Excerpt
Chapter
9
Naylor’s
mood turned vile and nasty. “I pay for sex in Thailand because
free sex is too fucking expensive in America.” He pushed his floppy
Truman Capote hat forward, maximum attitude position, just over
his eyebrows as he stood in front of the hotel, his bare, tattooed
arms raised palms up like a country preacher. His eyes surveyed
the gnarled rose bushes, the chickens, the goat, the sleeping
dogs, the peasant burning garbage at the end of the driveway.
“But the hotels in America are better,” he said. The Grand Rose
Hotel had been his dream; his chance to set up business that dovetailed
with the Cause, his own private escape penthouse on top, a pied-?-terre,
the ultimate hong to impress yings. As he surveyed the grounds,
Naylor couldn’t help but wonder who among the causemembers in
their right minds would come for a Monster Fuck in a hotel occupied
by the Adams family; they had patents pending on greed, stupidity,
sloth, and corruption.
“They
want a joint venture! Are they out of their fucking minds?” He
turned away from the garden. “Did you see that guy do that bending
thing with his fingers? The whole family is weird.”
Jess
held the rear door open. Calvino was already inside the car. He
switched on the engine and checked his rear view mirror. He rolled
down his window and gestured at Naylor to get in.
“I
suspect they will want to keep the roses,” said Calvino. “Let’s
go.” Not doing due diligence on a deal ran the same level of risk
as not doing due diligence on a ying only to find out down the
road that what she had promised bore no relationship to what she
was prepared or able to deliver. Blinded by the beauty of the
rose, the buyer had forgotten about the hidden treasure of thorns
ready to draw blood.
Naylor
kicked the toe of his boot in the dirt, sending up a small cloud
of red dust. He waved his fist at the hotel, huffed and muttered,
and then climbed into the back of the car. Jess shut Naylor’s
door, walked around to the opposite side and got in. Chickens
flew in all directions as Calvino gunned the engine, peeling out
of the Grand Rose Hotel grounds. Calvino’s car looked like it
belonged to the hotel; it fit into the overall ambience of broken
objects, things gone to ruin, the rewards of neglect and accident.
Naylor stuck his arm out the window and gave everyone in sight
the finger, only no one in particular noticed. None of this acting
up had improved Naylor’s mood, if anything he was more agitated,
slamming his hand against the seat. Calvino said nothing as he
felt the muffled blow. After all, Naylor’s Hollywood show of anger
was more for Jess and him than for the family of owners who were
nowhere to be seen.
“I
don’t think you gained anything by showing your tattoos,” said
Jess. “Or giving the street vendors the finger.”
“Fuck
them. I felt like a monkey in a bag hung on a shithouse door.”
Calvino
caught Naylor’s flash of anger in the rear view mirror. Where
the hell did he get that expression? “Monkey in a bag? Or was
it money in a bag? “How does that feel, Wes?”
“It’s
monkey in a bag. Monkey is money with a “k” jammed in the middle.
I had this ying last year. Fon was her name. You know, ‘Rain’
in Thai. She gave the best blow jobs in the entire fucking world.
Rain would just keep at it. Three, four times in one day she would
go down. I mean again and again. She was relentless in her desire
to go down. Fon had a pet monkey she called ‘Lucky Luke’ – a guy
had given it to her along with the usual gold and fridge – and
that goddamn monkey went everywhere with her. It thought the world
of her, Luke was crazy about her. And she loved the monkey like
it was her kid. It put me off to have Lucky Luke watching her
going down on me. Her moaning and Lucky Luke looking like he had
some strange rain forest disease. She said it was just an ear
infection. But I couldn’t keep an erection. So I made her put
the monkey in the bag she used to cart it around in. But Lucky
Luke wasn’t stupid. He knew how to get out of the bag. There I
would be with my pants around my ankles with Rain falling down
and that monkey would jump on her shoulder and fucking stare.
Those big monkey eyes, and Lucky Luke’s upper lip riding up slowly
and showing razor sharp teeth.
Fon couldn’t understand why I made such a big deal about her goddamn
monkey. I told her Lucky Luke was jealous and one day he was going
to take a run at me. I finally figured out that after putting
Lucky Luke inside the cloth bag, that if I pulled the string tight
at the top of the bag and hung it on the back of the bathroom
door, he couldn’t get out. Then I could get down to concentrating
on business with Fon. All the time, I could hear Lucky Luke struggling
inside the bag on the shithouse door. This dull thump, thump against
the wooden door. Lucky Luke screaming in total monkey rage. There
I was in the bedroom with Fon on her knees and her goddamn monkey
banging the bathroom door, trying to find a way out of the bag,
knowing it was stuck in the dark, shut out, cut off from the world,
and for the life of that monkey, Luke had absolutely no fucking
idea why he had been tied into a bag and suspended in mid-air
on the back of a door. Afterwards Rain would say, ‘Lucky Luke
pai nai? Where did Lucky Luke go?’ She knew full well that Lucky
Luke was in the bag hanging on the door. But she pretended not
to know. That way she didn’t have to take any responsibility.
Today, I understand exactly how that poor bastard monkey felt.
Kitti was doing the same thing as Fon. He was pretending not to
know how I got in the bag. And he just let me bang my fucking
head on his shithouse door while he and his crazy family were
jerking off.”
