of her skin-you could see how much money had been spent on her. She was HiSo for sure. Very elegant. She spoke perfect English and not bad Thai. I don’t think she was mainland Chinese at all.”
By the time she has finished speaking, she is on her feet. Anyone spying on us would assume I had sat down to proposition her and she had refused after a short polite conversation. So she’s not only beautiful and modest when off duty, she’s a smart operator too. And lucky. That was a decent chunk of gold. I give her five minutes to disappear, so nobody thinks I’m following her, then walk along the road opposite the sea until I come to a guest house with a ROOMS VACANT sign. I don’t bother to check out the room. When I lie down on the narrow bed next to the tiny window that overlooks the sea, I close my eyes, expecting to see Chanya there, where she usually is just before I fall asleep, nestled behind my eyelids. Instead I see Om.
When I wake up, a solid block of golden light is shooting through the window like something out of a space travel movie, as if a beautiful Venusian is about to materialize before my eyes. It’s quite blinding, and I have to draw the curtains for a moment, until I remind myself that light is good, light is what it’s all about.
The room rate includes breakfast, which is laid out buffet style in a room downstairs. I’m the only guest up at this hour, and there are no staff. The coffee has been stewing all night on a hot plate, the imitation croissants are inedible, and the granola is old and stale.
I already paid for the room, so I’m a free man, walking along the beach at seven-thirty in the morning, wondering what Chanya did last night. I find a small cafe near the sea that serves real coffee and not-bad pain au chocolat. I ask the kid behind the bar if he knows anything about the mansions up on the hill-you can see the peak from this part of the beach, but not the houses-and he says no. He’s a Muslim from Pattani, speaks standard Thai with a strong accent, and has only been here a week. The cafe was the only business he could find that was hiring workers and didn’t sell alcohol. He confides how disgusted he is with farang decadence, especially the alcohol-and the sex. He’s never seen anything like it. He understands why Allah sent the tsunami seven years ago, but nobody seems to have got the message. What will Allah do next, destroy the whole island?
I check the clock on my cell phone. Eight-thirty. If I take it slowly, I’ll be at the police station around nine, when the two patrol cops start work.
I sense nervousness in the desk sergeant, which is not unusual. No provincial police force likes visits from the big city; very often the business models are incompatible. He cannot prevent me from seeing Constables Hel and Tak, but he is able to slow me down quite a bit. He says the interview room isn’t ready, and the two cops are preparing to go out on patrol, so when the interview room is ready, they won’t have much time for me, maybe ten minutes at best. I wonder if I should try to bribe him, then think better of it.
“Look, Sergeant,” I say in my best let’s-be-straight-about-this voice, “this isn’t just any old murder. It’s not sex-related, and it doesn’t look like a drugs vendetta. When the story breaks, it will be all over the world. Everyone who checks the news on their Internet account will see headlines like ‘MURDER AND ORGAN THEFT IN SUNNY PHUKET, THAILAND. ’ People very very high up in government will want to be sure the Phuket police have done all they can to cooperate.”
He’s about fifty and has been on the local force about thirty years, which in itself says survivor with no scruples. That character trait is confirmed by a sloe-eyed cynicism and a way of looking into the distance as if I’m a pain in the neck who has to be tolerated, but not for an unreasonable length of time. Now he turns his best blank stare onto me, lets a beat pass, then says, “Those houses have protection.” He shrugs. The shrug is a reference to my future: do I really want to challenge the protector of the houses-or not?
I stare back without saying anything. I guess I don’t always come across as a law enforcement fanatic, but I can get into the part when I need to. He shrugs again, picks up the desk telephone, speaks so softly I can’t hear what he says, then leads me to an interview room and tells me to wait. About five minutes later two cops walk in: overweight, dumb, and probably honest in the context of local cops. The sergeant is with them and looks like he intends to stay during the interview.
“If you don’t get the fuck out, I’ll say in my report that you refused to permit these men to speak freely,” I say in an even voice with a smile. That’s quite a no-frills challenge, and the atmosphere congeals. He gives me that look again, with a touch of pity in it this time, but he turns to leave the room and closes the door softly behind him.
Like simple men the world over, Constables Hel and Tak decide to obey whatever superior is standing before them at the present moment. They look at me politely and expectantly.
“Just tell me all you know about the mansion on Vulture Peak,” I say, already weary.
Hel and Tak look at each other. “It has protection,” Hel says and looks at Tak, who nods.
“But do you ever go up there?”
“Only when someone invites us.”
“About once a year.”
“Have you been this year?”
“Once.”
“When?”
“About five months ago.”
“What happens when you visit?”
“A Thai man, a manager, welcomes us. He’s very polite and makes us feel welcome.”
“A really nice guy.”
“Is he alone?”
“Twice he’s been alone, three times there have been people there.”
“What kind of people?”
“Chinese people.”
“We don’t know that.”
“No, we don’t know that. Looked like Chinese people.”
“What were they doing, the Chinese people?”
“Playing mahjong.”
“Not always mahjong.”
“Sometimes cards.”
“Gambling?”
“We don’t know that.”
“No, we don’t know that.”
I stare at them, then turn away to look out the window. It’s frustration, not technique, that suddenly turns me on my heels to stare them in the face, one by one. “Where does the protection come from?”
“The army,” Hel says, taken by surprise. Tak nudges his elbow. Hel stares at his partner, then looks scared.
“You don’t know that,” Tak says.
“Everybody knows it,” Hel says.
“General Zinna, by any chance?”
Hel and Tak lose the color from their cheeks and stare at me as at a condemned man. “We don’t know that,” they say in unison.
I’m in a cab on my way to the airport when I remember I’ve forgotten to call Chanya this morning. She could be feeling a tad insecure, with me all alone in Phuket-always assuming those rumors are untrue. There’s also something troubling me; I refer to a kind of telepathy between a man and woman who live together. In the back of my mind is that sweet shot of weakness I felt last night, that love-twinge which passed in the twinkling of an eye, but which remains as an afterthought. I have no intention of calling Om tonight or any night, but the memory of her sitting in that deck chair under the moon has yet to fade.
At exactly the moment I’m thinking that thought, my phone whooshes:
Hi there, you okay? C.
I text back: Sure. You?
Okay. Where did you stay last night?
Cheap hotel
Who with?
Alone
Don’t believe you
