“That’s not a technique she invented, Sonchai,” the FBI advises. Chanya nods in agreement, still maintaining a sneer for my benefit. It’s the postcoital sequence that grabs all three pairs of eyeballs, though.
“Amazing,” the FBI says.
“Genius,” from Chanya, former bar queen.
I’m rubbing my eyes. “Play it again,” Chanya instructs.
“Real tears,” from the FBI.
It’s true. Damrong has managed a delicate, reluctant trickle from both retinas, which she quickly, bravely wipes away. She pretends she cannot look him in the eye when she says, “Tom, you’re just amazing.” A slight wobble around the chin, then: “I don’t think I can stand the thought of you with another woman. I just can’t.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Tom says with a lump in his throat. “There wouldn’t be any fucking point, would there?” Now his eyes too are weepy. They blend the salt for a while, before starting again. This time she manages to get both his face and groin in camera range while she works on him.
“Did she use that trick on you?” Chanya wants to know. So does the FBI, to judge by the way she’s looking at me.
“No,” I say, not sure how I feel. “Not at all. I guess he has a lot more money than me.”
“Hm,” the FBI says thoughtfully, “kind of over the top, somehow, unless she wanted more than just money.”
“Like what? Not marriage, surely.”
“No,” Kimberley agrees, “not that.”
I take a deep breath. “Last one,” I say.
It is the same room, but the atmosphere is quite different. The man is clearly Oriental, and that is all we know about him for the first seven minutes. Damrong has adapted perfectly to her ruthless Asian master, absorbing his remorseless thrusts with helpless cries and groans. When he becomes too aggressive, she bites him hard on one hand: a warning shot or an invitation to still more combative sex? Certainly, without antique fragments of the courtly love tradition to cloud his judgment, this client is not so easy to maneuver. When she finally has his mug in the camera lens, Chanya and I exchange a glance, and I freeze the frame. There he is, face turned beautifully in full frontal ecstasy while she works his member. The sexual angle is suddenly quite irrelevant, however.
“What?” the FBI wants to know.
“I’ll need a still of that,” I say.
Kimberley shrugs, plays with the software for a moment, downloads the still, and folds her arms. “Will someone tell me what’s so different about this guy? I mean, I can see he’s Asian with a lot of Chinese blood. Quite a dish, actually.”
“It’s Khun Tanakan,” Chanya whispers, careful, even in the midst of her contempt, to use the respectful Khun in accordance with feudal law.
“Who?”
“He’s big in banking,” I explain with a gulp. “About as big as they get. We’re talking HiSo all the way to the top of the pyramid. Him and his buddies control the economy. All big deals go through them.”
Chanya and I switch to Thai for a telling moment:
Chanya: What are you going to do? This could get you killed.
Me: I know that.
Chanya: You’ll have to tell Colonel Vikorn.
Me, gloomily: How safe d’you think that will be? You know what he’ll want to do.
Chanya: I’m pregnant, Sonchai. I don’t want to bring up our child all on my own.
Me, passing a hand over my brow: I’ll have to think about it. I’ll do whatever’s safest.
Chanya: Start by getting that laptop out of here. I’m scared, Sonchai, I really am.
Me: Okay.
Now I’m hurriedly unplugging the laptop and sliding it into its case under the gaze of the FBI.
“Wow,” Kimberley says when I’m finished and about to leave the house, all in less than five minutes. “When you guys spook, you really spook. How about letting me in on some background?”
“In the cab,” I say.
Now Kimberley and I are standing in the street, hailing a passing taxi. Chanya has remained in the house. “I’ll let you off at the Grand Britannia,” I tell the FBI.
“Where are you going with that thing?”
“The police station,” I grunt.
In the back of the cab I explain, “Damrong had that stuff shot for blackmail purposes. There can be no other explanation.”
“I agree. So what?”
“If she had started putting on the screws, Tanakan will have his people looking all over the city.”
“But you’re a cop. Doesn’t that count for anything over here?”
I smile ironically. “Sure.”
“So?”
“So, Chanya’s right. The smart thing has to be to tell Vikorn. At least I’ll have him on my side that way.”
“Why is that a difficult decision to make?”
I turn to her. “What d’you think he’ll want to do with the video?”
I think the FBI has mastered this little cultural conundrum by the time I let her out at her hotel. She pauses while the door is open and pops her head inside for a moment. “Kind of strange, don’t you think?”
“What is?”
“That two or three easy steps is all it needed to get you this far. You did no more than the obvious, right?”
“Looked up Damrong’s name on the database, which led to Baker.”
“Which led to the most dangerous scoop of your career. Strange. I don’t know about Bangkok, but policing is rarely that simple stateside.”
On the way to the station, with the laptop next to me on the seat, I’m thinking, Simple? I fish out my cell phone to call Vikorn on his. He’s cavorting at one of his clubs not far from the station. When I tell him in coded language what I have sitting next to me, he says he’ll get dressed and be with me in thirty minutes. At the station I’m so nervous about the laptop, I don’t release it from my grip. Once I read about a courier who brought two bottles of Mouton Rothschild ‘45 from London to Hong Kong and for security reasons had the briefcase containing them cuffed to his wrist. Well, this is the porn industry’s equivalent of Mouton Rothschild ’45. I have to wait about an hour before I get the calclass="underline" he’s arrived.
We’re sitting in his office now, having carefully reviewed Damrong’s performance with Khun Tanakan. It’s around midnight. When Vikorn turns to me, I cannot read the expression on his face. There is a frown of sorts, but it is complex and nuanced by what might be a smile flickering over his lips from time to time. I’ve known him so long, though, all I need do is check his eyes: bright and shiny. He speaks very softly, like a lover. There is gratitude and caress in his tone.
“Sonchai, I might need a witness.”
“Yes?”
“Someone with the smarts to understand what’s going on, and at the same time the foresight to realize that any breach of confidence could be fatal.”
“I’m not following, Colonel,” I say.
“You know the way our country is, Sonchai, ti-soong, ti-tam.” The reference is to the Thai feudal system, called high-low or, if you prefer, top and bottom. “If I do this alone, he’ll find a way of pulling rank.”
Light breaks in my frontal lobes. I feel a delicious frisson of fear and excitement. “You want me to be there when you put the squeeze on Khun Tanakan?”
Vikorn raises a finger to his lips. “He won’t know you’re there.”
“Why don’t you video it?”
“Because he will insist on meeting in his office.”
“So how can I be present?”
“You’ll come as my assistant and bodyguard. He will not allow you into the room during negotiations, so I’ll be wired. You’ll have the recorder. You will also listen over a headset so you can claim to be a live witness if things go wrong. We’ll make it look like you’re listening to music-what are those stupid things called?”