Halfway
through the telling of his Lucky Luke story, Naylor started to
unwind, grow calm, his voice smoothed out with the rough, hard
edges sanded down by the memory of all those blow-jobs. Like a
lot of angry people without someone to fuel the fires of rage,
and left alone to think about what had happened, he put the experience
in the context of what he knew. Getting a blow job with a monkey
kicking up a storm in a bag. Naylor looked contemplative as he
stared out the car window. Thinking about Kitti, and Lucky Luke,
and remembering Rain on her knees, eyes looking up making those
sucking noises as her monkey screamed bloody murder from the bathroom.
“She
left you for the monkey,” said Calvino. He was thinking: what
goes around comes around. He liked the idea of Naylor being the
monkey in the bag. There was some justice in the world after all.
Naylor
nodded his head. “I hate to admit it but she did. I trust Rain
and Luke are happy in some upcountry jungle hovel. Enough of monkey
business,” he said. “Tell me again why we are stopping at this
shopping mall? After meeting these assholes, you want to go shopping?
Dr. Nat’s four grand is burning a hole in your pocket, right?”
Before
they got into the car, Calvino had laid the groundwork for the
diversion, casually saying he had to meet someone for a few minutes
at the Emporium. As they left the conference room, Naylor was
still too upset with the hotel owners and had not focused on Calvino’s
request and certainly had been in no state to respond to this
request. It took a monkey story for him to remember Calvino had
been leading up to something.
“I
have a personal problem I need to fix. It will take ten minutes
and then I buy lunch,” said Calvino. After looking over the family,
the threat to Naylor had diminished in Calvino’s eyes. Not that
he was easing off – after all, someone had taken a shot at them
on the expressway – but right up close none of them seem capable
to doing much of anything but argue over their share of the family
pie.
“Yeah?
I thought you were working for me. Now you have a problem and
I am supposed to approve your plan to ruin my lunch with Jep.”
“Let’s
say I’ve got a monkey on my back,” said Calvino.
“We
pass the Emporium on the way to hotel,” said Jess.
Out
of the blue, back-up was coming from LAPD; something Calvino had
not expected. Maybe Jess had tired of baby-sitting this Asset,
with Naylor’s attitude, the tattoos, his murky business connections,
his degrading ying stories, so any excuse to shove back had to
make Jess feel as good as landing a foot to the jaw of a kick-boxing
opponent. “I need to buy a new battery.” He was playing with the
machine that picked up transmitting devices.
“Ten
minutes, Wes,” said Calvino.
Ten
minutes should be more than enough time, thought Calvino. But
nothing in Bangkok ever happened in ten minutes. It was a way
of speaking, a time span that meant a short-time, not that other
short-time where a ying was selling her sabbai time. Calvino had
planned out what he was going to do – he would first find McPhail
and Noi, and even before finding them, he would have Gabe on his
mobile phone ready to talk to Noi. He’d walk straight up to Noi,
and say, ‘How’s it going, Noi? Glad to see you. Gabe’s on the
phone from LA. Just tell him hello. That’s it. No other commitment.’
Then he would put the phone to her ear. She’d say a few meaningless
words and listen to him plead to come back, she’d refuse and then
it would be over. Some yings were queens of the quick brush off.
Naylor
was about to say something when Jess cut him off. “And you can
buy something nice for Jep at one of the shops.”
Calvino
smiled to himself, exchanged a glance with Jess in the rear view
mirror. “You don’t want to go back to the room with nothing,”
said Calvino.
“Do
I have any choice?” asked Naylor as Calvino pulled into the underground
parking lot of the Emporium.
Choice
and purpose were the two elements missing from the known universe
that no scientist would ever locate; they were not permanently
lost, they had never existed, thought Calvino.
He
followed the down ramp into the underground parking lot, slowing
to take the ticket from the uniformed security guard. With no
place to park, he turned right, taking the ramp down to B2, and
pulled into a parking spot within sight of the entrance for the
elevators. The B2 parking lot level was half-full. Not many people
were shopping in the middle of the weekday. The recession had
cut the power on their aircraft, turning most of them into glider
pilots. Naylor was out of the car last. He slammed the door hard.
“I could use a drink. You think that is going to be a problem
here?”
“I’m
buying,” said Calvino.
“Goddamn
right you are buying,” said Naylor.
Jess
was out the other side of the car, closed the door and leaned
against the side of the Honda. “I’ll stay with the car. Pick me
up a new battery, will you?”
“Forget
it,” said Naylor. “This Italian is buying both of us a beer.”
Jess
smiled. “I don’t drink on duty.”
“Then
I’ll drink your fucking beer if that makes you feel any better.”
“It
won’t take long,” said Calvino. “Come along, Jess. No one’s going
to bother the car.”
Jess
tapped his fingers on the roof of the Honda, then broke into a
smile. The car was a write-off, a wreck. Who would bother with
such a car? “Okay.”
They
crossed the parking lot, Jess taking point, then Naylor with Calvino
following behind. Jess pushed open the glass door, looking around
before waving Naylor to move forward.
“You
buy the Lucky Luke story?” Jess asked through the mic. He was
scanning the area for transmitting devices. There was always the
possibility someone was intercepting their radio transmissions.
“Monkeys
are jealous,” replied Calvino, looking over the parking lot. “And
they are curious. And on the whole much better companions than
someone like Naylor. The girl made the right choice.”
Jess
watched as Naylor came through the door. “I am feeling better
already,” Jess whispered into the mic.
Naylor
breathed deeply, waiting for Calvino to catch up. He was smiling.
