“The story of Sonya Lyudin is tragic,” Valerya explains, “but not typical. If it was typical none of us would be here. We’re not orphans or street whores. We’re smart women here to make a fast buck in a hard world. There’s no way we would risk our bodies like that. Sonya Lyudin was different.”
“How different?”
“She was a street whore. No education, born into an urka family. Hard as nails, a real Siberian. She’d do anything. She had no fear. She thought all men were dumb animals to be led by the nose. I’m not a great fan of men myself, but I think that’s a dangerous attitude for a woman to take. Especially in this job.” One of the women on the floor says something in Russian. “Natasha says I’m being a snob, that Sonya Lyudin was not so stupid as that. Just unlucky.”
“She was supposed to have protection,” Natasha explains in English. “She wasn’t an independent. She was brought here by a gang of urkas. They were supposed to protect her. Andreev was just used for the introductions.”
“That’s true,” Valerya concedes. “They took a contract out on the American’s head. They’ll get him sooner or later.”
“They won’t,” Natasha says. “The American paid them off.”
“No he didn’t,” Iamskoy says. “He tried to, but they refused. They couldn’t let it go, it was a matter of credibility. Of face, as they say out here. So the American had to get protection of his own. The best protection, so I hear.”
“What American?” Jones is alert now, leaning forward.
“Someone called Warren. A jeweler. A big shot in this country.”
“This is known? You’re telling me in Vladivostok the name of Warren is openly associated with this?”
“Oh yes. He’s a kind of bogeyman amongst women like us. You know, the worst nightmare: Be careful you don’t get a Warren tonight.”
“There’s a video,” Valerya says. “I’ve spoken to women who have seen it. A white American and an enormous black man.”
“Andreev,” I say, “I have to know. Do the Thai police have a copy of this video?”
He seems to have reached the passing-out stage. I think he is nodding but I can’t be sure as his head falls forward, then throws itself wildly back, then falls forward again. I look at Valerya and Natasha, who avoid my eyes. Iamskoy slides inexorably into the horizontal with legs together and arms by his side. All of a sudden he’s the tidiest thing in the room.
Laid out on the floor, Iamskoy opens one eye. “The Thai police bought the video from the urkas, paid a fortune for it. Of course the money came from Warren and of course the urkas promised it’s the only copy. They don’t care about the video, they want Warren.”
“Valerya, how tall was Sonya Lyudin?” Jones is locking eyes with the child psychologist, who turns to Natasha, who turns to the woman next to her. Now everyone is looking at Iamskoy. “About six feet,” he says with his eyes closed. “Slim. Very good body.”
“How much time did she spend with Warren before she died? Were there a number of assignations?”
“There were two. The first was quite short and according to her nothing happened except that she stripped for him and he fondled her. He gave her a short gold stick and told her if she wore it in her navel he would set a jade stone in it. Of course, she was only too delighted to go to the nearest body piercer and wear the gold stick. She never came back from the second assignation.”
“Did she mention a black American?”
“No. Only people who saw the video talk about a black man. I never saw the video.”
“Often the killer in this kind of case will need a trigger,” Jones explains to Valerya. “Sometimes it’s racial, sometimes social, sometimes physical-only tall or small victims for example-sometimes it’s social background. Usually it’s something that somehow gives the killer a proprietorial feeling, some claim on the body of the victim. It looks like Warren was very particular.”
“He’s a jeweler,” Valerya says. “He would be, wouldn’t he?”
“Can anyone tell me the date when Sonya Lyudin died?” Jones wants to know.
“Twelfth December 1997, during the night, so I suppose it could have been the thirteenth,” Iamskoy says. “Now get out, please.”
In the back of the car again, Jones says: “Warren was in Thailand between December 5 and 15, 1997. I forgot to tell you I checked his dates.”
On the way back to the Pattaya beachfront we pick up the Monitor, who is waiting outside the shop with his new PlayStation 2 under his arm. We set him up with some fried chicken and more sausages from a stall and join the traffic jams for the trip back to Krung Thep. While the Monitor is munching away Jones does it again with her hand on mine, which is resting on the seat.
“Don’t you think it’s time you told me about that hospital? Vikorn told Rosen you went there and asked Rosen to ask me to find out why. I’m being straight here. Those are my orders.”
I look at her. I wonder if she’s ready for this. I draw a breath and say okay. While I’m telling her I’m replaying the visit in my own mind.
41
No one was ever in any doubt about how Charmabutra Hospital acquired the capital to buy that fine twenty-story complex and all the state-of-the-art medical equipment it stores, even though its main product never appears on the glossy brochure.
“What is a transsexual?” Dr. Surichai asked me, raising his arms and hunching his shoulders. “Opinions differ, even in the medical profession. Especially in the medical profession. Is she a fully functioning human being who has finally achieved the gender identity which should have been hers at birth, or a freak, a medieval eunuch pumped full of estrogen?” Dr. Surichai placed a forefinger across his lips as if he were considering the question. His face brightened. “Some shrinks think my patients are all psycho. To them there’s no such thing as a woman born in a man’s body. They think what I do is criminal.” With a brilliant smile: “Or ought to be.”
“What is your opinion?”
A frown. “My opinion is that the whole issue is complex beyond anyone’s capacity. As you would imagine, I’ve thought about it a lot. You have to start with the question: What is gender? There’s anatomical gender: breasts, vagina, womb, ovaries, penis, testicles. Then there is chromosomal gender, which is as fundamental as you can go. Here you’re talking about the nuclear building blocks of the body, but the outcome of chromosomal analysis is not without ambiguity and doesn’t necessarily conform to the anatomy. You can have a chromosomal male with a woman’s genitals, in other words. At the end of the day, the chromosomal approach is only really used in tests for professional sportsmen and -women-you have to have some criterion to decide if your champ is top of the men’s league or the women’s. Then there’s hormonal sex, which is purely a matter of chemistry and can be changed simply by taking a few drugs. And there’s psychological sex. In other words, what gender do you feel yourself to be? How do you respond to the world, as a man or a woman? The big question is, what comes first? For most of us, it’s never an issue, we conveniently experience ourselves as being the gender of our bodies. But supposing you don’t? Supposing you have a nicely functioning, full-size penis, and spend your waking life believing yourself to be a woman in the wrong body? This is not a new phenomenon, there are records from ancient times, especially in Asia, of people who were basically transsexual in an age without the technology to make the change. The only difference today is that we have developed the technology. All I do is to adapt the body, in such a case.”