Vulture Peak, page 29
When I inch my way into the operating theater, though, the goggles suffer overload and I have to rip them off. There is a single intense beam at the far end of the chamber, which is otherwise quite dark. Ever been scuba diving at night, DFR? Ever sink slowly down into that absolute liquid blackness that makes such a perfect proxy for everything terrifying, irresistible, and mysterious? If you have, you know how the mind goes when your underwater illumination focuses an intense lance of light into total blackness; it’s like a Buddhist concentration exercise with heavy gearing. And the cavern is so long the figures at the far end are miniaturized in exquisite detail. I can even see the single tooth poking out of Manu’s ripped lip as he bends over a figure strapped to a chair. In his big soldier’s fist he is holding a blade so fine it disappears when the light catches it head-on. It is wider than a normal scalpel, a wafer of steel designed to harvest facial skin.
Both Manu and his victim are frozen, however. Well, I guess the victim doesn’t have a lot of choice, but as I slowly draw my gun, knowing full well there’s no chance of hitting him from this distance, I see that Manu has not moved an inch since I entered. My first paranoid thought is that he heard me and is about to drop the scalpel and grab a rifle, against which I have no defense. But he’s not looking at me. He’s not looking down the room in my direction at all. Something else grabbed his attention just as I entered. He’s staring at a figure lying on a gurney next to Chan—I cannot be sure it’s him, of course, because the head is turned away; I just know it’s the inspector strapped to that chair and to my own shock I feel a weird, Chan-induced combination of horror, rage, and love. But what has caused the monster to pause in his black art if not me?
The three of us remain frozen in chiaroscuro, like in an old-style noir movie from the 1930s. I’m in a half crouch, pistol in both hands, elbows locked—a reflex of training, merely, and no use at all in this fix. And still Manu does not move, the glinting blade in his hand as steady as if gripped in a vice, those black shining eyes looking down the tunnel of light at the figure on the gurney. It is as if there has been an event too subtle to read, but too significant to ignore; something even more important than the theft of Chan’s face. Then the figure on the gurney gives a groan that echoes through the cavern and makes the slightest movement of a hand. It is a beautiful fine female hand, every detail visible. I know that hand. I even share Manu’s heartfelt care as he drops the scalpel, which clinks twice on the concrete floor, and goes to her.
Now is my chance. With gun at arm’s length I dash down the chamber to a point where I can be sure of hitting him.
“FREEZE.”
I might as well have yelled at a rock. I’m not sure he even heard me, despite that my scream echoes off the walls. I stare openmouthed as the monster picks up the figure from the gurney. As he does so I see that the back of Om’s head has been smashed by something and her hair is thick with blood. And now comes the miracle: tears flow from those flinty black eyes and down the insensate cheeks as with infinite care he clasps her to him. She opens her eyes for a second, recognizes him, lifts a hand, finds the strength to caress his face once, then lapses into unconsciousness.
There’s no question of firing now, because of the risk to Om—and because Manu pays me no heed. I might as well be a figure from a different dimension with a limited curiosity value but no power or influence. I have walked the full length of the cavern, and I’m right up next to him, maneuvering to reach Chan, who is strapped to some high-tech medical chair with his head and face held rigidly in a steel device with parallel struts and gleaming stainless-steel bolts. It is a simple matter to undo the bolts and the straps, all the while keeping my eyes on Manu, with my pistol at the ready.
“Don’t kill him,” are Chan’s first words.
I had been too busy dividing my attention between his bonds and Manu’s likely next move to notice what work the monster surgeon had already performed. Chan registers the sudden shock on my face before I’m able to dissemble.
“How bad is it?” he whispers.
“Anyone else would grow a beard—you though—maybe you’ll start a new fashion. Better than tats and body piercings.”
There is an exquisitely thin red line that runs with impressive precision the full circumference of the inspector’s face, across the forehead just below the hairline, under the jaw and all the way sround in a circle; I guess faces can be removed like gloves when you’ve been trained by experts.