The recovery had been rapid. He had already shaken off the meeting
with Kitti and his nutty and dangerous brothers and sisters. For
a moment he had stopped wishing that he had never met Dr. Nat
and invested in a hotel venture in Thailand. Fon had reminded
him of why he had come in the first place – to buy hongs and to
hunt yings.
They
rode the elevator to the second floor. As the door opened Calvino
dialled Gabe’s home number. All he had to do was press the ‘yes’
button and the call would connect. As they walked out of the elevator,
a farang in a cowboy hat, late 20s, muscle shirt and no gut, swung
at Naylor, landing the punch smack on the side of his jaw, sending
him reeling against the wall. Naylor hit the wall, looking like
a stunned prize-fighter. Calvino moved in front of Naylor, waiting
for the farang to come in. He didn’t have to wait long. Jess reacted
with a kick-boxing manoeuvre, coming off the floor, his right
leg hitting the cowboy as he moved in to hit Naylor again. The
farang absorbed the blow, which caught him in the chest. He threw
a series of punches at Jess, who easily ducked away from the blows,
waiting for the precise moment when the farang was off balance,
and then Jess nailed him three, four times on the neck and head
with his fists, and, spinning him around, brought his foot up
hard under the farang’s jaw. The sound of the jaw cracking echoed
off the walls and windows of the lobby near the elevator. The
farang hit the marble floor. He wasn’t moving. Unconscious.
Calvino
knelt down in front of Naylor. “You all right?”
A
crowd of shoppers gathered around.
“Who
was that sonofabitch?” asked Naylor, gasping to catch his breath.
“He
doesn’t look Chinese to me,” said Calvino. “What I am saying is
that he’s not part of Kitti’s family. These people don’t hire
farang to whack farang.”
“I
had a gut feeling that coming here was a mistake,” said Naylor.
Jess
helped Naylor to his feet. “Here’s your hat.”
“Let’s
get out of here,” said Calvino. The crowd swelled as the farang
started to move his head on the floor.
“I’ve
never seen anyone hit someone so fast or so hard,” Naylor said
as he took the hat. “Where’d you learn that fancy shit?”
Jess
had won the kick-boxing championship of LA county at age fourteen.
He had learned the art by the time he was twelve. His dad had
built shelves to proudly display all of Jess’s trophies. But none
of this mattered at the moment.
“You
don’t know this guy?” asked Jess, deflecting the “fancy shit”
comment.
“Never
seen him before. He must have confused me with someone else.”
“He
went straight for you,” said Calvino. “It didn’t look much like
a mistake.”
Naylor
fingered his hat, looking for damage, smoothing it out and then
carefully putting it on, he smiled, using his hand to work his
jaw from side to side. He stepped forward and kicked the farang
in the groin. A huff sound like air going out of a tire came out
of the man’s mouth. When it looked like Naylor might have one
more shot, Calvino took his arm and pulled him back.
“Enough
already.” The farang was coiled up on the polished marble floor
in front of the ATM machine. He looked like he had passed out
or was sleeping.
“The
bastard tried to mug me,” said Naylor. “Just one more little kick.”
This
time Jess came alongside Calvino and together they ushered him
away from the unconscious farang. Calvino knew this was not a
stalker, a mugger, a crazy, no, this was a deliberate planned
assault and, like the truck on the expressway, the intent was
to intimidate, throw them off-balance, lead them to make conclusions
that others wanted them to make.
As
they were walking away, Calvino said to Jess, “You’re good.”
“I
don’t think we should be here, Vincent. Someone doesn’t come swinging
at Naylor without a reason. How did that farang knew we would
be here now?” Jess held out a small device that looked like a
remote control. “He was picking up the Ghz from this.” He held
out his own anti-transmitting device. “They were tracking us the
whole time.”
“The
road from Damascus to Tel Aviv also goes from Tel Aviv to Damascus,”
said Calvino.
“Are
you guys protecting me or holding a committee meeting?” asked
Naylor.
They
walked past the imported designer shops: tall walls of glass and
inside the robes and gowns for priestesses of fashion. As they
entered the fashion hall, McPhail spotted them and shouted Calvino’s
name. “Vinee, over here, man.”
“That’s
my guy. We’ll be out of here in a minute.”
McPhail
stood next to a ying who was dressed to kill in black tight fitting
slacks, high heels and a halter top, bare smooth shoulders showing.
She looked like an entertainer backstage, distracted, smoking
a cigarette, looking at her watch. Long red fingernails set off
her hands. She looked like she could be a singer or a model with
her fresh, shiny black long hair falling half way down her back.
In the advertising business such yings were called “Pretties”,
the good-looking yings who were hired for car shows, conferences,
conventions. Pretties attracted crowds, and crowds wanted to be
around beautiful yings and the things Pretties were selling. Calvino
recognised Noi from Gabe Holerstone’s photo. Calvino hit the dial
button as he approached. The phone was ringing and Gabe picked
up the phone on the third ring, answering with a slow, husky voice
dulled by sleep.
“It’s
one in the fucking morning, who are you, asshole?”
“Vincent
Calvino. I have Noi here and she wants to talk to you.”
“Noi?
Where did you say you are?” He sounded like he was drugged.
“In
Bangkok.”
“I
know in Bangkok, but where?”
“I
am at a shopping mall,” said Calvino. “So talk to her. That was
our deal. Find the girl, put her on the phone. That was the assignment.
Now the case is closed.”
