'Of course not,' I reply. 'Of course not, Phra Titanaka.'
'I was a real monk, Sonchai. If I hadn't been, I wouldn't have felt so much pain, would I?'
'You were born a monk, my friend.'
He smiles at that. 'I scaled the heights, Detective, I really did. People don't realize how available nirvana is. I experienced total love, the cosmic power of compassion, Buddha mind, but I could never sustain it. Too many previous wasted lifetimes, all of them spent with her. She was too strong for me. I wanted so much to save her. I thought if I became a monk, a serious one, and transformed myself, then she would have to follow. But she had other ideas. She always did things her way.'
I think he wants to say more, but he fades away at that moment.
I drag myself over to the bamboo balls. Tanakan is snugly inside his, but the terrified Khmer dropped Smith outside the other one. From within his lattice womb Tanakan has recovered his nerve and starts to demand that I get him out. I stare at him for a moment, frown, then go over to Smith. 'I need a cell phone,' I tell him, but he is not responsive. I have to climb back up to Gamon's hut to retrieve my own, but the battery has run down. Never mind, Kimberley has jumped out of her chopper and is running toward me, combat style, dressed in black coveralls, carrying a sexy-looking two-tone carbine (cafe au lait on dark chocolate). 'What happened?' she says, coming to an abrupt halt, not sure where to point the gun.
'Damrong's ghost trapped her brother in her own cadaver so she could use his body while supervising the ritual slaying of those two,' I explain, pointing at Smith and Tanakan. 'But I shot the cadaver in the head, which put an end to her scheme. I believe the technical expression is sympathetic magic. It's not due to become available to humanity at large again for another thousand years. Can I borrow your cell phone?'
She hands it to me, and I plug in a familiar number. 'Yamahatosan,' I say, 'I have a job for you.'
Epilogue
Vikorn sent a couple of heavies to arrest me as soon as I reached Bangkok. He has thrown me into the cells while he decides what to do with me. He doesn't know everything, but he knows enough to realize I stopped being a cop for a certain period of time, during which his squeeze on Tanakan was ruined and the sweetest scam of his life was taken from him. I know he is deciding whether to bump me off or reduce me to some degrading condition of absolute slavery. I'm not too bothered, though. After all, I have a trump up my sleeve. In the meantime I'm enjoying the solitude, the reliable rhythms of incarceration. I don't even mind the slopping out, although the stench makes me gag; I'm using it as an exercise in Buddhist humility. After forty-eight hours, however, I'm starting to get bored, so I send the Colonel a handwritten note in Thai: fllmQ: I have a video.
Never one to be coy when a glittering prize offers itself, he writes back within the hour: What kind of video?
Naked confessions of Khun Tanakan and Khun Smith.
My rehabilitation is as precipitous as my fall. Now I'm in Vikom's office, sitting opposite him.
'Want a cigar?'
'You know I don't smoke tobacco.'
'How about some ganja? One of the boys busted a dealer with export-quality stuff. Here.' He reaches into his top drawer and tosses a Ziploc bag of dense green vegetation onto his desk. I wasn't about to accept, but the deep shade of the grass, together with the superabundance of buds, weakens my resolve. As I reach for it, however, he clamps it to his desk with a heavy gnarled old hand.
'Where's the video?'
'At a secret location.'
'Does it really show them fessing up to everything? Conspiring to make a snuff movie, taking shareholder positions, all that?'
'Yes. Naked, bent over trestles in a compromising position. It's very elegantly done. Yammy's come a long way.'
'Yammy? You used Yammy?'
'Is there anyone better?'
'Okay, how much do you want?'
'I want thirty percent for charity, plus twenty-five million dollars in seed money for Yammy's feature film. It sounds like a lot, but you're going to grab half of Tanakan's fortune, so why should you care?'
'Show me the video first.'
'Do I look that stupid?'
'Okay, okay, if it's as good as you say, I'll agree.'
'Write that down. I want you on your honor.'
He frowns, then takes out his pen, writes, and hands me the contract. I fish a disk out of my pocket, walk over to his DVD player, and switch it on.
It was kind of cozy watching Yammy's private masterpiece, which had the Colonel chortling and congratulating me. With the FBI standing next to him wearing her new gun, Yammy used two cameras to somehow make magic of a sorry tale. He made Smith and Tanakan confess slowly, deliberately, as if reciting poetry on a stark stage in front of the hut the elephants had shattered. They speak in solemn, well-modulated voices, as they recount every detail of their contract with Damrong and the morbid passion that led to it. Yammy and I used her extensive notes as a kind of film script.
Sometimes I think things are almost normal again, but of course they are not, because they never were. The illusion of continuity is busted, my concentration shot. Yesterday, hardly aware of what I was doing, I bought a bronze statue of the elephant god Ganesh to use as a paperweight on my desk. Not a minute passes without thoughts of Gamon. I frequently find an excuse to go to the wat to meditate. Even then I see him everywhere. Something he said almost inadvertently one day repeats itself over and over in my mind: When you tear away the last veil, you know with certainty that love is the foundation of human consciousness, that there really is nothing else. It's our constant betrayal of it that makes us crazy. Hard to live by, but I guess you have to try.
There's one other little thing I ought to mention. Damrong came to me a few nights ago, and I found no strength to resist her; but in the dream (it is comforting to call it that) a figure in saffron robes, with a machine gun slung over his shoulder, held up a Buddha hand of peace, and she disappeared. When I awoke with a jolt, Chanya was sleeping peacefully beside me.
It's Vikorn, of all people, who keeps reminding me that I have a loving pregnant wife waiting for me at home. Who would have guessed that he was capable of worrying about my mental health?
But what of the FBI, whose sudden passion was quite eclipsed by events? Seduced, in my turn, by the sickly temptation of do-goodery, I took her last night to Don Juan's, because I knew Lek was rehearsing there for a katoey cabaret they were planning. I sneaked her in surreptitiously and had her sit with me at the back of the bar while Lek and his chums laughed, screamed, ad-libbed, and made wicked jokes about how Pi-Lek would soon go under the knife. I took Kimberley's hand by way of comforting her, but she removed hers very quickly. I thought she was angry because I was showing her just how perfectly Lek fitted into his katoey world, and how impenetrable that world was even for me, let alone a female farang. Wrong.
Afterward, sipping drinks at a bar in Pat Pong, she said, 'That was sweet of you, in a way, Sonchai, but you're behind the curve. A week has passed, and I've grown up. I know that different cultures produce very different human beings. Americans find that hard because the empire that dare not speak its name doesn't like us to know there are alternative cultures on earth-but I'm not stupid. I know he can't love me. Hell, maybe he is a spirit in human form. I also know that if I deny love one more time, I'll turn into just another drone with no life outside of work. That's a trap in the States, especially for a single woman over thirty-five. Bizarre it may be, incompatible we may be, but I have to see this through. We've done a deal. There's no way he'll be able to remain a cop after his operation, and I can't stand the thought of him selling his body in a bar on Soi Four. I'm going to be like one of those lovelorn white men — I'm going to send money every month from the States to keep him off the Game, and he's going to come visit me from time to time, except he'll be a she then, of course. It finally dawned on me that money is something I have that he needs. And guess what, I made him laugh the other day-so some communication is possible between alien species, right? I think we're going to be good friends. Don't underestimate
