Koko

“You little asshole,” Conor heard himself say. “You shithead, you took my money.” Without in any way planning to do so and without even recognizing that he was suddenly very angry, Conor ground his teeth and reached across the bar. The bartender giggled frantically and stepped backwards, but Conor lunged for him and closed his hands on his white shirt.

“Earn your money, goddamnit. Who did you think it was? Someone who came in here?”

“Mistake, mistake!” the bartender cried. A few men who had been drinking at the bar had come toward Conor and the bartender, and one of these men, a Thai in a light blue silk suit, patted Conor on the shoulder.

“Calm yourself,” the Thai said.

“Calm myself, nothing,” Conor said. “This asshole took my money and now he won’t talk.”

“Here is money,” said the bartender, still yanked halfway across his bar. “Have free drink. Please. Then please leave.” He plucked the bill from his pocket and dropped it on the bar.

Conor let go of the man. “I don’t want the money,” he said. “Keep the goddamn money. I just want to know about Underhill.”

“You are looking for a man named Tim Underhill?” asked the dapper little Thai in the blue silk suit.

“Sure, I’m looking for him!” Conor said, too loudly. “What does it look like I’m doing? I’m his friend. I haven’t seen him in fourteen years. My friend and I came here to find him.” Conor violently shook his head, as if to shake off sweat. “I didn’t mean to get rough, or nothing. Sorry I grabbed you like that.”

“You have not seen this man in fourteen years, and now you and your friend are looking for him.”

“Yeah,” Conor said.

“And yet you become so emotional! You threaten this man with violence!”

“Hey, it snuck up on me. And I’m sorry, but I mean, I didn’t threaten nobody around here, not yet anyhow.” Conor pushed his hands into the pockets of his jeans and began backing away from the bar. “Gets frustrating after a while, looking for a guy nobody knows. Look, I’ll see you sometime.”

“You misunderstand!” said the Thai man. “Americans are always so quick!”

To Conor’s vast discomfort, everybody had a good laugh at this.

“What I mean is, we might be able to help you.”

“I knew this shithead heard of him.” He glowered at the bartender, who raised his hands placatingly.

“He is going to be your friend, do not call him names,” said the Thai. “Isn’t that right?”

The bartender spoke in Thai—a rush of noise that to Conor sounded like “Kumquat crap crop crap kumquat crap crap.”

“Crop kumquat telephone crap crop dee crap,” said the man in the blue suit.

“Hey, give me a break,” Conor said. “Is he dead or something?”

The bartender shrugged and stepped away. He lit a cigarette and watched the man in the blue suit.

“We both think we may know him,” said the man in the blue suit. He picked up Conor’s twenty-baht note, and held it upright, like a candle.

“Crap crop crap crop,” the bartender said, turning away.

“Our friend is uneasy. He thinks it is a mistake. I think it is not.” He twinkled the bill into one of his pockets.

The bartender said, “Crap crop crop.”

“Underhill lives in Bangkok,” said the Thai in the blue silk suit. “I am sure he still lives here.”

The bartender shrugged.

“Used to come in here. Used to come into Pink Pussycat. Used to come into Bronco.” The man in the blue suit showed all his teeth in a laugh. “He knew friend of mine, Cham.” The man grinned even more broadly. “Cham very bad. Very bad man. You know telephone? Cham like telephone. He knew him.” He tapped the bar with a long fingernail made lustrous with lacquer.

“I want to meet this guy Cham,” Conor said.

“This is not possible.”

“Everything is possible,” Conor said. “There’s money in it for you. Where does this guy hang out? I’ll go there. Does he have a telephone number?”

“We go out couple bars,” Connor’s new friend told him. “I take care of you, you see. I know every place.”

“He know every place,” the bartender said.

“And you knew Underhill?”

The man nodded, distorting his face into a mask of comical omniscience. “Very well, I know him, very well. You want proof?”

“Okay, give me proof,” Conor said, wondering what he would do.

The little Thai thrust his face up close to Conor’s. He smelled powerfully of anise. There were tiny white scars at the corners of his eyes, like calcified razor nicks. “Flowers,” he said, and laughed.

“You got it,” Conor said. “That’s it.”

“We have drink first,” said the man in the blue suit. “Must prepare.”

2

They had several drinks while they prepared. The dapper little man extracted an envelope and a fountain pen from the inside pocket of his jacket and declared that they needed to make a list of Underhill’s haunts, along with a list of the bartenders and patrons who would be most likely to know where to find him. There were bars in Patpong 3, bars in an area called Soi Cowboy off Sukhumvit Road, bars in hotels, bars in Klang Toey, Bangkok’s port, Chinese “tea houses” off Yaowaroj Road, and two coffee shops—the Thermae, and the one in the Grace Hotel. Underhill had been known in all these places, and might still be known in some.

“This all cost money,” said Conor’s new friend, putting his envelope in a side pocket of his jacket.

“I have enough money to go around a few bars.” Conor saw an expression of nervous suspicion cross the little man’s face. He added, “And something for you on top.”

“On top, very good,” the man said. “I take my share now—come out on top!”

Conor pulled a wad of crumpled bills from his pocket, and the man plucked out a purple five-hundred-baht note.

“We go now,” he said.

They dropped into every bar remaining in Patpong 3, but Conor’s new friend saw nothing that pleased him.

“We get taxi,” the little man said. “Go all ’round city, find the best places, the most exciting, and that is where we will find him!”

They went out onto the crowded street and stopped a cab. Conor climbed into the back seat while the little man spoke to the driver for a long time. He gestured and grinned, “Crap crop katoey crap crop crap baht mai crap.” Several bills passed to the driver.

“Now all is taken care of,” the man announced when he climbed in beside Conor.

“I don’t even know your name,” Conor said, and extended his hand.

The man smiled and pumped his hand. “My name is Cham. Thank you.”

“I thought Cham was your friend. Who knew Tim.”

“He is Cham, I am Cham. Probably our kind driver is also Cham. But my friend is too bad, too bad.” He giggled again.

“And what’s ‘katoey’?” Conor asked, quoting the one word repeated in the various Thai conversations he had overheard that did not sound like a bathroom joke.

Cham smiled. “A ‘katoey’ is a boy who dresses up like a girl. You see? I will not lead you astray.” He clamped his hand on Connor’s knee for a second.

Oh fuck, Conor thought, but merely slid another inch or two away on the car seat.

“And what’s this telephone stuff?” he asked.

“What is what?” Cham’s attitude had subtly changed—his smile had a forced, glittering edge.

They were speeding through a river of traffic, bumping over tram tracks, going miles away from the center of town, or so it seemed to Conor. “Telephone. You said something about it back at Mama’s.”

“Oh, oh.” Cham had returned to his normal self. “Telephone. I thought you said another word. It is nothing to