Jake Needham - Killing Plato

“Should I take your silence to mean you do have some kind of arrangement with him?” CW prompted before I had finished my musings.

“No. You should take my silence to mean I’m searching for a polite way to say it’s none of your goddamned business. So far I haven’t come up with one.”

“You’d best tell me the truth right now, Slick. Things will go a lot better for you that way.”

I wanted to tell him to fuck off. I really did. But I didn’t really see what that would accomplish and what I wanted even more than that was to put an end to the whole damned conversation so I could go back to the hotel and Anita.

“I have no relationship at all with Plato Karsarkis. Neither business nor social. I met him by coincidence in a restaurant here.”

“The Boathouse. Yeah, we know. How come Karsarkis recognized you?”

“I have no idea. He said he’d heard of me and seen pictures of me.”

“And you believed him?”

“Why wouldn’t I believe him? Why would the most famous man in the world walk up to me and lie about knowing me?”

“I can’t put my finger on it, Slick, but something just don’t sound right.” CW shrugged slightly and rubbed at his face again. “Okay. Go on. How have you been involved with Karsarkis since then?”

“I haven’t been. Anita and I went to his house for dinner because…well, because he asked us and my wife was curious about him. I didn’t even want to go. That was the only time I’ve ever seen the man, other than at the Boathouse.”

“So you have no commercial relationship with him.”

I threw up my hands and rolled my eyes.

“Lordy, Mr. Marshal, don’t hit me again with your big stick. I’ll confess everything.”

“Stop being such a smart ass, Slick. Just answer the fucking question.”

“I have no commercial relationship whatsoever with Plato Karsarkis. Clear enough for you?”

“If you’re lying to me, I’m gonna use your butt for a broom, boy.”

“Don’t you think you’re laying on all that cornpone bullshit a little thick?”

CW smiled. “Yeah. Maybe I am at that.”

He dug some bills out of his pocket, twisted around, and dropped them on the bar. Then he stood up and started to put on his hat, but perhaps remembering his promise to me he tucked it under his arm instead and jammed his hands into his pockets.

“There’s somebody I want you to meet. You want to go someplace else with me?”

“Where do you have in mind?” I asked.

“There’s a bar a couple of my boys like to hang out in. Up where the action is. I’ve never been there before, but they said it’s called the Blue Lotus and it’s right at the beginning of a street called Soi Crocodile. You know where that is?”

Soi Crocodile, huh? Indeed I did know where that was.

Maybe my evening was about to get interesting after all.

If Patong is the rat’s ass of Phuket, which it is, I don’t know what you can call Soi Crocodile.

Objectively speaking, Soi Crocodile is one of a half-dozen tiny streets near the center of Patong, all of which are lined with open-air bars where hordes of foreigners hang out every day and every night drinking an awful lot of beer. Pretty much Patong’s only real attraction is that thousands of young Thai girls, most of them fresh from tiny villages and poor farms far upcountry, constantly throng those same streets and bars.

The girls are prostitutes, of course, but on the whole and in a different context, you might be hard-pressed to tell. Instead of the makeup-caked, crack-addled hustlers most western men can spot easily enough back home, these girls are mostly casually dressed and pleasant looking; they are friendly in a way that seems genuine; they laugh and joke easily among themselves; and they respond to even the stupidest comments from the tourists with smiles that appear unfeigned.

When there are no customers to entertain, the girls eat the food they buy from the street vendors, drink cokes, watch television, listen to music, and gossip among themselves. Occasionally, in a modest effort to improve business one of them might call out, “Hello, handsome man!” or “Come talk me!” to any unattached males who wander into range, but mostly they appear unconcerned with commercial promotion and seem content to let fate shape their prospects.

Soi Crocodile is one of the little lanes right in the heart of it all, and it is every bit as much a part of the action as are the other little streets in the area. But there is one way in which it is just a tiny bit different.

The street is known locally as Soi Katoey, the Thai word for the men turned women for which Thailand is, in some circles at least, justly famous. Thailand has achieved international recognition for precious little in its history, but Thai doctors have become universally celebrated for at least one thing: their ability, with a few judicious snips here and there, to alter biological men into women indistinguishable from real ones, except of course that they frequently look a whole lot better.

Thai katoeys are as distant from the lumpy, clumsy transvestites who lurk in the western sexual shadows as doves are from crows. On the whole, they are tall, slim, tanned, and toned. They generally wear stylish dresses and chic, take-me-tonight slingback heels, and they often sport refined jewelry and expensive handbags. They look, almost to a man, like elegant and sophisticated women.

If CW was going to a bar on Soi Crocodile, I figured he had a huge surprise coming. I really wanted to be around to see him unwrap it, so to speak.

Walking toward the center of Patong we jostled through the evening crowds along Beach Road. On the whole, these were mostly people I wouldn’t have wanted to invite back to meet Anita.

“Jesus, Slick,” CW muttered, reading my mind, “is this the parade of the fucking mutant tourists, or what?”

A man who looked either Indian or Pakistani abruptly materialized out of the crowd right in front of CW, grabbed his hand before he could pull it away, and began pumping energetically.

“Nice suit for you, sir? Welcome! Welcome! Yes, sir. Yes, sir.”

CW tried to extract his hand, but the little man wouldn’t turn it loose.

“Best price for you, sir. Very best price.”

“No thanks.”

“But, sir, I am waiting for you. Welcome! Here is my card.”

When the tailor held out a business card, CW feinted with his left hand as if suddenly seized with enthusiasm to acthuquocept it and then snatched his right hand away as the man loosed his grip in delight at apparently having latched onto a live one. Without another word, the man turned away and scanned the crowd for a better prospect.

“Nice move,” I said.

“Yeah, well, I see the little fellow takes rejection well.”

“I imagine he’s had a lot of practice.”

A small boy held out a black cloth duffle bag with large plastic wheels. An old woman unfurled a piece of cloth with a red and green pattern that might have been the flag of some country I didn’t immediately recognize. A young girl, a plastic tray of cigarettes hanging from a strap around her neck, gripped half a dozen packs in one hand and waved them back and forth as if she were semaphoring. At the edge of the sidewalk a man was selling hammocks woven from thick blue and white cord. Every time he spied a group of likely looking prospects, he would slip out of one of his sandals and use his bare foot to stretch the hammock out by way of demonstrating its size and potential for comfort. When too many tourists walked by at the same time, the guy looked as if he was doing an impression of a pissed-off stork.

The Blue Lotus Pub sits right at the beginning of Soi Katoey. Like the Paradise Bar, it’s open to the street and offers a panoramic view of the exotic delights of the neighborhood. CW nodded at two men sitting on stools that had an unobstructed view of it all and led me to an empty pair of stools right next to them. After ordering us each another Mekong and soda, CW made the introductions.