exotic trip yesterday, I should be the one to humbly listen to local news as if it were the most exciting thing in the world. Chanya allows a good five minutes to pass before she says, “We’re going to have to help her. Or I am.”
“Oh? But I thought you said she had tamed her man and now it was all happiness ever after.”
“I was being loyal. In reality no woman ever tames a man like that.” A pause. “You see, I asked your mother to call me next time Jimmy Clipp turned up at her bar. Well, she called me two nights ago-while you were away, as usual. He’s back with his buddy on weekend R amp;R. But when I spoke to Dorothy, she didn’t know he was in town. She wasn’t expecting him for a month. He told her he only gets one weekend off every three months, which is a lie. Generally he finds a way to get here every two weeks.” She turns to me. “What should I do?”
“Nothing, of course. Let him have his fun and go back up north. It’s not your business.”
“I know, but he’s not exactly trying to be discreet by going to your mum’s bar. He’ll make sure Dorothy knows he’s back and ignoring her.”
I’m quite shocked and raise my eyebrows. “Really?”
“You don’t know anything about men. I was on the game for nearly ten years, Sonchai. This Jimmy Clipp is a classic: apparently kind, magnanimous, sensitive, great lover, still good-looking at fifty, extremely promiscuous. Such men are immensely cruel underneath. He’ll find a way of feeding off her suffering.” She flashes me a glance.
“That’s why you’re kikiat today?”
“Yes. I’m trying not to deal with it. At the same time I feel totally responsible. I should never have set up that night at your mum’s bar.”
“Why not? Dorothy’s a sociologist. She’s supposed to know something about human life.”
“No, she’s not. I’ve only recently realized what a freak I am. I’m a real person who happens to be studying sociology. Most of the rest are Dorothys-nonpeople who study people in the hope that one day they’ll be people too. I handled it all wrong. Instead of being confrontational, I should have grasped the existential reality, namely that I was the educating mother, not her. I should have spent time teaching her how to have sex, introducing her to different men, how to get the best out of them-that’s really why she’s over here, I see that now. She wants to be a real girl.” She tuts at herself. “To let the whole situation blow up like this-it’s unforgivable on my part.” She shakes her head. “But I didn’t know. She’s so big and dogged and speaks with farang certainty-I’d forgotten what a fraud it all is. I thought she was going to be the adult in the room helping with my thesis. I fell for the description instead of the reality-now I’m stuck with the mess on the floor.”
(At this point, DFR, I feel it no less than my chivalric duty to warn that at times of stress my darling tends to revert-temporarily-to an earlier incarnation; no, I did not say bitchy whore.) “It’s all because of her tits, of course.”
“Really? I thought they were good enough for polite company,” I opine. “Not your earth mother mammaries, I agree, but a lot of women are small and manage-like men.”
“She’s flat-chested. Worse, they’re tiny and flat but still flop around like a couple of half-fried eggs. She’s terribly self-conscious about it, which is why she wears a padded bra most of the time. Then she gets into a defiant mood and leaves it off so everyone sees what the problem is. Next day she’s crippled with embarrassment. Of course, she’s way too much of a feminist to have implants.”
“Aren’t you being a little premature? You haven’t even spoken to her this morning.”
Chanya closes her eyes and makes a screwed-up face to demonstrate psychic concentration. “She’s already called five times.” I frown. “I turned off the sound. Check the log.”
I check her cell phone. The log shows there have been seven calls from the same number already this morning. When I read out the number, Chanya says, “Dorothy,” and groans.
So I’m standing in the middle of the room still checking Chanya’s phone and about to ask if she wants the profile changed so she can hear the ring, or if she intends to just disappear for the day as far as the world is concerned, when I happen to glance through the window and see a sky-blue Rolls-Royce with tinted windows and other accoutrements, which to the cognoscenti says Five-star hotel limo. Sure enough, when it stops, a chauffeur in livery gets out to open the back door on the curb side. For a moment I cannot make out the tall figure who emerges. Then I can. I say, “Wow, how about that,” under my breath. Chanya hears but doesn’t want any narrative of mine to interfere with her Dorothy narrative for the moment. “I think we have a visitor.”
