Breathing Water: A Bangkok Thriller

Dr. Ravi’s knock, so feathery it wouldn’t wrinkle linen, is answered by something that sounds like a sea lion nailed to a rock. With a final glance that combines haughtiness and supplication, Dr. Ravi opens the door and gestures Rafferty through. Rafferty has the feeling that Dr. Ravi wants to hide behind him.

The room they enter is square, with walls approximately twenty-five feet long. The focal point is a teak desk inlaid with mother-of-pearl. The far wall is glass, opening onto a sun-soaked vista of plants and flowers. Seated behind the desk, his back hunched defensively against the glare, is Pan. Without looking up, he says, “You.”

“Always a good guess.” Rafferty bends down to look at Pan’s face. The man cradles his head in both hands as though afraid it will roll off his neck and crack open on the desk. His eyes are deep-sunk and red-rimmed, and a silvery little aura of gray bristle glints on his chin. He has not shaved this morning. The silver dusting his chin looks odd beneath the bootblack sheen of his hair.

“You didn’t waste any time, did you?” Pan snaps in Thai. Dr. Ravi starts to translate, but Rafferty raises a hand.

“If you mean the newspapers,” he replies, also in Thai, “I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

“Of course you did.”

Rafferty says, “Good-bye, and good luck with your hangover.”

“Wait,” Dr. Ravi says, putting a placating hand on Rafferty’s arm.

“Like I said in the cart, fuck him. I took all the shit last night I’m willing to take.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t mean to offend you,” Dr. Ravi says with an imploring glance at Pan.

“Who else?” Pan squeaks. “Who else had anything to gain?”

Rafferty has a hand on the doorknob. “Any of them. Anybody who wanted a journalist in his pocket.”

After an evaluative moment, Pan mops his face, lowers his head even farther, and says, “Owwwwww. I hurt.”

“Tell somebody who cares.”

“Okay, okay,” Pan says. He closes his eyes in a long wince. “How much not to write it?”

Rafferty hasn’t expected this, although he realizes he should have. He thinks for a moment and says, “I’m not sure I can have this conversation.”

“Five hundred thousand baht. Cash, right now.” Pan slowly opens a drawer, like someone pushing his way through a thick liquid, and pulls out a wad of thousand-baht notes.

“Even disregarding everything else,” Rafferty says, “and there’s a lot to disregard, that’s peanuts.”

Pan’s face is suddenly a deep, choleric red, and he slams the drawer closed with a sound like a pistol shot. He starts to sputter something, then removes one hand from his temple and actually covers his mouth with his fingers and lets his eyes droop shut. He sits there for a moment, breathing heavily, then lowers his hand, opens his eyes, and says, “All right. You’re angry. Pim told me it was my fault.”

“Pim?”

“One of my bodyguards. He said I was terrible.”

“You were.”

“I’m not-I’m not a good drinker,” Pan says.

“You were-” Rafferty turns to Dr. Ravi and says, in English, “I don’t know the Thai. Tell him he was appalling.”

“I think…” Dr. Ravi swallows. “I think he’s already gotten that message.”

“A bodyguard can level with him and you can’t? What kind of amanuensis are you?”

“I’m not an amanuensis. I’m his media director.”

“Goddamn it,” Pan says in heavily accented English. “Speak Thai. Or translate.”

“Sorry, sorry.” Dr. Ravi switches to Thai. “The farang said he also sometimes behaves unwisely when he drinks.”

“I did?” Rafferty asks.

“He is certain he contributed to the problem.” There is a sheen of perspiration at Dr. Ravi’s hairline.

Pan’s eyes look like they were pounded into his head solely to hold up the bags of fluid hanging beneath them. They creak around to Rafferty’s. Pan waits, the pink mouth half open, like someone watching to see whether the water will ever boil.

“I did,” Rafferty says. “We all did.”

A sigh escapes Dr. Ravi.

“All of us,” Pan says. He burps and pats the center of his chest. “We all behaved badly.”

“Fine.”

Pan nods. “One million baht.”

Rafferty says to Dr. Ravi, “Am I allowed to sit down or what?”

“Please, please,” Dr. Ravi says. “Sit.”

“Thanks.” Rafferty pulls a chair to the edge of the desk. “I need to think for a second.”

“Fine.” Pan puts his forehead back into his hands. “If I start to snore, wake me up.”

“How are you going to get in shape for your party tonight?”

Pan says to the desk, “Steam, sauna, herbal tea, massage, boom-boom with triplets from Laos, a few drinks.”

“Triplets?”

Pan grunts. “I really only like one of them, but I’m never sure which one it is.”

“I want to ask you a question.”

“So?”

“Why do you care about sex workers with HIV?”

Pan separates his fingers and peers at Rafferty between them. “Who says I do?”

“The hundred and fifty of them you’re taking care of.”

Pan brings the scarred hands back together. All Rafferty can see is the Elvis-black hair and the silver grizzle on the chin. “Who else will?” Pan says.

“I didn’t think you liked prostitutes.”

“You were wrong. It’s farang I don’t like. Those women and me, we’re mushrooms, sprung from the same shit. They’re my sisters for life. ‘Whore’ is just a word for something they have to do for a while.”

“Do you mean that?”

“Look at me,” Pan says. He opens his desk drawer, pulls out a tube of lip balm, and applies it. “Look how handsome I am. Am I any better than they are?”

Rafferty thinks, No, and he’s heard enough. “We need to talk.” He moves his head a quarter of an inch in Dr. Ravi’s direction. “Alone.”

Pan’s glistening mouth contracts as though he’s about to whistle. Dr. Ravi sputters.

Pan says, in English, “Go.”

“Khun Pan,” Dr. Ravi says, “I don’t advise-”

“If I have to get up and push you out the door,” Pan says, “I’ll probably break your back.”

“Very well.” Rafferty can hear Dr. Ravi’s lips tighten around the words. Then the door closes.

Rafferty says, “I’m going to put my life in your hands.”

Pan is watching the door as though he’s trying to see through it. He seems to be listening, but not to Rafferty. After ten or fifteen seconds, he nods and says, “Why would you do that?”

“Because my wife thinks you’re a great man.”

“Women are bad judges of character.”

“Oh, turn it off. You’ve already outraged me. Give it a rest.”

Pan puts his fingertips to his temples and rubs circles, about the size of a quarter. “This is about why you don’t want the million baht.”

“Actually, the million baht confuses me.”

“Why? A million is a thousand thousands, right? What’s confusing?”

“I had a threatening call this morning, telling me not to write the book.”

The circles stop. “You did? Who-Oh, oh, I see. No, not me. I don’t do things that way.”

“You used to. Back in the old days.”