'Pimping?' I give this information the reverence it deserves. 'No illicit porn videos?'
'No, but these days that's pretty well implied in the act of pimping, at least in the States.'
'And?'
'She was prosecuted for running a bawdy house, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They both pleaded guilty. He got twelve months plus one year probation. She got six months, but they deported her.'
'When?'
'Just over four years ago.'
A pause, then Kimberley says, 'It must have been right after she was deported that she went to work for you.'
Fighting a certain internal resistance, I say, 'Yes. We always thought she was way too upmarket for us. I guess she was just using us as a stepping-stone while she readjusted to Bangkok. It must have been quite a letdown after the States.'
'I don't know about that. Prostitutes in the States don't have such an easy ride.'
'Anything else?'
'I'm working on it. The whole case rings a bell. I think it got a lot of publicity because some of the city fathers were involved.'
Mrs. Damrong Baker: the asymmetry in the name might say it all. I have to call Immigration five more times before I am able to convince them to get off their backsides. When they do, it is simply a matter of plugging Dan Baker's passport number into their database. Finally my desk phone rings.
'He's here in Bangkok.'
'As a tourist?'
'No. He has a license to teach English as a foreign language. Yearly renewable visa plus work permit, signs in every three months to confirm his residential address.'
'Which is?'
'Sukhumvit Soi Twenty-six.'
I call Lek, my assistant. While I am waiting for him, I walk to the window to look down. The young monk, whom I've come to think of as 'the Internet monk,' is crossing the street to enter the Internet cafe. I watch his vivid saffron robes disappear into the bright shop; then Lek arrives. We take a cab. 'I want to know if he's lying or not,' I tell Lek. 'Just watch him while he answers.'
All Bangkok taxi drivers practice witchcraft, but this one is at postgraduate level. Garlands in honor of the journey goddess Mae Yanang hang from the rearview mirror with a bunch of amulets, obscuring the middle slice of external reality. I should mention that there are two ways of avoiding death on our roads: pop pong and pop gun. Pop gun signifies the usual dreary ineffective stuff like wearing a seatbelt and not driving too fast; we generally prefer pop pong, with its inviolable spiritual protection. Done properly, pop pong not only protects your life, it can also deal out severe punishments to those who threaten it. At this very moment our driver is proudly recounting the tale of a road-rager who cut in front of him last week, only to be flattened by a cement truck five minutes later. 'What a mess,' he says with glee, and points to the ceiling.
Lek is riveted: 'Dead?'
'Sure.'
'He didn't have an amulet?'
'Would you believe it? He had a salika inserted under the skin.'
'And he still died?'
Our driver points to the ceiling again with a beat-that expression. 'Accidents don't just happen. The origin is in the past.' He jerks a thumb backward to indicate the past. 'Gam,' he says. Karma.
Lek and I study the ceiling, where a kind of astrological chart provides luck, health insurance, and protection from traffic cops. The inscriptions are in, not Thai, but the ancient Khmer script called khom, from the time of Angkor Wat. 'You use a moordu?' Lek wants to know.
'Sure, a Khmer moordu. What do Thai seers know? All magic comes from the Khmer in the end.' He shifts around to give Lek a quick glance. 'I got into this in a big way after the tsunami. Before that I was pretty choi choi about it.'
'Because of the ghosts?'
'You bet. See, what people don't appreciate is that most of the Thais who died didn't come from Phuket at all. They came from Krung Thep and up north. And of course, the farang ghosts wanted to get home as well, so the dead all arrived here trying to get on planes at the airport or buses back to Isaan. My partner, who uses this car on the night shift, said it was terrible. He'd pick up a party of four or five passengers and drive them to Don Muang; then when he turned around to collect the fares, they weren't there anymore. The worst, though, were the ones who boarded in the dark; then when he turned the light on at the end of the trip, they were totally rotted already, eyes hanging by the optic nerve and bouncing around on their cheeks. Then there were the farang who don't know diddly about being dead and were still looking for loved ones, crying out and all that. It was just awful. For that kind of stuff, you got to have professional help.'
Lek nods gravely in agreement. I'm not sure I'm comfortable with this side of the katoey soul, so I look out the side window, where carbon monoxide is laced with air. We're stuck in the usual jam at the Asok-Sukhumvit crossroads, and a kid about ten years old with a dirty face and exaggerated misery picks his way around the stationary vehicles.
He makes a halfhearted attempt to clean the windows with a broken windscreen wiper, then holds out his hand. When I roll down the window to give him ten baht, hot poison wafts in and the driver complains. 'There's no karmic benefit in giving to kids like that,' he explains. 'Better to get the right amulet. How can you walk around without protection?'
Lek gives me a told-you-so nod. He never removes his shamanic plant roots wrapped in yellow yantra cloth, which hang in a small bunch from a cord around his neck. He often chides me for trying to take reality naked, like a dumb farang.
The right turn out of Asok into Sukhumvit can be tricky without pop pong. Our shaman screeches around almost on two wheels, just in front of a crowded bus, forcing a motorcyclist to swerve and the bus to brake. Then we're speeding along past the Grand Britannia, way ahead of the pack. 'Amazing,' Lek says, lavishing awe on the ceiling.
I'm pleasantly surprised when the guard at Baker's apartment building tells me the American farang still lives here and is at home this very moment. I give the guard (light and dark blue uniform, handcuffs, and nightstick; he was playing Thai checkers with his colleague sitting at a makeshift table using bottle tops when I interrupted) two hundred baht, and by the time I'm standing outside Baker's door, I already know most of the American's private life. Works regular hours mostly from home. Brings a girl back every Friday and Saturday night, sometimes the same one. Speaks Thai quite well. Likes to work out at a local gym. Never has any money to spare but usually pays the rent on time. Not a big drinker but smokes ganja from time to time. Has a sideline in something photographic, but it doesn't seem to make him much money. Never seems to return to America, prefers to spend his vacations in Cambodia. He was quite an argumentative type of farang when he arrived about three years ago, but he's learned local ways. He's quiet now, respectful; he walks the walk.
I have to decide what kind of knock to use. Too hard, and I fear I will awaken that farang mind-set called Thaicopsyndrome: he could start shivering in his boots and replaying every horror story he's ever heard about our legal system, which is not what I want. Too soft, though, and I could get insolence. I opt for the middle path, which brings him to the door in a pair of knee-length walking shorts, nothing else.
Thirty-seven, male-pattern baldness, gray in his chest hair, an iron-pumper's physique, no tats; he experiences the usual sinking feeling when I flash my police ID. Teachers of English tend to be a subset of the backpacker nation; for us they fit into the poor-and-deportable category of foreigners and tend to think the worst when a cop comes calling.
'I'm here to ask a few questions about your ex-wife, Mr. Baker.'
A scowl disguises something more sinister. I think he is not surprised enough. I check Lek with a flick of my eyes. Lek is using feminine intuition, or at least practicing the shrewd, assessing look that is supposed to go with it. He purses his lips at me and shakes his head.
The apartment is built from the same tired building plan that is used all over the world these days: in the hierarchy of concrete caves his owns a window and a toilet, which puts him two points above basic. There are other
