I puff out my cheeks and scratch my head. The vocabulary is familiar, but not in her mouth. “You’ve been up to something?”
“I did a short course in business management. I didn’t tell you because I didn’t need you to mock me and because you don’t have a head for business so you wouldn’t understand.”
“A course? How?”
“On the Net, darling. Didn’t I tell you we have broadband now in Phetchabun? A woman doesn’t need to feel in prison at home anymore, she can reach the world with a couple of clicks.”
I push open the door and see that the building is deeper than it looks from outside. There is a long bar to the right and that atmosphere of dank melancholy which the British like to get drunk in. There is Guinness and a range of English ales on tap behind the bar, nowhere to dance and a romantically old-fashioned jukebox, small tables where balding Anglo-Saxons can have their one-to-ones over their mugs of dark beer and the inevitable dartboard at the end of the room. I know there are such pubs all over Krung Thep and they usually do very well. Not only the British but Dutch and Germans also like to retreat from the flesh trade from time to time into exactly these kinds of oases. On the other hand, it’s true that the rents in Soi Cowboy are amongst the highest in the city, because the street is so successful. My suspicions are mounting all the time.
“How long did the Englishman run this place, Mother?”
“Ages. About thirty years. He was ready for retirement.”
“Just when you were looking for premises?”
“I’ve been praying to the Buddha for luck for ages. I went to the wat ten times last month and I’ve been burning incense every day.” She looks up at me. “We were gentle with him. Compassionate.”
“Who’s backing you and what did you do for it?”
“Sonchai, please, I’m a respectable retired woman. What I did in the past to make ends meet and give you an education is way behind me, you know that.”
“So how can you afford the rent?”
A brisk smile and avoidance of eye contact. “I have a partner. A business partner.”
“Who?”
“I’d rather not say just at the moment. Can’t you see I’m busy?”
“Well, I can’t help, can I? I’ve got stitches.”
She stands up straight after dragging the case of Singha into the bar. Now I see this was a symbolic gesture designed to provoke feelings of tenderness in a loyal son’s heart. A young man in shorts, his bare chest glistening with sweat, emerges from the back of the pub and commences dragging in the rest of the crates which are lined up in the street. “I don’t want you to help with the beer, I want you to help with the plans. They have to be approved by the local police colonel after being endorsed by someone responsible who knows me and can vouch for me. So I thought: Who better than Krung Thep’s most brilliant detective to sign them for me? You know, maybe with a nice stamp or something from District 8.”
“What’s the use of a stamp from District 8 when this is District 6-” I stop in mid-sentence because I’ve understood. “Why can’t Vikorn sign the plans if someone from District 8 is what you want?”
She is backing away down the bar as I advance toward her. “He doesn’t want his name appearing directly-everyone will understand when they see-you know-that you’re my son and that you’re in District 8.”
“Which happens to be where your new business partner is the colonel in charge. Muscle, in other words. Did this all get negotiated in the corridor of the hospital by any chance?”
Touching her hair. “Of course not. We were both so worried about you, and he would call me up when he couldn’t get to the hospital himself.”
“Which was every day except one.”
“Well, you see how precious you are to both of us.” Tossing her head. “I told him I was looking for a business opportunity in town and he told me he had some money to invest, venture capital is what they call it, you know. It was symbiotic.” She uses the English word a little tentatively.
“What course were you on, exactly?”
“It was some special thing run by the Wall Street Journal. You can enroll over the Net.”
I might not have a head for business but I know the street well enough to doubt there really is room for another girlie bar. I also know Vikorn well enough to doubt he would invest in anything that wasn’t guaranteed to succeed. I decide to proceed artfully. “So what d’you want me to do?”
Enthusiastically: “Well, darling, you know the trade as well as I do. I thought we’d rip out all this nonsense, go for some color, interesting lighting, a nostalgia theme, we could have a little stage right at the end…”
She trails off, at the same time giving me an adoring beam. I’m understanding a little better minute by minute. “You’re going to have an upstairs, aren’t you?”
Touching her hair again. “Well, it would be silly not to, don’t you think? With this kind of protection, who’s going to bust me?”
“The police colonel in charge of District 6, that’s who.”
“My partner advises that that is unlikely, but thank you for worrying about me.”
“Unlikely? Why? Oh, I know why.” I have remembered that Colonel Predee, who runs the very lucrative District 6, owns a piece of a casino in District 8 and is therefore dependent on Vikorn’s grace. No wonder Vikorn was able to muscle the Englishman out of his license.
“Yes, well, I don’t know anything about the politics of course. I suppose the two colonels are just very good friends.”
She follows me up some narrow winding stairs to the second floor, and now I see there is a third floor. “How many rooms were you thinking of?”
“Ten on each floor.”
“Ten?”
“Too cramped?”
I measure out the length of the corridor, off which there are only three rooms at present. “Mother, they will have to be on top of each other before they enter the rooms. You’re going to have about five feet from wall to wall. The rooms are going to be all bed.”
“What else, darling? If you think ten is too many, I suppose I’ll settle for nine.”
“Seven. I’m not putting my name to plans with more than seven. That still only leaves seven feet of width for each room. You have to give them space to undress. You can’t have them stripping in the corridor, this isn’t the country, you know.”
“I suppose.” With a sigh: “Very well, let’s settle for seven. I’ll tell the Colonel you insisted on seven. He’s not going to be exactly delighted, you’ve just cut the profits by thirty percent.”
I clamber up to the third floor, which is a chaos of old mattresses, plastic beer crates, some aluminum beer barrels and musty-looking books. We make our way down the stairs back to the bar. I am shaking my head. “What am I doing, signing plans for a brothel? I hate brothels.”
“I know, my love, but it’s still the number one business. I’d love to have an Internet café or something, but they just don’t pay. Imagine, you have a room full of farangs who could be renting girls at a thousand baht an hour and instead they’re tapping at keyboards for forty baht an hour. It just doesn’t stack up.”
“I suppose. What are you going to call it?”
“Ah! I’ve a surprise for you. We’re calling it the Old Man’s Club.”
“The what?”
“You wouldn’t understand, my love, we’ve studied the market. We’re going for a niche. We won’t bother to compete with those glitzy things next door, they can have the thirty-to-fifty crowd. We’re going for the retirement funds. You’ll see. I explained it all to the Colonel after I finished my course-I got the best grades by the way. He went away and thought about it and he agrees. In fact, he thinks I’m brilliant.”
I’ve been backing away from her as we speak, an obvious subconscious reaction-Is this really happening? Am I really doing this?-and now she has shepherded me into the street where the light is better. I can see it in her face now, I am witnessing that metamorphosis that women’s books sometimes talk about: for more than ten years she has led a peaceful, idyllic life in the country, with all the unbearable boredom that implies, while a great reservoir of ambition has slowly risen in her, co-inciding with the onset of middle age. Her jaw is set, there will be no stopping her now. She is working the strings, I am the puppet. She still looks terrific. She knows she has won by the way I kiss her on the cheek.