Wan fixes her up with an interview with the boss, a Hong Kong Chinese, who sees her potential instantly. Samson Yip makes sure she understands that this is the United States, not Asia, especially not Thailand: feds are everywhere. They are especially interested in Asian women who work in massage and sauna businesses. Some of the men who come for massages are FBI hoping to sting the joint. The slightest hint of soliciting for work on her part would be a disaster not only for her but for him, Samson Yip, too. Yip is short and fat and does not share her reluctance to sport huge quantities of gold. His own necklace is even chunkier than hers, and a lot uglier. As a Thai, she is familiar with the Chinese mind. He is ruthless and greedy but straight. He will not try to cheat her. In return, she better not try to cheat him if she wants to stay in America. Understood? Good, so this is how it is.
More than half the men who come for massages or to use the sauna baths are foreigners. Some are sophisticated Europeans, especially French and Italian, with whom a certain understanding is possible. Many are Asians, especially Japanese and Chinese, who generally know how to play the game. Samson Yip tells her she can use a certain very limited amount of discretion in such cases. Americans, on the other hand, are strictly off limits unless he personally gives her the go-ahead.
After a week he sees he’s been wasting his breath. Chanya is far too smart to make a false move. Yip tells her never to take a customer back to her apartment. He supplies a room in the hotel. The room changes from day to day, sometimes from hour to hour, so she will not draw too much attention. Of course, certain employees in the hotel know what is going on. Keeping them quiet is part of his overhead.
Within two weeks he has doubled her hourly rate. Within a month she is his star worker. It isn’t merely her good looks and physical charms; those three months with Thanee have polished her natural talents. Diplomats especially appreciate a certain subtlety in her approach, a new charm to her conversation. All the men like the way she makes them feel special. It is almost like not being with hired flesh, more like having found the woman of your dreams waiting for you in a sauna bath.
So when Mitch Turner shows up for a full-body massage, she gets the shock of her life. She’s been so careful, tried to make sure he is not following her when she comes and goes from the hotel. She has only a very limited understanding of the difference between FBI and CIA. She hasn’t heard from him or seen him for more than three weeks, so she assumed his passion was spent and his mind flipped on to some other obsession in the feckless way of American men. But here he is, with a white towel wrapped around his loins, lying on the massage couch, waiting for her.
She makes no sign of recognizing him, simply treats him like any other customer, except that she is especially careful not to do anything that might be misconstrued. Her massage technique has improved somewhat, although to tell the truth she has never exactly been of professional standards. In his case she carefully leaves out upper thighs and buttocks. She has to admit he owns a superb musculature, one that is obviously the product of many hours pumping iron. Neither of them says anything personal or gives any sign they know each other, until half an hour into the massage, when she tells him to turn onto his back and their eyes lock. She turns her face away to speak to the wall.
“Why are you here?”
“Because I’m obsessed with you.”
“I don’t want you to come here again.”
“How can I stop myself?”
“I’ll leave, go to another city.”
“I’ll find you.”
“I’ll go back to Thailand.”
“I’ll find you.”
“I’ll cut your dick off while you’re sleeping.”
“That’s the most Thai thing I’ve ever heard you say.”
She hadn’t considered he might be familiar with Southeast Asia.
When she’s finished with his massage and he’s left, Samson Yip calls for her to go see him in his office. He asks her about her last client. She tells him truthfully all she knows. Yip looks grim, in a state of shock almost.
“He knew everything. Every damned thing. Even the numbers of the rooms we use. He must be FBI or CIA. He’ll close me down if you don’t do what he wants. It’s up to you-you can run away, or you can see him. He claims he only wants to get to know you better, have dinner a few times, no sex, just give him a chance. He’s weird enough to actually mean what he says. What will you do?”
“Tell him I’ll have dinner with him once. That’s all. No sex. If he wants more, I’ll run away-or he can have me deported if he wants. Up to him.”
Yip nods, his big oval face of many chins concentrated in puzzlement. “Just tell me one thing. He seems like a good, clean-living American with a strong career-the kind of man women like you come to this country to marry. Why do you keep rejecting him?”
Chanya looks into Yip’s face and sees only money, greed, stupidity. “Because I’m a whore.”
Yip nods again. He isn’t so stupid after all. He is just testing to see how smart she is. “You’re right. An American like him could never forget or forgive. Once the first months of passion were over, he would torture you with it for the rest of your life.”
“Worse than that, he would torture himself.”
The Chinese grunts. He’s worked with whores all his life. The way they are able to read men at a glance still astonishes him from time to time.
Mitch Turner takes her to a Thai restaurant in Adams-Morgan, just off Columbia Road. She is impressed that he knows not to take her to an upmarket Thai place, where the chile is diluted and the food virtually tasteless. This one is budget to mid-range and frequented by Thais. The food, although not quite the standard of a Bangkok food stall, is not at all bad. One of the waiters happens to be a young Japanese, and for the duration of the evening she is convinced Mitch Turner brought her here to show off. When she gets to know him better, she will revise that view, but she is impressed. He looks so totally American, the kind that might boast he doesn’t own a passport, but his fluency and obvious familiarity with Japanese manners causes her to revise her estimation upward. What she likes most is his deference to the young waiter’s background, even to the point of bowing. Very few farang can call on such courtesy. She allows him one of her more generous smiles. He is as delighted as a schoolboy. There is no need to sleep with this man to have him in the palm of her hand-he is safely nestled there already.
He hardly drinks at all, which disappoints her a bit. Thanee taught her to enjoy a bottle of wine over dinner, and the tension in the air could certainly do with some help from alcohol. Unfortunately, he seems afraid of it. She settles for a single glass of red wine; Turner drinks mineral water.