39
The Colonel, a cybervirgin if ever there was one (mouse? double click? keystroke?), has surprised and impressed my mother by purchasing for a hefty fee from a gangster in Atlanta a specialist e-mailing list (updated every thirty minutes) which is automatically transmitted to a gangster in Phnom Penh (try nailing anyone for anything in Phnom Penh) who, for really not much money at all, will zing advertisements for the Old Man’s Club at any surfer who has been so uncircumspect as to alight for a nanosecond on a web page bearing such keywords as Viagra; sex; Bangkok; go (go); porn; impotence; and prostate. There really cannot be very many sexually active men over the age of fifty using the Net who have not received my mother’s cyberequivalent of Hello sailor!
On my way to work on the back of the motorbike this morning, listening to Pisit’s phone-in: Thai Rath reports that car thieves have hit on a new wheeze: rent a car, drive it over the border to lawless Cambodia, sell it to a Khmer thug, report it missing to the Cambodian cops, let the hire companies claim the insurance. According to Thai Rath, the culprits are all Thai cops. There is the usual flood of callers complaining about police corruption before Pisit introduces his guest, an insurance expert.
Pisit, laughing: “You have to hand it to the cops, they do seem to have found a crime without a victim. I mean, who loses here?”
“Everyone, because of the rise in insurance premiums.”
“Does the average Thai driver pay insurance?”
Insurance expert, laughing: “No, if he gets into an accident he bribes a cop.”
Caller: “Does this mean that money which would otherwise go to insurance companies goes to the police?”
Pisit, laughing: “Looks that way, doesn’t it?”
Caller: “Is this right or wrong? I mean, if the cops didn’t get the money, their salaries would have to be increased, which would mean an increase in tax, wouldn’t it?”
Pisit, admiringly: “That’s a very Thai question.”
When I arrive at the police station Jones is already there, in our workroom. I decide to begin on a dynamic note which to my fancy has a measure of American aggression about it, which I think she’ll appreciate.
“Kimberley, there must be something else Warren did. Why are you holding out on me?”
I take my place beside her at a crude wooden table on trestles. We are carrying on from the day before yesterday and there’s a stack of cassettes in a wooden box between us. Jones figured we would not have the facilities to play the large-spool tapes they use at Quantico, so she had them copy Elijah’s telephone conversations onto the cassettes. She also figured, with equal clairvoyance, that we probably wouldn’t have the facilities to play the cassettes either, so she bought a couple of cheap Walkmans on her way here, and now she’s taking a break with the headphones hanging around her neck. There’s nothing on the bare boards of the tabletop apart from the Walkmans and our elbows. No pens, no paper, no computers, no files, but there is a stack of old file covers that someone has dumped in a corner of the room and one empty chair in another corner.
“What makes you so sure he did something apart from art fraud?” She does not look at me as she speaks.
“Mostly because I don’t think he does art fraud. I think you want to think that because you’ve got it in for him. So I ask myself why you would have it in for him, and the answer I come up with is sex. You don’t resent men for being rich and powerful and owning more of the world’s assets than women, you resent us for having cocks.”
Wearily: “Sonchai, the myth of penis envy was put to rest in my country sometime before I was born and I’m not in the mood to relive those prehistoric battles. I made the mistake of having some Thai beer last night which has given me a splitting headache, and listening to these two drawl in deep Harlem dialect isn’t helping. That’s not a racist comment by the way, just a sociological observation. And on top of that, coming here I twisted my ankle on a manhole cover for the third time in as many days. Tell me, wise one, why do the manhole covers in your city have to be three-quarters of an inch above the pavement? I know this is a chauvinistic observation to make, but in my country we have this eccentric habit of making them flush with the sidewalk. If we didn’t the city of New York would go bankrupt with negligence claims. I know there’s got to be a reason. It’s karma, right? Every Thai citizen spent a previous lifetime tripping people up, so now they have to get tripped up?”
I make a sweet smile. “We don’t trip. Only farangs do that. It must have been you who tripped up other people in a previous lifetime.”
A shake of the head. “Okay, let’s drop it. Anyway, what’s got you so frisky this morning?”
This is a good question. It took me five showers to get the Johnson’s out of my hair and skin, but it’s going to take a few more days to wear away that special glow, that phallic pride which no good meditator permits to defile his mind. I never thought I would have been able to cope with such a challenge, but I seem to have managed despite lapses of concentration on the part of the Three N’s whenever Beckham scored. Such feats were never part of my egotism. I decide to talk about the case.