Calvino
held out the phone and she stared at it and then at Calvino, slowly
sucking in a long hit from her cigarette, one arm folded around
her waist, her elbow resting on her folded forearm. Smoke coiled
out of each nostril like she was the Queen in Alice in Wonderland.
“It’s
Gabe, he’s in LA and he wants to talk to you.”
“What
does he want from me? I don’t work for Gabe any more.” A bored
look crossed Noi’s face like a late afternoon shadow. As if a
group of fans was hassling her an autograph. Her voice broke slightly
as she uttered the word “me”; the amount of gravity attached to
that simple two letter word was enough to pluck the moon from
the night sky. She said it in a way that seemed to indicate there
was no room for anyone else in the world but her.
“Ask
him yourself.” He stood beside her, his arm outstretched but she
made no effort to reach for the phone.
“See
what I mean,” said McPhail. “This is one awkward fucking ying.”
Calvino
put the phone to his ear. “She wants to know what you want from
her.”
“I
want to talk to her.”
Calvino
stared directly at her. “He says that he wants to talk to you.”
“If
the ying doesn’t want to talk, she doesn’t want to talk,” said
Naylor.
“Who
is this asshole?” asked McPhail.
“Her
fucking boss. What fucking rock do you live under?”
The
situation was becoming complicated beyond Calvino’s wildest expectations.
McPhail and Naylor had taken an instant dislike to one another.
Calvino swiftly moved between Noi and McPhail as if he were back
in New York on a Sunday afternoon and happened upon a pick-up
baseball game and people were choosing sides.
“Your
friend is right,” said Noi. “I don’t have to talk to anyone.”
Gabe
screamed in Calvino’s ear, “Put that goddamn Vine Street bitch
on the phone.”
“That
approach isn’t working, Gabe. Maybe you ought to come up with
a reason to talk to her,” said Calvino. “What’s the message?”
“I
want her to come back to LA. I’ll give her a raise. Tell her that.”
Calvino
watched Noi light another cigarette from the one she was just
finishing. “He wants you back in LA and you get a raise.”
She
thought about this. “How much of a raise?”
Gabe
heard her response and shouted in the phone at Calvino. “Two-hundred
and fifty a week.”
“Two
fifty a week,” repeated Calvino.
Calvino
edged in with the phone until a moment later it was against her
ear and she was talking to Gabe. McPhail rolled his eyes. “Jesus
Christ, she’s entering into collective bargaining on your dime.
Can you believe it?”
“Three
hundred,” said Noi. “Otherwise I am on the plane to Hong Kong.
I can make more than three hundred a day in Hong Kong.”
“You
heard that?” asked Calvino.
Of
course he had heard it. “Noi, okay, just come back to LA, honey.”
Calvino
motioned for her to hand back his mobile phone. She pretended
to ignore him. “There was nothing in my deal with Gabe for you
to carry on a long distance salary negotiation. Phone him back
collect.”
“I’m
almost finished,” she said.
“Good
bye, Gabe,” said McPhail taking a swipe at the phone but he missed
as Noi stepped to one side.
“I
don’t like the way you treated me.” She spoke into the phone.
McPhail
rolled his eyes. “How are you going to make that kind of money
in Bangkok?”
“It’s
finished. We can go now,” said Calvino. “Let’s get back to the
car.”
Naylor
was watching yings in short skirts ride the escalator.
“You
were buying us a beer,” said Naylor, looking away from the two
yings riding the escalator. “Forget the beer, let’s go back to
the Brandy.”
Meaning
that he wanted to check on Jep. He was still on compassion alert,
and telling himself that technically he hadn’t really breached
the YINGS as he had administered care. There had been no sex.
This
suited Calvino fine and he nodded, turned to Noi, gesturing for
his phone, as a loud boom echoed through the second floor. An
explosion shattered glass. Calvino immediately pushed Naylor down.
The force of the blast sucked a massive volume of dust and debris
through the main shaft of the atrium. The explosion knocked out
the electrical supply and the emergency lights came on, flickered
and then cut out as well. The air was dirty and the light dusk-like;
darkness descended inside the mall.
“What
the fuck was that?” asked Naylor.
“That
was no fucking electrical transformer exploding,” said Calvino.
“That was a bomb.”
“Let’s
get Naylor out of here. Now,” said Jess, pulling Naylor by the
arm.
Calvino
reached to take his phone from Noi. “I am not finished talking
to him.”
“Noi,
time to go. Give me the phone. Don’t make a problem,” said Calvino.
He grabbed at the phone but missed.
McPhail
laughed. “You’re right, that was no transformer. Someone has set
off the heavy shit. Look at the shoppers run like rabbits. Where
the fuck do they think they are going?” He shook his head, pulled
out his pack of cigarettes and offered one to Noi. “Anything else
you need, just give me a call. If you can get your phone back.”
With a quick flick of his wrist, McPhail snatched the phone from
Noi’s hand and tossed it to Calvino. “See you around.”
As
Calvino’s mobile phone spun in the air, Jess was already in a
half run holding onto Naylor’s arm, directing him back to the
emergency stairs next to the elevators. The elevators had already
been shut down. As Calvino caught up, they ran into a wall of
customers and staff pushing and shoving to get down the stairs.
Security guards tried to maintain order with the crowd; yings
were crying and screaming, clutching children, and shop clerks
were pushing against each other to get to the stairs. A strong
herd mentality pushed the shoppers into a crowd – it was difficult
to bring any order or provide direction to the people. They ignored
orders from a whistle-blowing twenty-year-old security guard.
