A baffled pause. “It has been my good fortune from time to time.”
“And have you ever had the good fortune to do it from behind? Never mind what part of the lady’s anatomy is most interesting, let’s just concentrate on the position.”
Chanya inexplicably covering a grin, my mother frowning and staring at me, then from me to the Colonel. I think she has seen the drift quicker than anyone. The Colonel has not understood a word.
“Yes. It’s not my preferred-”
Another peremptory wave. “Spare us the comment, Detective. Let me ask you this. When you exploited your good fortune in this way, did you notice that the front of your thighs were really rather close to the backs of the lady’s? Putting it bluntly, Detective, unless you have a two-foot dick, your body would have been pressing against hers most of the time for the purpose of maintaining penetration?”
My heart sinks, and my mother looks away in disgust, I think, that the Colonel and I (her son of all people) should have committed such a gaffe. Only Chanya is unperturbed. On Vikorn’s order I translate the interrogation so far. To my astonishment, he also is unperturbed and responds with an avuncular smile. I should add that since the arrival of the CIA he has scrupulously and impeccably maintained the part of every farang’s idea of a crumpled, corrupt, incompetent, and less-than-intelligent third-world cop who only dimly grasps what is being said and who lost the plot some time ago. A slight shaking has been introduced in his left hand-a subtle addition, artistically done-and he has a half-empty bottle of Mekong whiskey on a table next to his chair. He has not shaved this morning; gray stubble catches the light nicely. A few deft touches, in other words, and the master has transformed himself-an astonishing achievement when you consider that in actual fact he is a decadent sleazebag third-world cop, but of an entirely different order. Any fool can play his opposite, but to play the character who is only a couple of shades away from the person you really are-now that shows real talent, in my humble opinion. Bright has been ignoring him with exaggerated contempt. This is exactly what he expected from us. Hudson so far is carefully noncommittal in his body language. Bright grinds relentlessly on, his voice rising through the full gamut of triumphalism to find its level in an excited squeak.
“Any woman who decided to castrate you from such a position, even if she had the muscles of an Olympic weight lifter, would have to cut off one of your thighs first, wouldn’t she?” Just in case he is not being explicit enough for my poor understanding, he stands up, folds Chanya’s statement I suppose as representing the knife, bends forward, and swings backward with his hand a couple of times. “It’s the one position where a man need fear no attack at all,” he adds with a triumphant smile, “not even if the lady had access to a samurai sword,” and sits down.
I translate for Vikorn, who has been watching the performance with a twinkle in his eye and who, to everyone’s astonishment except Chanya’s, bursts out laughing and clumsily claps a few times. Bright is seriously taken aback.
“Please tell our American colleagues how smart I think they are,” Vikorn instructs, his left hand shaking as he reaches for the whiskey bottle. When I have done so, I see that Hudson has finally decided to take an interest in Vikorn and stares at him for the next few minutes. “They saw this obvious flaw immediately, on the first reading I am sure.” A sip from his shaking glass. “What were we thinking that we produced such an amateurish statement? How could anyone hope to fool the CIA?”
I translate. Bright is lost now and checks with Hudson, who does not take his eyes off Vikorn.
“But what were we to do, gentlemen?” Vikorn raises his hands helplessly, an impotent old man caught in something way too big for him. “Chanya, my dear, please tell them exactly what happened.”
Chanya looks at me demurely. “Should I speak in English or Thai? My English isn’t really that good.”
I’ve had no warning about this development and do not know how I’m supposed to reply. “Your English is fine,” I say testily. She gives me one of her smiles. I disgust myself by melting and smiling back. She speaks in Thai, I translate.
“I always wanted to tell the truth about what happened to Mitch, but I was firmly instructed that for reasons of security I should keep my mouth shut.”
“That’s quite correct,” Vikorn corroborates.
“As soon as we left this bar that night, Mitch became certain we were being followed.”
“Oh no,” from Bright when I translate, who buries his head in his hands and shakes it from side to side. “Wouldn’t have been two men with long black beards, would it?”
“Shut up,” Hudson tells him, and nods for Chanya to go on.
“I didn’t see their beards until later-only Mitch saw them at that point. He said he’d been followed before, down in Songai Kolok, that he was sure his cover was blown and that maybe there was some kind of fatwa on his head.”
“I just can’t believe they’re even trying-”
“Will you shut it?” from Hudson. An I’ll get even glare from Bright.
“We thought about running away, but Mitch said that wouldn’t do any good. The worst would be for them to catch up out in the street. He was sure they wouldn’t have guns. He thought that in his hotel room he would be able to handle them.” Bright is staring incredulously, making a great drama of holding his head, rocking from side to side.
Hudson interrupts, looking at Chanya. “Okay, I get the picture. You went back to his hotel, they burst in with at least one knife, slice him up, and cut his cock off. You’re embroiled in the battle, but no one wants to hurt you, so you end up covered in blood but unharmed. Let’s say all that is a given. Why in hell would you have concocted that statement?”
I translate for Vikorn, who takes up the story. “Think about it, gentlemen. What has your government been saying about the security risk here in Thailand from Islamic fanatics? And what has that done to our tourist trade already? How much worse could it get if there’s a report of a genuine terrorist atrocity, right here in Bangkok? This was not something I’m qualified to deal with myself. I had to go to the highest levels of government, to the chief of our homeland defense.”
Hudson sighs. “So you’re saying you were told to cover up?”
“Yes. What else were they going to say? The entire story depended on the evidence of a whore.”
A pause. “That’s all you’ve got?”
“Well, there’s the knife. The murder weapon.”
Now Bright’s jaw has dropped, but Hudson ’s thin lips have opened just a tad. “Right. We were going to ask you about that. You have it here to show us?”
“It’s in the fridge,” says Chanya, and stands up to bring it. It is carefully preserved in a plastic bag, which Hudson holds up to the light. He seems to be wrestling with a smile as he hands it to Bright, who also holds it up to the light. He shakes his head and hands it back. “I still don’t buy it. So they found some frizzy black hairs to stick on it. What does that prove?”
“Anything else?” Hudson asks Chanya.
“Well, Mitch fought very bravely, and at one point he managed to get the knife off them.”
“He did?”
“Yes, and when one of them tried to grab it, he sliced off two fingers before they overwhelmed him again.”
Hudson ’s gaze is steady now, and the smile has gone from his mouth, but there is a subtle difference in the way he is looking at her. “Kept the fingers, did you? In the fridge, by any chance?”
Chanya walks to the fridge and comes back with another plastic bag and hands it to him. Bright is trying to follow Hudson ’s lead, but Hudson isn’t giving anything away at all. He examines the frozen fingers in the bag, then hands them to Bright. “And when we send the knife and fingers away to the lab, the lab will confirm that these fingers produced some of the prints on the knife, right?”