“I think Warren hurt a woman, probably a prostitute. And I think he covered up so well there’s not a chance anyone in the whole of Quantico will ever get the evidence to bring an indictment.”
“If that’s the case, it would be indiscreet for me to talk about it to you, wouldn’t it? Listen to this, I think this might be what you’re looking for, not that I exactly follow your occult reasoning.”
She hands me her Walkman and headphones.
Listen, bro’, something I never mentioned so far. I borrowed money. I guess you don’t know what that means out here. You borrow money, you pay back, you don’t let it ride. I’m talking sharks, bro’, sharks like don’t exist Stateside. These cats, I mean, they don’t have to threaten.
Yeah, I did kinda figure that, Billy. It did cross my mind. How much?
[Inaudible reply]
That’s one f*ck of a lot, kid. I don’t got so much right now, and if I did I would probably have to use it for forward investment. I do business these days, I got to make my money work for me.
I ain’t askin’ for money exactly. I’m askin’ for a way out, Eli. I got to get out of this once and for all. Just tell me what to do, like in the old days. [William is speaking in a throaty whisper, the whisper of a man collapsing inside.] You know me and eve’y thing you ever said about me was true. I’m a second-stringer born, I’m the original second child syndrome. An’ on top a that I just spent thirty years following orders. I’m damn good at doing as I’m told, Eli, you know I am. I can perfect any order you give me, down to the last detail. That’s what I know. F*cked if I kin think up one original thang, tho’. Not a goddamn one.
Billy, d’you think it’s a wise thing or a foolish thing to start this kinda talk over the telephone line of a convicted felon?
Okay, okay, we’ll do it the other way. I’m sorry, Eli, sorry to make you have to say that. I was wrong . . . [A very long pause, perhaps as long as five minutes, when I assume the conversation is ended and am waiting for the next one, then a wail of spiritual agony such as I’ve never heard from a grown man before. It lasts for more than thirty seconds.]
Hang in there, Billy. [A sigh] I’ll see what I can do.
It’s bad, bro, it’s bad. I’m scared as shit.
[Tenderly] I can tell, kid, I can tell.
I stop the Walkman and pull off the headphones. I allow Jones a nod of appreciation. She takes back the Walkman and sets it on the table. “Okay, we’ll do a deal. You tell me why you’re so sure I’m so sure Warren hurt a woman and I’ll tell you if he did or not.”
“There was some scandal here which is making everyone nervous. It looks like half the senior cops in Bangkok were involved in covering it up. I don’t know what it was, but the Colonel more or less admitted it involved a woman. I figured if he did something like that here, he might have done it in your country too.”
Jones is unable to hear any reference to my Colonel without making her jaw muscles work overtime. She seems to be choosing her words carefully. “A twenty-nine-year-old prostitute who specialized in submissive sex. She would charge very large amounts of money in return for being tied up and abused by wealthy men and pretending to enjoy it. She was tough and smart and could fake orgasm the way—well, the way any woman can. She chose only those men who had too much to lose by going too far. She knew how to choose, too. She thought she could read men, at least that kind of man, and she never accepted a job without scoping the guy out. I guess she figured Sylvester Warren was about as safe a bet as she could make. I think it was the only time she misread a man.”
“He hurt her?”
“The human body cannot survive with less than sixty percent skin. The problem is more water than blood. You lose moisture faster than you can replace it, even assuming you’re not tied up and unable to get yourself a drink.”
“She died?”
“Gladys Pierson died on February 15, 1996. She was still tied up.” Jones puts her headset back on, then takes it off again. “Everyone who worked on the case knows that Warren did it, but there’s no evidence, no hair and fiber, no sperm, no DNA. We think he paid a team to clean up after him, specialists who normally work for the mob.”
“He used a knife?”
“A bullwhip. It’s called being flayed alive.” She switches the Walkman on and off, on and off. “From my profiling course I would say that the two sides of Sylvester Warren came together at that moment. I think he’d used a lot of women with that specialization before, but something about this one drove him over the edge. I think it was the most ecstatic moment of his life, something he’d subconsciously been building up to since adolescence, but was too smart, too controlled, too strong to give into until then. But it was something that sooner or later he was going to have to repeat. Usually the psychosis which has its origins in adolescence is given full expression between the ages of thirty-five and forty-five. We’re talking men, white men. But Warren is a very disciplined man, the wall between the conscious ego and the seething fantasies would have been much thicker in his case. I think he came to this kind of stuff relatively late in life. Maybe he used drugs as well, but somehow I doubt it. I think he’s a genuine psycho without the need for chemical assistance.” A long pause; Jones is clearly moved. “You’re right, when we realized we weren’t going to get the evidence we needed, the others in the team gave up, but I decided he was into art fraud. It was an excuse to keep on investigating him—and to learn about Oriental art. What the hell? I was pissed, and I don’t think all his transactions are legit. Art is so much more complex than murder, it’s hard for anyone in the Bureau to argue with me when I say there’s evidence of fraud—how would they know without reading an encyclopedia on Southeast Asian antiques? I’m gonna get him sooner or later. They got Al Capone on tax evasion for god’s sake. D’you have any idea what happened over here?”
