The abbot sitting in semilotus under the dais is fat, almost the perfect image of a laughing Buddha, and acknowledges my high wai with a nod. I use the most polite form of address from a hierarchy of dozens as I sit, careful to keep my head lower than his. In the jolly face shrewd eyes examine me. I explain I am a detective investigating the death of the monk’s sister. The abbot confirms that he is extending hospitality to the Khmer monk, who arrived last week and seems very devout.
“Have you noticed anything strange about him?”
“Strange? We humans insist on inhabiting a charnel ground -isn’t that strange enough for spiritual creatures without splitting hairs?”
“He seems to be two different men. His personality switches from moment to moment.”
“Only two? Perhaps there is something wrong with your eyes. Look more closely and you will see he changes with every exhalation. So do I. So do you.”
I wai once again, thank him for his wisdom, and take my leave.
23
The monk’s sudden entry into the case has brought me to an emotional dead end. The intensity of my guilt over Nok’s death is tempered by the great mountain of suffering this young man has climbed over; and anyway this afternoon has long massage written all over it. I use a fairly large, well-known establishment on a side soi which joins Sukhumvit and Soi 45. A lot of people use the soi as a shortcut, and it has plenty of cooked-food stalls with specializations that can be known from the shape of the stall: braised pork with rice; boiled chicken with rice; som-tan salad with sticky rice; and mango and sticky rice plus a lot of kong wan, sweets. Don’t miss the crispy pancakes with coconut cream fillings, farang. I’m watching a hawker prepare Thai coconut pudding in the old style, pouring the batter into tiny hollows of a large round pan, then pouring sweet coconut milk into them. You don’t often see it done properly these days; sometimes I’m driven to steamed banana cakes, thanks to globalism and the fast-food fad.
I have brought the FBI by way of developing our kiss-and-make-up strategy. We had it all out yesterday in a hurricane of calls, text messages, and e-mails, only the most hurtful of which are really worth recording:
Me: It’s just hormonal consumerism. You’re no different from the middle-aged Johns roaming Nana Plaza.
The FBI: Oh, and what about you and Damrong, huh? When it happens to you, it’s Cupid, it’s Orion marching across the night sky, it’s chakras and lotus petals in the head. When an American woman falls in love, it’s hormonal consumerism.
Me (aware that I am about to make a serious tactical blunder): Exactly-that’s the cultural difference.
The FBI: So you are a cultural chauvinist, exactly what you’re always accusing the West of.
Having duly noted the magnificence of each other’s claws, we found something else to talk about, and I invited her to the massage parlor so we could sign off on our peace treaty. Now the FBI, all bright, smiling, and looking professional (I know she took Lek out for a drink on Soi 4 Pat Pong last night, however; Lek called me afterward; she was a little fresh but took no for an answer after an aborted grope), tells me she has good news which she will share during the massage.
“I don’t know if I’m going to stay awake, Sonchai.”
“You’re not supposed to. If you don’t nod off, the masseuse isn’t doing her job.”
It’s a relief to step out of the crowded soz‘ into the air-conditioning. The girl at reception asks if we want traditional Thai or oil massage, I say “Traditional Thai” without consulting Kimberley. I order two hours each. Two hours of pure mental emptiness: at three hundred baht I see it as a bargain.
As many as thirty masseuses are sitting around reading magazines or gossiping in low voices, which causes the FBI to turn to me. “These girls, some of them could be… are they straight or on the Game?”
Ah! The simple mind of a farang. “When they work the second floor, they are totally straight. When they work the third floor, they are on the Game at the client’s option.”
“Are we talking morality by altitude, or am I missing something?”
“The second floor is traditional Thai massage, the third is oil. It is very difficult for a young woman to oil a man all over without arousing him, and we are a compassionate people.”
“Compassion pays better too, huh?”
“Three times the price of a straight massage, but the expense is all in the tip. The girls love the third floor, but we are on the second.”
“Got it” from the FBI.
Before we are allowed to climb the stairs to heaven, however, we must have our feet washed. The FBI is ill at ease when her girl tells her to take off her shoes and come sit down in front of a bowl of warm rose-water. No one to arrest, shoot, or interrogate here; Kimberley sees no outlet for her talents, and her forehead is a mass of stress wrinkles. She is afraid that having her feet washed in this way might be anti-American, like cricket and Communism. Five minutes later she turns to me with a clear brow. “Amazing what a lift a simple little thing like that can give you.” Her eyes are sparkling.
I tell the two masseuses that the FBI and I will have adjoining mattresses. Actually, the whole of the second floor consists of mattresses divided one from the other by thin curtains, so we can talk in low voices while the masseuses work on us. We change into thin cotton pants and shirts. A grunt of satisfaction from Kimberley next door as she hits the mattress.
My girl has already begun working my feet, untangling knots of nerves and muscles with their mysterious connections all through the body. A sudden gasp comes from the FBI side. “Wow, it’s like something popped. This is reflexology, right? Isn’t the theory that every organ has a connection to the soles of the feet?”
“And every emotion arises from an organ.” I realize that in some way I am echoing the words of Damrong’s brother. I think of him alone in his cell with the corpse. I could never do it myself, but I understand enough to see how it might work: the disintegration of the cadaver was the liberation of his spirit. It’s a radical technique, though, frowned upon by orthodoxy these days, because the Sangha doesn’t want to be responsible for the cases that go wrong. No such qualms in Cambodia, apparently. How wrong did Phra Titanaka go?
“Yeah, I know that theory. Love is all chemical reactions.”
“Not only love. What the blind call life is virtual reality for those who see.”
Another grunt. “You’re losing me. I’m a nuts-and-bolts farang, remember. Want to know what I found out?”
“Of course.
“The masked man, the monster in the black gimp mask, we know who he is. His name is Stanislaus Kowlovski, Stan for short. Both parents were second-generation Polish immigrants.” She groans suddenly. “My god, I don’t know what organ that corresponded to, but a vivid clip of childhood memory just passed across my eyes. Where was I?”
“So we have the killer?”
“Not yet, but we have his Social Security number, fingerprints, everything. That isometric hardware you’ve got at the airport works fine. All I had to do was give the nerds the challenge of using the DVD to get a still of his irises. Took them less than five minutes.”
“How did they react to the DVD?”
A pause, then softly: “Same as me, Sonchai. Except maybe for a man it’s even worse, to see a beautiful young woman, full of life, do a thing like that. When I told them it wasn’t just a sick fantasy, she really died like that, they couldn’t take it. Hardened agents had to hold back the tears. Amazing.”
“So you’re hunting for him?”
“Sure. Everyone’s excited. International sex offenders are the flavor of the month all over the West. We’ll have him for sure in a few days, unless he has strong connections in another country, which I doubt. He might hail from Kansas, but he’s a California boy through and through.”