The cab was turning into our street, and I leaned forward to tell the driver to stop outside our hovel. I was reaching for my wallet to pay him when Chanya came out with her last bombshell.
“Do you know the name Roberto da Silva? She said you’d mentioned him in a text message. She said it’s not true that he died. She said he’s here in Bangkok, owns a bar on Pat Pong.”
I freeze for a moment. It’s not the information that has thrown me so much as the incongruity. “Why did she suddenly start talking about that?”
“I don’t know. She went into yet another personality. She became very serious and confidential-maybe a last attempt to get me into bed. Or another ploy to reach you. As I said-these creatures, they’re shape changers like you wouldn’t believe.”
–
If Chanya’s ploy was to share confidences as a way of reestablishing intimacy, it worked. By the time we reached home both of us were experiencing the same sense of relief: we belonged together, we would protect each other faithfully from the big scary new out there; it was very childish and almost thrilling. Then, just when we were in a deep forgiving embrace that would certainly evolve into the kind of wholesome, tender, unselfish, fantasy-free, loving coupling that, if it exists, rarely survives prolonged cohabitation despite being monotonously recommended by marriage counselors of the old school (I can’t recall our ever trying it ourselves), my phone rang.
29
It is Nurse Silapin, using a conciliatory tone.
“Detective, your Inspector Krom explained everything to me. I think I owe you an apology regarding the other night. We all thought you were trying to collect evidence for a criminal investigation. Now I know the real reason you wanted to take a DNA sample.”
“Yes?”
“Detective, something extraordinary has happened to the man you think may be your father. In view of the fact that you may be the next of kin, I think you should come immediately.”
“Okay.”
“Detective, I’m sorry, but the administration has requested me to insist. There can be no swabs, not even for the most intimate of reasons.”
“Right. I learned my lesson.”
I pull my clothes back on and run down the soi to Sukhumvit to find a cab. I tell the driver to take me to the hospital, and as we flash down a black and empty street, I think about that word: extraordinary. Not negative, exactly; not necessarily positive either. Do I really need ambiguity right now?
At the hospital I knock on the door of the special room and Nurse Silapin lets me in. Willie J. Schwartz and Larry Krank are standing together at the far end, next to their beds. I think I understand the problem when I look at Harry Berg, aka Jack, who is in the nearest bed, his eyes wide open and staring at the ceiling, a beatific expression on his face. No matter how long I wait, he does not blink, but that does not faze me. I am in a state of intense excitement, for they have changed his bandages and removed those that covered most of his face. There is no longer any doubt, this is the Rainbow Man who stalked me on Soi Cowboy, Lalita’s favorite customer of the month.
“How long has he been like this?”
“About five hours.”
“He can’t talk?”
“Can’t or won’t,” Nurse Silapin says. “I thought at first of catatonia, but it’s definitely not that.”
“How do you know?”
“We did a CAT scan.” She frowns.
“And?”
“Basically with a CAT you’re looking for parts of the brain which normally show neural activity but are unresponsive due to trauma.”
“Yes?”
“Well, his brain is all lit up in dozens of places. It’s not that he isn’t conscious, it’s as if he’s suddenly super conscious. I’ve done some research, but there are only a few anecdotes, no real precedents for something like this. The doctors are scratching their heads. They want to leave him alone for the moment. All his vital signs are excellent.”
I look from the nurse to the two old vets at the other end of the room. Willie is staring at the floor, while Larry Krank is fixated by a speck on the wall. I ask the nurse if she would mind stepping out for a moment while I talk to these old men. She seems confused but complies.
I walk up to the two of them, hands on hips, leaning forward, outraged. “You gave him acid?”
Both old men avoid my eyes.
“He wanted us to, Sonchai. We could feel it.”
So they know my name. How?
“If he comes down, he’ll explain himself. We’ve all been together so long, we kind of know what the other is feeling.”
I splutter. “Doc Bride gave it to you?”
“He sent some.”
“After the damage that drug did you?”
“Wasn’t the acid, it was the way they used it. See, we had to go back past that, and the only way there was more acid. We made friends with LSD, you might say.”
“The Spirit. It’s what we call it.”
“That’s how we knew Jack needed it.”
I take a step back and assess them coldly. I shake my head. There is no way to read these guys.
Willie, though, seems to understand there is a gulf between our respective grasps of reality. He tries to remember how normal people behave and talk, so he can adapt his argument.
“We became experts,” he says. “Not on the level of the Doc himself, but pretty good.”
“The Doc’s something else. He’s a real scientist, a genius.”
“A mad genius, but a genius.”
“He has a scale of levels. Jack is on level seven right now, the highest.”
“That’s why we’re not worried. Nothing bad can happen to anyone on that level.”
“The whole cosmos is open to him right now. Just look at his face if you don’t believe me.”
“The Spirit rules,” Willie says.
“Amen,” Larry says.
“How’s that?” I ask.
“It’s what we say when someone is on level seven: they have ascended, they are not the same person at all.”
“It’s like with the Doc. When he’s on seven, well, watch out, that’s not a human anymore, that’s something from a higher realm.”
I have to admit Harry Berg, aka Jack, looks pretty happy right now. Considering how stressed and confused I feel, I guess you could say he’s better off.
“You’re really Sonchai the detective?” Larry asks, smiling warmly. “That’s great. That’s just wonderful.” I stare at him; clearly there is more. He looks at the floor shyly. “You could say you’re the reason we’re in Bangkok. We could have made a lot more money in Pattaya or Phuket, but Jack insisted we stay here in the city, so he could be near you.”
“Really?”
“He worships the earth you walk on, Sonchai. To him you’re some kind of miracle. He expected you to be in jail or dead from an overdose long ago. You’re a Buddha to him. He keeps telling us how beautiful you are. He took pictures of you on some cheap cell phone he bought for a thousand baht. Sometimes he visited the street five, ten times in a week, just to see you, just to watch you walk past him. One time when he was falling around drunk in the street you helped him up and asked where he lived and helped him to a cab. You remember that?”
I shake my head. “No.”
“Look,” Larry says, “we’re real sorry about how we reacted last time. We were sure you were going to bust us.”
“So we figured out a way of making it up to you,” Willie says.
I wait while Larry goes to his bed to pick up something from under his pillow. It is an envelope of the kind hospitals use, with plastic lining. He has me look into it: two cotton swabs, like Q-tips. He grins at me. Willie nods at Jack on his back, still beaming. I look furtively around the room.
“I’ll do it for you if you like,” Larry says. He goes over to Jack with the swabs, pulls open his jaw with one hand, swabs around inside his mouth with one Q-tip then the other, pops them in the envelope, and hands it to me. “There’s no doubt who you are, of course. But everybody likes to be sure about stuff like this.”