I have no idea why Vikorn, who is hardly a fully globalized world citizen (I’m not sure he could identify France on a map), should be so interested, but when I cough with a view to attracting his attention, he raises a hand. When the news program has exhausted its real-time coverage, he lifts his telephone and-to my amazement-tells Lieutenant Manhatsirikit to get him on the next flight to Jakarta. While he is on the way to the airport, she is to make arrangements for him to meet someone senior in the Indonesian police, with a view to “mutually beneficial information sharing.” I am staring open-mouthed while he rummages around. In all my time in District 8, my Colonel has never once left Thailand ’s sacred soil. Now Manny arrives and scowls at me before telling him that an interpreter has been located and this person, who is fluent in whatever language they speak down there (Vikorn keeps calling it Indonesian, but both Lieutenant Manhatsirikit and I have our doubts), will meet him at the airport tomorrow. When she has left, he checks his watch. Seven p.m. “We’re going to eat,” he tells me, and presses an autodial number on his mobile to call his driver.
In the back of his Bentley, with “The Ride of the Valkyries” screaming from the sound system, his driver with his usual supercilious expression plastered all over his mug, my Colonel places a hand on my shoulder. “You’re going to forget last night. It never happened. You’re going to concentrate on the Mitch Turner case.”
“At least tell me what your Plan C is.”
“You might not want to know. Anyway, it’s classified.”
I can hardly believe my generosity of soul. I’m actually pleased he’s still fighting Zinna, even if I have missed my promotion (and the hundred thousand dollars). I don’t want to let him off too lightly, though; this is quite a letdown I’m dealing with. I look out the window of the Bentley as we speed along Rama IV. “For a moment I thought you were getting old.”
He spares me a contemptuous glance. “You think that’s all it is? A primitive vendetta between two old men?” Leaning toward me to prod me in the gut: “What I do to keep the brakes on Zinna isn’t just for Ravi. It’s for the country, too. Let the army run the drug trade, and you get rich generals. Rich generals get big ideas and stage coups-that was the whole problem with the opium trade. Before you know it, we’re back to military rule. And what do Thai army generals know about the global economy, human rights, the rule of law, the welfare of women, the twenty-first century in general? Next time you vote in a more or less straight democratic election, think about it. Thai police may not be the world’s finest, but we’re not military. Under us there are free elections. No farang would understand, but I expect better from you.”
He still hasn’t finished. In fact, he is digging me in the ribs. “Who knows, under democracy the country might flourish until it’s worthy of a refined fellow like you. But if that happens, it will be because badasses like me kept the army snout out of the feeding trough, not because some monk manqué rescued a few dumb dogs off the street.”
I shake my head in wonderment. He always has an answer. His dexterous use of the word manqué is particularly irritating; in Thai the word has exactly the same quality of supercilious pretension and is just the sort of thing I come out with when I want to irritate him. Who told him he could say manqué and get away with it?
I brood for a long moment. His driver stops at the beginning of Pat Pong, our most venerable-and famous-red-light district. There is no way the limo is going to squeeze down this crowded street at this time of night. Vikorn and I get out and walk while his chauffeur takes the car away. The Colonel is in plain clothes and looks like just another Thai man, somewhat on the short side by Western standards, indistinguishable from the other middle-aged Thai men who work this street, virtually all of whom are pimps. Vikorn seems to suffer no threat to his ego, though, when a young white tourist in cutaway singlet and walking shorts, regulation nose stud and eyebrow pin, asks him where the Ping-Pong show is. Vikorn stops in midstride and, with a smile expressive of deep greed and sympathetic lechery, points to a small sign on an upper terrace: Girls, dirty dancing, ping-pong, bananas… “Great,” says the young farang, mirroring Vikorn’s smile.
“Fuckee, fuckee,” says Vikorn with a dumb grin.
The street is crammed, not only with horny white men but with greedy white women too, for some of the best designer rip-offs in Asia are on sale at the stalls that fill the center of the street. Tear aside the veil of conventional morality-see with a meditator’s eyes-and the looks on the faces of the women are not so different from the men’s:
“Only two hundred baht for Tommy Bahama jeans-that’s just over three quid.” Eyes bulging: “You can’t get a gin and tonic for that in Stoke Newington.”
“See this fake Rolex? Look, the second hand goes around all smooth without jerking, just like the real thing. It’s only ten pounds.”
Examining it with wonder: “We could buy a few and sell them-even at a hundred quid it’s cheap.”
“Would we tell everybody they’re fakes?”
Thinking about it: “Have to, really, they’re all going to know we’ve been over here.”
“But they don’t know what they cost in Pat Pong, do they? I mean, we could be buying at ninety and only making a ten percent markup?”
Nodding thoughtfully: “For all they know.”
The Princess Club is in a side soi that is jam-packed with people. We have to squeeze past big Caucasian bodies, then into the bar, which is also packed. The mamasan recognizes Vikorn instantly, and a quite different expression appears on her face, in contrast to the tough/dumb look she wears for the customers. The Colonel is not merely immensely rich and the owner of the club, he is also her liege lord, the man who provides her, her aging mother, and her teenage son with food, lodging, and dignity. The relationship is complex and goes beyond money. (Even after her retirement he will keep her in food and pride-the bondage works both ways.) She wais him and makes a little curtsy; he nods at her and smiles; face has been exchanged across the sea of pink drunken mugs, most of whom are watching the girls on stage.
Whether the girls are allowed to dance topless (or naked) in a particular club depends entirely on the whim of whichever police colonel is running the street. This is not Vikorn’s street, but no one is going to interfere with his bar, so here the girls are all topless. They don’t bother to put their bras on when they come down to the floor to mix with customers, and yet they always seem in control. Strange how these wild-looking young farang men, who with their tattoos and body piercings and alcohol abuse might be barbarians on a break from sacking ancient Rome, don’t dare to grope any of those oh-so-tempting young mammary glands as they wobble and swing past their eyes-not without a franchise from the owners, anyway, which always costs a couple of drinks.
The mamasan points upstairs, and we manage to squeeze past the wild hordes to the far end of the bar, then up two flights to a reception room, where they have prepared Vikorn’s supper. We sit cross-legged on the floor, as we were both brought up to do, at a low benchlike table that is already laden with yam met ma-muang himaphaan (yam with cashews), naam phrik num (a northern dish consisting of a chile and eggplant dip), miang kham (ginger, shallot, peanuts, coconut flakes, lime, and dried shrimp), Mekong whiskey with chut (ice, halved limes, and mixers), and some phat phet (spicy stir-fry).
No sooner are we seated than two of the dancing girls appear, wearing T-shirts and bras now, to ask what we want to drink in addition to the Mekong. Vikorn orders a couple of beers, to be followed by a cold white wine from New Zealand. (This is all my fault. I started him on wine a few years ago, and now he cannot eat his kaeng khiaw-waan without it.) I ask between mouthfuls if he has any idea how exactly Mitch Turner died.