John Burdett - Bangkok 8

"How did she manage with those snakes?"

"She's Karen, her people sell endangered species to the Chinese all the time, and the Chinese like their snakes fresh. The Karen have become expert in the transportation of live reptiles. She simply told them what she wanted and paid them. She probably did it with a single phone call."

He raises his hands and shoulders. "Fatima is out of control, but with that tape she controls Warren. Why kill him while she's having fun using him as a slave and destroying him slowly?"

"And through Warren she controls you too? I saw you at the Bamboo Bar a few nights ago."

An old man's sly glance. "You did?"

"Dr. Surichai was there."

He swallows hard and stares at me. "Fatima wants to do to the world what the world did to her. It's not just a question of killing Warren-he didn't make the world. See? And now that she controls Warren, she controls everyone. Of course, when I was summoned I went to watch her sing. Warren insisted-he more or less went down on his knees to plead with me-because that's what Fatima wanted."

"All that fuss just to get you to go to a jazz club to watch her sing 'Bye Bye Blackbird'?"

"If you weren't such a fucking saint you'd understand. She's in control for the first time in her life, she's running the world. She's the empress, people indulge her every whim-or else. It gave her a kick to see me hop at her command."

He leans forward to turn the gun around so that the handle is pointing at me and the barrel at him. "Kill me if you have the guts. You have the right, it's my fault your partner is dead."

At that moment I turn at the sound of soft padding across the floor. This young woman's black hair is short, almost cropped, and there are three earrings in each ear. She is wearing jeans and a black top with bootlace straps which reveal an elaborate chrysanthemum tattoo over her right breast. My first thought is that she must be one of his daughters, but I remember from the gossip that the tattoo belongs to Da, the Colonel's fourth mia noi, or minor wife. She hardly gives the gigantic revolver more than a glance, wais to me and-with a glance of contempt as she registers Vikorn's drunkenness-asks rather briskly if we need tea or drinks? If not, she would like Vikorn's driver to take her into town, where she has an appointment with a girlfriend. The Colonel irritably agrees to let her have the car and driver and we watch her pad across the floor barefoot. Vikorn makes a wobbly gesture with one hand.

"A mistake. I'm a dinosaur, Sonchai, and I didn't realize how our country has changed. In the old days when you took a mia noi all you had to do was to feed her and her family and give her a baby or two. Now"-he shakes his head-"self-improvement is all the rage. I've paid for hairdressing classes, beautician classes, tattooing classes, endless aerobic classes and the latest is Internet software. She claims she's bored out of her brain at home and wants to start her own Internet cafe. She doesn't seem to want kids at all. She tells me we have a deal, a contract. She gives me her body whenever I have the strength, she's faithful to me, in return I finance her upward mobility. You might say she's a living fusion between East and West."

"It doesn't sound too bad a deal."

"I know, but where's the romance? She isn't even scared of me. Did you see the way she looked at that gun, as if to say: The old man is playing his games again? Yesterday she said to me: 'Are we doing sex tonight or can I watch the football?' Since when did our women get obsessed with football?"

"It's been going on for quite a while. I can confirm they often prefer it to sex."

"She's the most ambitious and the least contented of all my wives. This is liberation, to be permanently unsatisfied? What kind of a world is this? I don't think I want to hang around in it much longer. Are you going to send me to my next incarnation or not?"

The Colonel does not so much as stiffen when I lean forward to pick up the gun. I break it open to check the chambers, all of which are full. I realize that he is quite serious, that he would like me to kill him.

"You think I'm bluffing?"

"No, but I know at least one person who will doubt the gun was loaded, when I tell this story." I snap the barrel into place and put the gun back on the table.

"So, how do you know the bullets are not blanks? You've spent too much time with the FBI, my friend, you've started thinking like an American." He picks up the gun and holds it shakily in both hands. "Honor is honor," he says. The shot makes a jagged hole in the glass wall and brings his security running from four directions. Still holding the gun, he waves them back where they came from. He replaces the gun on the table with a loud clack. The bang from the shot is still echoing in my ears and there is a steady tinkle of glass from the shattered wall in which lightning-shaped cracks have appeared. It is difficult to explain why this melodrama has only deepened my love for him. He says: "I don't know why I built a farang-style house. When I was younger I was impressed by the West. Now I can see how far we have lost ourselves. Look at that stupid window. What kind of idiot would build a wall of glass in the Tropics? Better small windows with shutters, high ceilings, a minimum of light, teak walls, the feeling of a living, breathing space." He looks away from me. Now, in order to look at the fishermen he has to lean a little to one side. I can hear his thoughts, quite loudly, inside my head. He is talking to his brother, admitting that it would have been better to lead the life of a simple fisherman. His brother advises him not to mistake sentimentality for nirvana. Vikorn turns his attention to me with a helpless look on his face. "You heard that, didn't you? He's totally ruthless. Won't let me get away with anything."

I watch while with some difficulty he rises from the armchair and beckons me to follow. He leads me to a small private theater consisting of a gigantic TV monitor and about twenty seats facing it. He tells me to sit down, leaves the room for five minutes, then returns with a videotape. "Naturally, I made a copy." Bending like a man ten years older than himself, he slides the tape into the machine on a shelf under the TV, and immediately a grainy black-and-white image of a young white woman with blond hair and Slavic features appears. She is wearing jeans and a tight T-shirt and smiling vivaciously, apparently determined to capture the attention of someone offscreen. She nods in response to some cue and begins to undress. The T-shirt comes off first to reveal a black bra and a gold stick which perforates diagonally the circumference of her navel. She fingers it whilst making an O of her mouth and sliding her tongue around the inside of the O. She bends forward from the hips whilst undoing her bra. She wiggles her torso to make her breasts wobble, but a quick frown followed by an obedient nod tells us that this is not pleasing to the audience. In a more serious mood she pulls off her jeans. Now she is naked except for a G-string. Apparently this is not erotic to the audience either, and with a slightly frustrated expression she pulls it off to stand naked with her hands on her hips, awaiting instructions. Puzzled, she raises her hands above her head and keeps them there for several seconds. There can be no doubt that the purpose is to highlight the gold stick in her navel.

Vikorn freezes the tape at this point and turns to me with a quizzical expression. If one disregards the color of the skin, the resemblance to Fatima's body is startling. Vikorn presses the forward button. On instructions, the blond woman lowers one hand to finger the gold stick, erotically up and down, up and down, round and round, a combination of male and female masturbation.

Now she lies on a bed behind her, full length, and once again the gold stick seems to dominate the screen. Her body language indicates that each time she stops fondling it, she receives a reprimand from her client. Now she turns over onto her front. Immediately two gigantic black hands take one of her wrists, bind it quickly with tape to the iron of the headboard while other hands-white with a filigree gold bracelet hanging from one wrist-bind her on the other side. She half closes her eyes and gives a convincing impression of a woman in deep lust. The camera takes in only her face and the upper part of her body, therefore one can only guess by her facial expressions that she is experiencing penetration. Her expression abruptly changes to one of profound physical shock at the first lash, which sprays blood lightly over her cheek. I scream at Vikorn to stop the tape.