanied her as far as Immigration in New York to make sure she did not freak out at the crucial moment and blow the whole operation, and a room and a job in a massage parlor in Texas.

In return for her working in the massage parlor for six months, the gang reduced the fees by five thousand dollars. Of course, she would pay this back by swelling the profits of the massage parlor, which would contribute to the gang’s overheads. She would have to make her own money those first months through tips and by turning tricks on the side, but she knew how to do that and had no illusions. She would use that time to perfect her English, get to know more about American men, and work out which was the best city in which to practice her profession for maximum profit.