The guard waved his hands, trying to control the flow of people
as they ran around him. The smell of Bakelite, dust, and stuff
burning – plastic, upholstery, electrical wiring – filled the
air in the staircase. People choked on the debris they inhaled,
coughing as they staggered forward, their eyes and throats burning
from the smoke.
“There
has been an explosion,” said a voice over a loudspeaker system.
The disembodied voice echoed up and down the five floors of the
shopping mall.
“The
second bomb this week,” said Calvino. He had followed the recent
history of bombings: an explosion at Democracy Monument, another
inside a police station, someone had bombed a bar. No one knew
exactly what combination of dark forces were setting off the bombs,
how they were selecting their targets, or their demands or what
concession would be required to stop the terror. The motive for
the attack remained murky; any number of candidates might have
had reason to plant a bomb to settle a power struggle. Calvino
took some comfort from this history of bombings as strong evidence
that the blast was unrelated to Wes Naylor and his business activities
in Thailand.
“Nothing
personal,” Calvino said to Naylor. “We just happened to be in
the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“What
about the detector Jess found on the guy at the elevator?”
Jess
had picked up the conversation off Calvino’s mic. “Naylor’s right,
Vinee. That guy could have been one of the bombers.”
“Let’s
get out of here,” said Calvino.
The
crush of frightened people all pushing and shoving each other
down the same narrow escape route made it nearly impossible to
move. It seemed as if most of the fashion show audience had headed
for the same exit. Timing was everything. And now was the time
to shift direction, find a different way back to the parking lot,
thought Calvino. Jess wanted to believe Calvino’s assessment of
the situation. Yet there was a Calvino law that said there were
no coincidences, when two unrelated events occurred at the same
time. In Thailand there was always, underneath the surface, a
thin coil connecting the events, an aggressive hard-wired connection
that only the people directly involved understood. Reach far back
enough, or dig deep enough and original hatreds, jealousies, rivalries
were embedded in the original DOS system of Thai government and
society and all the modern updates had done nothing but patch
the old flaws and the old flaws were what made the system crash.
It
was Jess who had a bad feeling. Someone had set off the bomb to
do a job. But had they finished what they set out to do?
“I
don’t think we should take any chances,” said Jess. “We need to
get Naylor out of this crowd.”
“I
know a short-cut,” said Calvino.
Naylor
followed him, “Then let’s take the short-cut. I hate fucking crowds.
Get me out of here.”
Calvino
ran ahead, taking two steps at a time, climbing up the stalled
escalator.
“Christ,
we want to go down, not up,” said Naylor following, choking on
the dust. “Jesus, I can hardly breathe.”
“You
want to keep breathing? Then get your ass going now,” said Calvino.
Like the universe, Naylor’s middle-aged body was expanding and
if he didn’t keep moving he would die.
Jess
followed right behind Naylor. He wasn’t so sure that going away
from the crowd was the right thing. Sometimes it was easier to
protect an Asset in a crowd than in an empty place that one did
not know. Calvino had already committed them and he had no other
plan.
By
the time they reached the fifth floor, the fast food area was
deserted – no shoppers, no clerks, no lighting except a dim shaft
of dusty light from the atrium. The lights had likely been cut,
thought Calvino. The distant sound of people screaming, crying,
and yelling filtered up the atrium. Sounds of people running on
the escalator, their feet hitting the cleated metal steps. Calvino
stopped, knelt down. Jess and Naylor knelt down beside him. Naylor
started to say something and Calvino put his hand over the big
man’s mouth, and with his other hand, he pressed his index finger
against his lips. Slowly he took his hand away from Naylor’s mouth,
reached in under his sport’s jacket and pulled out his .38 Police
Special. They took refuge in Burger King, moving quickly, passing
through tables, and ducking behind the counter. Naylor reached
up and grabbed a hamburger out of the bin, opened the wrapper
and started to eat. “I guess it would be too much to ask for a
beer,” he whispered to Calvino.
“Yeah,
it would,” replied Calvino. They stayed together, securing a position
with the best view of the two escalators.
A
couple of moments later, the sound of male voices came from the
direction of Dairy Queen. Three men spoke Thai using short, clipped
sentences. They stood near the escalator that led to the sixth
floor and cinemas. One of them was making a command decision on
how to sweep the floor and who should go where next. The three
men fanned out with automatic weapons. CAR-15s. The short version
of the M-16 assault rifle, easy to sweep inside confined spaces,
the barrels didn’t get snagged on weeds, branches, or on the electrical
cords hooked to coke and coffee dispensing machines.
Jess
looked around the corner of the counter, leaned back and showed
Calvino and Naylor three fingers. Naylor kept chewing the burger.
They had moved into the kitchen. Then Jess crooked his fingers
into the shape of a weapon, he moved his hands up and down his
chest, signalling they were wearing bullet-proof vests. They were
armed, protected, and fanned out from the escalator. One was going
left towards the elevators and restrooms, another swept through
the tables in front of Burger King while the third guy moved quickly
to the right and down towards the Food Hall. Calvino was pretty
sure that the hit squad must have followed them from the second
level, taking the escalator, knowing they had gone exactly where
they wanted them.
“Farang,
come out,” yelled one of the men in English. “We are security.
We take you down to safety.” Broken English, broken promises.
Sure
they will, thought Calvino.