“No, except that I think it was a Russian prostitute. Do you have a photograph of your victim?”
“I can get one. I can give you a description right now. A stunning light-skinned African American, beautiful long legs, full firm bust, great face, hair dyed all the colors of the rainbow, a discreet little piercing in her navel for a jade ball set in a gold stick. She was tall, too, just under six feet. We’re pretty certain she got the gold stick from Warren. Preliminary interviews are not uncommon with this kind of prostitution—after all, a lot of money changes hands. Usually the woman will ask what kind of clothes, what kind of underwear, what erotic props or fantasies the john wants. We think Warren wanted to customize her body with his gold stick and she agreed.”
We stop talking as soon as the door opens. It is the Monitor.
Jones gave him this name. His real name is Detective Constable Anusorn Mutra—it and he appeared yesterday, on permanent secondment from District 15, compliments of Colonel Suvit. He sits cross-legged in chairs in corners of rooms, and except for visits to the bathroom is tied to me on an invisible leash. He owns the short brow, saggy cheeks and melancholy mouth of an idiot, but he has been expertly programmed to guide me away from any line of inquiry that might lead to Warren. The smartest thing about him is a new Nokia which he keeps in the left breast pocket of his shirt and which requires only one keystroke to join him to his master in District 15. We do not use the name “Warren” in front of him, even though he speaks no English. I have already complained to the Colonel, using arguments that do not normally fail: How could a self-respecting tribal chieftain tolerate a spy from a competitor right in the center of his camp? Vikorn replied mysteriously that if I took care of the Monitor he might yet save my life. Jones and I watch the Monitor cross the room and seat himself in his usual corner.
“Should we buy him a bowl and wicker basket?” Jones asks.
I ignore the crack because I’ve seen a possible fruitful line of inquiry. “Would it be easier for you or me, Kimberley”—I’m using American Polite here, even doing the smile—“to get hold of the jeweler’s schedule over the past years, I mean to find out exactly what periods he spent in Bangkok?”
“Let’s put it this way. If I do it and the wrong person finds out, I get reassigned to Records. If you do it, the wrong person will definitely find out and you get reassigned to your next life. I’ll see what I can do. You see if you can find out how many Russian prostitutes suffered untimely deaths in Bangkok over, say, the past five years. If checking your records is indiscreet, you can always use the newspapers. You know, hardly a day passes without some police scandal of one kind or another. Must be all those profit centers working overtime.”
I ignore the dig because I want to get on with the job. In particular I want to take a second look at the e-mails between Warren and William Bradley, which means hunting down Bradley’s computer, which is stored in a place we call “the evidence room.” I tell the Monitor to go get the key, then immediately regret this order because of the likely time lag. We watch him shuffle across the floor. The FBI puts her hand on my thigh, then immediately takes it off again. “Sorry. The fact is this town liberates all sex drives, not only white male ones. I went to that place you keep talking about, Nana? I was expecting to feel totally disgusted, but I saw your point. Those girls are born huntresses. I wouldn’t say they were happy in their work, but they’re not exactly suffering either. I didn’t see a single one who didn’t have a cell phone clipped to her belt. A lot of them, you can see it in their eyes, that combination of money and sex and the thrill of the hunt, it’s addictive. I could relate, as most women could. And it’s hard to witness so much unrestrained promiscuity without feeling the itch yourself. Some of the men were damned good-looking, too. They weren’t all middle-aged farts like you implied. You also happen to be damned good-looking yourself, if you don’t mind my saying so.” She looks away when she says this, so I cannot tell if she is smirking, blushing or biting her lip in the anguish of unrequited lust.
“You have to remember where they’re coming from,” I say, to avoid the main issue. “Anything is better than a country brothel. Anything. Farangs give them a five-star experience in comparison.”
She turns back to look at me. “It’s true, most of the girls come from the country, don’t they?”
