Sissi was trying to be cool, but I'd known her long enough to sense the girlish excitement in her voice. This gala would be the best thing to happen to post-depression Sissi.
'There'll be three days of mingling,' she said. 'Participants set up stands with blown-up photos of themselves pre- and post-work. The judges-me being a distinguished foreign judge responsible for grooming and make-up-go around and talk with the contestants. They're gorgeously challenged, and here they are naked without their Photoshop tools. There's no time to rush out for plastic surgery, so all they have are grooming and makeovers to be the belles and beaux they aspire to be. And nobody's allowed to be their finished Web Idol until the ball. That's when everyone goes glam. Cinderellas and Charmings all. And I have to be especially gorgeous, as I'm such an icon.'
'Hence the wigs.'
'I'll leave it till the last moment to decide which Sissi I shall be.'
It was perverted but so much better than self-imposed imprisonment in a luxury condominium.
'I want to see all the photos,' I said.
'There's just the one problem,' she said.
'What's that, Siss?'
'I have to pass through Bangkok.'
'Wear a mask.'
'No, I mean the demonstrations.'
A pause here to explain what was going down in our nation's capital. For a month, an army of yuppies with undisguised connections to the aristocracy and the military had been occupying our government house. Had they been merely motorcycle taxi drivers and papaya salad vendors, they would, and some would argue, should, have been mowed down in a barrage of police gunfire. These quiche-eating miserables were making a mockery of our political system. A system, I may add, that had no problem making a mockery of itself. But what these yellow shirts represented made them bulletproof. A baton to the head of any one of them would have left a dent in the kingdom's heritage. So those arrogant yuppies strolled through police lines and set up a holiday resort at that Italo-gothic mansion in Dusit.
Meanwhile, the rightful residents sneaked out the back gate. Led by the brother-in-law of the ex-PM- telecommunications tsar who'd threatened to make us Thailand Inc., the government jumped on the bus and skedaddled out to our old airport at Don Muang. There they were currently conducting the business of running the country in a room behind left luggage. It was all so humiliating I wanted to apply for Lao citizenship. At least the Lao had a nice oligarchy where everyone knew where the lines were drawn.
But that was why my sister Sissi was wary of passing through our hotbed of anarchy and anti-anarchy.
'Come on, Siss.' I laughed. 'You fly domestic to our brand-new airport at Suvarnabhumi. You travel along the moving walkways to your transit gate, and you flash your first-class documents at the smiling Thai Airways official who whisks you off to the first-class lounge. There you drink complimentary champagne until you're led onto the aircraft. You don't even have to leave the airport. You'll be oblivious to all that violent Ping-Pong and popcorn- making that's going on in Dusit. And, I mean, I doubt very much whether those coffee shop entrepreneurs and middle-aged ladies with expensive perms will be marching out to the airport to throw themselves down in front of your jumbo. You really do worry too much.'
'You're right.'
'I usually am. Now, to business.'
'Why do you never phone me just to say hello?'
'Sorry. Hello! Now, Grandad and I were wondering whether you'd be kind enough to trace a car engine number. It's a Honda B15B9009554.'
'I stopped doing that.'
'Doing what?'
'Engaging in illegal activities on the Internet.'
'No you didn't.'
'I did.'
'When?'
'A week ago. I have a loving public now. I'm adored. I don't want to endanger my standing. I want my awesome power to be used for good instead of evil.'
'You can't be serious.'
'I am.'
I was devastated. Sissi of all people going straight.
'Well, then. This isn't technically illegal,' I tried. 'It's just accessing public information.'
'It's hacking into the databank of an international company and stealing.'
'All right, it's a little bit illegal. But no more illegal than pretending to be the Disney Corporation and having agencies send you baksheesh so their clients get first crack at a new script.'
'I don't do that anymore.'
'And what are you living on?'
'Savings.'
'All ill-gotten.'
'When it runs out, I'll get an honest job.'
'And what could be more honest than crime fighting? Your awesome power already put one murderer out of business. You're the Sherlock Holmes of cyberspace. Legless Elena your alter ego is the heroine of the Police Beat law enforcers' social network.'
'It's a dating site for ex-cops and old hookers.'
'Ex-cops with a hundred lifetimes of policing experience. You have a world of detection at your fingertips. There's no end to what you and the old doughnut guys can achieve.
Forget make-up tips for teenyboppers. Join me in the fight for justice and fair play.'
'No.'
Waste of a speech.
'Please.'
'What did he do?'
'Who?'
'The car owner.'
I told Sissi about our mystery guests in hut three. When I'd finished, there was a pause, during which I knew she was nodding her head. I could hear her seashell earrings jangling. She could no sooner pass up a mystery than I could.
4.
I'm Gonna Shoot You Right Down,
Ride Off with Your Feet
We were sitting at dinner that evening when the hand grenade went off. It was just after Mair had asked everyone if they fancied a bowl of mixed-friends ice cream. Hut three spent so much time eating with us it was almost inevitable they'd sprout names. We doubted the names were real. They certainly lacked imagination. They insisted we call them Noy, the mother, high-tone, and Noy, the daughter, low tone. Thai is a wonderful language that leaves many a foreigner ripping out chunks of hair. It has the ability to change a dog into a horse, a skein of silk into a bush fire, an entire town into an irrigation ditch. And all at the mere drop of a tone. For a Thai, when speaking, Noy and Noy were two completely different words. But as I had to write this down I anticipated problems. So I decided to call them Noy and Mamanoy to make everything easier. They had taken to spending every meal time