Calvino
crouched low, leaned forward, and watched as one of the men knocked
over one of the tables and stood only a couple feet away from
Naylor. The next move belonged to Calvino. For the moment, they
had the element of surprise on their side. The question was how
to use surprise and to keep alive.
Jess
was thinking something along the same lines only his was tailored
by his LAPD training. “Awareness. Balance. Self-control. Skill.
Timing.” The words went through Jess’s mind like a mantra. They
were the core of his training on the force. “Apply them and you
live, forget them and you die. They must become part of you. The
way you think and feel. You must dream them. You must live them
every moment of every day.” His instructor at the Academy said
the elements were New Age nonsense. Jess had told the instructor
they had come from an ancient age.
Mindfulness
is what Buddhism teaches.
Naylor
had stopped chewing and he wasn’t showing his Chinese Triad tattoos
now. He curled up into a ball, holding onto his fifteen baht gold
chain.
“You
will not be harmed,” said the same Thai voice.
Forget
just one element, leave it out of your consciousness, and discover
how unforgiving life can be. Being forgetful of one’s training
is not forgiven, thought Jess. The guy coming in their direction
was only a couple of feet away, standing erect, confident, holding
his weapon against his side, slowly observing an arc of 180 degrees
as he walked ahead. He was walking into the kitchen. Calvino reached
over and grabbed a coffee mug and dipped it into the vat of oil.
Two wire baskets holding raw French fries were balanced above
the oil. He waited until the member of the squad was next to him.
He stopped, turned, and appeared to leave. Jess followed Calvino’s
eyes and he nodded. Calvino crawled forward. Slowly he edged himself
around the end of the counter, holding his breath, watching the
Thai. The man seemed to have had second thoughts and doubled back
through the kitchen and walked straight at Calvino without seeing
him. The Thai male wore khaki trousers and a bulky vest under
his brown shirt. Then, as he turned to his left, Calvino threw
the hot oil in his face. The man dropped his weapon, and covered
his face with his hands. Off balance, he fell to his knees. Calvino
had never seen anyone move as fast as Jess as he crawled out the
other side of the counter with a kitchen knife, which he plunged
deep in the fallen guy’s throat. He pinned the guy down with his
knees and waited until he was dead. Five, six seconds. Except
in the movies, no one ever died in an instant. Five seconds was
enough time to kill another man. Jess never gave him that chance.
He rolled off the inert body and behind a set of cupboards. Jess
grabbed the dead man’s CAR-15 from the floor.
The
other two members of the team came running, firing their automatic
weapons as they ran. Spraying rounds into the fast food restaurants.
Muzzle flashes streaked across the fifth floor. This was undisciplined,
undirected fire, showering broken glass and plastic everywhere.
The huge plastic ice cream cone in front of Dairy Queen exploded,
taking several direct hits. Pieces of the overhead plastic signs
rained down on top of Jess and Calvino. As they looked around
they discovered that Naylor had vanished. There was no time to
look for him.
Calvino
dipped the coffee mug back into the oil and waited behind the
counter. He saw the second Thai emerge, his black high-top boots
catching a glimmer of light. He was shooting random bursts. More
muzzle flash as glass exploded from the cinema ads above the elevator.
Calvino crawled to his left side, slowly set the mug on the floor,
rolled underneath the counter, edged out the other side, and lying
on his back squeezed off three rounds. Two of the shots from .38
hit the second member of the squad just above his right ear; the
impact of the bullets sent him crashing over a table and chairs.
He was dead before he hit the floor.
“One
to go,” thought Calvino.
Jess
had crawled out in time to see the last member of the team running
to the other end where all the electronics, washing machines,
fridges and TVs were sold. Calvino took the CAR-15 off the dead
man he had shot and shouldered his .38. Jess fired several rounds
at the fleeing man. None of the rounds connected.
“Naylor,
he’s coming in your direction,” said Jess, who was now on his
feet, running down the outer perimeter, past the automotive, the
sheets, blankets, and towels near the elevator. Squeezing off
rounds as he ran. Calvino ran the opposite side past all the glassware
and expensive crystal. As they converged at the back, they had
the third man trapped.
“How
many more men came with you?” Jess said in Thai.
Another
member of the team rose into sight, his hands raised over his
head. He was a farang. A sheepish grin spread on his face as he
stepped forward. The question was whether he was the only surviving
member or whether there were others.
“Hey,
man don’t fucking shoot. I’m American. Who were those guys? Jesus,
first a blast and now those guys. Hey, what's going on?”
“How
many others, asshole?” asked Calvino, who squatted low, looking
around for other members of the commando team. But the floor was
silent. He looked back at the farang.
This
looked like the same guy who had hit Naylor in the face as they
had walked out of the elevator. But in the low light it was difficult
to tell. This farang was dressed in commando gear, which made
it difficult to play the innocent tourist role.
“Put
your hands against the back of your head,” said Jess. “Do it now.”
He had the CAR-15 pointed at him. The blond-haired man stepped
forward, his hip touching the metal railing that wrapped around
the side of the atrium.
“Am
I under arrest or something?”
“Don’t
move. Just stand very very still and everything will be okay.”
Calvino
had come around the opposite side past the kitchen appliances
and mobile phones. The farang’s back was turned in his direction.
“Did
you guys hear that bomb? Man, that was something.”
“How
did you know it was a bomb?” asked Jess.
