A twelve-year-old with fake, pink mouth braces-which had mysteriously become all the rage with teens- leaned over me and flashed his queue number. I was so upset that I let him have my seat. Now this was actual depression and I didn't even have anything anti to take. And perhaps the worst part of this whole affair was that the effects of Viagra-fem were getting stronger. Just how long would I have to wait for it to wear off? Until it did, no man was safe.
We had two new guests for dinner that night. The sea level had dropped sufficiently for re-entry into the kitchen, so I made spaghetti seafood. One of our bamboo picnic tables had been washed away. Not far away. We could see it rocking back and forth some way out, like one of Robinson Crusoe's failed escape attempts. Mair refused to allow Arny to swim out to retrieve it. She said losing another nephew to drowning would be too much to bear. The other four tables were still where we'd left them. From table two there was a clear view of the sunken latrine, nose down in the sand. Grandad Jah had turned a spotlight onto it, and the effect was every bit as spectacular as Pak Nam's own concrete battleship. The night was calm. The sky was starry. The beach garbage looked almost picturesque in the shadows.
Joining us all the way from Hong Kong was Amy's fiancee, Gaew. If you were to project a slide of Miss Thailand World onto a brick kiln, that's what Gaew looked like. The hurricanes had yet to offer up a wind that would blow her off her feet. But we all loved her bubbly personality and sense of humor, especially my mother. And Gaew seemed every bit as pleased to see Mair as she was to be reunited with Arny. My brother grinned like a lovesick donkey at everything she said. Noy picked up on this interaction and remained subdued all evening. Gaew picked up on Noy's subjugation, added to it the girl's innocent beauty and youth, and decided it wouldn't be a bad idea to hold my brother's hand all night and feed him fried squid with a fork.
Our other guest that night was Captain Waew, retired from Surat Thani police force. He was as round as Grandad Jah was anorexic, as short as me, and worryingly twitchy. He had so many tics you'd doubt he could ever be truly still. He ate sparingly, spoke frugally, and smiled at everything. He was the reinforcements called in by my grandfather. I felt so much better to see he had back-up.
The grenade attack on our freezer had destroyed our frozen fish and most of our beer supply. The bottles had shattered, but the cans had merely been blasted across the room. The beer that accompanied our supermarket seafood therefore was in Salvador Dali cans, which exploded foam at every opening. After an hour we all stank of Leo. By then we hardly noticed the arrival of the subtle black curtain of clouds being pulled across our sky. While everyone else was getting plastered, I called on my superhuman ability to be unaffected by alcohol when a good story was at stake.
With bladders filling fast and their owners running off to rooms to empty them, I worked my way around the table like a clever Pac-Man, sliding into vacant slots until I found myself beside my prey-Noy.
'Are you having a good time?' I asked.
'They seem so happy,' she said, staring at Arny and Gaew, her words slurred. She was pickled.
'Love. What can I say? Blind as a beefburger.'
She didn't laugh.
'She's…'
'Older than your mother?'
'Yes.'
Noy was swaying. I don't know how many abstract beer cans she'd been through, but I was certain she was just about to say things she'd regret. I leaned into her ear.
'Tell the truth, I'd like to see him with someone younger,' I said. 'But she's so worldly. She's been everywhere. Can you believe she studied in America?'
That was a lie. I was fond of lies.
'Well, so did I,' slurred Noy.
Bingo.
'You don't say? He loves women with overseas experience.'
'I have it,' she said. 'I have overthere experience. And what an experience. You know? You know what I was?'
Drunk was what she was. About to pass out, I'd bet. I needed a few more clues before I lost her completely.
'What were you?' I asked.
'I was…' She looked around, not focusing on anything or anyone-perhaps only the memory.
'I was a rental.'
'Like Hertz?'
'Excac…ex…actly like Hertz. Driven into the ground, dented and dumped. Used. That was me.'
She put her arm around me and belched.
'Sorry,' she said.
'No problem.'
'All used up,' she sang. She was fading now. I had twenty seconds left at the most before her lights went out. 'And what…what would they have done to me after the gas tank was empty? Put me in the scrap metal, that's what. So, Jimm, that's why.'
'Why what?'
Mamanoy had seen her girl talking to me and was on her way over to us.
'Why what what?' Noy asked.
'No, you said, 'That's why.' '
'Right. That's why.' She got clumsily to her feet and raised a fist. 'That's why I stood up to them. Why I told them it wasn't right. It shoul…should have been me.'
Then in English she said, 'The monitor lizard knew nothing.'
Her mother caught her just before she collapsed.
'She isn't very good with alcohol,' said Mamanoy. 'Talks absolute rubbish after the slightest amount of beer. I'd better get her back to the room.'
Ex-Captain Waew saw an opportunity to manhandle a nubile twenty-four-year-old and propped up one side of Noy while her mother took the other. I watched them fade into the shadows.
'Well, how confusing was that?' I asked myself. I couldn't think. Beer made my brain stodgy. If I'd been drinking Chilean red, I would have had an insight by now. Casa de Easter might give me brimstone hangovers, but it did wonders for my imagination. Noy had told me something important, but I didn't know what.
When the captain returned from Noy's cabin, he joined Grandad Jah at another table and I knew they were up to no good. I wasn't having it. I went over to them and squeezed in between the old fellows.
'Jimm,' said Grandad, 'go and play somewhere else. This is grown-up talk.'
He sometimes forgot I'd grown up too.
'OK, old policemen,' I said. 'Here's the deal.'
'Jimm!' snarled Grandad.
I didn't want to break Grandad's face in front of his colleague, but I had a lot on my plate, not least of which was the feel of Captain Waew's strong forearm against my side. Just how evil were those pills?
'I know what you two are up to,' I said.
'Jimm, do not interfere where you aren't wanted,' said Grandad.
'If you do anything to the rat brothers, I'm going straight to the real police. I'll tell them everything, including the gun.'
Grandad Jah looked at his friend apologetically.
'She's young,' he said.