For a moment I think about taking the FBI to a bed somewhere, but immediately I realize this is a consequence of the defilement from yesterday. This is exactly how karma is generated, through craving arising from craving arising from craving. Just because I successfully negotiated the charms of three beautiful women, with the help of JBO and an astronomical investment by my Colonel, I now feel I can f*ck the FBI with impunity. But the Lord Buddha taught two thousand five hundred years ago that there is no impunity. In more elegant language than I can muster he warned that you always pay for p-ssy, one way or another. For example, if we go back to Jones’ room at the Hilton, one of two things could happen. She could enjoy it more than I or I could enjoy it more than she. The keener one immediately becomes the slave of the other, with disastrous consequences for both. I think it likely that I would initially fall under her spell, which gets more powerful every day. Having trapped me, she would use her abrasive genius to nibble away at everything about me which is alien to her: my belief in rebirth, my spiritual dimension, my meditation, my Buddhism, my preference for huge doses of chili in everything I eat. She would not realize that she would be turning me into an American, but by the time I’m living with her in some luxurious but soulless suburb in one of those cities in America which look like all the others, conscientiously working at the sort of work immigrants work at, speaking with an American accent now and forced to go underground with my chili habit, she will have started to hate me because I will have become a millstone round her neck and the lust will have run out a long time ago. There might even be a child, which of course will make things a whole lot worse, because our mutual karma will include this third person. After death, no matter how hard we try, we will be reborn in circumstances where we will be forced to continue where we left off. We will be sworn enemies by this time, and I will probably be the dominant one now, due to the way things have to balance out in the universe. No, I am not going to f*ck her today.
“Sonchai, what are you doing?”
“I am meditating.”
“D’you have to do that now, in the middle of a conversation? We’re supposed to be working.”
See what I mean?
There is no point waiting for the Monitor, who has probably got himself lost, so I leave Jones to the cassettes and go search for the key myself.
I find that I have underestimated the Monitor, who found the key all right. It was already in the door because three young constables are in the evidence room playing some kind of Space Invader game on Bradley’s computer. The polythene we used to carefully protect the evidence is on the floor and the three boys—they’re between eighteen and nineteen years old—have brought in stools, and some food in Styrofoam boxes, some cans of 7UP. It looks as though they have installed themselves here for quite some time. The Monitor is standing silently behind them watching the black steel–clad invaders get knocked off by the lithe white defenders, with something that approximates to excitement.
This situation, like everything in life, is a useful conundrum to a practicing Buddhist. To scream and yell will generate more negative karma than has already been generated by the boys. On the other hand, too soft an approach on my part will lead them to continue on their downward path. What would my master the abbot do in such circumstances?
I find that I don’t really give a shit, so I slam the door as hard as possible behind me. This has the effect of a scramble. Three rapid wais, the computer is turned off in double-quick time, the food gathered, the Styrofoam boxes closed, the polythene replaced, the 7UP drunk in a minimum of gulps, the room emptied except for me and the Monitor. My precipitate action has had the negative effect of obliging me to unwrap the computer again and turn it on, so it was not an entirely skillful strategy. I have plenty of defilements left to work on, even if I don’t go to bed with the FBI.
I tell the Monitor to bring Jones, while I locate Bradley’s e-mail file. Jones enters while I am reading. I find it convenient to divide the e-mails into phases.
Phase 1 [July–September 1996]:
Bill, your piece arrived yesterday FedEx. The boys are getting the point, I agree, but there’s still a long way to go.
Bill, look, this is good work which I can sell anywhere, but it’s not what we discussed. I’m arriving on a Thai Airways flight next Tues. We’ll talk.
Bill, I have to tell you I was very impressed with the latest piece. It’s not quite there, but it’s damn close. I’m going to release the second tranche today. Keep it up.
Phase 2 [November 1996–July 1997]:
Bill, I have to admit you’ve impressed me quite considerably. I’m not entirely sure how we take it from here, but I agree you can continue to cross-refer over the Net. I think the best would be for you to e-mail me the design you have in mind, I’ll come back with some general comments, you’ll modify and work up the details (something you’re damned good at) and we’ll proceed like that until we’ve got an agreed set of three-dimensional designs. I’m releasing a special payment for your extra expenses. I have to tell you I’m damned excited. It’s like being a kid at Christmas. Except that this is the real thing, if you see what I mean.
