“No. You can say you have it but that it might violate the libel laws.”
“In Thailand it probably would.” She glances down at the tape recorder, making sure it’s running, then flicks the yellow list with an extremely long index finger tipped in black polish. “Before we go any further, you realize there’s no way I can verify this story.”
“No,” he says, “but you can report truthfully that the farang who was authorized to write Pan’s biography says that his family’s lives have been threatened by unknown persons unless he writes a violently anti-Pan book. And just so you know that it isn’t a publicity stunt, you can also report that he’s going public with this in the hope that the reduced risk will allow him to quit the project.”
She studies him for a moment. “You’re not going to write it?”
“I’m going to try like hell not to.”
“And you think this story will reduce the threat?”
“I hope so. At least we won’t be killed in a vacuum. Whoever’s behind this will know that the American embassy will demand an investigation, a real one, not just going through the motions. It might scare these people off. They’ll know that the investigation will focus on the information you didn’t print.”
“Why don’t you go to your embassy directly?”
“What could they do? Get me out of Thailand? My wife and daughter are Thai. They don’t have travel documents.”
The buttercup scarf seems to require her attention again. She is still fiddling with it when she asks, “How old is your daughter?”
“Nine.”
“My daughter is seven,” Elora Weecherat says. “It’s a magical age.” She aligns the strands that make up the shawl’s fringe until they are precisely parallel. “Let’s start from the beginning,” she says. “You’re a travel writer. How in the world did you get into this?”
18
Arthit says, “The thirty-sixth floor.” His face is rigid, the mask of muscle he wears when he’s just been with Noi. His eyes are still poached from the previous night’s alcohol.
“In both English and Thai.” Rafferty is trying to conceal his dismay at the way his friend looks. Arthit’s composure seems thin as a coat of paint. The hands clasped on the table betray a faint tremor. A cup of coffee cools untouched in front of him, the cumulus burst of cream in the center not even stirred smooth.
“Even in the New Bangkok we keep hearing about, there aren’t that many buildings with talking elevators,” Arthit says. “But as much as I hate to say this, it won’t mean anything even if you figure out who it is. You’re not going to get anywhere near him. If I’m right about what’s happening, this is a level where I can’t help you. I don’t even know who could help you.”
“Then what do you suggest, Arthit? Should I just roll over and die?”
“It would save you a lot of effort.” Arthit rubs his face with both hands, as though he were trying to erase his expression.
“Well, in the absence of that kind of wisdom, here’s what I’ve done.” Poke tells Arthit about the meeting with Elora Weecherat.
“Not bad,” Arthit says, in a tone that suggests it’s not very good either. “Still, you should get Rose and Miaow off the map somehow, just in case the reaction to the newspaper story isn’t what you want it to be.”
“Moving them will be hard. I think the other side is four deep on them all the time. The followers got a little chesty today when I shook them.”
“And why did you shake them?”
“That thing with the gun and the SUV. I got pissed off.”
Arthit takes a fistful of his own hair and tugs at it in sheer frustration. “You can’t afford to do that,” he says. “I don’t think you understand what’s going on here.”
“Has that just occurred to you?”
“Let me give you an image,” Arthit says. He picks up the coffee and drinks half of it at a gulp. “If it would clarify your situation to think about it visually, then imagine this: You’re at the bottom of the Chao Phraya, wandering around on the riverbed without a map, and breathing water. You just haven’t realized it yet.” He erases the image with his palms. “No, actually, it’s more like this: You’re in the crevice of a deep canyon with very steep walls, and there are some enormous boulders directly above you. Let’s say the size of an apartment house. You’ve built a cute little straw roof to keep you dry, something a songbird could dent. These boulders can decide, any time they want, to roll down on top of you. For any reason. You go to the wrong place. You talk to the wrong person. You ask the wrong question. You go out too much. You stay home too much. You eat meat on Friday. They don’t like your socks. So they roll down on you and squash you to paste.”
“Okay,” Rafferty says. “What’s the downside?”
“The downside is that even if you do everything they want, they still might kill you.”
Rafferty nods. “That qualifies.”
“You’re not taking this seriously.”
Suddenly Rafferty is furious. “What do you want me to do, Arthit? Run in circles, scream in soprano, wring my hands? Give me an option. You’ve pretty much said there’s nowhere I can go for help and that it barely matters what I do. For all the difference it makes, I might as well yell at the weather. If I write it, we’re dead. If I don’t write it, we’re dead. If I write it wrong, we’re dead. According to you, if I somehow defuse the people who don’t want it written and then write it exactly the way the other side wants, we’re dead anyway. Would you like to tell me how taking it seriously is going to help?”
Arthit drains the cup and curls his lip at the dregs in the bottom. It makes a jittery little clatter against the saucer when he puts it down. “You have a point.”
“One thing that might help would be for you to do what I thought you were going to do just a minute ago, which is to tell me what the hell is going on. Why is this book such an issue?”
Arthit picks the cup up again and turns it upside down on the saucer. “I thought you understood this country.”
“That’s what Rose said, too. And I’ll tell you what I told her. I don’t.”
“Actually,” Arthit says, “you know all of it. You just haven’t put it together.” He pushes his chair back slightly and eases a leg out from under the table. “Let’s start with the coup.”
Rafferty says, “You’re kidding.”
“No. It’s a good starting point. And it’ll suggest the kind of weight you’re up against.”
“Why? What does this little whirlwind of stupidity have to do with who governs the country?”
“Everything,” Arthit says. “Okay. Here’s the dummy’s guide to the coup. Point One: Thaksin Shinawatra, a rich guy but not really a member of the traditional power elite, gets himself elected prime minister by purchasing the votes of a group of people who have never really turned out for an election before. The poor of the northeast.”
“Rose’s people,” Rafferty says. “The ones she says are supposed to go where they’re told and stay where they’re put.”
“The least powerful people in Thailand. And so what if Thaksin paid for some of their votes? What mattered was that we had the first prime minister in the history of the country who was voted in by the poor.”
“Yeah, yeah.”
“Well, that development didn’t sit well with the people who have been in charge forever. They wanted to get rid of Shinawatra, and luckily for them he got caught apparently cheating the country, ducking millions in income tax, and they saw their chance. Bang, a military coup; the army overthrew him and set up a new government.”
“And it was the Marx Brothers.”
“Yes. But it represented the old guard, so the folks who are traditionally in charge were comfortable with it.” Arthit clanks the inverted cup against the saucer a couple of times to get the attention of the ethereal, almost transparent youth behind the counter, who is devoting his entire being to getting his bangs to fall across his forehead at a forty-five-degree angle. The boy locates the noise, registers the police uniform, and gets up. “So you’ve got a government of generals, and they can barely figure out which shoe to put on first.”