Jaidee shrugs. “All things change.”
Kanya grimaces. “How can one fight their money? Money is their power. Who remembers their patrons? Who remembers their obligations when money comes surging in as strong and deep as the ocean against the seawalls?” She grimaces. “We are not fighting the rising waters. We are fighting money.”
“Money is attractive.”
Kanya makes a bitter face. “Not to you. You were a monk even before they sent you to a kuti.”
“Perhaps that’s why I make such a poor novice.”
“Shouldn’t you be in your kuti now?”
Jaidee grins. “It was cramping my style.”
Kanya stills, looks hard at Jaidee. “You’re not ordaining?”
“I’m a fighter, not a monk.” He shrugs. “Sitting in a kuti and meditating will do no good. I let myself become confused about that. Losing Chaya confused me. ”
“She will return. I’m sure of it.”
Jaidee smiles sadly at his protégé, so full of hope and faith. It’s surprising that a woman who smiles so little and sees so much melancholy in the world can believe that in this case-this one exceptional case-that the world will turn in a positive direction.
“No. She will not.”
“She will!”
Jaidee shakes his head. “I always thought you were the skeptical one.”
Kanya’s face is anguished. “You’ve done everything to signal capitulation. You have no face left! They must let her go!”
“They will not. I think that she was dead within a day. I only clung to hope because I was mad for her.”
“You don’t know she’d dead. They could still be holding her.”
“As you pointed out, I have no face left. If this were a lesson, she would have returned by now. It was a different sort of message than we thought.” Jaidee contemplates the still waters of the khlong. “I need a favor from you.”
“Anything.”
“Loan me a spring gun.”
Kanya’s eyes widen. “Khun…”
“Don’t worry. I’ll bring it back. I don’t need you to come with me. I just need a good weapon.”
“I…”
Jaidee grins. “Don’t worry. I’ll be fine. And there’s no reason to destroy two careers.”
“You’re going after Trade.”
“Akkarat needs to understand that the Tiger still has teeth.”
“You don’t even know if it was Trade who took her.”
“Who else, really?” Jaidee shrugs. “I have made many enemies, but in the end, there is really only one.” He smiles. “There is Trade and there is me. I was foolish to let people convince me otherwise.”
“I’ll come with you.”
“No. You will stay here. You will keep an eye on Niwat and Surat. That is all I ask of you, Lieutenant.”
“Please don’t do this. I will beg Pracha, I will go to—”
Jaidee cuts her off, before she speaks of ugliness. There was a time when he would have let her lose face before him, would have allowed her apologies to spill forth like a waterfall during the monsoon, but not anymore.
“I don’t wish for anything else,” he says. “I am content. I will go to Trade and I will make them pay. All of this is kamma. I was not meant to keep Chaya forever, or she to keep me. But I think there are still things we can do if we hold tight to our damma. We all have our duties, Kanya. To our patrons, to our men.” He shrugs. “I’ve had many different lives. I was a boy, and a muay thai champion, and a father, and a white shirt.” He glances down at the folds of his novice’s clothes. “A monk, even.” He grins. “Don’t worry about me. I have a few more stages yet to traverse before I give up on this life and go to meet Chaya.” He lets his voice harden. “I still have unfinished business, and I won’t stop until it is done.”
Kanya watches him, eyes anguished. “You can’t go alone.”
“No. I will take Somchai.”
Trade: the ministry that functions with impunity, that scoffs at him so easily, that steals his wife and leaves a hole in him the size of a durian.
Chaya.
Jaidee studies the building. In the face of all those blazing lights, he feels like a savage in the wilderness, like a hilltribe spirit doctor staring at the advance of a megodont army. For a moment, his sense of mission falters.
I should see the boys, he tells himself. I could go home.
And yet here he is in the darkness, watching the lights of the Ministry of Trade, where they burn their coal allocation as though the Contraction never happened, as though there are no seawalls needed to keep back the ocean.
Somewhere in there a man squats and plans. The man who watched him at the anchor pads so long ago. Who spat betel and sauntered away as if Jaidee were nothing more than a cockroach to be crushed. Who sat beside Akkarat and observed silently as Jaidee was thrown down. That man will lead to Chaya’s resting place. That man is the key. Somewhere inside those glowing windows.
Jaidee ducks back into the darkness. He and Somchai wear dark street clothes, stripped of all identifiers, the better to blend with the night. Somchai is a fast one. One of the best. Dangerous close in, and quiet. He knows his way around a lock, and, like Jaidee, he is motivated.
Somchai’s face is serious as he studies the building. Almost as serious as Kanya, when Jaidee considers it. The demeanor seems to creep up on all of them, eventually. Seems to come with the work. Jaidee wonders if the Thai ever really smiled as he has heard in legends. Every time he hears his boys laugh, it is as if some beautiful orchid has blossomed in the forest.
“They sell themselves cheaply,” Somchai murmurs.
Jaidee nods shortly. “I remember when Trade was just a bit portfolio under Agriculture, and now look at it.”
“You’re showing your age. Trade was always a big ministry.”
“No. Just a tiny department. A joke.” Jaidee waves at the new complex with its high-tech convection vents, with its awnings and porticos. “It’s a new world, once again.”
As if to taunt him, a pair of cheshires jump up on a balustrade to preen and wash. They molt in and out of view, careless of discovery. Jaidee pulls out his spring gun and takes aim. “That’s what Trade has given us. Cheshires should be on their badge.”
“Please don’t.”
He looks at Somchai. “It carries no karmic cost. They have no soul.”
“They bleed like any other animal.”
“You could say the same of ivory beetles.”
Somchai ducks his head, but doesn’t say anything more. Jaidee scowls and puts his spring gun back in its holster. It would be waste of ammunition anyway. There are always more.
“I used to be on the poison details for cheshires,” Somchai says finally.
“Now it’s you who shows your age.”
Somchai shrugs. “I had a family then.”
“I didn’t know.”
“Cibiscosis.118.Aa. It was quick.”
“I remember. My father died with that one as well. A bad iteration.”
Somchai nods. “I miss them. I hope they reincarnated well.”
“I’m sure they did.”
He shrugs. “One can hope. I became a monk for them. Ordained for a full year. I prayed. Did many offerings.” He says again, “One can hope.”
The cheshires yowl again as Somchai watches. “I’ve killed thousands of them. Thousands. I’ve killed six men in my life and never regretted any of them, but I’ve killed thousands of cheshires and have never felt at ease.” He pauses, scratches behind his ear at a bloom of arrested fa’ gan fringe. “I sometimes wonder if my family’s cibiscosis was karmic retribution for all those cheshires.”