“Seven. I’m not putting my name to plans with more than seven. That still only leaves seven feet of width for each room. You have to give them space to undress. You can’t have them stripping in the corridor, this isn’t the country, you know.”
“I suppose.” With a sigh: “Very well, let’s settle for seven. I’ll tell the Colonel you insisted on seven. He’s not going to be exactly delighted, you’ve just cut the profits by thirty percent.”
I clamber up to the third floor, which is a chaos of old mattresses, plastic beer crates, some aluminum beer barrels and musty-looking books. We make our way down the stairs back to the bar. I am shaking my head. “What am I doing, signing plans for a brothel? I hate brothels.”
“I know, my love, but it’s still the number one business. I’d love to have an Internet café or something, but they just don’t pay. Imagine, you have a room full of farangs who could be renting girls at a thousand baht an hour and instead they’re tapping at keyboards for forty baht an hour. It just doesn’t stack up.”
“I suppose. What are you going to call it?”
“Ah! I’ve a surprise for you. We’re calling it the Old Man’s Club.”
“The what?”
“You wouldn’t understand, my love, we’ve studied the market. We’re going for a niche. We won’t bother to compete with those glitzy things next door, they can have the thirty-to-fifty crowd. We’re going for the retirement funds. You’ll see. I explained it all to the Colonel after I finished my course-I got the best grades by the way. He went away and thought about it and he agrees. In fact, he thinks I’m brilliant.”
I’ve been backing away from her as we speak, an obvious subconscious reaction-Is this really happening? Am I really doing this?-and now she has shepherded me into the street where the light is better. I can see it in her face now, I am witnessing that metamorphosis that women’s books sometimes talk about: for more than ten years she has led a peaceful, idyllic life in the country, with all the unbearable boredom that implies, while a great reservoir of ambition has slowly risen in her, co-inciding with the onset of middle age. Her jaw is set, there will be no stopping her now. She is working the strings, I am the puppet. She still looks terrific. She knows she has won by the way I kiss her on the cheek.
From Soi Cowboy I ride a motorcycle taxi to the Hilton International, where the FBI has summoned me. I take the elevator to her suite on the twenty-second floor, where she is working at her desk on a collection of metallic objects which, I realize after some concentration, are the insides of a gun. The barrel and stock sit calmly in one of the massive armchairs, presiding over their own disembowelment, and she sits me down in the other. The gun and I-I think it is a Heckler & Koch submachine gun, about eighteen inches long with a forged steel stock and parabolic magazine-stare at each other while she talks. On the hotel blotter she takes apart the subassembly and hammer mechanism and stares at them for a moment, before reaching for the ice cream. Mesmerized by the gun, I did not notice the pint of Häagen-Dazs macadamia nut brittle on the corner of the desk. Such is her training that she is able to poke at the mechanism with one finger whilst dipping a plastic spoon into the ice cream with the other hand. To eat alone is a sad and pathetic condition in my country, evidence of social and emotional dispossession. To do so in front of another without offering to share is an obscenity and almost impossible for me to watch. I feel the blood draining from my face as she gulps down a miniature Everest.
“What’s the matter, you scared of guns?” She takes a small can of gun oil from the desk drawer and expertly allows a single drop to fall on the subassembly. “Oh, I get it, you don’t think I’ve got a license, right? No need to worry, Rosen discussed it with one of your capo di capi, I’m allowed to keep it so long as I use it with discretion. If I do have to use it, there’ll be one of those Thai cover-ups which you know all about. You sure you’re okay? I didn’t think a gun would disgust you all that much. It’s a sprayer, I know, but so are most short barrels, the H and K MP-5K is about the best. Anything larger and I’m going to look conspicuous, aren’t I?” A couple more drops for the hammer base, then she reaches for the barrel and stock and begins to slide the subassembly into the guides of the receiver. “See, I haven’t taken it out since I picked it up from the embassy-they had to send it over for me in a diplomatic bag and you never know how well they treated it. One thing they always tell you at Quantico, look after your piece.” More ice cream. “Anyway, what I wanted to talk to you about is, generally, how do you see the case shaping up?”
I watch, nauseated, while she eats more macadamia nut brittle, picks up the completed gun, hangs it round her neck from the cord and stands in front of a full-length mirror. From a loose hanging position she is able to aim and fire and perforate herself with a thousand shots in less than-oh, I don’t know, nanoseconds anyway. Quantico meets Hollywood. The unexpected drama triggers one of my perceptions and I see a whole string of previous incarnations standing behind her. American cops are identical to Thai cops at least in one respect. We’re all reincarnations of crooks.
She catches my gaze. “This really isn’t turning you on, is it? Okay, no more guns, we’ll go for a walk. There’s something in the garden I need you to explain to me.” She strides over to the Häagen-Dazs for a couple more mouthfuls, catches herself. “You want some?”
“No, thank you,” I reply with relief, feeling as if something very unpleasant has been removed from the carpet.
“Didn’t think you did. Ice cream really isn’t you, is it? No chili, no lemongrass, no rice, just a pile of Western junk like sugar and dairy products with a ton of artificial flavoring. Tastes great, though.” The Häagen-Dazs goes into the small fridge under the credenza. From a wardrobe she takes out a black fiberglass briefcase which turns out to be custom-molded on the inside for the H &K. She slips the magazine out of the gun, places it in its hollow, then does the same for the gun itself. I see two people here: a girl who loves ice cream, and a consummate professional taking loving care of the tool of her trade.
Now that the gun and the ice cream are out of sight I take in the view while she disappears into her bedroom. It’s not a New York or Hong Kong skyline, although it’s a modern city these days. I’m put in mind more of Mexico or South America in the way soaring tubes of steel and glass preside over ragged bits of park, hovels, shacks and squatter dwellings. Its true signature, however, is the permanent skeletons of unfinished buildings, their bare bones turning black in the pollution, as if the Buddha is reminding us that even buildings die. It takes training to see the metaphysics behind a failed construction project, though, and I decide not to share my insight with the FBI, who emerges wearing white linen shorts and a white and navy tennis shirt with a YSL label which may or may not be a fake. We ride the lift down to the lobby (Kimberley, the gun and I), and I wait while she checks the black briefcase into the hotel vault.
Kimberley returns minus the gun with her blond hair bouncing and a smile which could almost make her sixteen. She indicates that we are to descend into the well of the lobby with the subtlest brush of her fingers against my forearm, and we walk side by side out into the swimming pool area. Adjacent to the pool is a canal which is part of the hotel grounds and which leads to a large spirit house festooned with marigolds.