“I’m here to see Loke,” she finally says to the skinny kid. “I’ve got an appointment.”
His eyes are locked on her breasts and she lets it go and waits and after a minute, without looking up to her face, the kid says, “Get inside.”
It’s dark in the clubhouse and she blinks a few times to help her vision adjust. The place is smaller than she’d expected. Years ago it was a neighborhood spa and there’s still a small marble lunch counter at the rear of the room with built-in silver soda-water dispensers. Hazel keeps her head steady but lets her eyes move in a circle. Things become clearer.
There’s a small billiards table in the center of the room with a trio of hooded green lamps suspended over it. Mounted on the right wall is a series of cue holders filled with a display of unmatched sticks. There’s an old Asteroids video game in a corner with its power cord unplugged and dangling before the black screen. Running along the left wall are three Naugahyde booths and scarred wooden tables. A single Hyena sits in each booth, slouched sideways, back against the wall, legs propped up on the seat. They’re dressed in their standard gear — black stretch muscle shirts, white cotton gi pants, and sandals that look like they’re made of hemp. And they’re nothing like the doorman. They’re all pumped up, definitions of upper-body strength. Their hair is cropped close to their scalps. Hazel would judge them to be eighteen or nineteen years old. One of them has a set of nun-chucks draped around his neck like a fighter’s towel.
They stare at her without saying a word and she tries to keep herself from acknowledging that she could be in some serious trouble. But this is the price she needs to pay and there’s always danger in moving to a new world.
Behind the lunch counter, a set of swinging double doors suddenly opens and a tall Hyena steps through and stands with his hands on his hips. He barks a command in Khmer at the doorman, and the kid jumps into action, moving behind Hazel and putting his hands on her shoulders. She starts to flinch and then realizes he means to frisk her, so she makes herself stand rigid as hands run over her body, pausing way too long on her ass and breasts.
After rifling her pockets, the doorman steps away from her and nods. The Hyena behind the counter motions for her to walk toward him. She moves slowly, trying not to betray the growing suspicion that this meeting probably won’t get her much beyond robbed and humiliated.
She steps behind the lunch counter and the Hyena points to the swinging doors. She ends up in a small paneled corridor with a single door halfway down. She looks for a rear entrance, but doesn’t see one, so she steps up to the door and knocks.
A voice from within yells, “It’s open.”
Inside, behind a teak platform desk, sits Loke, the head of the Angkor Hyenas. He’s tilted back in a deep green leather swivel chair that’s trimmed with nailheads. On the desk is a white cordless phone, a foreign newspaper, and a blank yellow legal pad.
Loke’s head is tilted slightly to the side and he has his hands clasped together and resting on his stomach. He’s wearing a variation on the Hyena colors. He’s got on the sandals and gi pants, but his torso is covered with a white cotton V-neck sweater that bears a small Yale University insignia.
He looks older than the ones outside, maybe in his early twenties. His hair is longer than his soldiers’ and he’s got it slicked straight back with styling gel. On the back of his right hand, Hazel spots a tattoo of the same Hyena from the Habermas factory billboard.
“Have a seat,” he says in a low and friendly voice, and he indicates two matching, low-slung black leather chairs positioned before his desk.
Hazel sinks into one and glances around. Loke’s office is much brighter than the outer clubhouse. The decor shocks her. The place has a clean and ordered feel to it. Three walls are painted white and the fourth is lined with black metal utility cabinets all padlocked closed. On the wall behind Loke are two matted and framed maps — one of Quinsigamond and the other of Cambodia. Between them is a framed calligraphied quotation that reads:
Preserve Them — No Profit
Eliminate Them — No Loss
We will burn the old grass
and the new will grow
“Shall I call you Hazel?” Loke asks, sitting up, smiling.
Hazel nods. “Everyone does.”
“Would you like a drink, Hazel? Glass of wine?”
She shakes her head. His voice is clear and almost unaccented. His diction is crisp, maybe a little overprecise.
Hazel knows she should state her case simply and quietly, accept the verdict, and get out. But something about Loke’s manner tempts her to improvise.
“You’re not what I expected,” she says.
He lets a smile break and says, “For a warlord,” giving the phrase a mock seriousness.
“Do you really use words like that?”
He shrugs. “Only in the old pulps,” he says, and gestures over his shoulder with a thumb. Behind him is a small teak bookcase that matches the desk. Hazel leans to the side and sees a line of slim paperbacks with gaudy-colored spines and titles running down them like Teen-Age Mafia and The Black Leather Barbarians.
“I’ve got all the classics. Rumble. The Royal Vultures. The Amboy Dukes.”
On the shelf below the paperbacks is what looks like a small set of encyclopedias or identically bound textbooks. In gold leaf down the spines is the title The Tuol Sleng Manual.
“The first thing you’re going to need to know,” Loke says, “if we can work out”—he pauses, looks up at the ceiling—“an arrangement, is that most of your ideas about the various organizations here in Bangkok are wrong.”
Hazel nods and says, “My people and I are all ready to learn.”
Loke leans back in the chair again.
“How many people are there?”
“About a dozen.”
Loke shakes his head. “I’m going to need an exact figure.”
Hazel nods. “I can give you individual names and addresses. Backgrounds. Whatever.”
“And everyone wants to emigrate?”
“It’s unanimous.”
There are a few seconds of silence. Loke picks up a fat Mont Blanc pen that sits on the legal pad and scratches a few notes. Then he puts the pen back down and says, “Once you come over the border, you don’t go back.”
“I know that,” Hazel says.
“I need to say it anyway. I need to go through the motions here. I need to give the speech.”
He takes a breath and continues, suddenly seeming a bit annoyed. “The Canal Zone is not Bangkok Park. It never will be. You want to emigrate, fine. We’ll discuss terms. But know that the mortality rate here is higher than in Haiti. And know that when players change that fast, there’s little stability. Your status and your loyalties can be altered in an instant. And your time is taken up with things a good deal more serious than fucking up radio stations—”
She cuts him off, points to his sweater, and says, “Did you actually go to Yale?”
He stares at her with an absolutely blank expression and she thinks he’s about to whistle for his lieutenant, but instead he smiles and says, “Jesus, haven’t you got some balls.” He picks up the pen again and says, “I did three years. Never took a diploma. Annoyed the shit out of the family. They took me in the business. But the boss says I’ve got to pay some dues in middle management before I can eat at the grown-ups’ table, so …” He trails off and extends a hand palm-up as if his surroundings explained the rest.