The inspector touches the incision with a finger and stares at the blood. “I’m disgustingly grateful to be alive,” he mutters. “Given time I might even forgive you for robbing me of my consummation.”
“What happened to Om?” We communicate in those extrasoft intense whispers that television naturalists use when they get up close and personal with dangerous animals.
“The girl? Those clumsy bastards used too much explosive. Bits of iron flew all over the place—one hit her in the head. Our friend went crazy. He’s the best and fastest shot I’ve ever seen. They didn’t have a chance, not even that young soldier. I tell you, I’ve never seen anything like it. No ordinary man can shoot like that. He saved me because he wanted my face. He was sure the girl was dead. So was I. She isn’t going to live long, though. Not with that much skull missing.”
We are both fixated on Manu, who has not stopped staring at Om’s unconscious face as he holds her in his arms. For a second the fascination of what he will do next quite eclipses fear. When he starts to turn toward us, though, I bring my gun up to a firing position. Chan holds my arm and shakes his head, even as Manu stares at us for a moment.
Telepathy is a curious phenomenon. Suddenly I know exactly what he is going to do, and so does Chan. I experience a despair that cuts deeper than anything a human can be expected to endure. But he does endure. He turns, quite as if we are not there, and carries her to the door where I entered. As soon as he has passed through to the tunnel, Chan finds a fuse box and the underground room is filled with harsh neon light. The bodies of Zinna (a single bullet in the forehead); his assistant, who managed to draw a pistol (stomach ripped open by a spray from an automatic of some kind); the Yips (one in a lake of blood from a heart wound, the other covered in fresh pink blood from the lungs); and the two Americans, also caught in a third-world disaster straight out of farang horror mytholgy. All dead. We have to step over them to enter the tunnel, which is now illuminated. We catch up with Manu, who is still carrying the wreckage of his love. I draw my gun again. Again Chan stops me.
“He’s going to kill her,” I say, suddenly angry.
“It’s what she wants, fool,” Chan says.
His words send a shiver down my spine, because of their surgical accuracy. I draw a breath. “Yes,” I say, “I suppose.”
After a few minutes we see the bright rectangle of the far doorway. When we reach the garage, we follow Manu up the stairs into the house.
Lek and Sun Bin are as transfixed as are we by the outlandish sight. We all watch, openmouthed, while the maimed giant takes Om to the edge of the balcony. With a skill made possible by his unusual strength and agility, he contrives to hold Om while he climbs over the guardrail. Now he raises her high in the sky with locked elbows as if offering a sacrifice to the gods, bends his knees, and dives with her in his arms.
Far below he is still holding her, motionless, both bodies broken. Her face, though, remains intact, her long black hair spilled onto the rocks and shining in the midday sun.
31
I have just finished making my report to the election committee. We are in the Colonel’s office. Something has changed in the dynamics between the Americans and Vikorn. Given my in-depth knowledge of the Colonel, I would say that his strategy of playing the humble old man upstaged by the high-rolling ex-CIA professionals has run its course. He sits today in the only chair with arms, much in the posture of an emperor. The three Americans seem strangely cowed, and the older man, Jack, has been relegated to the sofa with the others. The atmosphere has hardened during my recital of the facts, but I have a feeling the balance of power changed some time ago.
When Jack clears his throat to speak there is a tone of resentment, even pique. “Well, I guess we missed a few tricks here,” he says. Linda grunts. Ben looks at the floor. “Looks like you were right all along, Colonel.”
“Yep. You sure played your cards close to your chest, sir. I have to admire you for that.”
“Fact is,” Jack says, warming to his theme, “you showed us the best double-double shuffle in the history of double shuffles.”
“I’ll second that,” Ben says, shaking his head.
“Amazing,” Linda says. “We thought it was the Beijing faction that was pushing the organ-trafficking theme to get you elected in an incredibly clumsy way, which was almost certain to backfire. I must say you made no effort to disabuse us of that mistake.”
“Never guessed there really was an organ-trafficking syndicate operating right here in Thailand.”
“Created and run by your archrival.”
