“Used to be quite famous, a third-division pop star, part of the wallpaper in the seventies, sold the fifties retro stuff, you know, Elvis-style glitter with silver pants that split and padded shoulders. Couldn’t sing to save his life, but kids went for the glitter.”
“Rich?”
The katoey thinks about it. “Hard to say. To me he’s rich, but he was never top of the league-or the pops. And he had a lot of trouble with his health. Booze, drugs, dirty needles-he had a problem when he first started coming in here. He would drink and drink until he fell over. Then he disappeared for a few months, and when he returned, he looked like death. Liver failing badly. Then he got himself a transplant. Now he doesn’t drink anything except fruit juice. You have to admire his dedication. It’s all fear, of course. He was about as close to death as you can get and still breathe. He looks rough most of the time, but at least he can walk and talk. Sally-O is his long-term companion. I think they stay on his boat together a lot of the time, but they still need the bright lights.”
“A transplant?” I say.
“Right. A transplant. All on the black market, of course, no questions asked-otherwise he would have gone back to England to have it done officially, wouldn’t he?”
I let the strange coincidence sink in. “You don’t happen to know who arranged the transplant for him?”
The katoey smiles. “All I can tell you is, it didn’t happen here.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know where the operation took place, but I know he paid a few visits to Hong Kong, and one night he came in here with some kind of Chinese princess-I mean the real thing, money all over her, HiSo manners. Nice woman, knew how to charm, but way out of our league-out of his league too. I guess even aristocracy have to make a living these days.”
“Was she tall, willowy, elegant with long hands?”
He laughs. “Exactly. All of those things.”
“Did she speak Thai, by any chance?”
“Intermediate Thai with a strong accent, perfect English, and I heard her on the phone talking in Chinese.”
“What is the name of the pop star?”
“Freddie Monroe. Named after that Hollywood woman, I suppose, the one who slept with John Kennedy-or was it the other one she slept with?”
“Would you happen to have his cell phone number?”
“Sure-so long as you don’t tell him you got it from me. We survive here by discretion.”
He takes out his own cell phone, presses some buttons and reads off the number while I plug it into my own. I think I’ve driven him as hard as I can, considering he is not a suspect and does not need to answer questions from a Bangkok cop when he surely pays protection to the local force. I chance just one more.
“This clerk, is he the usual run of katoey, d’you think?”
He frowns in contemplation. “There is no usual run of katoey, ” the katoey says with a kind of sadness. “For thousands of years young men have been volunteering for castration as a way out. To discover what kind of katoey you’re dealing with, you have to find out what demon they’re running from. Maybe they do want to be women, maybe they’re simply gays looking for a higher profile. Sometimes it’s pure money-modifying the body to please the customers. But most of the time it’s a case of building a fantasy life until it’s realer than the mundane. Taking control over your own identity right down to gender itself. Above all, katoeys are fantasists.”
“Did Sally-O nurse a particular fantasy that you know of?”
“Sure. She thought she was the reincarnation of a fifteenth-century Chinese eunuch. Apparently there was a famous one who went to sea, but I’m not strong on history.”
16
The mind tells you it has seen that mug a million times before, but it has to work at reconstructing it without the deep furrows, loose jowls, dreadful grayness of flesh, and yellow eyes that indicate a serious liver problem and remind one of death. Although he was no Beatle or Rolling Stone, nevertheless for a long fifteen minutes Freddie Monroe was once part of your internal wallpaper. In his younger form he leered and screamed at you from a billion TV sets; you have seen him on talk shows stoned and mumbling about his life and times; and once or twice you have seen him in police custody after a bust, although he always managed to avoid a prison sentence. He was never the serious artist, but he knew enough to forget to shave before every performance, grow his hair even longer than anyone else’s, and wiggle his loins in that unambiguous way that even girls in their early teens understand.
He agreed to see us at his midrange apartment in a gated community on a hill a mile or so outside of Pattaya; it’s not on the sea but gives a fair view of the Gulf of Thailand and the paragliders that crowd the air during most of the year. He walks with the aid of a walker, and there is a wheelchair in one corner of the room. There is nothing wrong with his legs, but any kind of physical exertion strains a fragile system and makes him breathless.
The flat is unexpectedly modest, with only a few memento pix of yesteryear in silver frames on a side table: Freddie Monroe wowing crowds of drug-addled kids; Freddie Monroe marching from gig to gig, carrying his guitar like a battle-ax; Freddie Monroe at a garden party thrown by the queen of England. There is also a strange oil painting on a wall, which I want to ask about when I find the opportunity.
After meeting us at the door on his walker, he has eased himself into an armchair with a sigh of relief. He is not especially concerned that we are cops; I guess the imminence of death occupies all his psychic space. In pride of place on a mantelpiece is a more recent photo of him in a florid beach shirt with his arm around the katoey clerk at the Phuket land registry.
He speaks as slowly as he moves. I think he has not the energy to lie even if he needs to. His account of himself is plain enough:
“This is my second liver transplant, and it isn’t taking too well. The first, I had in the U.K. They frown a lot and wag their fingers and tell you what a bad boy you’ve been, but they’ll generally find a liver for you. They make it clear it’s a last chance, though. ‘You’re on your ninth life, mate, so lay off the booze and drugs.’ I can’t tell you how many times I heard that. But the thing is, what do you do when you’ve recovered and you want a life? Pub culture was my culture: down the boozer at least at the weekend. Without that I didn’t feel like I was on my ninth life, I felt like I was already dead. So little by little I weakened, didn’t I? Sal, my companion, nagged me about it. She’s very warm and loving and didn’t want me to die, but I didn’t listen.
“So a few years later I need another liver, don’t I? I thought, This is it, I’ve really fucked myself this time, but I heard about some setup on the Internet and sent them an e-mail. Dr. Gray was the name they used-a cover, of course. Next thing I know, a Chinese woman based in Hong Kong invites me to go see her. So I do, at her office over there: very elegant, very charming, very professional.”
“What did she call herself?”
“Lilly. Lilly Yip. She said she was an agent, a go-between. Once she saw I was serious and had the readies, she came over here to check me out a few times. To cut a long story short, if I sold the big place I used to have here in Pattaya and my yacht-it was a two-masted classic schooner, won the South China Sea Race in the 1930s-I’d just have enough for the whole operation on the black market and to buy a floating gin palace, because I can’t stand being without a boat and nor can Sally-O. I had best-quality surgeons, mind you, a proper setup in a proper clinic.”
“In Thailand?”
“No. In China. I’m not saying where because I don’t know.” The effort is telling. He has to pause for energy.
“Did Sal-Sally-O-have anything to do with this Lilly?” I ask.
Freddie rubs his jaw. “Well, that was the strange thing. Sal was still a man at that stage, but he badly needed the reassignment so he could live out his true identity. I was very encouraging, and before I got sick the second time, I promised to pay his way-but then I found myself short of the readies and couldn’t. This Lilly seemed to think she could help out. I didn’t see the need, since there’s nothing black market about gender reassignment. I
