Cho also points at the restaurant. “We go back in here, sit down, okay?”
No, I don’t think that’s okay. I don’t want to give Big Fish my money. I give the two of them a look.
“No problem, Khun Ray. You do not understand.”
Cho leans in to explain the plan to me. It’s a good one, and as we walk back inside, I hand Plaa my mobile phone. Cho’s already making calls on his.
The lunch crowd hasn’t come in yet, and we have our choice of tables. We sit down in the middle of the restaurant at a table that could comfortably seat six people. I order one large Kloster beer for Cho and me to split. Plaa wants hot tea.
The two of them are making calls on the mobile phones while I leaf through the menu. It actually does look pretty good, and I’m hungry. But that’s not the plan.
The waiter comes up to take our order, and we send him away, saying we’re going to wait for our friends to get here. Plaa hands me back my phone, and I make a few calls of my own.
I’m thirsty, so I lift my glass and take a small sip of my beer. Cho wags a finger at me, and I put the glass back down. He hasn’t touched his, and Plaa is letting her tea get cold.
We’ve been putting off the waiter for almost a half hour when the lunch crowd begin to arrive, taking their places in twos and threes at tables for four or more. I notice Plaa and Cho making very slight nods, little waves of no more than a finger at the people who are coming into the restaurant.
These aren’t the typical, well-heeled patrons of the place. The customers have dressed as nice as they can for the occasion, but their best is a lot lower on the fashion scale than Big Shrimp’s usual lunch crowd of businessmen. The restaurant staff are giving each other looks, wondering, “Who are these people? Can they afford to eat here?”
Our Bangkok correspondent comes in. He’s with the Thai editor of a local trouble-making magazine and his chief reporter, a tiny but solidlooking Thai woman from the country’s dirt-poor northeast. She’s known for her motto, a quote from an American journalist of the early 1900s: “To afflict the comfortable, and comfort the afflicted.” I flash them a smile. They sit down at a table in a corner from where they can observe the whole restaurant.
By the time the restaurant’s full, there are only two tables that appear to actually be ordering lunch. Everyone else has no more than one cooling or warming drink in front of them and can’t make up their mind about what they want to eat. The waiters, maitre d’ and floor managers are in a huddle by the motionless swinging doors to the kitchen. Every so often a busboy or cook’s face appears in one of the windows in the kitchen doors, grins broadly and then disappears.
A crowd of the usual customers gathers at the front desk, wanting their usual tables. They’re increasingly restless, perturbed in their fine summer-weight wools and linens. But too bad. Big Shrimp is full.
The maitre d’ hurries over to try and mollify his customers, but most of them turn and walk away. There are plenty of other places to eat nearby. A few agree to take empty seats at some of the partially filled tables.
A man in one of the most perfectly tailored suits I’ve ever seen with a haircut that no doubt cost as much as Plaa makes in a month or more sits down at our table. He’s with a Miss Universe-class, bejewelled woman of about a third his age. They smile at me and look nervously at my lunch companions.
Cho says something to the beautiful woman that brings out a big smile on Plaa’s face. The woman looks startled and turns to the man, who looks annoyed.
He turns to me and in impeccable, upper-class British English, with just the barest tint of a Thai accent, asks what it is that I “make of all this”? It hasn’t occurred to him that I’m part of it.
I explain what’s going on, and as I do I can see the turmoil going on inside him. Despite his best efforts, it’s emblazoned across his face. The part of him that has spent a lot of time outside Thailand wants to argue with me. But he is Thai, after all, and arguing is either beneath him or just not done.
At first it looks like he might ignore us, order lunch and go about his business. But when the woman tugs on his arm and whispers to him, he gets up, shooting me something uncertain between a smile and a grimace, and they walk out.
Most of the other people who had sat down at already occupied tables get up to leave as well. The maitre d’ tries stopping them at the door, but no one’s listening to him. Finally he gives up and retreats down the hallway toward the office guarded by the big man.
The waiters aren’t even bothering to come around anymore. They know no one’s going to order anything. Once in a while someone will take a very small sip of the drink in front of them, but that’s all any of us are having for lunch.
The big guy and the maitre d’ come back out of the hallway and look the place over. The big guy says something to him, and their eyes focus on our table. The maitre d’ gestures for one of the head waiters to come over and has him take his place by the door as the muscle and he go outside.
The maitre d’ is back in about ten minutes with an impressive looking cop. He’s in a crisp, ironed uniform with polished gold buttons and military insignia. They head down the hallway to the office.
The restaurant is silent. No one is talking at their tables. The staff look on with their mouths firmly shut. There’s no clatter from the kitchen.
In short order the cop, the bruiser and the maitre d’ stream out of the hallway and make a beeline for our table. I stand up, preparing to take the brunt of whatever it is they’ve decided to do with us.
Something moves in the far periphery of my vision. I look over, and it’s the Thai magazine editor and his bulldog reporter getting up from their table and also making quickly toward ours. This is going to be interesting.
Both groups reach us at the same time. Maybe the small cassette recorder in the outstretched arm of the reporter beats out the maitre d’ by a hair. They all stop and look at each other.
The reporter and editor look expectant, enthusiastic. This could be exactly the sort of story that their readers really eat up.
The maitre d’ looks like he’s about to start stomping his feet and spitting. The heavy looks like he just wants to stomp somebody, anybody, bad.
The cop looks nervous. He’s supposed to be there on the side of Big Shrimp, but he’s got higher-ups to answer to and they don’t like publicity. He throws me a look, like maybe I can help him out of this jam.
Plaa and Cho are sitting quietly. They’ve moved their drinks in a little closer and bent their heads over them. Their eyes flick up and back down to look at the six of us standing around the table. Everyone else in the restaurant is looking, too, and not being discreet about it.
There’s a flash of light and then another. We all look around, and there’s the correspondent of my magazine with a camera. I turn back to face the maitre d’ and his posse and paste a big grin on my face.
“Smile, fellas.”
The big guy starts moving in the direction of my correspondent, but he’s by the front door and scurries out. He gives up, steps back and makes a move to snatch the tape recorder from the reporter, but the maitre d’ puts out a hand to stop him.
No one’s got guns out, but it’s beginning to feel like a Mexican standoff.
The maitre d’ steps around the table up to me and speaks low so that no one else can hear.
“You want order lunch now, mister?” Despite the words, it isn’t really a question.
“We might after a while. My friends and I are thirsty. We want to enjoy our drinks first.” I don’t shout, but I make sure I’m loud enough to be heard by the people at nearby tables.
He looks down at Plaa and Cho and then around the whole dining room. He looks back at me with an unhappy smile. He wishes I could help him out, too. It was a mistake speaking to me. If it had been Cho or Plaa, or most of the other Thai people in the restaurant, he could simply have insisted that they leave.