Pisit, laughing: “You have to hand it to the cops, they do seem to have found a crime without a victim. I mean, who loses here?”
“Everyone, because of the rise in insurance premiums.”
“Does the average Thai driver pay insurance?”
Insurance expert, laughing: “No, if he gets into an accident he bribes a cop.”
Caller: “Does this mean that money which would otherwise go to insurance companies goes to the police?”
Pisit, laughing: “Looks that way, doesn’t it?”
Caller: “Is this right or wrong? I mean, if the cops didn’t get the money, their salaries would have to be increased, which would mean an increase in tax, wouldn’t it?”
Pisit, admiringly: “That’s a very Thai question.”
When I arrive at the police station Jones is already there, in our workroom. I decide to begin on a dynamic note which to my fancy has a measure of American aggression about it, which I think she’ll appreciate.
“Kimberley, there must be something else Warren did. Why are you holding out on me?”
I take my place beside her at a crude wooden table on trestles. We are carrying on from the day before yesterday and there’s a stack of cassettes in a wooden box between us. Jones figured we would not have the facilities to play the large-spool tapes they use at Quantico, so she had them copy Elijah’s telephone conversations onto the cassettes. She also figured, with equal clairvoyance, that we probably wouldn’t have the facilities to play the cassettes either, so she bought a couple of cheap Walkmans on her way here, and now she’s taking a break with the headphones hanging around her neck. There’s nothing on the bare boards of the tabletop apart from the Walkmans and our elbows. No pens, no paper, no computers, no files, but there is a stack of old file covers that someone has dumped in a corner of the room and one empty chair in another corner.
“What makes you so sure he did something apart from art fraud?” She does not look at me as she speaks.
“Mostly because I don’t think he does art fraud. I think you want to think that because you’ve got it in for him. So I ask myself why you would have it in for him, and the answer I come up with is sex. You don’t resent men for being rich and powerful and owning more of the world’s assets than women, you resent us for having cocks.”
Wearily: “Sonchai, the myth of penis envy was put to rest in my country sometime before I was born and I’m not in the mood to relive those prehistoric battles. I made the mistake of having some Thai beer last night which has given me a splitting headache, and listening to these two drawl in deep Harlem dialect isn’t helping. That’s not a racist comment by the way, just a sociological observation. And on top of that, coming here I twisted my ankle on a manhole cover for the third time in as many days. Tell me, wise one, why do the manhole covers in your city have to be three-quarters of an inch above the pavement? I know this is a chauvinistic observation to make, but in my country we have this eccentric habit of making them flush with the sidewalk. If we didn’t the city of New York would go bankrupt with negligence claims. I know there’s got to be a reason. It’s karma, right? Every Thai citizen spent a previous lifetime tripping people up, so now they have to get tripped up?”
I make a sweet smile. “We don’t trip. Only farangs do that. It must have been you who tripped up other people in a previous lifetime.”
A shake of the head. “Okay, let’s drop it. Anyway, what’s got you so frisky this morning?”
This is a good question. It took me five showers to get the Johnson’s out of my hair and skin, but it’s going to take a few more days to wear away that special glow, that phallic pride which no good meditator permits to defile his mind. I never thought I would have been able to cope with such a challenge, but I seem to have managed despite lapses of concentration on the part of the Three N’s whenever Beckham scored. Such feats were never part of my egotism. I decide to talk about the case.
“I think Warren hurt a woman, probably a prostitute. And I think he covered up so well there’s not a chance anyone in the whole of Quantico will ever get the evidence to bring an indictment.”
“If that’s the case, it would be indiscreet for me to talk about it to you, wouldn’t it? Listen to this, I think this might be what you’re looking for, not that I exactly follow your occult reasoning.”
She hands me her Walkman and headphones.
Listen, bro’, something I never mentioned so far. I borrowed money. I guess you don’t know what that means out here. You borrow money, you pay back, you don’t let it ride. I’m talking sharks, bro’, sharks like don’t exist Stateside. These cats, I mean, they don’t have to threaten.
Yeah, I did kinda figure that, Billy. It did cross my mind. How much?
[Inaudible reply]
That’s one fuck of a lot, kid. I don’t got so much right now, and if I did I would probably have to use it for forward investment. I do business these days, I got to make my money work for me.
I ain’t askin’ for money exactly. I’m askin’ for a way out, Eli. I got to get out of this once and for all. Just tell me what to do, like in the old days. [William is speaking in a throaty whisper, the whisper of a man collapsing inside.] You know me and eve’y thing you ever said about me was true. I’m a second-stringer born, I’m the original second child syndrome. An’ on top a that I just spent thirty years following orders. I’m damn good at doing as I’m told, Eli, you know I am. I can perfect any order you give me, down to the last detail. That’s what I know. Fucked if I kin think up one original thang, tho’. Not a goddamn one.
Billy, d’you think it’s a wise thing or a foolish thing to start this kinda talk over the telephone line of a convicted felon?
Okay, okay, we’ll do it the other way. I’m sorry, Eli, sorry to make you have to say that. I was wrong… [A very long pause, perhaps as long as five minutes, when I assume the conversation is ended and am waiting for the next one, then a wail of spiritual agony such as I’ve never heard from a grown man before. It lasts for more than thirty seconds.]
Hang in there, Billy. [A sigh] I’ll see what I can do.
It’s bad, bro, it’s bad. I’m scared as shit.
[Tenderly] I can tell, kid, I can tell.
I stop the Walkman and pull off the headphones. I allow Jones a nod of appreciation. She takes back the Walkman and sets it on the table. “Okay, we’ll do a deal. You tell me why you’re so sure I’m so sure Warren hurt a woman and I’ll tell you if he did or not.”
“There was some scandal here which is making everyone nervous. It looks like half the senior cops in Bangkok were involved in covering it up. I don’t know what it was, but the Colonel more or less admitted it involved a woman. I figured if he did something like that here, he might have done it in your country too.”
Jones is unable to hear any reference to my Colonel without making her jaw muscles work overtime. She seems to be choosing her words carefully. “A twenty-nine-year-old prostitute who specialized in submissive sex. She would charge very large amounts of money in return for being tied up and abused by wealthy men and pretending to enjoy it. She was tough and smart and could fake orgasm the way-well, the way any woman can. She chose only those men who had too much to lose by going too far. She knew how to choose, too. She thought she could read men, at least that kind of man, and she never accepted a job without scoping the guy out. I guess she figured Sylvester Warren was about as safe a bet as she could make. I think it was the only time she misread a man.”