Calvino
was close enough to see the farang was palming a small hand-gun
at the base of his skull. Another two steps was all that separated
him from the farang who was moving in closer. Calvino was now
sure this was the same guy who Naylor had kicked in the balls.
He was sorry now that he hadn’t let Naylor kick him a couple of
more times. Now he pressed the barrel of the CAR-15 in the farang’s
back. “Drop it.”
“You
seen Naylor?” asked Jess.
“He’s
probably eating chicken at KFC,” said Calvino.
The
brief conversation was a distraction. A split second in which
the farang had to make a decision. On one side was Calvino with
a CAR-15 and on the other Jess holding the same kind of weapon
on him. He knew the other two members of the team were down. Was
he running or was he looking for Naylor, thought Calvino. But
where was Naylor? The question hung unanswered in the air. The
farang had committed himself to a course of action, and once the
momentum of action started one’s fate was sealed. It didn’t matter
that this was absolutely the wrong course of action, much like
his assault that had backfired at the elevators. The man had learned
nothing. At the first twitch of the farang lowering his gun from
the base of his skull, Naylor rolled out of a cupboard where he
had been hiding and put the full weight of his shoulder into the
farang, striking him hard from behind, knocking him against the
railing. The farang struggled to break free of Naylor as Jess
and Calvino moved in. They were a couple of seconds too late.
In a superhuman feat of strength, Naylor had hit the farang from
behind, pushing him forward, knocking him off balance; now he
raised him up. The farang was screaming as Naylor shoved him forward
and the momentum carried him over the railing like a diver coming
off a three meter board. But it was more than three-meters and
there was no swimming pool at the other end. The farang dropped
five floors, hitting the marble floor with a dull thud. A body
hitting with such force ought to have made more noise. Flesh and
bone smashing hard and splattering across the floor was barely
audible. The three men stood at the railing and peered down. The
farang, splayed out on the floor, was barely visible in the half-darkness.
Naylor reached up and put his arm around Jess and Calvino’s shoulder.
“Who’s
the bodyguard in this crowd?” he asked, wiping his hands together
as if cleaning off dust. “Thought I had run away? You don’t know
me. I never run from a fight.”
“We
better check him out,” said Calvino, looking over the railing.
He had a strong feeling that the team hadn’t been sent to kill
Naylor.
“Forget
it. We are getting the fuck out of Dodge,” said Naylor.
“Calvino’s
right. We check him out first,” said Jess. “That was the same
guy who attacked you outside the elevator.” This was more of a
question than a certitude.
“It
looked like him,” said Calvino.
“Of
course it was him. Why do you think I threw his ass overboard?”
“What
matters is finding out who was behind this hit,” said Calvino
looking directly at Jess. “And we might even find who they were
sent to hit.”
“They
were after me,” said Naylor. “Who do you think they were after?”
Calvino
looked straight at Jess who had the CAR-15 cradled in his arm.
“Naylor, you are no doubt a really important guy. But I don’t
see any reason why or how a dysfunctional Chinese family would
hire a commando team to make a military-type assault just because
you came to buy their hotel. The expressway shooting, yeah, that
I can buy. That is their level. A couple of Isan cowboys in a
ten-wheeler who can’t shoot straight. Now let’s go.”
“Then
who were they trying to kill?” asked Naylor.
“We
don’t know,” said Jess.
Calvino
nodded. “He’s right. We don’t know. That’s why we need to check
out the guy you shoved over the balcony.”
“He
ain’t gonna be answering too many questions,” said Naylor.
There
was no need to say anything to Naylor about the drug case in LA.
The last thing Jess needed was Naylor’s big mouth broadcasting
to the world that he was part of an undercover drug bust in Bangkok.
*
Noi
held the bloodied head of the dead farang in her arms, and sitting
on the floor, she rocked back and forth, crying, tears streaming
down her face. Calvino squatted beside her, put a hand on her
shoulder. “You are mixed up with some very dangerous people.”
“I
didn’t know. Danny never told me he was going to do this. Now
he’s dead. I don’t understand why he used me. You have to believe
me.” Her sobbing continued.
“Noi,
it would be safer for you if you came with us.”
“I
can’t leave him like this.”
“There’s
no time to argue. There’s no time to mourn,” said Calvino. It
wouldn’t take long for others to find out that the three-man squad
had gone down. Others would be dispatched. That’s how these kinds
of people worked.
“They
wouldn’t do anything. I did what they asked. I didn’t know.” She
quickly lost her English and slipped into Thai, the natural storage
bay of words to express her feelings. She didn’t even realise
she was speaking Thai, saying that she was afraid, as the full
implication of what Calvino had said sunk in. She gently laid
the farang’s head down on the marble floor.
Exactly
who were they? If there were no other reason to pull her along,
it was to find the answer to that question.
“You
are lucky to still be alive,” said Jess in Thai.
Her
attention turned away from the dead man. She rose to her feet.
“You won’t let them hurt me?” Her eyes searched Calvino’s, then
she looked across to Jess.
“You’re
going to have to help us,” said Jess. “Tell us about your friend
and his friends.”
She
nodded, fumbling with a cigarette and staring down at the dead
farang.
McPhail
came down the escalator clutching a Tower Records bag.
“Another
fucking jumper, man.” He looked down at the dead body. Then opened
his bag. “I wonder if they would take these back. There’s bound
to be a big sale. Bomber special. Hey, Noi is still here. Now
that’s a miracle. First you couldn’t find her, now you can’t seem
to get rid of her. That’s true of all yings.”