“Who?”
I watch a tall, slim woman in her early forties, a farang, cross the street. She’s in jeans, T-shirt, and sandals, but her hair is well under control. “It’s the woman I told you about from Vikorn’s election team. Her name is Linda.”
“Really? That superman woman who kicked the president of Russia in the balls?”
“Yes. That one.”
There is an extra-soft knock on the door. I drag on a pair of shorts while Chanya goes into a corner to pull on a dress. When she looks ready, I open the door.
“Good morning, Detective. Sorry about this-I should have called. If it’s even the teeniest bit inconvenient, say so and I’m out of here. It’s just that-”
“You happened to be passing?”
She smiles. “Of course not. I called the station, and they said you were at home. I remembered your wife is an academic and maybe at home with you-I took a chance.”
“You have something to say to my wife?”
“Nothing threatening. I’m here to ask for help.”
Frowning, I ask her in. “Chanya, this is Linda, Linda, Chanya.”
Chanya smiles graciously up at the tall American. She’s embarrassed there’s no chair to sit on-it’s occupied by her thesis again. She makes as if to clear it and dump the manuscript on the floor, but Linda stops her.
“It’s okay, I’ll sit on a cushion. The last thing I want is to inconvenience you.” But she remains standing with her hands in her jeans pockets. I think she’s shocked that fully evolved human beings live like this, but way too much of a pro to show it. She turns to me and says, “It’s about Colonel Vikorn.” She turns to Chanya. “He’s a great man but as elusive as the smile on a Cheshire cat. Sonchai probably told you, my team has been hired to get him elected governor of Bangkok. Translated, that means we’re being paid quite a lot of money to be good old American control freaks. But he won’t let us control him. Jack and Ben spent most of last night drinking with him, which has left them flat on their backs this morning. Apparently the Colonel has a hollow leg. Now I’m following up with a morning call to his most gifted detective.” She smiles warmly at us.
We stare at her with bug eyes until Chanya remembers to say, “Won’t you sit down?”
Linda sits on a cushion and leans against the wall with her long legs folded so that her face almost disappears behind her knees, while Chanya and I sit cross-legged in the middle of the room.
Linda does a cute little thing with her hands that ends up with the index fingers pointed upward and joined together. “I don’t drink myself, which is why I let the boys do their bonding with the Colonel last night. No reason why I should play Big Nurse at your house though.” At first I have no idea what she is talking about, until I realize that with supernatural speed she has taken in and registered a quite small reefer roach, which I must have left in the ashtray when I indulged in a joint after returning from Phuket.
Chanya doesn’t get it so I say, “You want to smoke?”
“Why not? Let’s us all do some bonding, hey? Been a damn long time, to tell you the truth. I was based in Kabul for a few months about five years ago, and man do they have some good stuff there. That was the last time, though. I’m wedded to the job.”
“I see.” I take our little plastic stash box down from a shelf. I’m thinking if she hasn’t smoked since Kabul, that’s going to be one high American. I start rolling.
She has impressive lungs. The joint diminishes by at least an inch with one long toke. She holds it well but splutters somewhat on the exhalation. To Chanya and me, it’s like watching a thriller and trying to guess the ending. We keep quiet and are careful not to share glances: Linda is hyperobservant with a built-in cutting-edge mood detector. We wait. After about five minutes I deduce the silence must be dope-driven: farang don’t tolerate it without assistance for more than a couple of minutes at a time. Is that not true, DFR?
Now Linda looks fondly at Chanya. “So, ah, tell me. I’ve always wanted to know. What’s it like being a real woman?”
Chanya is startled but recovers quickly. “I feel like asking you the same question.”
“Really? How about that. Well.” Linda takes another toke. “Let me put it this way. When I started with the