“All you needed was to have your man sniff it out. Now it’s all over the media exactly three days before your inevitable election.”
“Not only that, your only serious competitor gets himself snuffed by his own man. Nothing can stop you now. Either you’re some kind of world-class genius, or lucky as hell.”
Vikorn turns his head to look at me. “Isn’t that what I told you when I gave you the case? That I wanted the sacred soil of Thailand to be free forever from this evil curse?”
“Something like that, Colonel,” I agree.
Vikorn sniffs. Then, right in the face of these three resolute nonsmokers, he takes a long, fat cigar out of his desk drawer and lights up. He prowls over to the window to gaze out onto the cooked-food stalls. After a couple of minutes he turns back. “Well, if you all will excuse me, I have the BBC in half an hour and CNN this afternoon—”
“Sure thing, Colonel,” Jack says, standing. He walks up to Vikorn’s desk. “By the way, I’ve recently started my own corporation—time to strike out on my own. After all, with my experience and contacts, I don’t really need partners. You’ll see on the card a list of affiliates, which enables me to cover most of the world. The affiliates are all run by the highest-caliber professionals, mostly ex-CIA or World Bank. I would be proud if you were to consider me one of your friends whom you can call on any time of the day or night.”
Vikorn looks up at him, shrugs, and accepts the card. Linda and Ben seem to be hanging back. As soon as Jack closes the door behind him, they both stand with obscene deference.
“Ah, Ben and I talked things over, Colonel, and we decided we were both just the right age to start our own corporation and use our extensive contacts and knowledge while we still have the youth and vigor to represent our clients no matter how tough and demanding the assignment,” Linda says.
“Damned right,” Ben says.
Linda hands Vikorn her new embossed card (high-quality stiff vellum in cream and gray; very tasteful and discreet), then she and Ben back out of the room waiing.
Now there is only me left. With some ceremony I fish the black Amex out of my wallet and place it on the desk in front of him. He gives a nod and smile of recognition, clearly expecting me to leave the room immediately. Instead, I sit down again. Now the Colonel cannot understand why I don’t just make myself scarce so he can prepare for the BBC. I will do so in a minute, but I have one last question. He stares at me, with perhaps just a touch of nervousness. Finally he says, “So?”
“There is only one thing, sir. That you answer the question you know I’m going to ask before I ask it.” I smile.
I suppose if what I’m looking for is proof of life, I’m in luck. I’ve not seen him erupt for years now, so it’s quite a treat, in a way, to watch the blood rise to his face and a furious sweat break out on his forehead. He is quite capable of grabbing his pistol and shooting me, so I stand up and make for the door. He is too quick and jams it with his foot. Iron hands grasp the lapels of my jacket: he crosses his wrists, and twists until I’m choking. “No, this whole case was not an elaborate revenge on Lilly Yip for humiliating me in a squalid little bet we had half a decade ago. Got it?”
“Sure, Colonel,” I manage, half throttled. He throws me against the wall and jerks his chin at the door.
I leave the station and cross the road to sit at one of the stalls and order some somtam. Chanya and I are still working on our battered relationship, so I fish out my cell phone. “Hi, did you know it’s Saturday? Doing anything tonight?”
She gives a token laugh. “Actually, we’ve been invited to a grand opening. Want to go?”
32
Vikorn’s victory at the polls tomorrow seems assured. Tonight, though, Chanya and I have quite a different matter in which to invest our shock and awe. We received an elaborately embossed invitation to the opening party of a new bar on Soi Cowboy, just a hundred yards or so from my mother’s. The name of the bar is Dorothy’s, and the embossed invitation pictures her in a low-cut evening gown, sticking out her butt and baring enormous new mammary glands almost to the nipples. The invitations are signed “Dorothy and Jimmy.”
The famous soi is exceptionally crowded. This is the first time a farang woman has opened a bar on the street, and everyone is curious, particularly the police and the mafia. When we have flashed our invitation cards at the first line of goons, a red velvet curtain is thrust back, and we find our two hosts on either side of the entrance. Jimmy is dazzling in a white tuxedo with plum cummerbund and bow tie—the knot genuine, the moustache immaculate, the smile Cary Grant. Chanya and I are fascinated to check out Dorothy’s new tits: did she really have enhancements, or were they the device of the artist who produced the invitation cards?
