John Burdett - Bangkok Haunts

"A well-paid pornographer."

"I don't want to be a fucking pornographer. I'm an artist."

Flabbergasted, flummoxed, exasperated-and impressed — I fish out my cell phone to call the Colonel.

"So let him be artistic," says Vikorn. "He can use ten cameras at the same time if he likes. He can cut to the fucking moon landing in between fellatio. He can have flowers and ink-block prints all over the stupid studio. He can have complete artistic freedom, just so long as he gets the cum shots right and the junk sells in America and Europe."

I translate all this to Yammy, whose glower slowly lifts. "I'll think about it."

"Here, take my cell phone," I say with saintly self-control. "If you decide to graciously accept our humble offer of employment, please press this autodial number, which belongs to Colonel Vikorn."

Back in the cab I borrow the driver's cell to call Vikorn, who bets five thousand baht Yammy will call within the next five minutes. I bet the same amount he will not call before I reach the station, because he's a stubborn, suicidal Japanese whose honor will take at least half an hour to collapse.

Vikorn and I sit amazed in his office, waiting until after nine in the evening. Finally the phone rings, and Vikorn hands it to me because Yammy speaks no Thai.

"I want the right to introduce my own story lines. Most porn has the stupidest, corniest story lines, if any. I want real plots."

Vikorn waves a weary hand of resignation when I have translated.

Damrong came to me last night. I guess I knew she would whatever color pajamas I wore, and no matter how many times I waied the Buddha in our little homemade shrine with fairy lights: Chanya's idea. I was aware of her and the Lump in bed with me at the same time as being out of the body. Furtiveness only added to the intensity of my lust. We cannot wake Chanya, I tried to say, even as Damrong's mouth descended on my quivering member. Liberated from time and space, she was able to project a multiplicity of images: naked; half naked; wearing a black ballgown with silver jewelry; topless in tight-fitting jeans with her long black hair intermittently covering her breasts; bent over me in the attitude of total submission; standing above me in a posture of command. The point, really, was the overwhelming sexual power of her spirit, which somehow was able to trigger hormones from the other side. Men, let me be frank, there is no erotic experience that compares to being fucked by a ghost. When she had finished with me, I took myself off to the yard to hose down my feverish body. Thankfully Chanya was still fast asleep when I slipped back beside her.

Back to the case. I have used Colonel Vikorn's security clearance to penetrate the deeper reaches of the national database. When I plug in Damrong's ID number, I find a curious surname: llilflQ. It takes me a few moments to process this odd couple of syllables. I try out various possibilities before light dawns: the name is Baker. Armed with this clue, I make a few cross-checks and discover that her Thai family name is Tarasorn, and her parents were Cambodian refugees. She married an American named Daniel Baker just over five years ago and, according to the Immigration data, went to live with him in the United States until she returned about two years later. On official documents she was still obliged to sign her name as Mrs. Damrong Baker, which is the name that will appear on her death certificate.

From the database I extract Mr. Daniel Baker's American Social Security and passport numbers. I call Immigration to have them check if Baker happens to have returned to Thailand recently. It's a long shot, but you never know. Then I call Kimberley at the Grand Britannia to give her Baker's Social Security number.

I am afraid the FBI is the first to respond. Within less than half an hour she calls me back, slightly breathless.

"Okay, this could be your big lead. Dan Baker has a conviction for pimping."

"Pimping?" I give this information the reverence it deserves. "No illicit porn videos?"

"No, but these days that's pretty well implied in the act of pimping, at least in the States."

"And?"

"She was prosecuted for running a bawdy house, in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. They both pleaded guilty. He got twelve months plus one year probation. She got six months, but they deported her."

"When?"

"Just over four years ago."

A pause, then Kimberley says, "It must have been right after she was deported that she went to work for you."

Fighting a certain internal resistance, I say, "Yes. We always thought she was way too upmarket for us. I guess she was just using us as a stepping-stone while she readjusted to Bangkok. It must have been quite a letdown after the States."

"I don't know about that. Prostitutes in the States don't have such an easy ride."

"Anything else?"

"I'm working on it. The whole case rings a bell. I think it got a lot of publicity because some of the city fathers were involved."

Mrs. Damrong Baker: the asymmetry in the name might say it all. I have to call Immigration five more times before I am able to convince them to get off their backsides. When they do, it is simply a matter of plugging Dan Baker's passport number into their database. Finally my desk phone rings.

"He's here in Bangkok."

"As a tourist?"

"No. He has a license to teach English as a foreign language. Yearly renewable visa plus work permit, signs in every three months to confirm his residential address."

"Which is?"

"Sukhumvit Soi Twenty-six."

I call Lek, my assistant. While I am waiting for him, I walk to the window to look down. The young monk, whom I've come to think of as "the Internet monk," is crossing the street to enter the Internet cafe. I watch his vivid saffron robes disappear into the bright shop; then Lek arrives. We take a cab. "I want to know if he's lying or not," I tell Lek. "Just watch him while he answers."

All Bangkok taxi drivers practice witchcraft, but this one is at postgraduate level. Garlands in honor of the journey goddess Mae Yanang hang from the rearview mirror with a bunch of amulets, obscuring the middle slice of external reality. I should mention that there are two ways of avoiding death on our roads: pop pong and pop gun. Pop gun signifies the usual dreary ineffective stuff like wearing a seatbelt and not driving too fast; we generally prefer pop pong, with its inviolable spiritual protection. Done properly, pop pong not only protects your life, it can also deal out severe punishments to those who threaten it. At this very moment our driver is proudly recounting the tale of a road-rager who cut in front of him last week, only to be flattened by a cement truck five minutes later. "What a mess," he says with glee, and points to the ceiling.

Lek is riveted: "Dead?"

"Sure."

"He didn't have an amulet?"

"Would you believe it? He had a salika inserted under the skin."

"And he still died?"

Our driver points to the ceiling again with a beat-that expression. "Accidents don't just happen. The origin is in the past." He jerks a thumb backward to indicate the past. "Gam," he says. Karma.

Lek and I study the ceiling, where a kind of astrological chart provides luck, health insurance, and protection from traffic cops. The inscriptions are in, not Thai, but the ancient Khmer script called khom, from the time of Angkor Wat. "You use a moordu?" Lek wants to know.

"Sure, a Khmer moordu. What do Thai seers know? All magic comes from the Khmer in the end." He shifts around to give Lek a quick glance. "I got into this in a big way after the tsunami. Before that I was pretty choi choi about it."

"Because of the ghosts?"

"You bet. See, what people don't appreciate is that most of the Thais who died didn't come from Phuket at all. They came from Krung Thep and up north. And of course, the farang ghosts wanted to get home as well, so the dead all arrived here trying to get on planes at the airport or buses back to Isaan. My partner, who uses this car on the night shift, said it was terrible. He'd pick up a party of four or five passengers and drive them to Don Muang; then when he turned around to collect the fares, they weren't there anymore. The worst, though, were the ones who boarded in the dark; then when he turned the light on at the end of the trip, they were totally rotted already, eyes hanging by the optic nerve and bouncing around on their cheeks. Then there were the farang who don't know diddly about being dead and were still looking for loved ones, crying out and all that. It was just awful. For that kind of stuff, you got to have professional help."