Things have livened up. They were pretty lively before, so I guess you could say the place is reaching that strangely predictable level of hysteria typical of a certain kind of mass-market farang tourism at around eleven-thirty in the evening. Couples with teenage kids they don’t know what to do with hang out in the less outrageous bars while small gangs of drunken young pink men, who can hardly believe the good time you can hire for a thousand baht, are nevertheless daunted by the feast of flesh and instead channel their nervous lust into a familiar drinking routine with their mates who support the same soccer team. Maybe tomorrow they’ll take the plunge and get laid. More serious older men look for the perfect female form on which to spend the sperm they saved up during the boring flight over, while longer stayers hang out talking to the girl they know they will eventually take back to the hotel, because that’s what they’ve done every night since they arrived and they don’t really like change.
The mahout and the elephant still tramp up and down, and there are three snake shows at the open-air pavilion instead of the former one. The katoey quarter is farther up the street, where lack of authenticity is compensated for by elaborate stage costumes with long ostrich feathers that soar over hairdos of every color except black. It’s noisy, cheap, but not unfriendly. The trouble is: so many bars and so little time.
I buy a beer at a tiny place served by one pleasant-looking young woman who I suppose will have to close the shop if ever she finds a customer who wants her body. I take out a five-hundred-baht note and ask where slumming millionaires are most likely to look for someone to love, and without hesitation she jerks her chin at one of the bars behind the first cobra show.
“Any particular reason?”
“It’s the first big bar you come to if you’re arriving from the hill, and they pay more, so the girls are more beautiful and speak better English. Also, they have a takeaway service.” She giggles. “I mean they have a van with a driver. If somebody knows which girl they want, they can call or e-mail.”
The name is Chung King House, so I guess they get a lot of Chinese customers, or maybe the owners sought the advice of a seer who read the future. It’s twice the size of most of the other bars and lacks the personal touch. I order a beer and ask about the takeaway service. The bartender tells me that anything can be arranged, but I need to speak to Khun Nong. He picks up a cell phone, presses an autodial number, and hands me the phone.
A soft voice from far away says, “Good evening, sir. How can I help you?”
“By meeting me at the bar in five minutes.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I’m a cop. I have some questions for you. If you cooperate, I won’t be any trouble.”
The phone goes dead, but a door behind the bar opens and a woman in her forties appears. She flips up a section of the bar top and comes to sit next to me on a stool, just as if she’s expecting to be picked up. Her face is blank when she says, “Do you have Colonel Naradom’s permission to ask questions? My bosses make a lot of contributions to the Phuket police retirement fund.”
“I don’t need permission to investigate a triple killing with bells and whistles.”
She seems relieved. “Oh, yes, I heard about that, but it hasn’t been on the news.”
“We’re keeping it under wraps until we’ve had a chance to investigate.”
She nods, thinks about it, then gives me the phoniest smile I’ve ever seen. “How can I help?”
“You send girls to hotels and private homes in a microvan. You’re the only bar that does that. The house on the hill is a couple of miles away. It’s built for pleasure.” I stare at her.
She touches her hair. “I’ve only been in the job a few months. I’ve never had a call from any of the houses on Vulture Peak. Most of the business is to hotels hereabouts. It’s all about farang men who think they’re respectable and don’t have the guts to be seen leaving the bar with one of the girls. So they pay the bar fine, give the name of their hotel and the room number, and I arrange the rest. Usually in such cases the hotel is upmarket, so we have to negotiate. Most of my job is keeping up friendly connections with the concierges. Generally the van takes the girl to the tradesmen’s entrance, and someone leads her to the lifts.” She shrugs. “Discretion pays.”
“But there must be occasions when a farang or some other foreigner who owns a flat or house requires your services. How about parties with dancing girls?”
“It’s rare, but it happens.”
I think I understand her body language and take out my wallet, but she puts a hand on my wrist. “I promise I don’t know anything. Nothing like that has happened while I’ve been here, and most of the girls don’t stay more than six months, usually less. Either they find a farang husband in that time, or they go back to their villages. There are only two girls who have been here longer than me. I think one of them may be able to help. Her name is Om, and you can get her number from the barman. Please don’t tell anyone you got her name from me.”
She gets up, stone-faced, and retreats to her office behind the bar. I signal to the barman and ask for Om’s number. He gives me a business card with a heart on it: OM, AT YOUR PERSONAL SERVICE.
I call the number. “Hi, Om, I’m Sonchai, I’m at the Chung King and wondered if you’d allow me to buy you a drink.”
“I’m off duty, darling. Time of the month, I’m afraid. If you haven’t found a friend by Monday, please call. Thanks for thinking of me.” She closes the phone. I press the repeat button on my cell. Now she sounds a little weary. I say, “It’s worth a thousand baht. I don’t want your body, just your company.”
There is hesitation in her voice when she says, “It’s late, honey, and I’m very tired.”
“Two thousand, just for a half-hour chat, any bar you like.”
“Okay, but not the Chung King.” She gives the name of another bar down the street. • •
Now I’m sitting with my third beer in half an hour, waiting for Om. When an attractive woman in her late twenties appears in jeans and T-shirt, no makeup, hair clean and combed but without coiffure, I don’t make the connection with the voice on the phone. Even when she sits next to me, I can’t believe this is the professional I spoke to a few minutes ago. There seems to be no side to her at all. A good clean Buddhist girl.
“Hello, Mr. Sonchai. I’m Om. How can I help?”
She’s so normal, so much the Thai girl next door, no frills, confident of her beauty but modest just the same. I guess when she says off duty, that includes the personality. It’s always a dangerous sign when you like someone you’re interviewing with respect to an atrocity.
“Somebody told me you once did some entertaining up on the hill, more than a year ago.” I flash my cop’s ID.
She takes in the mug shot on the plastic, flashes me a glance, and says, “Up on the hill?”
“Vulture Peak.”
Another change of personality. Not paranoia exactly-let’s say a sudden attack of extreme caution. “Not here. Meet me on the beach in twenty minutes.”
“Where on the beach?”
“The big T-shirt stand next to the green parasols.”
It doesn’t sound like a very precise direction, but when I reach the beach, I see what she means. The T-shirt stand is still doing a roaring trade at nearly midnight, and although the green parasols are all folded like cypress trees, you can’t really miss them. There are plenty of people about, mostly farang couples who came for romance in the exotic East, some farang men with Thai girls with whom, I suppose, they are trying to have a relationship, and some young Thai couples holding hands. You can’t see the stars for the light pollution from the town, but the moon is up and bright.