She really had enhancements. I wait while Chanya embraces her; to do so, she has to lean over them. When it’s my turn, I hug her close so I can tell if they’re cheap silicone or upmarket saline pouches. They are saline pouches (about a gallon each would be my guess), skillfully sculpted to the contours of her body with plenty of wobble (but not too much). Dorothy smiles proudly and invites us to test them. I’m prepared to swear an oath that I wouldn’t know the difference.
Jimmy Clipp smiles benevolently upon us. “Did you know they’ll soon be able to do transplants?” Chanya and I share a paranoid glance.
Dorothy looks at Clipp in a fond but disdainful way, as a former slave might look at a master whom she has overthrown and bent to her use. “I’ve come out,” she says. “This is the first day of the rest of my life.” Clipp leads us to our seats.
The format is much like any go-go bar, with a central oblong stage and seats on either side. A switched-on young Thai man with dreadlocks, shades, and tats sits imperiously behind glass in the deejay’s seat, right of the stage. On an elevated platform another switched-on young Thai works the spotlights. We are in the front row, and I watch while a great mass of farang men, mostly over fifty, slowly fill the bar. I have to wonder if Dorothy did not overinvite in her enthusiasm, for by the time they close the door, all the seats are full, and about fifty men have to stand in the spaces between the rows.
The lights dim. Dorothy appears on stage in a spotlight, which envelops and follows her. When I see she is holding a microphone, I whisper to Chanya that I hope she’s not going to sing. Chanya nods in horrified agreement. Now Dorothy begins to sing.
“Ne me quitte pas, ne me quitte pas …” It’s a sweet, low voice with perfect pitch. Krung Thep is not especially endowed with good cabaret, and she finishes to thunderous applause. We all stand up for an ovation. Dorothy bows humbly, then, when we’ve settled down, gives her speech.
“Thailand is the best and most mysterious thing that ever happened to me. I came here to teach, but I’ve not stopped learning since I arrived. Some of the lessons have been hard, some very hard. But this is a country that generously rewards those who put in the time and effort. When I first visited the red-light districts, I was horrified and disgusted. I started to change my attitude when I discovered that my brightest student was a former prostitute and proud of it. I want especially to thank Chanya and her partner, Sonchai, for being such an important part of my learning curve. I’ve grown and grown since then, and I will forever hold my brightest student as an example of female courage and resilience I cannot hope to emulate. I understand the empowerment of women in a different way, a subtler way, an Asian way, and I see that Thai women knew how to get what they wanted all along. They didn’t need me. I needed them though—”
Dorothy stops, overwhelmed. Chanya stands up, all alone in the spotlight, gives Dorothy the highest of high wais, and bursts into tears in solidarity. I jump to my feet and find myself waiing Dorothy without thinking about it. Now every Thai in the room has felt the jolt and stood up in homage. The girls in bikinis, who have been watching from the dressing room, troop on stage, also waiing. Led by Jimmy Clipp, all the farang stand and make fumbled wais. Tonight everyone loves Dorothy, and Dorothy is very happy.
In the cab on the way home Chanya and I sit close without touching. We’re hoping for something to trigger an emotional event while waiting for the lights to change. When the cab pulls away to make a right, it happens: Chanya claps one hand over mine, squeezes in a way that declares the channels of communication are now officially open, then removes her hand to indicate that no further intimacy shall occur until we’ve talked.
Many beats pass. “Look, let’s get this out of the way once and for all. We’ll tell each other the truth, then if either or both of us can’t take it, we’ll call it a day and separate. Okay?”
“Okay. You first.”
“We’ll toss a coin.”
She takes out a ten-baht piece and spins it in the air, then lets it fall into the palm of her hand, then flips it onto the back of the other. Naturally, I lose the toss.
