Breathing Water: A Bangkok Thriller

Net Profits

The evening’s final act begins about nine-thirty as Pan steps up onto the orchestra’s platform. He raises both hands, gesturing for silence. The fiddlers desist.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Pan says. “On behalf of the Malaria Relief Fund, I want to thank you all for coming and invite you out into the garden for our closing presentation. I’m sure you’ll find it worthwhile.”

He steps down and weaves his way through the crowd, as conspicuous in his awful clothes as a peacock among pigeons. He winks at Rose as he passes. They wait a bit and then go out and down the steps, following the crowd along the narrow paved track, and the little village is to their left. “By the way,” Rafferty says, “the votes have been tallied, and it’s official. You obliterated every woman here.”

“I already married you, Poke,” Rose says. “But don’t stop just because of that.”

Someone jostles Rafferty’s shoulder roughly and pushes past him. It is Captain Teeth, the man who flicked Rafferty’s eye. He turns back to stare at Rose and makes a loud slurping noise with his tongue.

“If you learn how to swallow,” Rose calls to him, “you won’t have to do that.”

“He knows how to swallow,” Rafferty says, his eyes on the man’s. “He eats shit every time the boss loosens his belt.”

Captain Teeth flushes and starts to pivot, but the man next to him grabs his arm and gives it a yank. With his upper lip pulled back to bare his awful teeth, Captain Teeth makes a V with his index and middle fingers, jabs them in the direction of Rafferty’s eyes, and then allows himself to be dragged away. The beautifully dressed man is not with them.

Rose says, “Would that be-”

“It would,” Rafferty says.

“He doesn’t like you much.” She fans her hand beneath her nose. “Ohhh, those pigs.”

“Half an hour ago, Pan had wind machines, like in the movies, set up behind them, just to move the smell around.”

“He doesn’t trust much to chance, does he? The diamonds for me, the fans for the pigs. He really piles it on.”

They are cresting the hill that slopes down to the garden. “It’s probably a good thing it didn’t occur to him to put the diamonds on the pigs,” Rafferty says.

“We should suggest that for next time.” Rose passes her fingertips over the stones. “It was nice to wear them once, though.” Rafferty doesn’t say anything, and Rose hits him in the ribs with her elbow. “You dummy,” she says. “You say one word about how you wish you could buy me something like this and I’ll stick my finger in your other eye.”

“At least they’d be the same color.”

“Look at that,” Rose says, stopping. Rafferty stands there, feeling the crowd part around them and flow past, apparently unimpressed by the sight below.

The garden is an explosion of light. Six-story palm trees, gilded by light, dazzle against the black sky. Enormous ferns are transparent green, backlit by thousands of watts. Apples glisten in the foliage of the tree, and a pinspot picks out the snake as it winds its silver spiral down the trunk. The whole thing nestles like an emir’s jewels against the dark velvet wall of greenery. It is vulgar, ostentatious, biblically ridiculous, and absolutely beautiful.

Movement beyond the garden catches Rafferty’s eye. The members of the press have been released from their eighty-proof cage and are streaming toward the lights like moths. Nipping at the heels of the press, herding them like a border collie, is Dr. Ravi. He and two guards shepherd them to an area on the opposite side of the tree from the crowd.

“This could be interesting,” Rafferty says. “Look, he’s set it up so the guests are in the picture.”

Pan emerges from the greenery and steps up onto a wooden platform, about eighteen inches high, positioned beneath the tree. Flashbulbs explode, making Pan’s movements as jerky as stop-motion animation.

“Welcome to the garden,” Pan says. He is wearing a microphone on a headset, and his voice echoes. “And to Net Profits.” He says the words in English and then reverts to Thai. “You’ll see why we’re calling it that in a moment. When the Malaria Relief Fund proposed this event, I decided immediately that we should end the evening here, in the Garden of Eden.” He pauses as Dr. Ravi and the two guards finish jamming the press into their assigned area and then reaches into his pocket and pulls out a fan of three-by-five cards. “Most of us here tonight are Buddhists. But for Christians and Muslims, this garden was the setting of creation.” He is reading now; the words-which, Rafferty thinks, he obviously didn’t write-sound stiff and uncomfortable in his mouth. “It was here that the Deity shaped, from clay and divinity and a rib, the creatures who would sit on the throne of the world He made. They were perfect in form and perfect in health. And they were perfect in their innocence.”

A murmur starts to run through the crowd, and Rafferty sees heads turn, sees people step back and bump into those behind them. He hears Rose start to laugh, and say, “Oh, no.”

The thick ferns to Pan’s left part. Adam and Eve enter their garden, holding hands. Neither of them is a minute over nineteen, and they are as naked as the day they were born except for a couple of strategic and mysteriously adhesive leaves. As the beautiful couple walks to the base of the tree, seemingly unaware that the garden is full of overdressed millionaires, every flashbulb in Thailand goes off, and it suddenly occurs to the people in the front of the crowd that they have just been captured in a front-page photo. There are more attempts to back away, and Pan has to raise his voice to speak over the protests.

“But there was something else in the garden,” he reads from the cards, “a creature whose sting we continue to feel even today. And no, ladies and gentlemen, it wasn’t the snake with his shining apple of temptation. It was a much smaller creature, a tiny, seemingly harmless creature, that finds us at our most vulnerable.” Adam and Eve lie down together on the moss at the base of the tree. Their arms intertwine as the flashbulbs reach the intensity of antiaircraft artillery. The people at the front of the group are trying to back away while the people at the rear are pressing forward for a better look.

“The anopheles mosquito,” Pan says. He starts to grin but fights it down. “It took its first drink of human blood here in the garden, and it went forth and multiplied. It multiplied by the millions and became a swarm that fills the night with the world’s number-one killer. The humblest, bringing down the most mighty. But it could have been stopped right here, ladies and gentlemen-” Adam has wrapped both arms and one leg around Eve, and a fig leaf flies into the air from between them and dawdles its way down again. Now the crowd is seriously trying to get out of camera range, and Rose is laughing so hard she has to lean against Rafferty.

“It could have been stopped here, but it wasn’t, because one thing was missing from the garden.” Pan raises his hand and makes a magical pass at the tree, and a glittering gold net drops from it, covering Adam and Eve only seconds before the pictures would have become useless for news purposes. Movement continues beneath the net. Pan takes advantage of the diversion to light a cigar. “A net, ladies and gentlemen,” he says through a haze of smoke. “A simple net. A net that still stops malaria today, that can help us to eradicate it from the face of the earth. And I’m proud to announce that my own initial contribution to Net Profits will be ten million baht. That’ll buy one hundred and fifty thousand nets, but that’s just a beginning. I’m hoping we’ll buy a million nets with the money we raise tonight, and, fortunately, there are people here this evening-good friends of mine, each and every one of them-who will make me look like a tightwad.” He creases the cards up the middle and tosses them over his shoulder, then glances down at the golden net, which is still in motion. “So,” he says, “why don’t we give these kids a little privacy and go up to the house and write some checks?”

22

Buttercup

It’s almost eleven when Elora Weecherat steps onto the sidewalk. Late for her, but it’s been a frustrating evening.