From Soi Cowboy I ride a motorcycle taxi to the Hilton International, where the FBI has summoned me. I take the elevator to her suite on the twenty-second floor, where she is working at her desk on a collection of metallic objects which, I realize after some concentration, are the insides of a gun. The barrel and stock sit calmly in one of the massive armchairs, presiding over their own disembowelment, and she sits me down in the other. The gun and I-I think it is a Heckler & Koch submachine gun, about eighteen inches long with a forged steel stock and parabolic magazine-stare at each other while she talks. On the hotel blotter she takes apart the subassembly and hammer mechanism and stares at them for a moment, before reaching for the ice cream. Mesmerized by the gun, I did not notice the pint of Häagen-Dazs macadamia nut brittle on the corner of the desk. Such is her training that she is able to poke at the mechanism with one finger whilst dipping a plastic spoon into the ice cream with the other hand. To eat alone is a sad and pathetic condition in my country, evidence of social and emotional dispossession. To do so in front of another without offering to share is an obscenity and almost impossible for me to watch. I feel the blood draining from my face as she gulps down a miniature Everest.
“What’s the matter, you scared of guns?” She takes a small can of gun oil from the desk drawer and expertly allows a single drop to fall on the subassembly. “Oh, I get it, you don’t think I’ve got a license, right? No need to worry, Rosen discussed it with one of your capo di capi, I’m allowed to keep it so long as I use it with discretion. If I do have to use it, there’ll be one of those Thai cover-ups which you know all about. You sure you’re okay? I didn’t think a gun would disgust you all that much. It’s a sprayer, I know, but so are most short barrels, the H and K MP-5K is about the best. Anything larger and I’m going to look conspicuous, aren’t I?” A couple more drops for the hammer base, then she reaches for the barrel and stock and begins to slide the subassembly into the guides of the receiver. “See, I haven’t taken it out since I picked it up from the embassy-they had to send it over for me in a diplomatic bag and you never know how well they treated it. One thing they always tell you at Quantico, look after your piece.” More ice cream. “Anyway, what I wanted to talk to you about is, generally, how do you see the case shaping up?”
I watch, nauseated, while she eats more macadamia nut brittle, picks up the completed gun, hangs it round her neck from the cord and stands in front of a full-length mirror. From a loose hanging position she is able to aim and fire and perforate herself with a thousand shots in less than-oh, I don’t know, nanoseconds anyway. Quantico meets Hollywood. The unexpected drama triggers one of my perceptions and I see a whole string of previous incarnations standing behind her. American cops are identical to Thai cops at least in one respect. We’re all reincarnations of crooks.
She catches my gaze. “This really isn’t turning you on, is it? Okay, no more guns, we’ll go for a walk. There’s something in the garden I need you to explain to me.” She strides over to the Häagen-Dazs for a couple more mouthfuls, catches herself. “You want some?”
“No, thank you,” I reply with relief, feeling as if something very unpleasant has been removed from the carpet.
“Didn’t think you did. Ice cream really isn’t you, is it? No chili, no lemongrass, no rice, just a pile of Western junk like sugar and dairy products with a ton of artificial flavoring. Tastes great, though.” The Häagen-Dazs goes into the small fridge under the credenza. From a wardrobe she takes out a black fiberglass briefcase which turns out to be custom-molded on the inside for the H &K. She slips the magazine out of the gun, places it in its hollow, then does the same for the gun itself. I see two people here: a girl who loves ice cream, and a consummate professional taking loving care of the tool of her trade.
Now that the gun and the ice cream are out of sight I take in the view while she disappears into her bedroom. It’s not a New York or Hong Kong skyline, although it’s a modern city these days. I’m put in mind more of Mexico or South America in the way soaring tubes of steel and glass preside over ragged bits of park, hovels, shacks and squatter dwellings. Its true signature, however, is the permanent skeletons of unfinished buildings, their bare bones turning black in the pollution, as if the Buddha is reminding us that even buildings die. It takes training to see the metaphysics behind a failed construction project, though, and I decide not to share my insight with the FBI, who emerges wearing white linen shorts and a white and navy tennis shirt with a YSL label which may or may not be a fake. We ride the lift down to the lobby (Kimberley, the gun and I), and I wait while she checks the black briefcase into the hotel vault.
Kimberley returns minus the gun with her blond hair bouncing and a smile which could almost make her sixteen. She indicates that we are to descend into the well of the lobby with the subtlest brush of her fingers against my forearm, and we walk side by side out into the swimming pool area. Adjacent to the pool is a canal which is part of the hotel grounds and which leads to a large spirit house festooned with marigolds.
“Okay,” says the FBI, “could you tell me what these are all doing in the grounds of the Hilton hotel?”
There may be as many as three hundred of them, ranging from six inches in length to one which is all of ten feet tall. They are arranged in a semicircle around the spirit house and even form a kind of low fencing around the flower beds. They are parabolic with bulbous glans, a tiny slit at the top, and some are on gun carriages with balls hanging down. Some are stone, at least three are concrete and most are wood. Some are painted lurid reds and greens. To the left is a gigantic ficus tree, its aerial roots tangled in passionate embraces.
“The spirit house is dedicated to the spirit of the tree, which happens to be male.”
“And this is a Buddhist country?”
“Buddhist with a lot of Hinduism and animism underneath.”
“I’m surprised the Hilton management put up with it.”
“They wouldn’t have had any choice. You don’t destroy important shrines-it’s incredibly unlucky. No one wants bad luck, especially not senior management of international corporations.”
“So who brings all these cocks? Who adorns them with fresh marigolds?”
“Local women.”
The FBI walks up to one and stares at it. “Women bring giant dildos to dedicate to the male spirit of the ficus tree? Hmm, food for thought.” She extends a finger and traces the loop of the glans where it meets the shaft. She checks me with a half smile. I think the effects of that antiflirting course are wearing off. I decide not to return the smile, not even my half of it, and am shocked by the anger-cloud which passes over her face. She recovers in an instant and now we are walking briskly back to the lobby and the coffee shop. I’m thinking about the Heckler & Koch when she snaps: “There’s a meeting at the embassy tomorrow, Bradley’s senior officer is going to tell us what he knows, if anything. In the interests of information-sharing, you’re invited to attend. I’ll tell Rosen you’re coming.”
I think I’m being dismissed, without discovering why I was summoned in the first place. Despite decades of study, I still find the Western mind hard to take, close-up. The expectation that the world should respond to every passing whim (ice cream, cock, target practice) is shocking to this son of a whore. Like most primitive people, I believe that morality arises from a state of primeval innocence to which we must try to be faithful if we are not to be lost altogether. I fear such a conviction would be quaint and pathetic to the FBI, if I ever dared to express it. In Western terms Jones and Fritz are poles apart; to me they are almost identicaclass="underline" two infantile bundles of appetites-except that one is a catcher and the other got caught.