Bill, got the designs you sent. I fully agree that the Net has its limitations here, so you better send the hard copies FedEx. I’ll continue to make general comments over the Net, with more detailed ones when we meet. I’ll be in BKK end of next week. I’m at the Oriental, however, and I think I explained what that means. The Chiu Chow bosses are throwing one of their parties. I’ll call you and we’ll meet somewhere discreet. I do not want you to come to the Oriental. When I stay at Rachada, that’s a different matter. I’m sure you understand.
Bill, received your FedEx package today and I’m more excited than ever. This new venture of ours requires a whole new outlook. They say an old dog can’t learn new tricks, but I take a more Buddhist view: by learning new tricks you stop yourself from turning into an old dog!
Phase 3 [September 1997–end 1998]:
Bill, I understand your reservations about your work and its final purpose, but frankly this is hardly the moment to get cold feet. You have to finish what you start. Be a marine.
Bill, this is fantastic! Can’t wait for everything to be finished! I’ll be in BKK early next month and maybe you’ll let me have a peek? See you then, and I apologize if I was a little insensitive in my last e-mail.
Jones is looking over my shoulder at the screen. I glance up at her. She is frowning, her jaw is working. I think she is starting to realize who did it, which will be a problem for me but, I now realize, an unavoidable one. I watch and admire while that efficient professional side of her comes to dominate. Sex could not be further from her mind at this moment.
“I never read them that way. That’s pretty smart of you to divide them into phases like that. D’you want to explain what inspired you?”
“The tone of his voice on the cassettes. The totally desperate but gifted second-stringer, the order-follower who will do anything for money is doing just that. The symbiosis only began with jade. It went on to something quite different.”
“But we don’t know that Bradley knew . . . everything that might have been on Warren’s mind.”
I sigh. To me it is obvious, but intuition clearly plays no part in American law enforcement. “No, except that Bradley’s knowing would have been an overwhelming motive for killing him. Anyway, look at the change of tone, starting with phase two. Can you imagine Warren expressing that kind of boyish excitement if it wasn’t over something really different? This guy has been in the gem trade all his life—how is someone like Bradley going to get him all excited about copying a jade figure like the horse and rider?”
Jones is shaking her head. I check her eyes and realize that she has still not plumbed the unspeakable depths, which is just as well. There is a lot more work to do. The snakes remain a problem and I do want to know what Warren did that Vikorn and Suvit don’t want me to know about.
While Jones returns to the embassy to retrieve photos of Gladys Pierson, I leave the station to use an Internet café to check the Bangkok Post, an English-language daily which is published on the Net in its entirety and has an excellent archive going back ten years. As I patiently click through the thousands of articles and reports responding to the keyword “murder” I know I’m wasting my time. I key in “Russian prostitutes,” and the name of Andreev Iamskoy immediately pops up. The ways of karma are mysterious and implacable. Convinced I will not be able to live out this lifetime without another brutal session with Iamskoy, I give up on the Internet, pay fifty baht for fifty minutes’ use and while I’m waiting for change cast my eyes over the rest of the users sitting at the twenty or so monitors in the shop. They are all women between the ages of eighteen and thirty and they are helping each other out with the English. “Thank you for—allai?” “Money.” “Okay, thank you for money.” “Thank you, darling, for money.” Giggles.
Back at the station the FBI, who has mastered the art of riding the motorcycle taxis, has managed to return alive from her embassy. While the Monitor looks on with glistening eyes we compare pictures of a naked Gladys Pierson with a naked Fatima. Jones explains that Pierson used such pictures extensively as part of her marketing. We place them side by side and put a sheet of paper over their faces, which do not resemble each other. Jones and I exchange glances.
“The same!” the Monitor says. “Same body! Even same thing in her belly button.” It’s better than Space Invaders. Jones takes out another picture, postmortem, of Pierson lying facedown on the mortician’s table. The Monitor’s eyes are still glistening. I look away.
“Is it your theory that he was having sex with her while he was doing this? I thought a bullwhip was very long?”
“We made a lot of tests. You’re quite right, the whip would have needed to have been at least six feet for this kind of penetration. We think he had an assistant.”
“Oh,” I say. “An assistant?”
“There are people who would do that. Women as well as men. And don’t forget how rich the jeweler is. Also, you see how regular the ruts are? Whoever did it knew how to handle a whip. When I look at this picture I always think of the Marquis de Sade with his personal valet.” Jones takes out another picture. Pierson has been turned over on the table.
“Breasts as well?”
“Correct. Can you send this creep off on an errand before I punch him?”
“Go get us some coffee,” I tell the Monitor.