*
On
level B2 of the parking lot, dozens of uniformed police and military
personnel worked the crime scene; a large part of the lot had
already been cordoned off and no civilians were being allowed
inside the taped-off area. Police and military vehicles blocked
the exits. The wall of tall glass wrapped around the lobby had
been blown out. After the explosion all the dust and fragments
of metal, paint, fabric, and flesh had been pulled up the atrium
like hot air shooting up one very large updraft ventilation shaft.
To the side of the entrance, the electrical unit housing the main
power supply was shattered, sparking and spitting talons of fire
from a melted core made up of the smouldered maze of broken wires
and cables. Inside the immediate blast zone – several meters wide
– the scene was one of complete destruction. Shards of glass and
twisted pieces of plastic, metal, rubber had ripped through cars,
splattered against the pillars and walls. No question about it:
someone had set off a large amount of explosives to cause this
much damage. Even seventy meters away car windows had been shattered.
Calvino
walked ahead looking for his car. Noi and McPhail walked together
behind Naylor and Jess. Calvino couldn’t remember exactly where
he had parked. They had come out a different entrance in the parking
lot from the one they had earlier taken into the shopping mall.
Finally he spotted it. Calvino stopped and motioned for the others
to stop. His car, or what was left of it, was ten feet ahead.
Emergency service personnel were removing bodies from the wreckage.
And body parts. On the driver’s side an intact head was still
attached to the spinal column and shredded meat and organs clung
to the outer edges of the spine and the femurs. The shoes and
feet, like the head, were recognisable as human; but the parts
of the body between the head and the feet didn’t look like parts
that belonged to a human being. On the passenger’s side was a
limp, damaged body – the left side had been sliced away from the
force of the blast – but the second victim was in one large chunk.
A headless torso with ragged flaps of flesh where the head had
once rested. The torso was minced around the edges and scorched
black from powder burns. An emergency unit, its members wearing
protective clothing, masks, and gloves placed the pieces in large,
black plastic bags. Uniformed police stood guard around the car
waiting for the owner to return.
“Let’s
get out of here,” said Jess.
Calvino
nodded and a couple of minutes later they had blended into the
crowd of shoppers, clerks, security guards, a great exodus of
people walking, half-dazed, taking the Soi 24 exit ramp which
led out of the parking lot.
“Someone
toasted your Honda,” said McPhail. “What the hell is this?” he
asked, kneeling down and picking up a round steel ball.
Jess
looked at the steel ball rolling inside McPhail’s cupped hand.
“Claymore,” said Jess. It looked like an ordinary steel ball-bearing.
“Heavy
shit,” said McPhail. “No way your insurance is gonna cover this.
The war exception clause fucks you every time.”
“I’ve
seen enough,” said Calvino.
“How
are we getting to the Brandy?” asked Naylor. “I’ve got a meeting
this afternoon, remember? And I want to see Jep before we go back."
“The
meeting has been cancelled,”said Calvino.
“You
can’t do that, Calvino. I came to Bangkok for that meeting.”
That
was probably somewhere between a half and three-quarters of a
lie. But it was no time or place to argue. “Jess, Noi goes with
us. McPhail, take Wes to the Brandy, then go along with him to
his meeting.”
Naylor
and McPhail looked each other up and down like a couple of soi
dogs marking their territory. McPhail had that “fuck you” expression
on his ultra thin upper lip, making it curl into a sneer as he
clutched his Tower Records bag.
“When
did I start working for you, Calvino?” asked McPhail.
“About
fifteen minutes ago.”
“You
can’t assign bodyguard duty like a maintenance contract on a crummy
apartment,” said Naylor, suddenly becoming lawyer-like.
“I
just did.”
“Then
you’ve seen Vincent’s apartment,” said McPhail, smiling.
“You
don’t need a bodyguard. You need a business agent,” said Calvino.
“Jess,
you’re not going along with this shit, are you?” Naylor looked
frightened.
“Let
me put you straight, Mr. Naylor. If those men were trying to kill
you, it was for reasons undisclosed to me. If it is just the hotel
deal, Calvino’s right. If it is some other deal, then he’s still
right. You don’t need us because nothing is going to save you.”
Calvino
opened the rear door of a taxi. Others were banging on the door,
trying to get in the cab. Holding a taxi was a New York City art
form. Calvino stood in the way of several others who tried to
push their way through. Jess and Noi climbed inside. Calvino shut
the door and got into the front, looking at the driver, a small,
dark skinned Thai with a thick head of badly cut hair. “Rama IV
Road,” said Calvino.
“Meter
broken,” said the driver, grinning. “Five hundred baht.”
Calvino
handed him the extortion money for the fare. “Go.”
Rama
IV Road was a vague, opened-ended destination that made it clear
to the taxi driver that Calvino knew where he was going but wasn’t
going to tell the exact destination until the last moment. Such
contradictions were natural components of life on the street.
Calvino
was heading for Klong Toey, a vast slum built under expressways,
along canals, beside the Port of Bangkok.
Klong
Toey was the last place he wanted this driver with the stupid
grin and appetite to know was his destination. The five hundred
baht rip-off fee told Calvino all he needed to know: the driver
would take the first opportunity to tell anyone who asked and
paid for the answer, exactly where he had taken them. And no doubt,
there would be men with their hair cropped short, guns in their
waistbands, making the rounds, asking taxi drivers, offering money,
for information on where a group of farang had been taken.
