“We’ll put our cards on the table,” Hudson says in a flat, neutral tone as soon as my mother has gone. “You have information about the disappearance of one Mitch Turner. We think he was murdered in a hotel not far from here. We think he was with one of your workers at the time.” He looks at Bright. “Have I left anything out?”
Bright looks me intensely in the eye. (He really intends for me to really get what he’s saying.) “See, we’re Americans at war, and we don’t leave our dead in the field, no matter what. It’s as simple as that. We just don’t do it. So it’s in everybody’s interest to cut the crap, cut out all the-ah-little cover-ups and conspiracies and cooperate, get the thing over and done with and bring the perp to justice, because we will get to the bottom of this, one way or the other.” Out of the corner of my eye I see that Hudson has the grace to wince. “I hope you understand what I’m saying, Detective?”
I am obliging with Third World Fear and Awe when Nat appears with a smile to ask if anyone would like something to drink. Bright does not appreciate the distraction and snaps “Water” in the same tone of Stern. He flicks his eyes up at her. She is wearing a knee-length white cotton dress of relatively modest cut, although it does dip quite a bit, and she doesn’t seem to be wearing anything underneath. His eyes do not ransack her body, but the very pleasing contrast of stark white with her creamy brown legs and shoulders is hard to ignore. Contact the first.
“I’ll take a Coke if that’s okay?” Hudson says with considerable courtesy. (I think he was hoping for Nong to return.)
I shake my head with a smile, and Nat makes a cute wai to Hudson and Bright. Bright wrestles with distraction and wins. “Maybe the detective can confirm that we’re all agreed.”
“On what?” I ask with a smile.
“Yeah,” Hudson says, “you lost me a bit. What are we agreeing on here?” Why do I sense that these two partners are not enjoying a totally satisfactory relationship?
Bright goes-well, bright crimson. “I was just trying to-”
“I know what you were trying to do. Thailand is probably our greatest ally in this part of the world. If the president wants to screw up every international friendship we have, that’s up to him, but you’re not the president.” He looks as if he is about to say something more, then changes his mind. I am expecting Bright to turn volcanic, maybe shoot Hudson with a Magnum, but instead he makes a face of childish pique. Hudson leans forward a little, engages my eyes rather gently, even gives his own a slightly pleading hue. “Detective, look, we know what probably happened. You know who we are. Why are we here? We are here because the organization we work for is not going to rest until the disappearance of Mitch Turner is accounted for. Until then, officially no one can say if this is a case of international terrorism, a case of domestic violence, a mugging that went wrong-or what? See what I’m getting at? If something happened between Turner and one of your girls, if that’s all there is to it, if there are mitigating circumstances as there probably were, after all he was a big, strong guy-we think he disappeared on a Saturday night-he was known to have a very low resistance to alcohol-he shouldn’t have been in Bangkok at all-you see where I’m heading? If there are grounds for reducing the charge to manslaughter, maybe even entering a plea of self-defense, we would be able to make the prosecution listen to you, maybe cut a deal. We just need to clear the thing up one way or the other. Americans are very tidy minded. We just can’t have an open file with Unsolved stamped on it, not in a time of war, not in the case of someone like Mitch Turner. We would like you to help us. Please.”
Nat returns with the water. By leaning over Hudson to pour, she reveals much of her upper body to Bright, who is now ripe for distraction after the reprimand from Hudson. He catches himself in a stare, looks up, and finds her eyes on him. He blushes all over again. Contact the second.
“I see,” I say, wondering what to do. This whole situation cries out for Vikorn’s skills. What does a monk manqué know? Are we playing three-dimensional chess or two-card brag? “The thing is, it’s not in my hands.”
Now Hudson is distracted. He is no fool, and Nat’s skills have not escaped his notice. He and I both watch with clinical interest as she leans over Bright to pour his water. There is nothing flirtatious in her manner, but she does pour the water with unusual slowness. It’s a very hot night under our crude strip lights in the yard. Everyone is sweating. Almost drop by drop the pure, clear ice-cold water fills the glass, which turns opaque with condensation. The moment seems to last forever. Nat shows no mercy while Bright concentrates on the glass so as not to glance sideways at the two brown young breasts hanging very near his face. He looks swiftly up when she is done, says thankyou in a gruff tone. She makes a cute little bow, keeping her face serious. Contact the third.
Farang, I’ll bet you Wall Street against a Thai mango he’ll be back, if for no other reason than to play the card of virile youth against Hudson’s superior rank and thus restore his ego after that humiliating reprimand. Hudson thinks so too. He turns away with a mixture of amusement and irritation. (Why did they have to send him a boy?) Now he is waiting for me to say more. I don’t. A sigh. “Okay, whose hands is it in? This Colonel Vikorn character? He has one hell of a reputation, and it’s not for being an honest cop.”
“A sleazebag,” Bright mutters, avoiding Hudson ’s glare.
I make a submissive face. “Shall I tell him you want to make a treaty?”
Bright is not at all sure if I’m being sarcastic or simply inept in my use of English. He oscillates between rage and contempt with a bias toward contempt. Hudson covers his reaction with a cough. “Yeah, tell him we want to talk. I’m sure we can work something out. It would help a lot if we were able to speak to the last person to see Mitch Turner alive. That would impress us considerably.”
They both finish their water in a few gulps, then stand up to leave. I follow them through the club to the front door, keeping my eyes on Bright. Yep, there it goes, that scan of the room he told himself he wasn’t going to make. Nat, of course, is nowhere to be seen.
As soon as they’re safely into a taxi, I call Vikorn. He’s silent for a full minute, then: “What’s your instinct?”
“We’re the Indians, they’re the cowboys, they want to make a treaty. They want Chanya at the meeting, Colonel.”
He coughs. “Tell them to come to the bar tomorrow night. We’ll close it for as long as the meeting takes.”
“Will Chanya be there?”
“I don’t know.”
In the dead of night my mobile rings. It is Lek at last. A desperate tone (he sounds as if he’s dying): “You have to help me.”
Lumpini Park (named for the Buddha’s birthplace) at night: love at its cheapest, but the incidence of HIV is said to be over sixty percent. In the darkness: furtive movements on benches and on the grass, muted moans and whispers, rustlings of large animals in heat, the intensity of the atomic fusion (highly addictive, they say) of sex and death. It is past midnight in this tropical garden. At the edge of the park, I have to call Lek on his mobile to find out his exact location. He is standing alone by the artificial lake, staring at a reflection of the moon in the water. When I touch him, his body seems half frozen.